just a little chacha

from our adventures on the potomac. classic footage of cha.

bleeding dodger blue

when i made the decision to move to DC one of the first things i thought of was the Washington nationals. not cause they are good, but because they are DC's team. And i knew i was going to have to make a trip to a game mainly so i can check it off my life list as well as because i love baseball. now this story gets better. about a month ago i decided to look up the nationals schedule just to see who would be in town in September. and as i glimpsed at the line up i almost died of excitement. the Los Angeles Dodgers were slated to play the Nats for a three game series in the middle of September. Could life have gotten any better? The opportunity to go to Nationals Stadium as well as see my boys in blue!?! I decided that my first goal of moving out here was to find a guy at church that would take me to the game. I wasnt sure if I would be able to get a dodger date so i told my roommates no matter what i was going to go to one of the games and anyone who wanted to join could. As my luck would have it i was able to score a date to a game for Tuesday night, the first night they played. and still went with all of my friends on Thursday. and i was indeed very lucky as both of those games scored W's in the win column as we crushed the Nationals on Tuesday and homered our way through for a win on Thursday. The Nationals Stadium is pretty impressive. The best part is that there arent many fans there which allows for you to sit wherever you want in the park. So we were able to get way close to the field for both games, so close i thought i was going to be able to touch manny's dreads or get another photo opp with kershaw. There were lots of Dodger fans, and in true Dodger fashion very loud cheering on the team and almost getting into fights. We know how to keep it classy.

Our group on Thrusday Night

Me and Allie.

I dont know how we are friends when she wears hats like that.

Now lets just hope that the Dodgers play the Philles in the playoffs. Cause you know, no matter what, im making the drive to see them in the playoffs! THINK BLUE!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DREWBIE!

i think it has become a tradition that i give a little shout to my nieces and nephews on their birthdays. and today is my sweet little drewbies third birthday!! i seriously cant believe he is so big. I remember finding out about kelly being pregnant. we were at her house celebrating ella's 2nd birthday and at the end of the night kelly was so tired. and mom and dad kept asking her how she was doing and then mom said "well kelly, are you going to tell leigh?" and i was so confused. and as kelly is laying there, almost asleep, she says "oh ya, im pregnant." whhhhaaaat?? such a difference from when we found out about seth. i guess that what happens to the third kid! Drew was born in the middle of the night, so in the early morning of September 20th 2006 Kelly called me and while i was in bed casually told me that she had had the baby. i was so excited!!!


Drewbie is such a cute kid and is SO funny! I love hanging out with him. I love kissing his birthmark on his neck and I love making fun of how big is head is. Hopefully he grows into that thing. I love his laugh and his big smile and how he is seriously so happy all the time. I love how he never finishes his breakfasts in the morning, how he sleeps with SO many stuffed animals (kinda like his aunt) and that he is kinda sensitive. hes my little buddy. and i miss him a lot.

happy birthday drewbie!!

good thing im not a professional

yesterday we had no school! woohoo!! because it was a staff development day. which means no school for students but for the teachers. times like this make me happy that im a STUDENT teacher and not a real one. so all of us (except for jamie haha) got the day off! omg it was so great to sleep in and we had an amazing day. probably one of the best days we have had so far. First we went to the National Archives. Ive decided that this is my future place of employment. I would love to work there. We went into the rotunda which houses the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. OMG it blows my mind that we still have these amazing documents in tact. It is an incredible site to see. I love those documents and i love old things. so its prefect. outside the national archives there is this inscription, and since Chanel and I are history nerds we couldnt pass up the photo opp.

The next thing on the agenda may come as a surprise to you that i actually participated in. if you know me well you know that i am not outdoorsy, i dont like participating in physical activities (unless its the gym) that i would much rather relax (reference to the beach that i would much rather be laying on my towel the whole time then getting up and going in the water) and i also value fashion rather then comfort. now all of this being said....yesterday i went kayaking!!! It took some prodding but im so glad we did it. and not just any kayaking we kayaked the Potomac!! omg it was unreal. absolutely beautiful and so much fun. my favorite part was when we kayaked down next to memorial bridge right next to the Lincoln memorial with the Washington monument in sight. it was just so crazy to see that. we went around this island and got a little too close to shore and Chanel and I ended up getting stuck in the mud!! good thing weve got a tree hugger, chaco wearing roommate that got out of her kayak and pushed us out! then we kayaked farther down next to georgetown. took off our life vests made them pillows laid back and just floated along chatting with all of the girls. we probably stayed like that for almost an hour. then paddled back fast before the hour hit so we didnt get charged for a whole other hour. needless to say my back is sore today but it feels so good! i loved being on the Potomac, i loved the chats with the girls and i loved the exercise. it was definitely a highlight of my DC life thus far. shout out to cha for planning that!

