Cool Things to do in DC #5: National Zoo

Michelle and I have continued to visit the neat fun things here in DC and this week we went to the National Zoo. There are so many places we want to visit that we are starting to make a list; things I recently added were the US Botanical Garden and the National Cathedral (I got the idea to visit these because both were in the new Dan Brown book that we are reading). The zoo is part of the Smithsonian series of museums and research facilities so you know it is going to be a legitimate zoo. Also I should that the National Zoo, like so many other cool places to go around here, is free. We saw elephants, a hippo, all kinds of unique birds, lots of other animals. Also as a side note, Michelle and I last visited this zoo in the spring of 2007 while we were interns out here in DC. We saw better animals this time but it was essentially the same.

Happy Birthday Michelle!

I want to wish a happy birthday to Michelle! She turned 23 today. She is the girl of my dreams and she makes me a better person. Michelle has made so many sacrifices in the short time we have been married to help support our family. I am grateful that she is such a selfless person. Now she is a first grade teacher in DCPS and cares about her kids so much, she is truly an example to me everyday! I am the luckiest man alive. Happy birthday Michelle!

Weight Loss

For the past two months, starting when Michelle and I lived in Philadelphia, I have been making a tremendous effort to eat healthy and exercise a lot. I am pleased to say that as of this morning I have lost 35 pounds from when I started. I think I am just about where I was when we got married. I am currently training for a half marathon in early November. I am working hard to be ready for it and I love how much weight it is helping me lose.

Cool Things to do in DC #1-4

When Michelle and I were getting ready to move to DC, we thought about all the things that there are to do in this huge and diverse city. Michelle and I both lived in DC for 4 months while we were interns on Capitol Hill back in 2007 so we had a good idea of what it is like to live here and all of the things there are to do. DC is like other big cities (philadelphia, NYC, etc) in some ways but really I feel it is a lot different. One of the biggest differences in comparing DC to other big cities is that there is so much to do in DC that is FREE! Really there is no reason for anyone to ever be bored here. There are more museums, monuments, concerts (of all types of music), plays, performances, political events, tours, sporting events (DC has pro teams for all the sports...sometimes multiple teams, ie-the orioles and Nats or the redskins and the ravens) and parks then you could ever possibly visit really in any amount of time. The reason why a lot of the stuff to do here is free (like the zoo, most museums, the Smithsonians, etc) is because they are funded by you and me, the taxpayer. Michelle and I know our time here in DC is probably somewhat limited to just a couple of years and after that we may not live here again so we have decided to make the very most of our time and try and do and see as much as humanly possible while we are living here. Having said that, we want to make a list of all the cool things there are to do in DC that are unique to this area. Today I will share the first four things we have done in the city that are unique to here. Hopefully by the end of our two years here it will be a very long list.

Cool thing #1: Washington DC Temple
We went with our good friends the Kachers to the Temple here in DC our very first night after moving here. It is a breathtakingly gorgeous temple. They refer to it on the radio here as "The Mormon Temple" when they are describing traffic and stuff like that on the freeways because you can see the beautiful temple when you are driving on the freeway. It literally takes your breath away when you see it. This was my first time getting to go inside.


Cool thing #2: Arlington National Cemetery
Michelle's parents and sister were here a couple weeks ago and I thought they should see the Arlington National Cemetery. It doesn't sound like it would be an exciting tourist type of place but it is really amazing. It is really a scared place I feel. Thousands and thousands of soldiers are buried there from all different wars throughout the US's history. JFK and his family are there too. It is quite a sight to see all the graves perfectly lined up for as far as the eye can see. The highlight without a doubt though is the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. It is a powerful thing to watch.




Cool thing #3: The Washington Nationals games
DC has its own MLB team: the Nationals. They are by far the worst team (according to their record anyway) in the country but it is still whole lot of fun to go to their games. Because they are so bad and demand for their tickets is so low, you can actually get into the game for $5. That is remarkably cheap. I paid like $40 or something to go to a Red Sox game in Boston earlier this year just to give you a comparison. The Nationals games have a great atmosphere and it really is a lot of fun just to be there.





