Its been a long time...

Hey lo errrrrbody!! Sorry its been over a month since I have updated this thing. Life has been crazy busy! I am now teaching full time in my classroom, thats right everyday all day long I am in charge of those little munchkins educations and I LOVE IT!! My time has pretty much been occupied with lesson plans, chart paper, markers, construction paper and star student awards for the last 4 weeks. My kids are wonderful, I just wish I was their real teacher and wouldn't be leaving at the end of the semester. I'm probably going to be a mess when that happens. (In the picture on the left I am touching a tree that George Washington himself planted at mount vernon!!!)

I have taken three small breaks in the last 4 weeks to go and do fun things. One of which was to go and see Breaking Dawn (not the midnight showing because, hullooo I'm a teacher! I gots to get up early for the children!) on opening night with my wonderful roommates Shaylyn, Joyce, Lene, and Joyce's friend Laura! The evening began with a visit to Chick-fil-A (if you've never been you need to go, their chicken nuggets are delicious. PLUS they say "My pleasure" everytime you say thank you!! Its the best service ever haha). Than we took an adventure to find the theatre in Georgetown that I so intelligently chose. After wandering over and under highways we found our theatre in a small hidden pocket. The movie was fantastic, the best Twilight film by far. Afterwards we went to Serendipity (not the one from the movie, that ones in New York but it was still super cool and delicious). Its probably the most random restaurant you've ever seen in your life. Theres a random chair hanging from the ceiling and a statue of Abraham Lincoln drinking a frozen hot chocolate (something they are famous for). Me and Shay split a deep fried oreo sundae and were deliciously satisfied (although I have to say I felt my heart clogging up as I ate it so I don't know if I'll be doing that again anytime soon).


We also went to Mount Vernon! Its George Washingtons house, although house doesn't really quite capture it. The estate is huge! And his "house" is more like a mansion. There was probably like 20 or more buildings on it besides the mansion (to house slaves, prepare food, boil iron or whatever you do, and salt meat etc). My favorite part by far was his back porch (the view is pictured above) or the dock on the edge of the river. both views were breath taking and peaceful. I could definitely understand why he loved it there so much after seeing so much horror. While touring the estate we came to George Washingtons tomb and we had to wait patiently in line...why you might ask? Oh just because the first lady of Portugal was having a private tour! She had body guards and everything. That was a pretty neat high light of it all. Afterwards I definitely felt much more appreciative of what George Washington did for our country. He was amazing, and blessed to lead this country into its birth. It was a fantastic but exhausting day.

Than, of course, there has been Thanksgiving break. It has been very relaxing. To say that I needed some down time would be an understatement- and so I took it. Me and my roomies made the most delicious thanksgiving dinner ever and have been eating leftovers constantly since. We made the turkey and stuffing even! AND IT TURNED OUT REALLY WELL! Probably due to Lene's artistry with the butter and seasonings on Charlie (I named him Charlie) Of course we had a little bit of a freak out because the turkeys red dot wasn't popping up after cooking for 4 hours (the thing was only 12 lbs! why so long??) when it was only supposed to cook for 3. Luckily I have relatives who know how to cook (Thanks Gram!!) and can share helpful tips. Our feast included turkey, stuffing, gravy, green bean casserole, corn casserole, jello pretzel deliciousness, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls and home made cranberry sauce. Our desserts were pumpkin pie, apple pie, and cheesecake. After wards we all put on a movie and passed out stretched out on the floor within like 30 minutes. It was a great Thanksgiving feast!

Everythings going really well! I have officially decided I am staying out in DC after I graduate. (Don't worry I'm still coming home for Christmas Break- I'll be out there from Dec 19th-Jan 7th) I've found a private room I am considering renting out next semester in a house, and I'll be substitute teaching until I can find a job. I'm definitely nervous, and freaking out a little bit but it feels right. Out on my own with a bachelors degree in a city where I know almost no one, haha wish me luck and Happy Late Thanksgiving all!!

