Wow! June has been a busy month. With family visits, a trip to Washington DC and the Carnival musical, I really haven’t had time to write.  The musical is over now.  I’m kind of relieved. It was a fun thing to do but it was a huge time commitment.  We will see if I do it next year. I guess it really depends on which musical they choose.  Hopefully they do something fun next year.  Carnival was fun and it actually grew on me a bit by the end.  Some of the lines were very risqué.  Like the fox “puppet” telling Lily (the orphan girl) to follow his tall. The scene with the puppets was the best part of the musical. It had us cracking up laugh in the pit orchestra, even on the last night after hearing the same lines over 10 times.  The last two performances were difficult for me because I had to play both Trombone books.  It was a bit of a juggle as each book had different moving lines and deciding which line was important.  Also the sun was really hot the last two days. We faced the sun during the first hour and a half so it was a bit brutal.  It was nice that my family was able to see it last weekend and DJ got to see it last night. That really makes playing for the musical extra special.

Also this weekend…we finally got with the 21^st century and got a DVR.  It is so nice.  I love that I can stop and start a show I’m watching.  For example, on Saturday Ryan Doumit (Twin’s catcher) got a fast ball to the face. It was awesome to rewind it and watch it over and over again. Mostly because I can’t believe his reaction, he acted like it was no big deal.  Another awesome thing is I have an app on my iPad that allows me to change the channel on the TV.  So when Eric is watching a soccer game that I’m bored with and he has the remote, I can just change the channel from my iPad. I don’t think Eric likes that!  LOL!  But coolest thing is last night we could “record” the Sunday night shows that Eric was going to miss because he was going to the musical.  I have a feeling this will lead to more TV watching…probably not a good thing.

Nothing much on the agenda for this week, it is nice to have nothing to do.  It is a great way to end this busy month of June.

Praying for my Aunt Grace. 

So on June 5th I lost a very important member of my flowering community. The lawnmowers got to my one and only iris:

I was so sad. I nearly cried. How could they have done this to my baby?  I had been waiting two long years for these irises to come up and only one came up…or so I thought.  This is what peaked out through my day lilies (which have taken over):

This iris is so beautiful.  I'm so happy. Life is good again!  I can’t wait to see the day lilies too. They are starting to bud and it looks like there will be a lot of them. :) I might get my green thumb yet! 

It has been one busy week and weekend!  After we got back from DC, we had to get Eric’s first draft of his Chapters 1 and 2 of his thesis done and I started technical rehearsals for the musical Carnival!. I have had technical rehearsals every night this week from 6-9:30.  To say I’m exhausted is an understatement!   We didn’t get much sleep while on vacation. We were up late every night and never really had a chance to sleep in.  So I’m sleep deprived from vacation and add the 4 solid nights of not being home after work…I don’t how some people do it!  On top of that, I developed another f’ing cold. Where did this one come from?  The rainy day at Mount Vernon?  The plane?  The night we rehearsed in the rain?  I really don’t know but right now I’m very stuffed up. 

So the musical Carnival! It is a 1961 Broadway show about a wide-eyed orphan who comes to the Grand Imperial Cirque de Paris! There are puppeteers, magicians, jugglers and circus performers.  I have to say some of the script is funny but really it is an odd duck of a musical.  The music is fun. I downloaded the soundtrack so I could listen to it and make sure I’m playing it right.

This weekend Mom, Mike and Danielle came up. Friday night Danielle and I went to the Twins game. They lost…again! Saturday we went to Como Zoo and Conservatory. As always it was busy there. Here are a few pictures: 

After that and some shopping at IKEA we relax at home, waiting for Eric to get home from school.  I thought the musical was in jeopardy when a major storm came through but We had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings and then I made them go to my musical. I think they enjoyed it.  After hearing the musical for 5 times now, I can tell when the actors screw up.  It cracks me up too when I catch them. Eric took a few pictures for me:

Yesterday we went shopping to Costco and I made Monster Cookies for them. It was a good busy week.

We had a fun, exhausting weekend in the DC area.  We flew out to DC Thursday afternoon. Eric’s cousin, Elizabeth, picked us up at the airport.  First stop was the Burger Joint for some delicious burgers.  We didn’t really do anything the rest of the evening except get friendly with the various critters at the house.  

Friday morning Tropical Storm Andrea decided to pay us a visit (what is it with me and hurricanes on vacation?). We knew it was coming so some of us came prepared.  I had a little umbrella which was a life saver.  I was still got wet but I wasn’t soaked to the bone like Eric and my camera was saved from the torrential down pours. Elizabeth kept saying the heavy stuff is still coming. LOL!  Elizabeth, Amanda, her daughter, Eric and I ventured down to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s plantation. I had visited the place in 1995 with my mom and dad.  I remember some parts of it but some of the exhibit places were new. We checked out the plantation and the museums. After lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn, we went to Old Town Alexandria. We didn’t get out, just drove around the streets that George Washington traveled.  We also drove up to the Masonic Memorial to Washington.

