A Change of Washingtons

Life Update

2010-09-03T21:43:00.002-04:00

Hello blog readers, it’s good to be back in contact with you. I wish I could say that my lack of postings is simply due to how overwhelmed, busy, stressed, sought after, etc. that I’ve been. That would be a lie. It’s really just a case of laziness and forgetfulness.

Many of you have asked what the next year holds for our family so I thought I’d post an abbreviated summary of what happened this summer and what the next few months hold for us.

I graduated in May right about the time that Kim went back to work with Jack. We basically spent the next three months in following format: I would occasionally go to work (depending on what the temp agency had found me), Kim would take Aydan to Jack’s house and return to our place mid-morning. It was a blessing that the Shins allowed Kim to spend so much time at our house with Jack. If I wasn’t working I took care of household chores and then would hang out with them the rest of the day. As the summer moved on each day was muggier and less bearable than the day before it. Aydan keeps getting stronger and loves exploring. She’s almost crawling now so the exploration figures to kick into high gear here soon. We had some great family time: a weekend with my parents in Savannah and two weeks with Kim’s mom here. Kim’s brother David moved in with us and will be staying until we leave at some point in the next year.

As I write this, Kim and Aydan are still in Walla Walla and won’t be home until Labor Day while I'm here in DC. Once Kim gets home things really speed up for us. A week from Monday (September 13) I start my career as a Foreign Service Officer. I have five weeks of general training followed by an unknown amount of destination specific training. The first week of class I’ll be given a list of available posts. Kim and I will do our homework on life and work in those places and rate each post as low, medium, or high. The powers that be will incorporate our input into their decisions but can send us anywhere, no matter how we rank the available posts. On October 8^th, everyone will find out where we’re going in a public ceremony called ‘Flag Day’. As each person’s name and destination post is called, said person crosses some kind of stage and shakes hands with someone. ‘But wait’, you may be asking. What happens if you ranked Afghanistan as ‘Don’t send me there or I swear I will retire right now’ and they send you there? You find out in front of everyone? What if you break down crying? Great question. And I really don’t have a good answer for you. Once we learn where we’re heading we’ll also know what our next year looks like. Some posts require extensive language and other training. We could stay in DC for close to a year. Other posts require very little additional training and we could be in our new country before Christmas.

So that’s what we’re looking at. Right now we have no idea what the next few months will bring but that’s what’s so exciting- we really could be headed anywhere.

Thanks for reading and I hope you all can come visit us wherever we end up!

College Football

2010-09-03T21:40:00.002-04:00

I am currently watching Arizona play Toledo. It’s not a particularly compelling game but it is football. After the long off-season it feels like a breath of fresh air. This year I’ve given more time than usual to thinking through which teams I despise the most. The reason I put it this way is that most of my rooting decisions are based on who I’d like to see lose.

My criteria are slightly convoluted, but here they are:

1. How much has a team won? Recent national championship winners are always on my Root Against list. As are programs who consider it a disaster to lose three games in a season.

2. Where is the team from? If a team benefits from consistently amazing weather I tend to smile on their demise. Does your team play in LA? Florida? I hope you lose. Wisconsin? Minnesota? Blessings upon you.

3. How arrogant/morally bankrupt does the head coach/quarterback/random booster appear? Currently Nick Saban, Lane Kiffin, and Houston Nutt head this list.

Those are the basic criteria and they range in importance depending on the how I’m feeling on a particular day. One day might see a team’s arrogance earning it my ire despite the fact that it’s playing a traditional powerhouse I regularly root against.

Here is my general ranking of how much I dislike each team with several brief explanations. The list goes from most to least repugnant.

1. Alabama- The perfect trifecta. An amazing combination of a lying coach, history of winning, and a recent national championship. Although to be fair, the only real Alabama fan I know is quite reserved about her team’s dominance.

2. The rest of the SEC- This is largely due to the unending bleating of most SEC fans that only their conference really plays football. Textbook arrogant idiocy and if every SEC team could somehow loose every game I would be one happy camper.

3. Ohio State- The recent humblings have been appreciated, but a good team this year and Buckeye fans will be back louder than ever.

4. Michigan- A few years ago they would have been higher than Ohio State. Nothing against Rich Rodriguez but a few more down years for the Maize and Blue would suit me just fine.

5. Oklahoma- Somehow they bug me more than Texas. Not sure why.

6. Nebraska- I still remember some significant losses they handed the Huskies. It disturbs me to see them playing well again.

7. Texas- I love the logo, but that’s just too much winning for one team.

8. Notre Dame- It’s hard for me to hate a team that really doesn’t win that much but Charlie Weiss knew how to make that happen. I might tolerate them better now that he’s gone.

