A Wish, A Wish Come True and FINALLY a post for you!

I am going to skip ALL the Blah Blah Blah about me not getting all this information out sooner and just get on with it. This post also comes with a Warning (what do you think happens when you take 2 trips so close together?): It's a doozy.

1. A WISH:

I am the mother of a 6 year old! I am still in denial. Sariah is getting sooo tall and sooo beautiful. I would not make that judgement on this picture however. She is on a I-can-do-my-own-hair phase. So for her birthday, I took the kids to the Treehouse Museum-oh joy. That in itself should have been good enough, but she also got a new dress and some new sandals. The night before her birthday we also took her to Taggarts. If you ever have a huge craving for the best sugar cookie in your life, head on over to Taggarts. In the words of my father: "It's so good it'll make your tongue lick your brains out!" Don't ask me.... Sariah got to pick a cake out and since we were in Ogden (Treehouse) we took the cake and ventured to my parents for a quick candle blowing because it was pretty late. As I stated previously, I am in denial and if you ask me about any of the above activities, I will have no clue what you are talking about.

As you will notice in this picture, Bubba and Sariah are wearing similar shirts. It was all Sariah's doing......what a kid!

2. A Wish Come True:

As you read in one of my previous posts, I was going to Washington, DC. Well I went. I had an AMAZING time and it was UNFORGETTABLE. As also previously stated I went with my sis-in-law Tahnee, who bought an extra special zebra print suitcase for our little trip. I however got a classy suitcase from TJ MAXX after full inspection by my husband of every suitcase in the building. I wanted the cute purple one, but got a very sturdy, strong zippered black bedazzled bag. Now that I have explained our luggage "YAWN" let's keep the momentum going.

We were given a ride by my husband to the airport. Rus gave us "the talk." We were supposed to not look like or act like tourists. He also gave deep details about being on the lookout for anyone who might want to injure 2 ignorant women. I will give one example from part of his speech: "So when you get in the cab, I want you to get on your cell phone and pretend like you are talking to me. You need to say something like: "Oh you're going to be following us in the cab behind us?" or look to Tahnee and say something like: "Tahnee can you believe how good my husband did at his UFC fight last night?! He amazes me." I will give you a quick fast forward to the cab ride. Here's our conversation ".....................(look at each other and smile)..........The end.

So we flew into Denver, (uneventful). Got on the plane headed for DC. Tahnee let me have the window seat (it was a row of 3) just in case her long lost soul mate was going to sit next to her. So after the old lady sat down we were ready to fly. (I hate romance movies).

We had a very flamboyant guy stewardess who loved his job (you could just tell). But the funniest moment is when we landed in DC and he comes over the speaker: " Thank you for flying Frontier. If you live here, welcome home. If your here on business, I hope it goes well. If you're here on vacation I hope it goes SAFELY!" Me and Tahn look at each other and try and remember every detail of "the talk." As we were getting off of the plane there was a guy in front of me that had an Army backpack on. When he walked by, our flamboyant friend says to him something about where he is headed. The Army guy tells him that he is headed home to somewhere (listening to other people's conversations is very hard on an airplane, I wonder if it has to do with the cabin pressure or something). With that the Army guy lifts up his shirt and says, "Took 2 rounds in Baghdad." To which our friend responds, "Ooh Owwie." But it made my heart leap. For some reason I got a little teary and felt a huge load of gratitude for this man. What a way to start my trip.

So we are walking towards the baggage claim.....what's this? Up ahead? It is this beautiful woman. She looks like she is waiting for someone and she is crying. She looks very stressed (you know walking back and forth). ENTER ROMANCE MOVIE: Me and Tahnee immediately decide that this is Army man's girlfriend. So what do we do? We stop. Stare. Stare. Watch. We are so caught up in this moment, we feel like we are the directors for the film and we are just waiting for the actors to hit their cues. Then I notice in the corner of my eye Army man turn the corner....and then turns and goes the opposite way.NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Then we hear the girl scream and run towards a lady and a little girl bawling. Talk about disappointment! But it's okay because there was a pregnant girl who was on our trip since Utah and she looked a good 8 months pregnant. She stops cold in her tracks and puts her face in her hands as her handsome husband meets her and they hug for forever......you guessed it teary eyed once again.

