Thanksgiving
I just got back from my annual Thanksgiving "vacation" (I don't really consider it a true vacation, but it is one, I guess). We went to Springfield, VA, to visit my mom's parents and that whole side of the family. We left Wednesday and got caught in some of the lovely snow near Grantsville, so we made it to their house at like 1:30am.
Thursday we went to my Aunt Mary and Uncle Dick's house for the requisite turkey dinner, then hung around with an assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I now have a lot of pictures of my relatives on my camera, so that's cool. My youngest cousins, Nick and Taylor, are so adorable. Taylor's a natural little model, and they were both so excited to see their big brother Justin (another of my cousins... apparently he's not around a whole lot), it was really funny.
Friday I went on an adventure. Wednesday I had discovered that my copy of Outlaws of the Marsh (the 2100+ page book I've been reading for the last month or so) was missing 30 pages in one of the more important parts of the book. I was unhappy, since that meant I wouldn't be able to read further on the trip. So Thursday night I went looking online at library catalogs for the public libraries in the area, and discovered the Library of Congress had it. Naturally, Mom was kind of kidding when she suggested I could go there, but I am stubborn and had to go to read my 30 pages. So Dad and I caught the Metro (the light rail) and headed into DC. We had to register for reader cards (a.k.a. library cards), so now I have a Library of Congress library card *grins*. I was way too excited about that. Dad and I ended up traversing a few different buildings to get what we needed, and ended up spending like 4 hours in the library. But I got to read my pages, and the main reading room there is gorgeous. Plus the coat-check guy gave me a poster randomly, so that was cool too.
When Dad and I finally got back to Grandma and Grandpa's, the rest of my family had watched a video interview that Grandpa did for the Veteran's History Project (he was a Marine in Okinawa and Guadalcanal during WWII), so I get to watch that soon too. We got to bring home a copy. We had homemade lasagna for dinner, then went down and played bingo with all the old folks (they live in a retirement community). It was fun... Alyssa and Grandma both won money. Then my family headed out to see Harry Potter. They did leave out a lot of stuff, but I didn't think it was too bad. The books are always better, and that book was a huge one.
Today was pretty uneventful... my allergies hate me, and I bought a lot of candy at one of our stops. Er, actually Dad bought it for me for some reason. Oh well. I guess now I have to catch up on all the stuff I've missed in the last few days.
Thursday we went to my Aunt Mary and Uncle Dick's house for the requisite turkey dinner, then hung around with an assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins. I now have a lot of pictures of my relatives on my camera, so that's cool. My youngest cousins, Nick and Taylor, are so adorable. Taylor's a natural little model, and they were both so excited to see their big brother Justin (another of my cousins... apparently he's not around a whole lot), it was really funny.
Friday I went on an adventure. Wednesday I had discovered that my copy of Outlaws of the Marsh (the 2100+ page book I've been reading for the last month or so) was missing 30 pages in one of the more important parts of the book. I was unhappy, since that meant I wouldn't be able to read further on the trip. So Thursday night I went looking online at library catalogs for the public libraries in the area, and discovered the Library of Congress had it. Naturally, Mom was kind of kidding when she suggested I could go there, but I am stubborn and had to go to read my 30 pages. So Dad and I caught the Metro (the light rail) and headed into DC. We had to register for reader cards (a.k.a. library cards), so now I have a Library of Congress library card *grins*. I was way too excited about that. Dad and I ended up traversing a few different buildings to get what we needed, and ended up spending like 4 hours in the library. But I got to read my pages, and the main reading room there is gorgeous. Plus the coat-check guy gave me a poster randomly, so that was cool too.
When Dad and I finally got back to Grandma and Grandpa's, the rest of my family had watched a video interview that Grandpa did for the Veteran's History Project (he was a Marine in Okinawa and Guadalcanal during WWII), so I get to watch that soon too. We got to bring home a copy. We had homemade lasagna for dinner, then went down and played bingo with all the old folks (they live in a retirement community). It was fun... Alyssa and Grandma both won money. Then my family headed out to see Harry Potter. They did leave out a lot of stuff, but I didn't think it was too bad. The books are always better, and that book was a huge one.
Today was pretty uneventful... my allergies hate me, and I bought a lot of candy at one of our stops. Er, actually Dad bought it for me for some reason. Oh well. I guess now I have to catch up on all the stuff I've missed in the last few days.