Brent and Billie go to Washington

This summer I taught an Introduction to Sociology class in which some of the students were in Albright's Summer Start program. Summer Start is a program for students who would not normally be admitted but who are given an opportunity to work their way in by going through a pretty intense five week program in which they take a regular class (either mine or a history class) in addition to a study skills class and a life skills class that focuses mostly on reading and math remediation. On the weekends, the students in this program also participate in various social activities. On July 30, the students were going to Washington, D.C. and, because we have only been there for a few hours during the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear last fall, Billie and I decided to go with them.

Our first stop was the Smithsonian National Zoo (as always, click on the pictures for bigger versions):

This is a map of the zoo that also proves we were there.

This gorilla did not look too excited to be there, even with a baby gorilla playing underneath it.

This young gorilla was hanging out in the shade, probably plotting an escape strategy.

Can you spot the tiger?

Some lions lyin' around.

An elephant. I couldn't understand why it wasn't in the water (it was hot outside).

Zebras doing whatever zebras do.

After leaving the zoo we went to lunch at Union Station.

Billie standing in front of the (empty) fountain in front of Union Station.

Billie and Brent in front of the fountain.

The view along the front of Union Station.

Inside, Billie looks for a train (I'm not sure about the history but Union Station is currently part mall and part train station).

Another view of the main lobby.

A view of the "mall" area. We ate at an Asian restaurant to the left of this picture.

After leaving Union Station we went to the Washington Mall. We had been here before for the rally but we didn't get to do much sightseeing at the time. While the students went into some of the museums we decided to walk down to the Lincoln Memorial and then to the Capitol. This map gives you a sense of the distance we traveled.

I can't imagine a better picture of the Washington Monument.

Down by the Washington Monument we could see what looked like a big white house off to the side but we didn't have time to go see what it was.

Billie with the World War II Memorial.

Some words at the WWII Memorial (you can see the Lincoln Memorial in the background).

The Washington Monument from the WWII Memorial fountain.

The WWII Memorial fountain.

The reflecting pool was not doing much reflection on the day of our visit. It is apparently being rebuilt.

The Lincoln Memorial.

Abe Lincoln (not life sized - they were apparently going to make him smaller until they realized that if he was any smaller nobody would be able to see him on the back of a penny).

Billie and Brent at the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument and reflecting dirt in the background.

After a lengthy walk we arrived at the Capitol at the other end of the mall. At this time, congresspeople and senators were inside trying to look up the word "negotiate" in the dictionary so that they could raise the debt ceiling.

This is the front of the Capitol, which faces away from the mall (you can tell it is the front because the statue on the top of the building faces this way). We tried to go inside and solve the country's problems but apparently only congresspeople and senators are allowed to go through the chain across the steps.

Here we are, left outside.

Next time we go to Washington we'd like to go for a weekend so that we have more time to go inside of some of the buildings.

Local Sports: The Reading Royals

On March 19 (long before we went to see the Reading Phillies play), Billie took me to a Reading Royals hockey game for my birthday. This post also marks the end of our current backlog, which means that we can start posting about more recent events (until, of course, we get behind again!).

The Reading Royals logo - they have been playing in Reading for 10 years.

Billie always makes fun of how low hockey scores typically are. She picked the right night to go to a game!

The game had a lot of penalties that led to a lot of goals. At one point, things got pretty heated between the teams, with players and coaches yelling at each other and at the officials. A player for the visiting team nearly got into a fight with one of the referees. That player and another were ejected over the course of the game.

Between periods, they let a ton of kids out onto the ice. With that many players, scoring a goal would be nearly impossible. The fact that some of the kids could barely skate didn't help much, either.

The team's mascot, Slapshot, also made an appearance between periods, when he drove out onto the ice in this little truck before throwing t-shirts to people (sadly, not us).

The final score was 9-2. We had a good time despite Billie's claimed dislike of hockey, though I'm not sure how a 1-0 game would have gone over.

Hershey, PA

Jessica and Alexis's visit to Reading gave us a chance to go to Hershey, PA, which is advertised as "The Sweetest Place on Earth." After selling his successful Lancaster Caramel Company in 1900 for $1 million, Milton S. Hershey turned his focus to the production of milk chocolate, which was a Swiss luxury product at the time. To do so he returned to his hometown of Derry Church, PA where he would be able to obtain large quantities of fresh milk and started a factory. Along with the factory, he also worked hard to establish a factory town for his employees that would provide them with a sense of community.

Formerly a location of the Milton S. Hershey School, the Hotel Hershey currently overlooks the factory and amusement park area.

This is the entrance to Chocolate World, where we spent most of our time.

Some of these people really like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (Reese originally worked for Hershey before leaving to start his own company that used Hershey chocolate. After his death, his company was sold to Hershey.)

After spending some time in Chocolate world and going on the tour where we saw the singing cows, we took a "trolley" ride around town where we learned some of the history behind the factory, the city, and the school.

