We ventured to Washington D.C. last weekend and here's how it went. We had our bike with Katelyn attached in the trailer. Then a wonderful ward member let us borrow a bike and we were off. We drove to D.C. and parked close to the sites. I have been here once before about 4 years ago so we decided I would lead the tour. I had my map and we were off. Our first stop was the cute little White House. David thought it would be so much bigger and more majestic, but when I mentioned that it is just the president that lives there, he was okay with how "small" it was...silly boy.
We headed down Pennsylvania Avenue and we passed by the Navy Memorial and the National Archives building. This is when I realized how terrible of a tour guide I was. Throughout the tour, we would pass by buildings and memorials and museums that are a big deal, I would tell David what it was and take a guess at why it was important. Like with the F.B.I building, I think I said something like, "I think there could be spies in there watching us through their tinted windows and talking into their sleeves." or with the National Archive Building, "That is where they probably keep old stuff that is important to our nation. I think this building was in the movie National Treasure with Nicholas Cage."
Heading down Pennsylvania Avenue you can see the Capitol Building from far off. David thought that was pretty cool because he was so nervous about the bike lane being in the middle of the road that it surprised him when I said, "Hey look! That's a cool building!" I promise I really did know it was the Capitol and I wanted to see him react as he realized what it was.
From the Capitol we turned around and enjoyed the view of the Washington Monument. They are doing construction on the main reflection pool in front of it and David was a little bummed about that.
We trekked all the way across and passed tons of museums along the way to the Lincoln Memorial. My legs were dying at this point. I was either out of shape, tired from hauling Katelyn behind me, or maybe those "no flat solid rubber/foam tires" were really heavy. Probably a combo of all three!
I love this next picture because it shows Katelyn's perfectly rounded cheeks...still soft and they jiggle with every cute little step of hers.
I went to lock up the bikes and David went off walking with Katelyn. She headed right for the stairs.
After the first couple big flights, Katelyn had people cheering her on and even though David wanted to give her a break and carry her up, Katelyn just kept on going up each big step. The last little bit she was worn out and she tried switching which leg went first, but she ended up crawling up and pulling herself up the last few tough ones. She made it all the way to the top and we weren't the only ones proud of her!
David's favorite part of this adventure was seeing how big Lincoln was. He's so much bigger than that itty bitty guy on the penny :) It is pretty neat!
I knew that there was so much more to see, but my legs couldn't take it and so we headed back to the car. We got a "little" nervous when we realized that neither of us knew exactly which parking garage we were parked in. We were so excited to get going and missed that minor detail. I back tracked and guessed at a couple of blocks we might be at. As we were heading that way, we got even more nervous seeing all the parking garages that were closed. We asked before we left when the place closed and we heard his thick accent say 9, but when he told us where to park we heard B3, but there was no B3 but there was a P3 so we parked there. So we were REALLY hoping we didn't mis-hear him, because we were not about to snuggle up under the dirty blankets the bums were pulling out for the night.
Lucky for us, I guessed right and we went right to our parking garage!!! What a relief!
We packed up and headed out to get some dinner. All the places we wanted to go in D.C. are closed on Saturdays and our Halloween candy only did so much for our hunger and we weren't about to eat Katelyn's food since we can control our hunger anger much more than we can control hers :)
We headed out to hang out with family for the night and passed by the Jefferson Memorial on our way out. The sun was setting on it just right and I could see Jefferson in there standing strong. Very pretty.
There is SOOOO much more to see in D.C. and David got a good taste of it. My legs have never felt so exhausted and I tried stretching them and rubbing them, but they kept aching more and more through the night. I took some Ibuprofen and went to bed scared about how bad it was going to be in the morning. When I woke up, I was thrilled that my tired muscles enjoyed the night's rest so much that my legs felt completely normal! It was strange, but I had nothing to complain about so we were all happy!
Moving here has been quite the culture shock for us. We were signing our lease and then they were finishing up installing the new carpet in our apartment so we went around town for a bit.
As we were unloading the trailer, well as David unloaded the trailer, I went to play with Katelyn at the playground. There were some kids playing and they loved little Katelyn. They loved my "super blonde hair" and thought I looked like a Barbie model...they are so close! The girls wanted to have hair like mine when they got older. Who knew?!
Almost all of our boxes we packed were McDonald's boxes that were all the same size. There were a couple bigger ones and David asked for my help. I had Katelyn on my back in a carrier and so I got on one side and David was on the other and we just about started to haul that box up the stairs when a neighbor and his wife told us to stop and insisted that he help. He and David worked together and moved in the rest of the stuff and David loved having a helper that could do a lot more than I could. I enjoyed chatting with his wife and loved that there were nice people around that will go out of their way to help.