Walking the Walk

So I'm pretty much a native Washington DCer now (and I can make up terms like that because I am so in the hood...haha). I have seen a robbery, a cop pull a gun on a high school student, rode the metro at 3am, been to a dance club where a shady man named Kamiry got me and my friends in (My code name on the list was Annajelina) and every day upon my arrival home I am greeted by street performers near the entrance of the subway (my favorite is this quartet group in the picture on the right, they sung the Lion Sleeps Tonight the other day! It was amazing, they are seriously talented- and yes I gave them a dollar). In addition I am learning the DC versions of hand games (You know like Miss Mary Mat etc that all the ladies did when we were in Elementary school), my favorite one is the Jail Bird Rock ("Mommas in the kitchen cookin rice, daddy's outside shooting dice, brothers in jail ringin a bell and sistas outside sellin fruit coctails! Rockin Robin...). On that field trip we went to (that I mentioned in my previous post) some of my kids parents complimented on me on my ability to "jam" with the kids. Yup, I'm pretty much a rock star out here. Oh and don't worry about me taking all these pictures, its totally normal and I don't stand out at all as a tourist when I do it...anyways... (Side note, Can I just say that I really, seriously LOVE IT OUT HERE!)

In much bigger news (I know the mind reels to think that there could be more after the above statements) we have a T.V. in our apartment now!! Yes, before this moment we had no working T.V. and were unable to watch movies anywhere other than our laptops, but now that has changed. For those of you who know me, I love watching movies. So I pretty much freaked out and documented the entire T.V. placement into our apartment (partly because in order to get it from our friends apartment into our apartment we placed it on a Costco shopping cart that we just happened to have- its ok to take the carts here, they pick them up in the parking lot downstairs once a week- and the image was hilarious, and partly because I was very excited to have a T.V. again). You can see the two lovely gentleman who transferred the T.V. into our apartment for us on the left. They were kind enough to pose for me:) Needless to say I've probably watched at least one movie or show on it a day since we got it. (We don't have cable, but my roomie Lene has a bunch of shows on DVD- including Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Awesome.)

In other news the ward out here is GREAT! We went camping up in Maryland awhile ago for a ward camp out and it was a blast. Roasted marshmallows, an impromptu dance with someones I-Pod, several games including baseball (which I am not at all good at haha- although in this picture I did hit the ball), ultimate frisbee (where I ran around in circles almost the whole time- looking awesome while I did it of course) and soccer which I actually wasn't half bad at. We even had this series of competitions. Our team was Team 13, so naturally we gave ourselves the name Black Cats and Broken Mirrors! We ended the competition undefeated (it ended after two rounds because we got rained on but still, undefeated. :) haha).

Last night we went to the ward Halloween party. As you can see we have Joyce going as her gorgeous self, Lene the Zombie and my wonderful Megan going as Sue Sylvester from Glee. Shalyn who you'll see in the picture below with me, went as a spider web. And we can all totally, walk the walk. It was awesome, we carved a pumpkin (no faces for us, we carved the word Swag into our pumpkin- because hullo it had swag). It was Joyce's first time ever carving a pumpkin, she did very well...the A in swag is a little weird but other than that it was pretty sweet. Another person there carved two pumpkins, one was the Death Star and the other was that one planet that gets destroyed by the Death Star in Star Wars. Don't worry, I took a picture of it. It was awesome. There was also an impromptu dance (started by me, my lovely roommate Shalyn, and a fantastic girl by the name of...Kim? Dang I suck at names.), and a costume competition that Lene my roommate totally won for her wicked awesome Zombie costume. I was goth, as you can see it totally fits me. I used a piece of an earring to make a fake lip ring for the evening, but after several weird looks and questions about whether it was real or not I took it out for the sake of my delicate reputation haha. It was a night to remember for sure:) (There was also this all things pumpkin treat competition, my roomie Lene the zombie- zombie name Zoe- made pumpkin brownies! Freakin delicious. Pumpkin rocks.)

Star Chart AHOY!

