Rain on Flat Stanley's parade

So we left church an hour early today in hopes of snapping some photos by DC monuments with Flat Stanley (thanks sister-in-law Kim!) before the sun went down. Just as we arrived, the sun did indeed go down. As an added bonus (I'm sure it was carma for ditching out on church) it also started raining once we arrived. To top it all off the girls were wild. They hollered with irresistible glee once inside the Lincoln monument, despite my repeated attempts to reverence them. To the girls this was just an echo chamber where "Joseph Smith" happened to be sitting (according to Emma). At least ditching out on church didn't affect Emma's knowledge of the gospel, or did it? I think Abraham Lincoln could resemble Joseph Smith. After all, they were both great world-renowned leaders.
On a separate note, seeing the monuments and walking the city streets reminded me of the goods times we've had here. We've really done and seen it all. When we leave the area, I'll feel that it was good to us and we were good to it. Although these years have been by far the hardest in our lives, we will have some fond memories of this place where our family was born ... where it all began. So out with the old and in with the new. California, Here We Come!




The photo above, if you look closely, shows our faux-fur hooded girls playing peek-a-boo with the camera. We all know they aren't camera shy, but this night they pretended to be.
This is the one shot we got where at least one girl smiled and loved the camera. Thank you Kaley Rose.





Through Emma's eyes, this was a statue of Joseph Smith, but for the adults out there, it's the Lincoln monument. I like this photo because with Emma in the background and Flat Stanley in the foreground, you can get a perspective of how large in stature the statue of A. Lincoln is.