9. The rest of the Big Ten

10. The rest of the Big Twelve

11. Everyone Else

12. Pac 10 teams- as a dedicated Pac-10 fan I will even root for USC when they play non-conference games. I realize this is a gross violation of every one of my above criteria. Sorry. Here’s my ranking of Pac-10 teams with the most to least loathable.

USC

UCLA

Oregon

Oregon State

Stanford

Cal

Arizona

Arizona State

Washington State

Washington

I realize I've given altogether too much thought to this, but thanks for sticking with me.

ESPN

2010-09-03T21:38:00.001-04:00

I love sports. And I like watching ESPN for sports news. But I’ve had a growing feeling of unease as I watch sports reported with such sincere and profound gravity. All news stations are desperate to fill their airtime and end up dwelling, at times, on trivial issues. But with ESPN the disconcerting truth is that everything is ultimately trivial. Maybe someone’s job is at stake and occasionally a player sustains a serious injury. But to hear roster speculation and a batting average reported and debated with such intensity leaves me feeling decidedly empty. People devote their working lives to reporting this? Why do I spend so much time paying attention? Despite the fact that I love sports I have to admit that ESPN is an ultimately trivial endeavor and probably a male version of E! News. Just entertainment taken waaaaay too seriously.

OBX

2010-06-04T19:28:00.005-04:00

That's Outer Banks for you West Coasters. Last Wednesday night we were at our friends house and they said they were going to the Outer Banks that weekend (Memorial Day). Some connections fired off in my head, something like this:

1. Do I have Monday off too...?

2. Don't that Johnsons live there?

3. Isn't Peter in Richmond now?

4. Isn't Richmond half way between Washington and the Outer Banks?

Then finally, "Patrick let's go see Bethany and Zack and pick up Peter on the way!!"

So two days later we packed up the Civic and headed down south. Turns out Peter and his dad were already there. Great! For those of you who don't know, Peter is one of Patrick's closest friends. Ken Rowan, Peter's dad, is the "B" in BCRA, my father in laws architect firm. So the whole family are really good friends.

To sum up the weekend, we drove for a long time in traffic to hang out with some awesome friends and play on the beach. Aydan was perfect. She is setting some high expectations for us these days. She didn't cry at all, she slept 11 hours two of the three nights and she was very happy to be held by anyone who wanted to snuggle her. We all loved the beach. It was Aydan's first time and she loved it! We tried surfing. Patrick was pretty good and I was terrible. I blame it on my lack of muscles still...

It was a great weekend and we are thankful for our friends for taking us in. : )

ps i didn't have time to check this so sorry if there are errors. : )

Just hanging out on the surf board.

In her little beach seat. It was perfect because the sun shade was huge and keeps the sun out of her face.

The girls watching the boys surfing. Did I mention Bethany is pregnant? She's having a little boy in October!!

Reflections on Graduation:

2010-05-30T20:15:00.000-04:00

On May 16^th I graduated from George Washington University with a Masters in European and Eurasian Studies. It was a busy two years for me and Kim, what with both of us working most of the time and my evenings taken up with classes and studying.

The graduation weekend itself was fun. My parents came to town and saw my Elliott School graduation on Friday and the full school graduation on Sunday. The idea behind the two ceremonies (near as I can tell) is that with the full school graduating together it would be too time consuming to march everyone across the stage and hand them a diploma. Of course this doesn’t stop other schools (UW, I’m looking your direction) from holding interminable ceremonies that can only be survived with a thick book and a comfortable bleacher to sleep on. Anyway, the Elliott School holds a separate graduation ceremony where we get our names called and are handed a medal and shake someone’s hand. It was fine, but I’m not sure why they feel compelled to have so many speakers. Also, each speaker’s credentials have to be read out loud before he or she speaks. Am I more likely to listen if you tell me what journals he’s written for? In fact I’m trapped and would listen if he were the night janitor reading the day’s stock report.

Two days later the full school graduation was held on the National Mall with the Capitol in the background. We began by processing in. Wait, no we didn’t. Instead of dealing with the logistical difficulties of walking everyone in, they simply had us all sit down and then played processional music for 20 minutes. Why? I don’t mind not walking in, but let’s get on with things. Michelle Obama was the keynote speaker and discussed community service as a continuing lifestyle. It was a good address and cool to hear her speak.

