Happy Birthday Dad!

On the twenty first of October was a very special day, my dad's birthday. For the whole day Rebecca and I took a holiday from school so that as a family we could go out and celebrate. We began our day with a tour of Wolfgang Chocolate factory. The tour guide didn't allow us to snitch any chocolate from the conveyer belts :( but at least at the end of the tour we all received a small bag of chocolate samples. Of course we couldn't of gone through the entire tour without ending by buying chocolate for ourselves :) We still haven't finished it all off!

After the tour we drove over to the Millennium  theater in Lancaster. At the theater, Sight & Sound preformed an amazing production called "In the Beginning," about creation and the fall of man. It was a very dramatic, overwhelming production that filled the entire theater with stars in the heavens and angles flying up the aisles as well as real animals running across the stage. I have never seen a production that large in my life!

To end the day we headed over to Park City, a mall, and visited the newly opened Apple store. After playing on some ipods and computers, Rebecca and I looked around the rest of the mall as my dad continued looking in the Apple store. After finishing our shopping we went home and unwrapped presents, by then it was late and we went to bed very tired but happy.

Me, One Day, and the City of Washington D.C

From the Washington Monument to the actual White house! I got to see the capitol building and the Lincoln memorial. A small look at parts of the Smithsonian was enough to impress me greatly. I was able to go to Washington D.C. for a day with my family along with a few other missionaries and that was one of my dreams come true, to see my nation's capitol. 

The reason for the trip was that it was a missionary conference at my sending church and as a special treat for the missionaries, we all went to Washington D.C.. The conference was a week long but the highlight of the whole week was this trip and I had been looking forward to it the whole week. The day arrived and I woke up at six in the morning and was fully equipped for the trip with my camera and energy to last the whole day, though the energy didn't quite show up till after my nap in the car on the way. After a long drive we all got on a fast underground train that took us into the center of the city. On the train my family kept expecting to hear cow bells like the similar train in the Zürich airport, but none came. We began with seeing each of the grand monuments and buildings throughout the city starting with the Washington monument. What I was looking forward to the most was seeing the White House though the security people didn't allow any people to get close to the White house yet still it was really exciting. We were hoping the president would invite us to dinner :) maybe if we called first we might of been able to. There were many different war memorials such as the long wall of names of the soldiers who died in vietnam and there was the large circle for the world war two memorial. I thought the capitol building was really beautiful, especially with the lake out front and the perfectly blue sky with occasional wisps of cloud making it picturesque. The Lincoln memorial was definitely bigger then any of the pictures had portrayed it, I thought. I was able to get a picture with the statue of Lincoln and me and I label that picture "Abraham and Sarah" :)

The afternoon we spent in the Smithsonian. It is such a large place it would take a few days to get through it but still I was able to see parts. We started in the animal museum (I don't remember its official name). The museum looked as if it came out of the movie "Night in the Museum," (except in the Smithsonian the animal on the center stand was an elephant not a T-rex) it was full of life sized stuffed animals that literally were jumping right at you. After quickly going through the animal section my dad and I went on to the art and were able to see Rembrandt and other great artists.

It was such a fun day, maybe one day I will be able to return to Washington D.C. and see all that I wasn't able to, even if I don't I will have the memory, a hundred pictures, and a singing snow globe from a patriotic shop, now I will for sure not forget the trip. Still, if anyone is planning on going to Washington and need the company I will be willing to go :)