So My friend here in Virginia has been trying to plan a trip to the beach for awhile, and this last weekend we finally were able to make a trip to the Atlanitic Ocean. I can now say that I have been from Sea to Shinning Sea. I also went straight through forbidden territory, and I enjoyed every second of it. I was also able to add 2 more states to my list of ones I have been to. That is 4 states in 5 months, not bad I don't think. We have a beach probably about 2 hours from where I live, but we went to a beach 7 hours away, so I must say that that is quite some dedication to get to the beach, Also my sister is serving at the town of the beach close to here so I don't think it would have been to excessively smart of me to go to that beach until she gets a transfer. The beach was Amazing, lots of fun, and I got to spend it with some pretty wonderful people. The only down side of going to the beach is the sun, and they sunburns you get from it... and yes I did put sunscreen on, it was just SPF 15, we didn't wait at all after we put it on before getting into the water, and I just put it on once... so needless to say, I am burnt, but I have high hopes of it turning into a tan... a weird tan I am sure but a tan nonetheless. I had never tanned before now.
Sorry about the lack of pictures again, I am horrible with that I know.
PS. about 26 days before I leave for the West coast, I get to see my parents, sisters, grandparents and the 2 cutest boys that have ever lived.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Parents in the DC
Alright, so I am an absolute failure when it comes to blogging these days, My parents left 2 weeks ago and I am just now getting around to blogging about their trip here, which was a blast. I loved having them here. So here is a recap of what we did.
They got here Wednesday the 9th, and we really just spent the evening together, working out details about when my trip out to the west coast will be and how long and all of that fun stuff. On Thursday I had to work, but because I am a wonderful worker I was able to talk my boss into letting me leave early, so to fill the rest of my day we spent it in Washington DC at the Mall, my mom had never been and my dad hadn't been since he was 17 so really it was a new experience for them both.
Thursday was really spent just walking around looking at all, and I mean all of the monuments, it never looks like they are that far away from each other in all the pictures, but then when you walk the reflection pond from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial you realize that it is a forever and a half distance away.
The nice thing about DC area is the nice public transportation, so instead of driving around DC where the roads are crazy and the drivers are horrible, we are able to ride in the metro, and a pretty decent price.
On Friday we headed back to DC, this time to walk around the museums. We went to the Air and Space museum, which was nice, but really really crowded, and for anyone who knows me, or my family really, knows that we don't do well with the big crowds, but we enjoyed the museum anyways. Then we headed over to the Art museum... I took and art appreciation class in college a couple of semesters ago, it didn't really help with my appreciation of it. So I really just walked around glancing at all of the paintings, some were really nice, but there is only so much that I personally am able to get from them. Then nice thing about that gallery though was that it wasn't nearly as crowded as the Space museum. We then went to the museum where all of the Special papers are kept, I can't think of the name of it at the moment, but it is the place with the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, along with other many important documents for our nation. And for those of you wondering, there is no map on the back of the Deceleration of Independence, they made sure to announce that so we wouldn't be tempted to look. On our way back to the metro we stopped at the National History Museum so my mom could see the Star Spangled Banner, the museum was a lot less crowded that time then what it had been the week before. We also stopped by to see Julia Child's kitchen and while there we learned how to make an omelet.
Saturday was spent at Mount Vernon, it is still my favorite place out here so far, probably because they have kept it up, and have tried to keep it very similar to how George Washington kept it in his life, different of course, but similar. We took a boat ride down the Potomac, and listened to the Doctor of George Washington speak about their relationship, and also the Granddaughter of George Washington. My Favorite was the Doctor, he played his role very well and had the best accent ever. At the end of the day I was burnt, but Happy.
Sunday was a laid back day because I had work the next day and was very tired, so we just drove up to the temple and walked around the grounds for awhile, it was very peaceful and I loved it.
Monday I went back to work so we didn't do much after and Tuesday my parents left to go back home.
I really enjoyed the week I had to spend with my 2 favorite people in the world and I can't wait to see them again.
PS. I got my Car! Henry and I will be doing some traveling in the next 17 or so months so stay tuned.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
What Went Wrong
Ok, so for the few days my parents have been out here we have been running around like crazy doing many of the wonderful things that you can do out here on the east coast, ans that includes experimenting with baking. While at Boarders yesterday night my mom found a cook book for baking that was just 6 dollars! So I had to have it, it has many recipes that look amazing and that I can't wait to try, I know that it wont be perfect the first time, but it will be fun experimenting and seeing what I can make. So look for future posts on my baking. In the book they have sections of what went wrong, these sections show you pictures of different things and explains how it isn't perfect and of course what went wrong. For my first attempt with my mom on a recipe in the book, we perfected the What Went Wrong in many of the steps that we took.
