Old pictures

I'm back after a long blogging drought! We'll start with the oldest pictures, which I forgot were on my camera. Here are a select few of the 200+ Logan took of Kaci and me making chicken pot pie last summer (2005).

Chicken Pot Pie



Obey your thirst.


Isn't that the scariest thing you've ever seen?





Kaci was upset about something...

The Professor was our assistant, but he mostly just winkled around and took pictures, as you can see.



I was ticking Logan to get a genuine smile.





















As you can see by the next two, Logan was really bored.







A nice air shot of our almost-finished product.

We tried to do a Texas cutout on the top crust, but it didn't work that well.















Boston

In the Public Garden. There's George Washington!



Near Copley Square (as in John Singleton Copley the painter, Dad) where the next pictures are. That's a goofy face, I know.

In front of the library.

Looking the other way toward the middle of Copley Square and that cool red-roofed church, one of my favorite buildings in Boston. The shiny triangular-shaped building is the Prudential Tower, aka The Pru. (Kaci and Tom, correct me if I'm wrong.)

The library again.





Another cool church near there.

This is the North End, an Italian neighborhood where I adventured by myself. I couldn't resist taking a picture of this "connah store."



The next morning on our whale watch. Kaci and I were both biffed, but this is the first picture I took (right after I got better). I ran outside and got to see a mother and baby whale pretty close to the boat for about two minutes before we headed back to shore, but I didn't get any good pictures of them. They were camera shy, I think.

Land ho!






You can see the New England Aquarium next to the wharf where we got on our boat.



On Kaci's roof! It was a sweet view.


You can see the Citgo sign!















Waterfight
In June before I left, the Professor and I "duke"d it out with his like 15 waterguns. Afterward we were feeling goofy so we took some goofy pictures.



























Long Hair
I took these in mid-August right before I got my hair cut. This is my record for hair length. Okay, I know the first one's goofy because I'm not smiling, but you can see a little more length. It's hard to take pictures of yourself.

Proud to be a Primate in Provo

Sorry about the lack of posts recently--I just got so caught up in my exciting new life! I can't believe I've been here 4 weeks tomorrow. Summer term is half over! Here's a news brief: I'm taking American Heritage and Book of Mormon, my teachers are coo, like my ward (although almost everyone's older), on the Friendship & Service Council, done my first visiting teaching (my companion is Doris), gave blood for the first time, met Eli and he's super cool, played some coo games and watched the Thin Man movies with Tommy and Doris, and I'll be alone in my apartment this weekend. Mom said Tommy and I should have an apricot party. :) Since this post isn't much (I haven't taken any pictures here yet), I'll tack on some more Logan quotes.

In this mini-episode: a sample of Loopy Logan's June 2006 banter.

1. (To me) Ice cream is the very core of your comfort zone.
2. I just need a hug at this time of denial in my life. I'm in a midlife crisis.
3. (This one's not an exact quote) Rico will only like you because you're the first one to see him.
4. (In the Matthew voice he likes to use) I don't control when I say funny stuff--when it pops into my head I have to say it then, 'cause if I don't it will be lost in the deps of my mind fo-ev-oh.

Funny/Weird Professor Quotes

Pour cette issue de "Rigolant avec Logan," j'ai collecté les citations amusants ou bizarroïds de la bouche fou de notre champion "Le Prof". Pendant les deux ou trois semaines derrieres, j'ai aimé beacoup écrire cettes choses parce que quelquefois Logan a répété eux lentement pour moi (je pense qu'il beaucoup aime être sur mon blog).

1. While I was stretching all crazy with accompanying sound effects: "Summer, you should get a patent on your stretch."

2. After Logan was trying to operate or do something weird on my neck and I accused him of being a vampire: "In case you haven't noticed, I don't suck blood."

3. While eating bacon: "How do pigs make themselves taste so good? Do they use a special formula?" (Don't tell Babe about that one...)

4. Logan said he wanted to us to go on a long-distance bike race, and I asked where he proposed to do that, we don't have any room, and he said, "What do you mean, we don't have any room? We have the whole state of Texas, and the whole United States, and the whole world!"

5. When I randomly started laughing, Logan assumed I was laughing at him. I do laugh at him a lot, it's true.

My personal favorite... 6. After I talked to Forrey on Sunday, Logan wanted to know what he said so I told him, among other things, that Abbie's excited to watch Pride & Prejudice with me.
Logan: Abbie gets excited about everything.
S: I bet she doesn't get excited about...taking out the trash.
L: I don't know--if she was taking out the trash with Kaci...

7. While taking apart his tenor sax: "Will you help me pull my neck off?"

8. The Professor changed a newspaper headline from "Three detainees commit suicide" to "Three detainees admit to suicide" and then showed it to me.

9. S: You have to say a lot of funny stuff in the next couple of days so I can put it on the blog.
L: I'm a coffee cup of emotion.
S: [Laughs] What's that supposed to mean?
L: I don't know--you said to say something funny.

