Airport Thoughts

These are some random thoughts I had while sitting in the airport on my way to and from DC:

--There is something exciting and sneaky about driving around town at 3:30am. It always makes me smile no matter how tired I am.

--I love the smell of pretzels baking...even at 4am.

--As I was blow-drying my hair in the airport bathroom a lady walked in and said "wow, you are prepared. You must do this a lot." I felt proud!

--Airports are the best place to people watch. So many coming and going, doing interesting things, wearing interesting clothes, reading interesting books and saying funny things. And what better time to appreciate this than when you have nothing better to do but take it all in.

--How in the world do planes not crash into each other more than they do with so many flying around, taking off and landing.

--Is is appropriate to ask the girl sitting next to me what country she is from if I can tell she is not from the US? I always like to be asked when I am a visitor but maybe I am strange.

--I am 25 years old and still get motion sickness. Bleh!

--There is a girl crying and I wish I could give her a hug and see if she needs to talk.

--I wish I could go around and ask everyone where they are going and why!

--How do planes work exactly? Sometimes it freaks me out to trust so much in technology that I do not understand....like the internet...

DC Again

So I had the opportunity to visit Washington DC again for the second time this year. This time I had a lot more time to sight-see and that I did. I saw everything I wanted to see and more. Here are some pictures to document my journey.

Hanging out against the Washington Monument

Cooling my feet in the WWII Memorial- this became a common activity whenever I found a fountain because it was super hot!

My brother hanging out with Mr. President at the Obama shop in Union Station- probably not too many of those shops in Texas huh?

Chinese food restaurant I got takeout from in Chinatown. I thought that was really funny!

Touching a moon rock at the Air and Space Museum...I thought the moon was white!

Hanging out behind the Capitol building. I just love this building. I think it is so beautiful!

The White House (if you didn't know). I was excited to see it because the last two times I have been to DC it was covered up. In 3rd grade Clinton was having a reunion on the lawn and had big tents. In January it was the Inauguration and EVERYTHING was closed off!

Inside the Library of Congress. It was huge and beautiful and had awesome ceilings!

Driving a mail truck in the Postal Museum which was my favorite museum out of all that I visited. Strange I know.

Hanging out with Roosevelt at the Nationals vs. Rockies game. These were their mascots and I thought they were hilarious/creepy!

Hello Mr. Lincoln. They also had Washington and Jefferson. So crazy! I could not stop laughing at them. Wouldn't want to run into this guy in a dark alley!

And finally- who do you think this is? They were standing and sitting above the stadium the whole game. At first I thought it might be Obama but zooming in with my camera I don't think so. Maybe Whoopie Goldberg?

It was a super fun trip. Thanks for the invite Matthew. I had a blast! I also really enjoyed getting to spend some time with the Falls Church CoC and some of their members. Thanks for your hospitality!

Waltonia Cont.

I got some more pics from my parents and wanted to tell a few more stories with these pictures. One thing I love about Waltonia is all the fun animals on the property. Some years there is a baby dear and most years there are little pigs and goats and donkeys to play with. I enjoy taking our leftover food scraps and feeding the pigs. They will eat anything!

"That's some pig!"

Remember how I said we went to see the bats fly at night? Well below you can see where we sat to watch them fly out. Their smell only reached us a little at the top of the cave but below smelled so awful. I really do not know if I have ever smelled something so bad so strongly. Bleh!

Cheese!

Nastiest smell ever

Hanging out in the river

Next to swimming at eating, my favorite thing to do is read on the porch

Oh and another favorite is playing games! We took 3 nights to play Mexican Train and this is a rousing game of Pit.

We also love to take adventures when at Waltonia. There are many things to do in the area, like seeing bats, but a must see is the replica of Stonehenge and Easter Island. I know, weird huh? I had been before but Shannon had not so many of us spontaneously piled into our cars and drove about 15 min to this place in the middle of a field. There was a sign explaining it but basically someone just decided to make this for fun after visiting the real thing. It is like 2/3rds size or something but not made out of stone. So hilarious! There are also 2 Easter Island dudes you can walk to.

Stretch!

We are so cute!

Well it was another wonderful year. I had a blast and this blog does not cover even half of the week. I am just tired of blogging.

Classic last pictures of the week by the sign

Up next? My trip to DC!

Another Year

Well it was another great year at Waltonia! Sadly I was not a picture taker for the week so I only have a few photos. Maybe when I get them from my parents and my brother then I will put some on here. Until then, here are a couple along the way, many courtesy of my aunt Trina.

At the big cabin to eat dinner together. I think this is shrimp night. My dad is famous for eating the most shrimp.

The week began with a night and morning in Austin with my college friend Ruthie. I went with her and her fiance to Master Pancake Theater at the Alamo Draft House and saw a Mystery Science Theater type thing about Robin Hood. It was hilarious! It was so fun to hang out Ruthie!

Here we are in front of a famous breakfast place that I cannot remember the name. They have yummy pancakes!

I then drove myself to Waltonia, stopping for a few yummy peaches. The week was pretty normal, filled with swimming, eating, talking, sleeping and reading. I read an awesome book called The Host. Every day we swam for a few hours. Most of it was in an area of the river that is too deep to touch. We have a great dock and a huge floating raft to play on.

Me and Shan and my sweet cousin Hannah

Me and Shan and Margaret

Me and my Momma!

One adventure of the week was making cupcakes. Shan is super creative and crafty and one of her new things has been making cupcakes. I asked her to bring her supplies so we could do something fun. I had in mind a river scene or something simple (which is what I did as you will see) but Shan had much bigger plans. Meet our family...on cupcakes!

Get it? It's our family TREE! We are all there up to my grandparents.

This is me!

Although it is still up for discussion, we might or might not have celebrated our 30th year at Waltonia. Obviously I am not 30 so it was not my 30th anniversary, but some think the first time anyone went was 30 years ago...and then again it might be 29 years ago...Oh well! We can just celebrate again next year. In honor of the anniversary (real or fake) I made this cupcake cake with a pretty river scene and a tiny model of Waltonia, complete with cabins, pavilion, white road, dock and green raft.

Go me!

Another adventure we embarked on was watching the bats. There are lots of places around this area where bats live and you can go to these locations at sundown and watch them fly out. Cool huh?!?! So one night we did this and it was crazy! These pictures cannot capture how many there were flying around. It was up to 3 million bats and hundreds of people come to watch. These bats lived in an old railroad tunnel. It was amazing! I took a video but have no clue how to put that on here so this is all I got.

Can you see them?

Me and my dad after the bats

We did a lot of other fun things like going to the Stonehenge replica but I will save that for another post when I have more pictures.

On another note, I just cannot seem to stay in Abilene for more than a week at a time so I am off to DC tomorrow with my brother. Yea! And then school starts....yea?