I have so many mixed emotions right now! I have only 12 more days left here in D.C. before I leave for Cincinnati and then Portland! I am getting really excited to go home and see friends and family. I am also really excited to get back to regular life. I miss my car, and being able to go grocery shopping when I need to with a car. I miss having space. Not that I don't like people but I am looking forward to having some open space around me. AND I can't wait for less humidity. Although on the other side I am so sad to be leaving! I have loved it here! I love being so close to all these fun places to see. I still love looking out the window while I'm at the gym and seeing the Washington Monument in the distance. Or when we ride the yellow line to work and it crosses the Potomac and you can see the capitol and monuments and everything. I will really miss all of this. I also will miss my kids. I LOVE them. I am not sure how much help I have been able to give them, besides just loving them. I have worked with one kid for the last week with some speech stuff, but other than that it just hasn't been enough time to do a lot of it. So I have had to accept that love is the best thing that I could give them. I just can't say how much I love these kids though. They are so precious and full of love. They are so willing to give love too, I have learned a lot from them and the other people I have worked with.
Well the last two weeks have been pretty good! I didn't do much last weekend besides work on a project for work. It was about 110 degrees last weekend with humidity so we stayed inside most of the time. This last week we realized that we only had a couple weeks left though so we made sure to get out a lot. Thursday we went to Alexandria again. It has been my favorite place so far. Nick, Kiera and I all went in the evening. Kiera and I also brought jars to fill with our favorite things from Alexandria. Haha. We first went to Ben and Jerry's because they have a happy hour ice cream deal. We all got a scoop for a dollar and sat on the pier and ate it. We got a flyer for the deal and put it in our jars. Then we went to the Christmas Attic. I LOVE this shop. It just makes me happy to see all Christmas stuff. I bought an ornament from there as a souvenir. Then we walked around the waterfront. We put sand and driftwood in our jars. Then we walked to the candy shop. We got some chocolate chip cookie taffy and put it in the jar. We also got a small pebble from the cobblestone roads there and put it in our jar. Then we walked past the La Madeline which is delicious. We got a flyer from there and put it in our jars. Then sealed them up! It was really fun.
Friday I went to work to help with graduation. Some of the kids in the older classes were graduating and going to Kindergarten. They needed some extra help so I went to see what I could do. I couldn't help stopping in my classroom to say hi though. They were so surprised to see me in a dress and told me that I looked pretty. I just love being around these kids! Graduation was pretty good. It is hard to sit through any graduation and this wasn't much different but I was glad I could help. Kiera and I then went to DuPont's circle to see what it was. Then we went to the National Gallery of Art. I saw some Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh and Picasso, and more. It was cool to see once. We then went through the sculpture garden and to the American History Museum. We finished the war exhibit. It made me very grateful for all the men and women who have sacrificed everything for the freedom that I take for granted. I had been complaining a couple days before about not feeling appreciated. The administration at my school canceled an event that we had been planning for weeks. It was very inconsiderate and it made us all feel very unappreciated. My roomates and I spent the night talking about how upset and hard it was to deal with. The next morning we got on the metro and a man in a military uniform looked over at us. Very genuinely he turned to us and thanked us for our service. Here was a man who had volunteered to fight for the rest of us and give his life if needed, and he was thanking us for our service. It was a good reminder to me that I have a Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me. I didn't pray for it, but he knew what I needed to hear. I know that He loves me. We thanked the man and told him how much it meant to us, and thanked him for his service. He then gave us a pep talk to encourage us to keep going. It was a really nice.
After this experience and then going through the war exhibit I can't help but feel like it was stupid to feel unappreciated. I am not risking my life to save someone else. I am working with children all day long. That just doesn't seem like much of a sacrifice anymore. I am blessed to work with them and just love them.
This is a really long post, but a lot happened this week. Saturday I went to Gettysburg, Philadelphia, and Valley Forge. We left early in the morning. Nick drove us. We went to Gettysburg first. It was a very pretty place. Obviously a little sobering since so many men had died there. I can't imagine what that would have been like. We then went to Philly. I thought that I had gotten tickets to Independence Hall but apparently it didn't work. So we got to see the outside of it. We did get to see the Liberty bell though. We also saw a Quaker church, Ben Franklin's grave sight, and the town hall which was home to the Supreme court for a while. It was fun to see Philadelphia and some of those things. We then went to Valley Forge. It was pretty cool. I was tired and had seen enough open fields for the day, but it was cool to see Washington's headquarters. I touched the original banister that Washington would have used. We then got some dinner at Boston Market and went home. It was a very full day of driving and sight seeing, but it was enjoyable. It was Michaelann, Kiera, Michelle and Nick. They are all so great that no matter what we do we have fun.
This is my last full week here. I have some stuff planned, and things to do before I leave so I should be pretty busy. I am looking forward to having life slow down again though.
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