Fall Boredom

So it's fall again and we have nothing going on. Life has gone back to the same old. Jamo goes to school full time and works full time. I work part time and do crafty things. And that's pretty much it. We also watch a lot of Netflix when we're bored. We really are lame. And I feel like time is crawling. It's like I can see an end to this tunnel called Jameson's schooling. And after that, who knows? It could be an awesome adventure, or at least a change in scenery. Seven and half months. I think there is a bee caught between my screen and window, it sure is loud. And I have no idea how it got in. Silly bees.

Trip to D.C.

Here are photos from our 3 week trip to DC. When Jameson wasn't working we did lots of sight-seeing and hanging out.

Here Jameson is hanging out in the hotel room. We spent 3 weeks in it, it almost started feeling like home... almost. Also note Jamo's awesome road rash he got when he had a seizure and face planted at a BP station in Ohio. Ow.

Flippin' Pizza. That's what's it's called. I have now had some amazing New York style pizza. It was yummy.

We ate out A LOT! Like, pretty much every lunch and dinner. Oy, we got super fat, as you can tell...

Me at the National Geographic Museum. They had a Da Vinci exhibit and it was awesome.

Umm, a plaque, shield thing?

We went to the 6 flags there in Maryland. It was slightly ghetto but had a few fabulous rides. The superman, ride of steel, was my favorite. After that, I think it would have to be these tea cups. I haven't been on a tea cup ride in like 10 years. It was amazing. I'm not sure it was Jamo's favorite. I made us spin like crazy fast. The other riders commented on our speed. We are awesome.

So we ate at this place called umm... something? Anyway, it had amazing mexican food. We ate there twice and got the same exact thing. It was a some sort of steak fajitas. But they didn't have all the slimy peppers and onions and stuff that they usually have. They were AWESOME. So good.
Here is the beautiful meat. I want some more.

We were walking around DC one day, trying to find the white house I think. There was a little park with this statue in it. I forget his name, but a metro station was named after him. Furragot, I think?

The White House... not much explanation needed.

Jamo and I in front of the white house. We are cool and can officially call ourselves Americans.

Lafayette Park. It's across the street from the white house. They had lots of statues and stuff there.

I've never seen one of these in real life. It made me want to play chess, which takes a lot.

Another famous dude. There were a lot of them and I can't remember them all.

The city.

We played a lot of games while there. We would sit on our bed, pull out the games and turn on HGTV and get dinner and Cold Stone. It was awesome.

One of our adventures led us to a modern art museum at the Smithsonian. In case you're wondering what it is... it's a big old square of pollen. Yup, it's art.

The sculpture gardens had some interesting things. This is some sort of glass room thing.

The Smithsonian Castle. It had famous people jewelry in it when we were there. Also had lots of info about the Smithsonian.

The air and space museum. These are rockets? Really tall ones...

Jamo looking at the displays.

A lunar lander like they used on the apollo 11 mission.

7-11 outside the zoo. Hotdog shaped hamburgers? Yes, please.

I love the meer cats. They were adorable and I could watch them all day. They're like sea otters on land.
Patrick Star? He looks like he's passed out and it made me giggle a little.

Jellies!

The sign outside the National Zoo.

Triceratops. There were so many cool dinosaur bones, this is just one of my pictures...
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Giant sea turtle. Yup, it was also awesome. I love turtles.

Cave men... hehe.

The Hope Diamond.

Outside the Museum of Natural History.

Inside the library of congress. It was a gorgeous building! They search you on the way out to see if you're stealing books, silly. Funny thing is that I had a library book in my bag for reading on the metro and they searched the sucker, lol. I'm pretty sure they don't have Hunger Games in their library.

Yup, naked gods in fountain form...

We did a session at the Washington D.C. temple. It really isn't as big as it looks or what I thought it would be. Overall I think the St. Louis temple wins, especially in the pretty department. Of course, I might be bias.

Supreme Court Building.

The Capitol building.
Sheri and the Capitol.

We went to the botanical garden that was part of the nation mall. It had lots of pretty plants and flowers. These are just a few.

Some sort of plant girl playing a something or drinking a something...

Jamo in the little bamboo forest thingy.

Washington Monument.
Me in front of it.

Jamo in front of it.

Here is the WWII memorial.

Everyone was putting there feet in the little pool there. My feet hurt SO BAD I wanted to cry. So this ended up being one of my favorite places :).


The Vietnam memorial.

At this point in the trip my camera died. So there are no photos from the Lincoln memorial except on Jameson's phone. And then my feet hurt so bad I didn't want to do anything else. We then made the trek back home.