Our luggage was obtained and we were off to the line for the cab. Please note it is a good 11:00 pm at this time. We are handed a paper that has a map on it and a bunch of lines that designate cost. Pretty soon the gentlemen in charge of this whole get up start asking people in line where they are going. People start saying DC and they shove them in a cab. I being so non-tourist say the address to our hotel. He makes us step aside. Wasn't our hotel in DC? Nervous. So finally they come back to us and ask the address again. Apparently it is not in DC it is in Arlington....So in the meantime the girl behind us thinks that we are invisible and walks right ahead of us (how could she miss Tahnee's glow-in-the-dark zebra suitcase?) The man asks the girl where she is going and proceeds to show him on the weird map. Then HER cab pulls up (which was supposed to be ours). Out of the cab gets this very scary looking man and I wanted to kiss her for going ahead of us. Is that rude? Then our cab driver comes and he is not scary looking...blind maybe...but not scary. It was a little nervy in the cab. We arrive at our hotel and non-scary-blind-guy hoists the zebra and the bedazzler out of his trunk. We say thanks and I saw on the meter it said $16.15. The driver says to us, "That'll be $16.00." So Tahn gives him $16.00. At first I thought we got a deal and then my little brain said, "Is this like the hairdresser??? Am I supposed to tip him?" As I was thinking this, he drove away -15 cents.

Oh one thing I forgot to mention is: It's near 12:00 a.m. there and we have had NOTHING to eat since the morning at the SLC airport. Online the hotel said it had a little store called: The Pantry. Well surprise! It was just a small corner by the desk offering minimal overpriced options. We ate some of it anyways. The next morning being Sunday, it was time to do what we came for:

To get there we had to ride the Metro. Online the hotel said it had a free shuttle service. Surprise! It's closed on Sundays. So we had to walk the block and a half. We found the elevator and went down, it was so so freaky. It was all cemetery and old bricky looking. Plus being a Sunday there was NOONE there. We had no clue what we were doing. So to look non-touristy, we read the entire metro card dispenser instructions like a thousand times. We decided we would just buy $10.00 worth of riding time. Then we went up to the helper window and asked if we did it right (so un-tourist, I know). The lady in the booth was the first nice person we encountered since landing in DC. She let us know our $10.00 would "be lettin' us ride for a long time." But it was worth it.

I thought I knew what to expect from such a museum, from reading the countless books. It was so much more. It was weird for me when people would say they had been to the museum and yet weren't able to say much. Or how so many survivors never want to talk about it. Now I can sort of understand. Me and Tahnee spent 7 hours in the museum, only leaving after it was closing. We read every sign, watched every movie, and saw every display. By the time we left, my eyes were drying, but my heart was still weeping.

In case you were wondering. It was freezing cold in the museum. It was so humid outside-let's just say this is the last day our legs saw pants.....

The Washington Monument. HUGE!! Did you know that for a while they had to stop building it because there was no money? Then when the government bought it they were able to start building again, yet they used a different colored stone. You can see where one era left off and another started. There was no eating this day either. I guess when you are so focused on something you forget. Well our stomachs remembered. We found a Boston's Market. Can I just say this meal tasted like heaven. Seriously.

After our delightful dinner, it was time to keep on going. Tahnee had a friend from DC who came and got us at the hotel so we could see some nightlife. Our first stop on our tour was the White House. So for some reason I thought it was bigger than it was. I kept staring at it hoping to see one of Obama's kids peek through a window-but alas it was not so.



