Monticello

While we were in Richmond, Ben and Alyse drove us out to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  It was interesting to learn more about one of the founding fathers of our country and what he was like as a man.  One thing that stood out to me was that it seemed like he was always trying to improve things and make them more efficient.  For example, he thought putting beds in the middle of a room was a waste of space, so he put the beds into the walls, either in an alcove or open to different rooms on either side, with storage space in the wall above the bed.  If he were to get off his bed on one side, he would be in his office, while the other side was his bedroom (if you can call it that without a bed in it).  

He also created a mechanism beneath the french doors into his parlor that when one door is opened, the other opens simultaneously.  Out of concern for having too many visible servants while entertaining guests, he utilized dumb waiters in additional to building a pulley system on both sides of the fireplace down to the wine cellar with space to send an empty bottle down or bring a new bottle up without having a servant enter the room.  I was also very impressed by his library, especially given the fact that he sold his personal library to replace the Library of Congress when it burned and then started all over again with his personal library.  I loved learning about this incredible man.

 

As we were hiking up the trail from the visitors center to his home, Sarah dropped a water bottle off a small steep slope that landed right under a nice prickly bush.  I could tell that she was torn over littering and whether we should go off the authorized path to rescue it.  Needless to say, I volunteered and a few small scratches later, I retrieved the bottle.

 

 

I also thought it was cool how his kitchen had many individual burners where a fire could be lit under each.  All of the food eaten there was grown at Monticello.

  

 

  

We had a wonderful time visiting the home of and getting to know better one of the great early leaders of our country.

Read More

Visiting Ben & Alyse in Richmond

With a couple weeks between Sarah's classes, we decided to take a trip the last week in May to visit Ben and Alyse before they moved and see some of the sites in the area.  Our adventure started well before we landed in DC, as our plane circled the Denver airport for half an hour, waiting for the storm to pass before the pilot decided to fly down and land in Colorado Springs, where we refueled and waited three hours before finally arriving in Denver.  During those three long hours on the plane, I wondered to myself why we were flying to Washington DC through Denver, as it is not really in a direct path from Oklahoma.  I guess that's just the nature of flying Frontier, where it seems like every connection is in Denver, and we had a free flight voucher for me from Christmas when they overbooked our flight and I offered to stay behind.

Once we got off the plane, we couldn't help but notice a line that seemed to go on forever (or at least a hundred yards, which seems like forever in an airport).  We then discovered what the line was for (Customer Service) and hoped that our flight wasn't cancelled and that we didn't miss it.  Luckily for us, they had just started boarding when we got to the gate.  Unluckily for Ben, who was going to drive to DC to pick us up, our flight had been delayed from arriving in DC at 10pm to 12:30am (even though we didn't eventually arrive until 1am).  While we were waiting for a crew member to get to the plane, I shared this news with Ben via text.  A conversation ensued in which many alternatives were suggested in place of Ben driving to DC so late (renting a car for our whole trip, getting a hotel/sleeping in the train station and taking the train the following morning).  The crew member arrived and a flight attendant asked me if my phone was in airplane mode.  Shortly thereafter my phone was in airplane mode and we took off, not knowing what had been/would be decided in regards to how we would get to Richmond.  Once we landed, I turned my phone back on to find a text from Ben, saying that he was waiting in the parking lot at the airport and to let us know when he had arrived.  He then drove us back to Richmond, where we arrived at 3:30am.  I'm incredibly grateful for a brother who was willing to go to such great lengths to help us out (even if he never reads this, because it is too long for him already).

After getting some sleep, the next day we went to see some of the sights around Richmond.  We went to Belle Isle and walked around, enjoying the scenery, including a neat suspension bridge.

  

 

 

From there we went to Hollywood Cemetery, the resting place of two Presidents of the United States (James Monroe and John Tyler),  

  

the only President of the Confederate States of America (Jefferson Davis), and a general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War (George Pickett).

  

This ninety-foot tall pyramid is a monument to the Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War, built in 1869.  The crane used to construct it wasn't tall enough to put the capstone on the top, and a sailor who was serving time in the local jail volunteered to climb the pyramid and put the capstone on the top.  He did just that and was granted his freedom for this act.

 

We then went to the Museum of the Confederacy and the Confederate White House (picture below).  It was interesting to me to hear the confederate view of the Civil War and how the issue they were fighting for was states' rights with a limited federal government.

 

Right across the street from the Confederate White House is the Medical College of Virginia and its hospitals, so Ben gave us a tour and we took the classic med student picture by Hippocrates.  We then drove down Monument Avenue, where there are statues about every quarter mile for different individuals.  Rather than taking pictures by all of them, we just got a picture by Robert E. Lee (Well, we actually got like twenty pictures by the Robert E. Lee statue because Ben liked to take lots of pictures with my new camera., but I'll spare you having to see all of them)

 

  

 

By this time, Alyse was done with school, so she met up with us and we went to the Museum of Fine Arts together.  Once we were done, we took some pictures together outside to share our big news - in case you didn't already know, Sarah is pregnant!

