Summertiiiiiiiime - - and the living is easy

This summer my sister and I decided to take a cue from my cousin Sally who does field trips with her family and friends.  We sat down and filled the calendar with fun things to do.  WELL. . . . the only thing we have followed through with is our weekly Wednesday swim expedition to my neighborhood pool.  We have had a wonderful time! 

For any of you who are local, we are planning on going to Sandy Point State Park this next Friday.  It is at the base of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (the last exit before you go onto the bridge).  It has groomed beaches, and the Bay to swim in.  It's not the same as the ocean as far as waves go, but is fun.  There is a per car charge I believe.  I'm going to say that we'll leave my place at 10:45, I think my sister's kids have swim lessons that morning and so that is the soonest we could get away.  Bring a lunch and come along with us! (I hope we'll follow through if I post this!!)

Why do I love these "walking away" pictures!  They are great! We are going to the pool.  There has been such a horrid heat wave these past few weeks.  The last time I remember it being this hot was when we moved here in 1999.  Last night it rained, and I just went out to feel the temp.  It is blessedly cool this morning!!!!

I thought this was so cute that the guys were helping each other with their sunscreen. 

Ceci and McKay

This pool isn't heated, but with the warm weather is very pleasant.  Sometime it even gets too warm. My mom has been coming the past two weeks to enjoy it's wonderfulness.  The only place to be is IN the water. 

We've discovered that they serve free lunch every day at the community center right here at the pool.  I feel a little wrong eating the food when we aren't low income, (we live in a low income neighborhood) but the people providing it beg you to come and get it.  Maybe so the program can continue?  Who said there was no such thing as a free lunch?  (okay, okay, I know in the long scheme of things it still isn't free!!!!)

I bought 10 pool tickets at the first of the year for Trude's family and I still have some of them.  The first time we went, they told me I could keep the tickets.  The second time they took only two of them, and so on and so on.  This last week they didn't take any of them again!  It's like we have perpetual pool passes!  Maybe they just like the clientele.  We practically have the pool to ourselves. 

I love it and the summer is way too short.  The weeks that the pool is open seem to come and go much too swiftly.  Ahhhh, but such is life!

A treat

One fantastic thing about living here is that we are close to The Kennedy Center and can see Broadway-like plays if we pay attention to their schedules and purchase tickets far enough in advance.  We've seen a few things at the Kennedy Center, but the most recent was Mary Poppins.  We went with a couple of couples, ate dinner beforehand in DC and then made our way to the play.  As far as the play goes, there are more songs, different scenes and a little different story line.  The story line that I noticed was most different was that in the movie Mrs. Banks was a strong women's suffrage supporter.  In the play she was looking for her niche as "Mrs. Banks" a wife and mother and her roll in high society, which her husband and she disagreed about.  I missed the "I love to laugh" section of the movie.  As a child I just knew if I laughed hard enough I would be able to float to the ceiling, and even tried to do it a few times!!!  The play was magical, and their were several show-stopping scenes in it.  Speaking of scenes, the scenery was awesome.  I love to watch how smoothly they change from one set to another.  The home on Apple Tree lane had the look of a pop-up book!!!  Really interesting.  The little girl who played Jane was AMAZING!!!    I can't wait for the next play, perhaps Wicked???? 

Mini vacation - Part 3

My dad took a good look at the brochure for the area and found a spot that he would like to see.  His dad owned a couple of "reapers" that were invented on this property.  The McCormick Reaper.  It is amazing to look at what people could invent when they had so little available to them.  Necessity is the mother of invention, so it is said.  This invention changed the world of farming.  Below is an old-time mill.

My grandfather owned the reaper in the bottom right hand corner.  I think I remember seeing one of these old pieces of equipment on his land.

Then we were off to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home.  This is the front of the home.  It is hard to tell from the pictures which is the front and which is the back.  They look pretty similar.  The story of how he designed this and some of the interior features are fascinating.  You wonder if he ever stopped thinking in his lifetime.  He moved into this home in his early 60's and his wife never lived in it. 