Embarrassment coming through......I thought the White House and the Capitol building were the same thing. I know they look nothing alike, but I am the girl who had an "AHA" moment in science class in the 7th grade when I realized the sun and the moon were two completely separate things. I would always stare at the moon and the sun when they were in the sky together and wonder how both could be showing at the same time...uh huh.

Anyways, I took this picture out of the car window-with my flash I might add. Tahnee's friend kindly tells me it probably doesn't look normal for a car to be driving by the capitol on a Sunday night and be taking pictures. Something about security......

Our second day could easily be called: "You did all that in one day?" We walked our tooshies off. But I am getting ahead of myself...We woke up and got ready while listening and dancing to Lee Dewyze. We decide we are not paying $12.99 for the buffet at the restaurant again (I paid the price for 2 boxes of the mini boxes of Frosted Flakes and a banana) and went to Subway on the way to the Metro. It was pretty good if I do say so myself.

Scene: Monday morning in Washington DC. Pure chaos. People everywhere walking around in their suits and ties and briefcases galore.

Scene2: Metro. NO ROOM. We are stuffed in there like Sardines. There is no aisle space and nothing to hold onto. So being my lovely short self had to reach up to the top (on my tippee toes) and hold on to the bar directly above my head. It was so so awkward. It made me think of that deodorant commercial, "raise your arm if your sure." Then poor tahnee had to literally shove her arm into all the midst of people to find a pole to hold onto. And if this wasn't awkward enough...It was dead SILENT. No one at all was conversing with each other. Everyone was just staring straight ahead (or at my armpit, I don't know). Me and Tahn kept looking at each other and smiling and trying not to laugh. I swear if we said one little thing, everyone would turn their head and look at you like, "this is a disturbance of the peace!" Awkward.

We began our little self-given tour at the Washington monument (that really tall thing). It is huge! You can only stare at a building for so long and then it is time to move on...To the World War 2 memorial. It was so so beautiful. I loved walking into it and along the sides of the wall are these beautiful bronzed pictures. They were taken from many different times and represented different groups (like Navy, Army, Marines, Air Force).

You have to look kind of close, but this one is of the Air Force people. Isn't it amazing? I loved all the different scenes they had. I thought I would take a picture of this one because my nephew thinks he works at an airport at night and it made me think of him....

This is on the sidewalk area that surrounds the memorial. Isn't it so amazing???? I stepped over it because I didn't know if it was sacred or something. The feeling in the memorial was very awestruck and humbling.
There were huge pillars all around making a circle shape. Each pillar represented a state. It looked really cool and all along the walls were engraved quotes from important people at that time. Then they had this huge long wall that was covered in gold stars-it was awesome.

The flag in front of the memorial. It made my heart fill up with so much gratitude. I think I will be saying that phrase a lot. But overall, I think it would be the motto for the trip.
Here's a picture of the Washington Monument and World War 2 memorial from the Lincoln monument. Yes that is the reflection pool, also known by some as the "jenny pool" thanks to the movie Forrest Gump.

Funny moment just walking to the Lincoln monument: There was a group of little boys (maybe 8-9) walking back while we were walking towards....One of the boys, this super cute African American kid says to one of his friends in the most excited voice ever, "Hey wanna race!!?" and before the other boy could say something, the excited kid's tone changed and he said, "Oh never mind you got asthma!"The way he said it was so so cute because he was ready to explode with excitement and just in a snap he got this sweet look on his face and said never mind like racing is the stupidest thing ever invented. Just a little tender moment...

So Lincoln was kind of in the same running with the Capitol/White House and the Sun/Moon issue. I thought it was a smaller statue and I for some stupid reason was excited to sit on his lap. When I told Tahnee and her friend that the night before, they just looked at me in the all too familiar, "Oh-my-gosh-she-has-got-to-be-kidding-there-is-no-way-in-the-whole-wide-world-she-can-even-be-remotely-serious look. 'Nuf said

'A'

Tahnee's friend was very knowledgable about EVERYTHING. I guess it would be cool to live there as a child and your field trips were to these historic places instead of to the Hogle zoo retirement home. And we're continuing....I guess some important guy (yes I listened!) Lincoln knew was deaf, so he created the statue with his hands in sign language for 'A' and 'L' (Abraham Lincoln). Or maybe it was the carver himself that was deaf.....anyways I thought it was special nonetheless.

