Update 3

DC, here I am!!

Saturday: New Year’s day. Everything is closed and there’s nothing to do but rest up and eat.

Sunday: Sightseeing and navigating the city. First stop, Smithsonian. Union Station and the Postal Museum were first and the international spy museum was after. There are a million and one things to see and do in every museum so we only made it through about half of every museum throughout the week.

Monday: Tour of the Pentagon and Capitol. The Pentagon was AMAZING!! I have always been interested in learning about the military (and now with my new friends and reconnected friends I can learn more) but after the Pentagon tour and all the museums that praise our troops I am incredibly fascinated and impressed with the military. I like learning about them and especially love seeing them all doing what they love to do. They’re so passionate about protecting our country and speak so highly of everything… I’m just inspired by them (I know it’s cheesy but hey that’s me). Of course I would NEVER consider going into it because I’m WAY too soft and too much of a mediator, but it’s still interesting to learn about. At the Capitol we had one of Senator Inouye’s staff take us on a tour. This means we went to a bunch of offices and the appropriation room of Senator Inouye. I can’t really remember what else we did because after a week of viewing a ton of museums and trying to do as much as possible they start to blend together.

Tuesday: Tour of the Archives, visit to the natural history museum, visit to the American history museum, and tour of the Washington monument. The butterfly exhibit was closed until Friday so I was pretty upset at that. Everything else was pretty amazing though.

Wednesday: INAUGURATION TODAY!!!!!! We spent all day in the Capitol watching the inauguration of Representative Colleen Hanabusa. It was amazing. So sorry to Senator Inouye’s staff who had to be trapped in his hide-away office with our crazy family. I hope you enjoyed yourself laughing at us haha.

Thursday: Department of Interior tour. From 9am to 4pm we toured the city. We went to the WWII memorial, Arlington Cemetery, Korean War memorial, Vietnam War memorial, Lincoln memorial, lunch at the old postal building, Washington Monument, Jefferson memorial, and FDR memorial. It was a lot of walking, a lot of cold, and a lot of fun!! Again, I am VERY impressed with the military after visiting all these memorials, especially after visiting Arlington Cemetery. I loved the stones being all perfectly aligned like soldiers standing at attention and the changing of the guard of the tomb of the unknown soldier. It was so amazing to watch and feel the power of the entire place. I wanna visit the cemetery again soon. I absolutely LOVE it there, as weird as that sounds haha. I also came down with a terrible toothache, which exhibited all the symptoms of an absist (or something like that). Idk what exactly it is, but as far as I understand, it’s an infection that is causing me a great deal of pain in the root of my tooth. I haven’t been able to sleep through the pain and I actually resorted taking Tylenol. Yes, I’m taking medicine to ease pain… but it’s not very helpful because as soon as I eat, it hurts again. I’m hungry and tired but I can’t really do anything about it until I get it checked out.

Friday: Tour of the White House and visiting the air and space museum. I enjoyed it a lot but with the pain from the tooth I couldn’t help but go back to the hotel early. Although, I did get to visit my butterflies before I left :) that was pretty much the highlight of my day and when my tooth didn’t bother me as much as it had been. Of course, when I left my tooth was killing me once again. I didn’t go to dinner this night. I took a shower and packed and then passed out… hard core.

Saturday: I woke up and my tooth hurt EVEN MORE!! It’s ridiculous how much more pain you feel after being numb for a couple of hours. It started to snow just as we were leaving the hotel and my family ran out to take pics in it. I couldn’t move because the pain paralyzed my body a fair amount. We loaded up the vans and went on our way to the airport. Uncle Walter called his son who's a dental specialist or something like that so that I could get the pain all figured out.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig: I was in a TERRIBLE amount of pain. I was airsick and nauseous and my tooth hurt a lot. I went straight to Uncle Wade, Uncle Walter's son, and told him what was going on. He went to work on my mouth right away. Turns out I have an abscess. For a few months or years (when ever it was that I got my filling on that particular tooth) bacteria has been eating away at my tooth and has finally reached the roof of my mouth and behind my nose, which is why I was in so much pain. Uncle had to open up my tooth to clean it all out and after he was done I could barely breathe from the pain. It went all the way the center of my brain. I couldn't stop crying and I still had to wait for a while to get my pain killers. BTW I'm finally able to swallow pills... it's amazing what you can do when you're desperate. Anyway... now I'm feeling MUCH better but I still get nauseous and dizzy when I take my medicine (stupid side effects) but it's better than feeling a crap load of pain. I think that's everything to bring you up to date... so I guess I'll keep writing as my break continues on its adventure. Until then... Laters!