They did a good job of making the inside of the bus look like an actual trolley.

Alexis and Jessica on the trolley.

Brent and Billie on the trolley.

This is a building downtown. Note the design of the street lights.

This home was built by Milton S. Hershey's great grandparents and is where he was born on September 13, 1857. After being sold and repurchased by Hershey, this was the first location of the Hershey school.

After our trolley tour we returned to Chocolate world to make some candy. Unfortunately, facial hair had to be covered up, too.

Jessica and Alexis after preparing to make candy.

Everybody picked a base (dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate) that moved along this conveyor belt. As it went, the fillings that you had selected were dumped in.

After the fillings had been added it was coated with milk chocolate.

Billie, Jessica, and Alexis look for their candy bars in the cooling tunnel. Watching chocolate cool was not as exciting as they make it appear.

While things were cooling everybody got to design their packaging. Here, Jessica oversees Alexis's design.

After cooling, the candy bars were boxed and then put into tins with our designs on the outside.

Possibly the highlight of the day for some of these people - a real, live Reese's Peanut Butter Cup! (You'll remember that they were excited to get their pictures taken next to a picture of one earlier in the day.)

After leaving Chocolate World, we went to the botanical gardens, which were free because spring had not quite sprung.

This is the view of the amusement park and factory from the gardens.

Alexis with some Hershey Kiss fountains. She's probably glad that they weren't spraying water.

A butterfly with some flowers starting to grow on its wings.

We had a good time in Hershey but the various tours, chocolate tastings, and candy makings could be expensive. Regarding the Hershey School, it started as a school for orphaned boys but is currently coeducational and enrolls about 1800 students from low-income families all over the country. Starting in 1905 Hershey created a trust to provide the town's financial services and manage the funds for his philanthropic efforts. The $60 million in Hershey company stock that he gave to the school in addition to 486 acres of land is currently worth more than $7 billion.

Jessica and Alexis Visit Reading

Although we moved from Indiana to Pennsylvania, as Emily and Kerri and Shannon have demonstrated, the increased distance from friends and family hasn't entirely stopped us from having visitors. Our proximity to Philadelphia and other historic sites also means that there might be more to do when people come to Reading. At the end of March, my sister Jessica took advantage of her daughter Alexis's spring break and came for a visit. Billie and I were working while they were here but we still managed to fit in some activities (and some games like Boggle and Clue).

Today we'll look at some pictures of their visits to Reading landmarks before taking a look at our trip to Hershey on Tuesday.

Our first stop was the Pagoda on Mt. Penn. Alexis was disappointed that Mt. Penn did not have snow on top of it and rejected its status as a mountain.

Here is a closer view of Jessica and Alexis with the Pagoda sign. Alexis did not reject the labeling of the Pagoda.

Jessica and Alexis on the walkway around the Pagoda with the city of Reading behind them.

After the Pagoda we moved on to the Albright campus, where Jessica was the first to pose as Jacob Albright (as Kerri and Shannon would later get to experience).

At Christmas, Jessica had boldly claimed that she could tell the difference between Pepsi from different containers. We took the opportunity to test her claims when she visited.

The result was total failure on Jessica's part. She did not match a single sample to its container. The correct answers were: 1=can, 2=2 liter, and 3=20 oz, but Jessica guessed 1=20 oz, 2=can, and 3=2 liter.

Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of playing Boggle or Clue or watching Tangled, but we do have some pictures of our trip to Hershey that you can see in a few days.

Yard Work

When we bought our house last year we knew that we wanted to declutter the yard but by the time we were done getting the inside ready to live in it was too hot outside to do much work. This year we decided that we would get some outside work done, so in early April we had a dying tree cut down, removed quite a few shrubs and moved a few others. Then, since we like to do things as close as possible to when people will be visiting us, we had mulch delivered a few days before Kerri and Shannon were going to arrive and I spent a day distributing it around the house while Billie was at work. Below are some before and after photos of our yard work:

Note the large shrubs in front of the entryway and the dead/dying tree just to the left of the house.

Although the fact that leaves had grown in makes it harder to see, note that you can actually see the porch in this picture.

This view shows the tree next to the house that we had cut down as well as some of the shrubs in front of the house.

Here they have been replaced by grass and mulch.

This was apparently a "butterfly bush" that was long-past the point of trimming. There was another on the right side of the house.

The bush is gone (as is the one on the side of the house) and is replaced by grass. I don't miss it.

Here is another view of the front of the house showing how big the front shrubs were.

And here is the way it looks now. Note that we planted grass in front of the sidewalk since we have more than enough space to plant flowers between the sidewalk and the house.

This view doesn't have a "before" picture to go with it, but it demonstrates the new grass pattern and open space in front of the house.

Finally, we have a picture of the mulch around the bushes in the back of the house. Other than pulling weeds out we didn't change anything back here.

Now that things are cleaned up, maybe we'll get around to planting some flowers next year!