We spent a weekend in October down at Brett's parents' St George house. It was a lot of fun. (I do realize it's December now. I just haven't been taking pictures!)

We got Ethan some cute new jammies. He's so handsome! And big!
I asked him to smile for the camera and I got this. Funny boy. His camera smile has gotten more interesting over the past couple months. I'll have to post one of the latest ones.
They have cable at the house, including the Speed Channel, so we all watched the MotoGP races that weekend. If you look closely, you can see that they each have a little toy motorcycle clutched in their hands. Ethan is eating cereal, hence the funny face. But he sat there and watched the whole race!

chicago chirstmas

(Joel told me that he hasn't been reading my posts lately because he "doesn't read novels". I guess I'll have to try to do shorter posts in the future, to appease my less intelligent readers with short attention spans.)

On Christmas day, we flew out to Chicago to see Jackie and Joel's baby, Blythe. Amy, Jamison, Dave, Devon, Jackie, and Joel all happened to be there too, but Blythe was the reason we went. (hee hee) I was excited to fly on Christmas, because I've never been on a plane in the wintertime, so I was looking forward to seeing the de-icers and the bad weather. Fortunately, we had great, on-time flights both to Chicago and back again. We even landed an hour early in Chicago on Christmas.

We had planned with Joel to make a nice Christmas dinner, but by the time we got to the apartment, I was exhausted and couldn't think about doing anything but sitting on the couch. So we ordered pizza. The rest of the week pretty much was more of the same: sitting on the couch, watching DVDs or playing Xbox, and eating. We brought Ryan and Megan's DVDs of Arrested Development and watched all three seasons during the week. Our plan was to stay inside the whole week, because the weather was so bitter cold. The week before, Joel said that with the chill factor, it was -30 degrees in Chicago. Yikes!

We did venture out a few times, although I can't remember what day was what. We went to Amy's for dinner on the 26th; it was delicious! We had a lot of fun sitting around and chatting with everyone. We went to the Chicago Outlet Mall and the highlight of that was that Brett got 2 new pumas. Amy, Jackie, and I went to lunch one day and left Blythe home with Brett and Joel. Brett said they just played dress up with Blythe the whole time, which cracks me up.

If anyone goes to Chicago, you should get Joel to take you on a city architecture tour. When we went out there in May, he gave us a regular city tour, telling us about all the buildings and what he had learned in his classes. This time, we got the Batman tour. He would tell us where certain scenes were filmed, etc. At one point, we drove through the same underground tunnel they had the police caravan/semi chase scene. Blythe was screaming through the whole tunnel, so we felt we had a similar experience as in the movie.

We still need to get copies of Jackie's photos, so I may do another post with her pictures. But here are mine:

We walked down to Millennium Park to meet Amy, Dave, and Devon, after they had been to the Art Institute Museum. It was very warm (mid-50s) and rainy. There were all kinds of flood warnings that weekend. The picture is hard to see, because it was so rainy and dark, but from left to right, you want see: Dave, Devon's umbrella because she's hiding from the camera, Brett, Amy, me, and Jackie. Joel and Blythe are taking the picture.
Brett showing off his flexible spine underneath the peanut sculpture.
I got this cool picture of the icy river, looking toward the lake from the Michigan Ave bridge.
For Christmas/Birthday, we got Blythe a bouncer. And she loved it, of course. Simply because Brett and I gave it to her.
She liked the snail toy the best.
On our way home from downtown the night we went to the park, we noticed the river was flooding over onto the sidewalk. We planned to go out and get pictures of the flooding, but sadly the water had gone down by the time we got out of the house (at about 4:30pm). Here, you can kind of see remnants of where the water had flooded up onto the sidewalk.
On our flood walk, very very cold. The white building just behind Joel's head and over his left shoulder is the building where they live.
One of the views from the front of their building. You can see the Sears Tower behind all those other buildings, if you look closely. The 2 white antennae are on the top of the Tower.
Here's the view looking toward the city and lake from their building.
Brett really liked hanging out with Blythe. He says that it's made him more excited and ready to have our baby.
Joel shaved his beard into a creepy mustache.
One night, a bunch of police, fire, and ambulances showed up on the street near the apartment. This is the picture looking out of the apartment. We found out later that a dead man was found on the train tracks right there. They said he was hit by a train, but not by the train that found him. Sad.
Here's a nice picture of Jackie and Blythe...
And then we got a great picture of a smile!
One day, we went to the Museum of Science and Industry, which is down the street from Amy's apartment. Inside, they had this super cool U-boat.
And a miniature model of the city. We had just watched the Arrested Development episode about the Japanese investors and Giant Mole vs Rocket Man. heh heh.
You can see Amy's head between some of the buildings. I'm standing close to where Jackie and Joel's building is now. They build the model before the development was there.
On the last day, Jan 1, we met Amy and Jamison for breakfast before our flight home. It was so nice to see Amy and Jamison, Dave and Devon, and Jackie and Joel. It's hard to live far apart from people that you enjoy being with.

