What We've Been Up To

Well, we've completed four weeks here in the East.  It's been a full four weeks! My job is going fine.  I'm getting used to things, and actually feel pretty comfortable. I'm amazed how little time it's taken.  We've spent almost every spare moment when I'm not working, touring the area.  We have to take a break some days because the kids could use a stay-home day sometimes.  But we've mostly been out and about.

Here's where we've been:

C&O canal.  There's a whole National Historic Park along the C&O canal that follows the Potomac River.  It's mostly empty, but the canal tow road is a sort of parkway trail.  Lots of people bike/walk/run along it.  It's like 180 miles long, if I'm remembering right, and has a lot of different entry points.  We hitched up to it in Maryland, just abut 20 minutes from our apartment.  We took a walk.  It was hot.  But so green!  There's so many trees here! It's like a freaking rainforest I feel like sometimes.

Local Rec Center and Library.  We went to the local rec center where they have a trampoline gymnastics area that they have "open gym" times for kids under 7.  We went for Malcolm's birthday, and the kids loved it!  I wished they'd let the parents play more too.  But We just did a few jumps into the foam pit and stuff to get them going.  We've also swam at the rec center pool.  They're outdoors and only open until Labor Day, so we'll be done swimming here soon.  We go to the library fairly regularly to get books.  It's pretty small and sad, but because of that there's hardly any waiting lists for the books you want.

Harpers Ferry. Where the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers converge, there's a little town called Harpers Ferry.  It's all historic with old buildings turned into museums and things.  There's some big events that happened there, mainly civil war armies passing through and John Brown's raid.  We've been brushing up on our history a lot out here!  We actually went to Harper's Ferry twice.  Once we got rained out by a monsoon!  Or at least it seemed like one.  I've never seen so much rain come pouring out of the sky at once!  We managed to see a civil war canon be shot, but left shortly after arriving in town because we saw the deep black clouds looming and read the weather report.  The next time it was a beautiful sunny day, and we saw the rest of the town, hiked to Jefferson Rock (where Thomas Jefferson stood and looked out over the area.), then had lunch.

The National Mall,  We've spent two days in DC at the National Mall.  On our first trip we walked and walked and walked all around the different monuments.  Whew!  It was quite the day!  The next time we went to the Smithsonian Castle, The Hirshhorn Sculpture Museum, and the Museum of American History. The second day was amazingly wretchedly HOT!  We were glad we were spending most of it inside.  We took the Metro in to the National Mall both times we've been.  The kids think the train is a lot of fun.

The Brick Festival.  We drove to Chantilly, VA (a really nice drive on highways through the country rather than interstates) to go to a Lego Convention.  It was actually a lot of fun. Malcolm really loved it, of course.  Lots of amazing creations made by all the different Lego clubs in the area... now I forget what they call themselves.  But some amazing stuff! Elliot was mostly bored and wanted to run around and hang on the chains keeping people back from the displays.  So I spent a lot of time just following her around and looking at what I could between Ellie wrangling.

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center Air and Space Museum.  Did you know that there are two Smithsonian air and space museums?  While we were in Chantilly for the Brick Festival we thought we'd stop by the "other" one.  It was fun, but also made me realize what a cool museum is at the Hill Air Museum.  They had many of the same planes, if not even more and cooler ones.  However, the Udvar-Hazy center had the space shuttle challenger.  Which was the highlight for sure. It was cool to get up close to it and many of the other space things from recent space explorations.

Philadelphia.  We most recently went to Philadelphia for an over-night stay.  It is a 4 hour drive from where we live, and there's a new temple with an open house going on.  So it was a great excuse to go.  I really liked Philly!  The city is definitely big!  But has so much history and cool stuff.  We went and did just the most obvious of highlights.  We had to get home to go to Malcolm's Kindergarten Orientation, but I'd have liked to stay longer.
We saw: The Love Statue, City Hall, Dilworth Park-where the kids played in the fountain, Independence Hall and it's visitor center, the Liberty Bell, the Temple--which also has a really cool new meetinghouse built next to it.  The style makes it look just like an old building but all clean and new!  Same with the temple.  They did a great job of matching it to the style of surrounding buildings and the feel of Philadelphia.  And most Open Houses I've been to in Utah are busy enough, they just let you walk through and you just look and then can ask questions at the end.  This one you stopped in the entry and a local member talked a little about the temple, then stopped and talked to someone again in the baptistry, the ordinance room, the brides room, and the Sealing Room.  So that was different and cool.  We had dinner and then walked through the city and past the temple all lit at night.
The next day we swam in the hotel pool, then checked out and saw the Rocky Steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum and walked through some more of town to get some lunch.  Then we ran out of time with all the bus driving and walking we had yet to do to get back to our car.  We BARELY made it home in time to meet Malcolm's teacher.  There was just too much to see to fit in two half-days.  I'd like to go back, but I don't know that we will.  There's still so much on our list!  Of course, everything is getting further and further away, as we've done more of the closer things.

Ryan also took the kids to a local kids museum, and he's been to many of the creeks and rivers in the area fishing too.  Virginia is starting to grow on us.  Though I don't really love West Virginia, or at least Martinsburg where we live.  Our apartments are in a fine area, but most of Martinsburg is... bleh.  I'm not a fan.  I've enjoyed almost every place we've been to in Maryland.  I've liked Maryland. And Pennsylvania too.  Though they all have similar looking views.  and as much as I thought we would, we've not spent a ton of time in Virginia.  Unless you count the 36+ hours a week I spend taking care of their sick people.  :)  But we have plans coming up to visit some more of it's natural areas.  We're pretty excited!