next we went to Nandos! My favorite place to eat in London which just came to DC. I was so excited to go. Then we hit up the White House again and chilled there for a bit--i love just hanging out next to the big sites and especially at night it is just such an unreal experience--then walked all the way to the FDR memorial and hung out there for long time. we kinda love going to places and night and just chilling there for a long time. its what we do. so it was a great day off! we saw a ton and had such a great time!!

i like to take photos.

heres a little snap shot of what my life is like as it appears a tad bit interesting.

6:30 wake up. oh how i miss my summer of dreams.

7:15ish leave apartment and cross the street to get to the crystal city metro stop. this is easily my favorite part of the day. i surprisingly really like getting up early and making my way to the metro dressed professional and rubbing shoulders with others in the working force. im legit. blue line to metro center, switch to red line to tenleytown.

8:05 arrive at wilson high. walk through the metal detectors. ya thats right, i have to walk through metal detectors at school. and yes i ALWAYS beep whilst going through, seriously. without fail everyday. which then leads me to having to spread 'um and have the security guard use the hand held metal detector across my body. (fortunately today they told us as teachers we dont have to go through them. SAHWEEET!!)

8:45-3:15 school. involving US History class, World History class and then AP US History. Lunch is at 11 (i finally understand laura now for always getting hungry early during the day! i never thought i would start getting hungry at freaking 11 in the morning) i eat lunch with Jamie and Jessica either in my classroom or the teachers lounge. interesting to go in there and receive weird looks from other teachers as they are probably thinking that students have infiltrated their precious lounge.

monday i gave my first two lessons, it went ok but definitely could have been better but i guess thats why im out here so i can learn and grow in my teaching style. i had to teach my first 90 minute class. never taught that long before ever.

4:30 arrive back at home and from there on it the day flies by! i swear by the time we travel home the day is already so over. unfortunately we havent been doing that much stuff after school, which we should since none of us have stuff to do for lesson planning but its kinda hard since the smithsonians close at like 5.

last week we did go to the mall straight from school to look at the war memorials. we walked around the WWII, Vietnam and Korean memorials. i love these memorials and i love talking photos at these places!

our new home!!

Korean War Memorial. pretty amazing.

on sunday we went to a farmers market type festival called the adams morgan festival. it was super cool to be there but SUCKED cause it was sunday and there was so many good places to grab food. unfortunately we werent able to be there for very long cause we had to get back for the new member dinner--didnt want to pass up on free food! the coolest part of going to the festival was meeting Mayor Fenty--the mayor of DC! Before this i didnt know who he was but i still thought it was cool.

melanie, me, the mayor, naomi, jamie and chanel

photo was taken right as he was saying...."what your teachers at wilson!? i thought you were in college!" well mayor, we kinda are, but hey, thats better then him thinking we are in high school at wilson which is what i get on a daily, if not hourly basis.

video video

As most of you know President Obama held a nation wide speech directed to all students across the entire country today. As I am now an emerging part of the american school system I watched this broadcast during lunch. I thought the speech was very interesting and powerful, but that is not the subject of this post. The point is that while watching, a television news crew came to Wilson High to video tape the students watching the video and their reaction. I was able to find this video online and posted it below (Another cool thing is that he delivered his speech from Arlington! The school that he was about is just a little west of us. It was so crazy to watch it and realize that I LIVE in Arlington!). This is a really cool video, not because of the focus on Obama, but that it shows you what Wilson High School looks like!! I was so excited to share it so you can see where I am spending my days. I think my favorite part of the school is the amzing hallways with the arches. And even more exciting is that they filmed this in the classroom that I will eventually start teaching in, so you really get to see where I am spending my time while I am at school everyday. I hope dad notices an interesting flag that is hung in my classroom once the other teacher that shares our room discovered I am a BYU student.

watch the video: http://www.globalnational.com/story.html?id=1973469

and tell me if you notice anything else interesting in it....

well that was a success.

