Bring Him Home

I love Les Miz! It's my all time favorite play, and this week the 25th anniversary concert has been on PBS. Musical joy! This musical version of "Bring Him Home" also showed up this week in my email through a Youtube subscription. I posted another video of Steven Sharp Nelson on my class blog. He and Jon Schmidt are so very talented. Check out their other videos if you get a chance. If you watch this on YouTube, be sure to read the dedication to our troops and the story behind the video by clicking on "show more." The lyrics are also posted; very moving when you think of our troops. We especially pray for Trevor, who's in Iraq, to be home safe in a few months.

Two posts in one day?!

Wow! With two new posts below (and this could count as the third), that must mean that I don't have to post for at least another year! With school starting that's probably what will happen anyway.

UP House!

We interrupt this family vacation to bring the the real life "UP" house. Featured in this year' Parade of Homes, it's like a piece of Disney in Utah. Bangerter Homes was looking for a theme home for this year's parade and came up with this popular idea. Unfortunately, all I have are pictures from my phone, so look past the blurriness to the cute.

Russell and Carl were on hand to greet us. My mom is the stand-in for Ellie.
The famous mailbox. The homebuilders watched the movie hundreds of times to get every detail right.

Ellie's chair was custom made.

This Paradise Falls savings jar sits on top of an old fashioned cabinet TV.
Right above these pictures on the wall was a shelf with blue plates (watch the movie and you'll see what I mean).
Ellie's adventure book.
The mantle details were so cute.

Sweet nursery. Even with all of the Disney details, this was a home that didn't feel cartoonish, but very live-able and warm.

The builders had to imagine the parts of the home that weren't in the movie and they did a great job of building a modern home with a cool retro vibe. I loved the color and look of the appliances.

The master bedroom had racks for ties...
...and continues the round furniture for Ellie and the square furniture for Carl theme.
The master bathroom was beautiful. There were so many other cute details. A hall table with Carl's hats and bookshelves at the top of the stairs that open to reveal a storage area are just a few. A theatre room was also built in the basement. One guess as to what movie was playing!
An old fashioned Ford truck in the garage completed the house. And yes they do put balloons on the roof, but only on the weekends. The kids did get a balloon at the end of the tour.
Some fun facts we learned from talking to the builder: Disney/Pixar was actually easier to get approval from than expected. Disney approved the building of the house but only on the condition that Disney keep the house plans. Could an UP house soon be in Disneyland's future? The roof had to be pitched really steep so that the stairs would fit and give people room to stand at the top. The house was built to resemble the one in the movie when Carl and Ellie were first married. A Pixar animator and the brother of the Pixar president have been in the house and took pictures. The development where the house is built requires the home to be repainted to normal colors after the Parade of Homes, but now that they're seeing the interest it's generating, that may be reconsidered.

My kids really want to live here. Who can blame them? So do I.

Philly

Years ago I visited Philadelphia during an American history tour and was only able to spend a few hours there. Same thing on this trip, since we were just stopping by on our way from D.C. to NYC. I would love to go back and see more. All of the Ben Franklin attractions were closed for renovation, so there is my excuse to return.

We were hours late for our time to tour Independence Hall (that's what happens when you are coming from miles and miles away), but the wonderful park rangers still let us in. We also toured Congress Hall (pictured below) which was the U.S. Capitol from 1790 to 1800. George Washington took his second oath of office in this building.

Independence Hall next door (where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and adopted) was being refurbished on the outside, so a huge cloth picture of what the bell tower should look like was placed over the scaffolding (another excuse to come back).

Beautiful detailing inside Independence Hall.

See this chair? George Washington really did sit here. It is original to the room and has a sun carved into the back. Ben Franklin made the comment that what happened in this room would determine if the sun was rising or setting on the country.

Liberty Bell. Notice in both pictures that apparently the bell has feet. Hard to find a shot without someone else in the picture.

At dinner time, next to this building....

...we found some delicious Philly cheese steak sandwiches. Yum!

Washington D.C.

Here's a quick tour of our two days in Washington D.C. First the Capitol. Even though I'd been there before, I'd forgotten how big it (and all the other buildings and monuments) are.

Our tour of the Capitol was fun; especially the inside of the Dome. The original idea was to have sculptures all around the inside of the dome. When that proved to be too expensive, artwork that looked like sculpture was used instead. I was fooled when I first walked in, until our guide explained what we were seeing. If you are good friends with a Congressman or Senator they can actually take you up on the walkways in the very top of the dome. Apparently they take their staff and interns. Talk about vertigo!

