Mockingjay

Michelle and I just finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, the third and final book of the Hunger Games series. We read this final installment the way we read the Harry Potter books - by actually taking turns reading out loud to each other. This was a quick read so it only took us a few days. I don't think I am going to do a real critique of the book and break it down analytically or anything like that, rather I mostly just wanted to say that it was our least favorite of the trilogy and we were slightly disappointed with the story and the ending...although it did provided enough closure and satisfied all the loose ends.

More than anything else though, I would love to hear what you have to say about the book if you have read it yet. Please share your thoughts!

An Amazing Summer

This summer has been one we will never forget. We went to Peru and Georgia, and we had great friends and family come visit and stay with us here in DC. We also did a ton of sightseeing right here at home. I guess you could say this is going to be one of those 'catch-up' posts since there are a lot of really cool things we did this summer that we haven't gotten around to blogging about. I will start out with the most recent. Last night we went to a Red Skins preseason game with some friends. I don't think I had ever been to an NFL game before so it was a lot of fun! FedEx Field is the largest NFL stadium and we could tell! It is also pretty far from the nearest Metro stop so it took us almost two hours to from our apartment to our seats. It was quite an ordeal to get there but it was totally worth it. The Red Skins were playing the Ravens so that added a few cool elements to the already cool setting. Michale Oher (from the movie The Blidside) plays for the Ravens so it was fun to see him play. Also, between the Red Skins and the Ravens there are multiple BYU and Utah alumni including John Beck and Dennis Pitta -- who had a great game.



Last weekend we went kayaking on the Potomac River. Some of our friends got a great deal through Groupon and were nice enough to invite us to join them. Each couple -- including us -- got into a two-person kayak and were free to go as far up or down the Potomac as we wanted (as long as we were back to the dock in an hour and fifteen minutes). We made all the way to the Lincoln Memorial and you could see the Washington Monument behind it. It was a great view and we rested there for a little while, took some pictures, and then turned around and made it back to the dock, albeit extremely exhausted. Kayaking is harder work than I thought, luckily Michelle is strong enough to pick up my slack :)







Last weekend we also went to a Maroon 5 concert with our friends the Hammocks. We found an incredible deal on tickets a few days before the concert, the venue must have needed to sale some more tickets, which was fine by us! We were both really looking forward to it and they didn't disappoint. They had VV Brown and Owl City as opening acts. I enjoyed all three groups a lot more than I thought I would. VV Brown's music was a little different but she really grew on me by the end of her set of songs. Owl City was also a unique performance, to say the least, but we enjoyed all the music. Maroon 5 put on a good show and played all the hits. Before the Maroon 5 concert we visited the US Marine Corps Museum in Quantico/Triangle. We had heard nothing but good things about it so we were anxious to finally visit it. It really was a great museum. There were many artifacts and lots of history in the museum. Sadly, we only got to spend about 45 minutes in the museum because the traffic was so bad and it took us so long to get there. I was certain that the traffic must have been due to an accident but I was wrong, it was just DC traffic. To give you an idea of just how bad the traffic was, when we were only about 5 miles away from the museum it still took us something like 2 hours to get there. We left with plenty of time to get there, or so I thought, and there were moments while we were stuck in traffic when I thought we might not even make it. Thankfully we did at least get to spend 45 minutes there!

Finally, going all the way back to the beginning of the summer, we had an amazing fourth of July here in DC. Michelle's cousins Phil and Noelle and their baby came and stayed with us for the weekend and we all went, along with a ton of friends watch fireworks from what has to be the absolute coolest place in the world to watch fireworks. We watched fireworks go off above the Lincoln Memorial from right in front of the Washington Monument. On our right was the White House and on our left was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The US capitol was also behind us, a little further down the National Mall behind the Washington Monument. We got to celebrate our country's independence surrounded by all of these magnificent memorials. Some people say its not worth the long Metro ride in and wading through what must be hundreds of thousands of people to see fireworks, but I would beg to differ, I think it was completely worth it! Muchas Gracias to Chance for his fine photography that you see on all of the 4th of July pictures.







Michelle and I now blog for two reasons: the first is the same as before, to let our friends and family know what is going on in our lives. The second reason is because we recently discovered that you can have your blog turned into an actual book. The website blog2print.com will put all the posts, with their pictures, in order and into a hardcover book with a title page and page numbers. You can customize the book however you want and not include some posts if they are silly and you just don't feel that you need it in your book. We paid for all of our blog posts (up to the point about a month ago) to be made into a book and we absolutely love it. We will probably do it about once a year and keep them as something of a record of the fun things we have done.

My Life is About to Change...

Take a look at the books I spent the last couple of months reading:

• Hunger Games and Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins
  
• Deadline - Clair Poulson
• These is My words - Nancy E. Turner
• The Third Option, Separation of Power, Executive Power, - Vince Flynn

Now take a look at the books I just checked out of the library for the upcoming month:

• First Day Jitters
• Chrysanthemum
• Listen Buddy
• Chick Chicka Boom Boom
• The Little Engine That Could
• Why Mosquito's Buzz in People's Ears
• The Honest-to-Goodness Truth

Yep, starting Monday I will once again be teaching first grade and life is about to change quite a bit! Hopefully I will have time to actually blog about it this year.

Awesome Road Trip To Atlanta

Atlanta is a really cool city. We spent this past weekend there with our really good friends, the Hammocks. The Hammocks were nice enough to invite us to stay at their house for the weekend with them and it was really fun to get to know their family. We managed to see a lot of the city and have a lot of fun in just a short amount of time. Atlanta has some very famous landmarks and attractions. We went to the World of Coke, the Georgia Aquarium, and Turner Field. Special thanks to Chance, an awesome photographer, who took the above picture and the pictures at the stadium. Atlanta was great, but I think what made the trip so fun was who we were with!

The World of Coke was a blast. It was a museum about the history of Coca Cola products and it ended with a tasting room where you were free to try coke products from literally all around the world. There were 24 products from North America and then 6 actual coke beverages from North America, 8 from Latin America, 8 from Asia, 8 from Europe, and 8 from Africa. It was a lot of fun trying the different flavors of sodas from all around the world. To be perfectly honest with you, a lot of the drinks from Europe, Asia, and Africa were pretty disgusting (see video of me trying a Japanese flavor of Hi-C). Michelle and I both tried every single kind, except for the Nestea beverages because we don't drink tea. In total, we tried something like 54 different soft drinks from around the world, we both felt sick afterward. The worst soft drink, if you are wondering, is an Italian drink called Beverly. Look it up on Wikipedia if you want, but take my word for it, it is awful. I thought it was really cool that Peru was represented in the Latin America section with Inca Kola. It was not as good as the real Peruvian beverage but it was a pleasant surprise that they had it.








The Georgia Aquarium was a real treat. It is the biggest aquarium in the world. Our favorite part of the aquarium was touching the rays and sharks in a section of the aquarium where they let you touch them when they swim by. It was also fun to walk through a tunnel with the aquarium and sharks and whales all around you.





It was 'Mormon Night' at Turner Field where the Braves play. We saw them beat the New York Mets, but the real treat was getting to walk around the field in a parade with all the other members of the Church a little before the game started. Chance took some awesome pictures of us walking around the field, but the coolest is probably one of me pretending I am jumping at the outfield fence to catch a home run. It was a neat experience to be on the actual grounds of a baseball field. After the game we went to a local legend of a restaurant called the Varsity. We enjoyed some chili cheese fries and chili cheese dogs.

From what we saw and all the people we met, Atlanta is an awesome place! What really made the trip so great though was the company we were with; really, we had such a great time!