So ladies and gents, the results are in the star chart is a...(drum roll please) HIT! My kids love it and they are behaving the best I've ever seen them. The first week my students were Stepford students, I mean the straightest backs you've ever seen in line, hands behind their backs, just beautiful. Excellent reports from their specials teachers (like when they go to art, library, music, P.E. etc), and not only do they love it but the parents love it as well. Whereas before, although their child was extremely intelligent and well-behaved, they never heard anything back about how their child was doing in class unless it was during parent teacher conferences. Now they hear about it every day. I love it.

It's not quite perfect yet, there are still some days where students who earn a star student award don't receive it because of the fact that I'm not teaching all day yet and Mrs. Dorsey doesn't generally award check marks to students when they behave. I am determined to make sure this doesn't happen again though (I had a student in tears on Thursday because of it, and an extremely upset parent). I really feel like the whole atmosphere in the classroom has changed though! I'm able to do more with my kids like stations, small group activities, and rotations. As time goes on I am discovering more and more, what my teaching style is and who I am as an educator. For example, from Day 1 I have discovered that an excellent way to keep students engaged is to use things students love in the lessons. In Math I have included Sponge Bob, Mario, motorcycles, dinosaurs, rocket ships, air guitars and anything else I can think of in my lessons and my kids seem to really love math! They love the idea that I'm challenging them and trying to trick them, and showing me that they know more than I think they do.

As time goes on I am falling more and more in love with my kids and the DCPS district. I look forward to going to school and miss my kids when I don't. We took a field trip to a nearby schools farm a couple weeks ago (we used the public bus for transportation, 70 kids plus about 15 adults, plus whoever was already riding on the bus, it was a squishy ride haha) and I was taking pictures of the kids like crazy.

Oh, and it's official! I finished my TWS (teacher work sample, its like this giant 21 page paper plus lesson plans etc that I needed to finish in order to graduate), and as long as I pass (cross your fingers) I will be graduating from BYU in December with a Bachelors in Elementary Education! I have started to apply for jobs in the DCPS district and am hoping to stay if I can. Who knows what the Lord has in store for me though, it might not work out. We shall see.

The job called Teacher...

Well folks, the honey moons over. Over the last three weeks I have found myself teaching in an intercity school with Mrs. Dorsey as my mentor. She is fantastic, her organizational skills are amazing and her willingness to stick to her guns, so to speak, is inspiring. She has been teaching, overall, for 30 years and has discovered exactly what works best for her. I, however, have not been teaching for 30 years and I have no idea what works best for me.

When dealing with children I have learned that it is vital to be loving but firm. They need to see you as an authority figure and respect you if they are ever going to learn from you. I have taught for short periods of time in several other schools, some through volunteer work others through Brigham Young University. Throughout these experiences I have seen the difference that positive praise and encouragement can do. To often students feel like failures and create self-fulfilled prophecies. For example, a student might believe he/she sucks at math and than when they try to do math they don’t do well because they don’t try or they stress themselves out so much that they can’t think. However, when a teacher comes to a student with this perspective and compliments something they see in this individuals work or shares with the student that they believe in them it can make all the difference in the world. This principle still applies to the students I teach out here, however because I’ve never taught for longer than 6 weeks in one school I have never been put in a situation where sharing that positive praise and encouragement with a student must be maintained long term. This has proved to be a roadblock in my students development.

During my first week of “teaching” I mostly observed and had little to do. Consequently I chose to observe not just my teacher, but those students in her classroom that seemed to have difficulty behaving. I selected those students that I could see having real difficulty and began to watch closely for behavior that I could praise. For example, sitting correctly on the carpet, doing well on a worksheet, improvement in handwriting etc. This positive praise worked! The student that I had chosen to concentrate began to behave; once she was on track I moved to another student and continued this pattern. Giving those students that seemed to need it constant praise on what they were doing well and pointing out places where they could improve in gentle understanding tones. However, as time goes on I am teaching in front of the class more and more, and because I am a person that tends to imitate when it comes to teaching I began to imitate my teachers discipline style. This style focuses mainly on those students who’re misbehaving and giving them quick reminders to keep them on task. Because of this, my students who I had gotten to begin to behave really well started misbehaving to get my attention. That misbehavior, overtime, has begun to spread to those students who have always behaved who greatly desire my attention. In a matter of two and a half weeks my positive praise had gone out the window and, to get the attention they had previously enjoyed, many students in my classroom had begun doing out right silly things at inappropriate times so that I would speak to them. It took me awhile to understand all of this of course at first I was shocked. Why in the world would students who seemed to love me so much and had previously been perfect begin misbehaving during the lessons I taught? I was confused and frustrated because the style of teaching I had begun to adapt felt almost suffocating.

