Assateague Island

Ohhh, assateague island, land of wild horses, relaxing beaches, and magnificent sunsets (on the way home). My friends Nan and Kelley invited me to the beach this saturday, and since Seth was studying for the Bar, I took advantage of my free saturday and we headed out to the island. It was BEAUTIFUL.
Here's how the day went.
1. Wake up at 8:10
2. Leave at 8:20
3. Go to grocery store, get treats, snackbox lunches, and breakfast food.
4. Drive two hours
5. Stop at walmart for blue plastic beach chairs and twizzlers
6. Arrive at island, get Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows out, bring treats and head to beach.
7. Apply lots of sunscreen, missing several key places (like the bridge of nose directly below sunglasses and the corner of arm by arm.)
8. Read
9. Enjoy seagulls, wild horses, and dolphins
10. Eat a few grapes, a few twizzlers
11. Send Kelley to the car to fetch forgotten cookies.
12. Relax and let the atlantic ocean splash feet.
13. Drive home with much uplifting, fun, and positive conversation!
14. Watch beautiful sunset.
15. Arrive home, shower, and watch HSM with Seth while he's taking a break for studying.


Ahhh, it was a great day!

Fellow Blogger

Mandy Jensen. If you haven't already read her blog, you should. She's amazing!

Night in Old Town

This summer we're so lucky to have one of Seth's best friends from College, De Ette, living in DC. De Ette was on Swing Kids team and then Ballroom team with Seth, so they've known each other something upwards of 7 years. I met De Ette shortly after seth and I started dating, and so I was go glad to have her come out and get to know her better!

I've grown to depend on and care a lot about De Ette. She's a kind girl, so polished and classy, VERY fun, and a GREAT communicator. (okay, I sounded like a dating ad there, but I really just think so much of the girl). Here are some pics of our night out in Old Town Alexandria. :)

Me'n'Al

One Saturday morning I thought it would be a good idea to go to the live earth concert on the national mall at the Native American Museum. I heard Al Gore and Tipper were going to be there, and since I do live in the Nation's Capital I thought it would be fun to see them in person.

Unfortunately, there were no good camera angles from where we were at to get a clear shot of both me and of Al. This was the best I could get. Call it poor planning on the Tree Hugger's side....trampling grass isn't their favorite pasttime, so we were in the "overflow" area that really lended to their cause, as black pavement reflects heat and gave us a globally warm area to stand in :) They also powered the event entirely with Solar Panels. You'd THINK that with the sun being out so bright the Solar panels would function, but apparently they only worked well enough to provide video feed, but not audio. To make up for it, though, the Live Earth friends provided us with non-recyclable water containers (hmmm...) and fans that said "It shouldn't be this hot" :)

Ummm, at the risk of turning into a politico, I'll just stop there :)

More Pictures from the Birthday Party

The remnant's of Jenny's launch: (that's the ceiling and chocolate whip cream)
Here is Katie's first try:
And Jason's:
Both mine and seth's first launches were clean, but since that is boring to post I'll show you the post launch of seth throwing the whip cream at my face. I did pretty well!!!

Happy Birthday Merry Brooke!

It's been the month of Birthdays at both my house and Seth's apartment! Scott, Laura, Katie, and Merry Brooke all had birthdays this month! Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures at the other birthdays, but fortunately I did take some of Merry Brooke's, so she can represent the crew!

Merry Brooke knows how to throw a successful party. She mentioned to us at dinner that she likes to catch whip cream in her mouth after launching it into the air. Since we had some time to spare on the way home Seth and I went to the grocery store and bought special chocolate Whip Cream to try it out. Below is a demonstration of Jenny's Launch :)

Congrats Sean and Tina!

