Presidentsmas Weekend

Happy Presidentsmas! Greg and I went to visit his grandparents in Iowa this weekend, and one morning I was watching the Cartoon Network. They were doing a weekend promo called Presidentsmas, and they kept showing these funny animated videos about different Presidents. My favorite was the song about Thomas Jefferson and macaroni and cheese. Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying a nice slice of cherry pie in honor of President's Day. Greg and I had cherry pie and cherry ice cream this evening! My favorite President's Day-ish story is from my time at the Lincoln Home. One day we had just finished a tour of the house, and I was in the backyard with my group. One man asked, "Where's the cherry tree?" I said, "What cherry tree?" He said, "You know, the one Lincoln cut down, and then he lied about it, but then he said he could not tell a lie and he became Honest Abe." I said, "Actually I think you're thinking of George Washington." He said, "But Lincoln was Honest Abe." I said, "Yes, but Washington is the one who cut down the cherry tree." The man said, "Oh, well where's that cherry tree?" I said, "Washington never really cut down a cherry tree--it's just a myth. But if he had cut down a cherry tree, then it wouldn't still be around anyway because he cut it down." He thought about that for a minute and said, "Oh, yeah, I guess so." :-)

Greg, the dogs, and I returned home yesterday from our nice weekend in Iowa. Here are the Spikes the night before we left. I went to get into bed, and this is what I found: two dogs in my spot! Lily got to stay home and take care of the house while we were gone (she hates riding in cars), but she got the whole house to herself, complete with a kitty food buffet, so she was happy. We had a really nice visit with Greg's grandparents and were able to help out a bit around the house. Grandma Gray fixed quite a feast for us! I think Grandpa Gray especially enjoyed seeing Little Spike--those two have been buddies for a long time. When it was time for us to go, Little Spike didn't want to leave Grandpa Gray's side--it was so cute. On the way home, Big Spike figured out how to roll the windows down in the car! That was interesting. Luckily the driver's door panel also has controls for the back windows, so Greg was able to roll the window back up. It was quite the Presidentsmas weekend.

Chicaghetto

Today I went with Greg to deliver a body to Chicago. It sounds very Al Capone-ish, doesn't it? It certainly felt mobster-ish to be delivering a body to Chicago--especially in the part of the city we were in! The nice lady from Athens who died had decided to donate her body to science, so we were delivering her to the Anatomical Gift Association of Illinois. It sounds legitimate enough, but when we found ourselves in the industrial slums of Chicago (I started singing the Elvis song "In the Ghetto"), at a warehouse underneath the train tracks, right next to several shady-looking pawn shops, I wondered just what kind of "science" her body was being donated to. But hopefully she will end up at a good medical school where she can help doctors-in-training learn how to help people.

Once we found our way out of the ghetto, we planned on having lunch at one of my favorite Chicago spots: Navy Pier. The two times I had been to Navy Pier in the past, however, I had walked there (from the Sheraton with Mom and then from the Sears Tower with David, Teal, and Melissa), and I was unaware of just how much it costs to park at Navy Pier. We decided that since parking would probably cost more than lunch, we would head out of downtown and find a good place to eat. Here's a shot of the Sears (Willis) Tower with the remnants of the recent massive snowstorm. It was a really nice, warm day today. We went to a restaurant in Willowbrook, Illinois, that my friend Melissa had recommended. It's called Portillo's, and we had some amazing Chicago-style hot dogs there--complete with onions, pickle slices, tomato slices, sweet relish, and peppers. We enjoyed them so much that we bought a few extras to bring home. So delivering a body to Chicago wasn't really as exciting as it sounds, but we had a good day.

And, I was happy when Mom called to tell me that we had made the BYU homepage! You can see the article by clicking here. Back during my Lincoln Home days I had been given the assignment to have a tour booklet translated into several different languages--and I was given no guidance whatsoever on who should do the translating. I immediately thought of BYU, and it turned into a class project for some students there. Before I left the Lincoln Home, I had written to BYU, telling them about the students who had done a great job on the brochure translations, hoping that it would give them some good press (my dad gave me the idea to do this--it was a great idea!). The last I heard, BYU had contacted Laura for more info. on the project, so I figured that the news story would die in her hands (she didn't really agree with my choice to have BYU do the translations, but she didn't have any other ideas)--and so I was pleasantly surprised to see that BYU published a really nice feature article about the project. It's things like this that make me glad I worked there.

An Affectionate Farewell

Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the day Abraham Lincoln left Springfield to head off to Washington, D.C. It also served as the kick-off for all of the Civil War Sesquicentennial events throughout the country, so it was a pretty big day. When I left the Lincoln Home in November, I swore that I wasn't going to do any Living History volunteering there, since I was mad about the new Living History Coordinator Kyle, but somehow my friend Susan got stuck trying to find volunteers to dress up for the festivities. So, I did it for Susan. It was so cold!!! I was wearing my thermals, but they didn't help very much. Here I am in front of the house with the horse drawn carriage that would take Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln to the Great Western Depot.

