The White House.

So I've lived here for over 6 years now and I haven't ever been into the West Wing of the White House ... until last night, that is. My friend Drew has a buddy who works there and scored us a private tour. My cousin Summer was in town for the night, and was able to come with us - I hadn't seen her in years, and it was really fun to have her join us (perfect timing)!We obviously couldn't take pictures inside, I don't know, they don't want us photographing the Oval Office or something, but it was pretty dang cool. One of my favorite parts was the hallway that had all the pictures of the President in it - not the typical, posed shots, or the ones of him giving speeches, but rather photos of him in Crawford biking through the trees, fishing in his boots, or with dirt on his face from the chainsaw in his hand. Of course, I also had to love the picture of him throwing a pitch in Bejing at an Olympic baseball game. Gotta love a president who likes baseball!

After touring the West Wing, we went into the Press Room, a little (and I do mean that) room with seats for all the Press ... and apparently this is the new logo:They wouldn't let us go behind the podium, so this is as close as we were to making our own speeches:

Here's the whole gang ... aren't we cute? (ha ha) Thanks Liz for the picture!

It was too dark for us to take pictures in the Rose Garden, so this was about as good as my artistic ability got me ...
One more of the whole group ... what a great night!

Is This a Sign?!?

The other night I was really craving ice cream. So what did I do? Of course, went to the grocery store to get some. Being lazy, I decided to go to Safeway, which I normally avoid like the plague, but since its right around the corner, I made an exception. I think that's the last time I make that exception. This is what I walked into, in my ice cream craving state of mind:
Wow. Seriously?! Empty freezers, water all over the floor, paper towels trying to mop up the mess, and employees removing items as fast as they can out of the freezers and into the shopping cards (to do what with?!), all marked by the yellow "caution" tape (as if someone was going to venture down the aisle?! - complete and utter chaos. And there I am, standing at the end of the aisle laughing, and then getting out my camera to take a picture! Maybe I just wasn't meant to eat ice cream that night!! Though the thought did cross my mind, it was quickly replaced by my ice cream craving. I got right back into my car and drove to Wegman's, only to discover that they now carry my favorite kind of ice cream: Turkey Hill Light Chocolate Nutty Moose Tracks. Yup, heaven in a carton. And it was even on sale. So the night didn't turn out all that bad, after all.

Tennis Lessons.

A few weeks ago, 10 to be exact, I decided to sign up for a tennis class. Its something I'd been wanting to learn for awhile, so why not now? I dragged my roommate Jenny along with me (ok she did actually want to play), we both purchased sweet tennis racquets from Costco (love that place!!), and off we went every Monday night to learn the art of tennis. I am proud to say that after 10 weeks, we are actually not half bad. Not half good, but not half bad either.

So tonight was our last night of class, and we were playing a game of doubles. Jenny and I were on the same side of the net, and I was serving. She took her position, ready to return the ball, and I took my serving stance (or something like that). I missed the serving day of class, and haven't quite mastered it 100% yet, but most of the time I can actually get the ball over the net into the correct side of the court. However, this time was an exception. A huge exception. I threw the ball up, hit it with my racquet, and then watched in horror as it smacked right into Jenny's left shoulder. Immediately our teacher (who hadn't actually seen it) said "did you just hit her??" He got a kick out of it - as we all did - well maybe all of us but Jenny. Sorry!!! I totally didn't mean to do that. I guess now you'll never play tennis with me again.

Tennis Lessons Learned (in no particular order):
1. You have to practice, or you are never going to get any better.
2. Pay attention to your teacher - he actually knows what he is talking about.
3. Sidewalk chalk is not only for kids to draw pretty pictures with.
4. Just because you start out using kids tennis balls doesn't mean you aren't good.
5. Always wear bug spray unless you like mosquitoes sucking your blood.
6. It is still really hot at 6pm during the summer!
7. Playing tennis on a Wii does not equal playing tennis on a real court.
8. It is possible to play tennis with a 10-month old on your back.
9. Tennis skirts are super cute.
10. Never, ever hit your partner when playing doubles (or any other time)!

Where Did the Time Go?!