The back of the home. 

This is out by the garden area.  The day was hot, and it was much cooler inside this structure.  I guess Thomas Jefferson spent a lot of time reading and thinking here.

I love gardening.  It was fun to see the different species of plants and flowers and smell all the herbs they had growing there.

These next 3 pictures came from McKay's camera.  It is fun to look at his pictures and see how he sees his world.  He's a good little photographer. 

Grandpa sitting next to an interesting tree.

He pointed this out to us that the bricks had been there longer than the tree, or maybe the tree was there, it just grew to cover the bricks.

On our shuttle ride back to the entrance of Monticello, the bus driver told us that Thomas Jefferson was so in debt that his family had to sell everything except for the graveyard to try to pay off his debts.  They sold his 3,000 acres, his house and all it's furnishings and still didn't pay off all the debt until years later.  The dude was smart in so many ways.  It gives a person cause to scratch their head when they hear things like that!  I guess he couldn't be smart in every way!  The End.

Our mini vacation - Part 2

We stayed at this hotel, which was pretty awe inspiring.  From what I can tell, it was built in the early 1800's and is "old" as Lincoln called it, but I loved the ambience.  If I had my dreams come true I'd live in a home this old.  I loved the wood work and the "feel" of the place.  The rooms aren't anything to write home about, but it was fun!

I love, love, loved the foyer of the hotel.  I wanted my kitchen floor to be a black and white checkerboard like this, but went for something that Lincoln and I could agree upon!  This checker board was placed on the diagonal and looked great.   Love that wood work and detail!

The main attraction here is the natural bridge that is on the property (once owned by Thomas Jefferson) but there are a lot of things to do that were added, I'm thinking so there would be enough for people to do to stay the weekend. Look at the mountains behind this building that is the entrance to the hike to the natural bridge.

A proper breakfast served on older plates, with older juice glasses and silverware.  As you can tell from the water glasses it was a miss-mash of old and new.  What a treat!

This is one of the touristy things to do that is in the area.  I'm glad this didn't cost anything.  My mom really wanted to go see this!!!

Mom, Dad, Lincoln and McKay, lined up in front of "Foamhenge."

Lincoln's been to the real Stonehenge.  He said this looked a lot like it!

So I guess I have an excuse not to go to the real one!

On our hike to natural bridge there was a stream with lots of baby fish and lots of gnarly old trees. 

And there it is!  Natural bridge.  You see how teeny the people are underneath it?

We spent a lot of time looking up!

So you get a lot of views of people's nostrils, if that is what you were looking for . . . . NOT!

A little further on there is an Indian Village that has been built.  There were some tribe members there. 

On further up the trail was a waterfall, that was rather unimpressive, but we walked the walk and didn't just talk the talk and made it there.  I like this picture of Lincoln and McKay.

There is a highway that crosses on the top of this.  Hwy 11.  I guess that is part of the reason they call it the Natural Bridge.

After we got done hiking, there is a toy museum and a wax museum and a cavern included in the ticket to the bridge.  We did all three.  Well . . . . . mom and I stayed above ground while the guys went beneath.  It was a hot, hot day, temperatures were nearing 100, I'd say.  We had plenty of water and took everything easy and took advantage of every air-conditioned building we could!

To be continued . . . . . . .

Our Weekend Adventure

We decided that since EFY (Especially for Youth) for McKay was 4 hours away, we would take a little mini week-end vacation while we were there.  We asked mom and dad to go with us.  We left on Friday and spent the evening in Lexington, Virginia (a very nice historical town) and the night in Natural Bridge, VA.  Here is mom and dad at a Mexican Restaurant the night before we picked up McKay.

The Restaurant's decor was very bright and festive.  Their food . . . . . not as bright and festive!  This is the back of a booth seat.  All the chairs had something different on them.

One of McKay's EFY pictures.  It sounds (and looks) like he had a great time! He is front and center on this picture.