Those of you who know me, know I am a positive and happy person and the constant nagging students to do the correct thing seemed to be sucking away my soul. Something needed to change and so I began talking to my colleagues about the situation, looking for other ideas and tactics to keep my class under control. I wanted to use positive praise as a disciplining tactic and it was Joyce, my lovely roommate fellow first grade student teacher, who started me on the path to success. Halfway through this last week, when the class was beginning to get a little off task or out of control, I began to search for those students who were doing what they were supposed to and pointing it out. For example, “I love how Anisa’s sitting. Her legs are crossed, her hands are in her lap and she’s quiet waiting for directions”. By so doing, I gave those students who were doing well the attention they deserved and those students who weren’t fixed their behavior in order to receive the praise others were getting.

Now, although this tactic was excellent it wasn’t perfect. It took a couple days for the idea to catch on and for students to really begin to behave the way they should but this last Friday was GLORIOUS! I’m telling you I have stepford students, or at least I did for that one day. Than in a moment of inspiration, while taking the students for a restroom and water break, I told them we were having a competition to see who could do the best on our break: boys or girls. Ladies and gentleman I have never in my life seen a class behave better! They were all trying so hard to stand the way they should and not talk, they were absolutely silent in every hallway we walked through. One sweet little girl even got hurt in the hallway on the way back and stood quietly with one hand raised and one behind her back, waiting for me to come to her aid. Tears were streaming down her face but she didn’t make a single noise because she wanted to win this competition so bad. It was magic! (Don’t worry, I dealt with the situation and she was fine.)

The positive in my classroom doesn’t stop there either. I am instituting a STAR chart in the classroom for my students. Basically, when I see a student behaving well they get a checkmark next to their name. These check marks are not perfect and can be taken away for bad behavior. If the student has received 4 (S,T,A,R) checkmarks and kept them until the end of the day they get to take home a small star student award to show to their parents. If a student loses all their checkmarks and they are still not behaving, than we begin to go into strikes. The first strike means a timeout, the second strike means benched at recess, and the third strike is a call home. Its an idea my supervisor, Becky, gave me. I introduce it to the class tomorrow (10/3) so we’ll see how it works out.

I do not, by any means, anticipate that my students will be as well behaved tomorrow as they were on Friday. This is going to take constant work and I am still figuring out the best way to discipline my class. However, I feel like I am at least on the right track now and look forward to the challenges ahead. Wish me luck!

National Monuments and Touristy Sites

So went to the Botanical Gardens(above), Lincoln Memorial, MLK Memorial, WW II Memorial, Vietnam memorial and several others in Washington D.C. and had a blast. This was pretty much just a touristy day with lots of picture taking so I figured instead of talking you to death, I'll just show you what we saw and take you on your own personal tour (with me of course) of the monuments.This, although not a largely flattering picture of me, was my favorite part of the botanical gardens! The orchid room, orchids, orchids, orchids EVERYWHERE! Growing off of everything and it smelled amazing. (more pics on facebook if you want to see more of the Botanical gardens)

