Day 173: The Monuments

In the morning we toured the Capitol building and the Library of Congress and in the afternoon we walked around the monuments. We spent the middle of the day visiting museums, though I can't quite remember what we did on which day.

Day 172: A Week of Museums

This week we visited eleven museums in four days, and ten of those were actually within a three-day time-span. Today's visits included the Musuem of Natural History and the Ford Theatre, where Lincoln was shot.

Day 171: Washington D.C.

We started another busy day in New York. Dad and I went to the Today Show, where we met Anne Curry. We then headed over to Good Morning America where I met Alicia Keys, after she performed. After a too-quick trip to the Metropolitan Museum, we hopped on a train to D.C.

We had a yummy Greek dinner and then walked around the White House.

Day 170: Top of the Rock

We spent more time today enjoying the city. Amara and I walked around Central Park while the rest of the group went to Yankee Stadium. We visited all kinds of places: the Brooklyn Bridge, the Plaza Hotel, Tiffany's, Trump Tower, FAO Schwarz, the Apple Store, and the list could go on.

We had fantastic Chinese food in Chinatown and lychee ice cream for desert. To finish off we went to the top of Rockefeller Center, known as Top of the Rock, to take in the city at night.

Day 169: New York, New York

On Sunday we left the boy's ranch and all headed our separate ways for vacation time. Our first stop was New York City. We walked around and saw a lot of the sights, including the Statue of Liberty.

Food is always important to my family and we are really food travelers. Dinner was at Lombardi's, the first pizzeria in America. The meatball pizza was quite good, though we also enjoyed margherita and clam pizzas.

Day 168: Ranch Hands

This is our group, minus two who had to go home earlier, at the boy's ranch on Long Island. We traveled (by bus and ferry) from Massachusetts to Long Island, New York to spend a day with the boys at the ranch.

Day 167: Completion

We finished up the biggest task that we had to complete - insulating the dining hall. Amara even cut the last board with the power saw! The entire week, people were working on the hall and it was wonderful to get it finished.

Day 166: Misty Lake

After a couple of days of sun, the rain clouds moved in. This put a hamper on a lot of our work, but also made for beautiful cool weather. In the evening, the lake was beautiful and misty.

Day 165: Fireside Devo

Each night we lit a fire and had a devo around it. I love sitting around a fire and singing worship songs. The only that would have made it better would have been a s'more!

Day 164: Painting Signs

One project that I spent a lot of time on was painting signs. These signs, and a few others, will help direct people to the camp. We had fun making them and I take pride in those lovely, uniform letters (we had to make the templates ourselves).

Day 163: This Old House

One of the big projects during the week was to tear down the rickety porch from this house and rebuild it.  The house itself was built in 1799, so it's quite old. The man who owns it also owns a lot of land filled with maple trees. He harvests syrup and sells it. We ate his pure maple syrup all week long, and of course are taking some home with us. It is so good!

Day 162: Timothy Hill Christian Camp

The camp, which is near Huntington, Massachusetts, was beautiful. It's set on this lovely little lake and the weather is nice and cool.

We got straight to work when we arrived and were busy, from 7:30 in the morning to after 6:00 at night. It was a fun but exhausting week.

Day 161: Ranch Team

I'm up at this early hour because I'm headed up north on a mission trip with my church. We're going to the Timothy Hill Children's Ranch, on Long Island to work with the boys and to do construction work at the camp in Massachusetts. I'm looking forward to these next couple of weeks of work and play.

Like when I went to Egypt earlier this year, I will still take a picture every day. I won't be able to upload them until I get back, however, so you'll just have to wait until then!

Day 160: GRE

Yep, I took the GRE today. I didn't do all that well, but I suppose that's to be expected since I didn't study much for it. My math score was particularly atrocious, though verbal score was actually pretty high. I am most definitely not a math person.

I also had breakfast with Anna this morning, which was a lot fun. Pancakes from Cracker Barrel = yumm.

Day 159: Earrings

One of my good friends, Anna, gave me this earring holder for my birthday. I put all of my earrings on it today, and I think it looks great! I used to keep my earrings in plastic ziploc baggies, so I definitely needed this. And it's so cute too! Thanks, Anna.

Day 158: Balderdash

I had another game night tonight with some friends. We played Balderdash and Last Word, which were both a lot of fun. I never do well in Balderdash, but it's one of my favourite games - after Catch Phrase, of course.

