DC with Nikki

So a couple of weekends ago I finally made it down to DC. It is only 4 hours away from here but I had never made it. I went mainly to see Nikki Madsen, who lives there now and to attend my friends reception but ended up falling in love with that amazing, sparkling clean city.

I got there on Thursday night and Nikki proved yet again to be the most phenomenal hostess. She had an entire itinerary planned and printed for me, complete with all the information that I would need. So with Nikki's detailed plan in hand I went out to discover DC.
This is me in front of the capital building. I took the tour and was impressed, then I went to the supreme court and then on to the Library of Congress where I went on a guided tour and again developed a bit of a crush on my tour guide. I have discovered a bit of a weakness in myself for quirky tour guides. I find their knowledge of the most random things fascinating and love following them around.

I learned several things in DC.
1) With all the photographing incompetents roaming around major tourist sights, it is best to become a master of the "self-photograph" if you intend to travel solo.
2) DC is so clean and bright it reminded me of Disneyland. I kept expecting Goofy to come sauntering around the corner, broom in hand to keep the area shiny clean. There was certainly no peeing on the sides of buildings and no chicken bones on the streets. Perhaps only someone who lives in New York can appreciate the phenomenon that it is that a city the size of DC can be clean.
3) DC has a totally different feel than New York. I decided that the purposes of DC and New York are different. DC is designed to inspire awe and admiration to the visitor. It is set up to show everything that is good about being American. New York's purpose is to inspire fear and intimidation in the visitor as it attempts to dominate you financially, either through legal albeit somewhat unethical means or through the more direct way of although still somewhat unethical method of street muggings.
4)Life is cheaper, cleaner, prettier and overall easier in DC, but for some reason I belong in NYC.
Nikki met me on her lunch break and took me to the White House to take a peak. Then I went and saw the theater where Lincoln was shot and the house where he died. Then I went to the archives and saw all the stuff there including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Then I went over to the Air and Space Museum because Nikki told me I should check out the temporary American History exhibit there and look what I found....
The Nauvoo temple stone!

Saturday Nikki and I and a couple of her friends got in her car (oh what a luxury to have a car) and went up into the gorgeous hills to see the trees.
We went to these caves that were amazing and since it was their anniversary they were being lit up by candles which made them even more beautiful.
That night my roommate Cristi came and Nikki lent us her car (she is truly a saint) so that we could go to our friend's reception in Annapolis, Maryland. That town is charming and so pretty. I was in awe the whole weekend and what a beautiful life some people lead. Sunday we went to church in Nikki's huge singles ward that was full of well educated, refined, globally minded people. I was stunned. Then that night we went on a tour of the monuments. I loved them all.
This is me and my roommate Cristi on the steps of the Lincoln monument looking out over the Washington monument and the WWII monument. My favorite though, was the Korean War Monument. We saw it at night when it was dark and quiet and it is a bunch of larger than life sized statues of soldiers with all their gear on walking through the plants. This caused a much more emotional reaction in me because all I could think about were these poor guys wandering through a strange country far away from family in bad weather, at night and in reality they were just waiting for the enemy to come out and attack them. What a scary way to live, as a target. I am so grateful for the soldiers, for all the amazing leaders this country has had and for the opportunity to live in a country that, I believe, has the best interests of its citizens at heart.

I'm Still Alive

So I got back to NYC on June 16th after going to dinner and Karaoke with my friends in Beijing. At Karaoke I sang the New York song that says "I want to wake up in the city that doesn't sleep" and I actually got on a plane and woke up in NYC. It was cool.

I went back to my ward and it felt like coming home. Many of my friends were still here and it has been a lot of fun to see them all again. I went immediately back to my temple shift, Saturday mornings at 5:00 am and I was called as the Spanish trainer for the session. Within the first two weeks at church I was asked to come up and give an impromptu testimony, asked to speak and given a calling as Relief Society Teacher. Looks like I didn't miss a beat.

I started training on June 18 to be an ESL teacher. The schedule was grueling. I taught middle school ESL for 4 hours in the morning every day, then went to school for a four hour class for my Masters degree, then I went to a special training program. The summer school that I taught at offered me a job for the fall so I will be teaching Beginning level ESL students at MS 326 starting Sept. 3rd. It has been fascinating and I will definitely tell you more about what it is like to teach students who have such limited life experience in NYC's inner-city public schools.

So now for some pictures....

My friend Seth asked my friend Amy to make this shirt for him to surprise me. It was hilarious!

I went with a group of friends up to Niagara Falls again.


This time we went to the base of the falls and danced under the spray. We got soaked but it was AWESOME!!!

We went to palmyra and saw the temple and the Sacred Grove. I love those places.

Then we say the Hill Cumorah Pageant. This pageant is really rather amazing. Nothing like the Manti temple pageant. This one is a BIG deal and very well done. Check out the sets and how huge the cast is.


My training ended and in August all I had to do was find a new apartment. I scoured the city and saw some of the most frightening excuses for an apartment that I have ever seen being rented for thousands of dollars a month. Luckily we found this one just one block down on our same street. It is a NYC historic landmark called Astor Row and it is the only place in NYC with a porch and front and back gardens. We move in August 18th.

I am heading to DC to visit Nikki Madsen tomorrow and then I will be goint to girls camp with the stake next week.