Day 1 - Driving to Virginia/D.C

We are finally going on vacation!!!! We are going to Virgina and D.C. to see family and the sites of our Nations Capitol. I'm really excited because I will be seeing my Harmony (mom's mom) for the first time in like 12 years, along with my Uncle whom I've never meet and my Aunt whom I havent seen in 25 years. Can you believe I'm that old?? Wait! Do NOT answer that!!

This is a short video showing just how fun Rene and I are while on these Road Trips... He is such a nut, but ya gotta love him!!! Now, I dont know how long Rene will let me keep this video up so enjoy it while it lasts :)

Anyways, here is one of the stops we made on our 10 hour road trip. This museum was in Dayton, OH or close to there. It was getting late so the actual museum was closed but luckily there were still some things to see.
Rene really wanted this picture put it... he's such a nut. We thought this plane looked a little like Snoopy so Rene got this brilliant idea to get in front of the plane and have it sniff his keister. I know, I know... I married him. But he sure keeps things entertaining... slightly embarrassing at times, but fun nevertheless. :)
This is Hercules.. oh, and a place :) j/k The planes name is Hercules so I got out there in my travel clothes, mind you, to do a 'muscle' shot.

There was also a playground there with this cool Helicopter. Rene was such a trooper for me and got into it (sorta) so I could take a picture. I think he had a lot of fun cause there are more pics of him being a 'fighter' pilot and trying to get the blades to actually spin.

The beautiful sunset in OH... I think we drove for like 5 more hours after this before we decided to take a short nap.

Day 2 - Arrive at Uncle and Aunt's House

We finally made it to Virginia!! We are going to be staying with my Uncle and Aunt (on my mom's side). :) I've been really excited too cause I have never meet my Uncle and it's been about 25 years since I saw my Aunt. I'm so glad we were able to come see them as well as my Harmony (that's how you saw Grandma in Korean - totally what I will have my grandkids call me, it just sounds so much better than GRANDma. lol) First of all, Uncle Jason and Aunt took us to the grocery store to get some food as well as lunch. Afterwards we went to Great Falls National Park. It's so pretty!! I didnt think Virginia had so much greenery and big trees! :) Rena and I loved it. The park was beautiful. Here are some of the pics... Rene took this one of Uncle Jason. It's the only pic we have of him... most of the time he's snapping shots of my Beautiful Aunt :)

Now, I tried to get away with not having to post any pics of myself but this was the only one we had of my Aunt at Great Falls. (My Uncle is there too, but he's not looking at the camera)

Here's a great pic of the Falls.... it's not large, but it was so nice to see water that wasnt put somewhere man made like in Indy. What's neat about this is that while we were on the Virgina side of the park, right across the Potomac is the Maryland side. I have a pic where you can actually see the Maryland visitor's looking across the Falls at us.

Now this was interesting... this post shows the water level of the River thru the years. We could not believe how high the water got. We were well above the river as is and to think the water came up and over where we were standing... Ahhh!!! This is Rene drowning?? going down??? Not sure what he's doing, but that's my guy! :)

Oh, and I forgot to add this picture to Day 3 or 4... one night Rene and I came home from being the tourist and my Aunt suggested we sing some Karaoke. We tried to get my Uncle to sing with us but he told us that we did NOT want to hear him sing. So, Aunt, Rene and I sang for a few hours. The song Aunt's singing is in Korean but Rene and I did the few American songs she had in her collection.

Day 3 - Capitol Bldg and Rene's Family

Today was our first day going into D.C. We took the Metro from my Aunt's house and stupid me got motion sick so we got off a little earlier than we wanted to... but it was okay, we did some extra walking. We were supposed to be meeting up with Rene's mom, dad and aunts to do our capitol tour around 2pm. Rene and I went to the Botanical Gardens which are right out front of the Capitol Bldg.... I dont know why, but we didnt get any good/close shots of the Capitol. Anyways, the gardens were pretty. We took quite a few pics of some really nice flowers, this is one I liked because of the leaves. I LoVed all the colors in the leaves!! :)

Rene's Aunt's were supposed to meet us at the Garden's but got held up at the National Library so we walked across the street to the Rayburn bldg to have lunch together before our tour. Rene and I took a small detour and got this pic of him with the refreshing fountain. (Did I mention that D.C. was good to us and the temp was only in the 70's with a breeze??!! )

After lunch, it was off to the Capitol. We had a tour from one of the interns in the PA office (where Rene's Aunt Joan lives - she got us the tour). We took this neat underground walkway from the Rayburn bldg to the Capitol. Once inside, we finally meet up with mom and Hal who had gotten slightly delayed.