'L'

Right outside near the Lincoln Monument is this engraving on the ground. It is where Martin Luther King stood for the world-alterating speech. They are building a monument to him right now.

The Korean War memorial. This was my favorite war memorial. It was absolutely breathtaking! There is this patch of land and on it are all these sculpted soilders looking like someone just took a picture of their everyday life. Once again, my heart was full of gratitude. But this time it was a special kind of gratitude because I knew that my Grandpa served in that war and was given a medal for saving some of his fellow soldiers' lives. Teary. Oh I could go on forever, but there really are no words to describe the feeling there.

So our next stop was the Arlington Cemetery. It was about a mile down the road from everything else. We walked across the bridge to get there. We went the Visitor's center and right in front of the sign that said, "No food" there was a bench, and upon that bench sat two starving non-tourists eating the free apple we aquired from the hotel desk that morning. It is really hard because it says 'no food' everywhere so they force you to make the decision to break the law. Well the cemetery was huge, so we decided to take the tour on the bus. We were blessed to be grouped in with a bunch of high school/juinor high kids-respect is slowly depleting from the youth today. I am so old.
I never realized that there were over 200,000 gravestones there. It was sureal. I took a million pictures and they all look the same just from different angles. There are different sections for the gravestones. For example, there was an entire couple fields dedicated to soilders who were unknown and were buried there so the family would have somewhere to go. There was a section for all the African American soilders who fought for our freedom when they themselves were fighting for equality. There was the grave of the pilot who was killed in the plane that tried to attack the Pentagon. Once again heart full of gratitude. It was overwhelming!

From there our Tour-mobile took us to:

As most of you know it is protected and guarded 24 hours a day. It felt very patriotic. Do you see the wreath behind the soilders? We got to see them accept a wreath from 2 different schools. Also during change of the guard, the same group of teens that presented the wreath decided not to pay attention to their water bottle and kicked it right on the path. It was kind of mysterious to see what they would do. He stepped over it and then a soilder came out and did some kind of salute and picked it up. If you look super close to the soldier on the right near his foot you will see the mentioned water bottle.

From the Unknown Soilder, we decided to go for yet another trek to the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is one of those that you don't know by name, but you usually recognize by picture. We were walking and there was a couple in front of us who were having a "disagreement" about how to get to Iwo Jima. We non-touristy folk looked at our map and we were on our way. The couple mentioned prior was walking in front of us staggard-like (woman in front of man). Soon we came to a place where we had to decide to go up a road or straight. We chose straight they chose up. We won.

I, once again, stood in awe. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. It screamed emotion and courage. I couldn't stop taking pictures of it.Also, I didn't know it was right in front of a military school. There were Army runners everywhere!

Speaking of everywhere-this is where we decided to walk. We looked out near the highway and noticed a sign that we thought was near our hotel. Being so knowledgable about the area now, we decided we didn't need to ride the metro home, we decided to walk to our hotel from Iwo Jima. This would go against everything my husband talked to us about, but we were professionals now. We looked at our map and we were confident we knew our way.We strapped on our pride and started walking.......and walking.....and walking. Pretty soon we are crossing freeways and looking at the map right smack in the middle of a scary neighborhood. We tried to make it look like we weren't tourists, but the cameras dangling from our necks and the confused/freaked out looks on our faces gave it away. After looking at the map, we would think we had it all figured out and would start walking confidently-opposite ways......frustrated!! We finally arrived at the hotel.....very sweaty and laughing our heads off. This night we ordered take-out from an italian place somewhere.
The Final day:

