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Sorry - there's a new post about our DC trip but I started it before this last one, so it's down one - written on Dec 5.

One of THOSE days

I really don't usually like to complain on my blog, but it was one of THOSE days where I cried at least 3 or 4 times.

Two experiences to share:

First of all I was at Toys-R-Us today. I know. Crappy time of the year to be there. But I had to let Logan test out some bikes so Santa knows what size to make Logan's bike. It was both lunch time and nap time. Bad combination. We were there for an hour and Lo was beyond ready to go.

We go to check out at and he's begging over and over for money to ride the toys at the front. I'm trying to swipe my card and ignoring him so I can hurry through the line. When out of the corner of my eye I see my cart start to tip. I look back and see that Logan was holding onto the side of the cart, standing on the bottom frame to boost himself up, probably to see Lincoln. Well he was too heavy for the cart and he tipped it to the side, and it's teetering between going back to normal and completely falling over. So I'm yelling, "Logan! Logan! Logan!" over and over, unable to spit out the words, "let go!" This catches the attention of EVERYONE in the front of the store. All of the check out stands, all of the employees, all of the customers in line. All eyes on me, or at least it felt that way.

And despite my best efforts to tip the cart back the right way, it falls completely on it's side and I make my best effort to protect Lincoln's head (who's buckled right into the cart... not in his car seat) from hitting the ground. Luckily this is a store filled with parents who (I hope!) understand. The mom in front of me gathered up my wallet, cards, receipts that went flying during the chaos and then starts to comfort Logan who was crying because he was semi-trapped under the cart. The mom behind me is trying to pick the cart back up while I'm trying to unbuckle screaming Lincoln to comfort him and make sure he's ok. Then the really embarrassing part. I lose my temper and tell Logan to go wait in the front of the store to get him out of the way. Then while holding Lincoln, carrying my bag and dragging the cart behind me, I usher Logan out of the store, to make him understand how dangerous that was. Meanwhile he's now throwing a fit because he can't understand why I'm not letting him ride the stupid rides. Agh. I got into the car and cried because I felt like the worst mom ever and my adrenaline was pumping and I started cursing the crazy holiday season, yada yada yada.

Experience #2:

Tonight I was busy in the kitchen. Ben was getting changed in the bedroom. Lincoln was on the living room floor scooting around. Logan was cleaning up his books that were in the living room. Lincoln was getting tired and fussy, but all of a sudden I heard screaming coming from the living room. Lincoln was crying. HARD. He was turning blue because he wasn't breathing. I couldn't tell if he was choking on something or just crying hard, so I scream for Ben to come out there. I start to see the signs of him passing out and I handed him over to Ben. Logan used to do this when he was 18 months old. They cry so hard they get deprived of oxygen and turn blue and their body gets really stiff and their little arms and hands cramp up and their eyes roll back into their heads. Then they stop screaming or making any noise and after a couple of second they come back to and their muscles relax completely and they get floppy in your arms and then start to cry because I'm sure that's got to hurt.

But something was different this time - Lincoln has never done this before and for some reason it just looked different than when Logan used to do it. While Ben was holding him, Linc passed out and his body relaxed like it should. Ben laid him on the ground, but we noticed his eyes were still closed and he was still blue. Crap. Meanwhile I'm trying to tell Logan to get out of the way and ask him what happened all at the same time to try to figure out if Linc's choking on something. Then Ben hovers over him to watch and listen for Linc to breathe and he tells me to call 911. So I do, and right as they're about to answer and right as Ben is about to start CPR, Lincoln starts breathing again and crying. So I hung up. This was all in about 30 seconds, but it felt like eternity. Seeing your baby lying on the ground, blue, not breathing and lifeless is more than I ever want to see. My adrendaline is pumping once again, I'm starting to cry a bit and trying to talk to Logan to find out what happened and then my phone rings. It's dispatch calling me back to make sure we're ok. Holding back tears of frustration and adrenaline, I explain the situation and the lady asks if we want a paramedic to come check Lincoln out. We declined because he was back to his normal color, eyes were dilating and was responsive and ok at this point. She informs me that they're still sending out an officer. "Great" I think. Just what we need is someone coming to investigate to make sure we're not beating or neglecting our children.

Well talk about fast, I hung up the phone and not even 5 seconds later the officer was knocking at our door. We let him in and gratefully he was completely understanding and nice and explained that he has three boys and they do this too. He asked if we wanted a paramedic to check him out and we declined again and he went on his way.

