Dr. Livingston, I presume?

We can't remember a whole lot about the beginning of the week, from which we deduce that not much of interest occured. Dan went to work, I had hours at the writing center, Andrew generally wrecked havoc. Life goes on. Tuesday evening was a bit of an adventure for us. Dan had a Young Men's activity in Huntingdon, at the same time I had a presentation for the writing center (on the exciting topic of "Writing Literature Reviews"--a necessary but potentially dull topic for graduate students). This meant that we had to figure out something to do with Andrew. Initially, we had thought that Dan might stay home this week (after all, he's been going solo for the last month, so it seemed only fair that one of his fellow leaders take the boys this week). Instead, however, the wife of our young men's president (and former Provo High graduate), Megan Kramer Collins, offered to watch Andrew for the evening and put him down to bed for us. When my workshop was over, I picked him up and transferred him to his own bed.

Midweek was coldish and rainy--I remember this because there were only a few people at the day in the park. (We only went because it was the park right behind our house, and so I figured that if it started raining we could come right home).

The highlight of the week, not surprisingly, was the weekend--and I think we spent most of the latter part of the week gearing up for our brief trip to Washington D.C. Friday morning, I went to a couple of garage sales (I wasn't going to be able to go on Saturday, so I had to get my weekly fix somehow!). I found a Little Tikes drum for Andrew, and some barnyard style pop-ons to go with the set Bubby and Poppy bought him for Christmas. We also went grocery shopping for our *long* roadtrip. At 2 pm, we went to pick Dan up from campus, and headed out. For some reason, we had this bright idea that, since 2 is Andrew's normal naptime, he would go right to sleep in the car. And he did eventually sleep--at 4:15, after screaming on and off for forty minutes. We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Frederick, MD, for dinner (Andrew's new favorite restaurant). But things didn't really start getting interesting until we neared the DC area. The weather forecast had predicted scattered showers in the region--what we didn't realize was that scattered "showers" really meant intermittant downpours that resembled nothing so much as driving through a carwash. There were a few minutes where literally we could barely see the white lines between lanes--people slowed down to about half their usual speed. This lasted for about twenty minutes, and the rain lasted until after we got to the hotel. Because the rain made traffic so much slower, we were later getting in than we had planned, which meant Dan had to scramble to make it to the temple (we were afraid that the last session was at 8; Dan didn't leave the hotel until quarter to! Luckily, the last session was actually at 8:30). Andrew, up much later than usual, proceeded to fight sleep for nearly an hour before dropping off at 9. And I, in a teeth-gritting effort that I'm rather proud of, proceeded to actually work on my dissertation for an hour, rather than crashing on the bed (which was what I would have preferred to do).

In the morning, I headed out bright and early to the temple (well, I left around 7 am), fondly believing that DC, like most of the temples in Utah, opened as early as 5:30 a.m. However, my brief detour not withstanding (I got lost, despite--or perhaps because of--my trusty Mapquest directions), I still managed to arrive at the temple before they actually opened to patrons (7:30)--the first session wasn't until 8. Still, it was wonderful to be at the temple again. After I returned to the hotel, we loaded everything into the car and headed 3 blocks down the street to the metro station. We boarded the metro and headed into the heart of DC, our destination: the Smithsonian National Zoo. Not only is the zoo itself extensive and well-kept, but, even better, it's free to the public. It's hard to say who was more excited about the zoo--me, or Andrew. (Probably me, because Andrew wasn't quite sure what was going on some of the time). I had fully intended to have pictures to post to our illustrious blog, but, after carefully packing the camera in our bags, I then left it in the car at the metro station, and didn't remember until we were about to board the train. So, you'll have to use your imagination and picture wide asphalt pathways crowded with men, women, children, and strollers. We tried to weave our way around the crowds to see the different animals, but it didn't always work. We had a great view of the sloth-bear, who conveniently got up and walked right by the window where we were standing, but we were less successful in viewing some of the other wildlife--the leopard wasn't moving, so Andrew couldn't see it, and Dan and I both got quite irritated trying to show Andrew a red panda; some lady was yakking on her cell phone, right in front of the viewing platform, and when I said "excuse me" (we were trying to move around her), she responded by stepping into the opening that I was aiming for, and proceeded to gab away about something totally irrelevant to what she was doing. I don't think she noticed us, or anything else in her immediate surroundings (including her son, who was trying to get her attention), or the gorgeous red panda draped over a tree branch directly in front of her. (I think this incident was partly responsible for Dan's subsequent observation that people who talk on cell phones while doing other things ought to be shot. Not that we really think that, but we do think that people like this are responsible for giving cell phones a bad rap!) We also liked the bird house which, while not as exciting as some exhibits, made Andrew pretty excited (he kept pointing and saying "buh," "buh.") Dan reminds me that Andrew did particularly like the distant glimpse he caught of a panda, and he also seemed to like the elephants. (Although I should note that the key ingredient for pleasing Andrew seemed to be obvious movement--he liked anything that moved and he could point at).