I can't believe its August already. I know I haven't blogged for quite some time now, due mostly to the fact that I have been so busy! Here's a brief run-down of what's been occupying my time:

Tennis: Jenny and I decided to take a tennis class. I've wanted to learn to play for quite some time, so this was our chance. We're taking a class through the county, once a week, and its a lot of fun. I need a LOT of practice, but its something different and fun.

Travel: Of course, I can't sit still for more than a week at a time! I went to the beach this past weekend with a bunch of friends, and had a really great time (after we waited out the rain while doing a little shopping at the outlets)! I think this was my first beach trip all year - definitely not the last though.

Baseball: What summer of mine wouldn't continue to include baseball games? I went to an Orioles game a few weeks ago - LOVE Camden Yards! Its such a beautiful stadium. If it weren't for that darn traffic getting up to Baltimore, I'd be there a lot more often. Last week a few friends and I went to a Bowie Baysox game, the AA farm club for the Orioles. Definitely a different atmosphere, and on a Wednesday night, we sat as close as we wanted! It reminded me of the good old days watching BYU baseball games. And, I just secured my flights to Texas for my Labor Day trip - my final baseball trip! Houston and Dallas are my last two stadiums and I'm getting super anxious!

Friends: Summer BBQ's, birthday parties, late-night movies, old roommates with darling babies, Sunday dinners ... life doesn't get much better than it is right now!

Funny TV: I'm not really a big TV watcher, especially in the summer (with the exception of "My Boys" on TBS). But I have been addicted to TLC lately. Of course you know my obsession with "What Not to Wear" (and I actually had someone ask me just this past weekend if I was on it, because apparently that episode aired again recently). I'm also in love with "Jon and Kate Plus 8" because those kids are absolutely adorable and it just makes me laugh to watch the show. But my new favorite show that I think it just hilarious (granted I have only seen it a couple times) is "Rock the Reception." If you haven't seen it, check it out!

The Heat: Its incredibly hot and humid here in DC, and I've second-guessed myself many times when I've gone running after work. If only I could figure out how to trick my body into thinking that I am a morning person ... that's what bikes are good for though, you can ride them when its hot and not be quite so miserable. I also swam laps for the first time since last "season" on Friday - all due to the fact that I just signed up for another triathlon. Its not until October, but still - I've got a lot of work to do before that day!

There's a lot more, but that's all I'll say for today. :)

p.s. 8-8-08 is Friday! I absolutely, positively, can't WAIT for the Olympics to start!

Oakland A's McAfee Coliseum (Stadium #28)

Final stop on our long weekend getaway to the Bay Area: Oakland. The more glamorous side of the Bay (ha ha) After we checked out of our hotel and did some last-minute shopping, we hopped back on BART for the last time and ventured over to Oakland, checked into our new hotel, and took a little nap before walking over to the Coliseum. Once we arrived, we met up with Josh (a friend from DC who was visiting his brother in CA and decided to come to the game with us), and proceeded to our seats (which were awesome - thanks craigslist). The game was enjoyable once Josh and I figured out that if we talked enough, we could drown out the annoying guy behind us who was complaining and using one profanity after another because right after we got there a foul ball was hit to him and he dropped it and another guy picked it up. Unfortunately for us, no other foul balls came our way the entire night. That was our one chance and we missed it! Anyway, the A's beat the Mariners and it was a good game. We had fun. Kelli had some nachos that she shared with us (they weren't all that great), and I actually didn't get any other food. I think I was all food-ed out by that point of the trip! There's not a whole lot of commentary about the Coliseum ... its a standard generic stadium that won't actually be in use for much longer. They're building a new one in Freemont that will open in 2011. Looks like I'll be taking another trip to the Bay Area in a few years ... hooray! This really was one of my most favorite vacations yet. It was the perfect combination of friends, fun, food, entertainment, physical activity, relaxation, and of course, it started and ended with baseball games! It just doesn't get much better than that in my book.

