I LOVE TO EXPLORE ....

I must say that I love exploring new places. I guess that is obvious since I am currently in a random town in western Virginia. This week has so far been quite eventful. On Sunday, Richard and I met in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to check out the Wake Forest campus. It was so interesting. For a school that is so well known around the US, it only has about 7,500 students on campus! And that's undergrad AND graduate students. It's a private school that was founded by a Baptist minister back in 1834. Yeah, not too long after the US was organized :) The reason why it is called Wake Forest is because it started in a town called Wake Forest over by Raleigh, but they decided to uproot the school and take it to Winston-Salem (on the west side of NC) in 1956. Guess what, if my school was 20 minutes away from UNC and Duke, I would have done the same thing. Anyway, now I'm rambling. It's just that we had such a great time wandering around. It almost made me want to be a Demon Deacon. Yeah, that's their mascot. Seems to be quite a juxtaposition if you ask me ... but to each his own.

Their auditorium. Believe it or not, there is a very cool organ behind that rod iron.

Okay, their campus reminded me of Nauvoo. I was just waiting to see Brigham Young's general store or something.

Fun patio furniture on the fun brick walkways :)

Very cool tennis courts. If Richard had only brought his racquet.

Dickie striking a pose.

Their football stadium, with the Demon Deacon out front and center.

Rich will be applying to be the Demon mascot next season. He'll be a shoe-in with that face.

My face: not as good.

The sun was setting as I was driving home ... and I had to capture it.

This is the lake by the Davis' house, and that is their boat. I call it the party boat because you can fit like 15 people on it.

Anyone in this little community can put their boats in here.

So now we're cutting to a hike I did yesterday. I hiked for 6.6 miles on the Appalachian Trail with Melanie (the mom) and April (one of her graduated Young Women). I don't think I've hiked since .... let me think .... Girl's Camp. So yes, I am sore today. But it was fun. And when you hike in this humid weather, you're bound to lose a pound or two of pure perspiration.

The majority of the hike looked like this. Very cool.

This is Melanie rockin' the "Harriet Tubman" look.

It was so gorgeous.

Kind of hard to see, but this is us at the top.

And this is a shot of the town of Blacksburg, where Virginia Tech is.

The Time of My Life

"Nobody puts Baby into a corner." (Mine and Garrett's favorite line from Dirty Dancing) Okay friends, I just crossed something else off of the bucket list. Does anyone know where Dirty Dancing was filmed? Of course you don't, why would anyone know that. It was filmed in Pembroke, Virginia ... which turns out to be 45 minutes from where I live. Last week I went off-roading with some friends from work, and they drove me past the Mountain Lake Resort, where DD was filmed. So cool. It looks exactly the same as it is in the movie. What's funny is that the resort has 'Dirty Dancing Weekends', where they have film location tours, trivia contests, dance lessons, and dirty dancing every evening. I'm thinking that might be worth my time :) I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Dirty Dancing was the best movie Patrick Swayze did. Anybody want to challenge that?

Shot from the top of the resort looking down on the lake.

One of the best parts from the movie ... which was filmed in Mountain Lake.

Saweet view of the resort.

Mis Primitos

So I just wanted to put up some of my favorite pictures of my little cousins. They are the absolute cutest kids ever, and it has been such a privilege to watch them grow. They're all so different and they each have their own unique personalities. I apologize, because Bubba has the most face time in this post, but it's because I've been around him the most. They're my family ... and I love 'em. I wish that one day we could all live in a cul-de-sac, so all of our kids could play together. Just an idea.

This was the final cousins picture before Elder Lyman left. Notice the green Care Bears in the pic. They were the highlight of the vaca.

My Walnut Creek cousins.

Bubba with Dad at Rich and Eileen's wedding.

Corbin ... ready to punch me out at MDB.

The boys playing on Granty's longboard.

Bubba and Cohen striking poses at Wyatt and Jen's wedding.

Henry is one of the happiest kids I know.

My mom and I with little Camryn Annette.

Bubba and Jo being gangsta.

Possibly my favorite Bubba pose of all time. Haha. With the legs crossed ... enough said.

Sister Suzy makes the BEST faces.

I LOVE this picture. Garrett loves imitating little Callie Marie.

The kiddies and I kickin on the grass at MDB. Looks like Callie might have just downed a Diet Coke. Haha.

This is one of my favorite pics of Livi ... she was most likely sick of my kissing her by the end of this trip.

District of Columbia with the Curran's

This week I had the privilege of going up to DC with the Curran's. We had a blast. But it was HOT. And HUMID. First, they came up and visited me in Pulaski, and were able to attend a couple of games at the ball park. I roped them into doing an on-field activity (frozen t-shirt contest) and Eileen won. Check out the vid below. Then on Wednesday we headed up north to the nation's capital. Dick had an interview Thursday morning with the Army Corp of Engineers and I'm pretty positive he's got the job in the bag :) I mean, how do you not love Richard? After that we let loose. We walked all over DC ... visiting the temple, the mall, the museum of natural history, the library of congress, Ford's theater, and then ending up at the Nationals v. Giants game at National Park. I can't seem to get away from baseball, even on vacation I'm going to games.

The Curran's with our mascot, Slider the fox. Livi girl wasn't a huge fan.

Rich after his interview. I just thought that building title was cool.

My favorite President, Abe

Bridge over to Arlington Cemetary

The coolest gallery at the Museum of Natural History ;)

The Washington DC Temple

One of the sealers told Rich and I that over a quarter of a million people went through this temple at it's open house. They had to replace the carpets because so many people had walked through.

So beautiful ... the temple, that is. I, on the other hand, was a sweaty mess at this point. Never wear a long sleeve shirt in DC in July. BAD IDEA.

The cutest little girl in the grocery store.

This was her first time riding in one of these car shopping carts. She was all over that thing.

Abe and I. I had to get a picture of the grin on his face. Haha.

Sissy loves her stroller.

Us at Ford's Theater. Notice the presidential box Lincoln was shot in behind us. Makes the pic kind of the killjoy, doesn't it ...

Me and my boy Michael. This was the display at Madame Tussuad's. We HAD to get a pic and sign the book.

Dining at the Hard Rock Cafe. The cobb salad was delish. I definitely recommend it.

Posing with the Moai statue. My fellow Chileans would be proud.

In front of the Library of Congress. Ya know, the one in National Treasure 2.

These definitely were NOT our seats. But we didn't get kicked out of them until the 7th inning, which wasn't bad. Who shows up to a baseball game in the 7th inning, really?

One of the Nationals mascots, George.

Watching the Giants warm up.

Yeah, you read that right ... It's a MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. I caught a foul ball after we got kicked out of our seats. It was off the bounce and I scooped it up like a routine grounder. Rodg would have been proud.

Rich and Eileen at the Mariners game.

DC Temple

Learning Korean at the Museum of Natural History.