My First Broken Bone!

OUCH!

SNOW!

Recently I have not liked the snow. I think I've lived too many places where it was cold and snowy in the winter (Minnesota, Russia, Idaho, Utah, and Ukraine). I came to Virginia with the idea in my head that it rarely snowed and when it did it only lasted a day or at the most a week and it happened in January or February. I did not prep myself for the snow we've had in the past couple of weeks. A couple of weeks ago it snowed about 4 or 5 inches and and it stayed for a few days because it was so cold. I was not happy about that.

Then Friday night it started snowing and it snowed all day Saturday. In the final tally we got a whopping 20 inches of snow, which is a lot for Virginia. At first I was not very happy about it then I decided I should play in the snow. It ended up being a lot of fun! I went sledding and made a snow angel and attempted to make snow balls and walked through the deep snow! It was fun! Snow is beautiful even if it is cold and slippery. It makes the world look so bright and clean! And we will have a white Christmas! YAY!

Virginia is for Book Lovers!

I love Fairfax County Libraries! Let me tell you why. I went to the library in a city I do not live in with two pieces of mail addressed to me and they gave me a library card free of charge. The card works in all of the libraries in the county and you can return the books to any of the libraries regardless of where you checked the book out from. It is awesome!

Maybe for most people this is normal, but for me who just recently came from Utah, I was in heaven! In Utah County, if you do not have a library in your town, then you have to pay $60 or more a year to get a card. And you can only use the card at that one library where you got it from. Some of the libraries are not all that big and so you are very limited in your choice of books and you can not go to another to see if they have what you want unless you want to pay another $60+ to get another card.

I'm pretty sure after I got my library card here I called up my parents and almost all of my siblings to share the exciting news! Seriously I love it!

Visitin' the Presidents!

I had the day off today and it was a gorgeous day! I decided I wanted to do something downtown D.C. I decided to go to the FDR Memorial and walk around the Tidal Basin. Of course if one walks around the Tidal Basin one must stop at the Jefferson Memorial.

First I went to the Jefferson Memorial. I really like it! I think it's a fitting tribute to a great president! It was so peaceful there. After I stopped there for a while, I made my way over to the FDR Memorial. I also really liked that too. It was very unique and beautiful! I loved all of the waterfalls there. I'm sure there is some significance to them although I do not know what (or maybe they're just there for beautifulness. I do not know.) It was a gorgeous day and a perfect day to be outside.

As I walked around the Tidal Basin, I enjoyed the beautiful red, yellow and orange leaves on the trees. I watched the reflection of the Washington Monument on the water change as I walked around. I oohed and ahhed over the way the sun was shining through the clouds. Did I mention it was a gorgeous day?!

After I finished walking around the Basin, I went towards the Washington Monument. I wanted to go to the top of the monument but alas the tickets were sold out for the day and oh yeah did I mention that my battery in my camera died? I took one picture with my camera and it died. It was sad, but of course I still enjoyed the lovely day!

I made my way over to the National Portrait Gallery on foot where I met my friend, Elizabeth. We met up and went inside the huge museum and looked around a bit and then decided to wander outside. We saw a beautiful, bright rainbow over the capital building as we were walking. It was magnificent! Then we went to the top of the Old Post Office Tower. The sun was starting to set behind the Washington Monument and the clouds were really cool!

At this point, Matt called me and asked if I wanted to meet up with him and Lincoln and go to Spence's football game. So Elizabeth and I hopped on the metro home and parted ways then I met up with Matt and went to Spence's football game. They lost. But Lincoln is really cute :)

I Rock!

In September, I canned for the first time ever all by myself. On Labor Day, Lara, Glen, Spence, Cami, Emma, Adam, Ellie and I went raspberry picking and picked about 5 lbs. We knew we wouldn't be able to eat them all before they went bad, so I planned on making raspberry jam out of them. I had never done this, but with the directions in the pectin package and maybe a few clarifications from Lara, I did it all by myself. It made the three jars above plus part of another one. The jam was pretty good, if I do say so myself :) I think we've eaten them all now except a little bit of one of them. I ROCK!!!

Shenandoah National Park!

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day! The leaves are in their prime of changing colors and we had nothing going on after church, so we decided to take a little trip to Shenandoah National Park. Lara, Glen, Spencer, Cami, Emma, Adam, Ellie and I started off on our journey to the park.
It took about an hour to get to the town where the park is but then it took us about a half an hour to actually get into the park because everyone else seemed to have the same idea. It was really busy. We finally got into the park and found a lovely spot to park and walk around. Here are some of the photos from my camera from yesterday.

This was towards the end of the trip and we were all getting a little silly.

I really like this picture of Spence and I. I think it's funny:)

Right after the sun went behind the mountain/hill! We watched the sunset and it was gorgeous!

Right before sunset.

Emma and I on the trail we walked on for awhile. I really like this picture of us.

Self-portrait!

I like the angle of this shot. The colors were beautiful! The weather was sunny and cool!

Look at the beautiful background!

I like this picture of my reflection in Spence's awesome sunglasses:)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Well I'm really tired. But I really wanted to post on my birthday. I'm not going to say much besides that today was a pretty good day and that pictures and more details will come later.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!