Where Were You LeVar?

When I was little I was OBSESSED with the show Reading Rainbow... well except for the egypt episode (I could never quite get passed the part where they explained that during the mummy embalming process they scrambled the brains with a piece of metal and then let it drip out through the dead guy's nose. eww) but I digress.

One of my favorite episodes was the one where LeVar visited the Movieland Wax Museum and had a wax figure made of himself.

 

This is the whole episode, but if you go to about 15:30, you'll see that part.

While you're there though, scroll back about 3 or so minutes and you'll

get to see some bakers making some of the most amazing cakes ever.

I think this episode may have helped to inspire my love of cake decorating, too.

That is seriously the coolest thing ever. 

So imagine how excited I was to see a Groupon deal to visit the Madame Tussauds museum in DC! I snapped up two tickets (I made a friend of mine come with me) and over the weekend we went to see those waxy guys in all their glory.

Madame Tussauds was very cool. The first thing you do when you get there (after watching the token learn the history of our museum movie) is get your picture taken with all the presidents via a green screen photo shoot. Then, you are immediately thrown into the President's Gallery, where you get to meet all 44 American presidents.

First impression... James Madison was tiny.

As in 5' 4" tiny... at 5' 5 1/2" I'm taller than him by an inch and a half.

Second impression... I was slightly weirded out by just how real everything looked. I kept thinking someone was standing next to me, turning around to say something, and realizing that it was just George or James or Teddy. Then I would feel silly.

But my favorite part of the museum was how interactive it was. There are quiz stations everywhere that test your knowledge about the founders and founding of our country, army (WWII) history, the wax figure making process, and a bunch more. Elspeth and I rocked the colonial history quiz (we got 10 out of 10) but completely failed the army one (3/10)... that's probably because growing up in VA we got a healthy dose of virginia (and consequently our nation's birth) history but not a lot of in depth learning about the foreign nonsense that was the second world war (which wasn't really covered too much in the SOLs when we took them). 

Anyway, they totally encourage interaction with the statues which was cool and sometimes even provided props to enhance the experience. For example, one photo op featured Jackie O and JFK as disembarked from Air Force 1. They provided faux fir jackets for non-germaphobic people (aka not me) to put on to join the first couple in a paparazzi photo storm that came complete with flashing lights and the sounds of cameras clicking away and people screaming. 

We did get into the interactive action a bit though...

Just hanging out with my ancestor Pres. Grant.
I definitely think you can see the family resemblance!

Not sure what's going on here...

He's about to get shot... morbid I know.

Other highlights included the Rosa Parks bus experience that literally scared me out of my seat, remembering what Al Roker looked like before he got skinny (his statue really needs to be updated), and of course, getting up close and personal with Baden Powell and Johnny Depp.

The founder of the boy scouts indeed. Humph.
(this is a super veiled reference to the Muppets Christmas
Carol which I watched wayyy to much last month)
On a completely different vein, you should totally read the book The Radioactive Boy Scout.
I read it in high school and it was kind of amazing.

I took this for my favorite roomie Jenny.

The ONLY downside was the absence of LeVar. I had sort of hoped his statue had found its way to DC.

So. Much. Driving.

Well I'm officially calling my vacation season to an end. Bummer! Throughout the month of December (and start of January) I basically traveled the whole length of the east coast 1.5 times, put nearly 3,000 miles on my car, and saw a whole lot of friends and family.

Here are some of the highlights from the super southern leg of my journey...

Magic Kingdom in the morning... so pretty 

Pretty at night too...

Sea World!

Shamu show!

Getting ready to drive a race car in
the Richard Petty Driving Experience!

My new favorite "family photo"

Apparently I got tired of taking pictures because I basically have none from Christmas/New Years in Vermont, and really have none from my secret santa party in PA. That realization makes me very sad.

A White Christmas!

Sherman Christmas at the Welshes

Getting ready to hand out drinks for
our homemade holiday drink contest 

Homemade Kauhla with milk,
Lemony-Gin Fizz,
Chocolate-Peppermint Martini,
and Welsh Christmas Drink (aka a Scarlett O'Hara)

When I finally got back to Arlington (almost for good)
I was treated to the snow storm we never got in Vermont.
Pretty!

Here's to an exciting 2012!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a happy holiday season filled with food, family, and of course SNOW! 

(how else are you going to build an igloo?)

Christmas Time Is Here!

I ♥ my new Christmas tree!

It looks super cool in the dark

I went with a silver and white theme for the ornaments

I wanted to hang the amazing ornaments my Aunt Leslie
gave me for christmas last year, but they were too large
for my tree... so I hung them on the wall instead!

Really Amazon? Really?

This is why I don't like Amazon...

Tomorrow, Amazon is going to give people a 5% discount if they use the Amazon Price Check phone app to compare prices for things like toys, electronics, sporting goods, music, and DVDs in stores vs. on Amazon.

The deal doesn't work for books, but is just another way to encourage people to do what they are already doing in bookstores (browsing and finding books to buy in a bricks-and-mortar store, but actually buying them from Amazon, or other online competitor, rather than the physical bookstore).

Amazon is seriously trying to take over the world.

Needing Some Encouragement...

I'm seriously lacking the knowledge to finish my final exam and research paper... 

Here's hoping those voices start whispering in my ear before 10 p.m. tomorrow night!

I'm Weirdly Excited For This Movie

So the other day I read this statement in one of my shelf awareness issues...

"Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. I still vividly remember reading this book when I was 11; it cast a spell on me like nothing ever had before. For days afterward, I felt feverish, disoriented, changed. A sense of simply not knowing what to do with myself. Even today, those symptoms follow after I've finished a great book."

That was author Paul Russell's response when asked to name a book that had changed his life.

I mildly embarrassed to say that I've also felt (although way less intensely) the same way after reading a book before. Now, that statement in itself isn't the embarrassing part, rather, it's the fact that The Hunger Games books are the ones that gave me those feverish disoriented feelings.

But it happened.

Last summer, I finally gave in to the Hunger Games craze and read those books. And when I say I read them, I really mean that I devoured them.... like non-stop, can't put it down, dreamed about them kind of devoured. I got so into them (especially the last book) that I got all cold and clammy (I know embarrassing, right?) and had to go outside to read because I was literally shivering in my only moderately air conditioned house.

Geez. 

Now, there's a trailer for the movie and I'm kind of excited by it. 

Are you?