Joe & Anne's visit

Well, today is Sunday and we've said farewell to our Aussie visitors. We had such a wonderful week with Joe & Anne! We saw so much of the city (even some things that neither Jeremy nor I had seen) and are now thoroughly exhausted! Here's the lowdown of our week:

Tuesday night
We ate a big roast turkey dinner - turkey, stuffing w/sausage, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, carrots, asparagus & gravy. Mmm mmmm mmmm.

Wednesday
Jeremy had to work, so I took Joe and Anne into the city on my own. After searching and searching for a parking spot at the train station, we finally made it into DC about lunchtime. Then it was time to eat at Cosi, where Joe & Anne had quite the experience ordering - they definitely weren't ready to deal with a busy lunch at a sandwich shop!! Then it was off to the Museum of Natural History and then the Air & Space Museum.

Oh, and the most exciting part about Wednesday - it snowed!! Joe & Anne got to witness white fluffy snowflakes! What a lot of fun they had...and I thought I was a big kid in the snow!?

For dinner we decided to order real delicious American pizza (sorry Eagle Boys, you don't even come close!) which was yummy!

Thursday
We woke Thursday to a beautiful (but cold) day with lots of sunshine, so we decided to make the most of it and hit as many monuments as we could. We saw -

• Arlington National Cemetary
• Iwo Jima Memorial
• The White House
• the Korean War Memorial
• the Lincoln Memorial
• the Reflecting Pool
• the World War II Memorial
• a tiny memorial for George Mason
• the Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Phew!! Somewhere in between all that we took them to our favorite Americanized-Mexican joint, Chipotle. Then, after a loooooong day in the city, we headed home to eat lasagna (made with rice pasta for Joe), garlic bread and salad.

Friday

We had an early morning Friday, which was slightly impeded by a layer of ice that had formed overnight. Joe & Anne were delighted to watch Jeremy scrape the ice off the car - that sure doesn't happen often in Toowoomba!

Then it was back to the city to go up to the top of the Washington Monument. Unfortunately it was an overcast day, so the view wasn't all that spectacular, but it was still a fun time. After that it was off to a much less fun time at the Holocaust Museum, which turned out to be a horrifying, sickening, and incredibly humbling experience. I definitely won't ever forget what I saw there, although I don't think I need to return any time soon.

After that sombering hour and a half, we headed to one of our favorite breweries, Gordon Biersch, for lunch and a beer. The minute we pulled into the parking spot we got a call from Greg and Colleen saying that they had arrived in the city, so they decided to come join us for lunch which was really great! I hadn't seen them for years, so it was a nice suprise to get to catch up with them.

After lunch we headed across the street to the Spy Museum, which is always a fun time. After all that we decided to take Joe and Anne to one of the big ol' malls close by. We were all pretty exhausted, and the shopping didn't last very long, so we decided to head home for the night.

Saturday

We slept in a little on Saturday, then headed out to find a bookstore (for Annie of course!), a CD store (for Joe), and a couple of other things. Then we drove into Georgetown for a little more shopping and then to go see the National Cathedral (an awe-inspiring sight!).

On Saturday Joe and Anne kindly shouted us to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Sequoia, as an early birthday treat. To our delight we discovered that the restaurant still had their "Restaurant Week" special running, so we got a delicious 3-course meal for $30! Bargain!! Dinner was absolutely wonderful, and of course the company was even better!! Thanks so much, Joe and Anne, for a wonderful, wonderful time!

It was so great to spend so much time with them, and I hope they had a fantastic time exploring our great city! We sure had a great time being tour guides for a week - what a fun job!

Here are some pics to entice all you other Aussies to come visit us!

Joe & Anne's visit

Running

Well, after reading a discussion on my new "favorite website to spend a whole lot of hours perusing", Runners World, I have decided to begin posting the miles I run and all that fun stuff on here. That way, all you non-believers can see just how well I'm doing at this whole "running" thing! Here goes...

After a miserable two weeks of running where I couldn't get past a mile without getting a stitch, I had a miraculous breakthrough last Tuesday - I ran the entire distance of a 5k race without stopping once! I've never been able to run that far in my life - I have never been a good runner, except for those couple of years when I was eleven/twelve where I ran the 800m in school. Anywho, since last Tuesday I've been on a roll (even though I've been slack and have only run twice since then). The following Thursday I ran 3.38miles (for you Aussies, that's almost 5.5kms). And then, yesterday I ran a whopping 4 miles!! That's 6.43km! Holy cow! I was so darn excited and proud that I could do something like that. I even upped my speed a little, knocking 30 seconds off my mile/minute time. At this rate I'll be flying when it comes time for our 5k race in April. SWEET!! I'm even considering signing up for the Army Ten Miler in October - we'll see how training goes.

