Rick should be in a Chick Flick

Disclaimer: Some of you might consider this post somewhat cheesy; you've been warned.

Thank you.

I love being married to Rick! Every day is such a delicious delight and yesterday is a wonderful example.

Yesterday morning I woke up a little congested and considered staying home from work, but I had no fever and felt okay aside for the stuffiness so I ended up going. Work went okay with a little help from decongestants and I'm actually glad I went because it was a historic day on the Hill. Thousands of people lined up outside our building waiting to go through security and fill our hallways in protest of the health care bill. They spent hours chanting and singing in our hallway as they waited to enter Rep. Pelosi's office (her constituent office is just a few doors down from us). Anyway, back to Rick and how darling he is.

So when the day was done, I started my journey home. After my 30 minute ride on the metro, I got off and was preparing to venture upstairs and outside. Right before I got to the escalator, I felt an arm around my shoulder and then saw the most beautiful pinkish-orange long-stem roses in front of my face. I looked over and there was Rick, walking next to me. He'd been waiting for me to get off the metro. It was so sweet. He walked home with me and it was so nice to spend some quality time with my sweetheart. We've both been so busy and it felt good to just walk home with him and hold his hand.

When we got home, he insisted that I sit in one of our potato chairs and chat with him while he made us a yummy dinner. Then he did all the dishes. He is so sweet and I feel so blessed to be married to him. It's so funny because the day before Rick and my first/third date, our friend Liz and I had told him how non-helpful he was. That he always offered to do stuff, but never followed through. I can tell you now that we were soooo wrong. He is the most helpful and thoughtful and kind person. And I love being married to him.

my WALK home

Last night the most exciting thing happened: I walked home from the metro. Now that might not sound like that big of a deal to you, but it should and it will--once you understand.

This past weekend, after many hours of putting things strategically into boxes, Rick and I (with the help of many good friends) picked up all our belongings, put them into our little jeep and rental trailer and moved them all to a darling new (well, new to us, it was built 80 years ago) apartment about two miles away from our previous location. I spent some good time cleaning the old place with the help of very, very nice people. We then proceeded to unpack everything and by Saturday night all those boxes were empty. K-Rae was nice to help us with the cleaning and unpacking and she also took a nice little nap in our potato chairs. Nicole also stopped by with some nice housewarming gifts--a Christmas Cactus that I'm really excited about, and some sparkling yum juice. How nice! People are so nice to us. My visit teachers were the best! They helped move and clean and they even provided us with a delicious dinner on Saturday night--and some good company with their spouses too. It was a very happy Halloween day though it wasn't your typical Halloween.

I LOVE our new apartment. I love the windows, I love the floors, I love the view outside, I love the smell (it's not smoky), I love how clean it is, I love the closets, and I could honestly go on for while there, but the post is going to focus on the fact that I love how close it is to the metro!

In fact, all day yesterday while I was at work I would think about how weird it would be to get off the metro that night and not wander over to the bus stop where I would spend up to 20 minutes waiting for the very unpredictable bus to show up, so I could make the rest of my journey home-which would last about an hour total. It was weird! I came out of the metro and saw all the people I used to wait for the bus with and I just walked passed them and kept walking down the street. Even though it was dark, it was so nice to just walk down the street and 10 minutes later end up at my apartment. I was home within 40 minutes of my departure from the office. Awesome!!

I'm excited for my future walks home--even though it will definitely get much, much colder but at least I'll be getting some exercise and fresh air. Good news!

Well, I'll try to post some pics of our new apartment in the near future, but there are still a couple things that we are trying to do in relation to organizing the kitchen, so that will have to happen first. Hurray for a happy move! And a zillion hurrays for all the dear, dear people who helped us! Serious lifesavers!

My Awkward Entrance

The funniest thing just happened to me! Okay, so as the scheduler in my office, one of my responsibilities is to make sure that my boss's meetings don't last longer than they should. In order to make sure he stays on schedule, it is therefore my duty--after a given amount of time--to open the door to his office and stand in the doorway. Now each entrance can be somewhat awkward, but the key is for me to be confident about it. This time my confidence didn't help.