This is the very center of Washington D.C. All points in the city are measured from this point in the Capitol. The center is indented from all the people standing on it over the years.

Thanks to Jim Matheson's office, we had a more personalized tour of the Capitol given by one of his interns. He showed us a place on the floor where a cat had stepped in the wet cement. Apparently, cats used to be regular inhabitants to keep down the mice. There are no more cats, but the story is that just before national disasters people will see a ghost cat in the Capitol. Just one of the interesting tidbits we learned.

We walked all the way around the tidal basin to visit Jefferson....

...and Roosevelt. This monument was newer. It consisted of several different "rooms" to commemorate each of the four times he was elected President. Each had a water feature that isn't shown in the pictures.

The kids listen to a fireside chat...

...and stand in an unemployment line.

We loved seeing Lincoln.

The Vietnam Memorial is another one that I hadn't seen. It wasn't there on my previous trip as a ninth grader. It was touching to see the many flowers and memorials at the monument.

And it was interesting to see our ghost like shadows reflected in the names of those who gave their lives for our country.

The World War II Memorial was peaceful and the cool water was nice to sit beside.

The Washington Monument was closed for a short time just before our tour to the top. Apparently a tourist had left a backpack down below (with the permission of the security guard who wasn't supposed to let that happen). When someone questioned the presence of the backpack, the security guard didn't want to fess-up, so the place was evacuated. They were just letting people back in when we walked up, and we heard the story from another tourist. There was also a helicopter circling the area. A short while later we noticed that the streets were blocked off and a motorcade was coming through town. Was it the President? It looked like his limo and that even more than the evacuation of the monument would explain the presence of the helicopter.

We found a turtle on the grass laying eggs.

We learned the Washington Monument is stone on stone with no other supporting structure. Really? Isn't that why we had to have a multi-million dollar renovation of the Utah State Capitol? I guess they aren't too worried about earthquakes in that part of the nation.

We also loved visiting the Smithsonian museums.

We saw Wilbur and Orville's original plane with new canvas and probably more than a few replaced wood struts, but otherwise as original as you can get.

The Hope Diamond was in a temporary new setting to commemorate the 50th anniversary of its being displayed by the Smithsonian. After this year it will be returned to its traditional setting.

We finally made it to the White House.

Note the sniper, security guards on the roof. No wonder tours are so hard to get!

We also visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial. Here Camille and Rachel stand outside.
I didn't take any pictures of the inside. I don't even remember if you could; I just remember that I didn't. I don't remember anyone asking us to be quiet, but it was rather silent inspite of the large crowds. The museum is very moving, powerful and truthful. I had to hustle Rachel past a few displays, though I recognized that some elements of the history could have been told much more graphically.

We saw many other cool things that you can't take pictures of: the flag that stood over Fort McHenry and inspired "The Star Spangled Banner," the very faded writing of the original Declaration of Independence in the National Archives, along with the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the room in the Capitol where Congress meets just to name a few.

We ended our tour of D.C. with a trip to the beautiful temple. Next stop-Philadelphia!

Mount Vernon and Arlington

Our first stop on our trip was Mount Vernon. This house and surrounding museums could take all day to visit and ended up being one of the kids' favorite places. I loved seeing Washington's home; he considered himself a farmer first and foremost and used many innovative farming practices for his time. It was also interesting to see how revered he was among his contemporaries. His accomplishments were recognized even in his day. No pictures were allowed inside the home, but green was Washington's favorite color and the family dining room had bright green walls. Green was also an expensive color and indicated the wealth of the homeowner. Other walls were painted blue, another expensive color.

Appropriately, we were there visiting the home of the father of our country on Father's Day. An actor portrayed Washington and did a great job of telling his story.
I was in the gift shop looking at this year's Christmas ornament for Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon creates a new ornament every year, and since our family adds one new ornament to celebrate each year this seemed serendipitous. I noticed that this year's Mount Vernon ornament had the Arnold Friberg painting, "Prayer at Valley Forge" on the back. The little explanation with the ornament said that the original is at Mount Vernon. We had passed a painting that we all thought was a copy. It was under glass, but other than that there was no indication that the painting was special.We ran back into the museum to get a picture.

The curator said "We get a lot of Salt Lake Mormons that go crazy over the painting." I told him I would be one of those. For a painting that's supposedly worth millions you'd think they'd make a bigger deal out of it.

Because we spent so much time at Mount Vernon we were left with little time to see Arlington National Cemetery. We had enough time for a quick bus tour and to see the changing of the guard which was very precise and impressive. We are so grateful for our armed forces.