Crown Martyr

"Lawn and Order"

2008-05-22T10:13:00.001-07:00

Stefefen - Staff Writer
NNN (Nehpets New Network)
May 23rd, 2008 11:45p.m.
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

---------------------LAWN AND ORDER---------------------

Thursday looked promising. Upcoming was an event many had longed for (not really) and anticipated (ha!). The polls were overwhelmingly in favor of putting on the event and some even went so far as to help prepare for its grand occurrence.

The founder of the organization, Molly Grammer (now Molly Wilson) with her friend and co-worker Amanda brought this not very well known club to be a multi-located, booming business. For years the "Odd Job Club" was a successful business. Sadly, the company was ruined though an unfortunate turn of events when, for tax reasons and reasons dew to the regulations of the state, Miss Grammer was forced to move. In the process, co-founder Amanda was left behind. Attempting to transfer the business from Oregon to Idaho was not an easy task. Desperately longing to keep the business intact, she gave it her all. Despite her courageous efforts, circumstances would not allow the business to start again.

To carry on the legacy left behind by this girl, Ben Grammer - her little brother - brought the company back to life with the help of his little brother, Stephen. Together they worked long hours, striving to bring it back to its pinnacle of success. However, this attempt also failed. Maybe Idaho was just not the place for this formerly-booming Oregonian business. Leaving Stephen to work alone, Ben moved on realizing that the "Odd Job Club" would never reach its former glory.

Disappointed and discouraged, Stephen Grammer worked with what few customers he had to, as he put it, "At least if I could keep it alive, maybe...someday...even if it is MY little brother that brings it back....maybe there is a chance." But slowly the remembrance faded. As the name drifted from people's minds and from the mind of Stephen, the customers dwindled to a strangling few - then, just to one. For two years, this one customer kept it alive until just this last May, it died. Seeing no future in a business that had no customers, Stephen decided it was time to change, but instead of leaving it to his little brother, he pushed on. Stephen took a new perspective. "What if the name was unpopular? What was it that drove the business underground?" Realizing that the name alone had discouraged so many and thwarted the hard work of three diligent youth, he also realized it was time to do something about it.

Citizens from all corners of the United States pitched in to try and start this business anew and give it a name to remember, a name to praise, a name to stir the hearts of young children. As the leader of this campaign, Stephen received all types of suggestions to replace the "Odd Job Club." Below is the complete list of the mentioned suggestions:

From Mr. Grammer: a total of three.

"The Mowers"
"Handyman" (kind of like "superman")
"The Early Birds"

From Peter Wilson: a total of twelve.

"The Lawn Ranger"
"The Lawn Gnome"
"The Gnome Squad"
"Little Apes With Numchucks (LAWN)"
"Lumpy Aphids With Nickers (LAWN)"
"Lilliput Association of Weevil Nockers (LAWN)"
"Lawn and Order"
"Leaves, Ants and Watered Nematodes (LAWN)"
"The Lawn Shark"
"Limp Armpits, Wispy Noodles (LAWN)" (something you might expect as a poor Chinese to English translation :)
"The Home and Garden Gnome"
"Man Over Weeds"

From Molly Wilson: a total of nine.

"Leaves, and All Weeding Needs (LAWN)"
"Lawn And Watering Needs (LAWN)"
"Languishing and Wilting, NEVER! (LAWN)"
"Mow Is Me!"
"Stephen's Speedy Stalk, Leaf and Grass Removal Service"
"Dirty Work aFoot"
"Gross Green Grass Guts?"
"Stephen's Speedy Stalk Service Can Cut Corners Carefully For Friendly Farmers, Foreigners and Frogs"
"A Man for All Reasons. A Mower for Lawns. Together, invincible."

From Dr. Norman Lund: a total of one.

"Grammer's Hammer"

(There were other names also. Some have been misplaced over the years in the computer databases. If you have evidence of more names, please report in the "comment" section. Note to Eli - yours were not included for reasons known only to me.)

Amid the incoming ideas one name was the most obvious and stood out among others. This name was "Lawn and Order." Making an executive decision Stephen chose this name. The "Odd Job Club" no longer exists. Thursday saw the end of this memorable business. It was a sad day for Oregonians, but a day to rejoice for the rest of the world. Lawn and Order has two customers and more to come. Rising from the dust to make an example of what can be done if diligence is present, Stephen continues to lead to make the world a better place! (LOL ;-) )

--------This concludes our report--------

What in the...!?!

