Round 2

Jill slept in on Saturday, and I got up early to finish some church stuff before we left.

Another 'nother 'nother story. Let's just say some people aren't good at meeting deadlines.

Took the Bolt Bus from DC to NYC. Way better than our last bus trip to NYC on Greyhound (although, interestingly, the DOT info on the side of the bus said Bolt was operated by Greyound Lines; I've learned since that Bolt is a 50/50 venture by Greyhound and Peter Pan). The bus was new, the seats were nice, the ride was smooth, and overall it was pretty enjoyable - as far as 4-hour long bus rides go.

Except, don't sit in the exit row. Our seat rocked a little bit--like it wasn't bolted all the way to the ground--when the bus started and stopped.

We wandered up Avenue of the Americas, looking at stuff along the way. This trip--and last year--NYC threw a street fair for me. =) You can pretty much guarantee the same stuff on each block, but we found the occasional unique stall. Picked up a Christmas present for someone. Saw a Tigger running loose in the wild. And other furry characters that made lots of little kids excited.

Decided to forgo the fair-style food for a sit-down restaurant. Our email reminder about the concert recommended a few restaurants nearby and we decided to try Heartland Brewery. Our burgers were pretty yummy and the onion rings came with an awesome spicy fry sauce (no overwhelming horseradish taste like some onion dipping sauces), but apparently anything more than lettuce and a pickle (e.g., cheese, onions) was a high-priced addition to the ticket. Something to remember for the next time (if there is one). People watched for a bit from our restaurant perch, then took a quick stroll before heading to the theater.

Walked up to MoMA, but it had already closed. Which was ok, since we're kind of spoiled by all the free art museums here in DC. But the gift shops were still open and we had fun wandering around in there. Saw some cool salt-n-pepper wobblers; serving utensils designed not to touch the counter; nesting doll measuring cups; nesting bowls that include mixing bowl, sieve, and colander; cutting boards and holder with "filing tabs"; awesome crack-and-grow eggs (flowers or herbs); a birdy paperclip holder; propeller pens; books about custom bicycle makers (highlighting one in Portland, OR); the alarm clock that will hop off your dresser and roll away; an interesting magnetic perpetual calendar and clock; the blue sky umbrella; and the Spacepak toiletry bag.

The store started to close so we figured we'd walk back to Radio City Music Hall. Grabbed a quick picture with the poster on the way in and gave up our water bottles at the security check point... Grabbed our seats and waited for the show to begin!

Although Howard Shore wasn't here this time to talk about it, it was still a great concert. Some of the audience were annoying -- apparently different parts of the theater thought it necessary to clap whenever a character came on for the first time. Frodo. <clap> Sam. <clap> Saurumon. <clap> The Ents. <clap> Gollum. <clap>

Ugh.

All that clapping covered up the live music, which is what I thought we were there to hear.... anyway.

The concert got out around 11:30 and we wandered through Time Square. And kept wandering until we got back to Penn Station. Bought some water at KFC/Taco Bell and sat down inside until it was time to catch our Megabus back to DC. The bus had two levels of seating - but the driver informed us the bathroom was only on the first level. It was an obstacle course to walk through the aisles in general and we figured Jill didn't need to navigate stairs on the bus for the few times she'd likely get up on our ride back.

The bottom level contained a few places where seats sat facing each other and there was a little table (about 8 inches wide) between the seats. We sat across from two friends who had also come to NYC for the day for another concert. Learned they were from Columbia, MD; one was attending school at Temple, the other was at Penn State; both were freshman. It was funny listening to them talk about their trip and chat with friends on the cell phone on the ride back to Philadelphia. It was interesting seeing how different they were (one was a philosophy major, was mostly quiet and spoke intelligently; the other was an about-to-change-from-psychology-because-he-was-failing major who was into sports and built like he had played a few in high school). We talked later about how different we thought they were, but despite going to different colleges they stayed in touch and rode the bus across Pennsylvania to hang out. Philly was the first stop. We got to stretch our legs out once they left; we picked good seats. Next stop was Baltimore. I dozed on and off for most of this stretch. Checked my email a few times and watched out the window in the dark when I couldn't fall back asleep. Last stop was DC. Disembarked, found our car, and pulled into our driveway about 6:30 AM. Slept for an hour then got ready for a big day at church.

Great day with Jill.

(click through to see more photos)
Two days of fun experiences for my birthday.

Round 1

On Friday, Jill had a few surprises in store for my birthday weekend. We already had tickets for a concert in NYC and I wasn't expecting anything else.

She sent me a cryptic schedule of the evening's events - and after work we headed off for dinner. We made a quick stop along the way, but came away empty handed (that's another story), then pulled into the parking garage by one of my favorite places to eat around here.

