Day at the Zoo!

Doug and I took Allie and Katie to the National Zoo in Washington, DC while they were visiting this weekend. We rode the Metro in and then walked up the hill to the zoo. The National Zoo is great because it's FREE! Doug mentioned while we were walking that the National Zoo was one of the only things that he can say he's truly happy about having his tax dollars spent on these days...

This is mine and Doug's third time to the National Zoo together. The first time we went we happened to show up the day that the famous baby panda was born. We didn't even realize it until we were standing there at the exhibit and all of these news cameras started pouring in. We LOVE going to the National Zoo!

We covered a pretty good portion of the zoo considering that we had a 7 year old with us. Allie was quite the trooper until the end. I had a blast taking pictures with my Nikon D40 combined with the awesome lens my sister got for me. As we walked around the zoo, I took a mental count of the people wearing digital SLR's around their necks and the majority of them were men surprisingly enough. I took a ton of pictures, but I only chose a few of my favorites to post on my blog. I combined many shots into one picture using the collage function on Picasa. The rest of them if you want to see them are on my Facebook.

Katie and Allie posing with an eagle statue.

Left Picture: Me catching Allie comparing her tongue to that of a tiger's. 

Right Picture: Katie had a butterfly land on her.

Some of my favorite shots of animals for the day.

Jellyfish from the invertebrates exhibit.

BIRDS! The one to the top right is a STORK! Ugh!

Officially VA Teacher Certified!

Good news! I took some tests (VRA and VCLA) early this summer for my VA teaching certification and I passed both of them!


I've been teaching the last two years in Virginia on a "Provisional License" that was only good for 3 years. I was trying to not have to take these tests at all, but I figured that it was a good idea to stay certified because you never know what will happen in life.

I'm still going to continue to rant and rave about the fact that I had to pay over $100 to take these tests when I was already certified to teach in Utah for many more years! I really REALLY don't understand why it has to be different for each state.

But YAY! I'm glad I don't have that hanging over my head anymore!

Little Scare!

I went to Aunt Paula's house to meet grandma to pick up the girls today. Paula's house is on this really steep hill and I always make sure to put my parking brake on. I had just loaded the girls and their stuff in the car and was pushing the passenger side door when I thought I saw the car move back a little. For a second I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me but NO, THE CAR WAS ACTUALLY ROLLING DOWN THE HILL WITH ALLIE AND KATIE INSIDE! I ran as fast as I could and jumped in the driver's seat and slammed on the brakes. It turned out that one of Katie's bags hit the shifter and knocked it out of park. I thought that thing was supposed to lock in place or something. My knees were shaking so bad when we finally drove away! Whew!

We're now SAFE and hanging out at my parents' house. We picked a large trash bag full of tomatoes and I'm just trying to figure out what to do with all of them. We're planning on taking the girls to the National Zoo tomorrow. I have the batteries for both of my cameras charging so hopefully I'll have some good pictures!

Weekend at Grandma's

Doug and I went this last weekend to see his Grandma. It's been really busy lately with Doug's training, so we were glad to finally get out for some peace and quiet. Doug's little sisters Allie and Katie are staying at Grandma's for the next three weeks. (So maybe it wasn't that peaceful and quiet...) We had lots of yummy food and grandma gave me some ideas for the masses of tomatoes I have coming out of my garden. Doug and I love going up to Grandma's house. The food is amazing AND Grandma has a porch swing! Grandma has a story to tell about EVERYTHING in her house. It's always fun!

Doug grew up near his grandparents, so we went by his old house and elementary school. We walked in the woods behind his house, played on the playground at his elementary school, and found fossils in an old stream that he visited as a kid. Doug just loves reminiscing the old times. (I can confirm this with the boxes that we have down in the basement with all of his childhood toys!)

While the girls and Doug were on the playground, I took the opportunity to take a bunch of pictures with the new camera lens that my sister got me!

A pretty flower!

Doug and Katie walking in the woods behind his old house.

Doug showing a fossil to Allie.

Whenever Allie saw these digging things at the playground she asked Doug if kids could dig and find money in there. Doug answered, "Sometimes, if they're lucky!" He then snuck over to the car when she wasn't looking to get some change and dropped it in the dirt. She looked like she had just won the lottery when she found a nickel in the wood chips!

Digging for money!

Katie!

Allie on the teeter totter.

Allie really wanted to get on the monkey bars, but didn't really have the upper body strength required. She stood there for a while swinging on the first wrung with her feet on the platform until Doug offered to take her on his shoulders to the other end.