I still don't know what exactly made Linc cry that hard. Logan said he was swinging his library bag and it hit Lincoln in the face. I believe Logan, but I'm wondering if his head go caught a bit and was jerked around? I know Lincoln was mad to begin with so that didn't help.

Anyway, Linc's fine, but the poor guy has had a rough day and so has Logan, failing twice at being a good big brother today. And Me? Besides feeling like an awful Mom I'm fine. :-) It was just a rough reminder that sometimes what I think is so important to get done at the time is really not so important. Holidays make us busy and more speedy, but it's important to slow down and keep in mind what's really important... my two sweet boys.

PS) I didn't proof read this so I hope it makes sense! :-)

Brace yourselves...

Back in mid-October, Ben and I were VERY lucky to be able to take a trip to Washington D.C., NYC and Palmyra. Needless to say we took hundreds of photos and I've been waiting for a calmer time when I could weed through them to blog about. Well that time has come, and "weeding out" photos isn't my greatest strength when all I want to do is remember every moment of the trip.

So, because these posts are mostly for journaling purposes, I'm not holding back. :-) And because of that, this one post might actually turn into a trilogy.

Part 1: Washington D.C.

Our friend, Nate Barker, works for Southwest Airlines and has some buddy passes that weren't being used and so he offered them to us. Since my trip to NY in 2008 I have been dying to take Ben back and talking about it constantly, but between finances and timing with babies, we haven't been able to make it work. Ben wanted to go back East for the historic aspect. So when Nate offered these buddy passes, we gratefully accepted and started planning.

First we drove to Denver, where Dave and Jera (bless their souls) had offered to watch Logan while Ben, Lincoln (still nursing) and I traveled. Due to a work crises for Ben, we left Provo at 5 pm, later than planned. We got to Denver at 2 am. Because we were flying stand-by we had to be flexible with our travel dates/times, therefore we were planning to catch the 6 am flight. We had to leave the house at 3:15 am to get to the airport by 4 am. That left us a whole hour and fifteen minutes. So we just decided to stay up, repacked our luggage and shower.

We flew into Baltimore, MD where we stayed with Ben's second cousin, Jocie and Larry. After picking us up from the airport and eating lunch, Jocie dropped us off at the National Mall to get some touring in that first day.

Despite our best attempts to sleep on the plane, Ben and I were both dragging at this point, but we didn't let that stop us from taking it all in.

Ben & Linc with the Capitol Building in the background

Me and Linc with Washington National Monument

Our first museum stop was the American History Smithsonian. So, so, so amazing. Ben's standing by an old WWII army jeep, similar to the one Pa owns.



I had to get a shot with the Ruby Slippers for Logan's sake. I was missing him already at this point.



Ignore me, but check out that dress! This was my favorite exhibit in this Smithsonian - it was the Dresses of all of the First Ladies and includes all of their inaugural gowns.
This was Martha Washington's dress. Amazing! Women were so little back then.


Michelle Obama's dress was covered in Swarovski crystal. Gorgeous.


For some reason I loved this one. It was much prettier in person than in photo. It was Jaqueline Kennedy's dress. She was so classy.

Another one of my favorites... Julia Child's kitchen. The glass I'm standing by was actually a wall that held all of her pots, pans, cookware, etc. She has so many items and each one had a specific place where it hung.


Looking through that glass and into the kitchen.

All the museums close at about 5, and that's about when Ben's cousin got off work (who we were staying with). He works right down along the National Mall and so we followed him home on teh subway, bus and then to his car where we drove the rest of the way to their house in Maryland.
This is their youngest daughter, Riley, who LOVED Lincoln. The two were inseparable the entire time.

This is Alice, who is Jera's aunt, and Jocie's mom. She and lawry were there visiting for a few weeks and because of her bad hip, she opted to stay at home while we were touring and she offered to watch Lincoln for us. I was hesitant just because I'm still breast feeding and am terrified of getting another clogged milk duct (OUCH!), but I'm so glad we took her up on the offer because it was pouring rain that next day! It was incredibly helpful and kind of her.

First we went to the Air and Space Smithsonian.

I can't remember what this is... sorry Ben! Unfortunately, we found out AFTER this that Pa actually helped create the Hubble while working at Lockhead and it was actually on display here, but we didn't get any pics.

Another cool exhibit - the Wright Brothers. This was a model of their first airplane.

Ben was thrilled to find out they actually made bicycles first. Who knew? This is an original Wright Bros. bike.