And here I am with my buddy Beth at the Depot, awaiting Lincoln's farewell speech. Did I mention that we were cold? :-) Someone somewhere decided that it would be a good idea to use this occasion to try to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most people reciting the same words at the same time. It's kind of cheesy if you ask me! The previous record was set in 2006 when 224,000 people simultaneously recited passages from Charlotte's Web, so they were hoping to have 226,000 people recite Lincoln's Farewell Address yesterday.

There were only about 400 people there at the Depot yesterday, but they did have webcasts hooked up to classrooms and libraries throughout the country to try to break the record. They still haven't gotten in the final count of everyone who participated, so we're still not sure if we broke the record or not. But it was interesting to be a part of it. Here is Lincoln leading the crowd in giving his Farewell Address, where he bids an "affectionate farewell" to Springfield. It was pretty neat to be there for the 150th anniversary of this occasion. And today is Lincoln's #202 birthday! Now for the next five years (starting in April) there will be events throughout the country commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

The National Park Service has given the sesquicentennial celebrations a name: "Civil War to Civil Rights," so you can guess what the focus of all the events will be--slavery and the struggles of African Americans. I have a bit of a beef with this theme. Now don't get me wrong--slavery was REALLY BAD, and it was a central cause of the Civil War. But that's not all that the Civil War was about. What about the dirt-poor farmer from Mississippi who didn't own any slaves but enlisted in the Confederate Army simply to protect his home and family? When does his story get told? In my opinion, the main purpose of the Civil War was to preserve our country. If Lincoln had let the Southern states secede, then what would keep other states from seceding? The whole country could have fallen apart, and the "great experiment" that our Founding Fathers established would have failed. The "Emancipation Proclamation" and the freeing of the slaves was a very important byproduct of the Civil War, but I wish that people would focus on telling the whole story of the Civil War, not just part of it. You have to tell both sides--Union and Confederate--because even though they were fighting against each other, they were all Americans, and they all helped shape our country into the free democracy that it is today. Anyway, that's my soap box rant for the day. This rant was brought on by the fact that the powers that be at the Lincoln Home invited Douglas King to speak there today for Lincoln's birthday. You may remember Mr. King from an angry blog post of mine a few months ago. Yes, he's the crazy guy that came and told the entire Lincoln Home staff that we were all racist. It makes me wonder, is the Civil War Sesquicentennial just going to be one big platform for people like Mr. King to tell America what a horrible, racist place it is?

This cartoon about Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton applies to people like Mr. King. Maybe they're the problem . . . but anyway, I usually like to be at the Lincoln Home on Lincoln's Birthday, but today I am staying away. Yesterday was a nice celebration of his life and the events that led up to the most defining moments in American history.

30!

Yesterday was Greg's big #30 birthday! He is getting old; just kidding. I wanted to make a special cake to commemorate this big milestone, so I decided on a football cake. It literally took me all day to make, mostly because the icing I used to make the laces on top wouldn't cooperate, so I had to keep re-frosting the cake :-) But I finished it just in time for when Greg arrived home from work.

Little Spike even dressed up in his football outfit for the occasion. He will don the football again on Sunday for the Super Bowl.









Lily didn't care much about the presents Greg received, but she was excited to make a bed out of the tissue paper. After opening presents, Greg and I went for a delicious birthday dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Before we left, Greg had given me strict instructions to not tell the restaurant people that it was his birthday, so I didn't. But just as we were finishing, our waitress brought out a piece of cheesecake. Greg's eyes got wide and he looked at me. I said, "I didn't tell!" But it turned out they were bringing us a piece of cheesecake because they had cooked Greg's prime rib wrong (although they fixed it). So it was perfect--we got free cake, but Greg didn't have to be embarrassed by people singing to him at the restaurant. :-)

Since we're talking about Greg, I realized that I haven't put up the pictures of our third bathroom, which Greg expertly finished before Christmas! Here it is--complete with a kitty next to the toilet. This is just a 1/2 bath located on the first floor next to the living room. It is quite small, but it's handy for when we have visitors over. Greg totally re-did this bathroom. I don't have any "before" pictures of it because it was too hideous :-) But let me paint a picture for you: the toilet was old and leaky, there was a large, dirty vanity/sink/cabinet/mirror thing that took up most of the room, and there were rubber ducky stickers all over the walls and the door. The worst part was the floor--it looked like the person who laid the tile must have been drunk when they did it.

I couldn't get any good pictures with the floor in them, but Greg put down some nice white porcelain tile, installed a new toilet, a pedestal sink (which makes the room fill bigger than when it had the ginormous sink in it), a new mirror, and a new light fixture. Then he painted it blue, and I decorated it with Route 66 motifs (my favorite touch is the gas pump on the back of the toilet). I'm especially glad to have the rubber ducky stickers out of there.

It looks great! With the completion of the bathroom, our house fix-up projects are complete, so now we can just enjoy our wonderful home. Greg is a good handyman to have around.

Funniest Video Ever

Greg found this video online last night, and it cracked us up!