2008-05-18T16:03:00.000-07:00

WHaT in the WORLD!? Ok...I have to admit when I found out that when Molly and her husband Peter were moving to China...well, lets just say it was surprising! ;) [My original reaction was much more dramatic then what is written on the post Washington D.C. - Day 6 (1/5/08) ]

They have been over there in Kunming, China for almost 4 1/2 months now teaching music to kids pre-K to grade 12. So far I don't think there have been too many Catastrophes. Other than seemingly constant food poisoning and being run over by a taxi, Molly is doing fine! (that's not to mention the earthquake) Peter on the other hand as far as I know has been doing just fine! :)

They are planning on coming back this July for a while! YAY! They'll be staying at our house for about a month then heading back if that becomes their official decision. Last I heard it was not official yet but they were leaning toward going back. Also...since I am starting to drive I will be able to drive with them this summer! BWHAHAHA! They'll probably go back just for that reason alone...

That's about it for the news flash from China for now! :) Check out their website. Buy a painting. lol! :) Their Website

"Low and Slow"

2008-05-18T14:59:00.001-07:00

Have you ever tried to chase a motorboat with a sailboat!? I didn't think so!

Last Saturday we decided we'd go sailing. HA! I have another question for you. Have you ever tried sailing with no wind!? ...we did. (I mean, does that look like much wind??!)

Ben (my bro), Robby Patterson, Colton Kennedy, and I got the AMAZING idea that we would meet at our house at 7:00 and get out on the lake by 8:00 or 9:00. It was absolutely gorgeous!

The wind didn't start picking up until about an hour and a half AFTER we put the boat in the water, around 10:00. lol :) That is when we started chasing motorboats. If you haven't heard, the Cour d'Alene Lake is flooding meaning the whole lake is now a no-wake zone. Because of this, the motor boats on the lake could not go very fast. haha...so what did we do? After the wind started picking up, we chased them. But, they still went a lot faster than we did and we resorted to attempting to ram them. But this didn't work either. Why? Colton was steering. Word of advice: If you ever go sailing with Colton, don't let him steer the boat. You will literally go in circles! (and if you were wondering, yes...that is Colton in the picture)

Haha...there's me! :D Yes! I was wearing a "Darth Tater" shirt. I mean what other shirt could be more Idahoan? LOL :)

Then there was Ben... I couldn't get a real picture of Ben, because he was taking the pictures. But there are his feet! lol (I don't know who the feet on the left belong to...) Anyway, Ben was our best driver. He actually made the boat go straight! Pretty amazing that he could accomplish such a feat...since, well, there was no wind for a while, and a rudder doesn't help much if you aren't moving...

Then of course there was Rob. With his I-Phone (which had no battery) and his new sandals that couldn't get wet! :P

Well, as you may have been able to see from these pictures... we did a lot of just plain relaxing. Robby here is a perfect example of the last two hours of our little expedition. What happened is that the wind started picking up about 10:00 making us want to use the wind and go farther out into the lake, which we did. Then, you probably already guessed...the wind died. There wasn't much we could do except paddle (and there was NO WAY we were going to Paddle ALL the way back). So instead of that, we tied the rudder pointing us forwards, so that if wind came we would move straight towards the launch ramp, then all fell asleep. The only thing that makes this NOT the perfect example of what happened is because we actually all slept in the sun. This being one of our first real times out in the spring sun, some of us got burned....badly. But then of course there are always the smart ones who bring sunscreen. (I wish I had thought of that...)

I only wish it wasn't 50 degrees and raining today. Then we'd be sailing! :'( The wind is blowing hard! We got fed up with no wind, so next time we go sailing we figured we'd go out just before a storm, when the wind is blowing hard and it isn't raining....yet.

OH! and if you were wondering, the name of this post "Low and Slow"...that would be the name on the sailboat. :D

Yeah...good times :)

World War III (5/3/08)

2008-05-08T22:39:00.000-07:00

The Marines vs...

The Rebels!

The shot was heard around the world. Well not really...it was an air soft gun! My little brother Justus decided to have an air soft war for his birthday party (BRILLIANT! not...). What do you get when an event like this happens?? Eight little kids running around - with guns! ahhh! Luckily I (like Switzerland in WWII) was neutral. But, (unlike Switzerland in WWII) I was forced into the fight along with my older brother, Ben. Ben joined the Marines, while my team and I rebelled against them. The war began...

