Orioles, camping and studying

A few weeks ago we headed up to Baltimore for Mormon night with the Orioles! We went early and wandered around Inner Harbor and then met up with Justin and Erin for the game. It was such a fun atmosphere.  Green grass with straight lines :) While we were there I saw Elder Beus! My very good friend Kayla's little brother.  It was so fun to see him and send a picture to Kayla. I think she was a little jealous!

Then, last weekend we went camping! We live in the middle of a national park and a campsite is a short 10 minute drive away. We had dutch oven dinner and a lovely camping breakfast (the best part of camping, right?) Benson ate rocks for the first time.  We cleaned up camp quickly and then sent Justin and Erin to the temple.  Once they were done (4 hours later), riley and I went. Four hours later we ran up to CAFE RIO- because they have one here!- and brought it back for everyone to enjoy. It was so worth the drive, and the painful ride home smelling those wonderful smells.

We are lucky that they live so close and get to do fun things together.  Benson has learned a lot lately. It amazes me.  One day he started crawling. The next he waved. Then next he clapped his hands. The next he cut FIVE new teeth. The next he took a three hour nap. The next he slept 12 hours straight. He's a good kid.

Cute things: He waved at a manikin, and at the chorister in sacrament meeting.

I started our picture wall in our bedroom. It will grow...

we all scream for ice cream!

For most of the drive to Maryland I promised Benson ice cream cones if he was good.  But we never actually did it... until last week. Riley and I got ice cream and we got Benson his very own cone.  Needless to say he LOVED it. He was a little protective of it.

When he was almost done he just started screaming. Oh it was sad. We think he had brain freeze. Poor guy.

Visitor #1: Jenell Wilson

It was so nice to have Jenell come visit. She lived in the District for a while and showed us some cool places.  We played some games, ate a delicious amish apple dumpling (o.my.goodness.), and enjoyed the nice weather.

Across the street from eastern market there was this. Leftover's from a friday night party.

 We had some blueberry buckwheat pancakes, and a bacon,egg,chesse sandwhich (delicious.) 

Riley and Jenell found a pickle stand and bought wasabi pickles. I found a fresh pretzal :)

We visited Catholic University and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. 

It was a beautiful building. The Pope has visited here!

Benson skipped his first nap this day...

On our way home we found Allison St. In DC. 

Both Jenell and Benson were exhausted ... (you can see Benson asleep in the mirror)

We have lovely accommodations for visitors, including:

new towels

your choice of a couch or air mattress

 free shuttle to/from airport

around town transportation

complimentary breakfast

entertainment by Benson

personalized tours of national memorials

a picture on the visitor wall

The National Zoo

A while ago we trekked over to the National Zoo. We took the metro, which took about 40 minutes.  But it was worth it because parking is $20. The zoo is free and absolutely huge.  We only saw the birds, elephants and cheetah's and it took two hours!

They had some scary vultures,

 and very red cardinals,

 some baby ostriches, 

 and a bunch of flamingo!

 Benson loves the zoo...

 Whoa! hold on!

 One of our favorites was this one-legged bird...

 But our very most favorite was the elephants! (only because the panda exhibit was closed.)

 Fun afternoon at the zoo! We will definitely go there again soon.

Before/Afters

We have been doing a lot of projects around here and it is about time we post some pictures.

We found a thrift store that is way better than the D.I. in Provo. On Monday's EVERYTHING is 25% off. The first time we went we found a rocking chair.  I had been wanting a rocking chair since before Benson was born, but our apartment in Provo just couldn't handle it.  We bought it for $11. When we got it, it was a medium brown wood, with this horrible camo/hunting seat and back cushion.  We spent a lot of time getting that all off and digging out the staples.  This chair was made in the 50's (it still had the tag on) and was in pretty rough shape.  After a good sanding and paint job we like how it turned out! (notice none of these have before pictures. It really would be better if i had some..)

 Our room is reallly big. About the size of our old apartment. We don't have much furniture so we decided to find a desk. After a lot of looking on craigslist, and in stores, and not finding anything, we were about to give up.  Until a miracle happened.  We helped clean the church one saturday morning and on our way home tried to find a yard sale. It was a little rainy, so we think they canceled it, but luckily that neighborhood was doing a bulk item pick-up and everyone had trash on their yards. One house had a massive desk in the front yard. We asked if we could take it and he was happy to see it go.  We took it apart and loaded it in the car.  In the meantime Riley and I each got 10 mosquito bites... But we got it home, stained the top and attached different legs.  This is how it turned out! We LOVE it.

On our second trip to Value Village (the thrift store) we bought 11 items for $30.  Impressive, right?  I LOVE these canisters and they were each only a couple of dollars, still had their ikea tags on them. The wire basket behind it was $2 and there were two of them!

 Then we found this beauty.... a gun box. We have been looking for some way to plant some herbs on our deck and this is perfect! I bought some potting soil and soon we will have an herb garden. yum.

 They even had a pillow form with new tags on it.  I made case and now the pillows are complete! The blue pillow has a darling pattern on it but you can't see it here...

Lastly, they had this chair for $4. It had a HORRIBLE seat cover, so I took it off and re-covered it with this! It is the perfect chair to go with our desk.

Thank you, Value Village. Thank you.

p.s. I registered the car this morning!! finally it worked.