Job, Cherry Blossoms and Big Blue Rooster

I haven't mentioned this on my blog yet but I am currently without employment. My most recent job was funded through grants. We didn't get a new grant so they couldn't pay us any more and had to let us all go. I worked for that company for 10 years 10 months. I loved my job and I liked the people I worked with so it was hard to lose that job.

Since I lost my job, I decided I needed to be back in Virginia because that's where I want to be long term. So I flew from Utah to Virginia (I left my car in Utah for now) and have been staying with friends and family spending my days looking for a job, watching Korean dramas, hanging out with friends, and trying to stay sane. (I'll probably write another blogpost about job searching and being without a job).

One evening, I decided I needed a break from my regular routine of applying to jobs etc and planned a little field trip for the next day. I texted one of my former co-workers and invited her to join me the next day. (Although I have no pictures of Heather, she did come with me downtown.)

 

Although I knew the cherry blossoms were past their peak, I wanted to walk around the tidal basin and see what was left of the blossoms.

They were still pretty even if past their prime. :)

I like this shot with the cherry blossoms, the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial and the Washington Monument!

After walking around the tidal basin, we headed towards the National Gallery of Art East Building to see the big blue rooster statue on top of it.

We saw this fountain close to the art gallery and thought it was kind of cool. :)

The art gallery was closed for renovations and we couldn't see the big blue rooster up close, but we got to see it from across the street. 

Isn't it awesome?!

As we walked back to the metro, we saw this awesome construction cover. The Hirshorn Museum is under renovation and has scaffolding up around it and in order to cover up the scaffolding in a pretty way they put up these awesome curtains.

We also walked passed this building on the way to the metro and neither of us had ever been inside before and so we decided to go in and see the exhibit.

It's the Arts and Industries Building and it actually has been closed the whole time I've lived in Virginia so we were kind of excited to see there was an exhibit there. 

Up close of the sculpture from the picture above. 

FUTURES exhibit, What do we imagine when we think of the future? 

An air taxi. According to the sign at the exhibit, this is a Bell Nexus self-driving, hybrid electric air taxi. Maybe in the future this will be common way to get around. 

A lady had a sensor put in her arm to vibrate whenever an earthquake happens anywhere in the world, no matter how big or small. The vibrations are different depending on how big the earthquake is. Crazy. 

I did a little research on her after the exhibit and learned that she had the sensor put in her arm to incorporate into her contemporary dance routines and is contemplating getting more put in later.

An interesting sculpture at the exhibit.

Read this sign to learn about the sculpture in the previous two pictures.

I loved these vintage looking futuristic signs! How Kids Got the Vote, November 3, 2071.

I liked the FUTURES exhibit and thought it was interesting! I'm glad we happened to walk by and see that it was open.

Overall, I really enjoyed my field trip downtown this day! It was a good day and I'm glad Heather could join me on the adventure.

Ukraine

My heart hurts for Ukraine right now. It is so heartbreaking to me what is happening there right now. I don't really have the words to express my sadness and anger and helplessness I feel about the situation.

I'll just share some pictures of people I met and places I visited while living in Ukraine as a missionary. (I lived there from February 2005 to June 2006).

Beware this post is kind of long. 

I've been looking at pictures from my mission and reminiscing about the people I met and the experiences I had while living there.

I lived in two different areas in Kharkiv and this was in the second area I lived in, Novwe Doma. (I lived in 4 different cities on my mission but 5 different areas (2 in the same city) but I'll only talk about Kharkiv in this post).

The girl getting baptized in the picture above (Alisa) had friends who were members of the church and when my companion and I moved to the area, she was ready to hear the lessons. We taught her all of the lessons within a week and a half (we did it in a hurry because her family was moving to Russia and she wanted to get baptized before they left. We got special permission from the mission president for her to be baptized so quickly.)

She was a teenager at the time and although it took her dad a little bit of time to warm up to his daughter getting baptized into a church he knew nothing about, he eventually allowed it. Actually after the family moved to Russia and the dad was still in Ukraine tying up some loose ends, he ended up taking the lessons from the elders so that he could know more about the church that his daughter had joined.