I would have loved to have a dorm room in this old building.  What an AWESOME place.  I bet the kids didn't appreciate it all that much.  As we were wandering around exploring, McKay would say "I didn't even notice THAT"!!!!  Look at this veranda . . . .

McKay and Lincoln

A grand old Victorian!

This is a college that is run by LDS people.  This statue is kind of cool.  The "whole armor of God."

He will need the whole armour as he goes off to his BIG-BAD high school this year. 

To be continued  . . . . . .

Youth Conference Pictures

Assembling the hand cart.

On the move . . . .

I guess I was wrong about the orange thing . . . . . they did only have an orange for sustenance most of one day.

The ever-present cow-pie!

I hope they enjoyed those oranges!  Thx to Patuxent Ward for the pics . . . . .

Youth Conference

This year for youth conference our stake did "trek."  I was afraid that McKay would hate it because he is usually a "stay in doors" kind of guy.  There are no kids in this neighborhood and so no pull for him to go outside.  Even swimming isn't fun anymore because he swam in swim team and gets his hour and a half swim time done early in the morning, and his siblings have all grown up and moved away!  Wow, the rambling mind of a woman!!!  How did I get there?  LOL!  

Anyway!  McKay really loved youth conference.  He didn't say that it was too hot, or that it was too buggy, or that he had to use a porta-potty (why was I surprised they had porta-potties?  Doesn't seem trek-like to me.  I guess Brother Marriott (yes, of Marriott hotels) didn't want the extra deposits on his ranch!!! :)   McKay is so quiet that it is hard to pull just what he did like, but I know he had a good experience. 

Halley, it'll be interesting for you to know that the only person who got an I.V. this year was your cousin Baxter!!!  And they out-lawed the "killing of the chicken" (too many germs, I don't know where you could get anything fresher than a freshly killed chicken!!!), and the "only an orange" for the whole day thing (too much risk of body collapse).  What pansies are they????? ;)

Here is his Ma and Pa and family!  Do you see the cute little "baby" they had to take turns carrying?  McKay is on the kneeling row, 2nd from the right.

Random Thoughts

I just got through a grueling day of driving my baby boy to EFY.  4 hours there and 4 1/2 hours back!  I helped him make up his bed, get unpacked and settled in, waited around a bit for him so he would feel comfortable with me leaving and LEFT!  I think I felt worse than he did!  He doesn't know a single soul . . . . (well, I am telling a little white lie, we did see a kid that used to live in our ward and now lives in North Carolina, and a couple of girls were there from our sister ward), but basically he's alone!  He's growing up, and didn't mind staying there alone at all!  He'll make friends quickly . . . . . .

On another note, just after having written my "patriotic" post, I got nail-spittin' mad at our government.  So nail-spittin' mad that I actually wrote a letter to our senators and congressmen.  I haven't actually sent the letter, but I WILL!  I just want Lincoln to read it first.

As many of you know I've been trying to build a little nest egg by buying properties and then renting them out.  Well, we are in a position to go ahead and do it again and because of all of the new "regulations" we need to be poor have low credit scores and be behind in our payments to get a listening ear.  Lincoln and I have excellent credit, EXCELLENT!!!!  I can't remember when the last time we EVER were late on a payment.  We have virtually 1 credit card that we pay off every two weeks and no car payments.  A perfect scenario . . . . and no deal!!  no enchilada!!!  won't even talk to us because of some new regulation about investment properties and we have too many of them apparently!  I was told credit scores don't matter anymore, our past history doesn't matter anymore . . . . . etc. etc. 

This put me into fits of anger and then deep depression for two days.  I could hardly make myself get out of bed I was so angry.  I became a couch potato.  I actually turned on the TV and became a vegetable.  Doesn't this seem majorly anti-growth???  Clip the wings of those who could help, and give wings to those who, oh never mind, I better not say it!!!

This is such a great time to buy and so now I'm looking for solutions . . . . private money??? Owner financed loans????  hmmmmmm . . . . . first I've got to get those letters sent out to two states, (Utah and Maryland) though a lot of good that will do.    Our crime = trying to get ahead . . . . . . ARGHHHHH!