Today Wal-Mart Fails

Today I make a rant about Wal-Mart and the idiots who shop there.
So I went to wal-mart today to get some sewing things. Oh, first of all. The other day I bought a sewing machine. I've been looking at one from wal-mart for a while and just decided to get it. Keep in mind that I bought this one online and it came with free shipping to my home, so I get to avoid wal-mart with this purchase, awesome. It should be here Friday (I'm hoping). Anyway, so I go to wal-mart to look at mat boards and razor thingys and pins and stuff. So I pick a few things out and head over to the bread section... all my bread is gone, healthy life 35 calorie whole wheat bread. Some one cleaned it out. So I settled for white this time (dumb). And then I go to check out and all the lines are crazy long. They really need more cashiers. So I get in the "Speedy Checkout". I'm third in line and there's maybe a total of 5 items between the two customers in front of me. But why does it take over ten minutes to check out one person? First off they did it in two transactions, the first took forever by itself (maybe a check was being written?). And then the microwave they were buying with a gift card or in store credit or something, but of course, it wouldn't work (or most likely didn't have the money on it). So after waiting for more than ten minutes in line for something that should have taken no more than three between the two customers, I gave up. I pulled a Dad. I walked right out of the line leaving my cart sitting there because it had become so frustrating. People need to learn how to check out properly. And if you're going to take forever to buy one thing, maybe you should go stand in the slow line, because I'm fairly sure I could have checked out two or three overflowing carts of groceries in the time I was standing there. Stupid wal-mart wasting me time.
But then I went to Jo-Ann's to see what their prices were like, because maybe it would be worth not having to go to wal-mart again to buy the stuff. And it was more expensive... until I noticed the 40% off sale going on, on mat boards and cutting stuff. And it ended up being like 18 dollars cheaper than it would have at wal-mart, which is awesome. Oh, and they had the size of mat board I wanted there, wal-mart of course only had one size, which was ginormous for my needs right now. So all in all a frustrating, but in the end, productive trip. And I'm totally going to learn to sew. I have to with all the money I've spent :).

First Week in DC

So we've been here in Washington D.C. for a week now. The trip started with what was supposed to be a 14 hour drive. We left a couple of hours late (2 am instead of midnight, so we would get there around 3pm EST). The plan was for me to drive the first part, Jamo to drive the next shift while I slept and then for me to take over again. Nope. About 9 am EST we stopped at a gas station to get gas and switch drivers. While pumping gas Jamo decided it would be a great time to have a seizure. So there in the middle of Ohio at the BP station Jamo face plants next to the gas pump. The ambulance was called, we went to the ER and we sat for a couple of hours. Apparently it takes a long time to get a tetanus shot and a written prescription for Kepra. Jamo hasn't seen his neurologist in a while and hasn't had his meds filled in a few months... he is in trouble. We're just incredible lucky and thankful that he had the seizure while at the gas station and not on the road. God was watching us on our trip. Now Jamo knows to be good about taking his meds and won't miss taking them (or not filling the prescriptions for months on end). So I drove the rest of the way to D.C. I was exhausted. I had to take a nap in a parking lot for a couple of hours. Needless to say we didn't get here until like 10 pm. So 2 hours of sleep in 24 hours. I slept all of Monday it seemed while Jamo worked.
We haven't really done a whole lot this week. We just seemed to be content sitting doing nothing in our hotel room. Well, the hotel has a pool and a hot tub. So we were there every evening, it was delightful. So eating, swimming, sleeping in, reading, movies, playing games... that's what we did most of the week. But we did manage to see a couple of things. We went to the national geographic museum. They have this exhibit there now about Leonardo DiVinci. They made replicas of all his drawings/inventions. It was cool. We also saw the White House (from the outside). We also took a stroll through Lafayette Park.
Yesterday we made our way to the Smithsonian Castle, which has info on the rest of the Smithsonian. It also has some pins and jewelry and stuff from famous political people that was kind of interesting. After that we went to the Hirshron Art Museum. It housed modern art. I must say that I really don't understand a lot of it. I mean, some of it was really cool. But when you just have a canvas painted red and another painted blue and another painted just orange, I just don't get it. I mean, I can paint a rectangular canvas blue too, but mine wouldn't be in a museum. There was also this room where they put black and red yarn from ceiling to floor in lines and called it art. Silly if you ask me. Oh, and there was this room you walked into and it was all dark except a dimly lit red wall. It was a study in umm, light, color, gel and angles I think. Either way, odd and not very inspiring. I just think art should provoke some sort of emotion or what is the point? And I don't think confused is an emotion I would really go for, especially when it's probably not the one intended. Anyway, enough about my art rant. They also had a sculpture garden, it had some cool stuff in it.
So this week there are plans on doing all sorts of stuff. We hope to do at least one museum a day. I think the next we're going to do is the Air and Space Museum. I'm unsure what is after that (we're going in a circle counter clockwise).
Also, Jamo's work needed a photographer to take some photos for the program that Jamo is working on. They help special needs kids learn how to ride the metro system to get them too and from they're schools. They're trying to get a contract or something with the special needs school system. And Jamo is working with one of the spanish speaking students while he's here. Oh, so they were going to fly out their media guy to do it, but Jamo suggested to them that I do it. And it looks like I'm going to that later this week. And they'll pay me for the days work of taking photos and then I just hand them over and don't have to worry about anything after that. So it sounds like a pretty easy gig and they're paying me enough to cover all my expenses while I am here in D.C. So pretty much everything is now paid for by his company on this trip, which is an awesome blessing. I am also flying home Thursday night to do a wedding up in Nauvoo Friday morning. Then I do a quick turn around job on them and then leave Saturday evening back to D.C. It's going to be one crazy weekend.
And now I'm going to read until I fall asleep. I love doing nothing. And I really love doing nothing without the guilt. At home I always feel like I should be doing something else, but here I have nothing to do, no cleaning, no photos, no anything. Although I think I might start to get bored soon, which is why we're going to start the sight seeing this week. Also, I may never want to eat out again ever. It's been a week and I'm already kind of sick of it. Plus, it makes me not feel my best. Must exercise tomorrow also. Time to not be quite so lazy :).