Here's a pic of the inside of the dome... I thought the art work inside was just beautiful. I took a ton of pics but will only be posting a few of them. There was a lot of history painted within these paintings, but I cannot remember all of them. However, if you click on the photo and look really hard you may be able to find Benjamin Franklin - there's another dude right next to him that I think is supposed to be Thomas Jefferson, but I'm not sure. This painting went around the dome right at the top. What's cool is that it was done to look like the figures were actually sculpted. There's just so much detail. As you look around the painting, there are different parts of the nations history depicted. Oh, and the artist also painted himself looking out from behind a tree.

And just for some fun, in the Capitol they had gold water fountains so Rene had to drink from them. He said the water was gross though!! hahaha

After our tour, we headed over to Old Ebbits Grill for dinner where it's common to see politicians eating as well. It's been around since 1856 - That was something that was just really neat.... to look at some of these buildings and to think how old they were and how long they've been around. We dont have that back home and I kinda like it. Although, I'd much rather be living back home in AK :) Anyways, back to our trip.... Dinner was pretty good, although I expected the food to be 100 times better than it was due to all the hype but it was nice to be with family again. Afterwards we all went our separate ways to our homes away from home.

Day 4 - Museums and more museums

We tried to get all our museum visits done today... or at least all the ones we wanted to see that were close together. First stop, the Smithsonian - since this encompasses multiple museums, we stopped at the visitors center and then we were off. :) This place almost looked like an old castle or something. Inside, they have some sets from the movie, Night at the Museum. First stop, the Holocaust Museum. Once we arrived there were hundreds of school kids there, most likely every school for miles was having a field trip today, it was crazy. Normally there's no wait to get inside but they were saying the wait was up to 2 hours so Rene and I headed on over to get our tickets. Once in line, a gentleman in the front was calling for Military and Gov't employees. Rene looks at me, walks up and whammy, we get FREE tickets and dont have to wait at all!!! :) Rene was super excited and had fun telling others about his great luck. This was a wonderful stop, but man did I cry a lot! We were not allowed to take pics inside so I just took this one of the entrance. I would recommend everyone going here!!

Because we spent so much time in the Holocaust Museum, we had to cut out some of our stops. On our way to the Air and Space Museum, we went into the Frier Art Gallery (mostly Asian and Asian-influenced pieces) and then this modern sculpture place - Rene's pic and totally weird... no need to go unless you're into that kind of stuff. Anyways, it was getting late and the Air and Space Museum was closing early for a function (which we were unaware of) so we really had to walk through it fast. First of all, you walk in and there are all these different planes hanging from the ceiling.

We also really liked this beautiful wooden airplane, I believe it was one of the firsts... not sure at the moment and Rene's sleeping so I cannot ask him ;)

Now this pic was not planned, but it turned out well. I think it was a missile or something from WWII or so and it was huge. You can see Rene's reflection in the glass as a sort of reference as to how large these things are. yikes!

Oh, and this was fun! There was this thermal camera and Rene really had fun with it. Here he is with his thermal image. Neat-o

And lastly, this is supposed to be the container that held the moon rocks which were brought back. I dont know if any of you are the skeptics who dont really think we landed on the moon and it's all just some big conspiracy, but dont go popping my bubble! I like to think we did and so this was really neat. :)

Day 5 - White House

Rene and I were very fortunate to have the opportunity to tour the White House while in D.C. thanks to Mom and Hal. :) We had tried getting 'tickets' from our congress person here in Indy, but there really was no response. Mom and Hal were able to get some from Mark Begich's office, thanks again to them!! Unfortunately, they do not allow you to take anything into the white house so the only pic I have is this one we snapped doing a drive by one day. But, we were there! We were only permitted to see a couple of the rooms but it was nice. They had a secret service person in each room to answer any questions, and to keep us in line :) Can you imagine that though, being accepted in the Secret Service only to then be a tour 'guide'?? I figure they take turns or something.

After the White House, we went to the International Spy Museum (something Rene was looking forward too). And again, no pics were allowed inside.... what is up with that??!! It was neat, basically everything you see in James Bond movies is real... all that stuff, really used. I think we were there for 2 hrs or so and had to bypass a lot of things due to lack of time. If a person wanted to go and read everything, they'd have to spend an entire day there.

Our last stop was going back to the Air and Space Museum so Rene could do a flight simulator and get souvenirs. We had thought about walking around some more since we didnt have much time the day before, but after walking 10 hrs a day the past few days, we were all tuckered out! Back to the house to relax some.

