Thankful, Day Three

Joe and I started our third day in DC by visiting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. I vividly remember watching a news special on tv about the US Holocaust Memorial Museum before it opened to the public. Even though the museum opened in 1993 and eighteen years have passed since I watched that story about the museum, it has never left my mind. For obvious reasons, they don't allow photography in the museum but my experience there will never be forgotten. It's a place that everyone should visit if given the opportunity.

We then headed to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. I think since a lot of people were off work and kids were out of school, this museum was especially crowded...and there were screaming children everywhere. We didn't last too long before calling it a day but we did see a few things.

The Hope Diamond which is temporarily set in a gaudy Harry Winston setting to celebrate the anniversary of the donation to the Smithsonian.

African Elephant in the middle of the museum.

Thankful, Day Two

Before eating our turkey dinner, we visited the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. One of the main reasons for our trip was to visit Julia Child's kitchen.

My mother-in-law and me standing outside the exhibit of Julia Child's kitchen.

Loved the exhibit for Julia Child's kitchen and how they put everything exactly as it had been in her house and her own kitchen.

The ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

First Lady Michelle Obama's inaguration gown.

Characters from Jim Henson's Sam and Friends, including Kermit the Frog.

Thankful, Day One

Joe and I met his mom and stepdad in Washington, DC this past week to celebrate Thanksgiving. It had been over 20 years (gosh, I'm old!) since my last trip to DC. While many things had changed, much of it was still as I had remembered. Day one, Joe and I explored the city and many of its memorials before having an amazing Mexican dinner.


The White House.

World War II Memorial with the Washington Monument in the background.

A quote on one of the walls of the World War II Monument that I especially liked.

"Three Servicemen" part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Lincoln Memorial.

Korean War Veterans Memorial.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.

Vietnam Women's Memorial.

An interview...with me!

My sweet friend, Nichole is participating in NaBloPoMo. And she decided to interview yours truly for her blog. By the way, Nichole is a blogging extraordinaire so I consider myself to be kinda famous now. Read my interview here.

Help!

This might seem lame but I am tired of really good shows getting cancelled. First, Arrested Development. Last year it was Terriers on FX. Now one of my favorites, Community, has been pulled from the mid-season lineup and could be cancelled. Let me just say, there are other shows on NBC that are worthy of being cancelled but this show is actually really clever. And it's practically the only thing my husband and I agree on. So help a girl out, please. Sign the petition. Tweet. FB. Seriously, I'm desperate. Much thanks! http://save-community.com

Thirty-nine

So I didn't get around to making any homemade treats but a store-bought birthday cake is better than no birthday cake, right? (And actually this store bought cake is probably better than something I would have made myself.) Happy birthday, Joe! I hope this is a wonderful year for you.

Pre-birthday celebrating

The hubs birthday is Tuesday and, like usual, I will be in class. But not to worry, we have had a full weekend celebrating early. Here's the short list:

The Ides of March

Pizza

David Sedaris live
Lunch at one of our favorite restaurants
Birthday shopping
Video games (Okay, this one was all Joe.)

Happy Halloween!

Here are my nieces in their Halloween costumes. They did some Trunk or Treating last night and then will be all set to go door-to-door tonight.

Supergirl!

Pumpkin Brylea with her mom, Cathy.

Basilica

The Basilica of the Scared Heart on the campus of Notre Dame is deserving of its own post. What a beautiful and breath-taking church. It reminded me of some of the cathederals I visited in Italy and was so magnificient.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

I have definitely watched more baseball in the last three weeks than I have in the last three years. It's been so much fun following the Cardinals and rooting them on to their World Series championship. My husband, I think, is grateful that it's over as he has wondered what's happened to his wife who is suddenly obsessed with baseball players instead of boy-band members and talks about game stats instead of recipes. Don't get me wrong, I have always had my favorite teams but typically watch sporadically at best and then always seem to get really into sports when they get exciting. But alas, this weekend hasn't just been about baseball...

Joe and I went to South Bend, IN to see the Notre Dame/Navy game. We bid on the tickets months ago at a charity event and Saturday was the big game. It's one of those historical places that I've heard about my entire life and seen in movies (Rudy, anyone?) and yet I never really figured I'd ever see the place. But now it's just a couple hours away.

We got there a few hours early to enjoy the campus, see the basilica and eat a steak sandwich in the Quad. Notre Dame clobbered Navy so it was another win for the team I was rooting for.