  

  

 

Can't have a photo shoot with the Brockbank boys without them trying to be taller than each other.

  

We also visited the Virginia capitol building, which used to be the smallest working state capitol until an underground addition was added a few years ago.  This addition included a statue of Thomas Jefferson, who designed the capitol.  Also in the capitol is the only statue of George Washington that was sculpted during his lifetime.  There are copies of this statue in the U.S. Capitol as well as at Mount Vernon, among other places.  The statue is in the center of the rotunda, surrounded by busts of the seven other U.S Presidents who were born in Virginia.

  

 

 

This may or may not be a picture of me beating Ben in disc golf for the first and only time in my life. 

  

Read More

Camping with the Cates

A few weekends ago, we decided to go camping with our friends, Cliff and Katherine Cate.  We were all running a little late which resulted in a later start time than we had hoped for, but we made it to our destination at the Wichita Mountains.  We found a site that we liked, set up our tents and enjoyed chili cooked in a dutch oven all before 11pm.  (Like I said, we got there a little late, and we may have eaten in the dark, but we had a good night.  Due to our late arrival, there aren't any pictures from that Friday night.)

The next morning I was able to take some pictures - Cliff cooking breakfast in his PJs and Sarah cleaning up our tent before we took it down.

  

We then drove a few miles to the base of Elk Mountain, which we decided to hike together.

 

Cliff and Katherine are both into bird-watching and hiking with them made me much more aware of all the wildlife around us.  They both have very good ears to hear and recognize the calls of different birds as well as the ability to spot birds within the trees.  The only bird that I was able to consistently identify was the turkey vulture, and that's mostly because it was the only large bird that we saw.

 

Here they are with their binoculars, looking at different birds.  (I almost got this picture as a live action shot, but just before I took it, they both put down their binoculars.  So, I made them fake it for me.)

Cliff also spotted this fun colored lizard (which I probably would have blown past in trying to get to the summit as fast as possible). 

 

When we reached the top, we took a few pictures together.

  

 

 

Sarah and I couldn't believe that this was the first time we went camping since moving to Oklahoma, but we definitely hope that there will be many more camping trips together.

Read More

Spring Break

Both Sarah and I had our spring break the week before last.  We decided that we would try to make some memories rather than being busy with school and work all week.  We thought it would be fun to go for a bike ride together, and the secretary at Sarah's school had mentioned to Sarah that if she was interested, she could borrow a road bike from her.

I don't think Sarah anticipated the excitement of the department secretary, when she asked if she could borrow a road bike.  She was going to bring the bike to school the Friday before spring break so Sarah could use it over the break.  Sarah worked on some stuff before going into school that day and was surprised to get a text from the secretary asking her when she was going to be there.  When Sarah got to work, the secretary told her that she had been waiting all morning and that they were going for a ride.

Sarah was more than a little nervous because she had never ridden a road bike before (with shoes clipping her feet to the pedals), not to mention her concern for getting grease on her khaki work pants.  They rode around the parking lot for a little bit and then went the fairgrounds nearby.  Luckily, there were no crashes and no grease stains.  The only weird look Sarah got was from one of her students, as if to say what are you doing riding a bike around the parking lot?

So, with a borrow road bike and a goal to make some memories over spring break, we decided to ride the 9 miles to our church and back (18 miles round trip).  The weather was great and we had a blast (without any crashes).

 

  

 For the worried parents who are noticing the speed limit sign, I think we saw three or four cars in the hour or so we were on this road.  Sarah wouldn't ride on a road where she didn't feel safe.

The next adventure of our spring break was a trip to the eye doctor.  We were both down to our last pair of contact lenses, but didn't think much of it until we had some homemade Cafe Rio the week before.  I cut the jalapenos for the salad dressing, washed my hands and then took out my contacts for the night.  That was a bad decision, but not nearly as bad as the decision to try to put those same contacts in the next morning.  Needless to say, I didn't wear any contacts until getting new ones from our trip to the eye doctor. 

 

 We both got our eyes dilated, which made the drive home a little interesting.  Luckily, my eyes were dilated as much as Sarah's and we made it safely home, where we decided to show off our new shades.

The next morning, we decided to go out to breakfast at a local diner here in Norman, appropriately named The Diner. (It was featured on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" if you care to watch.)  I had heard about it from multiple people at school, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We felt a little bit out of place because it seemed like every other person in the diner was a regular. It seemed like everyone else was greeted with something similar to the following: Hey John, how are you today?  Coffee, toast, sausage and two eggs, over easy?
Despite feeling like fish out of water, the food was great and we enjoyed feeling like we were going back in time to an old diner.

 

  

 After breakfast we went for another bike ride, this time riding about 21 miles.  Sarah didn't think it was fair that all the riding shots were of her, so the close up is of me. 

  

 We finished the night with a trip to the temple for our ward temple night. 

 

 Sarah also painted some more of her holiday blocks as a spring break project.

  

Read More