Driving around here is the complete opposite. I think a lot of people around here drive with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the horn. People honk way too often and are really aggressive with lane changes and everyone speeds like 10-15 over. Some people walking across crazy busy streets and play "Frogger" and go one lane at a time on a five lane road are also insane. If we take half a second to get going at a fresh green light, we get honked at. If everyone is stuck in traffic, people honk...it does not help. It was funny to us when someone ahead of us was busy in their car and really didn't notice the green light for a while, we got really excited and wanted to honk, but we couldn't remember if the horn was in the middle or on the sides of the steering wheel and we missed our honking opportunity. I had my first honk last week when there was a lady in my lane at night (not enough street lights) dressed in black (so I could barely see her) and she was arguing with a husband/boyfriend/man who was in the turn lane. I hit the brakes hard and gave her a solid honk and David was so proud of me :) I am officially a Baltimore-an...that sounds too close to Balti-moron...I don't know what they call them but I guess I am officially a natural.
David's job is going pretty good. He likes it a ton more than his old job but he is worried that since they hired him as a Level 2, he doesn't want them to think that his old job gave him that much experience so they shouldn't expect him to be able to do everything that employees that have been there for two years can do. Otherwise they have treated him wonderfully and they even gave him plenty of time off for Christmas to join the family at the cabin! We were nervous about that since he was a new hire, but we'll take it!
Our apartment is okay. We signed a short term lease thinking that we wanted to see if we liked it or if we didn't like it and wanted to move somewhere else, we could. It isn't terrible, but I don't love it. So we will be moving to a new place that we heard of from people in our ward. A lot of the young families from the ward live in that area, and none of the ward lives near us so for my sanity's sake we will be moving there in a couple months.
We absolutely LOVE our ward out here. I have never felt so welcomed, had so many people go out of their way to introduce themselves to me and want to know about us. We sold one of our cars before we moved and David needs a car for work so I am stuck at home...well I do have a bike so I am just without a car during the day. Multiple people from the ward come and visit for lunch or come pick Katelyn and I up to go play. The ward has a website where they keep in contact with everyone about everything (stuff they have to share, doctors they like, places they like to visit, places to eat, sewing groups, exercise groups, play groups, kids games to swap, all sorts of stuff!) and we were able to borrow a bike for a bike tour we went on. Another family in our ward offered us their old couches. Another family invited us and anyone else that wants to come, to have Thanksgiving with them...they host about 60 people every year for Thanksgiving and put on quite the party! I am excited! Everyone in the ward lives so far away and the ward boundaries are about 25-30 miles across, yet I have never seen a ward so close and friendly. I was seriously amazed the first two weeks in this ward. The immediate love they had for me and my family was overwhelming and they pulled us in and have made sure we love it. I don't know if all the wards in this area are like this, but I am making sure we stay in this ward when we move.
There are endless lists of things to do and see here and we can't wait to get out and explore this part of the country. We don't know how long we will be here, so we have to get going on our site seeing!
When David was in the interview process for his job, we were excited when he got to the third interview and was being flown out to Baltimore for it. My brother heard about it and mentioned that they should meet up. We knew that Baltimore was on the east coast, but we had no idea how close we were going to be to family. My brother lives near the DC area in Virginia so they are about an hour away. We were thrilled to find out we were going to be close to some family!
It has been so nice having them out here. The day we moved in, we ditched our mess and headed over to their place and celebrated my nephew's birthday. He just turned two and so he and Katelyn run around together. It was a fun birthday party and it was fun seeing them and eating their yummy food and meeting Tricia's side of the family that is there. I didn't know what they were saying most of the time as they would talk to each other, but they were very nice to me and they loved Katelyn too.
They have a Kinect and we had fun one night playing some games. We are plugging up some leaks in our tank :)
We are so glad that we knew people out here already. They have been helpful and they seem to always have cake when we are over there, so I know David likes them too!
I have a lot to catch up on that I would like to write out for the memory of it and also to let everyone know what's going on. So hang tight and we'll see if we can make it through it all.
I'll start off with the big move. David and I tried to out smart it and so we decided to sell or get rid of a ton of our stuff because we kept thinking how it would be cheaper to buy it out here in Baltimore than it would be to rent a big truck. Those trucks are pricey! It sounded like a fun way to get rid of the old stuff and start new and I kept imaging how nice it would be to have a fresh new start in so many ways at our new place.
I think she helps more with just her boots on.
