Getting the Ball Rolling

I still haven't actually started my internship yet; I'll join them after Labor Day. However, since the congressional internship is unpaid, one of the things I'm doing on the side is working part-time for a company called SOS International (or SOSi). I got to go in to their Virginia office the other day and meet some of the team, and I officially started working today.

I work remotely (so nice!) and all I really do is create a daily news summary with industry-related articles for the other team members and high-ups to read. It's not incredibly taxing, but has its benefits. First, I'm kind of a news junky anyway, so this is an effective way to stay up on the latest news. Second, it seems like a great group of people, and it might be handy for future career opportunities.

It took quite a bit of my morning to create my first news summary, mostly because of formatting. It's quite the process to take 20-30 news sources and try to put all the content into one document, looking nice. I have a few ideas to streamline the process, though, so hopefully it won't take so much time.

While I was working, Michael came to hang out with me.


As wonderful as it's been to be on pure vacation, there was some satisfaction to being productive again.

Debbie left me working and took Michael to a park with a wading pool. She met up with some other moms from the ward. They walked there, but took the metro back.

But with that out of the way, and Michael's afternoon nap over, it was time to have more fun! Debbie and I walked over to Eastern Market. Apparently it's more crowded and has more vendors on the weekends, but even during the week there are a number of little shops inside the large building with all sorts of meats, sausages, fresh local veg, cheeses, spices, and so on. What a great little place! We're definitely going back for a few things.

As soon as we walked back home, we got in the car to go see Debbie's friend in Maryland. She and her husband have a one and a two year old who were so full of energy, Michael just loved being around them and playing. They graciously let us stay late talking, keeping all the kids up past their bedtimes, but everyone was just having so much fun. We'll have to go see them again. Thanks, guys.

Lastly, when we parked on our street and got out, Debbie stepped into the road a bit to snap a picture before we went up the stairs to our door. This is what coming home in the evening looks like here. (That's the Capitol building all lit up, in the center):

Thank you, grandpa

We took care of a few items of business this morning, including rearranging the bedroom to fit a Pack-n-Play without having to crawl over it to get in bed. I also discovered two things about the DMV here: 1) you're better off walking. It's the only place I've had trouble finding parking so far. 2) Walk or drive, don't go on a Monday. No, the lines aren't stereotypically long. The place is actually rather empty. Completely empty, in fact. In D.C., they're closed on Mondays. Who knew?

I still have a few days before the internship actually starts, so once Michael woke up from his afternoon nap, we all took another walk down to the National Mall. With four months to explore, we went ahead and entered the first place that caught our attention, which happened to be the National Botanic Gardens. Debbie seemed to enjoy it, and we both thought Debbie's mom would have loved it, but for me, the best part was walking back outside and feeling like D.C. wasn't so humid anymore.

The next thing we came to was the Air and Space museum. All the early aviation stuff was fascinating, and I was surprised how many actual Wright brothers' artifacts they had. But the real excitement came when we got to the WWI and WWII sections. First, there were lots of actual planes or cockpits, and the WWI era planes were very interesting. Then, we went to the Sea and Air room. As we walked in, I mentioned how Grandpa Snider flew in a Dauntless off the USS Enterprise, so this is the kind of... no, wait, look up there, suspended from the ceiling. That IS a Douglas SBD-6 Dauntless!

Lance once made a model, and I'd seen plenty of pictures, but seeing this plane in person was a whole new experience. The half-windshield that leaves the gunner's seat exposed, the landing gear that folds to the center, the double barrels on the machine gun. It was bigger than I expected, and brought the few details I know about grandpa's experience very much to life for me. I just couldn't stop staring at it, and leaning in to see all the details I could. It really made me crave more details from grandpa Snider, if only there were more to have.

What must it have been like to be up in that seat?

What a nice Sunday!

I'll be honest, one of the nicest things about this Sunday was church not starting until 1:30. Hooray for sleep.

As I imagined, the ward here seems to be as transient as our ward back in Provo, so at the end of the summer, numbers are low right now, but it was still a great, friendly place. The bishop came right to us after sacrament meeting, and introduced himself, asking (as pretty much everyone did), "Are you just visiting, or are you here for an internship or something?" I guess they don't get many permanent move-ins.

It was raining after we first got here yesterday, and started raining again during church. Debbie and I are both too awe struck to care, though. We just kept pointing out the window at different cool buildings as we drove, and nodding as we let it sink in that this is the drive home.

Debbie made a perfectly house-warming dinner of chicken, potatoes, corn, and homemade rolls. Michael and I were two very happy boys. Then the view out the windows by the dining room table was just too much for Debbie. The rain had stopped, and it wasn't too dark yet, so we just had to go on an evening walk.