In the above picture is a slab of butter on our pastry, this is the start of the puff pastry that we were attempting to make, the problem was that our butter was to soft in some places and to hard in another, so we had it both squeezing out and breaking through the dough.
In this picture we have the dough all rolled out, it isn't a nice as what it should be, it didn't look at all like what the book showed, and we didn't roll it out thin enough, but at this point we just really didn't care.
This is the one picture that shows it looking good, and how it is supposed to look, I think.
Now you can really tell where we went wrong... We baked it for far to long, and we ended up with a burnt product, and we believe that if we hadn't burnt it it would have turned out pretty well.
So stay tuned for more experiments, and updates on my adventures with my new cook book.
In the above picture is a slab of butter on our pastry, this is the start of the puff pastry that we were attempting to make, the problem was that our butter was to soft in some places and to hard in another, so we had it both squeezing out and breaking through the dough.
In this picture we have the dough all rolled out, it isn't a nice as what it should be, it didn't look at all like what the book showed, and we didn't roll it out thin enough, but at this point we just really didn't care.
This is the one picture that shows it looking good, and how it is supposed to look, I think.
Now you can really tell where we went wrong... We baked it for far to long, and we ended up with a burnt product, and we believe that if we hadn't burnt it it would have turned out pretty well.
So stay tuned for more experiments, and updates on my adventures with my new cook book.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Needing to Update.
Ok so it has been a couple weeks since I last posted, I really should have posted yesterday, but I was tired, busy, and really just not up to it. When my aunt Jeanine was out here she had me promise her that every Friday I had off I would go see something new in Washington DC, well I was thinking, I can do the every month thing, but going by myself, probably not. So the first Friday since then was just this last one and it just so happened that my Aunt Lisa, Uncle Bob, and one of my cousins were planning on coming and spending Friday in DC, so I was able to go and join them. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I packed my camera but forgot to charge the batteries.
We started out at the Arlington National Cemetery, This was my first time actually going in and experiencing it first hand, I had seen it from a distant the 2 previous times I had been in DC. We went on the bus tour, which was really pretty cool, we saw the graves of many soldiers, and of many famous people throughout US history. The coolest thing though, and I am sure a lot of people think this, was the grave site of the unknown soldier, which really has three unknown soldiers from the Koren, WWI and WWII. What I thought was pretty cool was how much respect and honor our country gives those soldiers, and all of the other ones that are laid there. We were able to see the changing of the guard and through the whole thing there was always a guard on the black walk way in front of the grave. There had been a lawn mower going but as soon as the changing of the guard ceremony started everything stopped until it was over.
After the cemetery we headed back into DC, and we stopped by the National History Museum, aside from all the school groups running around, it was pretty cool to see. The best part was going into the room where the Star Spangled Banner is and seeing that HUGE flag that is pretty old.
We Walked through the WWII memorial, and then headed up to the Lincoln memorial, which is still my favorite, and on our way back to the Metro to head to their hotel room we walked by the Vietnam wall, there were a lot of names on that wall. On our way to the metro we were walking to some benches to sit down for a minute and I had squirrel attack me!! It jumped out of a trash can hit me then scampered up the closest tree, it was funny but it startled me.
It was a very nice day, I was glad to be able to spend it with family, and I was glad I was able to see my cousin before he leaves on his mission in a couple weeks.
Oh and my parents will be here Wednesday night! I can't wait!
We started out at the Arlington National Cemetery, This was my first time actually going in and experiencing it first hand, I had seen it from a distant the 2 previous times I had been in DC. We went on the bus tour, which was really pretty cool, we saw the graves of many soldiers, and of many famous people throughout US history. The coolest thing though, and I am sure a lot of people think this, was the grave site of the unknown soldier, which really has three unknown soldiers from the Koren, WWI and WWII. What I thought was pretty cool was how much respect and honor our country gives those soldiers, and all of the other ones that are laid there. We were able to see the changing of the guard and through the whole thing there was always a guard on the black walk way in front of the grave. There had been a lawn mower going but as soon as the changing of the guard ceremony started everything stopped until it was over.
After the cemetery we headed back into DC, and we stopped by the National History Museum, aside from all the school groups running around, it was pretty cool to see. The best part was going into the room where the Star Spangled Banner is and seeing that HUGE flag that is pretty old.
We Walked through the WWII memorial, and then headed up to the Lincoln memorial, which is still my favorite, and on our way back to the Metro to head to their hotel room we walked by the Vietnam wall, there were a lot of names on that wall. On our way to the metro we were walking to some benches to sit down for a minute and I had squirrel attack me!! It jumped out of a trash can hit me then scampered up the closest tree, it was funny but it startled me.
It was a very nice day, I was glad to be able to spend it with family, and I was glad I was able to see my cousin before he leaves on his mission in a couple weeks.
Oh and my parents will be here Wednesday night! I can't wait!
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