5 Miles & More

We had lots of great adventures this week! We'll try to give everyone a short run-down in chronological order:

First, on Tuesday we went right after our dinner group to get ourselves some free Haagen Dazs, and then walked down to the Potomac as a group to enjoy the river. Then Casey & I decided to take a stroll down the river "just for a little while." To make a long story short, our little walk became a 5 mile hike, which included the Lincoln Monument (one of my favorite places in the whole world), Korean War Memorial, MLK Jr. Memorial, Roosevelt Memorial & Jefferson Memorial, and the entire Tidal Basin. We came home exhausted but it was neat to see some of the touching memorials lit-up for the night. Unfortunately since our trip was so impromptu, we have no photos.

We went to Institute, which is focusing on the relationship between presidents of the U.S. and presidents of the LDS church, and how the two have worked together throughout history. It's been pretty neat, and we're excited to keep going.

Thursday & Friday we had an opportunity to go to the capitol and do some networking at the Beyond BYU conference. It was helpful, and Casey and I both got some great tips that will help us get jobs. Always a good thing.

Friday we spent a lot of our day in the Natural History Museum & The American History Museum. We saw everything from diamonds and dinosaurs to Lincoln's top hat and Franklin's walking stick. We spent about 8 hours in the museums, and we still didn't have a chance to finish at the history museum, so we'll be headed back very soon.

Here's us with a triceratops:

And this was the original Washington Monument. We, like many Americans who saw it unveiled in the 1800's, felt that it was unnerving to see Washington with so little clothing. We decided that as a general rule, you should never see a president's belly button.

Saturday we had a fun scavenger hunt around the mall with some people from our ward- it was a fun chance to make friends, and good exercise! We finished with a picnic, and then Casey and I headed off for D.C.'s Chili Cook-off. After battling these millions of people in the Metro:

We soon decided that the 'Chili Cook-off' was more of a rock party with more alcohol, smoke and skin than we really wanted to spend much time with. We enjoyed some music by Neon Trees and then headed out on an empty train.

We tried to get a little more relaxation in the rest of the weekend, since we'd been running around all week. On Sunday we got to chat with our families, in particular our lovely mothers. We also got to be part of a Skype call with my hermanito Bryan in Argentina. He's doing great, and we can't wait to see him in person in October!

Basically, another great week of adventures in our nation's capital. We still need to put together a list of everything we need to see because we don't want to miss anything, so let us know if you have any recommendations.

The Everyday-Type Stuff

One thing my mom has always told me, is that it's not enough to hear about a place where someone you love is living, you have to see it so you can visualize them there. Therefore this post is dedicated to some of the normal every-day type things that surround us, because there are a lot of really cool things around us!

First, this is the building where we live:

Sometime soon we will post pictures of our actual apartment that is way up on the 4th floor and looks out over the street (pretty cool!). However right now the apartment itself needs a little attention, and clearly I would rather blog than clean :)

This is what we see on some of our favorite streets we take on our way to our apartment from the closest Metro station. Can you see why we love them?

 This is where we go to church. It's called the Chevy Chase Chapel, and it takes us about 45 minutes to get there by bus. It's the cutest red-brick chapel and the layout is so unique! I feel like I'm in a colonial meeting every week, especially when the air doesn't work in the chapel and we all fan ourselves for an hour. We love our ward, and they're already putting us to work. Casey is going to be teaching Sunday School with the 12 & 13 year-olds who will be really fun, but kind of crazy. I'm teaching in Relief Society, and very excited (probably because my first assignment is still 2 weeks away).

And this is what we saw the other day when we were sitting in the shade after a long day at the Smithsonian museums. We were just resting and enjoying the sunshine and relatively low humidity when we looked at each other and said, "Can you believe we live here?"

Yeah, We're Local

We've received several requests/reprimands for some word on our Washington D.C. Adventure, so this is officially a post on our first week of living in the nation's capital.

