My New Favorite Bug

I hate bugs! But there are a select few that I do like: ladybugs, butterflies, rolly-pollies, boxelder bugs, etc. You know, all the cute, pretty ones.

But, now, I've found a new favorite bug: Lightning Bugs!!








When Daniel and I come home in the evening from some of our adventures, lightning bugs are always out, and they are so cute, twinkling in the twilight. One night, we went out to the backyard and laid down in the hammock for a little while, just to watch the lightning bugs blink. They look like little Christmas lights in the trees and it's so fun.

I was thinking one day that God probably planned out certain things, certain creations, just to make us happy and to make us remember Him. Like sunsets and rain. Well, I'm convinced that God put these little bugs on the earth just to make us happy and to remind us of how good life is! They sure do cheer ME up! I love them!

DC Adventure: Kayaking on the Potomac

The interns at Ernst & Young decided to go kayaking on the Potomac. Leslie and I have never been kayaking so we just had to go. We invited Bowman, Stephanie, and Rayna to come along for the fun. It took us an hour to get there because I think we missed a turn, then GPS told us to go over a walking bridge, and of course the roads are crazy here. There weren't any rapids which made Stephanie happy and disappointed Bowman. We did have fun though.











These are all the interns with Leslie and I.



Rayna as you can see was really put out that we didn't let her go Kayaking. She had to just watch.

Adventures in DC: the Traffic

Dear Readers:

The traffic here really really really really really really stinks. On Friday, we both got off work at the same time, 2pm, and we decided that we would like to go to the temple right after work ... so that we could beat the traffic, of course. How bad could it be at 2:30 in the afternoon? Right?

WRONG! So, it turns out, everybody gets off work early on Fridays. The temple is a mere 16.6 miles from where we work. Guess how long it took us? 2 HOURS! Is that not crazy? It was bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way there. It may take some getting used to living here, but we are definitely up to the challenge.



Love,

The Holbrooks

Adventures in DC: Mt. Vernon ... And Others

Mt. Vernon

One of the places on our list of things to see this summer was Mt. Vernon (It's George Washington's house for those that don't know history or haven't seen National Treasure). I really enjoyed learning more about George Washington and what kind of man he was.



This is a view of the Potomac from Mt. Vernon.





Doesn't Leslie look super good in this picture??



Great Falls

Bowman called us yesterday and invited us to the Great Falls. We looked it up online and they didn't look that amazing, but thought we would go anyway. We always have a ton of fun with Bowman and Stephanie. When we got there we were surprised to see that it is a lot bigger than the pictures make it out to be. We thought it looked quite spectacular.





Heather's House

We spent last Sunday in Rockville, MD at our cousin Heather's house with Aunt Tamara, Michael, Michelle, and the kids. We had a really good time, especially since it's been so long since we've seen Heather. And the food was excellent!

Adventures in DC: The DC Temple

On Saturday of last weekend, Daniel and I went to the Washington DC Temple. It's a beautiful temple! And really big! We were surprised about that. We did not do a session, so we haven't seen too much of the inside yet, but we'll definitely get around to that. We love going to the temple. We love the peace and happiness it brings to us, and we are convinced that going to the temple each week helps our marriage. The DC Temple is about 45 minutes away from us (on a good day ;) ), which is more than we are used to, being in Utah. But we are still incredibly blessed!




You can't see it in this picture, but I pretty much matched the flowers that day. My shirt is about the same shade pink, and my undershirt was almost the same color orange! How fun and cute!


We asked a Puerto Rican man to take a picture of us in front of the temple, and he did for us. But both times he took a picture for us, he cut off the spires of the temple! HA! It's more beautiful in real life, I promise.

Adventures in DC: The Mall

Daniel and I have now been to the National Mall twice. The first time, last Friday, we only went through one art museum before things started to close. But we walked around and saw the Capitol building and things. Today, we got to go through the Holocaust Museum, which was really fascinating and sad, and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We also had a little picnic lunch on the lawn and had a little nap in between the museum visits.