10. L: I have a feeling that your mind is like the Grand Canyon.
S: Why do you say that?
L: Because at first sight it seems beautiful, but if you venture too far in you could be killed.
S: Is that for reals or are you just trying to get me to write it down?
L: A little of both. I say things when I'm inspired, because usually things like that I let go, but tonight if something pops up in my head, I just say it.

11. This one goes along with le thème français...kind of. For the past three weeks, Logan's new favorite phrase is "moo frère." He calls me that all the time and he says he doesn't know where he got it from.

12. Le Prof has recently brought back something from 4th grade. When his class couldn't go outside for recess, they watched an exercise video. The kids on the tape did some crazy moves, including "half-jacks" and one possibly titled "Hips--I don't know!" (because that's what they say when they do it). Logan has added "invigorated" to the half-jacks and does them craaazily. It's half of a jumping jack, so he sticks out one arm and leg really fast over and over. For the other one he put his hands on his hips and says "hips" and then jumps forward, puts his hands in the air like he's shrugging (hence the "I don't know" part I guess) and says "I don't know!"

I can vote!

Guess who's a registered voter as of yesterday? That's right. Me. Now if I could just get a permit...

Superiority Complex

Top 10 reasons Dallas deserves the NBA trophy:
10. The Bible Belt vs. the Bikini Belt: WWJP (What would Jesus pick?)
9. Our most colorful billionaire, Ross Perot, ran for president; Miami's most colorful billionaire, Wayne Huizenga, ran a garbage truck.
8. They have American Airlines Arena. We have American Airlines Center and American Airlines.
7. No one ever asked, "Who shot Crockett and Tubbs?"
6. Our Gov. Bush is a higher achiever then their Gov. Bush.
5. Our owner blogs better then their owner.
4. Our native footwear--cowboy boots--are better for butt-kickin' than theirs--flip-flops.
3. They have South Beach, we have the Trinity River...OK, they got us there, but don't look for Calatrava bridges over Biscayne Bay anytime soon.
2. We don't call the arena district "Victory" for nothing.
1. If David Hasselhoff is for us, who can be against us?
--Dallas Morning News
GO MAVS!!!

The Boston Invasion: Day 8

The Esplanade
We went walking along the Esplanade, which is like a long skinny park along the river. This footbridge goes down to the Esplanade.
Same bridge, view of the river.


I love the Esplanade! We took a nice long walk. It's so green! And I love the river! And I love the view of the city! And I love the cute footbridges! And I love the long lagoon thingy with a path going around it!
Kaci took a lot of pictures. This isn't all of them. But aren't you glad you get to see all these? It's a great view of the river.
The round brown thing on the shore is the Hatch Shell, where the Boston Pops play for their televised Fourth of July special. MoTab has also sung there, Mom tells me. I didn't know that. It's pretty cool. It's smaller than I would have thought and has composers' names written all over the outside.

Kaci told me to gaze, so this is my best gaze.

Our mama duck and cute little ducklings! I said to Kaci, "Look! It's Mama Kaci, Peter, Thomas, Kaci Jo, and Elizabeth," (the names Tom told me they have picked out for their kids, but Kaci got very defensive when I asked if that meant they were having 4. She said Tom just sneaked the boys in there.) So Kaci replied, "No, it's Kaci Jo, Elizabeth, and their two friends!"
I was again instructed to gaze at the city, but I think I just look like a punk. Or sad. Maybe it's because you can't see my eyes behind my sunglasses.
This one's better.

South End
Then we walked around the South End, a neighborhood Kaci hadn't been to. At first it was pretty boring because it was just houses. This is the first at all exciting thing we came across: Union Park. It's a cute little green spot in a quiet nook of the neighborhood.


Then we came across this Greek Orthodox Church, I think the first one I've ever seen. The mosaics were pretty cool.
We couldn't quite read the plaque through the fence so Kaci took a picture.
One ginormous cathedral! I like the architecture.
We ran into this adorable little bakery that we had read good things about so we got sandwiches there and were going to eat them in a park we had passed. This is a cute little community garden with a cute little gazebo.

This is Blackstone Park, named after William Blackstone, the first European settler in Boston. In 1625 he began living alone on what is now Beacon Hill and the Common. We started eating here and then it started raining. So, of course, I suggested we leave and of course, it stopped raining soon thereafter. But we weren't far from Copley Square so we stopped there and I was glad to spend more time with one of my favorite places in Boston. :)

