Mother Nature is Alive and Kickin'!

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I have lived in the D.C. area for a total of about 2 years and 9 months. It seems in the time that I've lived here, Mother Nature has shown her power and let us know that she's alive and kickin'.

When I moved here in 2009 after I graduated from BYU, I was here for the winter of snowmageddon. I was definitely not prepared for that one.  Schools were cancelled for days at a time, some work places closed for many days, people could not get out of their neighborhoods, electricity went out, powerlines and tree branches broke. It was rough.  Click here to read a short post of my thoughts about the snow that year and here to see some pictures from my sister, Lara's, blog, who I was living with at the time.

We had the heavy rains in summer 2011 from Hurricane Irene in August and more heavy rains in September that flooded our basement a long with many others.

We had the 5.9 earthquake on August 23, 2011, which caused minor structural damage to some buildings including the Washington Monument which is still closed to the public. You can read about my experience with the earthquake here.

Then we had the Derecho storm back on June 29 of this year, where many branches fell and some trees (large and small) were uprooted, roofs were damaged, and some people without electricity for a week.  I was outside when this storm happened and you can read about it here. 

Now we are awaiting Hurricane Sandy to make its way to us.  Hurricane Sandy is supposed to bring heavy rains, damaging winds and cold weather.  We are hankering down, preparing for the worst but hoping for the best.  We will see and I will let you know on the other end of the storm how I and those around me fared. May all of us be kept safe as we see what Mother Nature brings our way in the next few days. 

My Birthday with Lots of Pictures and Captions Too :)

In case you didn't know I turned 29 (for the first time:) on Saturday. I am glad that I was occupied with fun activities on my birthday, otherwise I would have thought way too much about how old I was turning and felt sorry for myself.   But I will admit that I may or may not have had a little bit of a break down a few days before my birthday, (Almost to the point of tears. Almost. Not quite.)  But don't worry I am okay now and I realize that I am just one year older and wiser too.

So this year for my birthday I decided, for my something I've never done before, that I needed to do something outside. 

I had a few activities in mind but one won out over the others. What did I do for my birthday you ask? Well I went to the Renaissance Festival in Maryland with some friends.  I have never been to a Renn Fest before and I was excited to check it out.

Side note: I took a lot of pictures and couldn't decide which ones not to put in so there are lots of pictures in this post.

 The entrance to the festival.

 The first act we watched.  They sang old songs and told jokes. I must admit I was surprised by the amount of the people in the audience that were singing a long with the songs.

 So part of the awesomeness of the festival was the food!  I ate lots of it.   I took a picture of all of the food I ate.

See those awesome fried triangles on a stick? Of course you do. Well that is fried macaroni and cheese.  It was so good!  I mean almost anything fried is awesome, but these were surprisingly good!

 Some of the restaurants.  All of the buildings and stages at the festival are permanent.  So it's a whole village of Renaissance type buildings and stages and shops and food etc. And since there were no cars allowed too, it almost felt like we were transported back in time. (Almost. Not quite.) It was pretty awesome though! 

 Fried peasant bread with butter on it = awesomeness!

 Cheesecake on a stick dipped in chocolate = sweetness!

 Emily and I waiting in line to ride the elephant.  I didn't know there would be an elephant there, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to ride.  Who knows when I will ever get the chance again.

 Although the ride was a really short one, it was worth it to pay the extra money.  It was another something new on my birthday and now I can say I've ridden on an elephant.

 One of the stages.

 The king and queen.

 Kara, Emily and I eating corned beef.   

I saw the corned beef vendor and had to get some. I remember as a young'un, on my birthday, whenever Mama would ask me what my favorite meal was, I would say corned beef hash.  So I was way excited when I saw the vendor and couldn't resist buying a corned beef sandwich.
 

 They had carts like these all around the village.

 I took this picture because I thought the pumpkin head on the mannequins was interesting and I liked the costumes of the people sitting in front of the shop.

