21!!!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you all know that I am officially 21 now. Yep, I can now buy beer and stuff. I just won't. I did have a good birthday though! We both spoiled ourselves with lots of good food and treats.


Thursday, The girls I watch didn't have school because of a big snow storm we had, so I went up to watch them for a couple hours in the afternoon so their mom could get some work done in the house. The mom bought a cake mix and had me make cupcakes with the girls. It was a pretty crazy activity for them because they both wanted to help so much and we made a pretty big mess, but it was fun. I was showing Bailey how to crack an egg and instead of listening, she sorta just crushed the egg in her hand and let it all fall into the bowl, shell and all. Good thing we cracked them into a separate bowl first or else we would have had very crunchy cupcakes. I wasn't sure if their mom would appreciate me letting them lick the bowl because of the raw eggs (their mom is VERY health conscious) so I let them lick off the spoons that they used to help mix the batter with. Then I treated myself to the rest of the bowl. Cause it was my birthday you know... :) The girls had so much fun frosting the cupcakes and putting sprinkles on. Then their mom helped us put candles on and they all sang happy birthday to me.

Friday, Jaren came home with some presents for me. The first thing I saw was a paper bag with Cinnabuns in it!! I was so excited! Every time we go to the mall I can smell them and have always wished I could get one! He got us the caramel nut cinnamon rolls and they were extremely good. He also got me a beautiful scarf and some gloves to help keep me warm, some candy, flowers, a balloon and a cute Teddy bear. That night we found a Pizza Hut and ate pizza for the first time in a month. Pretty impressive for us... we usually have it at least once a week. Then we came home and ate ice cream and watched Lost. We are addicted.

Saturday was my birthday and we kicked it off by making french toast for breakfast. We watched more lost... pretty much all morning... and afternoon. :) Then we got ready and headed into Silver Spring to the mall and went to Romano's Macaroni Grill for dinner. It was good! Lots of pasta and bread. Then we went to a movie and after, we went out shopping and I got a couple pairs of fancy boots too.

Jaren has been taking the camera to work and has taken some really nice pictures. Here are some of them.

One Month Down

We can't believe that it has already been a month since we have been gone! The time seems to have flown by so far, and I sort of hope it continues to. We both miss our family and friends and not having to entertain ourselves every night. We now know why people get dogs or have children. :) It is fun just chilling and watching movies or playing video games every night, but I think the novelty of it wears off pretty quick. Really, we have been having a lot of fun together and the relaxed time together has been good for the both of us. We have been enjoying a lot of "lite" ice cream and frozen yogurt over the past couple of weeks while watching our movies every night. Jaren every once in a while will ask, "What are we going to do tonight?" To which I reply, "What do we do every night, Pinky? Try to take over the world!!!" But really we will just eat ice cream and watch a movie.

We both enjoy our work. Jaren got trained on how to give an interesting tour of the US Capitol building yesterday and he loved hearing about all the interesting behind the scenes information and history that not many people know about. He says the Capitol is an amazing building and I am looking forward to my personal tour. :)

