July

So! It's been a while since I've added a substantial post. So here goes. There are corresponding slide shows in the posts below, but they are out of order a bit. You'll be able to figure out what's what.

I started off the month of July with volleyball camp at Shippensburg, my alma mater. My former coach was desperate for help, so not only did I go, but I brought Bird with me! Hooray! We had a good time working with the "lowest" group of girls, who turned out to be better than many of the older girls!! It was a long camp, but the girls we had made it worth the while. We had this one girl, Allison, who was just completely whacky. She was 11 years old and tiny, came up to perhaps the bottom of my shoulder blades if we stood back to back. And yet, her feet were a size bigger than mine! Hilarious! At the first session she proceeded to tell Bird and I that she could stick her head between her legs. Amused, we said, "Let's see!". And she bent BACKWARDS, not forwards like we were imagining, and stuck her head out and looked at us. She was like one of those Gumby dolls I used to have... Anyway, she filled the week with really random, funny sayings and thoughts. Good times. And we got paid, so that's a bonus!

After volleyball camp, I came home for a few days before heading off to New York with Mike, Mom, Dad and Grandma. We stayed at the Chieftain Motel in Watkins Glen. We met mom, dad and Grandma there on Thursday night, and went out for dinner at the Seneca Station overlooking Lake Seneca. We then enjoyed a stroll on the pier before we were scared off by dark clouds, thunder and lightning. We got into the car just before the torrential downpour started.

Friday we all rode together to Lake Canandaigua. We had lunch there at what used to be Kellogg's Pantry (where we'd stayed on a family trip when I was little) and then walked across the street to enjoy the sites on Lake Canandaigua. It was absolutely beautiful! After that, we headed further to Palmyra, NY, where we visited church sites. We did the tour of the Joseph Smith Farm, then ventured into Historic Downtown Palmyra to see the location of the BOM publication. That was a nice tour, as well. Then we went to dinner before heading to Hill Cumorah, for the pageant.

We got there early enough to get some really good seats, and then walk around for a bit. Mike and I went into the visitors center, and also spent time walking around meeting some of the cast. A family from our ward was in the pageant this year, and we got to see them in costume!! It was pretty hilarious to see them all dressed up! We also met one of King Noah's wicked priests, the 3 Wise Men, who acted more like the 3 Stooges (part of actual conversation with them...me: so who's bringing what? WM1: Uh, I think I'm bringing Mirth. WM2: I think I have Frankin...it's in a box. What's in the box? I don't know, I got the box. WM3: Hello! I'm from Alberta! What?
WM2: No I got gold.) and the youngest cast member of the pageant, a little 5 month old baby! The costumes were pretty cool, so it was fun to see. The pageant itself was pretty awesome. Good times were had by all, and even Grandma stayed awake for the whole thing!!

After it was all over, we headed back to Watkins Glen for the night. Saturday morning we got up and shared breakfast together. Mom, Dad and Grandma headed home, hitting up the Corning Museum of Glass on their way. Mike and I ventured off into Watkins Glen State Park, which I LOVE! I remember stopping there when I was little on a family trip, and I wanted to take Mike there. He loved it, too! The scenery was just beautiful! We climed 832 steps on the Gorge Trail, passing lots of waterfalls and other beautiful sites.

After that adventure, Mike and I headed for home!!

Three days later I was in Washington, D.C. to spend the day with mom, dad, Jerry, Sara, Taylor, Lydia, Gaby and Owen! They were passing through on their vacation, so we joined them to do some tourist stuff! Once we met up, we spent the bulk of our day in the Museum of Natural History, which is right up my alley. Lydia also loved it, because apparently she's an archaeologist in the making, collecting all sorts of rocks, fossils and geodes. She's a girl after my own heart!

Anyway, we saw the dinosaurs, sea creatures, mammals, bugs, western cultures, african cultures, and so much more. Owen was particularly hilarious during this part of the trip. He was all over grandma!! So cute! She had him busting a gut laughing at points! He also enjoyed what he saw in the museum, with many exclamations of "OH WOW" or "EWWWW YUCKY" or "THAT SCARES ME!" The funniest was when we were looking at some bugs. He crawled right up to this window, looked in, ran back yelling "THAT'S SCARY", and then ran right back up to the window again, repeating the process. Too cute. Lydia was just amazed by everything she saw. Taylor, in all of her teen glory, had fun roaming the place and finding all the cool little features to point out to Lydia. Gaby went back and forth between total amazement and total exhaustion, I think. We all had a good time, though. By the time we were done at the museum, we were all spent (especially Jerry and Sara who'd been walking DC for three days at this point) and decided to go to Elephant and Castle for dinner. Yum. We all had nice hearty meals (except Owen who slept on Jerry's shoulder for the duration of dinner) followed by dessert. We ordered two Big Ben Brownies. They were humongo. Gi-normous. Crazy big. It took all 8 of us to finish just two orders, and we each got whopping servings!! That's my kind of brownie. I wish I'd taken a picture of it. It was bigger than Taylor's head. Seriously.

After dinner, we were pounding the pavement again, this time on our way to the White House. We passed by and got some lovely photographs, all the while being watched by the ever-so-obvious Sniper on the White House roof. That made me feel really, really safe. We tried to walk by the South Lawn of the White House, but were stopped. Dad figured out that we were probably being blocked because a helicopter was coming in. He was right! It was pretty cool, too, to see Marine One fly in with Mr. President on board. He flew right over our heads!! It was quite the scene. The fields surrounding the Washington Monument had been cleared and were being guarded again by some men with heavy artillery, and the whole thing was rather serious. But cool.

After all that excitement, we finally made it over to the Washington Monument. We had fun playing on the benches, and getting really close to the monument, and then looking up. The way the clouds were moving made it look as though the monument was falling over on us! Owen ran away yelling "it fall on me! it fall on me!". He seemed pretty satisfied later, though, when Jerry told him to tell the monument to stay up. He did, and it did, and he wasn't scared anymore.

After that little journey, we headed back to the Metro Station, said our quick farewells, and headed home.

So. That's been the last couple of weeks, and I feel like I've been GO GO GO. I've also been GROW GROW GROW as my belly gets huger and huger. To some it still doesn't look like much, but to me, I look down and see huge-ification. But I'm ok with it. I've been trying to keep up with my workouts at the gym so I don't get all huge everywhere else. I'll be a full 24 weeks on Saturday, which means I only have 16 weeks left! Which means that I'm running out of time to get done all the things I need to at the house! It wouldn't be so bad, except we have to get something done with the basement first, so we can move all of our "office" stuff out of the baby's room. And we need to continue working on re-wiring the house. And we need to install a baseboard heater in the baby's room, because the radiator doesn't quite warm up the bedrooms very well. And then we need to paint. And then we need to get a crib. And a stroller. And all the other baby stuff you need. 16 weeks seems SO far away, and yet so close! Egads!!