Shakin' Things Up!

When I think of Virginia, I don't usually think "natural disasters," but that's what's been on everybody's mind here for the past week. It all started last Tuesday with the earthquake. While telling a friend about it on Facebook chat, she asked that I "use my humanities skills to paint a word picture" of the events. This is what I came up with on the fly:

It began as a low rumble, as if an overweight man was running down the hallway, or perhaps the beginnings of a new construction project in the building. However, all such possibilities were dispelled when the building began dramatically shifting forward and back. Co-workers looked at each other in disbelief--this was Virginia and earthquakes just don't happen here. After a moment of mental recovery, everyone quickly descended the stairs and congregated on street corners. All the while we were unable to send or receive text messages to loved ones.

Not bad for an impromptu narrative version, right? She liked it and I promised her I'd post it on my blog. There wasn't any major damage, but a few minor things happened. They found a crack in the top of the Washington Monument and some of the spires of the National Cathedral were damaged. Also, the tips of 4 of the spires on the Washington D.C. Temple broke and fell to the ground.

As soon as the shock from the earthquake began to wear off, the east coast began gearing up for the impending Hurricane Irene. It was blown so much out of proportion and catastrophic damage was predicted along the entire coastline, especially the Outer Banks of North Carolina and also New York City. While it did hit NC and some of the coastline fairly roughly, DC was pretty much unscathed. Saturday it rained all day and the night did get pretty windy, but nothing above 30-40 mph winds, if that. We were supposed to have stake conference this weekend, but because of the hurricane threat, all church meetings in our stake were cancelled! It was a bit weird to not have any church on Sunday, so I had the chance to study the scriptures for a couple hours, a la missionaire. It turned out to be a nice, albeit unusual Sunday.

West Virginia Whitewater

Dan, Me, Steve Meilstrup, Tim Turpin, and Michelle Chon in front of the New River Gorge Bridge

This weekend I went on the outing I'd been looking forward to all summer. Shortly after I moved to the area, a girl in the ward found an offer through one of those online deal sites for 2 nights of camping and 1 day of river rafting. Dan and I, along with Michelle, each bought one and planned our trip for mid-August. Two of Dan's roommates, Steve and Tim, decided to go in the end as well, so we had a nice group of 5 for the excursion.

We all took work off early on Friday and headed out. It was about a 5 hour drive to the campsite. It was a really beautiful drive. I couldn't help singing a little John Denver. The green hills of the east never seem to lose their magic for me. The landscape is so different from what I grew up seeing on car trips and I can't get enough of it! After setting up camp, we realized we really didn't plan much and so no one brought anything to do a fire, so we went up to the lodge and ended up watching most of Back to the Future II on tv. Yea, rough camping trip, huh?

The New River Gorge where we rafted

Saturday morning we were up early (partly because the group was so hard it was nearly impossible to sleep!),
had a quick breakfast and then headed out for the river! The guides were great. They were so a lot of fun, but also really knew their stuff. We were rafting the New River. Its supposed to be some of the best rafting in the east. It was fun, but it wasn't quite as exciting as the trip we did on the Payette River several years ago. But then again, how can you compete with Idaho?! Even still, there were some fun rapids and our guide let us get out and swim a lot along the way.

A great name for a restaurant, right?! We couldn't resist going, and they even had a drive thru window. We felt silly taking this picture, until another car pulled up and snapped a couple photos too!

The second night camping we were all pretty tired. That meant I probably got about 3 good hours of sleep, but the ground was so hard, I still found myself just waiting for it to be 6:30 so the alarm would go off so we could pack up and drive home. I will NOT go camping again without a mattress pad!! Even so, the trip was great--a fun adventure with fun friends!

U.S. Army Band Concert

What could be better than sitting at the base of the Washington Monument listening to music performed by the U.S. Army Band on a beautiful summer night while enjoying a picnic? Not much I can think of! After work on Tuesday I went to a farmer's market held weekly just outside my building. I picked up some tasty things and then rode the metro into DC for this concert. I was there pretty early, so I took a further metro stop and enjoyed the walk. I sat on the national mall next to the carousel and watched some kids ride it. It said the carousel was manufactured in the 1940's and erected on the national mall in 1967. I thought how cool it was that it has been there so long. In a way, it's kind of a national landmark too I suppose. It was fun to sit and think about all the time that has passed and how many people have been on the national mall during that time.