Blog slacker

I have been a blog slacker as of late. So what's new here? This sums up life: go to class, do homework, go to class again, do more homework, accompany Joe to a work event, volunteer, do more homework, clean the house, do laundry, do some more laundry but not before doing more homework.

All that jazz

Just got back from seeing Esperanza Spalding tonight in concert. The tickets were an early birthday present for Joe. He loves her but I didn't know much about her before tonight...only that she won the 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist beating Justin Bieber, Mumford & Sons and Florence + The Machine. Great mellow concert and perfect weather for a stroll in the city.

Four

My niece Adyson turned four today and I was able to watch her play socceer (kids that age are quite entertaining when "playing" sports) and then we had dinner at her house tonight.

Brylea is modeling the outfit I had bought for Adyson when she was Brylea's age.

Both nieces wanted to sit on Aunt Amy's lap. Adyson is modeling her new birthday clothes.

Adyson loving on her dog after her soccer game today.

My review

Since Joe and I love movies so much, we always look forward to Fridays when the movie section comes in our newspaper. We love living in a place where two of the most famous movie reviewers write for our newspaper and love having a big section of the paper devoted to movies and reviews. Well one of those movie reviewers (Richard Roeper) was hosting a special screening for Moneyball. After a couple days of trying to win tickets, I finally did. Joe and I got to attend the screening last night and it was so much fun. First of all, this isn't just a baseball movie, it's an Oscar-worthy baseball movie and it was fantastic. Secondly, the theatre was plush with leather seats, cocktails and gourmet food. We also were treated to a Q&A afterwards with our host. It was such a fun night. Lots of pictures were taken so I'm hoping to post pictures when I find out where we can get access to them.

The Way

Alison and I went to a movie screening tonight for The Way. It was fantastic. I know I can be a bit emotional at times (understatement?) but rarely does a film make me both laugh and cry for two hours straight. It was really compelling and I loved everything about it. In fact, I can't wait to see it again when it officially comes out. After the movie, Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez did a Q&A with the audience and they are both so nice and gracious. What a great night and experience. Go. See. This. Movie.

Thirty-four

I had a fantastic birthday today. Joe and I played miniature golf (at two different courses - we're hardcore) and tonight went out for a great dinner - king crab legs. The kicker was our dessert. We ordered a piece of carrot cake to share. That piece of carrot cake turned out to be a 3 1/2 pound chunk of carrot cake. I'm not even sure these pictures do it justice. Needless to say, we took a LOT of food come home with us tonight!

The Great American Road Trip, Part 3

Our last full day in South Dakota, we decided to take a road trip to Deadwood. Joe is a fan of the old HBO series so he was pretty excited to see the place. We were a little disappointed once we actually got there because there were far more bars/casinos and less things to actually do than we'd anticipated. We decided to take a tour which turned out to be a great idea.

After Deadwood, we headed back to Keystone to visit Crazy Horse during some beautiful weather. We were so glad we came back, too, because we got to see see some amazing Native American dancing.

In Deadwood we visited the grave of Wild Bill Hickok.

Also buried nearby was Calamity Jane.

One of the dancers we watched at the Crazy Horse museum site.

Joe with the Crazy Horse monument in the background.

I wonder if the monument will be finished in my lifetime? It's hard to believe it's been in progress since 1948.

The Great American Road Trip, Part 2

Day two in Keystone and we woke up to it absolutely pouring outside. Of course we only packed for sunny weather and a quick look at the forecast showed that it would rain all day. And as luck would have it, supposedly this was their first real rain of the entire summer. My husband was content to not leave the hotel all day but if we were in SD, I wanted to get out and see stuff rain or shine.

At one point we became so desperate for rain gear that we almost bought matching windbreakers with Buffalo emblazoned on them. Fortunately, we eventually found non-matching rain jackets that we both agreed we'd actually wear again. Crisis diverted.

Our first stop was the Crazy Horse Monument. What I didn't realize was that the fog was so heavy we couldn't actually see the mountain carving. Good thing our tickets entitled us to re-enter for the next three days. We did, however, enjoy the museum and the film they showed. We were so moved by the story of Crazy Horse and the family who have dedicated their lives to constructing the monument.

