DAPAIGE Visits

                                        

 Paige and Dave came to visit us! I've never been so happy. We hit up a few of the sights, and they did some solo trips around town while Andrew and I were at work. Mt. Vernon was my second fav thing we did while they were here. Paige and I are real into George Washington now. Such a silver fox.

 Aladdin the camel. We weren't too enthusiastic about Aladdin's smell.

 But Aladdin seemed sure that eating Paige's foot was a good idea.

 Mt. Vernon.

 So good looking.

 

We may have spent like three hours at the Cafe Rio with Lauren instead of heading to the National Christmas Tree. So worth it. It felt like we were back in Provo.

We also visited the temple to see the lights and got to attend the best Christmas presentation I have ever witnessed. The performers may not have sung in tune and it may have been entirely in Spanish, but there was a young boy who was killer at the triangle, sticks, and jingle bells.

 

 Second camel of the trip. Paige was embarrassed to get on the fake camel, but I insisted.

 DaPaige.

 

I always love me some Paigmy time.

 

Day Trip

 We took a day trip to New York City on Saturday. Andrew had the pleasure of asking a lot of strangers to take our picture.

 It was real cold, but beautiful. We checked out Central Park and saw a woman pushing her dog in a stroller.

 I've never been to New York around Christmas so this was my first time seeing the tree in Rockefeller Center. It was big.

 Times Square. We found a burger place that had TILLAMOOK CHEESE on all their food items and they also had spicy sour cream that I put on my burger. Spicy sour cream? I've never been so happy in my entire life as I was whilst eating my burger with Tillamook cheese and spicy sour cream.

 Check us out on the billboard.

 A little zoomed in. We're in the bottom left corner. I'm wearing the brown boot and my arm and leg are out. We're famous!

 The New York Public Library was beautiful. It was also nice to warm up, take off my coat, and regain feeling in my hands. 

 This lion is made of Legos (clearly). This excited me.

Andrew putting those modeling years from his childhood to good use in the subway.

Sightseeing

 Working full time kind of sucks the life out of me, so I never really have a lot of motivation to go downtown, which is really a shame. A few times Andrew and I have mustered enough energy to do some short sightseeing visits in DC. One weekend we went to the Library of Congress (see above). It was beautiful! 

 Last week we visited the National Cathedral. It was awesome as well, and it was a fast trip (I get bored so so easily).  The gargoyles and such on the outside of the building were pretty cool to look at.

 I loved the stained glass on the inside.

The architecture really was amazing. There was an orchestra of sorts practicing and so we got to listen to some pretty music. I mean, it was no BSpears, but it was still cool.

We almost went to Mt. Vernon when my parents came a few weeks ago, but it ended up raining/snowing. And I have no desire to go outside when there's inclement weather, so we played card games instead. I feel like that still counts, though, so add Mt. Vernon to the list.

Paigmy Reunited

 Since Andrew works for United now, we can fly on standby for free. First order of business: 24 hour trip to Atlanta. Reason: Paiger. We only slept like 7 hours over the two nights I was there (on sheets that felt like the clouds), but it was totally worth it. We went shopping, ate Chick-Fil-A, ate at the Varsity, and took a haunted Segway tour of Atlanta.

 It's a good thing Dave wore that helmet since he crashed into a car an hour later. With the owner of said car standing right next to it. So embarrassing.

 SO HAPPY to be together.

 Pave. Or Daige? Whichever you choose, they showed me a good time.

 Paigmy kind of rules at the Segway. Which is more than I can say about Dave.

Traveling standby is nerve wracking, but totally worth it. We may already be planning our next trip.

For Mom

For the benefit of my mother, and anyone else who cares, here are photes of my new classroom. This is the front wall. You can't really see it, Mom, but to the left of the yellow fish is "We love to learn."

 This is the far wall. I have windows this year! What a difference! It takes up pretty much the entire wall, which is annoying, but at least I'll have natural light. You can see Andrew hard at work in the back. He's pretty much been a slave to my classroom To-Do list this week. They are also pretty strict about not having anything close to the ceiling, the fire marshall comes and gets angry. Boo. It restricted my decorating.

 Back wall. It's a little crowded, but there's not a lot of room when you have 28 students.

 Ugh. The ugly wall. This is where their backpacks go and such. I didn't know what to do with it. Any suggestions, Paiger? Your classrooms always looked better than mine.

 Andrew spent HOURS helping me. Good work, Andrew. The classroom is good enough to start school next week, but I'll probably make some changes as I get going with the teaching part of my job. 

On an unrelated note, we went to an outside movie. Lots of fun, but also lots of mosquitoes. I was not pleased. 

Halfway There

One half of this couple has recently found employment. This is good news, seeing as until last Friday, 100% of this couple did not have jobs. Can you guess which one was successful? I'll give you a hint:

It was this half. I'll be teaching 2nd grade again as a long term/maybe/probably it will turn into all year long. One down, one more to go. Anybody have any ideas of jobs for geographers? 

Beach

This was my first year going to the beach with the Harrison family. It was so fun! 

 We took some jumping pictures

 Tie-dyed for the first time

 and the end result looked awesome.

 We played in the pool

 and in the sand

learned some new games

 looked awesome in photos

 Had a glow stick dance party

 Learned how to write my name backwards

 Took a family photo

 Caught and held a (small) crab for the first time

 Attended a pretend wedding 

 Played bocci ball

 And had a good time!