So this will be the first year we have decorated for Christmas since we lost the pregnancy.  I think it will be a great way to start off in our new home in a new city at a new job.  I am excited to do it this year, and that is kind of refreshing to me.  All things heal in time, right?  I will try and get pics posted on facebook at least, and maybe here as well, although I believe you all are friends with me on facebook and that would be easier.    Looking forward to going home for Christmas, I think we have our schedule all figured out.  Can’t wait to see you all!

After going through the permanent exhibit, which if you have never been through, I highly recommend, we watched about 10 minutes of the survivor interviews at the end.  Listening to these people tell their stories was too much, but at the same time it is good to know that there has been an effort to preserve these memories.  Anna and I both commented about how amazing it is that there are people who actually believe that it didn’t happen.  Go there, see the exhibits, the photos, the videos, and tell me that it didn’t happen.

The part of the experience that really got to me was the final exhibit we walked through, From Memory to Action: Meeting the Challenge of Genocide.  Despite the laws resulting from the Nuremberg Trials and outcry of a world against crimes against humanity, countries still stand by and watch thousands of people die at the hands of monsters in places like Rwanda and Darfur.  It really hit home in the context of the Holocaust Museum; imagine having suffered through it 70 years ago only to see it happen again in your life time.  I still do not understand how people can be so complacent in their lives to allow things like this to continue.  No wonder the speaker today is so cynical about human nature.

I have decided that I need to become more active in my role against the genocide happening in Africa.  Raising money helps, yes, and so does raising awareness.  I sign the petitions to urge our government to intervene, to put political and economic pressure on others to do the same, but what have I really done?  The speaker mentioned two specific people in his recollections this afternoon, and they were not friends, relatives, or even Jews.  They were Christians whose job it was to supervise the apartment building where he and his family lived, to make sure the doors were locked except during the two hours they had to go outside and so their shopping.  But these two people opened the doors for them, first to allow his father to come in and hide when his work group was destined to be shipped out a concentration camp the next day, and next to allow him and his mother to leave and go into hiding before their building was raided and the inhabitants shipped out to the camps.  He said they may have not done anything heroic, or thought that they did, but the small kindness saved his life, and the life of his parents.

Do I not have the same desire, the same responsibility to do what I can, whatever it may be, to help end the crimes occurring right now?  How can I look at the faces in the pictures, see them on the news, and respect myself as a human being, especially as a Christian, and think that it’s ok that maybe someone else will help them, that it isn’t that bad, that they are just too far away for me to be able to do anything about it?  What kind of person would that make me?

The first thing that popped into my head was my desire to adopt from Africa.  I have been keeping tabs on the programs available in war torn regions, such as Rwanda, the Congo, and Uganda.  Is this the reason that God has placed this desire in my heart for as long as I can remember?  Is this why I am unable to have my own children, to help steer me in this direction?  I don’t know, but it seems like too much of a coincidence for me to ignore.

I have no clear idea what my next move will be, but I have plenty to think about.  Please pray for me to hear God’s voice and to help us to decide what our next step will be.

Travis and I have talked a lot about, well, a lot of things.  But one thing in particular is our family.  As many of you know, we have been trouble having our own children, so the topic of adoption has come up over and over again.  We are both in agreement, if we do choose to adopt, we are hoping to adopt from Africa, particularly Uganda.  This is one little thing that we can do right now to help the children there that need it.  If you feel so inclined, please either sponsor me, or even just donate to the cause.  Thanks!

Also, check out my sidebar and click on the badge to help the cause Invisible Children.  It is another organization that raises money and awareness of child victims of the war in Uganda.

This week will be a busy one as I am doing a second mating experiment and yet another IVF.  One day when I have more time I will post more about what our lab works on.  It is very cool, and I actually enjoy working with mice, they are cute and fun to watch!  Except when they bite.  Not a fan.

I texted mom yesterday to see if she would come over and fix me some soup.  Unfortunately she was working on a quilt (mine!) so she had a good excuse not to come over and take care of me.

I spent the few hours I was awake today letting the girls out in the back yard (I am sooo glad we have one, even though it is teeny tiny and mostly concrete) and catching up on the internets.  I am on Twitter now, look me up if you get a chance, my name is drtmart.  I know, it’s not very original, but what do you expect when I am under the weather?

I guess I am going to have to distribute my blog address again, because I think Rose is the only one who is checking up on me.  And it is sad that my views chart has never gotten above a 4.  Ever.  That would be what I would call lame.

Walking around the WWII memorial was AMAZING!!!  All of the veterans getting to see the monument that was erected in their honor, it was a once in a lifetime experience for me.  People walking by would stop and talk to them and thank them for what they did for our country.  And you know what my grandpa said in response to them?  Thank you for the appreciation.  That is all these men and women want, is to be appreciated for the sacrifices they made for our freedom, not to get fanfare or fancy monuments.  Just for acknowledgment of what they did.

I found out some cool things today.  My grandpa doesn’t really like to talk about his time in the Air Force.  All I really knew was that he flew planes (with pin-up girls on the side!) in the Pacific theater.  Today I found out that he was in Okinawa the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  That made my stomach flip-flop.  I believe he saw survivors of that atrocity while he was there, and now I understand why maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it.  He was also scheduled for a mission that same day, but it was canceled at the last minute.  How fortunate we are that he made it home alive!