A little bit of background. I have been in love with Washington D.C. for most of my life. I have always had an interest in policy and politics, and although I found my passion in communications and advertising, it's really an opportunity for me to change policy and public opinion. Casey and I have both wanted to travel and work in internships in far-off places. But circumstances and money have never really worked out for us.

But then, out of the blue we heard about a program through BYU that sends students to university owned housing in Washington D.C. for an internship program. Even if they're married. We felt good about it, so we applied for the program and got in.

Now we're here! We've been asked for directions a couple of times so we're feeling pretty local. We've taken the metro to lots of fun places, figured out how to buy groceries without a car (harder than it sounds), and we commute to work with all the big-wigs.  We live down the road from Georgetown and just above George Washington University in a great little neighborhood.

A few adventures so far:

Dinner group with the other married couples here on the program. Super fun, and a good way to encourage us not to go out to eat every night.

Visiting the Newseum - really cool museum that focuses on news throughout the ages. We saw the paper that first published the story of "The Shot Heard Round the World", the sinking of the Lusitania, Lincoln's assassination and tons more. We saw great photographs and even the crumpled satellite tower from the World Trade Center.

 National Gallery of Art - featuring works of Picasso, Monet and tons of others right now. Super cool stuff.

Embassy Tour - Yesterday most of the foreign embassies opened their doors to the public for a taste of their culture. We didn't get to all of them but we did visit the embassies for Thailand and the Ukraine, which were both really neat and full of beautiful craftsmanship of the country.

The Potomac - We realized that we live just a couple blocks from a great park right on the famous river.  So we visited it and then went back at night to sit on the bank and see the lights. On our way home Casey realized that we could take the donkey tow path along the Chesapeake and Ohio canal almost all the way back to our house- how neat is that?

The National Mall - we've now gone a few times, just to see the capitol and admire the memorials. However we learned that every school within 100 miles sends their middle school children to see the capital and at night thousands of them converge on the Lincoln Monument. We chose the wrong time to go, so we soon gave up and will return another time.

We still have lots of adventures on our list and exactly 3 months to do them in, so we'll keep you all posted. So far we love it, and we're quickly adjusting to D.C. life. If you have any questions about what we're up to, or if you have suggestions for adventures we should be taking leave us a comment!

Graduation!

I finally fulfilled one of my lifelong ambitions at the end of April - I graduated! It was such an odd feeling,  I think because it's one of the few things in my life that I have always wanted and worked for, and now it's done. Since I was little I planned going to college and getting a degree and then following whatever adventures that degree would open for me. Now all of a sudden one of my biggest goals for life is complete, and I have to figure out where the next few pieces of my life's adventure will take me. But I'm excited to continue the journey.

On a less pensive note, graduation was fun! I suddenly realized how cool it was when President Samuelson asked all of the bachelor's candidates to stand, and I stood with thousands of other blue capped people to receive our degrees. It suddenly became exciting. For those who don't know, I now have a Bachelor of Arts in Communications, with an emphasis on Advertising. When you have to use that many caps in your title, you know it's fancy :)

My parents and Casey's mom and sister Katie travelled for the occasion and we were so happy to see them. We also got to spend time with the Utah dwelling Knechts and we love spending time with the family. Hooray for life's big accomplishments when we get to celebrate with people we love!

Newsy Type Stuff

This is one of those lovely catch-up posts about some of the big things going on in our lives. If you're looking for a more entertaining post you should probably check out another blog... I'm afraid we're pretty hit and miss.

First, thank you everyone for the love, support and prayers. I travelled to NYC last week for my national Brandstorm competition. We took second place, which was bittersweet- we wanted to win of course, and we really believed in our ideas. But this also means that I am finished! And now can focus on finishing school and getting ready for Washington D.C. and being a wife and fully functioning human. I also made a lot of great connections and our team really represented BYU well. So all-in-all a successful venture.