 My orange slushie that tasted like a dreamsicle.  It was so good!

 We watched a jousting tournament.

Apparently this was a real jousting tournament, where people came from all over the country to compete.

The very first round of jousting, one of the guys was knocked off his horse.  He was fine, since he was in his armor and there were people there ready to help him.

No one else was knocked off their horse so to begin with someone falling off the horse added some action to the tournament.

 But a few lances did fly and break.

 The men on the horses were the jousters.  Most of them were older men.  This was after the jousting was over and they were announcing the places that each jouster had just placed.

 Princess Merida and Queen Elinor from Brave.  They told us that they made these costumes themselves. We thought the costumes were pretty awesome!

 Some weird guy on stilts.

 I really liked this dress.

 These awesome actors acted out a condensed version of Macbeth in less than 20 minutes.  Now that takes some talent :)

 Funnel cake fries.  I think these were my favorite food at the fair!

 I basically just took this picture because of the awesome hair of the boy on stage.

 Another stage.

 Megan, Kara, Emily and I.   Thanks for celebrating my birthday with me!

 On our way out of the festival.  It was time to go home.  We stayed there for about 6 hours.

 A self-portrait at the entrance on our way out.

 Captain America made his appearance at the Renn Fest.

After we got home, we went to the store and Emily insisted on buying me cake and ice cream so that I could blow out candles on my birthday (and I let her:).  We decided these mini cupcakes would be good since we had already eaten so much that day.

There were only 12 candles on those cupcakes and I still couldn't blow them all out. How pathetic is that?!  We ate cupcakes and ice cream  then watched a movie.

Saturday was a lovely day and I am grateful for the friends I shared it with!

Happy Birthday to Me!

More details and pictures to come about my lovely day today!  (I just had to post while it was still my birthday!)

Fall Time!

I love the fall time!  Today I was walking outside near work when I had to stop and stare at a row of four trees against a brick building that were a stunningly beautiful red color.  All four of them.  And yesterday, I was walking on the W. & O.D. trail and saw a magnificent tree that was orange and red with some green still left. I love it! I did not have my camera with me either time but even if I did I don't think there is anything that could do the fall colors justice.

Fall time is just so beautiful!  I think of the fall colors as the Lord painting us a colorful masterpiece before the winter comes on. (Although winter is beautiful in its own way too.) Not only is the fall time beautiful but it's cooler outside and it's hard to not be outside during the sunny, cool fall days crunching the falling leaves under my feet or soaking up the cool autumn sun or admiring the colorful trees or smelling the autumn air.

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.”

-Stanley Horowitz

 

What a Beautiful Day!

 Yesterday was a good day!  I woke up early and went to Lake Accotink Dam. I ran on the trail around the lake.  I came to a place where I had to decide which way to go and there were no signs telling me which way would lead me around the lake. I tried three different ways and turned around three times and just ended up going back the way I came from. I ran over 4.5 miles.

The lake is beautiful and yesterday was a crisp, cold, sunny morning.  The picture above is the only photo I got from there yesterday.  I like the raised train track.

Later in the day, I donated blood. My iron fortified cereal I eat every morning (Dad that ones for you) and meatloaf I made at the beginning of the week and spinach salads paid off because my iron was high enough that I could donate.  Yay!

Then later in the evening I went to a fancy dinner at the church.  I went over to my friend McKaylee's house before hand and she helped me do my hair and makeup, then we drove over to the church and the men in our ward served us, women, dinner.  The food was yummy and the entertainment was awesome!

The picture above is a roommate picture of Kara, Sarah and I. (Michelle wasn't there because she is in a different ward.)

Here's a self-portrait for the post. 

Overall yesterday was a lovely day! Just wanted to share it and remember it!

Random Thoughts on Change...

Beware this post is long and somewhat boring...

