Happy Pioneer Day!

Busch Gardens

On Saturday Emily, my dad, and I went to Busch Gardens for the day. Unfortunately, the traffic was pretty bad getting there, so we didn't arrive until the afternoon. We immediately ran to a roller coaster and got there just as they were closing it down temporarily due to bad weather in the area. Luckily, we were just in time to see the irish dance show, which was most excellent.

When we left the theater it was pouring rain, so we made the best of it with some ice cream.

Finally the roller coasters opened again, and we road almost all of them within about an hour. It was quite the day!

Burnin' Up for Megan

The Jonas Brothers are back!

My sister, Megan, turned 20 this past week, so I decided that it was necessary to do something epic for her 20th birthday. Emily and I came up with the excellent idea to make a music video special for her, and obviously we invited the Jonas Brothers to participate in it.

Here is how the sock puppet version of the Jonas Brothers came to be:

My mom made Kevin. He is pictured here before his haircut.

I made Joe and Nick. We made a special effort to make sure their hair looked like it does in real life.

Emily made Megan, the star of the video.

Completed:

This is the photo we used as inspiration. It is from the early era of their career. Pay close attention to Kevin's hair (on the left).

Nick, Joe, and Kevin - in person, well, in puppet that is. 

Eat More Chicken

Today Emily, my mom, and I appreciated cows by dressing up and going to Chick-fil-a for free chicken.

Could life get much better than enjoying some free Chick-fil-a?

Yes, if you are dressed as a cow while you eat it.

The Amazing Spider-Man

Guess what movie I finally saw?

Yup, the new Spider-Man movie. Clearly, based on my skirt, I am a fan of the old movies, so I was pleased to discover that this new one held up to the others. I found it quite enjoyable, though I still think Spider-Man 2 is my favorite.

Cat

Here I am walking my grandmother's cat, Sophie. Who knew they made leashes for cats?

They do.

Independence Day

These are a little late, but if you were wondering what my family did for the fourth of July, it was this:

We matched.

Here is the fam with two foreign exchange students who had been staying with us for the week. 

The colors on our shirts may have been a little off, but now we can wear them whenever. 

Emily and I:

We watched the national fireworks from our usual spot at the Iwo Jima memorial. It was a great show. 

Last Sunday

Emily and I along with our mother and some other friends went to see the national gallery. It was most excellent.

There were lots of wonderful paintings by Monet. The girl in the flower garden is one of my favorites.

Emily with the Japanese footbridge:

This painting by Van Gogh is the one that inspired my blog theme: Awesome Blossom. 

One of my mom's favorite paintings:

We were lucky to be there for the George Bellows exhibit. I had just studied this painting in my humanities class last term, so I loved seeing the real thing.

We always have fun with the Degas ballet sculptures.

After our time at the museum we spent the evening making tie dye t-shirts with our foreign exchange students and some friends.

They were supposed to be red, white and blue, but they turned out pink, green, and white. Oh well - we still wore them on the 4th of July.

Reston Firecracker

Emily, Matthew, my mom, and I kicked off the 4th of July with a 5k. It was a really fun race because there were tons of people there racing. I even ran into both of my high school track coaches who were helping to put on the race. 

Here we are before the race started:

A couple of action shots (I was flailing my arms to get my dad's attention):

Happy 4th!