Washington DC day 1

On our first full day, we drove to Chancellorsville battleground near Fredricksburg VA. We had to cross the Potomac River.

George is checking out the temperature of the water!

Jeff and Emily standing near the spot that General Stonewall Jackson died.

A cannon that was used during the Civil war. The battle at Chancellorsville was the bloodiest battle in the whole Civil War.

From Chancellorsville, we headed to Mount Vernon, VA. Washington's home is there. It is a big house, with lots of property to go with it!

This is the back of the house.

A view of the Potomac River from the back porch. Must have been terrible to have to live with such a view........

I am guessing that this may have been the 'secret passage' that was talked about in the movie National Treasure 2.

Jeff and Emily with the animals at Mount Vernon.

Washington DC day 2

On Monday, we rode the Metro to DC. Our first stop was the National Archives. Housed in this building are the Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. While there I kept thinking about the movie National Treasure.

George and Emily on the front steps of the National Archives.

The Capital building. Normally you need to have a reservation in order to have a tour of the Capital Building. We walked around to the back mainly to see what is back there, and found that this where you go to start the tour. We were lucky enough to see the line (with no one in it!!) for walk-up tickets for a tour that started in 10 minutes! Score!!

This is the ceiling of the rotunda in the Capital Building. I had just finished ready The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. The book is set in Washington DC and starts in the Capital Building. To actually get to see the painting that is described in the book was truly awesome!

One of the huge paintings in the Rotunda.

The Statue room in the Capital Building.

There was the smell of wood stoves thru out the Capital Building. Our Tour Guide said that lots of the offices are heated that way because as the building was added on to over the years, not all areas got upgraded!

We took the tunnel that connects the Capital Building to the Library of Congress. More thoughts about National Treasure 2 while in this building!

Washington DC day 3

If there is a Temple in the area, WE MUST VISIT IT!! The Washington DC Temple is impressive. It is actually in Kensington MD on the beltway north of DC. As you come around a bend in the road, all of a sudden, there it is!

We then headed for Arlington National Cemetery. What an experience. Acres and acres of headstones. There are interments daily, sometimes several in one day. We made the trek to the Tomb of the Unknowns.

I cannot express the feelings watching this Marine guard the tomb.

Then on to the National Cathedral. We went looking for the gargoyle of Darth Vader. I could not see it, but it is there among the hundreds of other gargoyles on the outside of it!! The building is massive.

A couple of pictures of the inside of the building.

Washington DC day 4

On our last day in Washington DC we started at the Smithsonian American History Museum. Very awesome place!! In that huge building you can see Archie and Edith Bunker's arm chairs, Fonzie's leather jacket, Dorothy's ruby slippers, R2D2, Julia Childs' Kitchen, the American flag that Francis Scott Key saw that inspired him to write the Star Spangled Banner, among tons of other things! You could spend a whole day there and still not see everything!

We had a reservation to take the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument, but as luck would have it, the elevator was broken. I am sure the view from the top of the Monument would be spectacular! I have read somewhere that there is an ordinance in DC that no building can be taller than the Washington Monument.

This is the view looking west from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.

Emily standing at the feet of Lincoln!

From the Lincoln Memorial, we walked back to the American History museum and passed the White House on our way. Notice the 2 people on the roof?? There were lots of people on the grounds near the fence doing cleanup and putting lights in trees (getting ready for Christmas is my guess!!). Mixed in with the grounds keepers were men in black carrying assault rifles...

September

WOW!! Where have the last few weeks gone?

Life at our house has been very busy. George and I have just finished another cruise season with Holland America/Princess Alaska. The last ship was the Diamond Princess in port at Whittier on Sept 18th. So for now we are both only working 1 job each! We are going to be Winter drivers for HAP Alaska, but rumor is there will not be that much driving....but it keeps us in the random drug testing pool, and we don't have to mess with taking back our uniform parts.

Mark has started his part time job at WalMart. He is working about 16 hours a week. He is doing a great job of balancing school, work, girlfriend, and family. Not such an easy thing to do, but he seems to have it under control at this point! Mark is taking an Astronomy class this semester, and really likes it.

Jeff is loving High School. Hopefully he will get his class work and homework in line. He is really liking JROTC. This weekend he participated in the "Raiders Cup". It is a friendly competition between all of the JROTC's in the Anchorage area on base at Elmendorff AFB. They started on Friday evening with tug-of-war, and other team related competitions. Then spent the night in tents and sleeping bags. It was about 33 degrees yesterday morning!! BBRRRRRR. Jeff is also taking Seminary. He has discovered that his Mom does know something.....Seminary is fun. He was very concerned that it would be boring, kinda like having Sunday School everyday.....But he is excited about going. It also probably helps that 2 of his best friends are also in the class.

