From One Washington to the Other / One Short Weekend in the Emerald City

Preface: Before I begin, let me explain the title(s). As we all know, there is a lot of pressure to get the perfect title post when you blog. The cover of the book, if you will. On the airplane on the way to Seattle, my mind drifted to "what will I name put as the title for when I inevitably blog about this trip?" In the end, I couldn't choose between these excellent (if I do say so myself) choices, so I put both up. Anyway...

Begin Post here: Basically, I <3 Seattle. It actually reminds me a lot of Alexandria because there are tons of trees, and everyone loves doing things outdoors (although, I must admit the kayaking is more popular in one than the other). After a jam packed week of working (26 hours of overtime!), we had an equally jam packed -- but much more fun-- weekend exploring the beautiful city.

After a yummy lunch in the restaurant on top of the Space Needle we headed to a duck tour. I decided to test our driver's sense of humor by answering "the better Washington!" when he asked where I was from. He did not pass my test. He just went on the next person. No friendly East Coast/West Coast banter!! Lame-o!

To get back at me, he decided to tell me that in order to get the boat to the water from the road, we would have to start going really fast and go over a ramp at like 40mph and "bump a few times in the water." At which point, Kristen leaned over to me and whispered "Oh, I hate this part!! It's really scary!" BOO. It's not true. You go at like .01mph.



Next, we got pedicures - I got my classic french tips, natch. The lady who was doing Kristen's feet kept on tickling her (not hard to do), and then all the ladies would all start laughing and then talking super fast in Korean/Japanese/Chinese. Ah, good times. Also, we learned that Nicole Richie is Lionel Richie's daughter! But she's got to be adopted, right? Anyone know the 411 on that?




Next on the list: Mariner's game. They lost. I got my souvenir of an ice-cream helmet.


Next day: Church, the troll, the temple...





Then Kristen and her roommates made me and some other guys friends some excellent dinner. Seriously. It was great. I wish I could cook. (I did attempt to make the syrup for pancakes, but bad things happened.) There are no pictures of the syrup. It's probably for the best.

On Monday, we celebrated Memorial Day by going hiking. Mark, a guy from Kristen's ward, headed it up and told us "oh, there might be a little snow on the ground." Um... you can't really tell from the below pic, but there was a TON of snow. We were walking on it most of the time. But it was still really fun!! PS- the super tall guy is our long-lost cuz. He is cool.




Then, we took a ferry ride of Seattle...



Went to Pike's Peak:



And went to sleep. Tuesday, we went kyacking which was kind of scary :( Only because I'm a wimp and kept on imagining boats coming at me at speeds of 100 mph+ to run me over. Maybe I have an overactive imagination. One of thing of note: they told us to stay to the right because the boats would stay on the left. Not true!! The craaazzzyy Seattle police drive their boats on the right! Someone needs to inform them of this. Maybe Kristen should organize a protest.

Anyway, it was a great weekend with great company!! Thanks Kristen! Now I have to make sure I plan an equally fun trip for when she comes out to DC in a month!

Well this was a super long post. Thanks for hanging in there. To reward you, I will share this lovely pic of Richard (until he tells me to take it down):

One Flew Over Emily's Nest

Because of my newly-found (forced?) love of learning new words for the GRE, I was especially intrigued when I came across this quote from Albert Einstein:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

After pondering this definition, I came to the conclusion that I am, quite literally, insane. Don't believe me? Ask the dishes! (Sorry, I'm listening to my Broadway mix right now.) Really, though. I have several examples to back up this claim. And in honor of Richard's last final today, I will show it to you courtroom style:

Exhibit 1: The Sun


Don't let this guy's innocuous facade fool you; his evil death rays belie his smiling face. (And, by the way, isn't it ironic and silly that we draw sunglasses on the sun? Yes, I just realized that.) Each year, around this time, I take a look at my skin and am reminded of my extremely fair (unfair?) Scandanavian coloring and think, "oh, well, I'll just go outside and go running/the pool/the beach and get tan."

Well, you know what happens next: I inevitably turn incarnadine, and have to load on the aloe vera/moisturizer for the next couple of weeks. Let me stress again that I go through this EVERY. YEAR. And every April, I think that my skin genes have somehow morphed into those of a Amazon warrior. Maybe in 2010...

Exhibit 2: The Shoes

I have a pair of very cute brown shoes that I got my junior year of college (read: 2 years ago). After doing the mandatory "test run" of awkwardly walking 30 feet around the store, I decided that it was okay -- nay, a good thing -- that the shoes felt a tad too small for my feet because, you know, they'll probably stretch out enough and this means that they won't fall off my feet! Right?

Yeah. Right. The next day, simply walking from one class to another almost killed me. It felt like I was walking on hot coals. But, you don't understand, they were SO CUTE. So then, a week later, I only remembered the cute part and decided to wear them again to church. Again, the blisters and the agony ensued. To THIS DAY (seriously, I wore them last week), I think, "well maybe they have finally stretched out (sitting in my closet floor) or my feet shrunk or something and it won't be so bad this time." Sigh.

So, there you have it folks. You are reading the blog of an insane person. I rest my case.