new widgets

I've added a couple widgets. I did a pregnancy one, because I keep forgetting how far along I am. I hate most of the widgets out there for a pregnancy countdown, but this one isn't bad.

And I added a list of blogs I read. If your blog is listed and you don't want it to be, please let me know and I'll add it to the secret category. I want to read the blogs when I'm not on my home computer and I can't remember everyone's blog addresses, so I'm adding this list for myself.

In order to pacify those of you that are angry that I have you on my blog list, I have added these pictures of a cute baby Blythe and of us slipping on the ice in Chicago:

dc the second

On Tuesday, Lynn and Laurel took us downtown again, this time on the Metro--so they could show us how it worked. I really liked the way the metro stations looked. They are all the same and feel very 1984 to me.
We walked by the White House...
...and actually saw one of the guards on the roof! I think they are supposed to remain unobserved, but we found one! You can see his head popping up to the left of the flag pole.
And, cruising in front of the White House, we saw another Segway gang! I really think they are organized and getting ready to take over the world. We see those Segway gang members on all our trips.
After we saw the White House, we headed down Pennsylvania Ave toward the Old Post Office. On the way, we cut through an old hotel (that I can't remember the name of) where all the politicians and famous people would stay when they came to Washington. People wanting the ear of some politician would wait in the lobby of this hotel for them to come out of their rooms, and that is how the term "lobbyist" came about.

You can see the tower of the post office behind Brett, and then the Capitol Building farther away.
We went to the top of the tower and saw the bells and the view. I think my favorite skyline is DC's skyline. I love how all the buildings are relatively low, so that the monuments remain above everything else.

After the Post Office, we went to the Natural History Museum, which was awesome. I love museums.

On Wednesday, Laurel drove us to the Arlington Cemetery. She has a pass, since she was a Captain in the Navy (at least I think that's why), so we could drive into the cemetery. Typically, visitors have to park at the bottom and walk all around the huge cemetery, so it was very nice that we had a ride. The cemetery is beautiful and stunning.

We saw the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I enjoyed that, and took tons of pictures, but they really all ended up looking the same, since they mostly just walk back and forth in a line.
Here's a nice picture of the Pentagon that I got from Arlington Cemetery.
And the beautiful DC skyline from the front porch of the Lee House, which is inside the cemetery.
Once we finished walking around and seeing the cemetery, we headed to Mt. Vernon. On our way, we were looking for lunch and saw a Five Guys! Brett's cousins used to take him to Five Guys when he came out to visit before, and he really liked it. Also, they just built a Five Guys in Salt Lake. Lunch was very good, and I would recommend anyone that likes burgers and fries to try the one nearest to them. I even liked the burger and I don't typically do hamburgers. Just a warning, though, one order of fries is plenty for at least 2 people. Some of you could probably stretch it to 4 people. They pretty much just give you a brown lunch bag full of fries.
After lunch we made it to Mt. Vernon. Brett and I have always thought we wanted a smallish house, just enough to suit our needs. When we were looking at the Lee House, I decided I needed a house at least as big as the Lee House. And then once we got to Mt. Vernon, I changed my mind again and now I won't settle for anything less than Mt. Vernon (grounds included).
Most of my tree pictures from my earlier post were taken on Mt. Vernon grounds. Beautiful.