I think the weekend really did sum up my feelings about grad school: I enjoyed my time here but I never felt emotionally connected to the school. It was more of a business transaction or a professional relationship. I gave them an ungodly amount of money, performed the requested tasks, and they gave me a good base of knowledge, some professional skills, and a degree. During my undergrad degree I never felt like I learned much (although I probably did) but I connected with the school, the campus, the clubs, and all the people there. At GW it was the other way around. I know I learned but I don’t think I really connected. I like visiting WWU- the campus holds so many memories and good times. I don’t imagine I’ll be nostalgic when I return to GW’s campus in the future. This might be the simple difference between undergrad and grad school and I certainly didn’t expect a similar experience, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

College was a unique experience that really laid a foundation for friendships and behavior patterns that I expect will last the rest of my life. Grad school seems to have served a more utilitarian purpose restricted to my professional life. Not that I didn’t make friends or grow as a person over the past two years, just that it’s been a different experience from college in almost every way. And while I did enjoy it in way, I’m glad to be moving on.

Patrick and the other EES students.

Aydan is cheering for Dad in this picture.

Aydan's First Month of Life

2010-05-11T13:28:00.000-04:00

It's not the best quality but it's still nice.

A Little Perfect Life

2010-05-10T15:23:00.000-04:00

It's been a bit over a month now and I'm finally at the place where I can sit back and document the birth of our little girl. So skip this post if it's boring to you. It's long but I wanted to write it out for our memories.

For weeks before the birth I had been going to a hematologist weekly for blood testing. My platelet levels were low and my doctor wanted to have them monitored because if they dropped too low I could have some problems with bleeding and getting an epidural, which in turn would be a major problem if I needed a C-section. Because of this issue and because the baby was getting pretty big my doctor wanted to induce me on Tuesday March 30th. This worked well as our parents would be in town.

My parents arrived on Saturday, March 27th and the Connallys arrived on Monday, March 29th. Tuesday morning my dad drove me and Patrick to the hospital to have our baby.

We arrived, checked in and went to our perfect delivery room. Our amazing nurse, Helen, drew my blood to check the platelet levels. Good news: they had dropped but not too far. Knowing that they might keep dropping, they wanted to place the epidural catheter in my back before there were problems incase I needed a C-section later and my platelets were too low to give me the epidural. Before putting that in, they started the Petosin at about 10 am. They then placed the epidural catheter into my back. It was not hooked up to any medicine, it was just the catheter all ready for the medicine incase I needed or wanted it.

At 11AM I was in bed, swollen, huge and ready to have this baby. Our parents and Susan, Jack's mom, came to the hospital so they could be there for the birth, little did they know they'd be spending their entire day there. We waited and waited and waited... I was having major contractions the whole time, or so the monitor told us. I would never had known because I did not feel anything even though I wasn't hooked up to any medicine. It was shocking and beautiful.

The doctor came in every few hours and told me that I was still not ready and to keep up the good work. So we all hung out and talked, played cards and watched TV. At 4:30 the doctor broke my water which we hoped would speed up the process but it didn't seem to. So we kept on waiting. I really was having a good time, pain free, making progress (very slowly but it was progress) and I had great people around to chat with. The only sucky part was that I hadn't eaten for hours, but I guess that's how it goes.

It wasn't until 12:30 AM that the contractions started getting overwhelming. I kicked everyone except Patrick and my mom out and they went home and took a nap. My dad stayed at the hospital but slept on a couch in the waiting room. I asked for the epidural medicine at this point and because I already had the catheter in it was quick and easy to get the relief I was wanting. The epidural was a good one though, I could still feel the contractions and pressure but didn't have as much pain. A little after 2:00AM I was ready to push. Mom called the Connallys and Susan who all came rushing back to the hospital to be there for the birth. Everyone but Patrick and my mom stood in the hallway and waited. Susan layed on the floor outside my door listening to what was going on inside through the crack in the floor and gave my dad, Rory and Connie a play by play.

Aydan was born at 3:41 AM on March 31st. She was beautiful. Purple, but beautiful. I looked into her eyes and fell in love with her. Patrick was an amazing coach and husband, he cried and spoke quietly to our little girl, seeing him love her was amazing. My mom was in the room with us, and I would not have wanted it any other way. The nurses were super supportive and all around great. It was the perfect moment.

As soon as she was born Susan and Connie came into the room to meet her. Soon after the nurses took Aydan off my chest and took her behind a curtain in our room to clean her up, weigh her and let her meet her grandpas.

While that was happening the doctor and nurses were dealing with me. Because of my low platelets my bleeding got pretty bad. I won't go into the gory details but know that it was very scary for awhile but the nurses and doctor acted quickly and the bleeding finally stopped.

