History Nerds UNITE! Mount Vernon Trip

OK, so yesterday we take a long anticipated trip to Mount Vernon--you know, George Washington's home. OK, George Washington was our nation's first president. Al, are you with me on this one? So far so good? OK. So, we went there--since we had nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon and it is only 15 minutes from our apartment. Actually we've been wanting to go see it since we got here...yeah, we're history nerds at heart. Did I mention that Holly is in the middle of reading the biographies of all the U.S. Presidents...in order?

So after we get there we get hit up with $38.00 for admissions. Now, I guess I've gotten a bit spoiled with all the free stuff in D.C. but $38.00 seemed a bit steep. And, that wasn't even the "go to the front of the line" gold Disney pass either...that was the "wait 35 minutes before you even go into the house line".

But, the grounds are beautiful, lots of fun things going on--like a whole tent village recreated with authentic "crafts people" selling their wares. There was one dude, had to be in his late 50's--almost Charley Hughes age--who was dressed up as a beggar...complete with real "rat in a cage". No kidding. The guy is so committed to his part that he went out and raised a rat to be comfortable in an iron-bar cage. THAT is the type of experience you get for $38.00.

They had all kinds of people who decided it would be fun to dress up in authentic period garb and parade around the grounds and do things. Here is a prime example of a couple that decided to be French foreign dignitaries who were there to see George Washington...again, I can't make this stuff up. Again, I'll make the connection to Walt Disney World...no Goofy, Daffy, Mickey, we had these two, and about 40-100 others just like them. Random guys who were playing "eligible bachelors" strolling around the grounds randomly. MY guess is that they aren't really married in real life either and are waiting for one day for a girl to tell them SHE'S always wanted to do something like that, especially with her doctoral degree in late 1700's U.S. History. Bachelor dudes...ZERO, reality...INFINITY.

There were other whole troops of guys playing solider too. That was kind of neat, I'll admit. Especially when they all got together and lowered their muskets and fired into the crowd of tourists. Seriously, they did. Sacred the living pa-doo-doo out of the kids. A day later, our daughter still just about shakes when we bring up the soldiers. FYI, muskets, not easy or fast to reload. Honestly, one guy with a MAC-11 could have taken out most of the Continental Army in the first battle. Man oh man, I'm glad the British didn't invent time travel.


Of course the wifey was there to see the gardens. Thankfully there were only about 150 acres of those to see. There was a lot of THIS going on with the kids (OK, so even I learned a thing or two about gardening--and the names of about 35 kinds of flowers, shrubs, etc.)








One of my favorite moments was when the grounds closed down (yes we were there till the bitter end--mostly because we were having such a good time--I was making fun of the costumed people for the most part). We spotted this fellow coming in to where I guess they all go to take off their "historical garments" and put on some real pants and shirts without lacey bits. Love this guy:
All in all $38.00 WELL SPENT!

Two weeks ago we went to a horse show out in the country. Took us about 1.5 hours to get there. We were all rather excited about the event. Holly had been going on and on about the horses, how much fun we'd have...we were all excited.

We climbed into the car, drove forever to get out to "Virginia Horse Country" and it was beautiful... When we got to the town where they were having the horse show we actually passed the darned thing before we knew we were past it. It was a bit small... To our surprise we found out that all the fun events like, show jumping, or people riding on horses, or competitions that involved more than one horse at a time all had happened on FRIDAY, the day before. All that was going on Saturday was the individual group judging...so the best 2-year-old horses, the best horses that are brown (OK so I made that last one up). BUT, we did get to see some of the horses close up--like when we went to get lunch and there weren't any tables at which to sit--- (because both of them were broken) so we picnicked under a shade tree right where this lady was giving her horse a bath. Well, the horse didn't want to have a bath--much like any normal two-year-old--so it pitched a fit and stepped all in this huge pile of straw and sawdust that had been mucked out of a stall. This made the lady giving the horse a bath, well, pretty pissed off at the horse. So she was scolding it, it was getting more and more agitated and in an effort to get away from the lady came about 8 feet from running right over us. I grabbed the kids and we all backed up about 20 feet not knowing what was going to happen next. Ahhh, horses.

The highlight for me, though was when this happened in the show ring. I didn't take the picture...I think Eli did. Atta-boy! It pretty much summed up our entire "horse show" experience.

