Day of Many Tours

Today I finally got to sleep in just a bit thank goodness because the three hour time change was kicking my butt. I went down to Rachel's office and met up with her for my tour of the Capital building.

 The fun little subway they have between the Russell Building and the Capital.

 Rachel gave me my own private little tour! I felt pretty special. This was the old Supreme Court Chamber which was on the bottom floor and as you can see it was rather dark.In fact Washington's crypt which was never used was right down the hall.

 The dome in the Senate side of the Capital. We went into the Senate chambers for a few minutes to watch since they were in session. The house was not.

 This is the crypt which is beneath the main rotunda. It has lots of people. 

Some are statues and some are real. lol

 In the center of the floor there is this marker. This marker was used to lay out the streets of Washington DC. Tradition has it that if you put your foot in the center of the marker you have good luck. Who's going to resist that? Does my foot look tired yet. Well it will by the end of the day for sure.

 This is the balcony. I think it was called the Speaker's balcony and it's big enough for just a couple of people. An incredible view of the mall right behind me!

 On the way out from the Speakers balcony I wanted to stop and take a picture of the door to the Speaker of the Houses door but the secretary told me no pictures. So I went through this door and turned around and took a picture. I am a rebel at heart apparently.

 This is the huge dome and it is being restored right now so they have a huge cloth to catch any pieces that may fall.It looked kinda cool actually. Besides what's a Cooper trip without scaffolding and construction.

Pocahontas' baptism was one of the huge paintings under the rotunda.

This was the old Senate chambers. Very ornate and grand.

 

Each state was allowed to put two statues somewhere in the Capital building and this is Brigham Young from Utah.

 

 The dome under the House side of the Capital building.

 After my Capital tour Rachel and I went back to the Russell building for lunch. When we were getting ready to get on the elevator in the basement Mitch McConnell and his secret service team were getting off. It was way cool to see him so close! He looked more powerful and had a better presence I thought than on tv. Cool. So we ate in the cafeteria because Mendis had raved about it and I wanted to check it out just us girls.

 After lunch I scurried over to the Library of Congress for my tour. It was pretty amazing but unfortunately you can't get into the really cool rooms like the reading rooms. I enjoyed hearing more about it though and they had a great gift shop lol.

 Jefferson's library

 The reading room that I recognized from National Treasure. I wanted to get in there pretty bad!

 Then I had just enough time to run to my tour of the Supreme Court. You aren't allowed to take pictures in there so this was it ..the cool spiral staircase. It really was cool. From there I ran back to the Library of Congress so I could check out some more exhibits and look around since I ran out of time before. I decided to go get my own Library of Congress card so next time I am there I can go into the reading room and do "research". After that I met up with everyone and we went to get dinner. We wanted to go Mexican for Cinquo de mayo but there was no hope of getting a table. So we went out to Foggy Bottom and went to Founding Farmers. An excellent choice. The only problem was the hour + wait. So since George Washington University was right down the street we went to check it out.

Jeff's home away from home

 

 I wanted Jeff to pose for me pretending to study but he would have none of that so Rachel stepped up. This is the hilarious result. Go Rachel.

Jeff @ his locker

 

 So it was finally time for dinner after we walked all around the whole campus. It was worth the wait. Excellent food. And as you can plainly see, excellent dessert!

My now famous picture of leaving Jeff & Rachel at the Metro station. While it was sad to say good night the real goodbye a few days later was defiantly worse.

Washington DC Bound

Our day started bright and early since we left the house at 5am. I never enjoy that part but it must be done.

 I just first take a minute to pause and have you notice my seat number. I have never ever been first on a plane ever!! And I probably never will again. How cool is that. We flew into Reagan airport which was actually the same price as the other airports. So Jeff & Rachel picked us up right at the curb and took us to their apartment. It is so cute. They have it setup perfectly. Rachel had cooked us dinner and we hung out for a bit then they drove us downtown to our hotel that night. I can't really mention Mendis in the blog for Mesquite reasons haha so know he was in meetings Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday and Wednesday he had appointments set up with the Senators and Reps from the state. Jeff and I went with him Monday to his conference. Then Jeff went with him to the rest of his meetings and all of his appointments. Jeff may not have loved it but Mendis loved having him there.

 I love those big windows at the end of the halls in Rachel's office building. So stately.

 We took Jeff & Rachel and had lunch down at the bottom of Union Station at the food court on Monday. We all just went and got what we wanted and ate together! Mendis and I went to Bo Jangles and got some excellent fried chicken.

It's a pretty central location so that worked out great.

 John F Kennedy's office from when he was a senator.