As I said before, I usually walk in, stand smiling in the doorway for a few moments, and then leave while closing the door behind me. If the meeting hasn't ended in another couple minutes, I walk in and do the same thing, or if he is significantly behind schedule, I open the door all the way and wait until the guests leave. I hope you can see the awkwardness of these situations. Fortunately as I have continued to work here over the past almost seven months these entrances have become less awkward--well, until today!

Okay! So I open the door and stand smiling in the door way, as usual. But then, something happened that has never happened before. One of the people visiting my boss (who happened presenting something to my boss at the time) looks up, smiles, and says in a very friendly manner to me "Yes? Do you have something to say?" I was shocked and dumbfounded. No, I didn't have something to say! I wanted to crawl out of the room and hide, but I couldn't just leave without saying anything, so I very timidly respond "I just wanted to let you all know that the meeting should probably be ending soon." And then I left. As soon as I shut the door, I totally started laughing at myself. He caught me so unprepared!

Once the guests left, I went into my boss's office and we had a good laugh about it as well. He told me I handled the situation well, which was nice of him, but that was a disaster!

Don't you love awkward/embarrassing moments that give you a reason to tell a story later? Otherwise I probably wouldn't be posting something right now. :) Now I just need to figure out what to do if that should ever happen again.

Happy Morning Moment

This morning, the cutest thing happened. Rick was super nice and drove me to the metro since he doesn't have class on Friday mornings. (He's such a sweetheart!) And while we were driving we saw this little boy:

Okay, he didn't look exactly like this, but it was close. I just couldn't pull my camera out fast enough and embrace the moment while we were driving. And we couldn't exactly stop, because that would have definitely been somewhat frightful for that little boy to have these two random strangers taking pictures of him. So yeah, there's my reasoning, for the no pic.

So we're driving along and we see this little boy in a crossing guard jacket walking to school (no stop sign in hand, by the way). We both comment on how cute it is, but don't worry, it gets better. He's walking down the sidewalk and he comes to a driveway, and what does he do?

He stops! Looks both ways and then one last look up the driveway and then confidently crosses the driveway!

How cute is that?? I loved it and wanted to share that special moment with all of you.

The end! :)

Dear friends visit us in DC and it makes us happy!

This past weekend, Mike, Rick and I had the treat of several of our friends coming to DC to visit us. It was so fun to see all of them and to spend some quality time. There were 11 of us total, which made things exciting with regards to lodging and logistics and eating, but it was a lot of fun. I posted pictures on my facebook page if you want to see them. I don't really have the desire to post them here, especially since blogger.com and I have some issues in relation to that. Most of them arrived on Friday night and we all headed to Georgetown to eat some food. Then we all went over to Mike's apartment and hung out on his roof--he has the most impressive view of DC from up there. You can see all the monuments, the Capitol, and even a little corner of the White House from up there.

Saturday morning we all met up at the Capitol and I was able to give them a staff-led, which was sooo nice because we were able to avoid all the long lines and big crowds. Awesome! We took some fun pictures and then headed over to the Library of Congress underground. Good thing they put that tunnel in, because it was totally raining outside. :) We walked around the Library a little and looked into the Reading Room until we decided to go to lunch. Thanks to Nicole, we had a good option: Good Stuff Eatery, that's pretty close by. They have yummy hamburgers and my sister is obsessed with Spike, the owner, from Top Chef. hahaha. The food was delicious and fortunately the rain had stopped so we were able to eat outside-it was super crowded inside-and watch all the interesting people pass.

After lunch we went to the Supreme Court, but it was closed, so we took some pics outside and then walked down to the Botanic Gardens. I love how every time I go there, I see new flowers and plants. It is so pretty in there and I love how it's free. Then we headed down to the rest of the Smithsonians and we all basically split up. Some people went to the Air and Space, others to the American History, etc. Rick and I went to the National Art Gallery because he hadn't been there yet and we had both spent a good amount of time in both the Air and Space and the American History. It was fun looking at the art with him and seeing where are tastes are the same and different. We all met up on the Mall and then headed back to Rick and my apartment to eat pizza and hang out. We also did some grocery shopping so we could eat at home on Sunday night as well. It was fun to just sit and chill with everyone. K-Rae also stopped by and taught us all about speech therapy--she is amazing!