On a completely different note, Joe and Anne arrive today! WOOHOO! I'm excited - it will be a really fun week. I only hope they don't freeze! The forecast is calling for some snow while they're here - it probably won't be much at all but still, it will be fun for them to be here when it snows. I'm thinking we may have to go shopping for some coats as soon as they hop off the plane....

See, we're still here!

I figured I had better write something on this blog of mine before people started throwing things at me, so here goes...


Wow, I guess I haven't written anything on here since Thanksgiving!? How time flies! And yet, I still don't really feel like I have all that many interesting things to say...hmmm...I guess I'll just start where I left off.


Christmas
Jeremy and I had a very quiet Christmas at home - just us and the dogs. It was definitely a big change from what both of us are used to. Usually Christmas day is busy, busy - lots of relatives, lots of presents, lots of wine and good food. This year (or should I say "last year") we woke relatively early - it would have been much later except my darling family decided to call us at the crack of dawn! - and opened our presents with Christmas music playing in the background. Then Jeremy made a delicious omelette with fresh asparagus and blue cheese, and we watched "A Christmas Story" on TV. The next day it was back to work for both of us. Actually, neither of us took any time off over Christmas, so that too was a big change from the usual! But at the same time, it was kind of nice to have a quiet, relaxing Christmas - our first Christmas in our own house!


New Year's
Our New Year's Eve was spent over at our friends', Brian and Gina's, house. Here are a couple of pictures...



The boys - Brian, Mark & Jeremy


The girls


Hmmm...I forget who these two are?


The group


The group doing a shot of tequila.


I had an especially quiet night because I was on antibiotics for pneumonia! Yuck! So there was no drinking for me (except one glass of wine and, of course, a sip of champagne), which meant that for once Jeremy was allowed to drink all night. Haha. Nah, he wasn't too bad at all. It was a fun night!


January
Mid January Jeremy's parents came to visit us for a weekend. They had originally intended to fly out Friday night, but got stuck in a snowstorm in Chicago and had to postpone their flight to Saturday morning. They arrived mid-morning, and we just hung around the house and hit up a couple of stores. Poor Larry was a little under the weather with a cold, so we had a quiet dinner at home and I taught Sheila how to play Viva Pinata on our XBox. Sunday morning turned out to be a little more eventful...Adelaide had made her way into the guest room and had discovered a bag of Hershey's Kisses in Sheila's purse. I went upstairs and found her with her head in the bag! After inspecting the room to make sure she hadn't destroyed anything else, Sheila came to tell us that the bag had actually been pretty full - by her calculations, Adelaide had probably eaten about 25-30 pieces of chocolate!! Worried that she had gone and poisoned herself, Jeremy called the vet and they said to bring her in. So Jeremy made a trip to the emergency room, where they induced vomiting to get all the chocolate out of her system. Even though the vet was astounded that whole chocolates came up (with foil wrapping intact and everything!), Adelaided came home none the worse for wear. Phew! After that episode, we all went out to our favorite winery, Chrysalis Vineyards, for a wine tasting. Then it was off to the airport, where we said goodbye for now to Larry and Sheila. It was great to see them, and exciting to have our first guests stay in our new house!


And that brings us up to February. This weekend Jeremy painted our bathroom a pale green to match our bedspread. Oh, and I forgot to add in to January's section that we painted our lower level a pretty taupe color. Before it was a hideous shade of limey-green - it looks much better now! I think Jeremy's plan is to eventually paint our main level the same as downstairs, but after discovering just how hard painting really is (my arms were soooo tired from the roller) I think I may boycott any future attempts and leave it to the man of the house! I'll delegate myself to being supervisor! It's fun to make little additions to our house that make it more like a home to us - no more worrying about getting permission to paint or hang things on the walls.


My other piece of exciting news is that I've signed Jeremy and I up to run a 5km race in April! CRAZY!! I've been getting up at 4:45am and using the gym at work, and yesterday Jeremy and I ran 3.7 miles around our neighborhood! Well, we didn't really run that far - we probably ran about half that way - but at least it's a step in the right direction! All those out there that know me, now's the time to pick your jaw's up off the floor! I'm even keeping an eye out for other races that might pop up in between now and April - I'm really trying to get into this whole running thing, and I'm actually kind of enjoying it! I'm sure it will become even more enjoyable once my distance improves and I start running faster..we'll see. I may actually be semi-athletic yet!


And I think that just about catches the blog up. Work is going well for both Jeremy and I - I have a new Vice President starting in our divisions tomorrow so I'm sure it will be an interesting and busy day. We're also very excited to have our second Aussie visitors - Joe and Anne will be arriving in a little over a week! Yay! It will be great to see them and to show them around DC - knowing Anne-Maree I'm sure that she'll have a fantastic time immersing herself in all DC's history and museums and monuments. It will be a fun week!


I promise I'll be back after Joe and Anne depart to tell everyone about our time together! Until then, stay safe!