There we bumped into some friends while waiting for the elevator. Strange, they live on the other side of town...

In the restaurant, we saw a few more people I recognized. I'm a quick study -- and realized Jill had arranged for some friends to meet us for dinner! =)

One of them was running a little late, but that's another 'nother story.

We had a great evening, and Chance managed to snap some photos while we were there.

From: 8 October 2010

Thanks everyone for a fun birthday dinner! (I'm glad "the Chances" were finally able to meet.)

Performance Review

It's about that time again. You think about all the things you've accomplished for the past year at work, papers you've written, and professional development you've accomplished (if you were smart, you kept what some call an I love me file that kept track of this during the year so you don't have to try to remember everything). You submit your comments, then your task leader(s) submit comments, and the division boss has his say. Then the powers that be in the company decide whether or not they'll promote or give raises, etc.

Received the results of a different Performance Review today. When I came home from work and school, I was greeted by the following note on my computer:

It was very sweet, and brought a tear to my eye; I'm truly blessed and abundantly loved.

I guess I'm doing all right.

Bonus Points

AmyE. was the first to respond, and provided a good translation: Virginia Empire.

However, I believe StacyS. was the first one with the correct* translation: vampire. +10 StacyS =)

Props to TheGardner who also repsonded with vampire.

*Since we didn't stop and ask, Jill and I both thought vampire was the correct answer. Although VA Empire was a creative response

A Life Update via Photos (and some text)

So, we've been pretty bad about uploading photos we've taken on our escapades. Not that we've taken a whole lot of photos. But I just pulled off a bunch of photos from my phone and uploaded them to Picasa to keep. The following is generally chronological and is not intended to be a complete and accurate record of our goings and comings ... but it is a recap of some of the things we've done this year.

In February we had a crazy snow storm. If I remember correctly, we had one whole week off from work, plus another day or two here and there because of the other storms around this time. I already posted some pics from the storm, but these are never before seen pics from Snowmageddon:

February 2010: Snowmageddon

Right after the crazy snow storm we decided to take a road trip. Well, we had the road trip planned before, but hadn't anticipated snowmageddon. As Jill mentioned obliquely earlier -- that we had "opened the door" on adoption -- the real purpose of the trip was to meet with someone to learn about the LDS Family Services adoption process. We stayed Sunday night at a hotel in Richmond, had our appointment Monday morning, then drove back home Monday afternoon. We had a good visit at our appointment, although we were nervous. On the way home, we stopped at an awesome BBQ place for a late lunch, called Buz and Neds. We had BBQ sandwiches and brought home BBQ beef brisket and pork to freeze and have later. It rained a lot on the drive home, but we made it back ok. Sorry, there's not really a lot of pictures. Just a cool phone from our swanky hotel and some sights from the drive. The hotel had a full kitchen - and Jill made a delicious steak dinner, salad, corn, and dessert. She brought it all with us in a cooler and cooked it at the hotel.

February 2010: Richmond Valentine's Trip

Some random stuff here. Tree down at Jill's work, after-effects of the storm, lights off at the White House, lunch at chef Spike's Good Stuff Eatery, and stuff Jill made: FHE board, rolls, yummy pulled pork, and a motorcade headed into the White House.

February/March 2010: Random DC Stuff

Jill blogged about this before, but here are a few more pictures from our fun St. Patrick's day party and other things we did to celebrate. The cookies were from a co-worker's wife.

March 2010: St. Patrick's Day

We had Easter dinner at our home teacher's house. Their daughter dressed up as the Easter Bunny - she picked the outfit out all on her own and made the "mask". But of course we didn't know she was the bunny...

April 2010: Easter

In April, I had the opportunity to reunite with a mission companion and participate in a fireside with him. He did the speaking and the singing, I did the playing. It was a really fun night, and we did some moving songs. These are a few pictures we took after the fireside with Brydon and his girlfriend, Jessi. The next weekend, we drove out to Southern Virginia University (in Buena Vista) to hear Brydon's last performance with Fading Point, the university's a cappella group.

April 2010: Music and Brydon Brett

The end of April was big for us. Jill already blogged about the embryo transfer. Then came the wait, then more waiting. And lots of shots:

And lots of homework.

And awesome license plates (bonus points to the first person who correctly "translates" this plate in the comments).

And sticky rolls with Kevin and Syd.

This license plate is a little easier...

Then, in May, we had some of Jill's family come visit, and a friend of ours got us a private Capitol tour. I had never been before (since middle school), so this was especially a treat.

May 2010: Capitol Tour

We went to the dress rehearsal of the Memorial Day concert with our friend, Chance, and some of his friends and roommates.