Out our door, and a few hundred feet down the road, we were on a path through the courtyard behind the Capitol building. The trees around the Capitol are huge, and were silhouetted against the orange and pink clouds, lit by the city lights. Underneath the trees, we caught glimpses of bats darting around after the fireflies that would light up for a second at a time, here and there beneath the branches. We went all the way around to the front, and saw the Washington monument all lit up across the mall, then back up the other side to our place again.

As ever, Michael's favorite part was when someone walked by with a dog on a leash. Love that kid. And love life here so far.

Our living room

Our new place

We're home.

We've decided not to pre-plan road trips anymore. Our trip to Washington state was a lot more fun because we stopped where we wanted and stayed in the hotels we found along the way. This time, we felt too much like we had to get where we were going, and do nothing else. It was still fun to be together, though.

Once we hit Kentucky, the scenery got much more interesting. Downright beautiful, really. West Virginia and Virginia were just as enjoyable, and we started getting really excited as we got into D.C. We checked in with the housing organization, and headed to our place.

Ever feel like you were in an MC Escher sketch? Not emotionally, I mean physically. Our building slants to the East. Well, ok, just the floors; I think the walls are fine. It's a pretty old building, so there are some things falling apart, and lots of creaks and moans, but mostly... I love it. This is going to be such a fun experience, and our place is already feeling like home, thanks to Debbie's knack for packing just the right things, and caring how things look. It's certainly more spacious than we expected.

Now all we need is a good night's sleep, or three, and we'll be ready to really enjoy ourselves.

More photos to come.

Nice Short Day

We only had to drive about five hours, wich felt so very nice. We spent a little time in the morning going through the historic buildings in Nauvoo, usually getting more of a tour than we were hoping for, but all the senior missionaries seemed so excited to go through their spiel. Michael finally got so exhausted, we just had to get in the car and hit the road.

So we're in eastern Illinois tonight, just resting up in a hotel. So far we've been successfully getting a photo every two seconds from the GoPro on the windshield, and starting to piece it together into a time lapse each night. I just hope the terrain gets more exciting in the next few days.

Mostly, though, we've all been enjoying the time together, despite the hours on the road. It seems like this is the first big chunk of time Debbie and I have spent so much time just being together with Michael. Maybe that's why he's been so good in the car. Not having homework, appointments, and so on, is one of the things I'm most excited for over the next four months. It'll be a lot of time to just be together.

DC Internship

This is actually day two of our trip. We left Tuesday morning, on the 21st, and had a long first day. Provo to Salina, KS. Tonight we're in Nauvoo.

We first found out about the internship about a month ago. I was starting to think I may not be offered any of the Congressional internships for which I had applied, but I got an email from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and now we're on our way to live in D.C. for a few months. We've rented out our home in Provo, and arranged for housing near Capitol Hill, but even still, this feels more like a road trip than moving. I wonder when it will sink in that we're not just visiting somewhere, then turning around and coming home. Many thanks to Lon and Jeannie; Grandma Jeannie watched Michael during the day so that Debbie and I could work, and Lon helped me with all the heavy lifting. Now all our furniture is in storage--along with 90% of the rest of our belongings--and our car is sitting just outside the (ironically) White House Inn in Nauvoo, IL, practically bulging with everything we thought we'd need for the next four months.

Salina was a very long drive, that first night. We stayed up too late the night before in order to get everything packed and the house clean, since the three girls that are now renting the place would be moving in later the day we left. By 5:30am we were on the road. Absolutely nothing of interest happened during the next 19 hours, and by 11:30pm we were in Salina. Then the fun started. We got to the hotel we had previously booked, got charged a second time for the room, went up what was left of the staircase, opened the door and smelled the room. At this point, I went straight back to the front desk and told the lady to please reverse the charges; we'd be staying somewhere else for the night. I swear this was not just snobbery. I've stayed in some crazy places, but after that long in the car, this was not worth the $55, and I wasn't about to put my wife and child in there for the night.

Five minutes later, a wonderful lady at another hotel kindly upgraded us to a suite, once she heard I was in the military, and for $10 more than what we were going to pay at the first place, we stayed a short but comfortable and restful night in Salina.

Today didn't take as long. We only went about 10 hours, including rest stops. That also included a two hour detour to go see Debbie's brother, Connor, who's serving his mission in KS, only to find a note on the door from another missionary explaining he was in another town for the day. Oh, well. Have fun, Connor!

Nauvoo is beautiful, but since the Pageant isn't going on, it's kind of vacant. Still, you can't help feeling nostalgic about the place, even though you've never been before. I am by no means an LDS historian, nor did I experience some deeply moving spiritual event here, but it feels like visiting a great-great-grandfather's childhood home. "Oh, so this is where it happened." Like you can tell it's important to you in a way you couldn't have appreciated without seeing. Like you want to remember what every corner looks like. And what a beautiful temple, truly situated perfectly, overlooking the Mississippi.