Muir Woods

Monday morning we took a little tour over to Muir Woods National Monument, the only Redwoods that are left in the Bay area. It was incredible! Our tour bus driver's name was Romeo, and he was really funny. Or at least he thought he was ha ha We had some time to ourselves at Muir Woods to explore ... and explore we did. The trees were really tall!And made us feel really small ...Of course we had to pretend to be tree huggers ... even though we couldn't quite wrap our arms around the giant trees!After we left Muir Woods, Romeo took us to an incredible view of the Ocean. "AWESOME" he kept saying over and over. It really was though. Simply beautiful.The pictures just don't do it justice, since it was a little foggy still. It was breathtaking though, trust me!Next stop ... Sausalito ... after winding down the terrible roads there. We all felt pretty sick when we finally stopped! Since we'd already been there on Saturday, we didn't mind that we only had about 45 minutes. We got sandwiches at a little deli there, and it was probably one of the best sandwiches I've had in my life. I'm definitely glad we were able to visit Muir Woods though - it came highly recommended, and I'll certainly pass along that recommendation!

Sunday Stuff in San Fran

On Sunday morning we took advantage of the hotel (the Marriott downtown near Union Square)and slept in, and then went downstairs to the restaurant and had the most delectable brunch ever. Seriously, it was divine!! Worth every penny that it cost us.

As I was getting ready that morning, I noticed that my hands were kind of hurting, and then I saw in the mirror why ... the tops of my hands were totally sunburned from our bike ride on Saturday! ha ha
We headed over to the San Francisco Singles Ward for church, where I happened to run into Christine's sister Steph. Steph and I seem to have a knack for running into each other in the MOST random places - like the produce department of Macey's grocery store in Provo, and Cafe Rio in Utah (ok not random for me to be there, but for her to be there the ONE day she was in town was random)! She didn't even know I was in town this weekend, and it wasn't even her ward. But, it was fun, as always to see her. Especially since I'd just responded to an email from Christine, who was vacationing in Ireland, a few hours earlier! Everyone was sooo nice to us at church. It was a good ward, and we had a ton of people come up and introduce themselves to us and wanted to know if we were new or what. The first guy that came up to us before church started said "hey I saw you three near Ghiradelli Square yesterday." Um, ok. Apparently it was after we'd returned our bikes and shoved our faces with ice cream that he saw us walking by the trolley cars. Crazy!

Anyway, he was super nice, and actually ended up giving us a personal tour of San Francisco after church. He drove us through Golden Gate Park and over in a few other neighborhoods that we wouldn't have otherwise gone to. But, our favorite part of the tour was what we'd asked him about initially ... across the street from Alamo Square is what is called the "7 Sisters" or "Painted Ladies" or "Postcard Row" ... better known to me as the Full House Townhouses!! My favorite show growing up - so yeah, this was pretty much a must-see for me!
Sunday evening we explored around our hotel and walked through a park nearby. We hopped on the train and did the touristy thing again ...Then we headed back over to Fisherman's Wharf for our mandatory trip to In-N-Out Burger for dinner, followed by dessert (again) at Ghiradelli Square. This time, no melted ice cream for us! We decided to take the trolley car back to our hotel, in our continued effort to utilize every mode of public transportation while in San Francisco! Amazingly enough, when we got back that night, we were still exhausted- thank goodness for a nice hotel to crash at before our last day of vacation! :)

San Francisco by Bike

On Saturday, we rented bikes at "Blazing Saddles"- probably the best decision we made the entire trip. It was soooo much fun! Definitely something I want to do on vacations in the future - it was such a fun way to see the sites and get a different viewpoint of everything. We started out in Fisherman's Wharf and biked over almost to the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course we had to stop and take pictures.From there, we climbed a steep hill and then proceeded across the bridge.

What an awesome exhilirating experience! It was pretty windy, but it was incredible. We stopped about halfway across because the view was awesome (and windy, obviously)...

Once across, we headed into Sausalito, where we locked our bikes and walked around the cute little Mediterranean town just on the other side of the Bay. We saw the cute little (expensive touristy) shops, and then settled in this little cafe right on the water for lunch. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we were loving every minute of it!

We'd initially planned on only biking to Sausalito and then taking the ferry back, but once we were there, we decided to continue on to Tiberon. The whole ride was about 16 miles, and we wanted to do it. So we did. There were definitely some hills on the ride, but it was so beautiful and again, a perfect day. The views of the City from the other side of the bridge were spectacular, and it was one of the highlights of the trip! Once we made it to Tiberon (at the end of the bike path) ...we rode around for a little while and saw a few more views of the City ...

and waited for the ferry to go back to Pier 41. Thank goodness for the self-timer on my camera!There were about 300 bikes on the bottom of the ferry - we were certainly not the only ones biking that day!