Doug was playing just like a little kid. Katie and him got on the teeter totter... and almost broke it, so they went over and started jumping off the swings!


We're borrowing the girls this coming weekend to possibly go down to DC and visit the National Zoo or White House. I'm hoping that the weather forecast cooperates with us!

SALSA!

Our garden has produced a lot of tomatoes this year... too much to just have with salad and such, so my mom and I made salsa.


We sliced up green peppers, jalapenos, onions, and of course tomatoes.


I had quite the MEMORABLE learning experience while cutting up the jalapenos. I had some hair in my face. Without thinking, I moved the hair out of my face and accidentally touched my cheek. My cheek started burning so I ran to the bathroom and splashed water in my face. Unfortunately, I still had all of the juices from the jalapenos on my hands. The whole area around my eyes burned and became really red... yeah, OUCH!


We threw everything into a big pot and added some extra ingredients. It was only suppose to cook for 20 minutes with the recipe we were following, but it still was really soupy so we cooked it longer and added some tomato paste to thicken it.


I think it turned out okay, but I still haven't had the chance to try it with chips.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

This whole gardening thing has definitely been a learning experience. I came over to my parents' house last night to learn how to can salsa since we have a bazillion tomatoes. I have a bunch of pictures from that, but no time to post so I'll share a little gardening tidbit I learned...

From my experience with gardening, you usually let whatever it is grow until it gets to its biggest size and then it's ready to be picked. It turns out that that is not how it works with squash. I had been keeping on eye on my squash feeling so proud that they continued to grow. After all of the salsa making, I asked my mom about the squash and she informed me that they should be picked MUCH sooner. So, I went outside with a flashlight (it was now midnight by this time) and picked all of the summer squash.

Picture of the squash before I knew that it was bad to have big squash.

Comparing the size of the squash to my foot.

It turns out that squash seeds become as big as pumpkin seeds if you let the squash grow too big. (Anyone ever roasted squash seeds like you do pumpkin seeds? ...just wondering if that works.) So we cut up the huge squashes, seeded them, and then put them through a slicer attachment on my mom's Bosch. After that, we put them in little baggies and into the freezer. The plan is that sometime this I will make some zucchini bread with it.

Little squash pieces!

Bagged and ready to go!

Loser Day

I'm having a hard time adjusting to my summer off from teaching. I've learned something new about myself. Productivity makes me happy and feel useful and being unproductive makes me feel... the opposite. Believe me, I was happy to have the first couple days off, but after that it got a little boring. I really have to say that I admire those people who can stay home and do useful things with their time. I have discovered that I am not one of those people.

Today was the least productive day I feel like I've ever had. EVER. Last night I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning watching the 2nd season of Gilmore Girls. I woke up around noon... I think and then checked Facebook. Facebook can only keep a person occupied for so long. Anyways, I watched like 5 more episodes of Gilmore Girls, took another long nap, and woke up around 7pm. At this point, I decided to create a to do list of things that I could/should be doing. I accomplished like 3 things (out of like 30) on my to do list and baked a bonus pan of brownies for my dinner. I then finished up the rest of he 2nd season of Gilmore Girls. I had my daily call with Doug around 9:00 which was the only real human contact I had for the day. He mentioned something about possibly wanting cookies, but told me it was too late anyways. At around 3am I decided to make cookies. I made a lot.


Wow, what a loser day. Good thing I get to go see Doug tomorrow..uh I mean today. I have the capstone (final) project presentation for my summer class I've been taking today as well. I actually worked on it quite a bit on Wednesday and it's basically flawless and goes way beyond the requirements already so I couldn't really spend more time on it. Believe me, I tried.

The second week in August I get to start teaching Early Back, a 2 week summer program to get a small class of kids jump started for the school year. It should start keeping me busy again, thank goodness!

Catnip Mess

I don't have kids, so I take pictures of messes that my cats make. Last night I came down to this mess in the kitchen... unlike children who usually hide, cats have no guilt. He continued to lie on the floor even as I was sweeping and vacuuming it up!



We bought some kind of cat thing online and they gave us a bunch of catnip to go along with it. Darwin and Lucky didn't really show too much interest in it so I put it in our junk drawer. (in case we needed it?) Anyways, the bag of catnip was accidentally left on the counter. They had a bit of fun with it. Now it's where it should have been in the first place... the TRASH.