I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord of La Mancha

As soon as I saw that the Shakespeare Theatre in downtown D.C. was going to have Man of La Mancha there, I knew I was going to go. And go I did!

I loved it! Don Quixote, Sancho and Aldonza were awesome! They were strong singers and played their parts well. (Well everyone played their parts well, but the main characters are most important, in my opinion.)

There were a few uncomfortable parts (but were an important part of the show) and overall the show was awesome! I really like Don Quixote and his child-like innocence and goodness and how he changes the people around him for the better.

If you've never heard the music from Man of La Mancha, you should listen to it. The Impossible Dream, of course, is awesome, but I also like the song Man of La Mancha, Dulcinea, The Dubbing, and I could pretty much name all of the songs, so you should just listen to all of it. :)  

Thanks Shakespeare Theatre for putting on such a good show! 

P.S. The man who played the Padre in the show was a doppleganger of Mark Ruffalo. I was sitting in the 4th row from the front, so I could see clearly and I totally thought it was Mark Ruffalo at first. I also really liked his character; he was good too!

Randomness

I was looking at pictures on my phone recently from the past month or so and wanted to share some of them. 

I love to bake and I especially like to bake cookies. In this picture, it is chocolate chocolate chip cookie dough. If anyone ever needs or wants cookies, I will be more than happy to make you some. :) Although I will make any kind of cookies, the kinds I make the most are peanut butter chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, crazy craisin cookies, and Nate's best ever chocolate chips cookies.

I have owned my car for over two years now and I recently took him to get his first real car wash. I know it's pathetic that it has taken me this long, but it's better late than never. Right?! :)

One day I got a flyer on my car for a burger place near my brother's house in Leesburg. I've been meaning to go to it for a long time and I finally went there. This was the burger and I will say that I really enjoyed it and would go back again for another one and I have pretty high expectations for burgers.

Last year I went to Jack's Beer and Burger Joint in Harrisonburg with my nephew and got a really good burger there that I now compare all burgers from specialty burger joints to. So the fact that I would be willing to go back to this place is saying a lot.

About a month or so ago my sister, Lara, and her family returned from Spencer's Make-a-Wish trip to New Zealand. They all loved the trip and thought it was amazing and were grateful to Make-a-Wish for making it happen! About a week or two after they got back, Make-a-Wish had a fundraiser walk at a nearby shopping center and they, of course, decided to join the walk and invited others to join also. Our team consisted of me, my sister, Lara, my brother-in-law, Glen, and their kiddos, Cami, Emma, Adam, and Ellie and one of my co-workers was an honorary member. (Spence couldn't make it because he's at school).

I think there was a good turn out for the walk. I would say there were at least 100 people there, all on various teams. We could not have asked for a better evening for the walk too. Both the days before and after the walk were not very pleasant, but that night the weather was perfect. The walk was lovely and it was for a good cause!

I know this post is very random, but I wanted to share these pictures and stories for when I eventually print out my blog for myself.

NYC

So Kristina,Tom, Andrew and Madeline were in town from California at the beginning of this month. Kristina wanted to go to NYC while they were here and they invited me to come along and I decided I would join them. I rode up separately from Kristina and the kiddos, since they wanted to get there earlier and I didn't want to miss work.

(As a side note, I highly recommend not leaving on a 5:45 bus on a Thursday evening (or probably any weeknight for that matter), because you will hit rush hour traffic, no matter which direction you're going. But I made it to NYC by 11:55 that night and made it on the midnight bus to Secaucas, NJ, where we were staying.)

Friday morning we went to the 9/11 memorial, which I had never been to before and I really liked it. I think they did a beautiful job with it. We didn't go into the museum, but the grounds and memorial were nice.

 The Freedom Tower.

The names of all of the people who died in the 9/11/2001 attacks as well as the attack of 1993 on the World Trade Centers were etched on the memorial. As I mentioned earlier, I felt like the memorial was beautiful and well done.

 I like this picture of Madeline and I looking up at the Freedom Tower. (This was not a posed shot.)

After the 9/11 Memorial, we hopped on the subway to Times Square and walked around there for awhile. Andrew, Madeline and I went into Toys R Us while Kristina ran a short errand and then we met up again and started walking toward Central Park. I like this shot of us in Times Square!

We made it to Central Park. We walked around a bit and found a playground for the kiddos to play on. At this point, we had walked quite a bit and the Andrew and Madeline were getting tired. Kristina and the kiddos went back to the hotel while I stayed in the city and ended up being by myself the rest of the evening.

After we parted ways, I made my way back to Times Square to the TKTS booth and bought myself a discount ticket for an evening show.

I had some time to spare after I bought my ticket and I wasn't sure what to do, because I wasn't expecting to have free time. I called a family member and they suggested I go to the New York Public Library.

To the library, I went. I loved it! I had never been before and it was really cool! I liked the architecture of the building. I liked the art in the building whether on the ceiling or on the walls and I liked the exhibits.

The main entrance of the library.

After the library, I went to Grand Central Station, which I also had never been to before. I also really liked this! The architecture and art were awesome but I also liked people watching there.

Grand Central Station. After I finished here, it was about time to eat and then go to my show.

I ate somewhere that I don't recall and then I went to see On the Town. I liked it. I thought the music and dancing were fun and very well done, but I wasn't a huge fan of the storyline.

Overall I had a fun trip to NYC and got to see some new things! Thanks Kristina and family for letting me join you on this short trip!

