Under the Sea!

I visited Mom and Dad and Timbo in Utah for a week and it was lovely!   I relaxed and watched movies and read books.  I started cleaning out my room (which I did not finish, but I got a good start).  I hung out with Dad, Mom and Tim.  I visited with a couple of old friends and went to a few new places. 

 

The Living Planet Aquarium was one of the new places I visited with Timbo.  I liked it.  It was pretty small and some of the tanks did not have signs there to tell us what we were looking at, but I liked it any way.  It had some cool fishies.  

 

Like this one. It did not have a sign near it but we thought these were awesome looking fish. 

See the black, round spiky thing?!  Well that's a sea urchin.  Isn't it cool looking?!

Can you guess what this fish is without looking at the next picture?  And yes the fish really glowed like that. 

 

The fish above is a red piranha. I imagined piranhas differently.  I think I expected them to have bigger teeth, but this piranha did not have big teeth.

They had penguins at the aquarium.  They were fun to watch as they waddled around with their wings out and played with one another.  They were cute.

 

Although it's hard to see the otters in this picture, they are there.  I had no idea that otters lived in the Provo River.  These otters did not come from the river, but they are the same kind that live there. They were a lot of fun to watch.  They're brothers and they wrestled a lot and went down the slide a couple of times. 

Tim touched a stingray.  I was not brave enough nor did I have any desire to touch it.  Go Tim! 

Look at this amphibious fish on the land with no legs.  And his eyes bulge out of his head.  It was so weird to me.   Look at the picture below to learn a little more about the mudskipper.

An axlotl.  This was also weird to me.  Essentially it's a water salamander. Read below to read more about it. 

There were also seahorses and an octopus and cockroaches and an anaconda and rainforest frogs and jelly fish and small sharks.  It took us a little over an hour to see everything and we even went back to see the otters and the penguins twice.   I thought our little adventure to the aquarium was worth it. Thanks Tim for coming with me.

Shuttle Landing!

We saw the Discovery space shuttle make it's final descent into Dulles International Airport on Tuesday April 17. 

Heather (one of my bosses), Coralee, me, and Wendy (and Kathy was the one who drove us to see the shuttle but she did not walk up with us)

I got into work on Tuesday and some of my co-workers mentioned that the space shuttle was flying around the D.C. area to make it's final descent at the Dulles Airport.  (The shuttle is to be housed at the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum which is very close to the airport.) 

We talked about it and decided it was worth it to go somewhere to try to spot the space shuttle being flown in.  We decided to go the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum parking lot to watch. On the way we saw a lot of cars parked a long the freeway and on bridges and a long exit ramps to get a good view of the shuttle.

We got off at the exit for the museum but we could not get all of the way to the parking lot because the exit to go up was blocked off.  So we parked a long the bottom of the exit ramp (a long with a lot of other cars) and walked up the ramp to get a good view of the shuttle.  

And it was an awesome view!  We waited for a while and then this is what we saw. 

 Look at all those people that were there with us.  I got goosebumps the first time it came around.

 It was a spectacular sight!

See the fighter jet above it. 

 It was right there.  We were so close.  We saw it twice from this vantage point.  It flew this low one time but did not land, then it flew around one more time and we saw it again and then it landed.  We could not see it land because there were trees in the way but it was awesome! 

 

If you look at this picture you will notice the little space man on the right hand side, which we thought was so cute :)

I am glad that we decided to take this little field trip from work and see a little part of history.

Harlem Globetrotters!

On January 6, I bought two tickets to see the Harlem Globetrotters with Spence on March 24 at the Verizon Center.  On January 10, Spence was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. (You can read updates about Spence here.) I was really excited about going with him, but after he went into the hospital and started chemotherapy, I soon realized that he would probably not be able to go with me. I kept on hoping that maybe that would be the week he was out of the hospital and he could still come, but alas it was not.

Although I was sad about not be able to go with Spence, I was able to go with Adam. And it was a lot of fun! If you've never been to a Harlem Globetrotters game, I would recommend it.  It was highly entertaining!

 During one of the plays, one of the Globetrotters got on the shoulders one of the other ones and they ran to the hoop and made a basket like that.  This is the player that was on the shoulders and he held on to the hoop and couldn't get down because he was "afraid" of heights.

 The mascot came out during one of the plays and started dancing.  This guy was hilarious!  I can't describe it, you just had to see it.

 The globetrotters dancing with the mascot. The dancing happened quite a bit and it was hilarious every time!

 This player got himself up on the hoop while they were playing and when the opposing team would shoot a basket he would kick the ball away from it so they couldn't score.  Then they started playing music and he was dancing away up there on the hoop. It was awesome!  

 Adam. It was hard to get a good picture of this boy.

 Me at half-time.  Adam wouldn't be in the picture with me. 

 

They had a guest player on the team.  I can't remember his name, but he was some professional football player that I also can't remember from what team.  (He's the one on the far right.  Number 21.  With his back towards us.)  

 

 Another picture Adam Adam bo badam during half-time.

 Some of the players up-close.

 So throughout the game, one of players (Special K), had a microphone attached to him and he was talking almost the whole time.  He would crack jokes and make fun of the players on the other team and the referees etc. It was quite funny!

A couple of times they brought kids out to the court to distract the other team.  They did cool tricks with the ball as they were playing.

