Peace in the D.C.

Catchup real fast- The Friday before Kaitlin's wedding was Ashley's birthday. So, we went to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, and then to a National's Baseball game! I love baseball games. It was really fun except for the nasty misty rain. But here are some pictures from our adventures:

Our beloved Foggy Bottom metro station.The baseball diamond!
The gang at the game. Ashley with her fantastic birthday treat. Elvis's jogging suit! Marvin Gaye's suit. Yes, that is the Beat It jacket. Yes, I was in shock. And Yes, nobody understood my excitement because the world has a hard time appreciating greatness until something horrible happens.

So for a while there, my weekends were CRAZY. I was going out of town every weekend, and I was having a blast, but it was exhausting! The last two weekends were very relaxing in comparison. I didn't travel anywhere, but I still had some fun...

Weekend One:
Friday: The Capitol tour. Well, first we had a briefing with Congressman Matheson in one of the House office buildings on the Hill. It was good- I liked him, but I was a little T.O.ed because he didn't ask if anyone was from his district, and I had been SO EXCITED to tell him that I was from St. George! It was very disappointing. And THEN, we took a very very short tour of the capitol. We literally only went to the rotunda and to statuary hall. That is only a very little amount! Dumb.

But then, that night, me, Ashley, Kate, Taryn, and Erik went to Old Towne Alexandria! It is one of my favorite places. It's so cute and old and charming! We walked down King Street to the Old City Hall and then to the pier and sat on the dock. The pier was super fun because it was kind of like a carnival, except not on purpose and not for any special event. There were just random guys standing around making balloon animals or playing multiple instruments at one time like Bert on Mary Poppins. They just do these sorts of things for their jobs! Like the balloon animal guy is a career balloon animal maker! My eyes were opened to so many more career paths! Imagine being a little kid and having a balloon animal maker for a dad. What would you want to be? Perhaps a professional face-painter, an acrobat, or some sort of street minstrel?


My head looks like a turtle in that picture. That's why I posted it. Because my neck looks funky.

Saturday: All day service project and the ZOO!!

We did our semester service project at this one place (I don't remember what it's called) where they take care of pregnant women. I guess it's a woman's prenatal clinic, except it's free. And it's painted really bright colors and they do other things there too like give classes and stuff. It's really a cool place. We had to be there at 7:30am on Saturday morning, and were divided up into several groups to clean out this nasty giant aquarium thing, pull weeds, clean out the attic, clean out the garage, cut some paper (I was inclined to volunteer for this position, but I decided it was time to branch out. I'm way too good at cutting paper already), and paint the fence. I was in the fence painting group, which, luckily enough, didn't have any supplies for the first 2 hours of the project! So instead of painting right away, we sat around! And then we helped every other group finish their jobs so that by the time the paint stuff came, all 50 of us were raring to go, ready to paint that fence. These people, I think, clearly underestimated the capabilities of 50 Mormon young adults. We have LOADS of energy, and we have been trained to do service with a smile since birth. Really and truly, we sat around a lot of the time simply because we finished the assigned tasks so quickly and didn't know what to do next! It was great. It was cool that the women's clinic people underestimated our ability to work, but it was not so cool when they underestimated the amount of pizza that we would need for lunch. Sometimes 8 boxes of pizza just won't cut it when there are 50 mouths to be fed. :(

It was fun, though. I really do love service projects. Painting that fence was fun- and it didn't get too hot. But I did get paint all over my clothes. Oil based paint. I hate that stuff.

So after the service project, we went to the ZOO!!! I had been talking about going to the zoo for ages, and it finally happened!! The National Zoo is a good zoo, but it is not the best zoo. I firmly believe that it is not the best zoo for 2 reasons: 1) It is government funded. 2) It's free.
So anywho, our first and highest priority was to see the pandas because Adam insists that he IS a panda. And you know what? The pandas were my favorite part. There was one that had some personality and actually tried to eat a tree while we were watching it! We saw lots of elephants and other animals after that, but the end was my other favorite part. In the ape house there was a gorilla with a baby! It love babies! The mommy had the baby all tucked up in its arm and you could only see it sometimes, but it was so cute! Best part ever. The zoo gang, before I forget, included: me, Adam, Genevieve, Kate, Ashley, Erik, Jon, Alicia, Matt, Taryn, and Amanda. I think that Ryan and the other Matt were there part of the time too.

Weekend Two:
Friday: briefing at the National Defense University. I'm going to describe this very quickly: INTENSE. So, we were all given assignments for the briefing- it was role play where we were given a scenario between Mexico and the United States and we had to meet in delegations, and bilaterally, and talk out all the issues. Basically we were set up in diplomacy teams and we were trying to solve the world's problems. My assignment was Secretary of State. That meant that I had to control the meeting with the delegation from the U.S., and then I had to be the spokesperson when we met with Mexico. Both were very intimidating, daunting tasks. IT STRESSED ME OUT. Our first scenario was basically current conditions between the two lovely countries and drug cartels that are based in Mexico but are spreading north. We talked over the issues, and thought we had the situation under control with Mexico. But THEN, the scenario changed after lunch. Now, the border was controlled by the evil cartels, there was mass chaos in Mexico, the government was being overthrown, and there were random outbursts of cartel-induced gang violence in the United States! The border was about to be overrun by crazies, and people were dying!! As secretary of state, I asked congress for an imidiate declaration of war on drug cartels. They gave it to me.... but then we realized that most of the problem was really Mexico's, and that we could lay back and have them tell us what they wanted. I loved being the higher power... But it was still very stressful. ESPECIALLY when we met with Mexico and they claimed to already have the military might to destroy the cartels- without U.S. intervention. That was a bunch of hogwash. It they had the military power, why were there cartels with so much power in the first place? Why was this even an issue?! There was no talking sense into the Mexican delegation- they stuck their noses up at us and were very defensive. Luckily the simulation ended before a riot broke out. :) Tough crowd.

I was too worn out from all the Defense University craziness to do anything that night. Or anything else the rest of the weekend, for that matter.

Saturday: Did absolutely nothing besides sleep in, go to the gym, and clean. Oh wait. I went Kayaking on the Potomac. That was fun. :)

P.S. If you haven't already, you should read (or just look at the pictures and leave a comment) the post about Kaitlin's wedding. It's under the music video one.