Unexpected Trip to D.C.

So for all of those who don't know (those without facebook) Jamo and I are going to Washington D.C. for the next three weeks. We found out last week. Jamo's work needs him to go and show some spanish speaking family with a special needs son, how to use the metro. So far, this is all he knows that he'll be doing, other than the regular taking calls thing. So pretty much Sheri gets a three week vacation. There are so many things that I want to do and see while I am there. I made a list of all the things I want to do. There's a lot of them... I hope I get to all of them. I plan on doing all the things you're supposed to... all the monuments of the National Mall (which p.s., isn't a real mall). And I want to hit most of the smithsonian museums. I also want to see our government buildings. A couple of other things I want to see... national archives, library of congress, and the national geographic museum. We also bought season passes to 6 flags as previously posted... and they have one there! So we're going to try out a different 6 flags, which should be fun. But I have to pay for my transportation while there, food and parking. So that's not too bad. They're paying for us to drive out there and for a plane ticket for me to come back a weekend I have a wedding to photograph. And they're going to give him a bonus, which will cover all of my expenses while there and will pay our car insurance for the next 6 months. So it should be a great experience. I've never been there. And I'll have 3 weeks to explore it. So this should be an exciting adventure. Pictures are sure to come over the next 3 weeks.

4th of July

First of all let me say that I LOVE the 4th of July. There's just something about it that makes me all happy inside when I think about it. It's the epitomy of summer and being american. It makes me want to bake a pie and fly a flag. And of course I LOVE fireworks, bbqs and swimming. Summer never really feels like summer until the 4th. So for the past two years now, we have taken 3 of Holly's kids (emily is always a bum), but lots of sugar and head down to St. Charles to see the fireworks by the river. The kids seem to enjoy it as much as I do. We usually do this the day before the 4th. So on the 4th this year, Holly Jamo and I went to the city's heritage festival and saw Eve 6 perform. As soon as we got there it started raining... it continued to rain/poor/drizzle for about an hour. So by the time Eve 6 actually went on we were soaked. But it was all so worth it. They were amazing live. And a front row view didn't hurt :). After we went back to Holly's and ate BBQ and lit fireworks and sparkles and all that fun stuff. Then the girls and I took a midnight swim. All in all, a great day. Nothing better than, fireworks, eve 6, bbq and swimming for a super holiday.

Aaron and Aiden on the way to see the fireworks

Anna and Aaron

We always have lots of sugar...

Jamo

Jamo and I... yup.

The kids watching fireworks down by the river in St. Charles.

Holly wringing out her hair after it poured on it. We're true fans and were rewarded with a front row view of Eve 6.

Jamo and I in all our soakedness... so worth it.

Holly and Max... haha, I think it might be love.

Max of Eve 6

Jamo with sparklers

Sparklers!