Oh and they had two rules in the game that they normally don't have.  When someone got a penalty for bad behavior, they put the player in the penalty box for a certain amount of time and wouldn't replace him with another player.  So at one point there were three globetrotters in the penalty box and so it was two against five.  The two smallest players were the ones playing against the five from the opposing team.  They did some pretty awesome tricks at that time.

The second rule was when there was three minutes left in the quarter, they would sound a buzzer and there were four spots marked on the floor where if you made a basket from there it was worth four points.

 The one semi-decent picture of Adam and I.

The final score.  The game was awesome!  Thanks Adam for coming with me!  I loved it!

The Strength to Overcome

I have a lot of things I would like to post about, but I won't do it all in one post.  I guess my topic for today will be Mosiah 24.  I love Mosiah 24!

The people of Alma were in bondage to Amulon.  They were being persecuted. They had hard tasks put upon them.  They had taskmasters over them.  They were forbidden to pray aloud.  Their afflictions were great. (This is not the part I love.)

But I love the response of the people of Alma.  Although they could not pray aloud, they did pour out their hearts to Him continually and this is the response they got from the Lord.

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. 

 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

I love these verses because I realize that more often than not the Lord does not take our trials away from us although they are really really hard (and I know sometimes I would like them taken away), but He gives us the strength and the courage and the faith to overcome the trials and learn from them. 

Life is hard but the Lord is watching over us.  He loves us. He knows our needs. He wants to help us and if we pray always and strive to do our best, He will help us and comfort us. 

Crime and Punishment Museum and the Cherry Blossoms!

Today I went to downtown Washington D.C.  I bought a groupon ticket (it was half off) to go the Crime and Punishment Museum and I needed to use it soon and today seemed like a good day to. 

The museum was fascinating.  It was disturbing.  It was sad. It was informative.

 I believe this sign was talking about the Medieval Ages and I found it interesting.  Some of the ones I thought were fascinating and would put a lot of people in jail now were displayers of public affection, cursers, ballad singers, traveling musicians, magicians and actors, and liars. 

 

 

No kissing on the Sabbath. 

 I know there's a lot of reading in the pictures, but there was just so much information.

 Here's a mother who all four of her boys lived a life of crime. Some people think she might have been the mastermind behind some of the crimes her boys committed but others seem to think otherwise.  Meaning she aided and abetted them but did not plan the crimes.  She was a single mother who worked a lot and was not home very much to discipline her boys.

 I found this story interesting. He hijacked a plane, demanded ransom money, got the money and then jumped out of the plane (with a parachute) and was never seen again. They believe he lived through it, but went into hiding. 

 This picture goes with the hijacked plane one above. 

 Frank Abagnale Jr. We all know who he is from the movie "Catch Me if You Can" with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks.  I think I've heard it before but I forgot that he was a teacher's assistant at BYU with a forged degree from Columbia University. 

 He got away with some crazy things in his younger days.  He now works to fight against counterfeiters like he used to be. 

 I found it special that they put a dog in prison for killing a cat.  As it says on the sign, they probably did it to improve morale in the prison.  

 Here are some pictures that criminals have painted while in prison. A quote from the picture "On many occasions I have watched birds fly in and out of my prison, and I wanted to capture their free movement. Wish I had wings to take me out of here..."  He used very interesting materials to create this picture...toothpaste, baby powder, white out, colored pencils etc. 

 Here's another picture painted by a prisoner. 

I think I was in the museum for 2-1/2 hours or more. It was interesting but there was so much stuff to read.  There was stuff about torture devices, about high profile criminals such as Al Capone, Ted Kaczynski, Ted Bundy, John Dillinger, Jesse James and many many more, about the consequences of crime, about those brave men and women that fight crime etc.  It was fascinating but disturbing.  I almost cried at times (seriously).  This museum is not for kids. 

After the museum I ate my lunch at the sculpture garden across from the National Archives. But along the way to eat, I passed a cupcake shop that I decided to try (Red Velvet Cupcakery).  I bought a carrot cake cupcake (which was recommended by the cashier). 

I waited to eat the cupcake until I was closer to the tidal basin which is where I wanted to go next and see the cherry blossoms.  So I sat down next to a tree across from the tidal basin and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and ate the cupcake. It was yummy and I forgot to take a picture of the cupcake so the bag had to do for my evidence that I went there :)    

 Aren't the blossoms beautiful?!

 Me with the blossoms and the Washington Monument in the background.

 Upclose!

 I love the tidal basin and the Jefferson Memorial and the cherry blossoms combined!

 Self-portrait!

Some kind older gentleman saw me taking the self-portrait above and offered to take a picture for me. 

What a lovely day it was today!   I visited a new museum and learned a lot.  I enjoyed the beauties of nature and spring time.  The weather was warm but not overwhelmingly so.

Oh and Happy Saint Patrick's Day!  

Things That Make Me Happy :)

In no particular order

-Buying new books for really cheap
-Going to the theater (plays and movies) with friends or family
-Long walks 
-Big windows
-The library
-Red shoes
-The temple
-Clean clothes out of the dryer
-Going to museums with family or friends or alone
-Good music
-A dishwasher
-Concerts where I know most of the songs
-Talking to my family on the phone or even better in person
-Cheese
-Prayer
-Traveling by planes, trains, automobiles, or feet to new places or old
-Self-portraits
-The plan of happiness
-Nature

This is by no means a comprehensive list but just a few things that I love.

What are some things that make you happy?!