6th and Final Day

Today was our last day in Washington D.C. On our way out of town we visited my Harmony (mom's mom) for the last time. She is so cute!! It was so great to see her again as the last time I saw her was about 12 years ago.... When we moved here to Indy, I told Rene that I really wanted to see my Harmony at least once while we were here. Thankfully, he's an amazing guy and let us do it. :)




After we saw her, we went to Arlington National Cemetery to see the changing of the guard. Below is the women's memorial.















Here are rows of graves where only one has flowers on it. I just thought it made for an interesting picture.















Now, Rene and I had kind of debated on whether or not we wanted to see the changing of the guard. Many people told us that was a must see... but why?? My dad sent me an email before we left for the trip about the guards and it was pretty impressive. Here are some of the fun facts :)
1. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has been guarded 24 hrs a day, 365 days a year since April 6, 1948.
2. Must be between 5'10'' and 6'4'', and they must be fit
3. Memorize 7 pgs of Arlington Nat'l Cemetery history
4. Their gloves are moistened to improve their grip on the rifle

Persistant...

For the past 2 weeks or so there's been this bird who sits outside the window in our front room and continually flies into it. We don't know what his deal is, but after being a little cute, it's grown a little tiresome. He likes to fly into the window and you hear this little tap, tap, tap. He's cute though... take a look.

@}---- Smell the Roses :)

Yesterday I received a phone call from my temp agency, the company I've been working for for about 7.5 months has laid me off.... Hello Unemployment!! The funny thing is, this is about a month since the last one when my friends were laid off.. I guess it was my time. It's okay though, I'm sure this is a blessing in disguise. Who knows, perhaps my dream job is out there waiting and this was the only way for me to get it... or, I could just start my own bakery!! Maybe not, but I'll keep dreaming. Not all is lost though, my sister Tammy is coming into town for a work conference and now I'll be able to spend some time with her. Then, Rene and I are going on vacation for a week!!! We'll be going to D.C. to visit my Harmony (grandmother), Aunt and her husband. We are also super excited because we are going to have the opportunity to tour the White House and Capitol.

Pathetic Stalkers

So Rene was out the other day talking to one of our neighbors across the street and found out that our neighbor to the right is a player for the Indianapolis Colts!!! When Rene told me this, I instantly thought, 'my new bff!!' Pathetic, right?? Anyways, since then we have wanted to meet this neighbor of ours more than anything... if nothing else, to verify whether or not its true. We think it may be a good possibility... he's hardly ever home, is a very big guy and drives a nicer vehicle. Yes, we know this doesn't mean anything, but our hopes are high :) Rene was out watering the lawn yesterday and our neighbor was hanging out on his deck. They both said hello in passing and Rene was trying to water as fast as possible. When he finished, just a few minutes later, he planned to go over and chat only to find our neighbor had retreated into his home :( I hope we can befriend this neighbor of ours!! LOL

In the new house.... Finally!!

It's been quite a while since the last post. We've been so busy with the move and getting ourselves situated, and not to mention waiting a whole week for AT&T to hook up our internet. Regardless, there's much to catch up on.

After we closed on our house, we began packing like mad to get ready for the move. We pretty much packed everything in 3-4 days! Amazing, right?? We planned on moving Saturday, April 18th which just so happened to be the day I was also doing the Race for the Cure. Here are some pics of the 'Race'...

Jeff Saturday (from the Colts) and his wife

Some of the hundreds, of thousands of people who participated :)

A beautiful day to walk.... this is just a bunch of people coming across the bridge

A look at all of our stuff... we (or rather the muscle...aka Rene) was able to get all of our boxes into this tiny room.

Oh, and I must mention these beautiful flowers from my good friends Corinne and Brandon as a house warming gift.

And now for...... ALL MOVED IN :)

So I am super excited about our front door... I don't know if any of you remember, but this was just a plain door with all these windows in it (about half the door). We wanted to cover the windows so you couldn't see in but didn't want shades or anything. On one of the many trips to the Home Depot, we found this stuff called Window Film... it sticks to the glass and provides privacy and helps to insulate the window. Well, I used it for our bathroom and front door. We love the door though because it really does look like stained glass!

The front room... just a nice place to sit, play some music, read or relax

Here's something a little strange about that room... the previous owners had this huge mirror put in. We looked at taking it out, but it would be just too big of a mess right now. The one plus is that it does make the room feel bigger :)

Our living room.... pretty self explanitory.

THE KITCHEN!!!!! Here's a view of our new table and kitchen....

and then while you eat, you have a nice view of the outdoors
Our master bedroom... it's huge!

and last, but not least is the loft... we are currently using as the workout area.

So, there's the house. Hope you enjoyed looking at it as much as we love living in it!!! :)