The Boston Invasion: Day 7

The Newport Invasion

Kaci and I had talked about possibly going to Newport, RI, to see the mansions, but then on Monday night we thought we weren't going to be able to, but then on Tuesday morning we decided to go and Sheryle drove from Connecticut to meet us! So we were excited to go and hang out with Sheryle again, and I was excited to educate myself because I'd never heard of the Newport mansions--or Newport, for that matter. (And let's be honest, what do I like more then touring old houses? Maybe eating ice cream...but not much else.) Kaci was excited to add Rhode Island to the list of states she's been to and tell Tommy she was catching up with him in their contest. After an adventurous road trip--I won't go into the details--and a confrontation with a mad dog parking attendant, we found Sheryle--yay!--and took a cab to The Breakers, the house we toured. This is it.
Kaci posing a very Kaciesque pose.
While we waited for the tour to start, I took a shot from the entrance of the tree-lined drive.
Okay, if you skip this it won't hurt my feelings, but I have to give you a history lesson because the tour was so cool. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt got rich from the New York Central Railroad, had 12 kids, and left all his money to one! His favorite son, William Henry (named after the president), got all $100 million. He only outlived his father by 8 years, but in that time he doubled the money. When he died in 1885 it went to his son, Cornelius II, who bought a wooden house called The Breakers. When it burned down 7 years later, he had architect Richard Morris Hunt design a new house on the same site. It was built from 1893-1895 as a summer "cottage" for him, his wife Alice, and their 7 children. Gertrude, the oldest, was 18 when the house was finished, so they had a coming out/housewarming party with a zillion guests that went until 6 am or some crazy time. She married some guy named Whitney in the music room and started the Whitney Museum in NYC (she was an artist). Four generations of daughters continued museum operation and it's still there. The Vanderbilts' youngest, Gladys, is the reason the house is so well preserved and has its original furnishings. She married Count Laszlo Szechenyi of Hungary and had 5 daughters. She inherited the house when her mother died in 1934 and couldn't afford to maintain it, so she opened it in 1948 to raise money for the Preservation Society of Newport County, which she strongly supported. In 1972, the Society bought it from her heirs and it was made a National Historic Landmark in 1994. Gladys' youngest daughter, Ferdinandina, is still alive--she's in her 80s and lives in Budapest. The Breakers has 70 rooms, 23 bathrooms, over 138,000 square feet, 3 floors plus a mezzanine for the servants, a 50-foot Great Hall, a second-floor porch with an ocean view, and only one guest room. They didn't like having overnight guests! The only time the guest room was used (for an extended period of time, anyway) was when their granddaughter Ferdinandina spent the summer there. The house is full of gold, laid on thick, as much as 1/16 in., marble furniture and pillars, an original tapestry from a long time ago, mosaic floors and ceilings, hand-painted ceilings, etc. The 400-year-old fireplace in the library is from a French chateau. 2 or 3 were built in France, taken apart, shipped over, and reassembled. The dining room is awesome--seating for 34, solid rose alabaster pillars going around the room--only used for special occasions though. There's one huge painting on the ceiling and two smaller ones on either side that were hand-painted by Italian craftsmen. Cornelius' bathtub is carved from a single block of Italian marble and weighs over 3,000 pounds. All the bathtubs had 4 faucets, for hot and cold fresh water and hot and cold sea water. They thought the sea water was good for 'em. And the children and servants got the rooms facing the ocean. They thought the wind from the ocean was bad so those were the bad rooms. Everything is so detailed. Cornelius really spared no expense, even with the servants' part of the house. Not that they were all paid well, necessarily. It took 40 servants to run that place and Mrs. Vanderbilt's housemaids (some of them, anyway) got paid $12 a month for 18-hour days, 7 days a week. Mr. & Mrs. V. were scared of another fire happening so the kitchen has its own wing to prevent any fires spreading to the rest of the house. The kitchen is big, but still, with 120 meals to prepare every day for the servants alone, not to mention the Vanderbilts and any guests, it must have been crazy in there. They had to keep the stove hot all the time and the tour guide said it took 7 hours to heat the whole thing. It's huge! It only took 2 years and 2 months to build the house. There were 40 architects and over 2,000 craftsmen working on it. Even on the outside (Indiana limestone with marble insets) it's so detailed! It's incredible. And the money spent on the house was just pocket money to Mr. V. We don't know how much it cost, but that's what the guide said--pocket money. There are 8 other houses owned by the Preservation Society, but there's one that's not--Belcourt Castle (also designed by Richard Morris Hunt). The owners actually live there and give tours!
The wait for a cab was too long, so we walked back into town. The weather was beautiful. Here Sheryle consults the map and Kaci gives me her best damsel-in-distress pose.
After a lot of walking past big trees and cute wooden houses, we found one of the restaurants the cab driver had recommended. But we wanted to eat outside, and they weren't serving outside. So we kept going, failed once more, and by the time we got to the third restaurant, we were so tired and hungry that we stopped there even though they weren't serving outside either. That meal was so good. I ordered lamb and liked it! I also tried swordfish and clam chowder for the first time. Aren't you proud of me? And I had the most wonderful key lime pie for dessert. When we finished Kaci and I took pictures while Sheryle talked to Nate on the phone. :)
The light is fading, but these aren't too bad. It was a cute little spot on the waterfront with cute little boats.
More boats...
The Black Pearl, where we ate...
More boats...
More boats and me...
And more boats...
And more boats...
And Kaci!
Then Sheryle wanted to find Ocean Drive so we drove around for a while but we couldn't find it so we stopped by a dock and Kaci and I went out for a couple minutes and tried to take pictures but it was too dark. So we looked at the ocean and got back in the car when we got cold. So between the whale watch and that, I didn't get much of an ocean experience. But that's okay! I'm never getting on a boat again--I'll just stay on the beach. :) Anyway, I know this picture is weird but I like the shot of the bridge that we came over on. The view on the bridge was pretty sweet.