Smithsonian FolkLife Festival

Bucket list item! The Smithsonian Folk Festival. Normally it is two weeks long but because of the government shut down earlier in the year, one of the fall outs would be that the Smithsonian Folk Festival would go from two weeks to two days. Each year the Smithsonian Folk Festival has a theme and this year so the Social Power of Music. So on Sunday, June 30 Stephanie and I chilled under a tree, chatted and listened to the music from one of the master minds behind hip-hop, Grandmaster Flash.

Fun and relaxing Sunday and something that DC does very well - free events!

National Museum of Health and Medicine

This is a random bucket list adventure. We went to Silver Spring, Maryland to the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It is free, off the beaten path and I shouldn't have ate lunch before we went.

This is a concrete slab from a surgery floor for I believe the Gulf War.

Information about Walter Reed.

Just a human skeleton to greet you. 

 

This monkey went to space!  

 

Some super old medical instruments.

Some very interesting items from Lincoln's assassination from the bullet that shot him to his hair to bone fractures to his blood on doctor that tried to save him.

Rheumatoid arthritis - my GG

There was other things in the museum from lot of organs to conjoined twins and brains - but they made me queasy so I didn't take pictures. 

It was a unique experience, but that is part of our adventure! After the museum which took us about an hour to go through, we ran some errands in Rockville and got bubble tea.

Last Birthday in my 30's

How did this happen? How am I almost at the end of my 30's?!?! *Gulp* My 39th birthday landed on a Thursday this year, so of course I went to work where my coworkers made me feel very special. One of the best bakers I have ever known, Gwen made her chocolate chip cookies - these cookies are the best cookies ever! Cindi, our executive assistant also had everyone sign and give me a card - she did this because in the previous couple years everyone I worked with except Laura had forgotten my birthday, so this year they made up for it and in the coming years :) Cindi also created the email birthday card that went to both our HR departments in DC and Columbus - who would have thought I was on the Idaho postcard? 

Princess also really knows how to show me birthday love...

On Friday night I hosted a little get together with my friends on my rooftop where we (okay, Mike) BBQ'd, chatted drank and later chilled by the pool. 

Starting on the left side of the photo and going clockwise: Kathy and her husband Hassan, Martha, Kiara and her boyfriend Stephen, Neville, Anton and his wife Stephanie and Mike and Gina. I know all these people except Kiara through Pew. Kiara and I worked together at ACS for a few months and she is the one who watches Princess when I'm not in town. 

People often tell me that I make friends easily. I am not sure if that is true or not but I am very thankful for these people in my life. When I came to DC almost 5 years ago I wasn't going to make friends because I had enough friends in Idaho and that was hard enough to leave them, I wasn't going to do that to myself again. And as I have blogged about before I have had people in my life that were not the best for me, but these people all mean so much to me and I am thankful for each and everyone of them and our relationship.

I asked a random stranger to take our group photo and this is what I got...

My dear and best friend got me a birthday cake.

It was one of my best birthday's I have had on the east. I also felt the love of all my friends on the west from phone calls and presents. I am very blessed.

Pow! Wow! NoMa Mural Walk

On Saturday, May18, Stephanie and I did a mural walk around my hood, NoMa called Pow! Wow! that incorporates artists from all over the place. It was the first hot day of the season but we managed to do a little over half of the murals. It was fun to walk around the neighborhood I have called home for the last year and a half.

It took me several months to finally take pictures of the Washington mural - which is crazy because it is right next to my building and something I walk right past at least twice a day.

This is so much of the stages of life I am in.

My neighborhood isn't very neighborhood-e, but it is slowly getting there and the Pow! Wow! Is pretty cool - hopefully this fall we will be able to finish the walk as we have about 10 - 15 more murals to see.