Capital Tour

The next day, we had the opportunity to take a tour of the Capital...it was really awesome and I'd do it again!

We started our tour at one of the Seante buildings, which is a few blocks away from the capital itself. We were taken underground, where we walked around some underground tunnels and then got to get on the Metro type deal which took us underneath the Capital and that's how we entered it. (Left to Right...Amanda, Clay, Jasenn, Me, Kerry)

On the metro, underneath the capital (Left to Right-Chelsea, Kerry, Amanda, Me)

So, we were all given these security passes which stuck to our shirts...this is what let the security guards now that we were ok to go into the capital. Well, within the first 10 minutes of being in the capital, poor Jasenn lost his pass. We turned around and it was stuck to the tile inside the capital. To make it even better...the girl giving the tour just finished saying that they had just refurbished the floors - which are the original flooring in the capital. So, Jasenn tries to pull his pass off of the tile and it doesn't come off. The white spot on the tile...yep, that's part of his pass. Poor Jasenn!

We are standing at the very center of the District of Columbia.

The Capital Dome...that's George Washington in the center...

Another shot of the capital dome...

After our capital tour, we went to Union Station to eat lunch...(Me, Amanda, Chelsea)

(Clay, Kerry, Jasenn)

Happy Birthday Chelsea

On July 6th, I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate Chelsea's birthday...

We went to an awesome place in Chinatown called Matchbox...

From Left to Right...Amanda, Kerry, Chelsea, Lori, Summer

More Pictures from the 4th of July

Here are some more pictures from our awesome day in the city of the 4th of July...

Our view of the Washington Monument from where we sat for 8 hours prior to the start of the fireworks...

Summer & Kerry...rain and shine we waited...

This is what one of the roads looked like during the day...masses of people continued to flood into the city from the metro stations...it was truly crazy to see how many people kept coming and coming...

Another picture of the masses of people...

I was given a nice backpack from one of my students last year, although it looks quite pink, it's actually peach (I say that in Ray's defense...) Ray was being awesome and offered to carry the backpack for me as we began what became a 1.5 mile walk to a Metro Station.

There were so many people leaving the city after the fireworks that night, that everyone just walked in the middle of the road...there was no way the police were going to keep everyone on the sidewalks...

4th of July Weekend

We had a great 4th of July in DC this year!

We decided to brave the crowds and the weather and head into DC to watch the fireworks on the National Mall. This was our first 4th of July up here and we had a blast. We got into the city around 1 (fireworks weren't until 9pm) and met up with some friends who had already claimed some ground near the Washington Monument. There we hung, under a tree, rain and shine for the next 8 hours. We watched as the masses of people continued to pour into the city...

Around the 4th of July, they do a folklife festival each year...they focus on celebrate cultural traditions from around the world. The nation they did this year was Bhutan, it's a nation in South Asia...

Girls Night Out

Last Friday, I had an awesome night with some awesome Mighty Women of God! We took some time on Friday night to go out to dinner and coffee, to spend some time with one another...Here are some pictures...

Dinner at Jaleo

(From left to right) Taryn Stine, Julie Reams, Andee Stroia, Charity Benton, Julie Lee, Me

Coffee and Dessert at Buzz Bakery & Cafe

The Girls

And there's more...

This is just half of our AWESOME Metro Group...(Ray & I lead a small group on Wednesday night's at our awesome...our "small" group can actually be quite large some weeks...)

Ray's cousin Tiesha graduated from Annapolis High School in Annapolis, MD. Annapolis is only about 45 minutes away from where we live, so we went over and spent the weekend with some friends and went to Tiesha's graduation and party.

You can hardly see her, but she's there...she's directly above the shaved head at the middle of the picture...

The sea of white (girls) and blue (boys)...

Ray took me to see the house his mom grew up in (above)...she grew up in Annapolis, MD...This house is now surrounded my huge houses and an apartment/townhouse development, but the house used to be on a farm that her family owned.

Since March...

We've done a lot since our last post in March...so here's some pictures to show what we've been up to...

We hosted a small dinner on Easter dinner with some great friends of ours...we even had an Easter egg hunt!

We found out that the squirrels LOVE the trash cans around here...our trash can actually has a whole in the top of it where the squirrels have chewed through the plastic.

Ray & I celebrated our 2-year anniversary by going to the Baltimore Inner Harbour for two days. We had a great time, as we took time to invest in our marriage - away from the business of our day to day lives...

We went to the National Acquarium in Baltimore where the have a dolphin show...

One of our roommates bought a small pool for the backyard...

Memorial Day - we celebrated this awesome day with some great friends!

Welcome Teagan Albert

Some very good friends of ours welcomed a baby boy to the world...

Mr. Teagan Albert Sorenson
Born on March 17th at 4:52pm. He weighed 5lbs, 15oz and was 20.3 inches long...

Teagan has his daddies long legs.

The proud mom & dad.

He sure is a cutey pie!

Mt. Vernon Estates

Last month Ray and I drove down the George Washington Parkway to go visit Mt. Vernon Estates, which is where President George Washinton lived. It's about 2-30 minutes away from where we live.

Front of George Washington's House.

Me in front of the house.

Our visit to Mt. Vernon Estates was two days before President's Day, so they were having a parade.

Ray in front of President Washington's Old Tomb.