As we packed up, we thought we did a really good job at de-junking and getting rid of or selling stuff. Then as we were pulling all the extras together and packing up the last things, we realized that we still had too much for the space we had. We packed the car and trailer as full as we could and dumped the rest. I was frustrated at the time feeling that we had to throw too much stuff away at the last minute and that my thrifty-ness had gone a little too far. I was wishing that we would have just paid the extra money to bring everything with us.
I had one more soccer game I was coaching and then my assistant was going to take over for the final two weeks. Chad did a really good job and was a lot of help with those rowdy boys.
We hit the road and once we did, we both felt a sense of relief. Once we left we felt good about leaving all that stuff behind and realized that it really was just "stuff" and we were excited for the brand new journey ahead. It seems interesting now because I can't remember most of the things we left that I was so frustrated about...its funny how that worked.
We had a week of driving across the country and though it seemed intimidating, we were ready for the adventure. We had 10 states to go through with 44 hours of driving ahead of us...Yikes!
We made our first stop in Idaho Falls and Rexburg. We hung out with family and Nick and David took on the big task of repacking the trailer. We had too much stuff in the car so they unloaded everything and packed every inch of that trailer full so we could all be comfy on our long drive. This helped us keep our sanity along the way. They did a wonderful job and we all slept well.
We caught a student ward sacrament meeting (I forgot how quiet those wards are with no babies/children making noise!) and then we headed out. We drove through the beautiful Swan Valley as we exited Idaho which has been home for us for quite some time. Our car had a rough time lugging the trailer up and down the hills and mountains in Wyoming and we got an all time low for the trip at 9 miles per gallon...that was quite the heavy load! We stopped in with Ben in Colorado as we all squeezed into his little room in the house.
The next morning we headed out and cruised our way to Omaha. We stayed with the Dickson's and decided to take a break from driving for a day and went around town a little. They showed us around town and we toured the Mormon Trail Center and the Winter Quarters Temple grounds there in Omaha. We had a cool tour and it was neat to take a break to think about what they went through. We thought our 44 hour drive was a little uncomfortable, but to walk as far as they did, with as little stuff as they had, in the terrible weather losing family and burying family along the way...our trip looks pretty glamorous and I didn't have much to complain about.
We ventured around the Mart and we all dreamed of all the fun furniture we would buy when we had pocketfuls of money. A visit with the Dickson's wouldn't be the same without some games so we fit those in too.
We headed out late the next morning and decided we were just going to go as far as we could then we would get a hotel for the night. We were on toll roads for the most part of the rest of our drive. We made it to some little town in Indiana and called it good for the night. The downpour of the rain was wild most of the drive. Semi trucks were kicking up so much water anytime we were near them and we needed to calm our nerves for the night and take a break.
Iowa was full of corn fields and wind mills...and sunshine!
Katelyn liked hogging the big beds at the hotels and snuggling up with us and now she doesn't want to sleep in her own bed...once she was spoiled she doesn't want to go back.
She is always trying to help. She is a quick learner sometimes!
We checked out of our hotel and we were off again. We drove all day in the rain and then it cleared up as the night came. As we would leave one state and enter another we got more and more excited as we realized we were getting close. Indiana, then Ohio, then Pennsylvania....It was getting late, but we were so close we just wanted to drive a little bit further and be in Baltimore. We knew we wouldn't move in until the morning, but being so close gave us the extra energy to finish the drive. We got a hotel in Baltimore that night and then moved in the next day.
There were plenty of toll roads along the way.
This was one of the first signs we saw for Baltimore...we were getting close!
We were proud of ourselves...but we were probably more proud of Katelyn. She has had her good and bad days in the car, and the whole trip I think we only took one stop for her when she couldn't handle sitting in the car any longer. Of course we did have stops to change her stinky diapers...holy moly she can stink up the car and David and I had to pull over for those ones! We stopped to eat as well and tried to coordinate that with getting gas.
All in all it was a good trip. We didn't waste much time and we all still loved each other by the end of it. We learned that audio books are not our thing on long trips but we both enjoy them in spurts when commuting or when we are puttering around in a quiet home, but they make us sleepy during the long stretches and we would much rather chat. We entertained Katelyn with snacks and Disney movies and singing. She didn't care for toys much in the car. We didn't see much of the beauty of the country because of the rain. We spent a lot of time battling the fogged up windows and saw a lot of grey skies. Once we arrived here in Baltimore it was beautiful and the fall colors were amazing. I don't think I will miss the sagebrush of Idaho too much with all these beautiful trees around.
On our way to church there are beautiful back roads.
