Lots of fun, Running Out of Time

Well I am down to about a week and a half here in DC before I make the trek back to Utah. So it is vital I get as much fun in these last few weeks here that I can, because I haven't had enough fun already! Here are some pictures of what I have been doing lately.

A visit to Mt. Vernon, George Washington's home. My roommate Patti and I are serious soldiers! We totally would have been General Washington's favorites.

Visiting the Washinton DC Temple. It is so, so pretty. They use it as a traffic reference point too, kinda fun. I hear on the radio all the time, "...traffic is backed up to the Mormon temple."

World Famous Breakfast at Eastern Market. You can see all these people are in line waiting to eat at this little place in a big market style auditorium. I waited with my friends for an hour to eat breakfast. It was good but no plans to head back there next Saturday.

Craziness with roommates is a nightly occurrance. My good friend Tara (in the red), visited us from New York and was introduced to my three roommates during a Bump It party. If you are not familiar with the Bump It, you will have to Google it!

This is one of many dinner parties we had outside on our patio. We have had lots of fun entertaining guests. Here Peter and Kyle are having a delightful evening with Mary and I. Patti is here too, taking the picture.

I have met lots of friends that know about way cool stuff here in DC. Ralph here is a pilot and showed my roommate, KaRyn and I the Ronald Regan Runway (right behind us) where planes fly right over us. Well it is a park in front of the runway, we aren't actually on the runway!

A Vacation During Vacation

Okay so even though my intention was to work while I lived in DC this summer, lets be honest, I have worked two days the whole time I have been here and have been playing lots and lots... I am on a very long, very fun vacation. Well my parents decided to come up to DC since they have NEVER been here ever, and I got to play tour guide with them. (They won't come visit me in Utah, but they will visit me when I live down the street from President Obama.)
We spent two days trying to see everything we could in Washington DC which equals tired feet from lots and lots of walking, but I think we saw all the important stuff! We even got a special tour of the House of Rep. Chambers on our Capitol Tour because I know important people that work on Capitol Hill. Sandwhiched in between our two day DC activities we drove to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia where my parents had a time share for the week. I toured Jamestown, and spent two full days in Williamsburg learning all about the Revolutionary War and how it affected that area. I now know all these cool facts which sadly I must keep to myself since I have no 5th grade class to share them with anymore. (Although I mentioned this to my principal and we are looking into me being a guest teacher so my knowledge may be passed on to our future;)

It is always a pleasure to see my parents and go on little vacations with them. I love them so!

Here we are about to start our tour of the Capitol. Can anyone guess where I get my goofiness from?

Every state has chosen two "famous" people statues to be on display in one of the rooms in the capital. Here is good 'ole Brigham Young, not a surprise that he was chosen to represent Utah. But the other statue for Utah is of the guy who invented chocolate, kind of random.

My mom LOVED taking her picture with me! (Hee, hee)

My mom and I are touching the walls of history! This is the orginal wall of the tower of the church that was built in Jamestown in 1607. Kinda cool!

Here is Thomas Jefferson reading the Declaration of Independence from the Capitol Building to the citizens of Williamsburg. They did lots of cool reenactments of Revolutionary events and activities and had lots of audience particpation...

My dad was enlisted into the militia to fight against the King! He is the big dude on the end looking very excited about just being made a member of the colonial army.

Aren't they so cute! This is at Arlington House where General Robert E. Lee lived. Arlington was my mom's favorite place. The tomb in the picture is Pierre L'Enfant's who had the plan to organize DC into the grid system of streets that is used today. He is overlooking the glorious city he planned.