Not sure what plane this is, but we wanted to capture the amazingness of this exhibit... the fact that there were many HUGE planes just hanging from the ceiling. Very cool.

I didn't show any photos here, but next we went to the Indian Museum where they show information on all kinds of tribes native to the Americas.


Then we ventured out in the rain to walk to all the monuments we would that are along the mall. The first stop was the Washington Nat'l Monument.

Ben and the grasshopper on the side of the monument.

Here I am standing at the Washington monument and beyond me is the WWII memorial, then the Lincoln memorial.
I didn't know this before this trip, but the National Mall is just a huge long rectangle strip of land and there are monuments all up and down the land/park. Then to the sides of it are tons of Smithsonians (all free!) and federal buildings.


Ben at the WWII memorial. The solemn feeling here was intense. The amount of gratitude we felt here at this monument is hard to explain. It was neat, too, that there was hardly anyone here. I think we were the only ones at the monument for quite some time. This was actually built during George W Bush Jr's administration, so it's relatively new.




Then we continued walking on until we got to here - the Lincoln Memorial! There was equipment everywhere here that was being monitored. We found out later they were actually filming Transformers 2.

We are standing in the same exact place in this picture as the picture above, but just turned around the other way. So here, we were standing right in front of the Lincoln memorial.


I think this was Ben's favorite part of DC. Well, at least one of his favorites.
Here we are doing the honeymoon photo shots... most of our pictures have either Ben or I in them, but not very many with both of us. :-)

This was the most solemn, sacred feeling of all of the monuments and places we went in DC. I think we were in tears realizing everything this great man and this monument stand for and recognizing what an awful, bloody history our country has.

If you zoom in here, you can see the wording above Lincoln.

This is what we saw walking out of the Lincoln Memorial - gorgeous shot looking down the National Mall with the sun trying to come out.


Then we walked... and walked... and walked to the Jefferson memorial. I think we would have done it another way had we realized how much time it ended up taking us to walk there and back. It's not right on the mall, so it took a little bit. It was still amazing to see, though.

Me in front of the Jefferson Memorial. Rolled up pants becuse they were soaking wet from all fo the rain and it was bugging me. I can't stand soggy jeans. :-)


We saw this van on the way home that day while we were on the bus. We noticed the "Save the ta-tas" sticker and it reminded us of our friends.


The next day the kids were out of school, so Larry, Jocie, Lawry and Riley all ended up spending the day in DC with us and it was so fun being with them and having personal tour guides.
First we went to The SPy Museum. It's not right on the mall, and it was the only museum that we had to pay for but it was SO worth it. It was so funa dn interactive and showed what a huge roll spies have played in all of the wars our country has been in thus far. Very cool.
While in the gift shop afterwards, Riley got a pair of handcuffs and so here we are cuffed together.

After the spy museum we walked to The Archives (above) where all of our nations historic important documents are held... The Declaration of Independence, The Magna Carta, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights. It was amazing to think of how old those documents were and how special and sacred they are to our country. It was a great reminder of how much sacrifice has been made by so many to set forth the freedoms that we still hold precious today. No photos were allowed inside.



Then we had lunch in the sculpture gardens and then ventured onto the Natural History Smithsonian. We could spend all day there, but we just had a limited amount of time, unfortunately. This was one of Ben's favorites: It's a fossil of a fish that died soon after eating another fish. You can see the second fossil inside of his belly. Ben remembered this being about 45 million years old. That's all.


Also got to see the Hope Diamond. Huge.


After the museum closed, we ventured on to get frozen yogurt. Yum. Here's the whole, wonderful family, minus Maryn who opted to stay home and do homework and babysit Lincoln.


On the way back to the car, we happened to walk by Ford's Theater where Lincoln was shot.


Here's Ben in front of Ford's Theater, leaning because he's about to run to avoid getting hit by an oncoming car. :-) Lincoln was rushed out one of those arching doors and taken across this street to ....


Here. Not sure what it's called. It's under construction and the sign says, "The House Where Lincoln Died"


More Ford's Theater.

The next day we left DC to head up to NYC but I'll save that for a second post. This one has been long enough. In a nutshell, going to DC has left me in awe of all that I DON't know about our own country and history. It was amazing to think about all of the great people hwo have gone before and waled the streets where we were. Very cool. And it was also really fun staying with the Denyers. Because the National Mall pretty much shuts down at about 5 or 6 pm, we ended up spending more time with them than we originally thought we would and it was great. They were so gracious and amazingly intelligent. Wonderful hosts. We'd go back to DC in a heartbeat!