So when you first arrive to the Area of Monuments (love the fancy name I gave it? Classic.) We see the Washington Monument. Which coincidentally (because of the earthquake) we can't go inside. It's been cracked and there's water leaking from something so its unsafe. It is, however, entirely tall and overwhelming as you can see. Now I know your wondering, "Wheres the classic picture with the reflection pool?" To my dismay they are currently rebuilding the reflection pool and it is a pool no more (just dirt).
Next we arrive at the World War II Memorial which is HUGE! On either side of the entrance there are sculpted pictures in rock depicting the evolution of war on the West Coast (on one side) and East Coast (on the other). From afar this is what the monument looks like. After the WW II Memorial we went to the newly opened, Martin Luther King Memorial which is amazing and highly intimidating. As you can see, me and Martin Luther King share a remarkable resemblance. After the Martin Luther King Memorial we went to what I had been waiting to go to ALL DAY LONG! The Lincoln Memorial. It was fantastic! I really wanted to climb up and sit on his lap but decided it would be highly inappropriate and settled for this:) While walking around the memorial we saw these handsome Navy Sailors and asked them to take a picture with us! We talked with them a little and they said that our picture was probably the 3000th they'd taken that day hahaAfter this little detour we arrived at the Vietnam War Memorial (we also went to the Korean War Memorial but I didn't take any pictures sorry!) My favorite part of which was that you can see your face reflected in the names of those who passed away. Just like the picture below! (Its a long black wall in the shape of a V sort of with names like what you see here. The names are organized by the year they died, on either side of the very center are the names of those who died first and last in the war. Many people place pictures, flowers etc at the bottom of the wall because it serves as a grave for those who never got a body back to bury:(It was a long and wonderful day! Which ended with a ride home on the metro:) Which coincidentally is not nearly as difficult to navigate as I thought.It does, however, have a certain odor to it!

Bilbo Baggins and the Salad that was Duck.

Well ladies and gentleman who're reading this, yet another adventure in the city that is D.C. Well actually it takes place in Old Town Alexandria in Virginia. Its the cute old town with lots of shops and restaurants right near the dock of a river (not sure which one it was but I'll let you know). It was great the day started out with us finding out that riding a trolley is free (like so many other things out here in D.C. For example, the Smithsonian...oh yea.) We took a trolley in to the farthest end of town and began the day. There was this fantastic guy playing the national anthem on water glasses, and a man doing characatures (sp?), the smell of fish in the air. It was pretty much a mini-version of San Francisco with more trees.

After arriving we got a brochure that listed all the sites and restaurants in the area and we were starving. As Lene read aloud our options she came across Bilbo Baggins Restaurant, to say that i was excited is an understatement. Everyone else was leaning towards this French Cafe called Little Madelines but not I. Everyone could see how excited I was so we decided to take a detour of the main street and find this restaurant. It was far off the beaten path, but in my mind it was totally worth it. I mean Bilbo Baggins restaurant? I'm picturing small round doors, waiters dressed as hobbits, quaint background music (maybe even the soundtrack from LOTR playing). We get there and find out its a bar, but they've posted the menu for the restaurant outside and it doesn't look too bad. We're starving so we decide to eat there, big mistake. We walk in and I am immediately confronted with golf and fishing paraphernalia (random? YES!), as we continue to take in the scenery we are noticing more and more odd things. Random posters from the 1950's, old advertisements, I mean this is the most random out there spot I've ever been too. We all order and get our food, its ok not delicious but it did the job all right. Until we all notice Lene has a very unhappy expression she chose to order the whopping Duck Salad. Duck Salad?! Who orders Duck Salad from a bar menu in the middle of a run down junky street. Lene thats who. I tried a bite and the only way I can describe it is, it tasted like wet, spicy wood. Haha it was a pretty great day. We later ate at the Lavendar Moon Cupcake Cafe, which was festive and delicious, and window shopped around the town. It started raining around 4 so we called it a night and waited for the trolley under an overhang, where I proceeded to re-enact Gene Kelly's singing in the rain routine on the street with a lamp post. It was a fantastic trip and day.

FIRE!!! And free cupcakes

So this last Thursday morning (September 1st) I woke up at 3:45am to one of my roommates moms (she was visiting from Norway) screaming "FIRE! There's a fire!", upon opening the front door we were bombarded with white smoke and immediately turned around to grab a few things and evacuate the building (You know how people always ask what three things would you grab if there was an emergency and you had to leave your home? I always thought I'd grab my scriptures but I didn't even think about it. The only thing I thought to grab was my wallet which was inside my purse so I grabbed my purse, shoes and a random book that was on a table near the front door to read!). My purse also happened to have my camera so I was snapping pictures (all blurry by the way) like crazy throughout the whole ordeal (I was surprisingly calm and not worried at all for some reason). After about 20 minutes or so outside the building we were allowed back in. Some kids had taken the fire extinguishers from several floors and sprayed the floor with them, creating an illusion of "white smoke" in the hallway and pulled the fire alarm. Hurray for pranks! (Personally I think it served as a distraction or cover up for a robbery in one of our apartments, which sounds crazy but think about it...why would they do that on several floors, simultaneously? It was an organized effort...)