The life & times of Emily's iPods

iPod #1: My senior year of high school, my parents bought me an old-school (well, I suppose it wasn't old-school at the time) iPod, for which I was very grateful. It lasted the longest of my iPods to date, and was filled with lots of upbeat yet illegally-downloaded music. However, at the end of my sophomore year after my first Europe stint, I decided to upgrade to a slimmer version and gave my original iPod away to a fellow impecunious student (aren't I magnanimous?)

Birth: April 2004

Death: April 2006

iPod #2: Ah yes, "blacky" as I like to call him. Oh the good times we had: running (actually it was walk slash jogging, let's be honest), weltering and gamboling in the sun and summer car listening. 'Twas a halcyon summer, indeed. Until a certain individual* happened to murder blacky in cold blood!!! Ok, fine it was an "accident" where said person "rolled" over and "accidentally" "broke" blacky's "screen." Luckily he was revived after an emergency trip to the iPod doctor, only to have me lose him a little later.

Birth: August2006

Death: March 2007

iPod #3 aka "Baby Hermes": My sweet baby! This was actually a free iPod that came with my MacBook, but I my love for him was equal to millions of dollars. Baby Hermes was especially fun because I could watch episodes of The Office on him! Plus he had 3 gigabytes (well, I actually only ever used like less than 1, but it was nice to know it was there). Alas, he was left alone and cold one day at the gym, never to return home to his mama. If only I knew where he was now... I hope he is enjoying his new home.

Birth: August 2008

Death: October 2008

iPod #4: Richie Jr.: After hearing my sob stories of iPods past, my wonderful husband gave me his iPod (also partially because he got an iPod touch for Christmas and didn't need it anymore). We had an immediate bond, but alas, this relationship too was doomed when I (again) left him at a gym. Bye bye Richie Jr.

Birth: December 2008

Death: April 2008

iPod #5: Shuffle City: Which brings me to present. Due to my... uh, bad history of losing/killing iPods, I decided to get a cheap-o one. Enter the First Generation ipod Shuffle that I got for $10 (with running band and cord!) off of Craigslist last night.

Birth: April 22, 2009

Death: TBA

*Identities have been removed to prevent opprobrium, but I assure you this was a real person who is not me.

What Would You Do?

The Cupcake Dilemma:

The Facts:

• We only have a 6-cupcake tin
• Each batch takes 30 minutes to cook
• I had enough batter to make 19.5 cupcakes

What do you do with the batter for the last 1.5 cupcakes?

• Option A: Spend an extra 30 minutes making 1 and 1/2 cupcakes batch
  
• Option B: Eat the batter for the last bit
• Option C: Throw away the extra batter

I picked Option B and I feel *sick* now.

What would you do???

Some Life Updates

Can you believe we're already into April? The months seem to fly by here, although we are still waiting for spring to come. April seems to be a month full of chicanery, with one beautiful day and then several rainy and windy days immediately following. I guess we will look back on these days with fondness as the summer will surely desiccate the beautiful grass and trees we see everywhere now!

It's finals time again for Richard, which means late nights and early mornings of studying to ensure that he is not abased when grades come out. As soon as that is over, he will be interning with a judge here in Fairfax for a couple of months, and then interning at the Virginia Supreme Court for the rest of the summer. We just got a letter in the mail telling Richard he will need to take an oath promising decorous behavior during his duties as intern... very official!

Next year he will be secretary for GMU's J. Reuben Clark Law Society, treasurer for the Student Bar Association, on a law journal, working for the library, on In Of Court (law fraternity, basically), and Trial Advocacy (hopefully). Basically, I do not plan on seeing him for a year... so maybe I'll come visit all of you!

I'm still at my job, and still really liking it, although visions of graduate school dance in my head. I'm hoping that this desire doesn't accidentally prove deleterious to my job performance, but honestly I'm just happy to have a job right now so I won't be a boor and complain about anything. Another nice benefit of working, which forces me to slightly demur about going back to school, is that we are slowly but surely amortizing our law school student debt.

Some fun summer trips: a weekend in Seattle, Bylund Family Reunion in Pennsylvania, a week at Lake Powell with the Petersons and a few day trips to Pilly and Baltimore. Riding through the declivities of Virginia will be fun, too!

(PS- Okay, fine this was a semi-fake post so I could use some GRE words in context. Please don't form a cabal and overthrow this blog!)

A Summer of FUN!!!

This morning, sitting in a budget meeting, my mind drifted into "spring fever" mode, and I thought, "I wonder what amusement parks are near Washington DC?"

Upon further research, I found that there is a Six Flags a mere 20 minutes from our house!

And even better, they are doing a deal right now where you can get season tickets for the cost of a one-day pass!

And EVEN better, you get 5 free "friend" tickets (on select days) for each pass.

Needless to say, we are now the proud owners of season passes (with parking cost included!), and plan to venture out a couple Saturdays a month this summer.

So you should all come out and visit us, and we will take to you 6 Flags for free.

HORRAY FOR SUMMER!

PS- Did I mention I'm excited this long winter is ending?

1 Year!

Happy anniversary, happy anniversary, happy anniversary... Haaappy Anniversary! (sung to a tune which I know, but don't know the name of...) So, Emily and I were married a year ago today. It has been a very good year. Last night, Emily and I went through a list of fun and exciting (and some less exciting) things we have done over the past year. It has been so great that I have a hard time remembering what it was like not being married. Yay for being married!!!

-Richard