Summer Recap Part 2: 1.5 weeks up north

After Ted, Sara, and Leili left town I went back to work for about 4 days, then headed up north with Matt to good old Michigan from July 3rd until the 12th. The trip was amazing but we almost didn't make it there! Here's what went down:

First of all, you should know the plan was for me and Matt to fly out of our respective cities really early Friday morning the 3rd (7:30ish am flights) so that we could make the three hour drive up north to Oscoda and get there by 2ish so as to not waste the whole day. Now I'll tell the story...I get a call Thursday night July 2nd from Matt saying "o by the way, I just found out that my flight tomorrow got canceled (which should not have been a shock because Newark airport is the worst airport in the world, Matt has had a lot of canceled and/or severely delayed flights out of there) and I proceed to have a minor panic attack. Matt says he's going to call the airline and find out what other flights he can get on so we hang up.

I then call the cottage (where mom, dad, christy, ted, sara, and leili already are) and talk to dad and tell him about the bad news. He calms me down with his usual "it will all work out schpeel" and suggests we think outside the box for a solution, maybe Matt can fly out of a different city etc... My memory is a little fuzzy on the sequence of things here (that's what happens when you wait two months to post something) but eventually I was on the phone with Matt again and the only flights were like 12 hours later than the original, which would put us up north around midnight and would strand me at the airport for 10 or so hours. So, on a whim I check my flight out of DC and find out that there is ONE, exactly one, seat left on it and I ask Matt if he would be willing to drive down to DC tonight and fly out on my flight in the morning. He agrees to ask the airline but we are both concerned they'll slap some huge fee on him for having to transfer the ticket to another city or something. So Matt's on the phone with the airline, and talking to me online at the same time to try to coordinate everything and the airline agrees to put him on my flight and transferred his return flight to fly into DC instead of Newark since his car would be down here, all for no fee. Momentary sigh of relief, but it was about 6 or 7pm Thursday by the time we got this all figured out mind you and Matt still had to pack for the week and a half long trip and make the 5 hour drive down to DC that night for the 7:30 flight out in the AM, so it was still a little tense.

I finally get the call from Matt at about 10pm that he is now just leaving New Jersey so that puts his eta in Alexandria around 2:30/2:45, which really does not sound good when the alarm is set for 5am. I tried to go to bed right after that because in addition to getting up at 5am, I also had to drive for three hours after landing while Matt could sleep in the car, but as can be expected I probably got about a total of an hour of sleep by the time Matt got there at 2:45. So we got about 2 hours of sleep, then got up at 5am so that we could be out the door by 6am to take the shuttle from my apartment complex to the metro, which we were taking to the airport.

It only takes about 10 minutes to get to the airport on the metro from my stop, so it is incredibly convenient. So far everything is going well, we get to the metro at about 6:10 and I expect to arrive at the airport before 6:30, plenty of time. Well, when we tried to enter the metro station, we found out the gates were locked. The metro opens at 5 am on weekdays, and this was a Friday morning so I was really confused about why the gates would be locked, but then I remembered that since July 4th is a Saturday, everyone gets a holiday on July 3rd, which includes the metro employees. Turns out the metro doesn't open until 7am on holidays, it didnt even occur to me that the metro would not be open...cue another panic attack.

I call the cottage even though I know everyone must be sleeping to ask mom to look up the number for a cab company in Alexandria (I really should have a number stored in my phone, but hindsight is 20/20). So she looks up a number, I call the cab company, they send a cab and we are on our way from the metro station in the cab at around 6:40, much later than I would like, but still doable. Luckily, Reagan airport is pretty small and the Northwest flights leave from a separate terminal that has like 5 gates, so security lines are really short. The drive to the airport should take about 15/20 minutes and we are about to pull off the George Washington Parkway at the airport exit when the cab driver inexplicably bails at the last minute and gets back on the parkway because he thought he was on the wrong exit. Now I really thought we were going to miss the flight. The parkway does not have very many exits and I was worried we'd have to go several miles before being able to turn around, but the cab driver at least had a GPS and he pulled it out and it directed us back to the airport with a net loss of about 10 minutes. So we FINALLY get to the airport at about 7:10, flight is at 7:35. Luckily there was no line at all for northwest check in or security, and we got to the gate right when they began boarding.