This was also in Novwe Doma, Kharkiv. This was outside of the school building where we had church on Sunday. The members of the church in Ukraine are amazing! There weren't a lot of members in most of the branches I served in, but the ones that were there were strong and steadfast.

I met some awesome people while living in Ukraine and hope they're doing okay, but I have no way to contact most of them.

A street scene of Kharkiv near the apartment we lived in in Novwe Doma.

This was in my first area I lived in in Kharkiv, Severnaya Soltavka. 

Antonina and Dima, mother and son. Such a kind and good family!

Oleg and Natasha and their two children, Tanya and Alyosha. This family is awesome! The whole family has a really good sense of humor and loved to sing and play musical instruments for us when we visited them.

Severnaya Soltavka, Kharkiv. 

Ira and I don't remember the dad's name and their two children, Vitalek and Yulia.  

A good and awesome family and strong members of the church!

 

 The Rinok near our apartment in Severnaya Soltavka where we often bought food.

 

A church building they were building in Kharkiv, the first in the city at the time. It wasn't finished before I left the area, though, so I never got to meet in it. In both areas I lived in in Kharkiv, we met in school buildings for church.

Annunciation Cathedral in Kharkiv. Isn't it a pretty church?! (Us, missionaries, affectionately called it the candy cane church and you can probably tell why).

So my passport was stolen while I was on my mission. Although Kyiv was not part of our mission, my companion and I had to travel there so I could go to the US embassy and get a new passport. 

We ended up being able to do some sight seeing while in Kyiv so my companion and I walked around some of the popular sites there. 

This man was playing outside one of the churches we visited. He was a very nice man and played his instrument really well (I don't remember what kind of instrument it is).

I don't remember the name of this church, but it's somewhere in Kyiv. 

Liberty Square in Kyiv, where a lot of the Orange Revolution peaceful protests happened in 2004.

Another view of Liberty Square in Kyiv.

I was going to keep this post short and sweet, but that ended up being harder than I thought. Once I put the pictures up, I realized I had a lot to say. I just wanted to show some faces of Ukrainians who are living through this nightmare that is happening in Ukraine now (assuming they still live there and are still living). I also wanted to show what it looked like there 17 years ago before Ukrainians' hometowns started to be destroyed.

I cannot even imagine what kind of emotions the Ukrainians and other people who live in Ukraine are feeling right now. I hope and pray that this stupid stupid war will end soon with Russia leaving Ukraine alone and the Ukrainians getting their homeland back.

Nine Mile Canyon

My brother, N, came into town over a three-day weekend recently. On that Monday holiday, H, N and I drove to Nine Mile Canyon, about two hours from our parents house. 

H had been there multiple times and really liked it and wanted to show it to N and I. It was really cool! I think it's been described as the world's longest outdoor art gallery.

There were multiple panels of petroglyphs in the canyon. They were really cool to see and it was interesting thinking about the stories of the people who carved those scenes so long ago. 

I don't remember all of the names of the different panels but enjoy the pictures!

Can you tell what the carvings are supposed to be?!

 

 

This is the only panel that I remember the name of, The Great Hunt.

 

If you ever get a chance to go to Nine Mile Canyon, you should. It's a bit of a drive depending on where you're staying in Utah but it's worth it!

Drive around Utah Lake

One day I was antsy and needed to get out of the house. So my sister, H, and I went on a drive around Utah Lake, through Goshen Canyon and through Eureka. It was a really pretty drive! (And I just realized I didn't actually get any pictures of the lake. Oh well. 🤷) 

Enjoy the pictures!

A picturesque old gas station on the south side of Utah Lake.

This part of the drive was a little detour from driving around the lake. 

We drove to Eureka. It's a cute little town somewhere west of Utah Lake. They got a lot more snow than we did in the valleys.

 

 

This is in Goshen Canyon. Isn't it pretty?! 

H took this picture and the next two pictures as well!

It was a lovely drive around Utah Lake, Goshen Canyon, and Eureka! I'm glad we went. 😁