Now to be fair, Holly suffered through the Boat Races...Now we're even.

When was the last time you got the honor to help vest a seminarian?

So one of the things that we've had to come to grips with as budding seminarians is that we're going to have to get our own vestments. We were informed of this in a chapel meeting a couple of weeks ago. Since then we've been doing a bunch of research on vestments (identifying what the heck they really are--example: That long black one actually has a real name. Seriously, it does), companies that make them, and being blown away at the prices. OK, so some of us were more amazed than others about the prices. But seriously. OUT OF CONTROL.

With that in mind, I'm offering a one-time experience for you all to step up to the plate (offering plate if that makes you feel better about it) to help contribute to the vestments that I'll be wearing for the next x years...or until they totally wear out.

Here's what we need...that long black thing that goes under that flowing white one that makes you look angelic. It is called a CASSOCK and they run between $180--$350 depending on the style, who makes them etc. Peep this picture. Dude looks total dork, but hey, I'm sure I'll look just the same amount of "priest-nerd". BTW, I have no idea who this guy is, but he's the one on wikipedia, so he's got THAT going for him.




The next item that goes over the top of the Cassock is called the Surplice. Now, these come in a WIDE variety of styles, from really ornate to really simple. Basically they are flowey white and make you look like angelic or "billowey" as one of our seminarians put it. Of course, he's 6'11" and 325 so just about ANYTHING he puts on makes him look "billowey". These are slightly less expensive--again depending on what style you get. I'm going for plain flowey. Nothing showy--they can come with a whole bunch of lace insets which, I think, are a bit much. Check out the picture. The guy is wearing one with the lacey frou-frou insets--and he's using incense. To me, you BETTER be using incense if you have this kind of surplice...I've never been big on smells and bells so plain white is fine by me. Approximate cost: $85--$145.


The next thing I'll need is called an alb. It is the white version of the black cassock (for the most part). Again, there are a number of options, styles, etc. that you can have with this vestment....and again, I'm going with straight forward plain white alb. The approximate cost of this vestment is between $85--$135. I've gone back to my trusty friend from the cassock picture for the shot of the alb. It also has to have a cincture--the rope belt thing. Those are cheap though, only about $25.

SO, if anyone wants to help out with the $$ of course we'd all be thankful at the Hanisian household...and the kids can have new shoes for winter and mittens too. :) Yes, I just went there.

Look at those beady eyes...Evil.

So, what the HELL is THIS?! We have an anomaly here--an ALL BLACK squirrel. Darn thing lives someplace right near our apartment. When I first told Holly about it she didn't belive me. But NOW who is crazy?! HUH?! WHO?!

I'm thinking about setting some squirrel traps out in the yard to trap it so we can sacrifice it in the pale moon light on Halloween. Apparently we have a special service that the seminarians do on All Hallows Eve in the seminary cemetery...

I'll let you all know how it goes. Personally, I'm not sure I'm pro-squirrel anyway. One less all-black (read: evil) rodent in the world might not be a bad thing. Hey, if this whole Man-of-God thing doesn't work out there might be a promising career for me in rodent removal and sacrifice.

Who knows.

Idiots

OK, so now I'm all pissed off. We have 136,003 cable channels apparently, and NONE of them are showing the Bengals/Browns game. I'm stuck with either the Steelers/Bills (who the hell cares, neither team is even going to make it to the play-offs--and NO STEELER FAN, they AREN'T so get used to the idea now!) OR, I can watch the Packers/NY Giants game. What in the wide wide world of sports is going on here people!?!

With that out of the way, we had an interesting spiritual adventure last week going to St. Paul's K Street. SPKS (too much to type out) is an Anglican Episcopal church in the center of D.C., about 1/4 of a mile from The White House. They have Mass. Seriously, it is Mass. Smells and Bells everywhere. We sat about half way back and came out smelling like we hang our clothes in an incense-factory closet (...um, or something, you get the idea here people). St. Paul's came recommended to us by one of our seminarian neighbors who said, "If you want to see how 'high church' is done, check this place out." So we did...felt a little out of place. I'm not used to genuflecting every time you enter/exit a pew, crossing yourself every time someone says the name "Jesus", and chanting the entire service. Luckily the words were in English and not Latin. That and we didn't pray to The Virgin Mary and/or The Pope or The Queen--other than that it was pretty much like a Roman Catholic High Mass. The priest, who is English, said the Eucharist facing the altar, not the congregation, and we were invited to either receive the host in our hands or on our tongues. Yes, Dane Cook's Eucharist skit did go through my head (A "Jee-zit", I love it!). If you haven't seen that, go peep it on YouTube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEHK2LiYLOI