My work is going well too. I have started to figure out Bailey and Maya's fun little quirks and we are all getting along really well now. When I first met the girls, I was afraid that I would never be able to tell them apart because they are identical twins... for the most part. After about 10 minutes of being around them I realized that they are completely different. They both have very distinguishable facial features and very different personalities. I think most twins do. They are fun. Bailey is a little chatter box and is the little ring leader. She orders Maya around, but in a very passive aggressive way it seems like. :) She knows what she wants and it is hard to change her mind or get her to do something she doesn't want to do. Since she is the little leader, if she says she doesn't want to do something, Maya will follow right along. Bailey is very sweet though, and is very curious. I was wearing a shirt with some abstract flowers on it one night and she touched a flower and asked what it was. I told her it was a flower. Then she got this look on her face and put both hands on my chest and asked, "What are these?" Haha. I have had a couple discussions with the girls about private areas and told her that she could ask her mom what they were because they were part of a private area. I love how blunt little kids are sometime. Bailey loves to wear dresses and fun, colorful tights. Anyway, that is a little bit about Bailey. Maya is a super sweet little girl as well and seems a little more girly girl than Bailey. Maya loves putting barrettes in her hair and is more in to dressing up. Maya loves to wear jeans and loves to point out that I always wear jeans, so we are matching often! Maya is a little quieter than Bailey, most of the time. She has her moments where she will run around screaming and going crazy and is funny to watch. She is a little shy sometimes and loves to play with her sister. Maya is very strong willed at times and does things on her own time. I have learned to never try to rush her to do anything. I try to let her know about 5 minutes beforehand to try to finish up whatever she is doing, because oooh if I try to make her stop doing anything, I get the glare of death. They both love to watch Curious George on Saturdays and to help make dinner. We have had fun making forts, blowing bubbles on plates, coloring, painting, pretending we are driving or on a big boat, being inchworms, and just cuddling up on the couch to read books. I think it is fun how much kids love you if you are willing to sit and play with them and pretend with them. Anyway, the girls are fun and I enjoy being with them. Their mom works on Capitol Hill for one of the science committees. She is a very nice person and always tells me how grateful she is that we are here and how much of a relief it is for me to be close to help her. I think its just good for all of us!


Jaren and I are looking forward to my birthday on Saturday. We aren't quite sure what all we are going to do, but I know that we are going to take a break from our diet and eat everything and anything we want. French toast, pasta, maybe a doughnut, ice cream, strawberry shortcake, and pizza are on my wish list so far... :) We might go to the temple or go test drive some cars... Who knows.

We sure miss everyone and hope everything is going well for you all!

Today is Martin Luther King day and we woke up and took the subway down to the National Mall inside DC. Jaren still gets sick on the metro and so we got off a little early and enjoyed a walk. We got to go inside the Union Station Metro and has amazing architecture!

We started to walk towards the Smithsonian museum and they shut down Pennsylvania Avenue for the Presidential motorcade. Callie got pictures too!

Obama stopped and we fist bumped and then we walked to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It was very neat and Jaren thought the Dinosaur exhibits were the most interesting!



After the Museum of Natural History we made our way to the less interesting but okay museum of American History. Some highlights were:
DUMBO!!

AWESOME LEAF BUG!
THE HOPE DIAMOND!
SMITHSONIAN CASTLE

After we took these pictures we went to the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights! It was cool to see all of the things that I had to learn about in History class..... It was a super fun day!

Wecome to our Lovely Little Apartment

Since not many of you will be able to come visit, I will take you on a virtual tour of our little home.

1. Living Area

2. Kitchen
3. Tiny little gas range

4. Entertainment corner

5. Bathroom

6. Vanity

7. Bedroom (all of our blankets are HUGE for our poor little bed)

8. View of our deck. Yep I shoveled all the snow off this morning. I'm awesome.

9. Backyard

10. Our best friend the space heater that has kept us from freezing.

11. Our washer and dryer. LOVE having my own!

12. The Evil Squirrels that live all around...

There it is! Feel free to come visit whenever you want! But bring an air mattress :)

The Journey

We took the I-80 across Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, and then got on the I-74 and the I-70 through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland for the rest of the way. We drove for 8 or so hours the first day and stopped in Ogallala Nebraska for the first night. I wonder where Ogallala came from... We were gonna go find a fun restaurant for dinner, but didn't really want to get back into the car, so we ended up going to a little steak house right next door to the restaurant. Looking over the menu I wasn't very excited... I didn't really feel like eating steak... and it was sorta pricy. So I got myself a swiss bacon burger on a whim. It was SOOOOOO good. I was very very impressed. Jaren got some steak cuts with bacon and barbeque sauce and cheese and he loved it as well. We have already decided to go back through Ogallala so we can stop at that restaurant again.
We got up early the next morning and headed out again across the rest of Nebraska and into Bellmont Iowa (I think...) We stayed in a nice hotel there and ate some Chicago style pizza at the restaurant next to the hotel. It was amazing, but so greasy that it kinda made me feel sick... I swore I wouldn't eat pizza again for a long time. (... But we had pizza again twice that week.) Jaren stayed up late watching TV and was loving life. He really loves watching TV. Must be a guy thing. We took this picture in honor of our very own Mitchell.