Soaked at Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon

Saturday turned out to be a great day.  Eric and I took the Metro into downtown DC and rented some bikes and biked around the monuments.  It was so nice to not have to walk the whole distance. We biked over 8 miles so I couldn’t imagine walking all of that.  We started at the Capitol and made our way down the National Mall, over the Tidal Basin to Thomas Jefferson Memorial, and the slow making our way to the Lincoln Memorial with stops at the George Mason, FDR, MLK and Korea Memorials. MLK is a new one. On our way to WWII Memorial we stopped by Vietnam. So we saw all the monuments and even a few new ones that I haven’t seen before. It was a great day. My arms and face got sunburned. I bought sunscreen, just forgot to put it in my camera bag before we left Elizabeth’s house. Oops!

Eric at the Capitol

Lincoln Memorial

Kim on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial with Washington Monument in back.

After we finished with our biking tour we took the Metro back to Springfield and we went out for dinner with Elizabeth and Amanda at a really good steakhouse and then she took us around downtown DC so I could take pictures of the monuments at night. It was such a beautiful night.  I got some good pictures.

WWII Memorial at night

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Memorial at night

Lincoln Memorial at night

Sunday we started the day at Ford’s Theatre, the place Lincoln was shot and across the street at the house that he died. It was an interesting presentation; I learned a lot more about his assassination. 

The Box where Lincoln was shot - Ford's Theatre

After that we went down to National’s Ballpark to see the Twins play the Nationals. The park was nice, nothing to special.  It didn’t really have a view of anything.  You can see part of the capitol dome in one part of the stadium but that was about it. I got a picture of me and President Taft. The highlight of the day was the Presidential Race.  Teddy Roosevelt was winning but he was tackled by a giant cicada bug (cicadas are large insects, about an inch and a half long, with black bodies, red eyes and delicate wings, they only surface every 17 years, and now is the time). George Washington won.  Poor Teddy never wins. 

Me and President Taft

Presidential Race...Teddy is winning!

Teddy was tackled by a cicada bug (check out the red eyes)!

Nationals Ballpark

So that is our DC trip in a nutshell.  It was fun!

More pictures can be found:
Mount Vernon and Old Town Alexandria, VA

Biking DC & Monuments at Night

Ford's Theatre & Nationals Park

Wow, my legs are tired today. We had a very busy weekend. Michael and Cassidy came up Thursday evening.  Friday morning, after we took Swirl to the vet, we started our first day of touring. We started out at the Sculpture Garden at the Walker art museum so they could see the famous Spoon and Cherry.  You have probably seen it; the NFL always show it whenever the Vikings are playing on national TV. 

After that we went downtown and had lunch and walked around Nicollet Mall. I took them to the downtown Target to show them the cart escalator. It is a crazy thing but I think it is cool and so did they. We buzzed by the Metrodome so Michael could see the Vikings home.  Next stop was the Guthrie Theater and the Stone Arch bridge followed by the Minnehaha Waterfall. We hiked down to the bottom of the falls and even put our feet in the water.  It was a little cold.  Then the rain came. We ran under a tree but it wasn’t letting up so we darted up the stairs to the car.

We hit the Mall of America and Nickelodeon Universe. We did a lot of shopping, probably the most I have ever done at the MOA.  It was fun though. We also went on two rides.  It was a fun! After the Mall we headed across the street to IKEA so Michael could get his meatballs.  When they lived in Virginia, they would go to IKEA often and Michael devoured the meatballs.  We bought him some frozen one to take home with him.  (number of steps: 15,545)

Saturday I did a 15 mile bike ride in the morning. We went back downtown, first to the Gophers’ new stadium and shop and then Target Field for a Twins game.

The game was fine but the wind started to really blow and then the rain came. Twins won so that was good! We got a picture of them in the glove.  I love this sculpture!

In the evening, DJ, Abbie and Beth stopped by for dinner.  Abbie had a soccer tournament in Maple Grove.  (Her team was undefeated in pool play but lost the championship game on Sunday with 50 seconds left in overtime.) After they left, we made another trip to the Mall of America.  Man, Michael likes to shop!  (number of steps: 23,471)

Yesterday I went for almost a 4 mile run. My GPS watch stopped working and was stuck at 2.73 miles for a few minutes.  When it reconnected with the GPS I was at over 3 miles.  It was pretty amazing I went from 2.73 to like 3.14 in less than 5 seconds!  My fastest pace ever!  The only bad thing is it didn’t get all of my miles logged so it was off by 2 tenths of a mile. After that, we went to Valleyfair and rode a ton rides.  My face got sunburned, I'm so red! And it hurts.  I'm stupid, I didn't think about sun screen. It was cloudy and 60 degrees. Oh well, I'll probably be tan here soon.  After that we just chilled at home. (Number of steps: 18,167)

So what’s the deal with the “Number of steps?” Well we are doing the Get Out and Get Fit Program at work. We are supposed to get 10,000 steps a day. Well my average for the last 3 days was over 19,000. :)  As you can tell, my legs are tired.