Day 157: Morning Coffee

Most mornings, I have coffee or tea. Sometimes I even have more than one cup. It's been hot here the past few days, so I decided to cool my coffee down today. I did this by mixing ice cream with the coffee, of course. Coffee shakes are even tastier than iced coffee!

Day 156: Hot

It's been hot here, and it's staying hot here. It was still 98 out at 9:30 this evening! It's times like this when I wish I had a pool.

Day 155: Mavs

We again gathered to watch the Mavs game over dinner. Since they won the championship (woohoo), I guess we'll have to find something else to do when we get together. These ladies are awesome and we had fun with some poster-board while watching the game. Don't you like our sign?

Day 154: Saturday Night Coffee

JoAnna came into town today, so we were able to do Saturday night coffee. It feels like it's been forever! I love these girls so much, and I'm so thankful for the time we were able to spend together tonight.

Day 153: Laying Around

I didn't do much today, other than apply for a couple of jobs and study for the GRE. So, Java is once again my picture of the day. But isn't she just so cute?

Day 152: Take a Deep Breath

I got together with friends to watch the basketball game again. Tonight the boys cooked dinner for us, which was pretty awesome. The last quarter of the game is always the most exciting and the most important. Poor Katelyn was nervous, and the boys kindly provided her a bag to breathe into.

We also played a few rounds of Catchphrase and Anna and I were, for the first time ever, beaten. We both love that game and when we're on a team together, we're formidable. I will say, we won two rounds and the boys only won one. That must count for something, right?

Day 151: Sunset

I never can resist a good sunset. I took a picture earlier in the day of the dentist's chair, because that's what I did in the morning - a teeth cleaning. But the sunset wowed me today, and I had to try and take a picture. I would really like to learn more about taking good pictures of the sky. As always, my picture doesn't even come close to doing the sky justice. The sun was a big fiery ball of orange and pink tonight, even though it looks yellow here.

Day 150: Stir Fry

I got together with some friends tonight to watch the basketball game. We started the evening off with a stir fry. We just picked up some veggies from the store, chopped them and threw them in the wok. We didn't judge the amount of food very well, so we ended up with a huge pile of veggies. It was awfully hard to stir, but turned out quite good. And the Mavs won, which is also quite good.

Day 149: Tzatziki

Just another quick picture today. We had curried chicken for dinner tonight, and Mom and I made up this tzatziki to go with it. Technically tzatziki is a Greek dish, but cool yogurt dishes go well with spicy Indian food as well. It was pretty tasty.

Day 148: Raspberry-Peach Sprite

This way-cool coke machine is at Wendy's. My sister and I were way more excited by it then we probably should be. There were twenty drink choices, and then you could put flavours in the drinks. I had a raspberry, peach sprite with a hint of vanilla. Yum, yum. It's like getting a drink at Sonic, but you get to make the drink yourself!

And yes, this is my fourth post in a row about a food or beverage. But who doesn't love food?

Day 147: Crawfish Boil

I have another food post today. My family loves food, and we love trying new dishes or eating the speciality of a place. So today we headed over to Shane's, a seafood place in Shreveport. Dad, Amara and I shared these crawfish and some boudin, a Cajun sausage. They sure were good! And I had never had a crawfish boil before, so it was a lot of fun as well.

Day 146: Muffy Sandwich

We drove to Shreveport, LA today to see my grandparents. We were planning the trip anyway, but my grandma has some health issues and was admitted to the hospital earlier this week. She's going to be just fine, but it is good to see them all the same.

We stopped at this sandwich shop for lunch. The make muffulettas, which are sandwiches with several types of meat, cheese and an olive salad. They were so good!

Day 145: Perini Ranch

Today's your lucky day - you get three pictures! This evening I headed out to Perini Ranch for a birthday dinner with some of my wonderful friends. Of course, we had to take a picture with the armadillo!

Perini's is a steakhouse and they make a fantastic steak hamburger. In fact, Food Network named it the best hamburger in Texas and the Today Show voted it to be one of the best burgers in the country. I enjoyed an awesome burger, some awesome friends and a beautiful sunset. What a good day!

Day 144: Party

Today we had and engagement party for one of my wonderful friends, Katherine. She and her fiancé are so cute! We had a good time celebrating and eating. She's getting married next summer and asked me to be one of her bridesmaids.