A Change of Washingtons: 05.2009

Patrick is currently in Krakow, Poland. He has spent the last week and a half in Prague and Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia with a group of student from GW in a class on Central European Politics. He had lot of opportunities to meet with different leaders over there through this class and to learn a lot more about the two countries. He left home on May 19th and will be in Europe until June 15th. While he is there he will be on his own a lot but will also be visiting friends. He will be taking his Foreign Service test at The Hague on June 9th so you could be praying for him to do well. He is having a great time, missing home, but is learning a lot and is very thankful for the opportunity to travel. I'll make sure he writes all about his travels when he returns.

I would like to fill you all in on the last few months of our lives. I think I will work backwards and make it quick so that you don't sit here for the longest time reading bc we have been blog slackers.

The day after Patrick left my friend Pami came into town for 5 days. We went to a Carbon Leaf concert and spent tons of time running around town and chilling in the night watching movies. It was a great time. I had the week off bc Jack and his parents went to Iowa to hang with family there.

The weekend before Patrick left we had Jeremy and Jessica Rowen staying with us. They were over here (East Coast) for a wedding and drove over to hang out for the weekend. They had their own car and hit the Smithsonian's hard while Patrick and I ran town getting stuff done so he would be ready to fly out by Tuesday.

The Friday before the Rowens came into town the Connallys were just flying out from a full week with us. While they were here we went down to Williamsburg for the weekend, ate bread and pastries from the little German bakery down the street and played with Jack a lot. We celebrated both Mothers Day and Connie's birthday while they were here. We went to the Baltimore Aquarium with them and Jack and met up with a youth group kid who graduated last year and is now attending college in Baltimore, Averill. It was a fun week having them here and they really enjoyed playing with Jack and hopefully hanging out with us as well. ; )

At the end of April I had a week off while Jack and his parents went to Disney World. Patrick and I took the opportunity to head up to NYC and do some of the things we didn't get to do the first time. Quickly here are some highlights:

Lion King on Broadway
Statue of Liberty
David Letterman
Sitting next at dinner to the kid who was drafted #2 the next day in the NFL draft
Our super cheap hotel outside of town with a little bus into town
Brooklyn, we decided that we would live there if Patrick ever wanted to work for the UN

We did so much more but those are the highlights.

A couple of weeks before that the Warners, who we know from church in Tacoma and their daughter Julianne was in my class last year, came to town. They stayed with Paul's brother in Alexandria, but we got to have dinner with them a couple of nights and watch American Idol and play Rock Band (hope that's the right game, Julianne) with them. It was really great catching up with them and seeing a family that we love here in Washington.

Just before that my mom came out for a week during her spring break. It was so nice to have her here. Jack fell in love with her right away and called her Grandma the first time he saw her. So funny and cute. We made cookies, did lots of crafts and went to the zoo. It was very fun to play all week and just to have Mom here especially because Patrick was really busy getting ready for finals and finishing up his internships. We also did a lot of gardening and purchasing of patio furniture, thanks Mom and Dad! My mom, her parents and sister and my aunts two young kids (8&6) will be coming at the end of June, we are SO excited to have them all here!

While my mom was here we had an evening visit with the Jacobsen family, our pastor and his family from Tacoma, which also included American Idol. It was great to see them even for an evening. They were staying with Liz's parents up in Bethesda so it was a little harder to see them during the busy week, so we were very happy with one night.

Before my mom came our friend Peter drove through and stayed with us for a night on his way down to N. Caroline to visit his sister. Peter was in our wedding and is one of Patrick's closest friends so it was really awesome to have him come but also a bummer that he only had one night. But we are so glad he was able to make time to stop and see us!

Then about a week before my mom came into town Kevin and Melody came to visit (Patrick's youngest brother and his wife). Yes, we are in the middle of March at this point in the story...It was so long ago but I still remember how fun it was to have them here. Kevin turned 21 during their stay so he and Patrick went out that night and had some drinks. It was so great to see them and to have them stay with us. They were shocked, like most ppl their first time to Washington, at how amazing of a city this is.

We have really been enjoying our new home and city. We do love it here and I continue to love my job and am so thankful for Jack and his parents.

The news that I've saved until the end: Patrick received a full scholarship for next year! This is so great and I'm so proud of all of his hard work to have received this scholarship. So that means that he is able to take an internship with the EU embassy here. Well, it's not really an embassy but that's a good way of explaining it. He was also offered a really good job for the summer but it looks like it might be there for him in the fall after this internship is over. I'll let him tell you more about that after he gets started in June.

So things are going really well here and we have lots more visitors lined up for the rest of the summer. My friend Anna will be here next week to hang out with me while Patrick is away. And the list of visitors could continue until early September but I'll spare you the details.

We will be flying into Seattle in June, the Friday Patrick gets back for our friend Hunter's wedding. We only have enough time to drive strait up to Bellingham and back to Seattle on Monday morning. But we will be waving to you all while we fly in and out.

Thanks for baring with me. We love you all!