Skydiving

I’m discovering things about Heather all the time. She’s like the ocean, full of hidden mysteries and marvels. I love it. Well, a couple of months back, Heather and I were discussing what generally we wanted to do for our two-year anniversary, and I was kind of surprised by just how determined Heather was about going skydiving! I mean, skydiving is certainly on my list of things to do in life, but it’s always been one of those things that I’ll try to do next year, never this year. Well Heather was having none of that. She wanted to go now, before school started and before we started having kids. So, what my baby wants, my baby gets (when we can afford it, anyway).
We decided on West Point Skydiving, which is located just outside of Richmond. That way, as soon as we were done, we could go brag about it to Alyson and Nate!
We loved our experience. We had to wait quite a while for our turn to go up because we both wanted a photographer (if we were going to do this, then we wanted it documented), and so that took some time since there were only a limited number of photographer skydivers. But it was well worth the wait.
Our plane was small and cozy. Heather happened to be sitting next to the door when they opened it at 13,000+ feet. I’ve never seen Heather freak out quite so much before as when they opened that side door. She had reason, though; her feet were dangling a couple of miles above the earth. It was pretty funny though.
Here are some pictures to give you guys a feel for it all. I definitely recommend this to everyone.


The "calm before the storm," as my dad would say. The plane was cozy on the way up.



Heather wishing for a refund. (Definitely click to enlarge this pic; it's much funnier close up.)





Heather still losing it as she exits the plane. (I tried but couldn't rotate the pic; sorry for the weird angle.)




And away she goes!




Now she's starting to enjoy herself.



As for me, I loved the whole ride down!

The Woodruff Hotel…All Are Welcome

As anyone who occasionally looks at our blog will already know, Heather and I are cyclical bloggers, to use an economic term. We’re like the ocean tides: sometimes we post a number of entries all at once (or relatively close together), and at other times it’s kind of a dry spell. So, to make up for our lack of postings, here are a few. Over the past couple of months, we’ve had a number of visitors come and visit us. We love having company over, and we wish we had the time to devote an entry for each of guests. But since we’re just kinda lazy when it comes to blogging sometimes, we’re going to group them all together.

The first of our summer visitors were our good friends Tom and Mandy. Mandy has some family out here, and so while they were out visiting family, they spent some time with us. We had a great time checking out the Natural History Museum.








The next set of visitors was Erin and Cameron. They came for the 4th of July. And we’re glad they did because they helped us achieve one of goals. Heather and I were determined that we would see the July 4th fireworks from downtown DC while we lived here. But traffic and the metro are horrendous the night of the 4th, which I’m sure is not hard to understand. So, when we found out last summer that Erin and Cameron we’re going to be here around the 4th, we all decided to rent a hotel room downtown so after the fireworks were over, we could just walk a few blocks and hit the sack. Sure beats fighting traffic for four hours. So that’s what we did. And it was amazing! I’ve never seen a fireworks show quite so big, loud, and impressive. There’s just something about celebrating the independence of our nation while sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial overlooking the Washington Memorial and the Capitol Building. Man I love this country! Before the show, we spent the day wandering around downtown seeing some of the sights. We toured the International Spy Museum and honed our secret agent skills (we even got to crawl through a heating duct in the ceiling to practice being sneaky). We also saw amazing portraits of rappers, US presidents, and other famous figures. Random, I know, to have portraits of rappers at a Smithsonian museum, but there they were all the same. Kind of out of place, if you ask me.

Our last set of visitors was my uncle Dave and his boys, Tanner and Taylor. They stayed with us for a few days then missed us so much that they came back and stayed with us a few days more! We were thrilled that they decided to stay with us for a few days while on their east coast tour. It had been way too long since I’d seen them, and boy had Tanner and Taylor changed. They’ve really grown up. We had a great time together hanging out, watching “National Treasure II,” and playing Settlers of Catan. Next time, Heather and I will have to go out to their neck of the woods.

Teacher Gifts: Dos and Don'ts

As many of you know, Heather just completed her first year teaching kindergarten English as a Second Language (ESL). Most of her students are recent immigrants ranging from all over the world, from Latin America to the Middle East to South East Asia. Such diversity is fertile soil for creating all sorts of "learning" moments for Heather. She learns about different cultures and countries all the time, and such experiences never fail to broaden her mind.
One such "learning" experience happened on the last day of school, which was last Tuesday (the 17th). As expected, on that day many of her kids brought her a gift to say thank you for being such a wonderful teacher. As most of the kids were leaving, one little boy (we'll call him Jeff) walked up to Heather all excited and handed her a small paper bag with tissue paper sprouting from the top.
"What's this, Jeff?" Heather asked excitedly. "Did you get me a gift?"
"You're going to like this, Mrs. W," Jeff responded, barely able to contain his excitement.
"Well let's see what's in here." And to Heather's great surprise, out popped two little lacy pairs of lingerie.
After blushing profusely and quickly slipping the undies back into the bag, Heather thought, "this must be some sort of mistake." Hoping for some explanation, she looked at Jeff, and then back to his mom, who was standing right behind him. Both faces wore sincere and expectant smiles. There was no embarrassment at all.
And that's when Heather had another "learning" moment. Apparently, in some Latin American cultures, lingerie is a great way to say "Thank you for educating my child this year." Sure beats apples and the assorted pack of smelly soaps, I say. More useful, too!