Cool Thing #4: George Washington Masonic Temple
Michelle and I recently visited the George Washington Masonic Temple. We came here before when we used to live here but we wanted to come visit again because we found it very fascinating. The tour guide is very informative and answers any question you have. He said that he wanted to dispell any and all rumors out there because he knows Dan Brown has a new book coming out this week that will have a lot to do with the Masons. It is really interesting to hear about the role Free Masonry had in our Founding Fathers' lives and the values that the organization promotes. As the name of the museum denotes, it is mostly focused on George Washington and his life as a Mason leader. There are lots of cool paintings and artifacts from his life.

Long Overdue Update

Life has been so incredibly busy and so much has been going on that it was both hard to find the time to write on the blog and hard to know just what to blog about. So, sorry for not writing for two months. I suppose I will cover a little bit of everything. Michelle and I survived our Teach For America training in Philadelphia. It was the most intense 5 weeks of our lives. We averaged 5 or 6 hours of sleep on week days and that was because we had our lives prioritized a little bit differently than other people there. Lots of people were pulling all nighters left and right, we just cared too much about being able to spend time with each other and getting some sleep to do things like that. We planned lessons, went to workshops, taught summer school during the day, and squeezed in as much sight seeing as we could. We got to be in Phily for the 4th of July so that was cool. All in all it was great living in Phily for that little while. I am glad we don't live there now but it was nice to get to know that city a little bit. We lived in dorms at Temple University and had all you can eat meals at their cafeteria. And everyhting was paid for by TFA so it kind of felt like a vacation...a vacation that you had to work harder than you knew was posisble on. We moved to DC the last day in July. There was a bit of a situation with our apartment that we moved in to (I could write an entire blog dedicated to what happened) at first but the management of our apartment copmlex is phenomenal and paid for us to stay in a hotel while they prepared a bigger and better apartment for us at the price of our old one. To make a long story short, our management made up for a bad situation by giving us money, a bigger apartment, and just being really cool. We love where we live. We live in Alexandria VA, just outside of DC. We wanted to be able to drive places and not pay for parking everywhere we went to so we decided not to live in the actual district of columbia. Michelle and I both love our jobs teaching. I am the Spanish teacher at a junior high/elementary school. I teach Spanish I to eight graders and do an exposure type of class to the elementary school kids throughout the week. I see each lower grade level one time a week. It is really a lot of fun to get to work with kids of all different ages. I like teaching Spanish and I really love being a teacher. I am so glad that Michelle and I are doing Teach for America. We thought it about it and prayed about it long and hard whether we should do TFA and I am glad we followed our feelings and instinct and decided to do it. It feels so right to be out here, we both love our jobs, our ward and all the friends we have made here are amazing, and everything just seems to be going well. The one thing I could do without is the traffic on the way home from work, but I guess I can deal with that. Michelle is a first grade teacher. She loves her job also. She is much busier than I am because she has to prepare everything for her entire class everyday. I on the other hand only have to prepare one lesson for the day and I have enough planning time to just do it at school. I really have a great situation. Michelle likes what she does though and its worth the time and effort she puts into it. Everyday she comes home with cute stories of the things he kids do and say. Being a teacher is a very rewarding job. I have a picture that a third grader drew for me that says "You are cool." He is a Latino student that I have been helping because he is an ESL student (English as a second language) and is a little behind. It is really just a great job. I am excited to get to do this for the next couple years or maybe longer, you never know. Changing topics entirely, we love living in DC. There is so much to do and see. We want to do everything by the time we leave here in a couple years. Our ward does so many fun things together and we have made lots of friends. We have done some unique things to DC already as well. We have gone to Arlington National Cementary, a Nationals game, visited some mouments, visited the DC temple and things like that. We are hoping that our friends that live in other places will want to come visit us and stay at our apartment. If anybody wants to come, we have got an extra bed room for you! I will have to write a more in depth blog one of these days just on our apartment or our jobs or what we do for fun out here, because there really is so much that I have to say, but this is going to wrap up my blogging for now. This is my first blog since I decided to start blogging again, so this is good for now. Michelle is barbecuing some chicken on our new BBQ and it smells really good, so i'm outta here!