A couple more good reads

Enchanted April is about a woman who is "dis"enchanted with her life.  She finds an advertisement in the newspaper for a mansion in Italy that is for lease and dreams what it would be like to get away from it all and take a vacation from life.  She finds 3 other women willing to do the same.  I don't want to spoil the story and so I'll just say she finds herself yearning for something she didn't expect and got the unexpected.  A nice read!  Below is the video cover to a movie . . . . . I'll have to get it from netflix! 

Howard's End.  I would call this book a classic.  It was written in 1910.  It involves, class, art, literature, politics, and human frailties and strengths.  I love to read old books like this one.  If you like Wuthering Heights, or Jane Austen, you would like this one too.  This will go on my netflix list also!

Happy Reading!!!   (and thank you again Georgia!)

Thoughts on Patriotism (warning!!! very long!!)

As it is July I have been trying to get my thoughts together on why I love this country and what it means to me to be an American.

For me I have to start with why my family lives in America in the first place.  When I look at my dad's genealogy I see that some of my ancestors came into this country in the early 1600's.  My Mother-in-law tells me that her family (my husbands family;) came here with the Mayflower.  WOW!

Why did they come here?  What were they looking for?  Do we want the same things today?  I think so.

What do people want?  I think we long for freedom, and prosperity, and peace and even the freedom to fail.  I think my ancestors were running from countries that didn't give them this.  Countries where dictators, anarchy, monarchy and despotism reigned. 

Our founding fathers had enough time on their hands (yes, partly because of slavery, sadly) that they could study and consume literal libraries worth of information that helped them to form this nation by looking at what worked and what didn't work in other countries and even what worked in biblical times.  History repeats itself, and they didn't want those histories repeated here in America. 

Lately I heard our President of this fine country say that the constitution is a document like the 10 commandments.  A document of "Thou Shalt Nots."  He is totally correct, it is a documents of thou-shalt-nots for the government, but in my opinion it is a "Thou shalts" document for the people.  Our nation is great because of the freedoms that have existed for us to freely put our efforts into production and living.  The more constraints and taxes and dare I say regulations that are put in place constrain the rewards and in the same proportion constrain the will of the people to prosper.  I could go on and on about this!!!  but I will say one more thing.  If you equalized all the money in this nation and spread it out among the people, within a years time (give or take), the wealthy would be wealthy again, and the poor would be poor again.  It's just a fact of life.

The preamble sums up all that the founding fathers felt would keep our country safe and strong.  They felt that no one would  actually read the constitution and so they wanted to boil its essence down to a few words.   It and the constitution were designed to withstand time, because human nature does not change and our needs do not change.  It was a God-inspired document.  It was designed with "chains" so that the government would have a hard time changing it, because the founding fathers knew if it were compromised that our freedom would be at jeopardy. 

In the Preamble we were promised:

~a more perfect union (notice more perfect not perfect!)
~Establish justice (who doesn't want that?  justice was hard to find in the old world)
~Insure domestic tranquility (I believe this is a police force designed to promote peace, not a military that turns against the people, which many countries have)
~Provide for the common defense (a country whose people are unarmed is a country that can be conquered.  An armed civilian promotes safety.  If only the criminals were armed, crime would run ramped.  When DC took off the ban for handguns, crime went down drastically)  (see both of these links)
~Promote general welfare (which is health, prosperity, and happiness, NOTE:   it says promote not provide which makes a huge difference!)
~Secure the blessing of liberty (our founding fathers had a passion for liberty because they knew what it was like to not have it.  At Bunker Hill, Joseph Warren, who was killed there said "Our fathers having resolved never to wear the yoke of despotism, and seeing the European world...a prey to tyranny, bravely threw themselves upon the bosom of the ocean, determined to find a place in which to enjoy their freedom, or perish in the glorious attempt."   I don't think we understand their passion!)

Patrick Henry said "Give me Liberty or give me death." 