Our friends Sean and Tina got engaged! See the happy couple! :)
Please note Nola, their dog, to the left, and the amazing strawberry/blueberry shortcake they made for us too! (we also had a Rootbeer Keg and sparkling lemonade, thanks to Sean and Tina who help us celebrate Mormon style :)

I met Sean when he started working as a student worker in my office last fall. We quickly became friends (because if you don't know Sean, you probably will soon, he's friendly like Grandpa Nelson and seems to know everyone). We would either talk politics, religion, or dating, and as we both are in serious long-term relationships, it's easy to have everything revolve back to the relationship :)

Tina was going to law school at Tulane in New Orleans, so I didn't get to meet her for a few months, but once I did we were also fast friends. Tina is such a great girl, and so perfect for Sean. We've really loved having them as our couple friends. Sean is going to be president of the US someday (no, seriously), and he said that I can be his scheduler and organize his life. I'm very excited about it.

A Big Shout out to Sean, Tina, and Seth, who are all taking the bar today and tomorrow (and Thursday, too, for Sean and Tina!)

Shade Clothing Summer Showcase

Here's the invitation I made for a Shade Clothing Summer Showcase that I'm hosting on Thursday. I applied to be a personal shopper a few weeks ago, and they contacted me and said the first step is to hold a showcase. It's been a little weird for me to invite people to the showcase, and I'm not sure that it's something I'll do or not yet, but it's fun to try!

Independence Day in DC

Seth and I both LOVE the 4th of July in DC. It's our favorite holiday, and we were really looking forward to going to "Seth's spot" for fireworks...right in front of the Washington Monument, overlooking the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial.
We imagined it to look something like this....
We started our day out right with some blueberry pancakes, compliment's of my roommate's boyfriend Jason, and then went on a nice Rollerblade adventure to Gravely Point. It tuckered us out, it was really muggy and humid! After falling asleep in front of the TV (to this weird 70's show Airplane!) we got ready and adventured out to find the perfect spot for fireworks. After finding the perfect parking spot by the capital, we went through Smithsonian Security only to find out that we'd have to go down to a checkpoint closer to the Washington Monument. We hiked back out and walked down to the checkpoint...but it was closed! Apparently, there was a tornado and severe thunderstorm warning, so they decided to first close the security checkpoints and not let people go onto the national mall until it passed. I think they were afraid something like this would happen again...

We walked down to the Holocaust Museum and sat on a little window ledge just as it started to rain...and about an hour later, a national park service man told us that "for our safety, we really needed to evacuate" and about that time we saw people from the mall leaving...so we walked (16 blocks) back to the car in the rain. We weren't about to give up, so we went to our friend's house who lives by Union Station (I should include a map...this sounds confusing) and waited out the storm.
About an hour before the fireworks were supposed to start, we ventured out in the car to see if the mall was open again (have i mentioned that the mall is a mile-long outdoor strip of grass that people gather on for big events?...a lot of people ask...) Anyway, so we found out it was open and went back to get our friends....which turned out to take a lot longer than we expected, and by the time we parked and started walking toward the mall, we realized the fireworks were starting in 10 minutes. With 2 minutes to spare, we reached the first security checkpoint, but it was so crowded we decided to run down to the next one to see if it was less crowded. We made it to the next checkpoint...about a minute after the firworks had started, and they had already shut it down. We were SOOO disappointed...we couldn't get on the mall. We ended up sitting outside the fence by the mall with a partial view of the fireworks (isn't that so sad!).
Luckily, Seth with his ever-optimistic attitude had brought glow-sticks to give out to kids, so we divided them up, and after the fireworks were over we walked around and gave them to the kids who were also outside the mall grounds. It really did cheer us up!
Last night I decided that next year we HAVE to be in DC just to get our optimal seating for the fireworks show. Next year we'll go at noon....

The old lady and the hula hoop

Last night Seth and I went to dinner with our couple friends Sam and Gina and their baby Max. When we were driving home, we passed a park.....and saw this.....

We couldn't believe it when we saw it, so we turned around, parked, and took some pictures and some videos....

As you can see, the old lady was very proud of her hula skills. She waved, did the chicken dance, and even went up on one foot like a flamingo...and then the other...

We got a kick out of this!