Everyone took their positions.

The first to be eliminated was Ben (ze marine in ze trench coat). Being slowed down by his heavy gear and his...ugliness, I was able to quickly escape his grasp. After doing so, with my quickness and agility (ha! right...) led him into a trap to his doom. (well, really what happened was he was about to get me, when he ran out of ammo! ha! I shot him thrice and he was outta there!

After that it is almost impossible to track the happenings...

All I know is that we won! WW III was over. The Marines had planned poorly and got caught in a crossfire behind the barriers.The Rebels had defeated them and taken the back yard! Awarded for our bravery, we felt pretty good about ourselves! The five of us had just won WW III with only losing two men. (pretty good if you ask me!)

However some of us were not to be satisfied with only winning the war. As the ancient Greeks always fought for glory, so did we. We figured it would be most glorious if we could take out everyone else. Not only the other team, but everyone else. Going one-on-one against each other, we fought to the death. But there was a victor. His name was Luke Henke. This young Jedi who fought for the rebels (haha...kinda like Luke Skywalker!) used his time in preparation for battle very wisely. He invested in a very, very! nice gun, giving him an obvious advantage over all.

Unfortunately, his award was not recorded. We have no records of it and therefore cannot document at this time what it looked like.

Mountain Man (4/25-27/08)

2008-05-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

(FYI - I'm a little behind in my posts...I should have posted this more than a week ago)

When the grill of the car went underwater...the car shut off. Trying desperately to save the car and all of our gear we scouts ran across the foot bridge and into the water. Not worrying about the survivors in the car we decided the Toyota could not be saved so we frantically tried to save the gear. The only gear lost was Jonathan's pack. Before he could reach for it, the car suddenly fell off of the rock it had gotten stuck on and went down the river. We lost both adults, but survived to tell the ...tall tale. lol :)

You may be wondering what this whole "Mountain Man" thing is about. The older boys of boy scout troop 211 got the opportunity to attend this amazing event! The goal of the Mountain Man Rendezvous was to educate and enable boy scouts to compete it mountain man type tasks. We did quite a few different things including shotgun, black powder, archery, log toss, log saw, tomahawk throwing, orienteering, and a canoe race!

On the way into the camp you have to cross a river in a car. We had a truck that carried all of our gear that we drove across the stream. Because there was so much snow this winter the river was VERY high making it almost impossible to cross in the truck. The only other way to get across would have been to walk across the foot bridge. While the truck was crossing, water came up to the top of the hood making a huge plume of steam that went sky-high! Its pretty amazing that the truck didn't shut off!

All day Saturday the group of 8 scouts trekked all over Camp Grizzly to compete in the events.

Log saw and log toss were two best events for us. The log saw was probably one of the more fun of the two since I got to partner with one of the adults, Mr. Hourlland, to see how fast we could saw the log. We actually sawed through that sucker in about 33 seconds. This is Jimmy Kemner, one of the boys who went with us, slaving away with his end of the saw...

After the log saw, the next most enjoyable of the two events that were previously mentioned would be the log toss! (duh!) Log toss actually had nothing to do with mountain men, so I have no idea why they had it. It is from the Irish "Olympics" or something! lol. It wasn't bad though ...I loved it! The funny thing was, I was trying to beat the adults on how far I could throw it...didn't work. I got it 25'5". Mr. Hourlland got it 25'7". Then Mr. Burton threw it 25'11". lol :) soo close!

(Mr. Burton is throwing the log in the picture)

Well, I know its sad, but we didn't win any awards. Two years ago, our troop took first place. Last year we got second. This year, we had a whole new group (except for Jonathan Brennecke and me). One of the factors may have been that we were a bunch of 14-16 year old scouts competing mostly against 18-21 year-olds. lol *we didn't have much of a chance*

Because the event was run by the Mormons, it ended early enough on Saturday that they could all drive home in the light. This left us, the only Christian troop, at the camp by ourselves for Saturday night and Sunday morning. Having a whole summer camp to yourself and a few other kids is amazing. It was just plain beautiful! After having a worship service we left the camp to head for home, again driving across the river. But before we left we decided to add one to our group. The camp mascot. :) Our troop is know by our black hats. So what did we do? We snapped a picture of the grizzly with a black hat on his head!