Another Great Weekend in Richmond

Three day weekends are great, especially when you live close enough to family to be able to visit over the holiday. For our Memorial Day weekend, Heather and I went to Richmond to visit Alyson, Nate, and the little munchkins.

We had a great time. We went to Monticello for one day (see our other blog entry below), Deep Run Park another, and then for our last day, we went to May Mount (sp?) Park and had a BBQ (with some excellent home-made ice cream. Thanks again, Sarena and Adam for the Christmas gift. We love home-made ice cream!).

Other than that, we swam a little in the pool, which was still pretty cold, played a little Mario Kart on the Wii, and played some games. Oh, I almost forgot, we also pretended to be pirates for a little while with Treyton. I can’t wait for him and Jake to get together this summer and be pirate buddies!

The pictures below tell most of the story for the weekend, but I did want to mention one quick thing. May Mount Park is part zoo, part gardens, part historical buildings, and part park. One of the animals that were on display there was two black bears. Normally at other zoos, one is lucky even to see the bears at all. These two black bears, however, were totally active, running all over their grounds, wrestling with each other, and playing in the pond. It was really fascinating to watch them up close being so active. At times, they wandered really close to the where we were, being only 10 or 15 feet away. It was really pretty cool.

Here's one of the active black bears.


The Italian rose garden


The Japanese garden (w/waterfall, which Trey loved, and Nate too!)






This tree branch is actually about 5 feet off the ground, which made Heather really nervous to stand on it, but...


Treyton was pretty excited to sit on it with Nate. We didn't get a good shot of it, but Trey even practiced his Tarzan call on this tree branch. It was pretty cute.


Heather and I had a rare moment when Trey cuddled up with us on the bamboo seat (not moving for at least a good 30 minutes; unheard of for that little ball of energy). We took turns telling kid jokes and busting up laughing together. It was pretty fun.


Here's a great shot of Jayci's new face. She does this all time; adorable, isn't it!

Monticello

So after Heather and I went with Alyson, Nate, Mandy, and Thomas to Thomas Jefferson’s old mansion, Monticello, we’ve decided that one of our life goals is to eventually own a large estate that we can pass on to our future generations. Our main thought for this is that we wished our ancestors, especially those who came to this country when it was still young, had had the foresight to claim a lot of land, build a mansion on it, and then keep it in the family so that we could have an inherited estate today. Since that obviously didn’t happen, Heather and I will just have to start the tradition ourselves!

Monticello is a good example of the type of estate we are looking for. At least it is in all aspects but one. The actual house itself was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. It almost didn’t seem to match the grounds, which were huge and really gorgeous. Luckily, it was spring when we went and so everything was in full bloom. Since the grounds are covered in flowers and a large garden dominates one side of the house, it made the air smell really nice. Besides the flowers, the grounds are peppered with all sorts of really unique and beautiful trees. Some of those trees were like nature’s jungle gym they were so perfect for little kids to play around on and climb. Plus, they added lots of shade to the whole surrounding area. Complimenting the amazing grounds was the spectacular view. Monticello, which is Italian for little mountain, is situated on top of a large hill overlooking the surrounding area. If anyone has been to Charlottesville before, then you know that it is a very verdant, lush area, so the view was spectacular. To me, this makes Monticello a good candidate for a future Heather and Todd estate.

Back to the house: it was very nice and ornate inside, and Jefferson had added all sorts of nifty gadgets and the like inside (some of which he invented, some of which he adopted from elsewhere). I did like how the all-weather tunnels underground connected the house with the two outer wings. My favorite aspect of the house were to the two studies which sat independent of the house on each wing, connected to the house by two very large and spacious decks. What a perfect place to study or just to think when the house is too noisy and busy. What’s more, they would be a perfect place to watch lightening or snowstorms.

All in all, Monticello was a great place to visit and we all had a great time.

Lots of Animals (24 April, 08)

At the end of April (over a month ago, I know. We’re not quick bloggers, in case you haven’t figured that out yet), Alyson, Nate, and the kids came up to visit for the weekend. It was a quick visit, but it was nice. We spent Saturday morning at the DC temple. That Saturday was scheduled to be Alyson and Nate’s temple day, so other families from their ward were also there. This worked out nice since the adults could take turns watching the kids in some rooms in the stake center next door while the other adults can go to the temple. So we spent part of the morning in the temple and the other part trying to keep an eye on 6-7 kids.

Afterward, we all, including another family of 5 that are neighbors and good friends of Alyson and Nate, went to the DC Zoo. Just a word of advice for those planning on going to the national zoo someday: it’s a nice zoo, but be sure to get there early, otherwise you will end up driving around for almost an hour like we did trying to find a parking spot. Not fun, especially for Nate and Alyson who had two little ones in the car. But the zoo itself was nice (and free). I definitely recommend going in the springtime when the caterpillars are out in abundance and can provide another source of free entertainment for the young at heart. J

Here are some pics for your enjoyment.