"I like the train"

Megan is officially a Washingtonian -- we took her on her first Metro ride yesterday to head downtown to the Eastern Market, a street market just east of the Capitol building.





At first she was a little nervous, but she quickly warmed up to it.



The Eastern Market was pretty neat. There was a farmer's market with loads of fresh vegetables, people selling jewelry, photography and paintings.


We found this crazy bookstore crammed into a tiny storefront. Mike accidentally knocked over a stack of books and pretended it wasn't him.



The "foreign language" section was conveniently located in the bathroom.


Megan always has a great time being out and about.



And here's Megan's funny quote of the week:

We were over at someone's house who has a hamster, and Megan was quite intrigued. After looking at him for a while she said, "I don't have a hamster...but I have paintbrushes!"

Ask and ye shall receive...

This is what a Mike-and-Kimmie-baby looks like...



And this is what Mike looks like working in a cubicle (and drinking yerba mate)...


We just wanted to remind you since it's been a while since we had a baby, and it's been a while since Mike had a job, and now we're going to do both again.

Kim is 17 weeks along, due on April 22nd. We will find out what we're having on December 5th. She is just starting to show, and she hasn't really been sick (although she's felt a little worse than she did with Megan).

So it's a good thing that Mike finally found gainful employment. After 9 months of looking and many dead ends, Mike finally got the perfect job. He is working at a global health contractor for USAID on the President's Malaria Initiative. The project covers several African countries, and Mike is super excited about it.

We feel really blessed, and we're excited about all of the changes coming up in our lives.

Social Pressure and a New Baby

Since I don't have much in the way of new pictures for this week, I thought I would take this time to show some pictures of my new nephew as well as try to put some pressure on Jared and Carolee to update their blog (which was last updated on May 20th, back when Bush still enjoyed a 31% approval rating and the dancing sequence in Spider-Man 3 was angering audiences.)

Andrew Gene was born on Thursday, October 25, 2007 at 4:59 am. He was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 20 inches long. He's pretty dang cute.




Jared says, "Isaac has been really good with the baby so far. Occasionally he doesn't understand that he isn't being very soft, but he loves to hold the baby and point to the baby's facial features. (I won't let him point out the baby's eyes and he can't understand why)."



We're very excited about this new addition to the family, and hope we can see some more pictures of him before we go home for Christmas. (See how easy that was?)

More Cowbell

This year marked the first time that Megan understood that by dressing up as something cute or scary, total strangers would throw candy at her. Even though Sean Hannity says Halloween is a liberal plot to teach our children to expect handouts, I prefer to think of it as the day we celebrate our occult heritage.

Here we are lighting the pumpkins (you're right Lonna, Megan is still intrigued by fire -- we've decided as a family to never tell her about Mike lighting fires at the bus stop in the 6th grade and nearly getting suspended.) Megan looks very reminiscent of Princess Leia recording her message for Obi Wan Kenobi here.


We joined up with all the other two year olds that live by us, and we hit the street.


I'm not sure why Megan is giving Noah this look.





As I've mentioned elsewhere, this year Megan knew the candy was for her. We're kind of nervous that we no longer live by our dentist.


P.S. By the way, if you don't know why this pumpkin deserved a blurry, flashless picture, do yourself a favor and watch this SNL clip.

Pumpkins, Pumpkins and More Pumpkins

Megan's "Notes" class went on a field trip to Cox Farms last week. This is not just any farm -- they have slides, mazes, hay rides, an animal petting area, all-you-can-eat apples and cider, hay rides, and a huge pumpkin patch. Megan loved it.







On Friday we had our annual pumpkin carving night. We invited our friends Neil and Pari (from Weber State who have been living in D.C for two years) over for cheese soup and root beer.




Megan didn't like the idea of cleaning out the pumpkin (she doesn't like to get her hands sticky). So she thought it was funner and less sticky to put candy corn teeth in her pumpkin. She also loved the fire in the pumpkins.




We're holding two contests with these weeks post: 1) Can you guess what Mike's pumpkin is (the middle one)? 2) Which pumpkin is best?

Also, we know that no one will care about Halloween pictures next week (we saw our first Christmas commercial tonight), so stay tuned -- pictures of Megan trick-or-treating are on the way.

5 Years Ago on a Beautiful Day Like This One

On Wednesday Kim and I celebrated our five year anniversary, which means that we've finally been married longer than we dated for (the tenth anniversary from our first date will be December 5th). People who were there for that beautiful October day will remember it as the best wedding they've ever been to.


We decided to celebrate by having a picnic on the national mall. Unfortunately, we didn't count on the Solar Decathlon taking place on our anniversary, so after 30 minutes of driving around looking for a parking space while our lunch got cold, we finally gave up and drove over to the tidal basin in front of the Jefferson memorial.


The aroma of this rotisserie chicken was enough to nearly kill me as I frantically looked for a parking place. We've officially found a second restaurant to add to our favorites list here in D.C. -- El Pollo Rico (along with Five Guys burgers). El Pollo Rico is a Peruvian place that does only rotisserie chicken, fries and coleslaw. You can get a quarter, half or whole chicken. We got a half, and it was awesome.



Megan had a great time dancing around the monuments, as usual. I should do a post with Megan dancing and singing around every one of our national buildings.




After Megan's nap our friend Amy was nice enough to watch Megan for us. We went to eat at Old Ebbitt Grill across from the White House, and went to see Angels in the Dust at the E Street Cinema. It was a really moving documentary about orphans of HIV/AIDS in Africa. We had a great anniversary, and it was nice to get out on the town together.




P.S. We also wanted to thank Grandma Frost for the Halloween package she sent for Megan this week -- she loved it.

Playing

Megan seems like she gets a little older every day, and she is starting to play like a kid instead of a toddler. She's a lot of fun. Make sure to look for her new favorite ability: jumping.

Backpacking With the Girls

Some ladies in our new ward have a tradition of going on an annual hiking/camping adventure. I was lucky enough to get here just in time for this year's trip, and Mike was good enough to stay home with Megan (who told everyone she saw "Momma's hiking, she come back tomorrow.") I've always wanted to try backpacking, and this was my chance. It was great. We left Friday and did Stephen's Trail along the Massanutten Mountain ridge line in the Shenandoahs, camping on top of Kennedy Peak.


Here is a picture of our mountain crew. From left to right: Heather, Rene, Jesse and Amy. Rene and Jesse were in charge, and they brought the tent (which we didn't use) and the camp stove. Mike let me use his favorite backpack that he got for his Chile trip last summer.


The trail was beautiful, the leaves were just starting to change colors.


We hiked 5 miles, and stopped and spent the night at this structure on top of Kennedy Peak. We didn't really know this thing was here, but when we saw it we decided to spend the night here under the stars rather than set up the tent. It was a good choice, the stars were fantastic.


The first part of the trail was not too bad, but the last mile or so rose in a steady incline and we were pretty tired once we made camp. I had some dehydrated beef stew for dinner. It was way better than I expected it would be. We also roasted smores over the camp stove.


We watched the sun set.


And rise.


In the morning we got ourselves together, and I was real glad that Amy brought hot chocolate. We shot the BB guns that Jesse and Rene brought. I was a pretty good shot.


We hiked 5 miles back to the car, and got some terrible Mexican food on the way home. I didn't struggle too much on the hike, but now I am hobbling around the house and I'm glad it was conference weekend so that I didn't have to limp around church today.

I had a great time, and I can't wait to do it next year.