The one thing that got me was the number of worship bulletins we received: one for the service specific to that Sunday, another for the sung part of the Eucharist, another that had the collects and several of the service music chants and another that had the readings...ALONG WITH having to use the Prayer Book and The Hymnal, it was quite confusing. Made me wish for the good old days at Redeemer with one 8-page bulletin and a Hymnal as the main sources of information.

I will give St. Paul's THIS, however--of all the churches we've ever visited...and this includes any churches we've ever attended for any amount of time, St. Paul's wins the prize for the most welcoming! As soon as our rear ends hit the pew we were invited by the greeter who came and tracked us down to join them for coffee hour after the service...several of the parishioners at the peace went out of their way to greet us and welcome us, and a couple of Sunday School teachers came over after the service, introduced themselves and, since they saw we had children, wondered if we'd like them to escort them to the proper classroom if we were going to stay for coffee hour. At a service where there were easily 150+ people, it was very nice to have been invited into the goings on that Sunday. So that was really nice.

I've been thinking a lot about a major decision coming up here in a couple of months--what church to select for my Field Education. Basically, it boils down to this--I have to pick a church that I'm going to spend my Middler year with (12 hours a week) learning everything I can about, well...EVERYTHING. I'm taking a class now that is giving me several dozen ways to look at and evaluate types and kinds of churches, various styles of ministry, etc. etc. so that I can make this important decision. Do I go with a church that is much larger than what I'm used to, a smaller Family-Sized church, one that is waaaaay different from the "low church" ecumenical style we're going to learn at VTS? Hmmm..

Stupid Bengals. Losing 20-14 to THE BROWNS?! Ugh.

Good thing I'm stuck with the stupid Steelers. Hatred.

Smells, Bells, and at least three kinds of Hells

Well, it has been a while since I updated the old blog, so I figured it was time to bring everyone up to speed on things here in Alexandria...so here goes:

First, everyone in our family is doing OK. We've all sort of gotten used to the routine of having 75% of us in school. Even the dog has gotten used to napping about 12 hours a day (yeah, rough life).

Over the past couple of weeks there have been some significant events in which we have participated. Mostly, however, these are about what I'm doing since I'm the one writing this blog and I'm pretty self-centered. (The truth can set you free...and hurt you.)

So, two weeks ago our Junior class got on a bus bound for Catholic University of America's campus in D.C. to go to the Washington Theological Consortium's kickoff event--a 45 minute prayer service followed by dinner at one of the seminaries on CUA's campus. What happens when you put 45 seminary nerds on a bus for any length of time? Camp songs, that's what. Yes, I said it--camp songs. Then, since we have a couple of seminarians from the deep south it turned into southern rock songs...which then progressed to songs that you know if you've lived in either Alabama or Mississippi. This lead to an ever decreasing number of singers (thank you Jesus).

So we get there and head to the chapel--we were the last ones to get there due to traffic, so the only seats left were--you guessed it--right up front. Sweet. There were about 200 new seminarians there all wondering why in the world we HAD to be there....did I mention that the chapel isn't air conditioned? Yeah, so it is about 120-degrees, we're all sweaty from trying to get to the chapel quickly and packed in like sardines. Great. I was rather interested in what the preacher had to say--he's our New Testament professor, John Yieh--has more degrees than I have fingers (he, along with 10 other smarty-pants did a 10-year-long study of "Q" and pretty much wrote THE work on the subject...amongst other things). 28 minutes into his dissertation I wondered if he would wrap it up before I died of dehydration. Luckily, he did, we peaced it on out of there and went to dinner...with the seminarians from St. Jehosaphat's. Ukrainian Orthodox.

That is a whole other story for another time. It was good, however. Learned lots. Have to wrap this post up for now...Bengals are on in a couple of minutes and I can't wait to watch them destroy the Cleve-burg whoever they are.