I have now toured my school, Maury Elementary, and met my Mentor Teacher (she's the teacher whose classroom I will be sitting in on and teaching in throughout this next semester). Her name is Mrs.Dorsey, she's been teaching 1st grade for 15 years (That's right! I'm in a first grade classroom! YAY!!). The kids in her classroom are darling, and I can't wait to get to know them better. Mrs.Dorsey does NOT mess around. She runs a seriously tight ship (her mom was a teacher too so she's super old school when it comes to the classroom). On my first day of observation one of her kids decided to complete the entire worksheet she had just handed out and he did it wrong. Mrs.Dorsey took his paper, said "No sir, we do not do that in this classroom" ripped it in half and had him get a new one and start all over. I am in for a wild ride, but I am really excited to start learning and teaching and sharing professional perspectives in the classroom with her and the students.

Friday night me and my roomies went to Georgetown, its like a downtown area with shops and restaurants, in Washington D.C. While walking around looking for a place to eat we came across this bridge over a river, with these tree branches reaching over it. I mean it was beautiful, right out of the Disney Movie Princess and the Frog. I'm positive that there was fireflies there later that evening, my roommate said she saw one. We decided to eat at an Italian restaurant called Pablo's (I got Pizza Rustico- it had Italian sausage, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions and potatoes! It was different but SO GOOD!). When they brought me my food, my pizza had a piece of rosemary on top that had been burned- so it had these glowing embers on it and was smoking a bit. It was SO COOL! I loved it, I had my roommate take pictures of it and I'll upload one soon (just for you Chelle, I know how much you love your food haha). Later that evening we decided to walk down to Georgetown Cupcakes (It's apparently a show on TLC, I've never seen it but my roomies were freaking out about going to it). When we got there it was closed and we were disappointed at first but than a guy appeared out of nowhere. He had overheard us talking about how it was closed and asked if we wanted some free cupcakes. He explained that he packs cupcakes there for a living (he was wearing a Georgetown shirt and waiting outside of the building for a ride home)and he always gets free ones at the end of the night, he said he'd packed himself some but he gets them so often that he gets sick of them and asked if we wanted them. We TOTALLY did! I was so excited I almost hugged him (If his ride hadn't gotten there I totally would have). We looked at them later- 20 cupcakes! Birthday cake, red velvet, chocolate, vanilla and peanut butter chocolate. They were so good! We've been making them last all weekend, we still have 4 left (and seeing as how there's 6 of us and its been 2 days I think we're doing pretty good). It was a great night!

I am loving DC so far. I will upload one or two pictures for each of the above events soon so you guys can see what I'm talking about!!

Bible Bashing and ROBERT!!!

So the last couple days have been busy and eventful to say the least. The next day (28th) after my flight was cancelled I flew out from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis, on it I was seated next to a Episcopalian Pastors wife (Jenny) and a Pentecostal Pastors son (Ken) who were very eager to "save me" so to speak. They were very genuine and sweet in their efforts to save my soul, feeling like we were meant to meet on this airplane. Little did they know what they asked for when they began our conversation. None of their arguments (and they were attempting to prove to me my church was wrong) were very solid, and I found that they simply ignored much of what I had to say. They repeated that I was a good person, and very "believable", by the end of the conversation Ken was convinced that I was sent by the devil to tempt him into believing the Church (he said I'd almost convinced him). I wasn't trying to convince anyone of anything, mostly I just wanted them to understand that I loved my church and there wasn't another one for me. I promised Jenny that I would read the book of John and Romans with her over the next month (even though I have read them several times before and mentioned this to her), and I am hoping that if I do this for her she will read some of the Book of Mormon for me (we exchanged e-mails). After an entire 2.5 hours was spent arguing, our flight was over I felt exhausted but happy about the interaction.