We also ran into some old friends from State College, the Naluais, and their children, who were also in DC for the weekend, and, obviously, visiting the zoo. (For those of our readers who know the Naluais, you may be interested in knowing that Jamie is expecting another boy, in October. She confessed that, although she had thought she was done with her third, it was pretty clear that God had other plans for them!).

Wonderful as the zoo was, it was also a little overwhelming. After nearly two hours, we hit saturation point--even though we'd only seen about half of the exhibits--and headed toward the exit (well, more specifically, we headed for the restrooms near the exit, with the intent of changing Andrew before we left). Unfortunately, we weren't quite fast enough. As we neared the exit, we also ran into Kent and Elizabeth Hulet (also formerly of the State College/University Wards), who were meeting the Naluais. While we were chatting, I felt a suspicious warmth around my midsection (I was carrying Andrew at the time). I held Andrew away from me, and, sure enough, liquid was trickling down his legs. Since I had been clever enough to pack spare clothes for Andrew and leave those in the car, too, this meant that we came away from the zoo with an unintended souvenir--a new shirt, which was the closest we could come to replacing his now soaked outfit. So, Andrew made the rest of the way to our car in the fashionable combination of a red panda shirt and his diaper. (Dan reassured me that this lapse into white trash fashions did not mean I was a bad parent!)

Our drive home was relatively uneventful--after lunch at Chick-fil-a (Andrew really liked the chicken nuggets and fries), and a nice mint cookies and cream milk shake (well, Dan and I split this--Andrew, poor kid, didn't get any), we proceeded on our way. Andrew fell asleep after a short crying jag, and slept for nearly an hour, and the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. (Well, aside from a horrifying stop at McDonalds about forty five minutes from home--we thought Andrew had been fussing because he was hungry and wanted out of the car, so we stopped to feed him and let him play. Only, this McDonalds didn't have a playground, and Andrew's handy alternative to the playground--climbing on all the tables and attempting to upend the salt and pepper shakers--didn't really seem suitable to us. He was also more interested in throwing his food than eating. S0, we were on the road again pretty quickly.)

And thus ends our brief jaunt into the wilds of DC. Although we didn't exactly return with Dr. Livingstone, we returned a little older, a little wiser, and a lot tireder.

In lieu of pictures of the zoo, we offer as a paltry replacement the only other shots we took of Andrew all week. Here, we have Andrew trying to pull off his dad's socks (Dan was trying to set a new fashion trend, but Andrew disapproved).



Andrew modelling his trendy Hawaiian shirt.



Last weekend, I picked up some Fisher-Price trucks for Andrew (a front-end loader--I think that's what it's called! I'm sure Jacob could correct me--and a dump truck). Andrew spent what for him constitutes hours (about forty minutes at one stretch) trying to carefully lift up the loader and deposit the plastic rocks in the dump truck without losing the rocks. The funniest part about the whole process was that he cried whether he was successful or not. I'm not sure what he was trying to accomplish, but we've also included a short video for your delectation!