preparing for the tropics

Today I took a big step in preparing for my trip to the Dominican Republic...on the outside.

Tanning.

Only I would walk in to a tanning salon with a coupon of a week of free tanning and walk out with a crazy contraction, face lotion, and lip gloss. Seriously LIP GLOSS!?? What was I thinking?! You can only imagine the rest of the expensive when I tell you the lip gloss was $6..yikes. I just walked off thinking...I just wanted a base tan. Good grief!

Bones Resolutions

Speaking of resolutions I found this fun little slide show of resolutions with my favorite TV show right now.....BONES!

Slideshow11 ‘Bones’-Themed New Year’s Resolutions for 2011

a new year

So to start off the New Year I resolute to not have any resolutions...

aka I have personal issues I don't want to deal with! Ha

So this morning I went to Panera for a breakfast date that ended up being with myself. I should really do that more often: date myself. So there I am eating my pecan roll and coffee...(coffee with more cream and sugar than coffee. The calories were probably just as much as the hot chocolate that I avoided because Panera has decided to list the calories next to the items...thanks Panera, THANKS!)

So anyways there I am catching up on emails and texting a good friend and I think to myself what a perfect time to update my blog. (A much needed update since my fans have been begging! You know who you are! Make a comment now. I dare you.)

Now what to blog about? I have had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's since the last update. Count it... 3 major holidays and lots of stuff in between. So as my creative juices start to flow I pick up on a table conversation next to me," I am not worried about my swimming times....The beaver creek run was my best bike....I have been running a lot these last weeks...here are my times (enter impressive numbers I am sure)" As I sit there the pecan roll gets heavier and heavier on the way to my mouth. Dang these boys. Ruining a perfectly good date with myself. Off to the comforts of my warm house and comfy couch. Happy New Year to me!

Vacations over

So obviously I am way behing on my recap of the Washington D.C Trip!
Sorry folks.
I was doing so good until the day I used my phone for all my pictures and then I was lazy in getting them uploaded. Let's face it...it is so much better to upload and rearrange photos on facebook....so that is what I did. Enjoy them there!
(Anyone want to give me pointers on blogspot uploading and more importantly spacing and publishing?!)

Anyways I had an awesome time and was sad to leave my amazing sis.

Good bye D.C. Hope to see you again soon.

Day 5: Museum Day

So Jodi was back to work for the day and I took off to explore the city. I specifically had all the Smithsonian Museums in mind...wow so overwhelming! Here is a website to help plan your trip! http://www.si.edu/

Here are a few pictures from the Natural History Museum. Such amazing and diverse exhibits there!





































































One of my favorite exhibitions there was an area called Written in Bone. They had question and answer time from real forensic anthropologist available. It was so awesome. The theme for the morning was a focus on Civil War anthropology and medicine. It is amazing to see how our techniques have changed or not changed much in different areas of medicine.

Here's a look at the American Indian Museum

I also made it to the Space and Air Museum which I really enjoyed. It was like a giant giant cosmosphere. Then off to a art and sculpture museum. Very exhausting but fun day of musuem touring!

more pictures from Day 4

In front of the Supreme Court

Jodi with our starbucks coffee as we wait in the cold rain for our tour that was actually canceled

a look at the closest we could get to the front of the White House for today

Jodi showing off the Senate only elevator!

Me purchasing my very important umbrella from Target!

Day 4 in D.C.

Today was a rainy rainy wet day!
So much so that I had to stop at Target and buy my own umbrella!

This morning we waited in the rain for our tour of the White House that never happened. All tours were canceled. They never announced why so it just makes me wonder what came up exactly?! We were very disappointed, but there is hope that it still might work out sometime this week. Keep your fingers crossed!

Here is a picture of the closest we could get to the White House for now.

the back side of the white house (closer to the street)














A picture of us and our cute umbrellas with the capitol building behind us!


















We went on an amazing tour giving by Sen Brownback's only intern at this time (who is from Massachusetts!). He gave us the underground tour and since there was just the two of us we got to skip around the big public tours and take private staircases. It was very top secret. Did you know that there is an underground "metro" from the senate buildings to the capitol building? Did you know that there are elevators to be used by senators only? There are a million other fun facts we learned and I of course can not remember to repeat.


Under the capitol dome.








































The supreme court