Friends in DC

In an effort to be convenient many of our friends from previous locations have now moved to DC. (If they were trying to be very convenient they would have moved to Tulsa, but some people feel that it does not have the same appeal of DC—me included).

The Gregorys and the Ellsworths were great friends and companions at BYU. The Gregorys were our neighbors in the same house (different apartments) and had I been blogging then, you likely would have thought we had no other friends as we did most everything together (e.g. camping, gardening—theirs successful, ours yielding the one onion mentioned in an earlier blog, birthdays, vicious card games…) but fortunately we had other amazing friends like the Ellsworths, too.

Apparently, our continued presence must be somewhat addictive, as Aaron thought it was worth it to fly home for the weekend from his Air Force training in MS to hangout with us. (Aaron, it was great seeing you …You Rock! Hopefully, it wasn’t too unbearable to hang out with us.) We spent Saturday with the Gregorys in Mt Vernon and spent the night at their house. We went to church with them on Sunday and had dinner with them and the Ellsworths. It was great fun.

Lori braved the DC traffic on Wednesday to bring her kids to the zoo with us. On Tuesday it was supposed to rain all day so we postponed our visit to the zoo till Wednesday. It didn’t rain until 7pm. On Wednesday the forecast said no rain until 7 and when we got there around 11 it started to hail on us. We stayed inside for a bit and it let up. The rest of the day was spent with off and on showers, some of them sufficient to make one quite wet. But fun was had by all and no one died of pneumonia or even the swine flu… It was amazing to see our BYU friends and their families. I love to see the kids grow and it was nice that they Gregorys kids were so affectionate, even the ones that never met us before. (Lori said it’s kind of rare for them to be so open and we both felt flattered).

We also had some Abilene friends. The Budds are Air Force folk and are headed to Germany in June so we had to schedule our trip before they left (although we’re thinking about scheduling a visit to them in Germany…it’s in the dream stage right now). Raina and Miranda were quite close and it was wonderful to get back together. They have amazing children who are all growing up to be even more amazing. She says the secret is to be very firm, but to show lots and lots of love. Easy in principle, but they have done a great job at putting it into practice.

Our final friend that we visited was also from Abilene. Kristi is a ray of sunshine in a world of self-doubt and self-pity. She’s amazingly self-confident and upbeat and reminds us each time that we meet that one can be humble and still recognize the greatness that they have been blessed with. She took us around the monuments at night and once again it rained on us and we had a wonderful time. (There was a beautiful photo op from the Lincoln Monument. Looking past the Washington Monument and on past the Capital building there was some great lightning…too bad I didn’t have the right camera.) Anyhow, it was a pleasure to spend time with her and all our friends. There is no doubt that our lives have been enriched by these people and that we are better because of them.

Family in DC

We stayed with Miranda’s sister and her family while in DC. They were amazing and gracious and we had a great time. Rebecca took us thrift store shopping (always fun for me), to a great hamburger place (I don’t like hamburgers and this was actually so good that I was excited to return later in the week), and was basically an amazing hostess.

It was wonderful spending time with the nieces and nephew. It is always a hoot to hear and participate in conversations that we normally miss, not having children of our own. “Sometimes I scratch my bottom and then my fingers stink.” “I poopied in my underwears, see Daddy all the poopies” “Uncle Dan didn’t know the word for ‘wetlands,’ I think I know more Spanish than Dan does” (from a seven year old in a Spanish immersion class). There were others, but those are the ones that come to my immediate recollection.

We had a great time and it was nice to be the amazing aunt and uncle and to get little kid hugs and affection. But it was tiring.

Washington DC

As stated we had some very frustrating and long weeks and were quite happy that we had planned a trip to DC much earlier in the year. It came at the right time. (Perfectly the right time. I had an adoptive placement with work on Thursday 4-16 and did not get home until midnight and then we left on Friday. I had been worried my trip was going to be interrupted and was not happy.)

We had a wonderful time.

Brigham Young's Statue in the Capital

The back of the Capital

We went to Mt Vernon with the Gregorys, spent some time on the National Mall, in museums, at the Zoo (with the Gregorys also), went to the temple, toured the Capital, enjoyed public transportation, played disc golf (I was close to a hole-in-one and even others on the course were quite impressed. Alas, close is insignificant when I must continue to bow to Tom and his amazingly (lucky) skillful (lucky) shot that has proven to be his only mentionable disc golf achievement, and yet I still bow my head in shame.), and generally had a great time.

Miranda with Rocks at the Natural History Museum

The train station by the zoo (location of the tallest escalator in the US, woo!)

Washington DC Temple

The most impressive and touching thing for me was going to National Archives and being able to see the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and other impressive documents. It gives me hope. If those men could, against all odds, achieve the great things that they did, then perhaps we can, against all odds, improve the chaotic world and moral decay we find ourselves in…perhaps?

Gardening, etc…

For a while I refused to post anything, because after the wonderful week in IL, I had the pleasure of going through a couple of heckish weeks and did not want to just spend time complaining. So I refused to post anything.

Well I neglected to post on the one highlight of the next three weeks:

OUR GARDEN

Miranda has been super obsessed about starting a garden this year. After disagreeing about where to put the garden (I thought the middle of the yard seemed kinda weird, but what do I know), I finally said, “Of course you’re right dear, what can I do to make this wish come true?” and the garden was started.

Miranda felt strongly that we would be better people and more accomplished if we started our garden from seeds. Being that our success with gardens in the past has been limited to the growth of one onion, I had my doubts. I felt that our current mode of gardening was working quite well. (We’d skip the planting, growing, and harvesting parts in favor of the picking the veggies up at the store form of gardening.) My next thought was to by actual plants and plant them and try not to kill them before they started producing fruit. (We have been successful at not killing the plants in our yard so I had some hope with this plan.)

Miranda was unmoved. She got little peat planting containers and planted seeds and my wife stopped talking to me… Okay, that’s not quite the truth. She just spent a lot more time talking to our plants. Obsession is the word that she used to describe her behaviors (e.g. talking to them first thing in the morning and right when she got home, worrying about them most of the time she was not near them, fearing that thinning them out would actually convince the non-thinned plants that she was a plant serial killer and thus causing them to wilt in terror, and even calling the house and singing to them on the answering machine when we left for vacation—ok so the last thing didn’t happen, but the others, ALL TRUE!)

Anyhow, we’ve had some success with peas, beans, some herbs, and cucumber. But some of the other things we went back to my plan of buying actual plants and trying not to kill them. The garden is not quite in the middle of the yard, but conveniently located in a place that will require deconstruction and replacing grass when we hope to sell the house. (Unless someone else has a very stalwart spouse who is convinced that the money/time to build the garden, plant the seeds, cultivate, harvest, etc. is better than buying produce…then maybe we will rejoice.)

(In case you wondered, I am not actually against the garden, it’s been kinda fun.)

(This pic is so you can look at the old lattice work.)

My most recent outside project was the lattice work on one of our fences. It was not overly difficult on the technical level but doing all by myself and without a ladder added to the fun. I think it looks better (although I learned after I purchased and cut the lattice that I could have ordered in grey and it would have matched our fence better…but nothing to hang myself over) and it was also quite fun to do.

DO MORE BLOGGING!

All this whining and complaining…Why doesn’t Dan post on his blog more? Why doesn’t he share his inner most secrets and elaborate upon the wonders of the universe? Why can’t we get another glimpse into the crazed mind of one who deals with crazed minds? And most of all what happened to your fear of the letter X?

Well here you go…a whole slew of posts all in a row. So here you go all you naysayers and murmurers: I have posted, you are enlightened, and we are all enriched.