It was pretty much smooth sailing from then on, we drove up north and arrived a little after 2pm, when we proceeded to pass out for a couple hours. After that we managed to have a good time up north with the fam. We hung out with my niece Leili, built a sand castle on the beach, hung out around the beach fire, went to the 4th of July fireworks on the beach (in sweatshirts and under blankets mind you) and just relaxed, it was paradise. Here are some pictures:

After spending Friday-Monday in Oscoda, we headed across the state to Matt's place on Burt Lake in Indian River. A TON of Matt's family was there, his mom's 4 siblings and all of their kids and their kids kids etc...it took up three whole cottages. There were three boats up there for the week and three jet skis so we just spent the whole time on the water. It was also a lot warmer than it had been during the weekend so it was much more fun to be outside. I was pretty terrible about taking pictures (the only reason I have pictures from Oscoda is because my mom took most of them for me) but here is a picture of all the boats hanging out at the north end of the lake.

There is a bald eagle at the top of a tree toward the middle of the picture...it was amazing, it just sat on that tree for like an hour before it flew away.

Getting back was much less eventful than getting there, it was a great trip and I really really mis being able to go up north all the time but it makes me appreciate it even more!

Summer recap part 1: Ted, Sara, and Leili come to town

Well, sorry guys, all I can say is better late than never. Since I haven't posted pretty much all summer, I am going to recap all the things I've done since June in a few posts. The first one is about my brother's family coming to visit me in DC toward the end of June.

My brother Ted, his wife Sara, and my niece Leili came to visit me for 4 days from Austin, TX on their way to Michigan to visit the rest of the family. We did a lot while they were here. The first day we went to the Baltimore Aquarium because I had heard it is supposed to be awesome. It was pretty fun, we saw lots of fish, sharks, sting rays, penguins, jelly fish, and the dolphin show. Here are some pictures:

Leili in the prehistoric shark's jaws!

After the aquarium, we went to the pool, which ended up being an every day occurrence. I got Leili an inner tube floaty thing that ended up being a huge hit. Leili was all smiles the whole time in it and loved splashing all over the pool. Ted was a good sport and stayed in the pool, Sara and I got cold pretty quickly each time and wimped out.



The next day we went to story time at a book store on the main street in Alexandria. It was pretty fun, I had never been to a children's story time as an adult before. We read a couple books and sang a bunch of songs and I was really impressed with myself for remembering most of them even though I hadn't heard or sang them in forever. Then we explored King Street and the waterfront area:




The next day we went into the city and saw tons of monuments, including WWII, Lincoln, Washinton Monument, and we went to the International Spy Museum. It was pretty interesting but not very good for Leili, we kind of had to rush through it and poor Sara didn't really get to see anything (I don't think). Then we walked over to the Ellipse in front of the White House and let Leili run free, it was really fun to just enjoy a nice day in the city.

This one of the cutest pictures ever...Leili running to Daddy!

Michigan and Texas were right by eath other at the WWII memorial

And heres a few pictures of Leili that are adorable and don't fit into one of the other categories:

Leili being sneaky with the remote controls

Where have I been

Okay, for anyone who still reads this blog, thank you for not giving up on me. I promise to add several posts in the next few days, covering what I've been doing this summer and stop being so lazy about posting...I promise

1 Year

Well, I have officially lived in DC for 1 year today. Seems like I just moved in, I can't believe how much time has gone by. I guess it is because I have managed to stay extremely busy throughout all of my time here. I made it back to Michigan for two football games in the fall, then for Thanksgiving. For Christmas I went to Florida with the family and then Matt came to DC for several days for new years. I went back to Michigan in January, snowboarding in February, then to the Cherry Blossom Festival and Bermuda. The last few weeks have been filled with visits from family and visiting family in Michigan (more on that in a different post). Fill in many many weekends in there with trips to New Jersey and that pretty much sums it up. It is pretty rare that I am actually in town for two weekends in a row. O yeah, I also worked a few days in there too. I will hit my year mark at work on July 21st, which is an important milestone for me because I will be expected to perform my job at 100% of my expectancy with no 1st year cushion calculations built in anymore so we'll see how that goes. I might have to work some longer days that I have been to ensure I am above the threshold I need to be and in order to work toward my next promotion, but I am up to the challenge!

