Look who came to see us!

I know my mom and dad came almost two weeks ago and that I've already written a little bit about their trip, but I finally loaded some pictures (using the downstairs computers at the Barlow Center)!!

This is right after we went to the Supreme Court. Note the glorious weather. (FYI: tomorrow is supposed to be eighty degrees! I hear there is snow in Utah...)
Here we are on the east side of the Capitol.Mom and me!

Mom and Dad riding the awesome underground train from the Senate office buildings to the Capitol. This is not an April Fool's Day joke; there is really an underground train. It's awesome.

On the second full day of their visit, we went to the National Mall and checked out some of the monuments. This is from the new World War II Memorial.

Jason's artistic picture of the dome. I like it.

Jason, Mom, and me at the WWII Memorial.

I guess they picked a good week for protests! Here's the first one; it was kind of a "pick your cause" march, where people carried signs about peace, war, schools, health care, and an array of other hot-button issues.

Police on ponies monitoring the protesters.

The next day, we went to Capitol Hill after stake conference. This is before we ran into the hoards of peaceful marchers.

Another artsy photo of the dome.

Jason and I went and hung out with the pro-health care folks (Catholics for Health Care, specifically) for a while (they seemed less violent than the Tea Partiers). At one point, a woman asked Jason where she could get some water because he looked like "a Washington-type who was in charge."

Kind of a cool shot of the Capitol.

We thought there were a lot of health care protesters...until we went to the west side of the Capitol and discovered many thousands of immigration marchers. This is where our trip got really interesting.

Doesn't Jason look all Congress-y here? That's what all the protesters thought!

"Did you vote yet?"

More Capitol. Beautiful building!

Congressman Frost, Mom, and I near a pretty Magnolia tree. At least, I think it was a Magnolia tree.

I really like this picture. I wish I looked like I had hair, though.

This is looking up at the Capitol from the mall after the marchers had moved to the other side. You can still see some of the set-up from the pre-march activities. We also got to hear a rendition of "This Land is Your Land" in Spanish. If you want to hear it, talk to my Dad!

I'm glad to finally have these pictures posted. We sure had a great time with my parents (and with just Dad the next week) and are looking forward to seeing Jason's Mom and Dad in a week! We'll be home in 17 days and then we can see all the rest of you also!

I feel like I should have put up some hilarious April Fool's Day joke on our blog. Oh well.

I forgot to write that I saw the Vice-President's motorcade on Tuesday.

Thursday

This will likely be a short post (with no recipe at the end). I remembered today that I forgot to write about two exciting things that happened yesterday.

1. I saw a motorcade on my way to work. Lights, police, very nice cars, the works. Very exciting.

2. On my way into the metro station on the way home, this homeless guy was singing "All Along the Watchtower" and playing his guitar. It was one of those serendipitous moments when the diegetic music matches your mood exactly and it feels like your life is a movie. Perhaps that is a dorky and sentimental notion, but that is the best way to describe my experience yesterday.

Exciting things that happened today:

1. I was worried I would be late to work because I left a couple minutes later than I normally do (so I was a tiny bit frantic), but then two metro trains had mechanical difficulties right before and right after Foggy Bottom station, so I was detained but it wasn't my fault! I was able to call my boss (who was very understanding of my transportation travails) and I arrived at work only 20 minutes late.

2. I got an email alert from Capitol Police today saying that they were responding to a protest on the front Capitol steps and that staff should avoid the area. Five minutes later, the protesters had apparently moved into the rotunda (not sure how they got there. The little old man guarding the escalator last time asked me a lot of questions about my whereabouts despite my powerful badge), so we weren't supposed to go there either. I guess the police solved the problem, eventually arresting the miscreants. Apparently they were protesting Guantanamo Bay by going on a liquid-only fast and carrying signs at the Capitol. I personally think there are more reasonable ways to get your message out in the open, but I digress...

3. I had to go find the Senate Curator today to donate a gift received from a foreign dignitary. It's located on the fourth floor, which you can only get to by getting off the at the third floor and going through a maze of passages up to a tiny staircase semi-creepily illuminated with carriage lights. I thought I was pretty familiar with the Capitol, but I was wrong. My attempt to find the office led me to the press room (which you have to actually walk through to get to the fourth floor), this random warehouse, and a secret door that I think might have been very close to the Senate floor.

4. I met the Senator again. I went to a judiciary markup today and left after about an hour. When I got back to the office, he was talking to someone right in the doorway! He greeted me as I came in, then came back to intern row and talked to me for a few minutes about my schooling and how the internship is going so far. All the other interns were either in hearings or on a tour, so I felt pretty privileged. He really seems like a good guy.

The rest of the day was pretty low-key. I'm looking forward to getting some new projects next week. Overall, the internship has been a great learning experience so far.

Jason had an awesome day at work also. He put together some research materials for one of his co-workers and the co-worker was VERY impressed. I'm probably telling the story wrong, but he can correct this if he wants. He is also working on some brochures for the foundation about projects with environmental impact. Yesterday, he informed me that people in government (not in his office) insist on politically correct terminology: it's "asset-deprived," not "poor." I laughed.

Wow, this ended up being a lot longer than I expected. Jason is doing the laundry right now because he is a wonderful spouse, and then I think we will watch an episode of The West Wing...or perhaps two.