Happy 4th of July from America's Capitol

Though a part of the Midsingles Conference was watching fireworks together, I had bigger and better plans. Celebrating America's Birthday in the place of its early beginnings is a big deal so I needed to celebrate this occasion in style! I wished America a happy 233rd birthday at our nation's capitol watching a Fourth of July show that was televised to viewers across America and our troops overseas. But wait it gets better! My lovely roommate, Mary went at 3pm to get the perfect seat for all of us and perfect it was. She secured us some land right in front of the stage the Capital Fourth show was going to take place. We were behind the chairs where all the important people sat, but right in front of the cameras. I was able to see Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, Natasha Beddingfield, Jersey Boys, and Sesame Street! Live and in concert! And the National Symphony Orchestra was amazing of course and played those good 'ole fashioned American tunes with cannons firing during a mouth dropping fireworks display. I had so much fun and the cameras captured it all. My friends and I can be seen dancing to the musical stylings of Copacabana, my cute little face is right in the camera for Walk Like a Man, and I have a great profile shot during Pocketful of Sunshine. I am even on Youtube with these songs, I truly am famous. It was a Fourth of July not to be forgotten. Here are some pictures that captured the moments of joy.

This is how close we were to the stage.
This is how many people were behind us. Bummer for them!

Natasha Beddingfield singing with the gang from Sesame Street. We all sang Sing a Song together. Such a touching moment!

Fabulous fireworks, I love them so!

Here is a little video of some of the firework show so you too can feel as if you were celebrating at a capitol fourth. I also give you an idea of how close I was to the stage.

Here is the whole group posing for one last picture after a long night of fun. Notice that I am one of the only ones dressed in patriotic colors on the right end in the second row. I love my country! (I realize I used this same photo in a previous post, but I really wanted to point out my patriotism.)My roommate Sharyn and I posing on the crowded metro headed home. Notice how she can barely reach the bar and I am holding on with room to spare. My roommates are always so short and cute and make me look like the Jolly Green Giant.

A Midsingles Partay

The weekend of July 4th was not only special since I was celebrating at the nation's capital, but there was also a DC Midsingles Conference the very same weekend! What is a midsingles conference you ask? Well now that they are so many thirty somethings single in the church they have dubbed us midsingles and when you have a bunch of older single folks who desperately need to get married you hold a midsingles conference where a bunch of activities are thrown into one weekend in the hopes that a lucky guy and girl will hit it off and realize their eternal destiny in the three day conference timespan. While I personally did not meet my husband at this conference, fortunately there are conferences all over the country. So I am thinking of hitting the midsingles conference circuit in the hopes that one of them will be that lucky one. The next one is Chicago, end of August, I am so there! (um for those of you reading this and can't quite get the sarcasm I am desperately sending, please note I do not intend to travel across the country in hopes of finding the one, he will have to come find me!)

Anyway, the conference did provide an opportunity for me to run across several friends I have lost touch with and we are now all Facebook friends so we will never lose touch again! We went on a fun boat cruise on the Potomac River, did some great DC activities, saw some fabulous fireworks, and had a great Sunday meeting all together. Good times.

Fun friends on the boat cruise down the Potomac River.

This is Courtney, one of the many friends I reconnected with at the conference. We were in a ward together back in 1997!

These are my roommates, Sharyn and Patti. Notice they are very short, so I often use them as leaning posts. We were waiting for lunch here and I was tired. They are useful for many things!

This is a big group all here for the conference at the Capitol for the fireworks. I will post a whole blog about the great evening of fun, merriment, and tv cameras.

Working 9-5 (or 1)

This city girl is really livin' the city life. I had a job for a day as a receptionist which is a total big city job to have. I signed up with a temp agency when I first got here to make some extra cash but haven't really been getting any jobs. Finally on July 3rd, when everyone else had a holiday I was called in to be a receptionist at Govolution. They told me I would probably get to leave early since it would be kind of slow. I emptied the dishwasher, passed out the mail, and took three phone calls, one of them was a wrong number. It was so slow and I found myself trying very hard to stay awake. Finally, at 1pm after all three execs that had come in that day got back from lunch, I got to leave. Being a receptionist for a day was easy! Who knows if I will work again while I am here. They keep calling me for jobs that go into August or Sept. and I won't be here, sad day for me.
This is Secretary Angela ready for anything. This was my line for the two calls I received, "Govolution, how may I direct your call?" I was awesome!