Look at me, keeping up the Washington Monument!! Good thing they had me there!

Adventures in DC: Arlington Cemetery

On Wednesday, we decided to go to Arlington Cemetery. It was the first big thing we saw out here. And it was HUGE! It was very cool to go around and look at the monuments and see Arlington Manor (or whatever it's called). At the top of the hill, where Arlington Manor is, you could see, like, all of DC. It was a beautiful view.


In front of the Women's Memorial, which was really neat. It featured historical views of women in the military, and it was fun to see.


At the Memorial for Unknown Soldiers. We saw the changing of the guard. Guards are present at this memorial for most of the day, 6 or 7 months out of the year. You can see one in the background of this picture.


The ampitheater at Memorial for Unknown Soldiers.


The view of the city.

The View.



The Monument to the Unknown Civil War Soldiers




This is the grave of JFK.

Adventures in DC

We got here late on Monday night ... really late. And the next few days were spent getting our stuff unpacked and our apartment ready. We also got to spend some time with Michael, Michelle, Damon and Brixton, and Bowman, Stephanie and Rayna, which was so fun! We feel so blessed to live close to some family!

My internship started this past Thursday. And, again, I am working for Health Fitness Corporation stationed at Freddie Mac. So, I will be teaching fitness classes and doing some training...basically working in a gym. My first few days were just training stuff, none too exciting. But I did take a couple of classes and observed one of my work-mates do some personal training. The cool thing about working in a fitness center is that I get to take all sorts of cool classes for free! And then soon, hopefully, I'll get to start teaching some of my own. But that'll be in a little while, I'm sure.

Daniel doesn't start his internship til this week, so he has been doing little things around the house while I've been at work: arranging our apartment and cleaning up a bit, getting the tv set up... you know, manly things. He even made his own tv antenna! He looked up videos on Youtube about making your own antenna, and he just decided to do it! Look at how clever he is!
This is the first one he did. It's main part is made of a hat hanger that he found around here, and he just tied wires to it. This one worked just fine, but Daniel wanted to make a better one. So...


...this is his second one. We get about 25 stations from it, which I think is SO cool! We don't watch tv much anyway, so that's fine with us (there's nothing good on, anyway), and we saved 40 bucks! He's so clever!

Our Trip to DC -- Part III: More Nauvoo

Our second and final day in Nauvoo was as good as the first one. We kicked it off by going to church, attending an all missionary ward, with about 350 missionaries, that started at 8am. It was kind of fun to attend that ward, because the majority of members in it are all senior missionaries. They were all so kind and welcoming to us, as you could imagine. I think it would be awesome to serve a mission with Daniel in Nauvoo!! Maybe someday...




This is an old covered wagon at the end of the Trail of Hope (the road all of the saints walked down as they were leaving Nauvoo). The Trail of Hope is so cool, because on the side of the road, there are all these plaques with quotes from the early members of the church and their experiences leaving Nauvoo. How hard that must have been!


Daniel, on the banks of the Mississippi River. At the end of Trail of Hope.


These next few pictures are from the Old Nauvoo Cemetery, where a lot of the pioneer saints were buried. I loved it! It is now officially my favorite cemetery ever ... and I've been to a lot of different cemeteries. It's just so OLD! And it's hidden from view because it's back a ways in a grove of trees. It was so peaceful, because it was off the road, so there were no sounds of human activity anywhere, and right next to it, there was just a big field of nothing. You could clearly hear the birds and the bugs, and I loved it. As you could imagine, it had a special feeling about it, along with the rest of Nauvoo.








Daniel in front of the gunsmith's, .... I think.


At the Brickyard.


Daniel in front of Brigham Young's house. Of course he had to get one of these!


Preaching in the Hall of Seventies.



At the Blacksmith's Shop, with a cute Sister Missionary.

Daniel got a really good deal on a really nice hotel, so this is where we stayed our last night before arriving in DC. It was way nice, but they charged an arm and a leg for breakfast! Lame! Luckily, we brought our own cereal and milk. :)




The bed was heavenly!