The next morning we got up and checked our tire pressure again and it was sorta low... It was VERY cold outside, so we figured we should add a little bit in just to be safe. A nice man in his shop did it for us because the self serve air was iced over. After some air in our tires, we were off to Illinois, which was just over the Mississippi river. We drove over a pretty sweet bridge and tried to get some cool pictures but failed... We decided we would get better ones when we come back and it is warmer.... :) That day was pretty uneventful. After we hit Nebraska, things were pretty flat... a farm here and there... a random T-rex on the side of the road... you know, nothing too cool... :) The sunrise that morning was GORGEOUS! So we took some pictures as we drove.



We stayed in a hotel about 2 1/2 hours away from DC on the third night. It was very nice. We each even got our own queen bed!! Yeah, it was a little much, but nice. We found our swimming suits and went to sit in the hot tub for a while. There was a man there with his son that was basically a "Jaren life twin". The guy had red hair, was a lawyer, and ran his own law firm with his wife. Jaren talked to him for a while about law school and about starting his own business and stuff because Jaren has always been interested in running his own law firm.

The next morning we drove the rest of the way into DC. We are actually about 7 miles north of DC in a town called Takoma Park, Maryland. The metro stop is about 3/4 of a mile up the road. We have taken a couple of metro rides into town together to check stuff out. Takoma Park has a really cute "quaint" downtown area. It has been fixed up to be a cute old style area and it is fun to walk around. We live in the ground level of a single family home and the family I am babysitting for lives upstairs. So far, the noise hasn't bothered us at all, but it is a little chilly down here at times. We sure miss our little apartment back in Logan with our heated couch!! Our bed is very uncomfortable. We found that out the first night and ran around trying to find a reasonably priced mattress pad. At K-Mart, they had some egg carton foam pads that were pretty cheap... we couldn't tell how thick they were so we bought two just in case. Really, they didn't do a WHOLE ton... but sleeping has been a little nicer since. :) Jaren managed to bring all of the fun electronics we own, so we are not short on entertainment. We have watched a movie just about every night, and we got a Wii for Christmas with lots of games so we have played that alot too. We finally got the internet yesterday and It has made my morning go by SO much faster than normal. It is almost time to go pick up the girls!!

Christmas

We had a fun Christmas with my family in Brigham City. On Christmas Eve, Jaren and I drove down to visit my dad in Gunnison. We missed the Nephi exit and had to drive clear down to Scipio and loop back around to get there. I was a little frustrated because we had made such good time (we left Brigham at 5:30 am and drove past the Nephi exit at 8:00 am), but we ended up enjoying our scenic drive through the middle of nowhere, Utah. We had a bag of Reese's and what else could you ask for? My dad was completely surprised to see us. He had not been expecting any visitors and looked so happy to get a Christmas surprise visit. It was so good to see him and to talk to him for a while. Definitely a good Christmas memory for us!


That night, after a long nap, we went around caroling to a bunch of my mom's neighbors and delivered neighbor gifts. My mom made this AMAZING cinnamon drop bread and I think I probably ate two whole loaves by myself over the weekend. We sang Angels We Have Heard on High about 15 times to the neighbors and then headed home for dinner, games and sibling gifts. The boys all stayed up till 4 or 5 in the morning playing board games. Not me!!

Christmas morning we woke up and gathered in my mom and moe's room for the traditional pre-Christmas family photo. Kiley commented that "this is possibly the saddest looking family pic i have ever seen." It is probably true.


We had a lot of fun taking turns to open gifts and we enjoyed the time with my family. As always, the living room was a disaster afterwards and we all ate a good breakfast and relaxed for the rest of the day. Merry Christmas. Thanks to everyone who made it a fun one!!