Our liberties throughout the years are being carefully and surely taken away from us.  I know there needs to be enough laws to keep the citizens safe.  There needs to be enough taxes to pay for infrastructure, though we pay for those things anyway.  We have survived as a country for much longer than others countries have, but I fear for our precious constitution and our liberties, and our domestic safety.  If you believe in modern day prophecy as I do, I know that this is supposed to happen, and indeed, one day, in the not to distant future our constitution will hang by a thread, and possibly is right now. 

Gloom and doom?  possibly, but I still believe this is the best place on Earth to live and my husband (and I by default) will defend this country we love, and will show up at the ballot box to cast the votes we feel are in her best interests, and hope you do too.  Do you have to agree with me to love America?  No . . . . . and vice-a-versa ;)

I considered closing down my comment box but. . . . . . Let Er Rip!

More on Introversion

So my last post on introversion has gotten me a LOT of comments.  People that I didn't even know read my blog and have spoken about this to me.  Maybe there are more than 25% of us out there!  WOW!

More about what I've gleaned from the book (The Introvert Advantage, How to thrive in an Extrovert World):

Anyhow, being introverted does not mean that we are shy or backward.  What it does mean is that we need "alone time" to recharge our energy.  We stand back and take a look at things before we just barrel on through like a bull in a china shop.  We reflect a lot, and think a lot, and get our ducks in a row before speaking or acting.  We are easily over-stimulated compared to our counterparts, the extroverts, who need a lot to stimulate them . . . . . like river-rafting, or roller-coasters, or jumping out of perfectly good airplanes! 

I thought these lists were interesting:

Famous introverts:  Abraham Lincoln, Alfred Hitchcock, Michael Jordan, Thomas Edison, Grace Kelly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laura Bush, Bill Gates, Candice Bergen, Clint Eastwood, Charles Schulz, Steve Martin(really?), Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer.  Interesting egh?

Famous Characters that are introverts:  Owl, Piglet and Christopher Robin (in Winnie the Pooh), Radar (MASH), Jean-Luc Picard and Counselor Troi (Star Trek), Ally McBeal, Atticus Finsh (To Kill of Mockingbird).

Compare Katie Curic to Diane Sawyer . . . . . . a perfect example of opposites!

So being introverted doesn't mean you are a hermit, or a recluse, or don't like being around people, or can't be successful.  It just means you need to withdraw and refill or re-charge yourself every now and again.

So ask yourself. . . . . . are you and innie or an outie????  :)

Summer Fun

One of McKay's summer activities is swim team.  This year he was only able to participate in one meet.  You have to be in three to be able to say you were in swim team.  Well, he DID practice a lot, but just had "stuff" get in the way of his Saturday meets.  OH WELL, better luck next year!

Here is McKay, and see Lincoln as a timer??

High Adventure scout camp was one of the things that got in the way of swimming.  It took up TWO of his Saturdays.  The camp was made up of what every boy would love ~ hiking, camping, being with friends, and for McKay spending a week with his dad.  Below, he is at a blacksmith shop.  They made their own knives here.  I'm told McKay's face is "clean" in this picture.  Apparently he had a lot of soot on it earlier.  (and I can't believe he is wearing his most expensive shirt here!!! I should have checked his bags!)

Pounding the hot metal to make a knife.  McKay's knife is kind-of stubby!  He mounted it deep into the wooden handle.

McKay had fun shooting for real.  He does a lot of shooting in the x-box world and really enjoyed the high-powered rifle section of scout camp.  We are in the process of getting him his own shotgun and a new 22 rifle, with the goal of getting him involved in the 4-H shooting club here in the area.  I think he would love it!  One of my piano students went to a national skeet shooting contest with the 4-H club.    I, for one, love target shooting.  It is an activity that my family loves to do when we get together.   For those of you who don't understand this sport, don't knock it until you try it!!!! 

Fun, Fun!

They got to try shooting several guns, a muzzle loader, among a few others.

These pictures were what the scout camp gave Lincoln.  I can't find the cord for McKay's camera that he brought along with him . . . . . so maybe, more to come!