Washington D.C. - Days 11/12/13 (1/10-12/08)

2008-01-17T22:10:00.000-08:00

I kinda left it hanging so I thought I'd just wrap it up.

The next day (thursday) was about the same. I stayed back for school while Ben and mom went out.

Friday on the otherhand, was quite exciting because we got a tour of the whitehouse. Thats all I can tell you though because the rest is classified.

Saturday we went home after visiting Mt. Vernon.

The end! lol

Washington D.C. - Day 10 (1/9/08)

2008-01-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

Not much to say about today (actually its yesterday now but I'll write this as today). Since I had homework for Capstone and for an on-line class I'm taking that I needed to finish, I did not go with Ben, Mom, and Lisa when they went to hear another Supreme court case. I personally stayed back at the motel all day long and did school and a few other things. Mom and Ben came back around 2:30 then later on we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

Thats it! (I know, that had to be the most exciting day yet! .... not!)

Washington D.C. - Day 9 (1/8/08)

2008-01-08T19:00:00.000-08:00

Being in Washington DC for this long is awesome, but tiring. We really started feeling the effects of touring for a week on Monday, but today was worse, way worse! I am really starting to miss all of you people back home that are reading this and am also missing the beauty of Idaho. I can't wait to get back and go snowboarding! The thing that really hits you here, is that after you've been through about 20 museums, they get old. We went to the national archives today, but it was nowhere near as interesting as it most likely would have been if we did it a few days ago. Nothing so bad to complain about, we're still having a blast; but I would not recommend, if any of you come to Washington DC that you try to see everything or stay for over a week! Anyway, we did a few pretty neat things today and I'll get on to those... :)

Earlier this week we walked past the White House but did not really get a good look at it so today we decided to go back and have another look. I was actually amazed at how close you could get! (without being taken out by the snipers on the roof-tops) Ben got a few extremely good, clear pictures while we were there. However, the first is not the highest quality although it does have the presidential squirrel in it! (JK! he was just a very friendly squirrel!)

The front of the White House -

The back -

There obviously wasn't much to see at the White House since we couldn't go inside so we had seen all there was to see in about half an hour! We next walked down the street to the National Archives where the Declaration of Independence,

the Constitution, and a lot of other founding documents are. It was basically another museum which was not what we needed! Mom just keeps going and going and stays interested but Ben and I got bored very fast. We ate lunch in the downstairs cafeteria and where so worn out from all that we had done in the last week that we went back to the motel and took a nap! It was very refreshing and it prepared us for the concert we attended in the evening.

The concert featured the Third Coast Percussion which is a percussion quartet. These four musicians were able to put on an hour concert with only percussion instruments. Very different and interesting! (and relaxing)

This concert was held in the Kennedy center which holds free concerts year round.

(The Kennedy Center)

Lisa (my cousin from DC) was planning on meeting us for the concert but it took her an hour to travel the six miles to the Center. Talk about bad traffic! Well, at least she got to see half of the concert! She then took us to her house and we ate a little dinner and watched a couple of shows. Lisa gave us each something to remember our trip by and what she gave me was a tie-bar plated in 24-karat gold from the House of Representatives! It is fabulous! Lisa is such a great cousin!

As I was saying, I miss y'all back home and for everyone who reads this I'll be back soon!

Washington D.C. - Day 8 (1/7/08)

2008-01-07T15:50:00.000-08:00

Oh man...I am just having too much fun talking to everyone who already went back into school! Washington DC is just a blast! We went to a Supreme court hearing today on illegal immigration. I mean, what else could be going through while we are there?!?! We go on vacation and still can't get away from that subject! No, actually it was very interesting.
To get to the hearing we had to wait in line for about two and a half hours! I was sure glad to sit down when we we're finally let in! We weren't allowed to bring any electronic devices into the court room so I don't have any pictures from inside. The most hilarious thing that I have seen this whole trip was the justices in their huge chairs that looked WAY to big for them and they would lean back and rock around in them. So the scene looked somewhat close to the scenario in which little kids are playing around on some big adult chairs! It was SOOOOOO funny! I happened to touch my face with my hands (to rub my eyes or something I can't remember) and the security guard came over to me and told me not to! Very strict rules...I mean wow. One guy kept trying to put his arm on the back on his chair as an armrest and they wouldn't let him do that either! Ha ha...poor guy.

