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!

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.