Looking forward to what the next year hold in store for me :)

My first attempt at quilting

Last year I decided I wanted to use my new sewing machine to make a quilt so i went out and bought some fabrics I liked. Then I went home to figure out a pattern I would use and decided to keep it simple for my first attempt and went with triangles arranged into rows and columns of squares. After several months of working one week, then stopping for a month, I decided the quilt would be small and would make a good gift for my niece Leili, so I wanted to finish it for her birthday, which was April 15th. Unfortunately I didn't come close to finishing in time but I knew she would be visiting me in June so I figured I could give it to her then (which is actually now). I finally finished the top side of the quilt and then had to learn how the heck you finish a quilt. So I turned to the good old internet and learned all about batting, basting, and binding (I didn't even mean for that to sound like a cute catch phrase). Then I fought with stupid clear thread, which I never want to look at again btw, doing the actual quilting and sewed the binding around the outer edges. I figured the edges would be easy but then I got to the corners and faced another problem because they didn't fit together as easily as I hoped they would, so I had to make new corner pieces separately and then sew them on over the other corners.

All in all it took me about 10 months (with several multi-month breaks) to finish, and none too soon because I finished at about 1am the night before they got there, but here it is:


Next time I'll try to make a bigger one now that I know some of the basics, I hope Leili gets a lot of use out of hers!

Wedding back in Michigan

I went back to Michigan this past weekend for a wedding in Owosso that Matt stood up in. The groom, Jay, and his family have been lifetime friends of Matt's family and the bride, Kendra, was one of Matt's sister's friends who also went to Michigan so I have known her for a few years. The bride and groom were both from Owosso so this was like a reunion for Matt and his friends and even I know a good amount of the Owosso crowd by now through Matt. The weekend was crazy and busy but sooo much fun! I arrived in Detroit around 12:30 Friday and Matt's sister, Kim, picked me up from the airport on her way home from Ann Arbor. Then we had to drive 1.5 hours to Owosso where we met up with Matt's mom and hung out for a little while. Matt was at the dentist when I got there so he got back about half an hour after me and I was so exicted to see him because I hadn't seen him since Bermuda, which had been a month earlier, the longest break we've had since moving.

After that we had to get ready for the wedding rehearsal. Matt and Kim were both part of the wedding, Matt was a groomsman and Kim played her violin before and after the ceremony; I just sat and watched :). Then we went to the rehearsal dinner at the Wrought Iron Grill which was a cool retaurant that was in an old factory. All the people in the wedding party were introduced and received gifts, then hung out for a while at the bar...again like I said earlier, this was a big reunion for everyone because several of the kids who had moved to new cities were back in town and seeing each other for the first time in a while.

The next day, Matt had to leave the house by 11am to go to brunch with the groomsmen and Kim and I went to the salon to get our hair done. I wasn't sure how I wanted mine done and I was a little concerned when I left because my hair looked pretty fancy and I was worried it was going to be fancier than the people in the wedding party so I had a minor panic attack. However it ended up working out because I took out all the pins and just let it fall down and it stayed really curly and looked a lot less formal and then I loved it!

The wedding was a nice short ceremony and it was fun to watch Matt walk down the aisle! The reception was in Lansing so there was a bit of a break between the ceremony and reception to allow for pictures and travel time between the two cities (they are about 35 minutes apart). The reception was really fun and I finally got to talk to Matt after dinner for the first time since that morning before he left the house (other than about 2 minutes after the wedding). There was lots of dancing and fun times had by all, as you can see from the pictures. Also, the guys danced to the Michael Jackson song from free willy and I posted it on facebook because I am never successful with the blogger video tool.

Here are pictures from the weekend:

Before the wedding rehearsal and dinner (Matt's sister on the right)

Matt walking in during the wedding

The beautiful bride :)

The Newlyweds

Finally seeing Matt after dinner at the reception

All the guys with Kendra

Candid picture of me and Matt, our friend Keegan was nice enough to take some pictures

Later in the night after a bit of dancing

Me with Matt's mom and sister

There are a ton more pictures available on facebook if anyone is interested :)

Congrats to Jay and Kendra :)

My vegetable garden is out of control

Today, the first bloom appeared in my vegetable garden! I was so excited, like a proud mamma!

Here's an updated picture of my vegetable garden, the plants are huge and overgrowing eachother:


As a reminder, here is what they used to look like:


And here's a picture of the first bloom!

Now I just need to get some vegetables!