On the road with Gymnairs!

These first two weeks back from spring break have been BUSY! Thursday right after we got back we hit the road again and visited Campion and Mile-high academies in Colorado. This week has been exhausting to say the least trying to catch up with school work and get ready to leave again (Tomorrow!) this time to DAA!! I am SO EXCITED to spend the weekend with my family and school family at DAA! I've had papers, reports, exams, presentations to prepare this week! (I have another test before we leave tomorrow!) It seems like when there's not enough hours in your day sleep gets cut, or should I say "post-poned" I plan to make up for the short nights this week in the van tomorrow!

Days 8, 9, and 9.5

We're back! After 10 days of fun, 40+ hours in a car, 2,500 miles, and countless memories later we are back in Nebraska! We left Maryland at about 7:00 pm Saturday night and rolled into Lincoln just before 1:30 pm Sunday!
Summer is on it's way! (although it seemed like it had already arrived in Maryland) spring has sprung here in Lincoln while we were gone!

As for Day 8 (Friday) we just had a nice relaxing day and I made "schroodles" for supper, we had some family and friends over and enjoyed a nice Friday night meal.

Day 9... After church we went to the zoo. We had planned to spend the afternoon and have a picnic there, but the traffic was thick in D.C. and we had the picnic in the vehicle! then spent about an hour hitting the main attractions in the zoo.

Day 9.5... I'm not really sure where day 9 ended and day 10 began! We collected our travel buddies and hit the road... drove straight through and "day 10" is not really part of the east coast trip because we were not there anymore! Now... days 11-13 are filled with school and assignments of all kinds, then early Thursday morning I leave with the gymnastics team (Gymnairs) for a tour to Colorado!

Day 7 (Thursday)

Baltimore and Ft. McHenry

Today we spent the day in Baltimore... It was very interesting to see Ft. McHenry, where the battle was fought and the star spangled banner was flown that inspired our national anthem.

We tried...

...and tried...

...and TRIED!...

but COULD NOT lift one of the cannon balls! I have no idea how much those things weighed but I COULD NOT lift it! and I know it was loose because I could move it, but not lift it for anything... I felt a little weak... I seriously wonder how much they weigh!

after the fort we visited the inner harbor, pretty scenery.

We spent the afternoon in the aquarium... it was HUGE!! So many things to see, what a creative God we serve! Such beautiful things He has created! I took LOTS of pictures, it was hard to pick which ones to post, sorry if I "picked" too many!

We even got to watch a dolphin show! They had a baby dolphin...only 8 days old! The thing that amazed me the most was how obedient the dolphins were! (I feel a children's story or object lesson!! haha, I can't wait to be an elementary teacher!)

Day 6 (Wednesday)

My apologies to my faithful readers who were waiting for this post last night, I let you down L. Kenny had choir practice at church last night, when he left I laid down on my bed, put pictures on my computer, and started getting some ready to make a post. (this was right around 7:00pm) The next thing I knew… I woke up around 1:00am very confused and disoriented, then realized what had happened and that everyone was fast asleep, so I really got two night’s worth of sleep for the price of one! But I was tired!

We walked by the white house and Washington monument first, Kenny tried to get us tickets to go up but they said the elevator was broken. We visited the American History Museum where among MANY things, we saw the star spangled banner that inspired the national anthem and the first ladies’ inaugural gowns. Kenny had meetings from about noon-3:00 so Nathan and I walked to the WWII and Lincoln memorials. When we were walking back to meet Kenny I wanted to walk right up to the base of the Washington monument so we did, then sat down to look at our metro map and decide where to meet Kenny. Just then (we’re talking a 30-second time frame) a guard walked up to us and asked if we had tickets to go up the monument, we didn’t. Then he asked me if I wanted to, I said, “Yes, but we don’t have tickets” he said not to worry about it and told us to wait for him at a certain spot… apparently they had just got the elevator working again and we ended up being the 1st two in line! (everyone else had tickets) and went right up to the top within a couple minutes of sitting down to look at our map… had we been 30 seconds early or late… talk about right place at the right time! When we got back down the line was huge!

As you can probably see from the pictures, the sun was out in full force! All that sunshine, fresh air, and exercise is probably why I slept so good last night!....too good!

Notice the guards on top of the White House.

Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush, and Michelle Obama's inaugural gowns. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the flag.

Day 5 (Tuesday)

I almost didn't post anything today but then I realized that if I don't do it now, I probably would never get around to posting some of these pictures... so here they are and I hope you're not getting too tired of all these posts of the same trip!

This morning I met a friend that drove here with us and went to her gym to work out, the way they've been feeding me here I should be working out every day or several times a day! But it felt good to burn some calories (or at least ease my conscience a little!).

Nathan and I went to the General Conference to meet Kenny and Brenda for lunch, then Kenny gave me a personal tour ;) it was fun to see... The picture above is of a sculpture of the 2nd coming, facing it are life-size statues of people representing the nationalities of the world and an angel with a little baby at the resurrection/2nd coming.

Kenny with a Bible the same size as the one Ellen White held out.

A picture of a picture of President Paulsen and President Bush.

The Narrow Path painting. ( I didn't know it was SO BIG )

When we got back Nathan and I went to the store, then made Grandma cookies! Mmmm...

Day 4 (Monday)

Sight seeing was in full force today, we left bright and early to make it to our Library of Congress tour at 8:30 which was VERY impressive! Then we browsed around in the Native American Museum until 1:00 when had our own personal tour of the Capitol Building (by a North Dakota girl from Pomeroy's office). I am continually amazed by everything! The thing that I always come back to is how incredible it is now... just imagine 100 years ago and when these monstrosities were being built!! It's hard to imagine! I wish I could take a trip back and watch our founding fathers play their role in forming this nation under God.

The very first "new to me" experience of the day was riding the subway... simple I know, but not exactly what I'm used to... :P

The Library was SO amazing! SO MUCH detail on EVERY little thing! How would you like to be the artisan for this and not be guaranteed payment... it's true, (although they did get paid) while they were working, the craftsmen didn't know if and when they were going to get paid, the possibility of fame and their work lasting was enough. I saw some super cool things, one being the first map to every bear the name "America" (even though the shape it labeled is a far cry from the true shape of our Continent),

All the touring made us hungry! When we found some "fry bread" it really hit the spot!

It was fun to see "North Dakota here" I love ND! Somehow it almost felt like a little piece of home! These Paintings around the Capitol were so neat to me, they looked so much like statues I had to look VERY close and be told that they were just 2D paintings. My favorite part of the capital was the "wisper spot"... very cool story!