I heard stories of planes going down, men with shrapnel in their legs still to this day from that war.  One gentleman was in a wheelchair because of his plane crash.  There were a few amputees whose limbs still reside on foreign soil.  Grandpa’s buddy for the day was stationed in Europe.  He said all he could think about when he remembered the war was the concentration camps.  He was one of the men that liberated Dachau.  He remembers the giant furnace where they were still burning bodies when they got there.  How could you ever forget something like that?

That leads me to my next thought that has been gnawing at my brain all day.  These soldiers not only sacrificed their time, their safety, their jobs and family-life, but they sacrificed a life free from the nightmares of atrocities that still haunt them today.  To see them talking about some of the things they saw, even so long ago, you could tell it was seared into their minds so that when they closed their eyes it was as if it had happened yesterday.  That is another thing that I am thankful to those who serve their country; those kinds of images and situations are nothing more than imagination to me, a history lesson to be learned, a horrible thing that man-kind can never let happen again.  To these people it was a daily way of existence, and now it is a memory that I am sure many of them wish they could forget.

Well, I think that is all I have to say right now.  I wanted to get some thoughts down while everything was fresh in my mind.  I am so happy that I had this opportunity, but not half as happy as I am that grandpa had this opportunity.

The group that is coordinating this asked for friends and family to send letters to their veteran because they will have a mail call on the flight out here to DC, and I just wanted to share it.  I wrote it at work which was probably the only thing that kept me from crying.  I am in awe of people who choose to serve in the military, and even though I may not agree with what our government is doing in certain situations, I would never in a million years be so shallow and ignorant to take that out on the soldiers themselves.  They didn’t make the decision on what the US military would do, it was the politicians that we voted into office that did.  Enough of that soap-box, here is the letter that I sent my grandpa.

Dear Grandpa,

I am so excited to see you in a few short hours.  It is going to be such an honor for me to be able to be with you when you see the memorials in DC for the first time.  Don’t worry, I will have the camera battery charged and ready to go!

As excited as I am, I can only imagine what is going through your head as you travel almost a thousand miles to see the tributes to you and your fellow veterans.  It is so amazing to me the commitment and sacrifice of young men going half-way around the globe to defend my freedom before my parents were even born.  Your bravery is truly an inspiration for me to be my best and work my hardest to make you proud Grandpa.  I want you to know how much I appreciate what you did for this country, and I want to live my life to the fullest to honor the opportunities that you helped secure for all of us.

Working here in the DC area I know that I have never understood what you did for us as well as I do now.  Visiting the memorials is so moving, but they are still just stone.  It is living in an environment where I meet people of all nationalities that have come here to experience what most Americans take for granted now that really drives home how lucky we are to live in the US, and even luckier to have men and women who are willing to sacrifice everything to protect that way of life.  I don’t think I will ever know what it is like to be on the front line, or for my life to be in danger every moment of every day and I want to say thank you Grandpa for giving me that gift.  Thank you for defending my freedom, thank you for protecting a place where I will never be persecuted for my beliefs or held down just because I was born a woman.  I am so proud to have you as my grandfather and I want you to know that I love you with all of my heart.

Thank you and love always,

Tara

Just wanted to share because that is how I really feel, and it is important to get my opinion out there so I can’t be accused of never saying anything.

The job is going alright so far, I am still waiting anxiously awaiting my badge.  That way I can actually go to the bathroom without having to ask for someone else’s badge.  I have computer access, and I have been cleared for work with the mice, and I am working on getting my projects all set up.  Just to bring everyone up to speed, I am now working in a reproductive biology lab.  We focus on mammalian fertilization and use mice as a model system.  One of my projects will focus on how sperm find the egg to fertilize it.  I am so excited to get started it makes me very impatient to get my stinking badge!

Travis is getting to know the area by running and biking all over kingdom come, but that comes in handy when I want to go shopping.  He has gone to a few meetings at his new school, and is getting really excited about cross country starting soon.  He has already found a local running store that has running groups and is looking forward to start hanging out with them.

We visited a church this morning, and I think we both really liked it.  It meets in a movie theatre, and is a laid back atmosphere like there was at Woodcrest.  The ministry staff seems nice, excited about the church’s vision and direction, and approachable.  We will probably visit them again next week to continue to get a feel for the church.

Miss you all and love you.  We are hoping to be back in MO for Christmas, but it is a bit early to start making definite plans.  Hope to hear from you all!

Hope everyone had a chance to check out the pictures, I really love this new place.  I thought for the longest time I would like a quaint little historical home, but in our price range that just means tiny chopped up rooms with some cute windows and a fireplace.  I enjoy the open floor plan much more, especially in the square footage range we have been looking at, it just makes it easier to move, sprawl out, and have plenty of space for the animals to relax, even if we have company.   Maybe when Travis starts making the huge teaching bucks we can afford a historical mansion with lots of open space, but it will still have that old world charm.  Ha!