president's way

In honor of president's day today, I love this picture I took at the Smithsonian this past summer in Washington DC. Hope you are enjoying celebrating our presidents today as much as I am!

happy president's day to you!

Sitting on the steps of the Lincoln memorial, gazing into the distance at the Washington monument.

first ladies campaign

When I was at the Smithsonian a couple weeks ago, I made sure to hit the First Ladies exhibition. I was, of course, mesmerized by the beautiful dresses and fashion of them each, but found these campaign pins so fascinating! For some reason I had never thought specifically about the First Ladies having to campaign as well...I liked the thought of them being such a "team" with their husbands.

if you had told me, I wouldn't have believed you

That is, if someone had told me 4 years ago today, on New Year's Eve when I was visiting New York City for the very first time, that I would soon be a tried & true resident of this city. Nope. I would have never thought it to be true. For Christmas my junior year of college, my mom gave my sister-in-law and me a trip to New York for our Christmas gift. I loved the city when I visited, but I never saw it coming: now, four years later, I'm rounding out my third year of living here!

Cheers for a safe, happy & healthy New Year in 2011!!

lots of reasons to celebrate this week!

On Sunday, August 8th, my grandparents celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary!! And you thought my parents had been married a long time... Happy (belated) Anniversary, GGs!

I graduated college two years ago on Monday, August 9th! My, how the time flies...It seems like just yesterday Leesa and I were moving all of our pink-and-green bedding into Lupton 220.

This Saturday, August 14th, my dad is celebrating his 60th birthday!!! (wow, that's kinda old.) This picture is from a couple years ago, when he was only a spring chicken. Since I'll be 17 hours away on the big day, I got to be a part of his surprise birthday party via video chat last night. It would have been more fun to be there, but I'll settle for second best!

magic garden

Jesus describes the Kingdom of Heaven in parables so that it will become more real to us and we can grasp it in our own terms: how we see beauty, wonder, splendor, and treasures since that is what Heaven will be. [Here are a few examples: Matthew 13:31, Matthew 13:44, Matthew 20:1] This is what I think heaven will look like for me:

The Magic Garden is an outdoor garden-like-house-structure with tunnels and grottos that is completely covered in mosaics. Walls, ceilings, floors- all mosaics with beautiful glass, tiles, bottles and other pieces of recycled material. Isaiah Zagar began this as an art project in a vacant lot in 1994. He completed it after 14 years of working on the installation, where it is now a beautiful work of art for residents of the neighborhood and visitors to enjoy. In 2002, when the lot was supposed to be sold to construct a parking garage, the residents of the community raised $300,000 to buy the lot and preserve the beautiful art! I'm glad they did.

i finally saw it!

The first time that I visited Philly, I had one request: to see the Liberty Bell. But as we hopped on the train that night to head back to Manhattan, the one thing we hadn't seen was the Liberty Bell.

That changed with this trip. We walked right in with no line, no problems and snapped a few front row pics:

A few pictures of the beautiful Independence Hall, where the first US Capitol was located.

Although I saw it on the first visit, I couldn't pass by the original LOVE sign:

A beautiful sunset from the bus window to end a fabulous weekend.