I have lived in Northern Virginia for almost exactly a year and a half now.  I have been at the same job for the same amount of time.  As a matter of fact, the job I currently have is what brought me out here, this third time around. Including the time I lived here for a summer while on break from school, the time I lived here right after I graduated from BYU, and up until now I have lived in Virginia for a total of about 2 years and 9 months.

Growing up we moved around a lot and after I graduated from high school, the moving didn't stop. In fact I moved even more after I graduated.  If I counted all of the times I have moved in my life, it would be over 30 times.  This includes all moves within a city, across the country, to another country, just for a summer or a semester.  Moves where I had to take all of my stuff out of one place to another. 

So thus far in my life, I am usually the one who lives in a place, makes friends and then moves away and everyone else just stays put and goes on with their life without me. They make really good friends because they stay in one place for a long time.  (Ok I realize I am over generalizing and I know that there are people that have moved just as much as me, if not more, but just go with me on this one.)

I have enjoyed the experiences in all of the places I've lived.  Some I enjoyed more so than others, but I have met a lot of people and had some learning and growing experiences in all of the places I have lived.

Now I am getting to a point in my life where I feel I should make some roots and stay in one place for a few years.  But you want to know what that means, that means making friends, becoming attached to them, then watching them leave and move to a different stage in life. That is hard.  It's one thing when you're the one doing the moving and starting over in a different place with a fresh start.  It's another thing when you're staying in the same place with the same surroundings and some of the same people and a good friend moves on. 

Having lived here for a year and a half now, this not uncommon phenomenon has happened to me a couple of times and I know it will continue to happen.  It's always hard for me, but I just recently read an article in the October Ensign that gave me some comfort on this topic:

The author was reflecting on her time at university where she made really good friends and then when everyone graduated they parted ways.

"Now we had graduated and moved to places all over the world, finding ourselves in situations we never could have predicted. I sighed with momentary feelings of loss, then glanced around the room at the laughing faces surrounding me at that moment and was struck by the sudden thought: good things keep on coming."

"I knew that even though some good things must naturally come to an end and that there would undoubtedly be many hard things in the future, the good things would keep on coming. And they always would—as long as I let them."

"Sometimes it is hard to move on, but we must. And moving on doesn’t mean forgetting friendships, forcing memories to fade. It means opening our hearts to even more happiness and more experiences."

People come and go in our lives. Some people stay longer than others, but I believe every person comes into our lives for a reason. Let us remember the good times with friends from the past but continue to make good memories with our friends in the present. 

Harper's Ferry is Beautiful!

Day 2 of our mini-vacation...

Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  Look at the awesome view from the cemetery down to the Potomac.  One of the most beautiful sites in the world! 

I took a picture of this gravestone because of what year she was born.  1781...  Crazy.

This is from Jefferson rock where Thomas Jefferson declared that "this scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic."  It is beautiful!

Ruins of a church on our way down from the cemetery and Jefferson's rock.

St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church just down the way from the ruins and you can see the top of it from Jefferson's rock.  The church has beautiful stained glass windows, vaulted ceilings, and pointed archways inside.  It's beautiful!

I really liked these flowers!

A reenactor teaching some tourists how to properly hold and shoot a Civil War gun.

Ruins of a cotton factory on Virginius Island at Harper's Ferry.  I really liked these ruins.  We sat on the edge of the ruins for a little while (where Anne and Kara are sitting) enjoying the awesome view of God's creations! Oh how I love nature! (We had to walk on the brick wall in the left of the picture to get to the edge)

Sitting on the wall of the ruins above.

Some more ruins. Virginius Island was so peaceful!

From the ruins above.

A cool bridge over the canal.

A picture in a Civil War background.  If you look closely you can see my raccoon eyes.  I got pretty sunburned on Saturday from being outside all day and because I was wearing sunglasses I looked like a raccoon.

The weather was perfect both Saturday and Sunday.  Both days were fun and relaxing!  Thanks Kara and Anne for letting me come a long for the ride :)