Well after the supreme court it was about noon so we ate at the cafeteria then went to the National Zoo for the remainder of the day. Mom says this zoo is supposed to be known for their panda bears, and I could see why! Lots if pandas! Pretty funny animals if you ask me...

I mean what kind of animal is not funny if he sits like that in a pond???Well, really that's all we did today, but it really was a lot! With the two and half hour wait and an hour of court at the Supreme Court building, and then walking around for a couple of hours at the zoo, added onto the time spent walking to and from the Metro and the time spent actually on the metro...that was one full day!

Washington D.C. - Day 7 (1/6/08)

2008-01-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

Oh man, I love sleeping in! We slept in till 10:30 today which was rather nice. We then ate brunch at 11:00 in the motel breakfast restaurant. Mom, Ben and I then went down to the lobby and read our Bibles and just lounged around for a couple of hours while the maids cleaned our room. (That is just a picture of the view from our room.)While we were there, there was a Mexican looking guy sitting at a table nearby. After we'd been there for a while, all of a sudden he just broke out into laughter. Whatever he was watching must of been really fun from the way he laughed. It turns out that he was watching videos of the presidential candidates and he came across one about Hillary. Mrs. Obama was talking to her and she asked, "If you can't even run your own family, how do you plan on running the country?" This guy thought this was so funny that he told us and because he was laughing so hard, we started laughing also. It was pretty funny because it was so true. ha ha. Well, after the maids had finished our room we returned to it and took a nap.

The next thing was church. (the above picture was taken from the car on the way to church.) If you where wondering why we didn't go to church it was because Lisa's church doesn't meet until 4:30 in the afternoon (or somewhere around that time). There was a guest speaker that had come from New Zealand that was very good. Being famished we decided to head to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Ben and I had burritos while Mom and Lisa had salads. After we had finished Lisa drove us back to the motel and that's where I am now. It was a very restful day after the week full of sightseeing.

Just a couple of weird (and I repeat, weird) pictures Ben took while playing around with his Camera on a dark night in Washington DC:

...wow...

Kind of cool I think...

Washington D.C. - Day 6 (1/5/08)

2008-01-06T10:49:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm finally catching back up! Now I am only behind one day. Yesterday. Saturday. Well to summarize Saturday we slept in, did a little bit, then went to bed early!

The first thing we did (after we slept) was go to Lisa's house and eat a delicious pancake breakfast. Our next stop was the National Cathedral. I know I've been saying everything is amazing and really big, but once again, this was Amazing! (The inside is as high as a ten story building.) The Cathedral had to be at least 1.5 times bigger than St. John's Cathedral in Spokane, but may have been almost 2 times larger. Anyway we stayed there for a couple of hours and took a very interesting tour. (this picture was taken from the other side of the Cathedral at about 100 feet from the ground. The tower in the picture goes up another 200 feet to make it 300 feet tall.) One thing I learned about the cathedral is that they sculpted the head of Darth Vader into the side of one of the towers on the "dark side" (the side that the sun doesn't really hit). Pretty funny! Its this huge cathedral that seems pretty old that has Darth Vader carved into it! ha ha. One of the other hilarious things about this Cathedral was in the picture below. This sculpture depicts the first monkey to go into space. His name is Ham and he is depicted as clinging to the side of the rocket. What made this so funny was the story the tour guide told us before he showed this to us. Unfortunately I cannot remember the story because it was so long.

There was also a very funny story about an eccentric painter but you'll have to actually go to the Cathedral to hear it.

We stayed there until it was time to take Molly to the airport. She had to get back to Seattle for the final day before she left to go to China. At the time I'm writing this, she is on the airplane. When we dropped her off at the airport, that was the last time we get to see her for two years (unless for some reason she comes back to the US, which she may do over the summer break).

I'm sure going to miss her! I mean just look at that face! (she happened to be jumping up and down and that is why she looks so funny)

Washington D.C. - Day 4/5 (1/3-4/08)

2008-01-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I'm a couple of days behind...so...I'm going to catch up! Tonight I shall conquer the gap of time between me and the....um...i don't know, but i shall conquer it! OK, enough of the rampage! I'll shorten yesterday's down and do a full length for today. Ready! SET!...go?...

Yesterday (or I should say, three days ago)

Well, yesterday was another day in the not so exciting art museums...*rolls eyes*...Molly....oh well! So for the morning we sat in an art museum reading books until 1:30 when we headed over to the Washington Monument. (and yes, I am yawning, and yes we are just sitting there in a museum while mom and Molly went and looked at everything!)