Second, Washington D.C. is right around the corner! We leave next week and we finally just got both of our internships settled and squared away. I'll be working at an agency called MDB Communications and I'm super excited- they're exactly the kind of place I wanted to work at. I'll be learning lots about how an agency works, how to use social media and how to be a good account manager. Casey will be working with the Clean Water Network where he'll get to do lots of research on water resources and some legislation, and he'll get to work and coordinate with lots of organizations that work on resource management and making sure people have clean water. We're both super excited!

Casey has also been working hard on keeping our household together while I've been going crazy with Brandstorm, and he managed to sell our contract last week. This is great news, even though it means that we will now officially be homeless starting in August. But now we can pack up and head out.

And last but not least, we've been doing finals and we're almost done! We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. For me it really means the end- we're so excited that we have family coming up for my graduation on Thursday & Friday. Who thought this day would come so quickly, huh? 4 years has flown by, and I'm so happy that I get to finish it the way I am. With Casey, family & a great big adventure back East, the perfect way to cap off a lot of work, play and tons of growth. Thanks to everyone who has helped me/us make it so far!

A Very Chinese Sunday

One of the things we love doing together is cooking, and at our house cooking is always an adventure.

In my house growing up there was rarely a recipe for dinner, and my dad taught me to cook by taste. My mom let me help make cookies by the time I was 2. I learned a few more things about food from Mary Bullock when I took Foods in high school and competed on the ProStart restaurant & hospitality team. The general result of all of this is that I rarely use a recipe when I cook, and I can almost never make the same thing twice.

It took Casey a little while to get accustomed to kitchen style, but now we make quite a team. He's first rate at slicing and dicing and our idea man, and I'm the season-er/methodologist. And since finding free episodes on the Food Network website you should hear us and all our fancy talk. It's all about plating, seasoning, juliennes and paring knives.

So one Sunday a few weeks ago we decided to try something neither of us had ever made, but both of us love - chow mein. But we couldn't just stop there, because we had some wonton skins to use. And then we couldn't stop there because we needed some sauce for it all. And of course we happened to have left-over fortune cookies from a Relief Society activity so it all amounted to A Very Chinese Sunday.

The untold story was that we finally got started making our feast a little before 6 because of meetings. Which we thought was fine. Until we didn't get done cooking until after 8. This stuff took a long time! And our version of Chinese was rather greasy, which is not a good idea after 8 p.m.

But still, look at this finished product- it was delicious! 

Just don't ask for the recipe. We don't have one.

Living in the Great White North

One thing we often hear when we tell people we're living in Utah is, "Oh, do you ski or snowboard?" We usually laugh and say something like, "Oh we're from Nevada & California so we've never really had much snow experience." What we're really thinking is, 'Do you have any idea how expensive that hobby is? And how clumsy we can be? Do I look like I ski or snowboard?'

However, at his work Christmas Party, Casey actually won 2 ski passes, so we determined that we would take this opportunity to actually experience what everyone else in the world thinks Utah is. 

And I will tell you, that all of the things holding me back were well founded. I haven't gone skiing since I was 14, and neither Casey or I are what you would call graceful. Since our passes were free it wasn't too outrageously expensive to go, but we still had to rent our equipment. And when you get to the resort everyone around you (including 4 year olds) looks very comfortable in their boots, and they have no fear and no time to help you if you look lost or afraid. So you just have to pretend to look very experienced and cool until someone yells at you to get over to the side because you're going too slow and you're in their way.

However, I will also tell you that when you get the hang of it, and you find a nice easy little path to practice on skiing is quite fun. There is something about flying down a mountain, gliding effortlessly. There is also something really funny about going with someone else who you love to laugh with, and then laughing really hard when they crash spectacularly into a snow bank and throw snowflakes everywhere. But since I had no way to actually stop myself and help I just laughed and shouted encouraging words words over my shoulder while praying I would be able to avoid the same fate. And there is something about your last run of the day, when you both finally get the hang of it, and you slide back and forth around each other on the snow.

In short, skiing is an adventure. An adventure with highs and lows, laughs and very sore legs. And we enjoyed our adventure very much. Now the remainder of our ski passes are up for sale, so let us know if you're interested.