Memorial Day 2010

Saw this guy on a drive (I think on our way to the little book shop we discovered):

In June, on our fourth anniversary, we found out that the last round of IVF we did was working. In the past, we hadn't told people when we were starting a cycle, but this time we told our family and some close friends. Many, many prayers were offered up on our behalf, and many of them also fasted. It's definitely a miracle and a wonderful blessing that the pregnancy has continued on since that time.

For the Fourth of July, the wards had a pancake breakfast and invited our neighbors from Trinity Lutheran. The scouts did a tandem flag raising at both church flagpoles.

[[Aside: The flags were raised, then lowered to half-mast per presidential proclamation.]]

Senator Bennett spoke before the breakfast and shared some interesting thoughts about our country.

I'm just going to paste the notes I took on my phone (since I'm still procrastinating homework I really need to get done today); maybe in the future I'll fill in the gaps.

== 2010-07-03 sen bennett ==
Won our freedom (decl of ind)
Ordered our freedom (constitution)
Keep our freedom (gettysburg address)
* gettysburg dates (2, 4 july)
* Lincoln speech an afterthought
* documentfor the keeping
Still our responsibility (keeping)

For Pioneer Day, the Stake had an activity out at the Marriott Ranch in Hume, VA. The youth had spent the previous few days on a pioneer trek for youth conference. It was slated to be a very warm weekend, with a heat index around 110 degrees. We drove out, dropped off our dessert at the picnic area, then waited alongside the "trail", in the shade. The youth trudged up pulling their handcarts and most found a reserve of energy to sprint the last hundred yards or so past the waiting crowds to the field where the carts would be disassembled. After that, everyone moved over to the picnic area for a yummy BBQ. We had lunch under a tent with some friends. There was one casualty: one member of our group was stung by a rather large bee that flew up his shirt sleeve. As lunch was wrapping up the breeze started to die down and it was getting really hot. We decided it was time to go; we skipped the outdoor activities like stick pull, tug-o-war, and other pioneer activities.

Pioneer Day 2010: Hume, VA

Jill already blogged about and put up a few pictures from our awesome weekend at the lake at the end of July. She didn't put in the creepy picture of the truck we saw on the way there, though:

At the beginning of August we lost power for about three days. Of course, this was the month where we had decided we'd be better about our groceries and actually make a budget and a shopping plan -- so we had gone out shopping just a day or two prior and filled the fridge and freezer. Most of the stuff in our fridge was lost, but we managed to save some of the freezer items (probably thanks to the fact it was pretty full of frozen solid food). We ended up replacing lots of the food over the next few weeks. The power went out some time on Thursday, if I remember correctly. Saturday afternoon the power company finally came by with a few trucks to resolve our issue. I snapped a few photos of the men at work clearing branches off and re-stringing the power and cable lines.

August 2010: Power-less

To have fun while the power was out, and keep cool, we went out to Alexandria with some friends and toured the George Washington Masonic Memorial. We caught the last tour, but missed out wandering the grand hall because it closed early due to a wedding reception that was getting set up while we went on the tour. It was a really interesting trip.

August 2010: GW Masonic Memorial and Old Town pics

After the tour, we went to Old Town Alexandria and wandered around the shops. Bumped into some other friends who had moved out of the ward. Went to Candi's Candies. Listened to the glass harp player, Jamey Turner, for a while. Spoke to him briefly afterward and he basically bore his testimony to us about how he felt guided to get into music.

Turner also plays the hand saw and giant wrenches, which emit a loud "clang" when they're whacked with a rubber mallet. These talents, and the glass harp, landed him on "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.

"Did a duet with Carson, I played my saw and he played the wrenches. And, Jimmy Stewart was on that night, and he said, 'You know, Johnny, my father had a hardware store. Little did he know he also had a music store.'"

Then we went to a scrum-didly-umptious dinner at Mai Thai. We split a bowl of tom ka gai soup, I had the Musaman curry, I can't remember what Jill had, and we also had some mango dessert. The food and the service were amazing. But we probably spent a little much, considering we had to replace most of our fridge contents...

The Sunday following our Old Town excursion we returned to Alexandria for dinner with friends. We picked up some supplies for their son's party the next weekend (i.e., a Darth Vader costume). The next weekend we were back out there participating in the party (e.g., letting little padawans become real Jedis by fighting, and slaying, Darth Vader). Hopefully we have some other pictures from the real camera, since there were some pretty good Star Wars costumes. Who knew the Lucas trilogy would continue to live on?

Your Powers are Weak, Old Man

We went to the Arlington County Fair and participated in the Family History booth that the church sponsored in the inside exhibit hall. Members of several local congregations volunteered several hours at a time to staff the booth and introduce people to the familysearch.org website. We had fun wandering around the fair before our shift.

Arlington County Fair

And that about gets us to the end of August. Consider yourself caught up! =)