Tis the Season

A friend from my ward shared this with me and I had to post it immediately. Totally set the right mood for the season! I loved it! I loved that that lady knew to stand up immediately. Loved the Random Acts of Culture! And...did you see that organ???
I would click on the link (the title part of the video) because even though it's imbedded heare, it doesn't really fit.

DC or bust...

Many of you know my husband's hobby/dream of running. He's been working really hard this year to hit a fast marathon time. Long story short, this goal has been put on the back burner. But his running fame is big here at Fort Jackson and he was put on the Army 10-miler team for Fort Jackson. The "Army 10-miler" is a HUGE race which takes place in Washington DC and brings in runners from around the world. One of the neat thing is militia from other countries will send their soliders to compete. It's a peace-making kind of thing. It's a really neat race because the runners get to pass many famous icons like Arlington Cemetary, Lincoln memorial, Washington memorial, many of the Simthsonian buildings, up past the US Capitol, the finish (and the start) was at the Pentagon. It was really neat granted, however, the runners aren't sight-seeing while trying to pound out the miles, :) thus we did go to visit many of those places aside from the race. I can't remember right now how Jeremy did exactly... I do know that it wasn't as well as he hoped, he had big blisters on both feet. I actually didn't even get to see him run!! I was so disappointed. I had to take 3 kids on the metro by myself to get to the race, so I opted to just go for the finish and somehow I didn't even see him pass us! Lucy said she saw him, so guess that counts for all of us. It was very fun to take a family trip though! The kids did great in the car, being the longest car ride they've done, I was happy with that. Hallee had the hardest time, but she made it through it. What Lucy does every spare moment she gets...and the reason why Lucy ALWAYS has to wear a skirt! She couldn't practice her spin if she didn't! This last pic is in front of the White House. This was the last place we stopped before hitting the road back home. We were walking around and this bicycle officer stopped to chat. He let us in on this secret he "wasn't supposed to tell people" and said that a certain chopper would be landing in about 15 minutes if we wanted to stick around to watch. Jeremy was as excited as a schoolboy and said he had to see the President's chopper. We waited more than 15 minutes, it was kind of cool to see, but by the time the chopper lands, you're so far away and the angle is such you can't even see anyone exit the chopper. Who knows if it really was the president or not...then again, who else would be flying by Air Force chopper to the White House, hmm?

Pumpkin Season is so fun. We talked a lot about pumpkins at Joy School and there were many activities involving pumpkins this year, so we've seen a lot of orange! We went down to an activity Silly Scarecrows at the historic Robert Mills house and garden in downtown. It was way fun and quite a bargain I thought. The kids loved picking a pumpkin from the garden, which they got to decorate, and we loved seeing all the silly scarecrows put up by different businesses- there were probaby 40 or so scarescrows.




I didn't realize the kids were going to get their own pumpkin from the Robert Mills house activity, and I had already planned a playgroup trip to a pumpkin patch that same week. Athough I ended up locking my keys in the car (and my wallet), it was a great place to play while we waited an hour for triple-A to come rescue us. We had fun with friends at storytime, exploring and taking pictures, but did not end up buying any pumpkins.