Monday was actually a success. we got out early (considerably early by our standards) and had a great day. we actually had a formative plan and somewhat of a map to guide us through the city. success! our maps consist of these mini guides that Chanel has. she brought these cards that are called "50 walking tours of DC" so each card has a suggested walk on it with a map. now these are our maps that we use. problem is that its not a full map so it still proves a little difficult but we are managing. in order to figure out the city i put each card together to create one big map. it was like a puzzle and it was fun.

i have now been given title of navigator. Our first stop was the Holocaust Museum. at first i didnt think i had ever been but once inside i remembered going with mom and dad. but thats ok, its not like i really remembered reading all of that stuff before. so it was like the first time all over again. we first went to a section on Nazi propaganda which was super interesting. Chanel and i are really excited to go to this sorts of things as they will prove helpful for our teaching and classes. after our tour of that we headed up to the main museum. amazing. and close to tears through most of it. some of my favorite/most interesting parts were:

-the idea of how the propaganda influenced the Germans. the patriotism that swelled within that country. they had no idea that Hitler was leading them so astray.

-the hundreds of pairs of shoes on display that are the last remnants of those that died in the gas chambers

-photos of the allies coming in and liberating those at the concentration camps. those soldiers had looks of complete shock while the prisoners were filled with joy.

before we knew it we had been in there for almost four hours. very physically and emotionally draining. we almost wished we had broken the trip up into two days so we could have focused a little bit more on it. there is so much to see and do in there. we were starving so we found this place called potbellys that we had heard lots about. amazing sandwiches! ill have to take you guys when you come. (sorry dad!) then using our handy maps we found our way to the Jefferson Memorial. Loved it. It is an amazingly designed building that is right off the water. My favorite thing about being there was sitting on the steps with Chanel and talking about the amazing formation of our country. it has seriously been amazing to read my George Washington book while being here in DC. Each day I learn new things about this city and how the country was formed. I loved being able to share that with Chanel and talk about how great these men were that designed our country. Unfortunately we have had the worst luck finding people to take our photos of us! I dont know why so many people are incompetent in taking pictures. seriously. FHE was good. Definitely lacked in the cute boy department but i liked it.
i love my roommates! we hit it off great and our constantly laughing the entire time together. we all agreed that we are living together and arent with the other girls. not that they arent great, but we wouldnt get along with them as well. Yesterday we met with our director for our schools. shes alright. super annoying that she hasnt told us what schools we are going to be at. That was what we did today, which i will get to later. we also went to costco today. super hilarious. with the trip ending like this:

how are we in a super legit apartment rolling our costco cart across the lobby. really classy.

Later last night we walked to the Pentagon and went to the Memorial that is placed there from the September 11 attacks. We have all mentioned numerous times how crazy it would have been to live here during the time, especially since we have a clear view of the Pentagon from our apartment. How crazy would it be to sit at our balcony and witness that tragic event. The memorial there is phenomenal. Google it. At first I was kinda bummed that we were going at night (thought it would be hard to see) but it was so beautiful being all lit up. Very peaceful. There are over 100 benches symbolizing each person that died at that site. If the bench is facing the Pentagon that means that person was in the plane, and if its facing out, that person was in the Pentagon. It was a very calming and peaceful place, especially at night since we were like the only people there. Me, Chanel and Jessica sat on a bench together and talked about what we remembered about the attacks. Where we were, stories we remember and feelings that we had. I cried. It was pretty amazing. A three year old was on that flight. I cant even imagine that.

now today we went on the tour of the two schools we are being assigned to. Upon arrival we found out our assignments. I will be a teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School. Home of the Tigers. Im really excited about this school. The doors were first opened in 1935 so it is a really interesting and beautiful campus. All of the teachers and students seemed very nice. But im a little nervous about my placement. The teacher im suppose to work with teaches AP Government, Asian Studies and 9th grade World History. Asian Studies? Im sorry, thats my least favorite subject. AP Govt? What? Im pretty sure my government class in high school was a joke. And no U.S. History? Did i not become a teacher so i could share with the world how amazing the Revolution is!? Hopefully it will still be good, and im sure i will be learning LOTS this year.

Just a quick review of the past few days. I continue to love DC and still cant get over that I will be here until December. I feel like I have already known my roommates for a very long time. I think teaching will be challenging. Im not gonna lie, Im nervous. But Im sure it will all be ok in the end.