The Book Thief

I recently finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak for the second time. I really like to read, but I rarely read a book more than once. If I do, I must really like the book.

I first read The Book Thief a couple of years ago and I loved it. The book was well written. I became attached to the characters. I cried. I laughed. I felt scared. I thought about the message of the book for a long time after finishing it. 

The movie came out in 2013 based on the book. I saw it and I thought they did a good job with it. I realized, though, as I watched the movie, I couldn't remember the details of the book and that I wanted to read it again.

I didn't pick it up again until a couple of weeks ago and, as I started reading it, I remembered why I liked it so much. The author does a good job with character development and keeping you interested in the story.

The book is from a different perspective. The narrator of the book is Death. I know some people might find that weird, but I feel like it works in this case. As odd as this may sound, Death becomes fascinated by a little girl named Leisl, who lives in Nazi Germany during World War II.

Leisl is surrounded by death and suffering at a young age, but continues strong and courageous in the face of it. Leisl and the people she is surrounded by, show Death that humans are worth it, that even with all these humans killing other humans that humans are beautiful creatures and that words are powerful whether to persuade for good or for bad.

I won't go into great details about it all, but I really just wanted to say that I love the book The Book Thief. It is sad. It is funny. It is thought provoking.

San Diego- La Jolla Beach, Trolley Tour, Coronado, Temple

Last post for my California trip...

I loved San Diego! We went there on our last full day before heading home. I heard from a friend that taking the trolley tour through San Diego is a fun way of seeing the city without having to worry about driving through the city and parking and figuring out where to go etc.

The trolley tour was awesome! They stop at a few of the most popular touristy places in the city and they come around every 30 minutes or so.

We got off the trolley at a couple of places, but I definitely think my favorite stop was Coronado! Coronado is a peninsula of San Diego.

The reason I loved Coronado, (besides the charming houses and architecture, where no two buildings or houses were exactly alike (so no cookie cutter houses here)), was because of the beach!

Apparently Coronado beach was rated the #1 beach in the U.S. last year. (Something we learned on our trolley tour). Since we had been to a few other beaches on this trip, we wondered how this beach was going to be different from the other ones we had been to.

The beach was different and it was awesome! How do I describe this beach?

Well, there were really tiny gold specks in the water that made it sparkle. (You can kind of see the gold in the picture above). The water was clear. The sand was so soft and light-colored. The water was shallow going pretty far out. The buildings near the beach were charming. The beach was just beautiful in general! (And they had lifeguards and decent restrooms.) I loved this beach!

Water had washed over the words (in the picture above) numerous times and yet the letters stayed.

Coronado!

Look at that sand! It felt so good on the feet.

Sisters at Coronado!

My adorable nieces, Madeline and Ellie, jumping for the camera. Aren't they so cute?!

Paparazzi shot!

The trolley tour was awesome! There were a couple of stops that we didn't get to explore at (like Balboa Park), that I definitely want to go to next time I visit Kristina and Tom.

We parked in Old Town San Diego near the Mormon Battalion Museum to catch the trolley and we decided, since the museum was open later than the trolley ran, that we would  go to the museum last. The church did an awesome job with the museum! It's a fun and interactive way to learn about the Mormon Battalion.

I know I started off with the end of the day but now I'm going back to the beginning. We began our day at La Jolla Beach. The water was so clear there and we saw some seals or sea lions (I am not sure which ones) swimming around.

La Jolla!

Just in case you didn't know from previous posts, I love the beach!

Isn't it beautiful?!

Kristina, Lara and I at La Jolla.

Our very last stop of the day before going home was the temple! It sure was beautiful! I love how it's right off the freeway (kind of like the D.C. temple) and it just kind of is suddenly there.

Sisters at the temple!

Well this post concludes my posts from my trip to California. Overall it was a wonderful, fun-filled, family-filled trip!

I'm Gonna Soak Up the Sun...

I've been feeling pretty down recently and it's been cloudy, cold, and snowy the past few days and really the whole last week. But today the sun was out and the temperature got up into the low 50s and I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go to Meadowlark Gardens. I don't think I've ever been there when there's so much snow and it was beautiful! I loved it.

They actually had the fountain on today.

The pond looked so cool all frozen over. This is my favorite view at the gardens.  I go to this spot every time I go.

 The snowy trail.

I loved the blue sky and clouds and the snow with no footprints.

I love Meadowlark Gardens!

I sat on this bench for awhile thinking about life and enjoying the view from the picture above. It was just what I needed, a walk around the gardens and time to soak up the sun.

Sisters!

I grew up in a family of 8 children (including myself). There are 4 girls and 4 boys. I am close to all of my siblings and try to talk to all of them on a somewhat regular basis. (Some I definitely talk to more than others, though.)

Once we bought the tickets to go out to California, I tried to convince my siblings, that live in the West, that they wanted to come and visit us while we were there. (Nate is in northern California and Heather and Tim are in Utah.) They all said they couldn't for one reason or another. But on Friday evening after our day trip to Los Angeles, we had a surprise waiting for us...


...Heather had flown in for the weekend. Lara nor I knew that she was coming and we were very excited to see her!

It was fun having all of us, sisters, together! It's hard for us all to get together because the whole living on opposites sides of the country thing and it costs a lot to fly and we all have busy schedules etc etc.

 Balboa Island Beach!

It was good having all of us together again, even if only for less than 48 hours!