Mon. May 5th-G-man's birthday

G-man turned five years old on Monday May 5th. He was so excited to share his birthday with us but had a hard time understanding why the airplane wouldn't let his parents bring his gifts until they explained that his gifts were "so big" that they couldn't fit on the plane.

He also decided he wanted the Lego Fruit snacks on top of his chocolate cake with chocolate pudding on the top...a family cake called...I think...Stripe it Rich?
He did get one present from SM and Me. He was very excited to get a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle from SM and Me and a plastic snake from the zoo. He has already ordered another plastic snake for his next birthday. (During the week, he'd keep reminding me that that is what he wants for his next birthday).
And this is Little S with G-man's snake. She totally knows how to pose for pictures.
The cake was delicious. Thanks to my MIL (Mother-In-Law) for putting the recipe in the family cook book so that we could enjoy this little piece of yum.

Monday May 5th '08

My BIL (Brother-In-Law) and SIL (Sister-In-Law) and their kids came and spent last week with SM and I. We had a very busy week and lots of fun. On Monday May 5th we went to the National Zoo and had a great time. We saw a lot of the zoo but most of these pictures are of my favorite people.

Isn't she cute. Poor little one was sick the whole time she was with us. She was fevered for about half the time and the other half of the time she not feeling well...but as you can see, I did get a few "cute" pictures.
G-Man had to have his picture with the elephant. He kind of set our pace by telling us of the things he wanted to see. Mainly the elephants and pandas.
Here we are posing in front of where one panda was eating lunch.

More Flowers

This picture above is from the Dogwood Tree. It is the Virginia's state tree and flower. There are also pink flowers on some trees. I'm still trying to get a nice picture of the pink flowers.
Here are some bluebells. Aren't they so delicate? I'm also trying to get some pink bluebells...I wonder if they are still called bluebells if they are pink in color?
This is wisteria. I love the way it hangs in clumps like grapes.
This is a picture of more cherry blossoms. These are called Chinese Cherry Blossoms and are really full and lacy. Unfortunately, we've had a lot of rain lately and most of the blossoms have been pelted off of the trees. I'm glad I did get a few pictures before the rains.
Beautiful tulips. They also no longer exist because of the rains. By the way, the three tornados that were here in Virginia were in the southern part of Virginia...about two and half or three hours away from us. We just got a lot of rain.

Azalea's

It's azalea season. I love looking at all the azalea bushes as I'm walking or driving by. The only problem is when I'm driving I get distracted and end up in middle of the road instead of just on my side.


These pink flowers are actually on an all white with pink splashes of color azalea bush. In fact, the picture above this picture is the same bush. Beautiful!!

Roadshow~The Three Little Pigs

On Saturday morning, SM and I went to the Stake Center to meet with all the Youth in the Stake. We started at 9 am and ended the day around 9 pm. From ideas to the final show, the roadshow was performed that evening.
This picture above shows SM helping our only male of our group with writing dialogue for the show. The girl is making pig noses...which she did such an excellent job at making.
Three of our beehives...excited all day long for the final performance.

Here are the three little pigs, taking a break from running lines.
This is the only guy in our group. He was the main character and did a great job with telling the story...with a twist, of course.
Again, some of the cast just sitting and waiting until it was our turn to go on stage.

Oh, and I couldn't forget the Big Bad Wolf. She really was a very sweet girl...I think they make the best wolves.

Philadelphia

SM and I traveled to Philadelphia by train on Wednesday afternoon. SM's work was holding their annual meetings in Philadelphia and SM invited me to come and spend some time with him. He attended his meeting/dinner on Wednesday night and I stayed in our hotel room...a room at the Four Seasons. It was nice. I did find a Wendy's near the hotel and brought some dinner back to the room.

On Thursday morning, SM went to another meeting and I took time to walk around a bit. I found the Franklin Institute Science Museum. This place was huge and fabulous. Most of it was hands on and filled with students (elementary and middle school). They had a room about trains, a planitarium, a room about electicity, a room about the human body including a large heart you could walk through that represented how blood traveled through the heart. It also had info about muslces, bones, organs, etc. It was lots of fun. And the main event was a Star Wars theme. Look below at the picture showing Darth Vader. This was done on the stairs of the front of the Franklin Institute.


This looked cool...but I can't remember what it stood for...I think it was for the Air Force.
This is the front of the Franklin Institute. Cool huh? For those of you who are Star Wars fans...this is a beautiful sight.
After coming into the front of the Franklin Institute, you can find this statue of Benjamin Franklin in the atrium. It reminded me of the Lincolm Memorial.Here I am after exercising for a few hours. Just kidding. But this was a fun sight to see. The skeleton was actually moving on the eliptical.
This was one of my favorite statues in Philadelphia. SM joined me around noon and we started off finding some lunch and then walked towards Independence Hall.
This is City Hall for the city of Philadelphia. It was a huge building and very beautiful.

This is a picture of part of Independance Hall. It acually has two wings off to the right and left of the building. We were going to try to get into a tour but the line was really long and we didn't have time to wait that long. This is the site where delegates adopted the Declaration of Independance on July 4th, 1776.

Isn't this a beautiful cemetary? I had to get a picture of it...so green with blossoming dogwood trees. This is also the cemetary where Benjamin Franklin was buried.

And this his head stone. Tourist throw pennies onto the stone to honor him. He was the one that coined the phrase, "A penny saved is a penny earned" (I think that was it...or was it "a penny for your thoughts." Nope not that).
On our way back to the hotel, we found a plaza full of large game pieces. This is the hat from Monopoly. There were pieces from the game Sorry, Checkers, Chess, Dominoes, and probably a few more games that I can't think of right now.

Thursday evening SM was in another meeting/dinner. Friday morning we got up and caught the train back into DC. SM took the metro to work and I took the metro back home. Phew!! What a busy midweek trip!!

Gettysburg

Yesterday we spent the day at Gettysburg. I had never been there before and was blown away by the experience. We did an auto tour with some CD's in our car. The tour was three hours but once you get out of the car and look around and take pictures...you've added another hour or two to the trip. And the visitor center is brand new...and it's like a Smithsonian Museum. We could have spent days in there...reading about so many men, watching videos on Gettysburg and looking at all the articfacts. It was amazing!!

Look at the general...he was really rough but kind.
Jeremy loved looking over the countryside, imagining what had happened during the three day battle at Gettysburg. This was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War with 51,000 soldiers dead, wounded or missing.
Different monuments have been set up all over the town of Gettysburg to represent different battle groups and where they had some of their charges. I think this one above is the Pennsylvania Memorial which has the name of every Pennsylvanian that died in this battle written on the metal plaques along the base of the memorial. One third of all those who died at this battle were from Pennsylvania.

I'm so glad I had the opportunity to go and experience Gettysburg. Thanks to Mom and Dad for coming for a visit and thanks to SM for taking the day off of work and driving us around Gettysburg.