After the ferry arrived at Pier 41, we hopped back on our bikes to ride them back to Fisherman's Wharf - and soon realized where the name "Blazing Saddles" came from! ha ha We returned our bikes, and walked straight up to Ghiradelli Square - of course after that long bike ride we needed to gorge ourselves with ice cream right?! Unfortunately, the ice cream was mostly melted by the time we got it, but what we did eat sure did taste good!

We relaxed at the hotel that night, after taking a cab to the Mission area of San Fran to pick up a pizza from Little Star, which had been highly recommended. The hot tub and hotel beds never felt better than that night! What an awesome day though - definitely one of my favorite memories of San Francisco, even though most of it wasn't actually in the City :)

4th of July in San Fran

After the game, we walked all the way down the Embarcadero into the touristy part of San Francisco. First stop: Pier 39. Walking around apparently made us hungry, and we saw a little crepe shop that look fantastic (maybe because the line was clear out the door and they were slatering nutella onto the crepes in the window) - so we joined the crowd and proceeded to have one of the best crepes I've had in my life. Unfortunately for us, there was no place to sit (at a table), so we sat ourselves right down on the back side of the information booth, right in the middle of Pier 39. That crepe shop should have paid us for their advertising, because I can't even tell you how many people wanted to eat those crepes they saw us devouring!

After we left there, we continued on to Fisherman's Wharf (for one of the many times we would go there during the weekend).

There were so many people everywhere, since it was the 4th of July, but nothing like how crowded it is on the National Mall in DC! We took our sweet time walking down to where we were going to see the fireworks, and then staked out a spot facing the water ...Which just so happened to also be just in front of Ghiradelli Square.It was pretty chilly that night, but we survived. Definitely not nearly the same feeling as sitting in the sweltering heat and humidity of DC fireworks! Unfortunately, the fog was so dense that we couldn't even see the Golden Gate Bridge at ALL that night. We were a little disappointed that we wouldn't be able to see the fireworks next to the bridge, but it ended up turning out to be really cool to see the fireworks in the fog. First you heard them, and then you saw the clouds changing colors and the faint shadow of the fireworks ...And here is the Photoshop edited version of that same picture ... It was funny that we actually wanted them to do more fireworks that were low to the ground so we could see them! After a few minutes, our disappointment turned to delight as we enjoyed a fireworks display unlike any other we'd ever seen in our lives. They were shooting the fireworks off at the pier directly in front of us, so we had a great view of everything. The exact same show was going on at Pier 39 (same fireworks and everything - simultaneously), but we couldn't see them as well. I can only imagine how it must look on a clear night. This was definitely a 4th of July to remember!

San Francisco Giants AT&T Park (Stadium #27)

San Francisco: the California Treat. It most certainly was this time! Way back when I looked at the baseball schedules in February, I decided that I wanted to spend the 4th of July in San Fran this year to knock off two more baseball stadiums: AT&T Park in San Francisco and The McAfee Coliseum in Oakland. I don't think I could have picked a better weekend! Sharyn and I flew out Friday morning and met Kelli in Oakland. Our trip got started off on the wrong foot when our flight was 2 hours delayed leaving DC, but after that, everything was perfect.

Because of the flight delay, we took BART to our hotel and checked in and headed straight to the Giants game at AT&T Park. I got really excited when I saw this in front of us ...Absolutely beautiful!! I could hardly wait to get inside and see the rest of it.It was a gorgeous day, the Giants were playing the Dodgers in front of a sold-out crowd, and we had awesome seats to enjoy the game and the view from. I must say, the garlic fries were better than they were at Safeco (sorry Karrie and Robin!) ... the game was very exciting (Giants ended up winning 10-7) and we thoroughly enjoyed taking it all in. After the game, I made everyone walk around the stadium with me so we could get a closer look at the whole thing. I'm sure they loved that (ha ha)...We couldn't walk up to the giant baseball glove, unfortunately, since they closed it down after the game ended. Oh well - I've gotta save something for the next time I'm at a game there, right?!?I loved the view from the stadium (except for the fact that you couldn't see the Bridge). There were boats out in the Bay, people walking up and down the sidewalks outside the stadium, and of course, the wind blowing everything a million directions. The verdict: Well done San Francisco! AT&T Park definitely ranks among the best ballparks in my book.