We awoke and decided to go get tickets to go to the top of the Washington Monument (the really tall thing). We were set. We had a little time to kill so we decided to go on a little jaunt to the Smithsonian museum. We went to the air and space museum. It was very.....interesting. It was cool to see all the airplanes and space stuff (hence the name of the museum-duh!). We found a place that was offering motion rides. We did pay the trillion dollar entrance fee for a ride that was so underwhelming me and Tahn had to elaborate it just a bit. First of all, we were supposed to be feeling like we were on a roller coaster in space...(this was no space mountain my friends). Second we had to be in the second row and have two people we did not know in there with us-awkward! The ride begins and so does the smiling (due to how much we just paid to ride something we could have just closed our eyes and imagined for a whole lot cheaper!) So I decide to start squishing Tahnee like it's whipping me all over the imaginary place. Then it starts playing rock music and we busted out our air guitar duet. We were rocking out so hard!!! We were laughing our guts off (very quietly). When it ended, Tahnee says out loud, "That was awesome!" One of our dear front seat riders says, "yeah it was!!" Oh dear.

We arrived just in time to ride to the top of the Washington Monument. It was really awesome. I didn't know that states donated stones to build it and they had messages written on them on the inside. So while we are riding down the elevator it turns on lights inside and you can read those messages...But up top was really cool too. You could see so far. It looked like they were having a BBQ at the White house. I thought that was random.

Now it was time to depart to our final destination-HOME! We got back to our hotel and got our luggage and asked about the shuttle. This shuttle that came with our hotel had never met our butts-no not ever! We were once again informed that the shuttle was not available until 4pm that day. So we stood there-in shock. We did not want to take a cab and pay another tipless amount when we had money left on our metro cards. It was decided then-we would take our luggage with us and get on that metro for the last time!!! It was super weird. We had to get off at the "blue line" to catch a different metro. It was right smack dab in the scary part of town and I felt like I was in a movie......waiting for the climax. But it didn't come (thanks to the prayer we said before we left). We got on the metro and everyone was staring at us. This really scary guy was staring at Tahnee (or maybe he was hungry and wanted to eat her zebra suitcase). We get off at the airport and are hoping we can find the shuttle-NOPE! We dragged our suitcases at least a half a mile (no lie) to get to our check-in area. We were so tired, so sweaty and so hand-blistered that we were both on edge. So it was not very funny (but it was soon after and now) when Tahnee stuck her Zebra suitcase up on the scale and it was 2 pounds too heavy! In the attendant's words, "Your bag is overweight!" The lady told her it would be an extra 75$ to check it on that way. So Tahnee takes it off and takes out a ton of stuff...She puts it on the scale and it equals the exact weight-then she zips it up and it would be 2 pounds over again. This happened 3 times before the darn zebra finally had lost enough weight. After we were finally on the plane-all of our day's experiences turned into the giggles. A roaring case!! We were laughing so hard about Tahnee's poor suitcase being called overweight. We could not stop laughing-tears were honestly streaming from our eyes. It was a perfect way to end the trip. Thanks Tahn!!!! And thank you for reading this experience.

This last picture is so lost. But I took it to show my mom that the only place worth eating at is dedicated to our family (and the other folks who have had to go through the battle).

And other news:

This is our new puppy Anna. She is so teeny in this pic compared to now, but hey hopefully more posts will be coming. She is a pretty good dog. Very hyper.

And one more thing....I never in my life thought I would be writing this, but we are going to go PRIVATE!!! I know so rude-but I was looking at my followers and noticed a fellow I have never even heard of. So you all know the drill. Now here is the thing, I am a major blog stalker myself and I hate when I can't get in........too honest? So SERIOUSLY if you like to read about my ultra exciting life and want to continue reading a new post every 4-6 months, tell me how you found me and I'll pray and ponder about it and let you on through......so we are shutting down world wide publication in exactly 7 days and counting...if you are more comfortable emailing me go ahead: snike33@aol.com.