Sunday morning we headed to Arlington Cemetery to see JFK's grave, the Lee Mansion, and the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. It was a really nice day and the weather was great. We then went to church and it was great as always. Rick gave a wonderful lesson to our 12- and 13-year-old class encouraging them to read The Book of Mormon. I love hearing him testify of truth. Emily and Chris came to our class with us and that was nice. Some people went to the National Cathedral and then we all ate dinner at our house. It was fun preparing the food: parmesan ranch chicken, lemon rosemary potatoes, green salad, jell-o salad, and rolls--K-Rae brought the rolls and they were delicious!! She is an amazing cook!! Everyone worked together and were so helpful. Fortunately we had enough food and places to seat for all 12 of us, which made me impressed in our little apartment. After eating we went to the National Mall and visited the monuments: George Mason, Jefferson, FDR, Korean, Lincoln, Vietnam, WWII, and Washington. Then we stopped by the White House and headed back to our apartment for desert-banana pudding pie and yogurt pie with ice cream. Yum! We chatted some more and then went to bed.

By Monday morning, some of the friends had headed home, and those that stayed went to Mount Vernon. Rick and I didn't end up going because we'd both been before a couple times and I had just been there in August when we had family visiting. I did some good housework, etc. and then we met up with them again to go visit the Washington DC Temple. It was such a nice autumn afternoon. When we were entering the visitor center all these people were coming out and we went inside, Elder Scott was standing there! He had just finished meeting with all the mission presidents in the northeastern U.S. or some area like that, but it was really neat to see him and that we just happened upon him. Then we went to the Kennedy Center to listen to a little concert and then up to the roof to see the beautiful sunset. Clayton and Amanda hadn't been there the first night, so we went back to Georgetown and ate dinner there again at a BBQ Restaurant. Then we did a little window shopping and went back home.

The last of the group went to Gettysburg this morning and that's the last we'll see of them until Christmas. It truly was such a fun weekend and I love spending time with all of them and just having a good time. That was the first time Rick and I had seen Will and Emilee since their wedding back in in June, so it was fun to see how cute and in love they are. It was also fun to see Eric and try to persuade him to come out here--he's thinking about doing grad school in the DC area. It would be sooo fun to have him out here. Like I mentioned before, Chris and Emily and Clayton and Amanda also came and they were all so helpful and sheesh--such good friends! Kim also came from Seattle and it was fun to have her around and she was so nice to wash the dishes--as was Mike. Mike always washes the dishes when he comes to our apartment. He's such a nicehead! Thanks to all of them--if any of them happen to read this long post. And congrats to everyone else that made it this far through the post. This is your invite to come visit Rick and me and have this much fun. DC is a blast! We love it out here.

My parents are coming tomorrow and I'm so excited to see them... I'm sure I'll post again in relation to that. And then shortly after they leave, Rick and I are moving to a new apartment and I really cannot wait for that! :)

Thanks for reading! (And sorry there are no pics. Check them out on facebook, or if you don't have access, but really want to see them, let me know and I'll try to get them on here. Someone was telling me it's easier if you make a little slide show. I'll have to look into that....)

My Live Presidential Speech Experience

Last night, I had the exciting opportunity of watching the President of the United States address Congress in the House Chamber of the US Capitol. It was so exciting to see all the official enterings of the Vice President, the Senate, the First Lady, the President's Cabinet, and then the President, himself.

Thanks to my boss's lengthy time in office, I had a really good seat in the center of the gallery, straight across from where the President was standing. When no one else in my office seemed very anxious about going, I asked Rick if he thought I should and he said, "Absolutely! This is the chance of a lifetime." I'm glad I listened to Rick's recommendation and went.

It was also interesting to watch the how different people/groups reacted to the President's comments and to feel energy (both positive and negative) surge through that room. Even though I got home super late, it was well worth it and I don't think I'll forget that experience anytime soon.

August Roadtrippin'

The month of August has been busy and exciting. One of the highlights was when Rick took me on a fabulous road trip to Palmyra, Niagara, and Kirtland. We drove a little over 1,076 miles and enjoy quality car driving time through Pennslyvania, New York, Canada, and Ohio.