We also took a short mini-tour of Jewel Cave which was packed due to the weather. Our final outing for the day was to Custer State Park where we drove the Needles Highway. I'm not usually one to get car sick but I am still car sick just thinking about this drive. Wow!

Me (minus my cool new rain jacket) standing next to the 1:34 scale Crazy Horse model.

Buffalo we saw at Custer State Park. He was huge and completely ignored us (which I guess is a good thing). About 1,300 buffalo roam the park and, sadly, this was the only one we saw in our two-hour drive around the park. That should also tell you about the massive size of the park.

The Great American Road Trip, Part 1

Soon after Joe and I were married we watched North By Northwest together and realized that neither one of us had ever been to Mount Rushmore. We vowed to one day right this wrong and we put it on our list of things to do. Fast-forward almost exactly three years and we finally made it happen with a trip to South Dakota.

Only about an hour into the trip, Joe jokingly told me he had highway hypnosis and I later admitted to him that there are "car-people" and "plane-people" and I'm definitely a "plane-person". (But I already knew this.) Yes, we are not good car travelers and both said we wouldn't be doing a road trip like this for a looooong time. We are so happy to be back home.

We stayed our first night in Sioux Falls, SD. As luck would have it, my friends Kim and Chris were moving to Sioux Falls that very same weekend. We had breakfast with them before leaving town the next morning. So grateful for good friends and that they took time out of their busy move to see us.

Our first tourist stop - Corn Palace. I think we were both more impressed with the Mitchell Corn Palace than we'd expected.

World famous Wall Drug. After 8 billion Wall Drug signs on the way to Wall, SD we were unimpressed. Maybe there was too much hype or we didn't like the fact that they charged us $9 for an eye glass cleaning kit? 

Finally, Mount Rushmore. Joe said it was much bigger than he'd expected and I said it was smaller than I'd imagined. We stayed a few hours so that we could enjoy the nighttime lighting ceremony as well.

Our picture at the foot of Mount Rushmore. The one and only photo of us actually together on this trip. Maybe we just need to take a tripod on vacation?

Good friends, good times

This weekend was full of friends, good food, movies and laughter. First of all, my friend Monica M. was here visiting. Then I found out my friend Taina would be in town and my friend Monica B. was here at a conference. Combine those people, me and a great city and it was a lot of fun.

Monica and I on the Wendella boat tour enjoying the architecture from the Chicago River.

New Marilyn Monroe sculpture downtown. Leave it to Chicago to have tacky interesting installation art.

Monica and I taking in Buckingham Fountain.

Dinner with the girls (left to right): Me, Monica B., Taina, Kamilah and Monica M.

Iris, Monica, me, Crumley and Taina enjoying the fire pit at home.

Just like 1987

I have ended my "summer of concerts" by going to see Tiffany and Debbie Gibson tonight at the House of Blues. It was like I entered another dimension because I haven't seen this much crimped hair in decades. Very fun night though full of old favorites, covers from the 80s and even a few new songs.

Welcome home, Donnie!

I arrived home today to find a box on my doorstep. I thought maybe I was going crazy and had ordered something that I couldn't remember. I opened up the box and gasp...inside was a Donnie doll, circa 1990. There was only one person who could have sent me this and I knew right away...ahh, I really do have the best friends. (Thanks, Amber.) Meanwhile, my husband and I will be fighting over the perfect spot for Donnie to reside in our home. (His perfect spot is probably the closet, by the way.)

I always wanted one of these! Dreams do come true.

Weekend Adventures

Joe and I are home now after our weekend away. Rather than pick up the house and start laundry, I thought I'd share more about our trip. (That sounds like more fun, right?) Friday night we saw a really great magician. I always loved watching magic as a kid and, as an adult, I still love it. You can see on the link a few of the tricks we saw in person. We were sitting in the second row and I still have absolutely no idea how he did these tricks. Below are some more pictures from our trip.

Downtown Galena. Lots of shopping and options for eating. We had a couple of great Italian meals.

In one store, Joe and I spotted these candy cigarettes in an old cigarette vending machine. A sign on the machine stated that you could pull the knob and take the candy to the register to pay. I think we were both a little surprised to see the machine and the candy cigarettes displayed but I remember buying these at the dime store as a kid and smoking eating them.

On Friday we toured President Ulysses S. Grant's Galena home. So much for my history knowledge as I hadn't even realized President Grant ever lived in Illinois before planning this trip.