Ukraine

I served my mission in the Ukraine Donetsk mission, the part of Ukraine where all the chaos is going on right now.  I have learned that all of the cities I served in now have Russian troops in them, Kharkiv, Gorlovka, Lugansk and Donetsk. I do not know how this whole situation is going to turn out (besides Russia taking over) but I pray for the Ukrainian people in general and that all of the people that I love who still live there are okay. My heart is breaking right now as I type this and I hope somehow it will be okay.

John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

Monument of the Revolution!

My final post from Mexico City... Our last stop in Mexico City before we headed to the airport was the Monument of the Revolution! I really liked the monument and the view from the top!

Enjoy the pictures below and a few captions!

They had a bunch of tents surrounding the monument. I'm not quite sure why all of the tents were up but I think they might have been demonstrators.

We had to duck to get under some of the strings holding the tents up.

The entrance to the museum for the monument and the place to catch the elevator to the top.

 One of the views from the top!

 It was quite the view in all directions!

 Look at that cool pyramid building!

After the Monument of the Revolution, we caught a taxi to the airport and headed to our respective home states. Overall our trip to Mexico City was a fast, but awesome time! Thanks Nate for letting your younger sister tag along with you!

Ella Enchanted

It stinks being sick and the book Ella Enchanted is much much much better than the movie.  Just had to share.

Mexico City- Zocalo, Anthropological Museum

Continuation of Mexico City trip...   On our third and last day, we woke up bright and early to get out and see what we could before our flights left that afternoon. 

Our first stop was the anthropological museum. The roads to the museum were closed due to a marathon in process, so the taxi driver dropped us off as close as he could which was still about a 1/2 mile away. But it was worth it, because we got to walk through a beautiful park and got to see the runners/walkers for the marathon and 10 k going on. According to our taxi driver, they have a marathon every Sunday in the city.

A building under construction on our walk to the museum.

The museum was huge and pretty dang awesome!  We learned a lot about the history of Mexico. (Can I remember it now? Not so much. But it was fascinating at the time;)

The Mayan calendar.

After the museum, we walked to the closest open road and found a taxi which took us to Zocalo, which is in the city center!  I really liked Zocalo.

Inside the church pictured above.

Isn't it beautiful?!

Nate took some pictures of me here at Zocalo, but I do not have those pictures, so we're going to have to deal with my self-portraits. :)

 

Nate has more pictures from Zocalo but I've had a hard time acquiring them from him.

After we finished walking around Zocalo, we made our way to the Monument of the Revolution. (I was glad for the map I bought before we got to Mexico that showed us that Zocalo and the Monument of the Revolution were within walking distance, otherwise we would have taken a taxi for a not very long ride.)

On our way to the Monument we walked past the Palacio de Bellas Artes. We didn't go inside, but the outside was pretty cool! 

 This is the only picture I got of Nate and I together the whole trip. He wouldn't let me take self-portraits of both of us and we never asked anyone to take one of us together. So I caught him unawares and took this one, hence the expression on his face.

We also saw this work of art along the way to the Monument of the Revolution. I thought it was pretty interesting looking. I didn't know at the time what it was for, but I guess it has some meaning for the skyscraper behind it that we did not get a picture of. 

I have one more post to do about Mexico City and then I will be done with these posts... finally.

Snow!

This winter we have had a lot more snow days than the past few winters combined.  When it snows here, pretty much everything shuts down. And today was no exception.  I worked from home today and did not attempt to go anywhere. Neither did any of my roommates, except one. Not only did it snow, but it is really cold too, so there's ice and I did not want to be out on the roads.

 This is what my car looked like when I went to clear it off after work.

It may not look so bad but there was a layer of ice that was hard to scrape off the windows, even with the defrost running full blast, because it was so cold.

The wind must have been blowing last night or this morning because the back of my car got a lot worse than the front.

I've lived lots of cold places in my life and I know this cold and snow does not compare to most of those places but this is the first place I've lived with snow and had a car.  To me, it's a little different story when I have a car to deal with on the icy roads and not just my own two feet or someone else who is willing to drive in the snow.

My roommates Melinda, Kara and I built Olaf during our last snow day on February 13. Isn't Olaf cute?! :)

A Little Roadtrip- JMU

I told, my nephew, Spence that I would go and visit him at school and take him out to lunch since he began JMU in the fall of last year. This weekend I finally made it! 

We ate at Jack Brown's Beer and Burger Joint and can I just say the burgers there were delicious?! I think it was one of the best burgers I've ever had. I had The Cowboy, which had bbq sauce and bacon and it was juicy and cooked just right.  

 I told Spence he had to let me take at least one picture of us together before I left and he appeased me and let me take one picture. :)

After Spence and I parted ways I walked around campus for a bit. I had never been there before and it's a pretty nice campus!

I was planning on trying to do other things around the area while I was there but I decided I wanted to take the more scenic route home which I wanted to see in the day time so I headed for home. Even though it's winter time, the drive was beautiful!

Thanks for letting me come and visit Spence! I will let you know when I come to the area again and I can't believe I forgot the peanut butter bars. :)

Hot Chocolate!

Can I just express how much I like hot chocolate in the winter time (and sometimes in other seasons too:)?  It is delicious and it warms the soul. That is all.

Stay tuned for two more posts about Mexico City...