 There is a rotunda there in the Harmon building. Apparently that's where the Senator's do most of their interviews for the media. Who knew? I always thought they were at the capital. So after lunch we headed back to the conference for the afternoon. t about 3:30 I told dad if we were going to make the 4:00 tour at the bureau of engraving we either had to leave him or get going. We ran out of there hoping to use uber so we could get there on time. I was excited to try it but there was no cell service. So we grabbed a cab and got there just in the neck of time.
The Bureau of Printing and Engraving was really cool. That's where they print all the paper money. It was amazing to see it being so fast and the process they go through. Quite fascinating.

 That night we went back out to Crystal City and had dinner at Nando. Very yummy. One of Jeff's faves.

You live and die by the Metro map

The downtown area. Our home away from home.

May Fun

The last week of April/first week of May was crazy busy and super fun. It's funny how things happen in bunches. The end of April we went to see Brian Regan at Tuacahn. We love his show. We met up with Dr & Carolyn Jensen, Shelie & Jeff and Mike and Cheryl. We laughed until we cried.

 We even got off work an hour early so we could all go but no one 

else in the office was able to make it this year.

May 1 was May Day

We got to see Rees dance to "Move it, Move it".  He had those moves down.

The next day we had Tball and coach pitch and on into Vegas for Cinderella. Before we went to the play we met my Mom & Dad and Uncle Andy & Aunt Kathy at the Red Rock buffet. We wanted to stay well away from the strip because that was the night of the big fight. We gave them their choice of where to eat so we went to the buffet. We had a fun time eating and visiting and then we were off to the play at the Smith Center. As you can tell by the picture we were clear up at the top in the upper balcony. Be surprisingly you can see from everywhere. The play was awesome. We enjoyed every minute of it. We got home not too late which was good because there was a plane to catch the next morning!

Provo

We went up to Provo the weekend of April 18 so we could celebrate Laura & Rachel's Graduation from BYU and to see Mom & Dad who would be there for the festivities. We left home first thing Friday morning because we had some appointments with Stacey in St George on the way. As soon as we finished that we took the pickup over to Costco for new tires and then we met up with Hayden & Megan & Stacey for lunch at the Habit. Then Hayden got his tire cut up pretty bad so after lunch we took his car over to Costco and got his tire replaced. We picked up the glass for my desk from Jones Paint & Glass and parked the truck at Hayden's for the weekend and finally hit the road five short hours after we started!!

The celebration dinner at Tucano's. We love that place and everyone had a great time. We got there with no time to spare on the reservation. Hayden and Megan drove up after Megan got off work so they missed the dinner.

 After dinner we headed to the house Carolyn had rented for her family and chilled for awhile. After everyone got there we all took our guesses on where we thought Emily would be going on her mission. I won by the way since I guessed the Philippines and she is going to Hong Kong in August!

 We all spent the night at Christina's. And by all I mean Coopers. The next day we had lunch all together again at Zupas. After lunch we took Mom and Dad with us and went to the Payson Temple open house. What a beautiful Temple it is. I knew it would be pretty but the details were incredible. I especially loved the stain glass inside and out.

We weren't able to get tickets but luckily they let us all in on standby which cost us maybe one extra minute. That night we all met up again and this time we went to Mexican food. IT took over an hour to get seated so we were pretty starved by the time we sat down. It was a fun night. It rained on and off the whole weekend so we went back to Christina's that night and watched some TV and chilled with a pazookie. Yummy! What an awesome weekend. We had so much fun. On the way home the four of us stopped at G & G Cooper's for dinner and a visit.

Coach Pitch and TBall

Seems like just the other day we were attending tball and coach pitch games for our own children and now it's time to watch the grand kids already. Little kids playing baseball has got to be the cutest thing ever!

Once in awhile the whole Cooper cheering section would show up to cheer one of the boys on. So cool!

 Cooper played for the Red Sox. He was adorable. Apparently he took extremely good care of his gear and was so excited to play. This was his first team ever! He did great!!

 Rees played for the Orioles or as they said oreos.  He seemed to really enjoy playing catcher but did a great job at all his positions. He was really hitting the ball like a champ by the end of the season.

 Rees' team won the championship! He got a huge trophy to keep and a trip to McDonald's with Grammy & Grandpa to celebrate with lunch. The boys did a great job. It was awesome to cheer them on.

Clark County Fair 2015

 While Chris was here we had a movie night with Ashley & Jolynn one night and we went shopping in Vegas one day but pretty much the rest of the time I had to work until it was fair time! Thursday was carnival day. Christina headed up to Ashley's earlier and I met up with them all after I got home from work.

 Dane was too young for the carnival pass I got him so Christina used it and took him on as many rides as she could.

 

I love the photo bomber in the back ground.

I totally used my kids pictures from instagram so thanks kids!

 Saturday night Ashley got Megan's sister, Emilie and her friend to babysit so I could take all the adult kids to the rodeo. There were way too many of us to slip in the side gate and watch with Mendis.

 It was a fun night! And a fun fair actually even though I am usually not that excited to go to the fair any more.

  

Too bad I am too lazy to take the tag icon off that last picture I stold!