When I got on my next flight I got an AWESOME surprise, I was in first class on my flight from Minneapolis to DC. And when they say first class they mean it, I felt like I was royalty or something. A small cloth for my tray was laid down for me, I had a complimentary feast of beef, potatoes, bread sticks, fruit etc, I was drinking from a glass, they gave us a warm towel (for what I don't know, I politely declined), and served everything to us like we were at a restaurant. With the extra leg room, pillow, blanket and my book I was one happy little queen let me tell you- I LOVE Delta. After I landed I got in my first cab, my cabby was Pakistani and did not speak English, which worried me at first but I got here safely and he didn't try to cheat me at all by taking unnecessary turns. My apartment is wonderful!! You can see the pentagon from my window, the living room is huge and I am in the master bedroom!!

My first day in DC we rode the metro to the National Mall (where the Smithsonian, Washington Monument, Capital Building etc is) and at one of our stops something interesting happened. Someone was robbed. What I saw was a little boy, about 10, sprint through the metro station we were at, he was followed by a black woman carrying a heavy backpack who was trying to catch him, who was followed by a white lady speed walking to try to catch the little kid-she was screaming "Robert!! Robert!!" or at least thats what I thought. I found out soon after she was yelling robber and had been robbed. (Sidenote the DC metro is very safe, this was an unusual occurrence). I know I shouldn't find it too funny, but I really did watching the line of people try to plow through after this speedy little dude made me chuckle. After arriving at the National Mall we went to the National Gallery of Art! It was fun, my favorite part was seeing the Genevere De something, its a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, the only one in fact that he painted in the United States. I also have since visited the Library of Congress, ate lunch at the Union Station and taken pictures outside the Capitol Building (we plan on touring it soon).

Good Ole Irene

Well hello there ladies and gents, and welcome to my brand new blog. Today was my scheduled flight to DC however it has been (wait for it.....drum roll.....)CANCELLED! I flew from California to SLC for a 30 minute lay over. After boarding the plane that was to take me to Washington D.C. the pilot was notified that Good Ole Irene (aka the hurricane sweeping the east coast) had increased in intensity and we would be unable to fly there safely.We exited the plane and I proceeded to reschedule my flight, I will be leaving tomorrow at 2:15pm and arriving in DC around 10:30pm east coast time. Here comes the great part though, I am in SALT LAKE! At first I was worried but luckily I have two AWESOME friends who live in Salt Lake. Brittany rode to my rescue in her deep blue ride (aka the Van) and I will be staying with them for the evening. Everything worked out really well, now I get to say goodbye to the Gevas's (previously I was unable to do so because of conflicting schedules), I have a bed to sleep in, food to eat and I will have a packed lunch for the trip tomorrow! Plus I am surrounded by sweet little girls who love giving hugs and tickles (Katie and Ella, Britts two little girls who are ADORABLE!) I was also able to witness (as I people watched and awaited my hero at the airport) several reunions. I witnessed a missionary return from South America. A woman arrive home from the military (her entire family awaited her including her husband who gave her a yellow rose and was dressed to kill), a newlywed couple reunite after a long trip apart, and quite a few dads returning home to their small but sweet little families (both were greeted by their daughters with a run and jump!). Each was unique and special, and while it may have been slightly creepy of me it was neat to see so much love in my one little corner of the airport.



After a 5 hour nap on the Gevas couch, they took me out to the Spaghetti Factory for dinner and it was AWESOME! I had no idea the decor was so cool, it felt like old italy or a mob bosses house (because they are easily interchangeable haha). There was a trolly in the center of the restaurant, mismatched chairs and awesome chandeliers. Needless to say it was pretty amazing. Add that to the delicious clam sauced pasta I devoured (I was previously too nervous about the trip to eat so it had been a good 14-15 waking hours since I'd eaten), and the FREE glass I got with my dinner I am one happy camper.

Well, bye for now! Next time you hear from me I will hopefully have arrived safely in Washington DC and maybe I will even get to witness the tail end of Good Ole Irene, my very first hurricane experience (gotta love those hurricanes!).