Civil War Battlefield - Cali Style

Well we went to our first Civil War Battlefield, and I was pretty excited about it.  Christopher picked our outing for the day, so we got up, packed a lunch and headed out to Manassas National Battlefield Park.  This is the Battle For Bull Run.  Not only was it beautiful but it was really cool.  There was a neat little trail that had placards at various points.  You actually were walking in the direction the troops were moving.  It was pretty powerful.  I get caught up in it all, rose-colored glasses...its all very Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler.  But what's wrong with that.  I know the reality of it was horrible.  State vs. State, brother vs. brother.  I had relatives from West Virginia for crying out loud.  So, I get it.  But it still is amazing.  Walking there.  One of my favorite places that I've been is Savannah, Georgia.  Talk about old school and history.  Walking the cobblestone streets down by the water.  Walking around in Forts from the American Revolution.  Such a history nerd.

But I'm yammering on.  Here's a little bit about where we went.  I'm pretty excited to go back and see the rest of the Park.  We saw so much but there is still so much more to see. 

On the morning of July 21, McDowell sent his attack columns in a long march north towards Sudley Springs Ford. This route took the Federals around the Confederate left. To distract the Southerners, McDowell ordered a diversionary attack where the Warrenton Turnpike crossed Bull Run at the Stone Bridge. At 5:30a.m. the deep-throated roar of a 30-pounder Parrott rifle shattered the morning calm, and signaled the start of the battle.
McDowell’s new plan depended on speed and surprise, both difficult with inexperienced troops. Valuable time was lost as the men stumbled through the darkness along narrow roads. Confederate Col. Nathan Evans, commanding at the Stone Bridge, soon realized that the attack on his front was only a diversion. Leaving a small force to hold the bridge, Evans rushed the remainder of his command to Matthews Hill in time to check McDowell’s lead unit. But Evans’ force was too small to hold back the Federals for long.
Soon brigades under Barnard Bee and Francis Bartow marched to Evans’ assistance. But even with these reinforcements, the thin gray line collapsed and Southerners fled in disorder toward Henry Hill. Attempting to rally his men, Bee used Gen. Thomas J. Jackson’s newly arrived brigade as an anchor. Pointing to Jackson, Bee shouted, “There stands Jackson like a stone wall! Rally behind the Virginians!” Generals Johnston and Beauregard then arrived on Henry Hill, where they assisted in rallying shattered brigades and redeploying fresh units that were marching to the point of danger.
About noon, the Federals stopped their advance to reorganize for a new attack. The lull lasted for about an hour, giving the Confederates enough time to reform their lines. Then the fighting resumed, each side trying to force the other off Henry Hill. The battle continued until just after 4p.m., when fresh Southern units crashed into the Union right flank on Chinn Ridge, causing McDowell’s tired and discouraged soldiers to withdraw.
At first the withdrawal was orderly. Screened by the regulars, the three-month volunteers retired across Bull Run, where they found the road to Washington jammed with the carriages of congressmen and others who had driven out to Centreville to watch the fight. Panic now seized many of the soldiers and the retreat became a rout. The Confederates, though bolstered by the arrival of President Jefferson Davis on the field just as the battle was ending, were too disorganized to follow up on their success. Daybreak on July 22 found the defeated Union army back behind the bristling defenses of Washington.

Afterwards Christopher took me to Cracker Barrell.  Oh man, I'm in Southern Girl Heaven!  Yes, I realize I'm not in the south, and I realize that West Virginia isn't "The South" either, but its a sensibility that I'm speaking about. *wink wink* I'll post more on the book of my Face, but some of these are just for you guys

Our First Virginia Easter

Our first major holiday in our new home was Easter.  I'm not going to lie, I was kind of worried about it.  Not worried worried, but I wondered would the kids ask if we were going to see the grandparents or when was Nanny going to come and dye eggs (something we've always done with my parents).  Our house is still mostly in boxes, I have no dining room table and we know no one!  Luckily our amazing neighbors came to the rescue and have adopted us into their family!  They have a bunch of people over, Easter Egg Hunt, good food - reminds me of how my family does it.  They have grand kids that were there to play with Brian and Ami, and their daughter, Katie, who has become my friend, has a little boy that just loved Brian and Ami.  Easter Morning we made our way to New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, Abraham Lincoln's church and one of my personal hero's, Peter Marshall, was pastor there, when he was Chaplain to the Senate.  All in all it was a wonderful day.  We are hoping to go back to take the tour and look around a little bit more. 

 Phillp is six months old now and eating rice cereal, which is just so crazy!  I wish he would stop it already.  Before I know it he'll be crawling.  He's already rolling over all the time and trying to push up on his knees.