Ben and I had walked over to the Washington Monument to pick up the free tickets so we just walked over to get in line to go to the top. The only problem with this was that it took about 30 minutes for the line to go through and it was 15 degrees! (that's with the wind chill included). Here are a few pictures we took during our "freezing" period.

Mom was very excited! (and cold :)

Kind of neat view with the flags...

Ok, this one is a little different! For some odd reason steam was coming out of the ground behind the monument so we went and stood in it. It was very warm but not the most brilliant ideas for warming up because after you came out you were all wet and your were in about 15 degree weather! (So that's Molly and I)

So after we had lost our noses and ears due to hypothermia, we finally made it to the top of the tallest building in Washington DC. From the top you could see for miles! You could also see a lot of the other buildings in Washington DC such as the White house, the Capitol building, the Jefferson memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial...etc. Very, very cool! That's about it for yesterday because after that we just went and ate, returned to the hotel, and watched a movie.

Today (which is the day before yesterday now...)

So, as I was saying, two days ago was one of those days that you did so much you don't know how you did it all.

We started out by taking the Metro to the Arlington Cemetery stop, then walking across the bridge to get to the Lincoln Monument. This monument has to be the thing I have liked the best so far out of everything we have done! It was amazing!

I mean just look at that statue!
...and those pillars! (and my sister Molly, she was the best part of the Monument!

And then there were Lincoln's speeches engraved on the walls. The Lincoln monument was just amazing! You could see the Washington Monument and the Capitol right beside each other. Pretty neat!

To paraphrase the next few things we did: [1] Walked over and saw the reflecting pool (the pool between the WW II memorial and the Lincoln Memorial) [2] Walked into the wooded area beside the reflecting pool and saw the Vietnam memorial [3] walked a little farther and saw the Korean memorial (i think....) [4] walked yet a little farther and looked at the World War II memorial [5] walked for a while until we got to the national aquarium, which we didn't even go in, [6] then left the aquarium and headed over to the Old Post Office where I shall continue in normal language!

The old post office was a tall building (the 3rd tallest in DC) and we decided we'd go to it only because Lisa (my cousin from Bonner's Ferry that is the legislative director for congressman Bill Sali) had recommended it to us. It was pretty amazing! You could see a whole lot from the top and down in the center there were food courts and souvenir shops (i got 4 more golf balls here; one with the Lincoln memorial in it, one with the Washington memorial on it, one with F.B.I. on it because we were going to next visit the FBI building, and last of all one with the capitol on it because we were going to do that later in the day also). They also had a live musician playing music for us while we ate. It was very nice!

After we had eaten and had bought our souvenirs, we walked over to the FBI building which, as we had guessed already, was closed to the public! So we skipped that stop, and moved on to the Ford theater where President Lincoln was assassinated. This also was closed and will be closed until 2009. But the house across the street where Lincoln dies was still open, so we went in and saw it. It was just a very small old house and wasn't too exciting because none of the original furniture was even there. From there we decided to go to a tourist shop and mom got a couple of things and then we moved on to another Art museum. As before Ben and I sat and read books, but what was different this time, is that Mom and Molly did too! I guess they had finally gotten over the eagerness to see millions of ancient paintings. From there (I told you it was a busy day!) we took the metro to the stop by Lisa's office and met her there. She then took us on a tour of the Capitol building which was very interesting! Lisa says she doesn't know much about the stuff in there, but really she knows a whole lot. Below is one of the paintings in the rotunda of the Capitol and Molly standing beside it just goes to show how amazingly big it really was.
Lisa had to get a bit of work done, so after the tour we left her office building and went to the library of Congress to look around in the 30 minutes we had before it closed. Lots of books! That's about how you describe it; literally millions of books and everything was very ornate. It looks like every square inch of the build was either a sculpture or a painting of some sort.

Below is the Library on congress from outside the west entrance.

After that exhausting day, (in which i might point out we had only one meal so far) we decided to go with Lisa to an Ethiopian Restaurant. It was very different from anything I had ever experienced before. How it was set up, you'd take a roll of spongy bread that they gave you and break off a little piece. You'd then proceed to use this bread to eat with your fingers. As you can see from the picture, there was only one plate for the five of us. Very interesting and very tasty. Unlike any other food I'd every eaten.

