Taking time to smell the flowers...and pick a few! (Week 9)

 Lately, I've realized that I need to take my time more slowly in the day to day activities that I'm participating in. I need to take time to smell the flowers...or pick them, just like Danny does! So I've tried to do that more. Instead of being super worried about catching all of the right buses and being exactly on time, I've tried to just have fun wherever we go and in going from place to place. It has been relaxing, and I feel like it is a good step for me. It also allows Danny and I to have even more fun together and I am able to enjoy even the smaller moments!

Here are some more of our letter day activities:

"M"
We went to see a movie at the IMAX theater. It was Ice Age in 3-D! Danny's favorite part was wearing the glasses during the movie. We also ate M&M's.

Danny openly tells me he loves me now, several times throughout the day. It is so sweet! :)

 Danny told me to take this picture "so I can look at it and remember him when I miss him." (When I'm at church or something...so cute! :))

Another adorable Dannyism that I've noticed lately comes from a book that we read called "Muldoon". In this book, the dog chases a squirrel, but instead of calling it a squirrel the text calls it an "enemy." So every time we see a squirrel now, Danny will say, "Hey, Heather, I see an emeny!" (Spelled like he pronounces it.) or "Heather, I see two emenies!" Usually I always correct him on his incorrect words, but this one is so appropriate and so adorable that I just let him say it. Especially since the squirrels are really so vicious here! They have eaten our garden, torn into our trash bags daily, and eaten my BYU-Idaho bag. "Emeny" is a very appropriate name for them. After we went to see Ice Age, he said, "Those emenies in the movie were good emenies!" It is SO cute!

"N": We visited a neighborhood park.

"O": We ate orange popsicles. This was not the original plan, but it worked out alright. We were going to go to an observatory, but our bus didn't come at the time it was supposed to. I had called ahead and everything, but it never showed up. So I ended up telling Danny that "o" stands for, "Oh no, we missed the bus!"

"P": We went to go and see planes fly at Gravelly Point. This is a spot at a park right next to the airport where families come and watch the airplanes fly right overhead of you when they are relatively close the ground before they land. It is a lot of fun, especially for a little boy like Danny!

"Q": Quite the day at the pool!

This is a picture of his face painting from theater camp. He is quite the actor! It is a very appropriate camp for him to attend.

Other DC adventures this week:

This was our ward fhe activity on Monday night: 

I was literally the first person there, and I thought I would be the only one for a while. I was surprised that I was the only one at a ward fhe activity in DC! Then Carlos showed up...then David. For a little while the three of us were just there together. Then a couple of other people showed up...by the end there was a decent sized group of about 10 of us and we went to go and get food together. In the end it was a lot of fun.

Tuesday night before institute I went and met up with a running group here in DC that I found online. It was great motivation for me because the majority of the people were marathon runners. But everyone was really nice, and I was very glad that I got to go! We decided on a 40 minute run. We would run at our own paces and turn around when half of the time was over. I ended up only running 4 miles in that time, but it was a great first run with them. Most of the people in the group did about 7 miles! Then I went to institute all dirty and stinky...but it was worth it because I loved getting to know these new people and getting a good workout.

This week I've also had a lot of fun with Carissa. We watched Night at the Museum (since she works in the Smithsonian buildings) and went shopping. We also stopped at McDonalds which was a big mistake. I had a lot of food! So we ended up going running together that night too!

On Thursday night I went with Megan to play tennis at another Meetup group that I met online. We got there and we were the only two girls, and the boys did not take us very seriously. But then we ended up beating the boys that we played by the very first game. It was a lot of fun! Megan is really good at tennis too, and I'm glad that I'll be able to play with her more in the future. I'm glad that she was willing to go with me.

Friday I went bowling, and Saturday I went to the beach! I tried skim boarding for the first time, and learned to play 500. Carissa and I found sea shells, and we all sat around and played games under the umbrella. We even buried Spencer in the sand! It was a great trip, and was well worth the 5 hour drive that it took us to get there!

 Me, Susan, Megan, Carissa, and Erika

The beach was great, but by Sunday I was ready for a day of rest!