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!

New Car!!!

I did my first real grown up sounding thing today...I bought a new car!!

I had been researching Pontiac G6's for a long time and have liked them ever since they came out. I also knew I wanted to get a new car because, as much as I loved my little blue saturn, it has seen better days and I'd feel a little safer driving to Jersey so frequently in a newer car, plus I just feel like after working for almost a year now that I was ready for it and deserved it!!

I got a black 2009 G6 and it is beautiful. Here are some pictures!






Now I just need somewhere to drive, unfortunately I don't have any long trip planned for a while so I'll just be driving around town.

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mamma

Sorry it took me so long to get around to posting this, I've had trouble not being lazy since I got back from Bermuda.

The trip was wonderful, Bermuda was beautiful and Matt and I were able to do a lot while I was there.

I left Alexandria Thursday morning and had to fly indirect (o the humanity!) through Charlotte, NC. The first pictures I took were from the plane because I was so in awe of the beautiful water!

I got there Thursday afternoon, so Matt was still at work, but the hotel knew I was coming so when I got there they gave me my own key and everything so I was able to explore until Matt came home from work. This first picture is from the cab on the way to the hotel from the airport, then Matt's patio and pool, and the view of Hamilton and the harbor from Matt's pool.

Matt got home around 6 and we got some dinner. After that we tried to watch the wings game in Matt's apartment but the cable was being dumb (Matt gets normal american cable, but for some reason versus acts up a lot) so we went out to the bar to watch the game. We ended up meeting a guy who was also rooting for the red wings and found out he had lived in Ann Arbor for a year in a half working at the hospital so we were reminiscing about the good old days for a while. Then we met a Duck's fan who was telling us about all the stuff we should do while in Bermuda, they were both really cool so we were glad we went to the bar. The next day, Matt had to go to work again, so I went in to town to shop/explore. On my way I saw my first business man in Bermuda shorts so I took a sneaky picture of him because to me, it looked hilarious. After that I of course saw tons of people wearing this getup so it wasn't as funny. The other picture is of Front street in Hamilton which faces the harbor and is where many of the bars and restaurants are located.

This is the road Matt's hotel is on, as you can tell, it is not designed for pedestrians, but there is no other path to take to get into town so we had to walk it everyday, I feared for my life every time, and to add insult to injury, they drive on the left in Bermuda so I kept anticipating cars would be coming on the wrong side of the street, I never quite got the hang of the left driving, I don't know why it's so hard to just say "reverse everything you know" but I still get confused and forget which way is normal driving and which way is crazy left hand driving.

On Friday, I proceeded to sunburn my whole body, so on Saturday we decided to start the day off at the aquarium and zoo, because they are primarily inside/shaded. The aquarium had these crazy sea animals that freaked me out. Supposedly this green eel guy was like 6 feet long, I don't know where the rest of his body was, and this lobster was absolutely humongous!

Some fun facts about bermuda and a picture of Matt and I at the zoo in front of Harrington Sound

These were 400lb turtles! The were sooo big, Matt thought they were hilarious and so did I. We saw turtles all over the zoo which is fitting since Matt and I were turtles for halloween in college, so they hold a special place in my heart. Then we saw sea turtles and I named this one Crush after the turtle from Finding Nemo, they were so cool looking and looked just like the Nemo turtles.

After the zoo we decided to visit a light house so we could get a view of the whole island. I was hoping there would be a little more to it but it was pretty much just the light house and gift shop, I thought there might be some sort of museum at least but no, however the view was spectacular. We climbed almost 200 steps to get to the top and I don't think we realized how tired our legs were until we got back down to the bottom, both of our legs were wobbling from the climb! I also find the british versions of sayings to be hilarious so I took a picture of the sign above the tiny little door we had to walk through to get outside

On Sunday I was a little more healed from my sunburn so we decided to have more of an outdoor day. We went down to the other end of the island, which is more touristy, where Matt is staying in Hamilton is much more Business and formal. We were considering doing a dolphin experience thingy or snorkeling, and this seemed to offer the opportunity to do both, but we realized the dolphin thing was way too expensive so we gave up on that idea quickly. Then we went to the snorkel beach only to find out it was a pretty crappy beach and I was hoping for a more organized snorkeling experience, this was just a rent your own snorkel and have at it, so the day was shaping up to be a big disaster because we weren't within walking distance of any other beaches and we had alredy bought our return tickets on the ferry from where we were so we had to come back to that area to get back to Hamilton.

In a last ditch effort we went to the visitors center and found a brochure for a company that gives jetski tours of the island so we decided that would be fun. The only problem was the tours left from another part of the island so we'd have to take a cab there and back to catch the ferry. But we called anyway to try and make a reservation, but they didn't have an opening until 4:30 and it was only noon at the time and we had to be back by 4 for the wings game. So we said thanks but no thanks and then the guy was like "well can you get here by 12:30 because we have one opening on that tour" (two people on the jetski) and he asked if we could see a cab and said they would pay for us to take a cab there, but there were no cabs around so the guy came and picked us up!!! It was so awesome, he was really nice and we made it to the tour right on time. We got to jetski out to a shipwreck off of the island where there were tons and tons of fish and we fed them bread. The fish were literally jumping out of the water to get the bread, it was so cool! Then we went around some other areas of the island and saw David Bowie's house and the ritzy beaches where celebrities stay. The tour ended up being awesome, however I had never jetskied on the ocean before and it is a lot rougher than jetskiing on a lake! We were getting air on some of the waves and I was on the back of the jetski holding on to Matt for dear life. We didn't realize how much muscle we were using just to stay on, but we found out later that night. We were both so so sore from the tour that we had trouble going up and down stairs. It was probably a combination of the light house stairs the day before, and the jetski tour, it was pretty hilarious watching us try to walk around though. I couldn't take pictures during the tour, unfortunately but these are the pics I took after on our way back to Hamilton. This end of the island is where the cruise ships dock and there was a Norweigian Cruise Line ship in port while I was there.

On Monday, Matt had to work again so I went to Horseshoe Bay, which is the most famous Beach in Bermuda and it was so beautiful. I spent the day sitting on the beach enjoying the breathtaking views and reading/sleeping in the sun...pretty much my idea of heaven.

Bermuda Beaches are known for their pink sand, which was very cool looking. The last night I was there, Matt took me out to a wonderful restaurant right on the beach where we stuffed ourselves with tons of yummy seafood. We took this picture with the autotimer and it looks fuzzy because there was a light shining right in front of us, but I liked it a lot anyway.

All in all it was a great vacation, Bermuda was so beautiful and I would love to go back one day. I recommend it to anyone reading this blog!!