Sorry about this being so late, but I was delayed. Yesterday's (Saturday's) I will hopefully have done by tonight.

Washington D.C. - Day 3 (1/2/08)

2008-01-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

First on the list for today was the Arlington Cemetery. Humbling and majestic headstones spread in vast expanses in all directions. It was amazing: very solemn but beautiful at the same time. While we were there an artillery salute was fired for the funeral of a brigadier general. Awesome! Below are some of the pictures of this memorial cemetery. Its impossible to discribe with words or even pictures...you have to go to experience it!

This is a picture of the flag pole in front of the house that belonged to Robert E. Lee, which stands in the middle of the cemetery.

This is the view of Washington DC from that same house.

Just a great view of a small portion of the cemetery....a pretty bad picture of Molly, Ben and I in the freezing wind. =) (although it does show my height! lol) In the following video just ignore the cameraman in the red jacket and its pretty cool!

Ok, well I did have a video but it wont let me post it! gosh...oh well! It was a cool video.

After we'd frozen to death because of the FRIGID wind, we hopped on the metro and headed to the National Spy Museum. Unlike any museum I had ever been to, I didn't have to show ID, i had to get a fake one! lol. Amazing facts (they might have been made up but they were still amazing) were everywhere. Very interesting museum!

I got my second golf ball here ( I collect golf balls and I got on at the Air and Space museum). I'm trying to get a souvenir type golf ball for everywhere i go that sells them! =) Our next destination (across the street) was the portrait gallery museum which Molly really wanted to see. I didn't even really look around. I read a book near the entrance and wrote a couple of Christmas cards in the 2 1/2 hours they were in there. How could you look at paintings for that long...? I just don't get it! Well, after that long period of time ended we decided it was time to eat so we hopped on the metro and went to Union Station (the train station) and ate in the food court place. Food was good, food is good, food will always be good! Then, to my amazement, once again, I saw the name Tivoli....this time she owned a movie theater! That name must just be popular over here!

Well, that's it for today!

Washington D.C. - Day 2 (1/1/08)

2008-01-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

The time change is just so weird...we got up at 9:00 local time and felt like we lost sleep. Back home it was 6:00. No wonder! Same thing for eating meals...we ate at about 11:00 local time but it was only 8:00 back home. Then we ate lunch/dinner at 5:00 (which happens to be 2:00) and my stomach decided to backfire. Just plain crazy! Well, we all started the day differently. Molly happened to get up at 8:30 Eastern time and read a book...

Mom, decided to get up about the time Ben did and they both just cleaned up and got ready for the day. I, on the other hand, got up later than everyone else! Once we were ready, we went downstairs, ate, then headed out for the Metro.
The Metro is becoming more and more enjoyable as we get used to it. It is a very fast and easy way to travel the city in a short period of time. You also feel like the heroes in all the superhero movies. It seems that almost every one of those movies has at least one place in it that they have some sort of train/subway much like the metro: superman, spider man, incredibles, the Bourne Supremacy, Mission Impossible #1...anyway you get the point, it was cool.

The Metro took us to the Smithsonian stop in Washington where we visited two of the many museums, namely The Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum. The Natural History Museum had some great animals and gems and insects and other specimens but every plank seems to say either millions or billions of years on it. (most of which had obvious logical fallacies in every sentence) The air and space museum was a lot better. Awesome pieces of history were everywhere (not that I really like history, but these were neat!).

Yup, that's me! notice the really short people...oh yeah! I am tall! (and it just happens that the rocket is like 50 feet tall, which makes me about 60...) R2-D2 and C-3PO, the droids from Star Wars were at the museum also. Ben liked this the best (of course) out of everything we did today. These were actually the original droids from the movies.

A few more sweet rockets...

...and a guy in one of the earliest space suits (hehehe).

After the museums, we went out to eat the lunch/dinner I mentioned earlier. On the way we noticed an empty sign holder so Molly and Ben had the brilliant idea of putting me on display! :P
We ended up going to a very nice English (I think) restaurant called The Guards. On the way there, we saw the Mongolian and the Spanish embassies and when we got there mom and I got a swordfish sandwich. Not bad, actually! It tasted mostly like tuna and was a little bit stronger.
After eating dinner we were ready to return to our lodging so we took the Metro back and saw a sign once more that we had seen this morning. I dedicate this to Tivoli, my friend from up near Bonner's Ferry! Tiv, that has to be the first time I have ever seen that name other than pertaining to you! And you own a restaurant! lol
We made it back to the motel and then took a little walk over to the nearby Safeway and picked up a few snacks. All of the thank-yous I had to write for Christmas are now done due to the excess time I had on my hands while sitting here at the motel. That's about it for today!