Fortunately I was able to take Friday off of work, so Thursday evening after work, Rick picked me up with our Jeep full of stuff and we headed up to New York. We drove until we reached Palmyra and spent the night there in the car--it was nice! :)

Friday morning we took a tour of the Smith Home where Joseph Smith was living as a 14 year old with his family. It was so neat to see the room where he was praying in the middle of the night with all his brothers asleep around him and the Angel Moroni appeared and told him about the Book of Mormon. The sister missionaries who took us around were great and no kidding one of them looked like Amanda Bynes and I really wanted to take a picture with her and ask for her autograph, but I refrained. Amberlee would be proud of me.

After visiting the old and newer Smith Homes, Rick and I ventured into the Sacred Grove. It was beautiful, sacred, and peaceful. I loved how the trees stretched up to the sun and the sunbeams danced on the leaves. I also liked how quiet it was in there and even though there were several other people walking around in there, it didn't seem crowded. I would have loved to stay there all day, but Rick and I had an appointment to do a session in the Palmyra Temple so we headed over there--if it had been an appointment anywhere else, I might have insisted on missing it.

The Palmyra Temple was beautiful inside and out. They've planted the most beautiful flowers everywhere around here and I loved walking around the grounds afterwards.

After the temple we went over to the Hill Cumorah and climbed to the top. We were glad that we'd missed the pageant, as there weren't a lot of people around and we could enjoy the climb and view from the top alone for a while. We also stopped by the Grandin Print Shop to see where the Book of Mormon was first published. It was fascinating to see the whole process--so much work! Wow!

The Hill Cumorah and the pretty flowers

And the road trip continued...

This time we drove to CANADA! My first time in Canada and it was so exciting. Going over the bridge, going through the border and showing our passports and seeing everything written in English and French! It was also such a delight to hear some people speaking in French as well, though I was too chicken to actually talk to anyone. My French has gone way downhill since I graduated and stopped tutoring. I should start doing that again. sigh...

Anyway, we crossed the border, went to our little campground to set up our tent and then drove over to Niagara Falls. Rick had me close my eyes and he guided me up the road until we got right in front of them and then he had me open them. They were spectacular! So pretty! I wanted to stand there and look at them all day, but there were things to do. We headed over to the Maid of the Mist so we could jump on a boat that we took us right up in front of the Falls. That was awesome! There was water all around us and I felt like we were in some crazy ocean movie. We were all wearing little blue rain ponchos and we definitely need them; there was a lot of water. After the Maid of the Mist, we got some food and then watched the Light Show and the fireworks on the falls once it got dark. I love Canada!

The next morning, Saturday, we picked up camp and headed back to the US. This time we drove down to Kirtland, Ohio. (Oh, during all of this driving we did a lot of reading of Les Miserables. Rick and I are reading the unabridged version and it is fabulous. The writing is perfect and we just couldn't put it down. We were glad to have a lot of time to get a little further into it, since we don't have much time at home.) So Kirtland was great. Once we got there, we actually met up with Rick's friend Jon and his wife and her mom and brother. They were driving out to Yale where Jon is going to school and we happened to be passing through Kirtland at the same time. The six of us went on a tour of the Kirtland Temple and then had a late lunch nearby before they continued their journey east.

Sunday morning we went to church--where I randomly ran into my 4th grade teacher. Then we took some tours around Kirtland. We also went to the Morley Farm, the temple quarry, and the John Johnson Farm.

The John Johnson farm was my favorite and we had excellent sister missionary guides. I loved my experience in Kirtland and the opportunity to learn so much more about church history and to feel the spirit testify of the prophet Joseph Smith and all that these early pioneers went through as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was reestablished on the earth. I am so grateful for them and the heritage that they left.

Rick really liked this sign at the John Johnson Farm: "Thank you for not picking the neighbors' fruit" Probably a good idea.

Rick did such an awesome job of being a trip planner, packer, and tour guide. I loved having so much quality time to spend with him and was sad to head back to the real world. But at least he went back with me. Being married to Rick is the best thing ever!