We went to the Mt. Vernon museum as well, and saw many interesting things, including wax figures of George Washington at various ages in his life. They figured out what he looked like based on his clothes and dentures and all kinds of other interesting evidence like that.

They even had Washington's dentures (not made of wood) on display, along with this lovely sign that I got a huge kick out of.
On our way back, we drove through Alexandria and by Washington's old town home. Very neat.
On Thursday, Brett and I went off on our own to see Gallaudet University, which is a Deaf Liberal Arts University.
Here's Brett with the statue of Gallaudet and Alice.
We got to the Visitor's Center just in time to join a walking tour of the campus. It was all signed, so I interpreted for Brett. Brett is taking a beginning ASL class right now at school, and he said he understood a lot of what was said (which is so cool to me!). That weekend ended up being Homecoming, so there was a big group of alumni on the tour as well. They all graduated from Gallaudet in 1958. It was fun to watch them chatting about how things used to be when they lived on campus. The guy in the blue shirt was our guide. He was very nice. Gallaudet campus is beautiful as well; we enjoyed wandering and seeing all the old buildings. These rocks are built in the shape of a big "G". Brett is showing the ASL handshape for "G" as well.
After Gallaudet, we went to find a little hole in the wall Guitar shop. Just because we always have to see the guitar shops.

Once we had our fill at the shop, we walked down to the Portrait Gallery and saw all the portraits of the US presidents and a bunch of other famous people (Ben Franklin, Joseph Smith, Queen Elizabeth I, etc.).

In the middle of the Portrait Gallery, they have a beautiful covered courtyard. They had a jazz trio playing music for people that wanted to stop in, either for the museum or for the cafe.
On Friday, we went to the Holocaust Museum, which was impressive and educational and sad.

We then went to the Air and Space museum, where Brett walked around looking at all the planes and spaceships, etc and I walked around looking for the nearest bench to sit on. I was tired and mostly ready to go home to Salt Lake by then.

After we left the Air and Space museum, we walked (a very short way) toward the Capitol to take a last picture. It got cold on Friday, but Brett left his jacket home and was very cold all day. You can tell by his cold face in this picture.

Our trip to DC was super awesome and fun. I've always wanted to live in DC, and so I was visiting to see how well we'd like living there as well. I like DC as well as Chicago, but I'm still liking Salt Lake quite a bit right now. We've still got three years of school left, so we'll be here at least that long, but who knows what we'll do after that! Probably move to Chile.

done enough for DC

I finished all of the paper except for the dumb financial data that I just need to pull out of you-know-where anyway, so I think I deserve a blogging break. Especially since Brett is going to help me with making up the financials (since it relates to costs of computer storage, etc that he knows quite a lot about) and he is taking a nap right now.

(This post has taken me a long time to put together, and I think I'm going to separate it out over a few posts. So when I started writing the blog, Brett was napping and I had just finished the paper, but it's been a few days since then.)

So, DC. It was a wonderful trip. Typically, I prefer trips that include beaches and sleeping and a whole lot of lying around. However, the trip to DC included a nice combination of sleeping and site-seeing. The weather was beautiful. When we left Salt Lake, it was getting ready to snow and the clouds were covering the mountains. But the weather in DC all week was around 80 degrees and sunny. We didn't wear our jackets until the last day!