Washington D.C. - Day 1 (12/31/07)

2007-12-31T19:59:00.000-08:00

As I told Sam Paul, we (meaning Mom, Ben, and I) swam to Washington DC. And also as I told Sam...Just kidding! Duh. OK, well the flights went great. First from Spokane to Seattle: the plane took off at 8:50 landed at 9:55 we ran to our next flight, met Molly (my sister), and hopped aboard and took off for Minneapolis. There we had an hour layover which allowed for us to buy a 360 burrito (basically a normal burrito) at a Mexican restaurant. Very good burrito! (of course I do like any kind of Mexican food and it was 2:00 our time so anything would have tasted good!) Our next flight was the last leg of our trip, the one going to Washington D.C. We arrived at the nation's capitol at 8:30 (5:30 our time) and from the airport took the Metro to get to our motel. After we got off, we ran into the longest escalator I've ever seen!

After we made it to the hotel, we were all hungry so we decided to walk down the street and find a restaurant. We ended up getting two pizzas at Domino's.

Well, i know that was somewhat boring, but that was the traveling day. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit more exciting! Now I'm sitting at the desk in our room, writing on my blog, and about to go to sleezzzz...

Stephen of the Bible

2007-12-06T22:21:00.000-08:00

Stephen

The words of the apostle Paul, the former Pharisee, regarding his behavior toward true Christians in general, and his participation in the killing of Stephen specifically, prior to Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus: "I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brethren, and I journeyed to Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished ... And when the blood of Stephen thy witness was shed, I also was standing by and approving, and keeping the garments of those who killed him.'" (Acts 22:4-5, 20)

In Bible history, Stephen was a man of "firsts." He was one of the first seven Christian deacons, and he is generally regarded as the first Christian martyr.

The seven deacons were chosen to assist The Twelve in the service of the new church in Jerusalem. The account is found in Acts 6:1-5: “And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration. Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables. Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:”
There was no doubt as to Stephen's exceptionally good character, and the miraculous power that he had been given by God. It's interesting to note that although Stephen was "just" a deacon, he certainly had gifts and powers from God that were at least equal to that of the apostles:

"And Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people" (Acts 6:8)

As had happened with Jesus Christ Himself, Stephen soon found himself in difficulty with the local religious authorities, not because he was doing anything wrong, but because he was seen as a serious and growing threat to their misguided control over the people. They just couldn't "compete" with him: “And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke." (Acts 6:10)

They then resorted to the "low as you can go" approach; they had him falsely accused of blasphemy - and in knowingly doing so, they themselves blasphemed the Holy Spirit, which was actually the source of Stephen's wisdom: “Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God. And they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us.”
Stephen was arrested and brought before the Sanhedrin where more false accusations were made. While the despicable lies were being spewed at him, Stephen remained calm:
"And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel." (Acts 6:15)

Stephen was then allowed to make his "defense." By then, he probably knew full well that he was not going to get out of there alive, so he held nothing back out of concern to not offend people that he would otherwise have been gently, tactfully and systematically leading to the Truth, point by point, day by day - had time permitted. The result was one of the most direct, un-political, and beautifully logical historical and theological discourses in Bible. It's found in its entirety in Acts chapter 7. Every word that he spoke was the Truth, which of course only made his accusers, who were self-righteous hypocrites, hate him all the more. His words of Truth cut to their hearts and made them gnash their teeth at him (Acts 7:54).

Stephen was dragged out of the city, where they began stoning him. To keep their clothes from becoming splattered with Stephen's blood during the murder, they "laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul" (Acts 7:58) - to which Saul, later known as Paul, confessed, as written in the opening paragraph.

Stephen remained strong and true to the very end, his faith never waivering:
"And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep." (Acts 7:59-60)

Stephen's last words were to ask God that his murderers be forgiven, including among them, Saul the Pharisee, who, after his later conversion, became known as the apostle Paul, and went on to become one the greatest Christians that ever lived, a man who wrote a large part of the New Testament - until he too was martyred for preaching the very same Truth for which he had Stephen martyred.

----Taken from an article by Wayne Blank and revised minorly----