April Lyman, Me, and Emma Ransom

About 6:30 I met April Lyman at the base of the monument. We staked out a place on the lawn for watching the concert and enjoyed a fabulous picnic. A few more people arrived and joined us for the evening as well. They had a great program and played a variety of music from Indiana Jones to Phantom of the Opera, to Sousa marches, and finally the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky. That was impressive. The performance was complete with cannons. It was the second coolest playing of the song I've ever heard. (I'm afraid that hearing it in Florence with fireworks has a slight edge on this performance.) I love how powerful music can be!

The Center of DC

Now that I've been in the DC area for about 3 months, I have finally begun going downtown to see some of the sights. Two Saturdays ago I visited the National Museum of American History. It was a great museum and really we only scratched the surface. I went down there with a few friends because Jen Pike had seen an article in the newspaper about a new exhibit there. Well, we came to find out the new exhibit was actually in the American Art Museum. Still, we enjoyed the one we went to even though we didn't get to see the exhibit that day.

This summer there's a guy that I became friends with in the ward who is here for the summer doing an internship on Capitol Hill. Part of his internship is giving tours of the Capitol building, so I told Bryce that I wanted him to give me a tour sometime during the summer! Last Sunday I brought it up and he said he actually was going to do one that Saturday for some friends, so I could join. Bryce gave us a great tour and we got to skip all the lines for waiting to get into the Capitol building. It was so nice to have such a small group of us.

This star markes the very center of DC (originally). Apparently the roads were planned around this point. It made me laugh and I made the comment that I didn't think the road system was based of anything!

Bryce told us about the paintings done on the rotunda as well as the frieze about part way up. They were done by Constantino Brumidi when he was in his 70's. One thing Bryce showed us that was pretty cool was the Brumidi Corridors. They are these hallways of frescos painted by him and they are not part of the typical tour. I thought it was pretty cool because when I think frescos I think Italian Renaissance, not early America.

This was one of my favorite portraits we saw in the Capitol building. It's Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress. I loved the attitude in this picture, so I had to try myself. I don't think I've got it down quite the way she does though. I need a bit more sass and a better outfit!

Title Piece of the Exhibit. Charles Willson Peale's "Artist in His Museum"

Then we headed down to Chinatown and after a great lunch, I went with Jen Pike and Mike Neary to the American Art Museum to see the exhibit we missed last week. I loved it! I got to see quite a few things I'd studied in college. I think it was a lot more interesting for me having the background knowledge that I did about the significance of many of these works and artists. I think the exhibit emphasized the innovation of Americans as well as the early American penchant for learning and progress, and the reverence for nature.

Unphotographed Events

I've not taken too many pictures lately, but that is not to say I have not done some fun things here. A couple weeks ago I went to Bethany Beach with a group of friends. It's in Delaware and is supposed to take about 3 1/2 hours to reach. The car I was in left about 6:15 am and we arrived at 11. The car that left about 7:30 pulled in the same time we did. There was a bad accident on the highway and they were routing everyone off it in the early morning, so we had major delays. Nonetheless, when we finally got there, it was a fabulous day! It was one of the most scorchingly hot weeks of the whole year and I think that Saturday the heat index was at about 112. Miserable, right? But yet, a great day to play in the ocean. I didn't get burned at all this time--perhaps part of that is because it was just too hot to lay out on a towel. I meant to take at least a few pictures, but when I got my camera out I found that the battery was dead. So unfortunately, the day went by enjoyed but undocumented.

To this point my blog mostly contains all the fun things I've done here, but I might as well put in a little about work too, since that's where I spend a lot of time. This may be the only post about my job though. I'm working at a corporate office for a company that does mobile health care, primarily dental. I'm working as the office administrator and fulfilling roles as the HR assistant as well. For the most part, its a good job. I sit at the front desk, answer phones, schedule appointments, keep the office supplies stocked, and assist with a lot of the paperwork involved in HR. Sometimes its a bit slow though, so I try to find productive ways to use my down time. Sometimes I read books or talks online, write in my journal, or update my blog. I really have no complaints about my work except that I've found I really miss teaching my ESL classes. I loved that job because I felt like I could really put my personality into it. Needless to say, while I am grateful for the job I have now, I think I would like to get back into the ESL/literacy/education field at some point.

As mentioned before, I do some reading while at work, but also during my lunch break. I love to go sit outside in this little park across the street and eat my lunch and read. Occasionally its been too hot to go out, but they keep this office so cold sometimes that I've usually got to warm up for at least a little while! As a Humanities major I think I was always reading something, but it has been really fun this summer to choose the things I read for myself and have time to read for pleasure. I'm even part of a small bookclub of some friends here. I've also joined Goodreads.com to help me keep track of the books I've read and the ones I want to read, but here's an overview of what I've read lately.

Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens: I hadn't read this since I was a sophmore in high school so there was a lot I didn't remember. It was a great read taking place during the middle of the French revolution. The end was one of the most exciting I've ever read in classic literature. Well done, Dickens! I originally checked this out from the library on CD because I have a fairly long commute to work each day (abt. 40 minutes) and I got so tired of listening to the same mindless music all the time. But I ended up actually reading it towards the end because I wanted to finish and not wait until I was in my car! I also started carpooling to work, so listening to a book on CD didn't work quite as well.

History of Love, by Nicole Krauss: This was a really interesting book. It's probably not something I would have picked up on my own, but it was chosen for book club this time. I enjoyed it, but I have a bit of a hard time saying what exactly it's about. Basically, there are three main characters and they all have ties to a book called The History of Love. Though separate and distinct, they all connect in a way too. I think some of the prevailing themes of the book are identity, lonliness, fulfillment, friendship and of course, love.

Over the last few weeks I've also read The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Atonement by Ian McEwan, The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I've enjoyed each of them, each for different reasons.

Sorry, no pictures for this post. I know it will probably get skipped in reading. It's like a cookbook with no pictures. If you can't see how good something looks, you probably won't take the time to even look at the recipe.

A Virginia 4th of July

Happy 235th birthday USA!! Being in the DC region, perhaps I should have gone downtown into the nation's capitol to celebrate Independence Day, but there was plenty to do without even getting close to downtown. It was great to relax a bit and spend the day with good friends.

In the morning a girl in the ward invited everyone over to her place for a waffle breakfast. People brought food to share and it was a great morning activity. I had kind of wanted to go to the national parade downtown, but I was enjoying myself too much at the breakfast and didn't make it. In retropect, I heard that the parade was good, but that I didn't miss too much.

After the breakfast I went back with Dan and Steve to their apartment and we went swimming. It actually wasn't as hot as I had anticipated, but still plenty warm to make swimming an excellent idea. After swimming for a while, I went back to my house and made a blueberry pie. I used the blueberries that we picked on Saturday. I'd never done a blueberry pie, but this one turned out really well. The crust was especially good on this delicious pie.


My friend Jen Pike hosted a barbeque at her house that evening. I brought the pie and we all had a great time eating, playing croquet, and just enjoying each others company. A couple of people brought sparklers to play with and we all agreed they don't make them like they used to. As it got dark, we walked over to a school parking lot where Fall Church was putting on a fireworks show. It was actually really well done and pretty long! It was a fun holiday with many of the good friends I have found here in Virginia.

Banana Bread, Blueberries and Baseball

I've been watching the Harry Potter movies with some friends in preparation for the last one coming out on July 15th and last week after watching one my friend Emma mentioned that she needed to make banana bread and I had the brilliant idea that banana bread french toast would be a good twist to the standard. We decided to make that for our next Harry Potter viewing. I found a tasty recipe online and we put together quite a delicious meal. It was Emeril's recipe online, and a bit fancy. It had an incredible carmelized banana glaze that was divine.

On another note, but still involving food, I've never eaten as many blueberries in my life as I have this year. It has been a whole new discovery for me in my life! On Saturday I went with Dan and Steve to a blueberry farm in Poolesville, Maryland.

Dan's manager at work lives on this farm, which is why we chose to go there. It was a beautiful drive up there. Maryland is such a pretty state and it was so nice to get away from the city feel. There were a lot of people out biking on the roads and it looked like such a great way to spend the day. I didn't quite know what a blueberry bush looked like, and I found they are actually pretty small, but these things sure were loaded! And some of them had HUGE berries! We didn't pick for too long, but all of us took home over 2 lbs. of blueberries each. I plan on making a blueberry pie for the 4th.



In the afternoon, I went downtown and met a couple of friends for the Washington Nationals baseball game. Some call baseball games slow, but I just love the relaxed atmosphere. We had great seats and were grateful that we were on the shaded side of the stadium since it was a pretty warm day. We had a bit of a BYU 35th ward reunion there because it was me, David Bennett, and Sara Dunbabin, plus Sara brought her current roommate. It was fun to get the three of us together that had been in the same ward at BYU.


The game was actually a double header vs. the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I ended up staying for both games! After the second game they had fireworks, so I didn't get home until after 11, but it was a fun day.