We stayed with Brett's uncle Lynn and his wife, Laurel. They were so great to stay with: we didn't need to rent a car because they drove us anyplace that wasn't accessible by Metro, they allowed us to sleep in every day, they allowed us to eat at their home and even cooked for us every night! I haven't looked at all the receipts yet, but I think we spent less than $200 on that trip (especially since our plane tickets were free because of a promotion from our cell phone company)!

We arrived Saturday evening, and so had a nice dinner with Laurel (because Lynn was out playing in a golfing tournament) and then watched a Hitchcock movie, Rebecca. I recommend that one; it was very interesting. The next day, Sunday, we slept (quite) in and then headed off to visit another set of Brett's aunt and uncles, Mark and Marty. Fortunately for us, their son Andrew and his wife Jill and baby Aiden were visiting the family too, so we got to see them! We haven't seen Andrew and Jillian since before she was pregnant with Aiden, so that was really nice.

Well on to the pictures! That's really the best part about any blog, right? On Monday, Lynn and Laurel took us down to the Mall to walk around and see all the monuments. Lynn's car was extremely fancy and Brett spent any time in the car asking Lynn about all the features he has. Here is my favorite feature, called a little coke fridge in the back seat.
We went to the Marine Memorial first, although it's not on the Mall, it was on the way. In the picture are Lynn, Brett, and Laurel (from left to right). I think you can really tell that Brett and Lynn are related, just by their stance.
Then we went to the monument for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who happens to be my favorite president. This ended up being my favorite monument as well, it was so beautiful with all the fountains and the trees. Following is one of the quotes that was inscribed on the rocks in the monument. I think if you click on it to blow the picture up, you should be able to read it all.
Brett is in this picture, along with another quote that I hope you can read. If it ends up that the words don't show up, maybe I'll post the quotes as a comment.
Here's another quote I liked from FDR.
After we spent some time at the FDR memorial, we started to walk around the Tidal Basin toward the Jefferson Monument. I got some great pictures of the monuments reflecting in the water. Here is the Washington Monument for a couple of pictures.

And the Jefferson Memorial.
I really enjoyed this quote from Jefferson, in came in the middle of a big long quote that ran all the way down the wall, so I cropped the picture so you could see what I thought was the most interesting. I tremble for a lot of things/people/myself when I reflect that God is just.
Once we walked around to the other side of Tidal Basin, we stopped to get some lunch at one of the vendors along the walkway. It was the last day of the season, so they didn't have anything that we wanted to eat. We ended up getting some hot dogs. Surprising enough, although I do like hot dogs, I've never dared eat one from a cart before. It was an interesting experience that I'm not sure I ever need to repeat.

Once we had our lunch, we headed over to the Washington Monument.
Here's the view of the White House from the Washington Monument.
And this is looking toward the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington (and Brett, of course). I'm switching between calling them all Monuments or Memorials, because I don't know which is correct. Maybe both.
We stopped and saw the World War II Memorial, which was very nice.
Here is yet another quote from FDR, this time saying how honorable women are. This was inside the WWII Memorial.
This is the Women's Memorial for the Vietnam War. It might also be called the Nurses Memorial.
And Brett at the Vietnam Memorial.
Then we made it to the Lincoln Monument. I've heard the story about the sculptor or whomever had the final say, shaping Lincoln's hands into ASL letters "A" for the left hand and "L" for the right, for "A"braham "L"incoln. (They told us the same story when we visited Gallaudet.) Does anyone know that story and if there's any truth to it? I can see the "A" and the "L", but I'm wondering if people applied that story after the fact.
After the Lincoln Monument, we stopped at the Korean War Memorial. I liked this memorial a lot too; it was interesting.
We were pretty exhausted by the end of our trek. Lynn drove us by the Pentagon, where he used to work (he actually worked there when the building was hit on September 11). I didn't get a good picture of the building that day, but I have one later. We also drove by the Air Force Memorial. This was a cool looking memorial as well.
So ended our Monday excursions.

I'll post the second half of the blog tomorrow.