Emily is getting very busy with 6th grade. She is doing choir again this year, helping in the library a couple lunch periods a week, and is learning to play the clarinet in band. She is really starting to become a teenager, even tho she is about 1 1/2 years away from official teenage age.
I'm not sure I like that too much....but on the other hand, she is getting to be more and more fun to talk with.

Busy Summer!!

It has been a while!! We have had a busy summer at our house. Mark and Jeff both did summer school and were done with that by mid July. Emily spent some time in Homer having "Grandma" time.

Mark went to ROTC Summer Leadership School again. He had a great time. He was surprised that it was not exactly the same as last year.......the weather was MUCH wetter, different dynamics with the cadets that were there, he did the Rambo hike. Mark also turned 17 at the begining of August.......WOW........He is also starting his job at WalMart on Aug 30. He is going to be a cashier. I am very happy about that! At school registration, the kids can purchase their yearbook at a discounted price. Mark did not want me to pay for his. He said, "I'll pay for it when I start my job." Gotta love that kind of indepence!

Jeff went to Boy Scout camp this summer. It was in Valdez. Much fun was had by all scouts according to Jeff. Maybe it was because most of the kids he hangs out with were there....maybe it was the canoing out to the middle of the a glacier lake and climbing up on the iceberg, or the swimming, or not having to shower and be clean everyday.....who knows, he just had a great time! On the Sunday that they were in Valdez, they went to the local church. Our ward deacons and teachers passed the Sacrament. Very wonderful experience for the young men. Jeff had Beginning Guitar for one of his electives this year. I had been trying to talk him into taking Seminary without much luck. After 1 day in beginning guitar, he has decided that Seminary would be a good thing!! Luckily there is release time Seminary in our area. So we are hoping that he can start on Monday.

Emily has been busy with friends, and travel this summer. Homer for a couple of weeks, a few days in Ketchican to do some salmon fishing, lots of hanging out with her buddies! She is now in 6th grade. Top Dog at school. I think she is going to learn to play the clarinet this year. At her Elementary school the 6th grade has a band and an orchestra, so the kids can choose what instrument they want to learn. I have encouraged Emily to try the clarinet since I could help her with that! She will even be able to use MY clarinet from my school days!

George has been working hard this summer. He is still working at Alaska Airlines instructing, but he has been able to do some ground schools here in Anchorage, a few in Seattle, and recently in LA. He has also been driving motorcoaches for Holland America/Princess again this summer. He is only driving on ship days, but that is more than enough!!

I have been supervising at Holland America/Princess this summer. I really miss driving, and will probably do that next summer. I appreciate the transportation management for letting be a supevisor this summer since I would not have been able to drive at the beginning of the cruise season, and I still can't lift luggage. I will be done with my Chemo treatments at the beginning of October!! Only 3 more to go! School has started, and I am back to driving school bus. I am so glad that I have the same route as I have had for the last couple of years. The kids are great, they already know what I expect, I know what to expect from them, so there is minimal retraining! All is good with that!

We are hoping to go on a cruise this fall. We will see how that plays out!

MAUI!!!!!

George and I took some time to get away!! We have had a stressful few months, and needed time for R & R. So, when you need time to relax, where do you go? We go to Hawai'i! Specifically Maui, near Lahaina, just north of Ka'anapali beach area. We had the most awesome condo. Right on the water, waves crashing, wildlife abundant! We had only 3 full days on Maui, not nearly enough, but then, what would be enough? On the second day we decided to head to Haleakala. As we were driving, I was checking out the map and saw the Iao Valley. Did some quick reading and discovered it has some history to it. So, since we were so close, we drove up the valley and this is what we saw! The pinnacle thing to the left of George is called Iao Needle. It was used as a lookout by the local Hawaiians in the early 1800's, and this is the location of the final battle between the locals and King Kamehameha. The king won, and was able to unify all of the islands under 1 ruling King.


After we did a little bit of hiking thru the Iao Valley, we headed east across the valley to Haleakala. It is miles of switchbacks and many different changes in vegetation as we climbed the side of the big volcano. Below are a few pictures from the top! We could see the Big Island, Hawai'i in the distance.

This photo is looking down into the crater. It is HUGE!! We passed the cloud layer at about 5000 feet. The top elevation is 10,023 ft. Pretty amazing!

There were these plants all over at the highest elevations. It is called a Silver Sword. It is a very tender plant, it glitters in the sunlight. So George has renamed it Vegas Cactus.

On our last day we were treated with several sea turtles that decided to play in the surf by our condo.....for several hours! They were also HUGE!! Earlier in the week there were a few monk seals that were also playing in the surf below our condo.

We had a great time and were very sorry that the time went so quickly! But on the plane home, we were already planning our next visit! We are still trying to decide if it should be 1 or 2 months long!!