Day in the District

Last Friday we had the opportunity to spend most of the afternoon and evening in Washington, DC without kids!! Thank you Naegeli's! After lunch, we drove to the nearest Metro station, got on, and headed in to the city. Our first stop was Capitol South where we met our friend Donelle who works for Texas Representative Kenny Marchant. What an exciting job! We're such tourists. We were able to see his office and even sit behind his desk. Haha. We were then put on a tour of the Capitol (which was actually like an hour later, after passing through a lot of security). The tour started with a short film and then we walked through the Capitol building looking at the many beautiful statues (2 for each state) and paintings. My headset wasn't working, but it sounded like the tour guide was telling us a lot of interesting facts about the pieces of artwork. As we were trying to take a picture of the statue of Sam Houston, our group left us and we never found them again. Chris did not think this was funny, but I was laughing anyway.

the picture we were taking when our group left

So that was the end of our guided tour. The Capitol building is huge and very confusing, but we finally found where to go to see the Gallery. We spent another hour dropping off our phones and electronics and going through more security before entering the Gallery viewing area. We happened to sit down a few minutes before they came into session. Although we didn't understand what they were saying and it was only for about two minutes, it was neat to be sitting in the Gallery while "in session".

By this time most of our day was gone, but we got back on the Metro and got off at the Mall. We spent the rest of the time we had left before dinner in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (and didn't even go through the entire museum). We came to the conclusion that we need to spend at least two more full days in DC just to do the basics. We got on the Metro once again and got off in Chinatown to meet Donelle again and her husband Joel. Joel is a good friend of ours from college. We ate dinner together at a really cool Italian restaurant called Vapiano. Yes I know, Italian food in Chinatown, but it was so good! We had a great time catching up and I felt so at home talking to people that come from the same place we do. I get asked all the time "do you miss Texas?" Honestly, I don't really miss it. I just miss the people in Texas, our amazing friends and family! It's been great having a few of our friends visit already. After the Webb's spent a week with us, I was sad to see them go. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our new church family! Sometimes it's just comforting to have people around that we've known for so long; something familiar in an unfamiliar place.


We finished up the night by taking the Metro to the Harder's (Joel and Donelle) house in Alexandria, VA to have dessert. It's weird to travel to another state and back home in one night. They showed us Old Town Alexandria and we ate some very yummy peach cobbler. It was a great day!

Recapping the past 4 months...

Hello everyone! Since we are frequently asked how we are doing and how we are adjusting to the move, we have decided to start an official family blog. What was supposed to be our "family" blog seems to be used primarily for thoughts on Ska music and electronic devices, so we have created a blog specifically dedicated to what is going on with the Nuckels family! Supposedly the real Naptown is Indianapolis, but it works with our last name, so we're going with it.


The Story So Far...
Four months ago we moved from our home town of Denton, Texas to Annapolis, Maryland for Christian to begin working in full-time music ministry. Weems Creek Baptist Church, the church to which we have come, is a great family of believers. When we first arrived, this entire area of the country was covered in tons of snow! This was a bit of an adjustment for us, but Emorie seemed to do very well.

Our first Sunday, we were greeted by the church with a "pounding" [pictured below]. This is apparently when the people of the church collect a massive amount of food and household goods to bestow upon the new minister. We were truly overwhelmed with gratitude. We are still working on this enormous supply of food and other household items!

We began getting settled in and found that living 30 minutes away from Baltimore and D.C. has the great advantage of never being without something to do as a family. It seemed that almost every weekend we were able to go somewhere new and experience something fun together. Michaela even took a day trip to NYC! Baltimore has a great children's museum and aquarium in the downtown area known as the "Inner Harbor" [pictured below].

We also were able to check out the Cherry Blossoms in D.C. which was an amazing time to see our nation's capitol. The kids got really tired really fast, but it was so worth it! There are so many other places near us that we can't wait to visit!

Needless to say we are having a blast and these first few months have felt kind of like a weird, long vacation. Of course, there are drawbacks to leaving your friends and family so far behind. We really wish that everyone could have come to see Ryland turn 1 year old. I could tell you all about it, but as Christian would say, "a .jpg is woth a thousand .doc's." ...nerd. (He wrote that!)

So, besides all of the family fun what else is new? Well, Christian was officially ordained "So - Bap" Style two Sundays ago and is thoroughly enjoying his ministry work. Emorie has started a dance class and both Emorie and Ryland have been LOVING gymnastics.

We love to frequent many of the beautiful parks here in town. Oh yeah... did I mention our Target? This picture doesn't really do it justice, because it is on the 3rd FLOOR. The actual store is not really anything special, but we think it's really cool to park in the garage and use the cart escalator!

So, we know that this is info overload, but we wanted to get you all caught up with the reader's digest version of the past four months. Check back to see more fun updates on the Nuckels family adventures! We are going to leave you with a few pictures of our new city. It is becoming increasingly evident that we are living in one of the most beautiful places, but even still we miss you all!