The National Cathedral

Hello everyone, i've got a couple posts to update you on.  When we first moved here we decided that we wouldn't rush the whole church hunting thing.  I'm sure most of you that I've talked to have heard me say that church hunting is just like the bane of my existence.  Because we lived fairly close to home it felt like we never really left our home church, but we weren't really connected there because we lived two hours away.  And our church in Reno was great, but it had its ups and downs, and there wasn't really a place for our children and there wasn't a huge young adult crowd.  After talking with other people that have gone through similar things I've just decided that its just hard.  Its hard to find something new when you love where you came from.  And because where you came from has lots of sentimental value it makes it even harder to find somewhere new.  So, when we were moving here Christopher and I both decided that we would take our time.  We have three kids that will need a church family to grow up with, depending on how long we are here for, and searching for a church is much more than just about us.  So, in order to ease into things we decided to take a tour of some historic churches to both satisfy our unquenchable thirst for all things historical, that both Christopher and I share, and so that we can attend church before we find our new home church.  Naturally our first thought was The National Cathedral.  We actually ended up going there about six or so times.  It was pretty amazing.  The people were wonderful, the staff was great, the sermons were wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed the traditional aspects of it.  One of the Pastors that we met while there was a gentlemen on Sabbatical from Westminster Abbey.  He had been part of the service when William and Kate got married.  Now I'm sorry, but that is pretty darn cool!  We heard and met Dean's of departments from major universities like Yale, and from countries like Ireland and England.  We experienced a church that is probably very similar and unchanged from how it was when the church was built in the early 1900s.    We were also able to go on a tour one Sunday and we learned some amazing things.  

Above is a stain glass window dedicated to the Apollo XI mission.  In the middle of the red circle is a white dot and in the white dot is a black dot which is kind of hard to see.  That Dark spot is a piece of the moon.  How cool is that.

Another cool fact is that Woodrow Wilson is buried in the Cathedral, and is one of the only people buried in a tomb and not in a crypt.  He's actually right in the worship area, which is cool but weird.  Just right there where you can touch it. 

Each one of these kneeling cushions is hand done, each one with different themes.  One of the Chapel's has ones that are representative of states.  Each is made by someone in a committee that had to submit various samples and be approved.  There is even one made by the Queen Mother!

This was a pretty emotional piece of artwork in the Cathedral.  It was located in the Military Memorial Chapel.  It also had a beautiful hanging tapestry.

Another really cool thing was the Children's Chapel.  It was an entire chapel in miniature form, with a real working organ, confessional, miniature chairs and kneeling pads.  So beautiful.  The staff actually took the kids in their for a mini-service while we were in ours.  Love love loved that.

Here's some more pics from the tour and some of our visits.  You can see more on the facebook page

Visiting the Cherry Blossoms

I will say that one of the most exciting things that I was looking forward to was getting to see the Cherry blossoms this year!  The Cherry Blossom Festival is supposed to be really cool and the sites are supposed to be absolutely breathtaking.  So, needless to say I was pretty excited.  I downloaded my app and was planning everything out.  This year is the 100th Anniversary of The Cherry Blossoms.  The Festival is the celebration of the giving of the Japanese Cherry Trees from Mayor Yuko Ozaki of Tokyo City to Washington D.C. in 1912.    First Lady Helen Taft and the Wife of the Ambassodor to China planted the first trees.  You can still see some of the original trees on the Naval Shipyard.  Well, the weather has been so crazy that the the blossoms decided to come out early.  When they start blooming, that's it, you better get out there.  We were being told we had about a week to get out there and check them out, to see them at their best at least.  So as soon as Christopher had a day off we headed out there to see them.  This also happened to be our first metro experience.  Which, I must say went really well and it was very big city of us.  The kids did great and it was way easier and way less stressful then I had built up in my head.  It dumped us right out by the Washington Monument and we went and saw that, which Brian has been begging to see since the first time he saw it, and then we walked over to the Tidal Basin and saw the huge Cherry Blossom trees.  They were so amazing and really everything that I had envisioned.  There were so many people, but it was a really good organized caos.  I didn't feel too overwhelmed with the people and the kids and the traffic.  It was a photographer's dream.  The blossoms were drifting in the wind every so often, it was a clear day with beautiful lighting.  It was also your random tourist, who can pick out a good camera and photographer dream.  I spotted me a photographer and said very sweetly, "would you mind taking or picture," and viola...you have a semi-professional or professional (who knows) taking your picture in from of the blossoms and the Jefferson Memorial!  So crazy.   What ended up being even crazier was the next day, on our way to Church at the National Cathedral, it started storming, as predicted.  As we drove back through the District we saw the trees...now, sans blossoms.  Whoops!  So glad we went when we did.

 What Brian had been waiting for!!

 I was so grateful that I have such a great camera and was pretty impressed with the finished results!

 Checking out the Tidal Basin

 Jefferson Memorial

 Yay for family pics by random Photographers

with cameras better than mine

 Practicing my awesome skills

 Brian is a little photographer in the making

Marine One, or one of the Marine Ones