After I was all fixed up I got my little girl back, we all said good bye to the family and she and I snuggled down and she nursed for the first time. After that she slept in her little bassinet next to my bed and Patrick slept in the fold out bed next to me. It was a nice hour of sleep.

We were woken up an hour later because my heart rate, which was high the entire labor, was still really high, ranging from 150-160. So the doctor ordered a chest x-ray and some kind of sonogram of my heart. So, after being awake for 24 hours, not eating (I still wasn't allowed to eat by this time because I was throwing up after I had Aydan), loosing lots of blood and not to mention just giving birth, I was pushed to the x-ray room where I nearly passed out trying to stand for the x-ray. After that they took me back to our room, let me eat and sleep for another hour and then took me away for my sonogram test. All the tests came back fine so that is good. It wasn't the best way to feel bonded with my daughter but I'm glad they were being proactive with my health.

It was a tiring 26 hours but so worth it.

Belly Thoughts

2010-02-21T19:51:00.006-05:00

As of today we have 4 weeks and 4 days until our due date... what that means as far as us having the little one in our arms is nothing really. A lady at our church just had her baby 3 weeks early and another was 2 weeks late... so who really knows when she will come... I hope it's March 27th at night bc then my parents will be here and the baby will be born on the 27th, me on the 28th and patrick on the 29th... different months but still that would be cool.

I have had an increase in tiredness and have been over all uncomfortable. Some of this is due to the fact that I have a low iron count. I'm going to see a hematologist on Tuesday and hope to get on some medicine to raise those levels which will give me more energy and steer me away from a labor that will force me to not be able to have an epidural. A few good things are that Patrick is doing a fantastic job around the house, especially bc he does not have to work this semester, keeping it clean and keeping me as comfortable as possible. Also, the baby is healthy and moving around like crazy. And my mom is coming out on Tuesday for a conference. She will be in meetings everyday but it will be very nice having her around in the evenings.

We took a birth class last weekend... it was long 9-5 on Sat and 9-12 on Sun but it was good and I'm glad we did it.

Here are a couple of pictures for you. The first is of the tummy at 30 weeks and the second is of the tummy at 35... so exciting... well kind of... : )

30 Weeks

Not sure what's up with my eyes but here is a shot at 35 weeks

Patrick clearly isn't as far along as I am.

This is a Pottery Barn frame. I made a collage using a bunch of letters that Patrick and I wrote to each other while we were dating as the back ground. Once the baby is born we will take a picture of her little feet in the shape of a heart and put our wedding rings on her big toes and put that in the center of the frame. I think it will be cute in her room.

Here is my second project. I took a few of the cards we received from the showers that were thrown for me and made a little collage so the baby will see how much she is loved even though we are far from everyone. This too will go in her room.

The last framed project I have that is not yet completed is the same Pottery Barn frame with 4 holes in it and each one will be filled with a picture of the baby's grandparents as children. This too will go in her room, which she will have in May when Patrick is graduated.

Our Year 2009

2010-02-14T21:13:00.004-05:00

Here's a video that I made with pictures from this past year. I hope you enjoy it.

Snow Day. Wait, 3 Days! A Week?

2010-02-12T20:50:00.007-05:00

As many of you know, it snowed recently here. The snow started last Friday as a few friendly flakes leisurely made their way to the ground. On Saturday it kept up and by Sunday we were buried in 2 ½ feet of snow. Like other husbands on the East Coast I used all of Sunday morning to dig my way from our porch, across the yard, all the way around the car and then out to the street that had been recently plowed. On our street, they only plowed one lane down the middle of the road. And with 30 inches of snow you can imagine the piles that accumulate on each side of the plow as it works its way down the road. So in order to get our car out onto said plowed road, I had to cut a huge swath through a veritable mountain of snow created by the plow. The beauty is that after you finally get a path cleared the plow comes through a few hours later and traps your car behind another mountain of snow.

So Kim and I had an indoor weekend. And then classes and work were cancelled on Monday. Kim did a half day of work before coming home on Tuesday (my classes were cancelled) and then both of us sat back wishing we had something to do on Wednesday and Thursday as everything shut down again due to another foot of snow showing up Tuesday night. Only this time it came with a lot of wind in legitimate blizzard conditions. So I dug the car out again on Thursday morning.

At some point in there (Monday?) Kim and I walked to the grocery store along with the rest of the entire population of Arlington. You’ll be glad to know that Kim did not accidentally give birth on an abandoned snowy street in between our house and the grocery store although it was a concern.

What did we do while going crazy inside you might ask. The house is organized better than it has been in a long time and is all ready for a baby. Beforehand there was a lot of ‘Zelda: Twilight Princess’ going unplayed- a situation we were able to remedy. I got some schoolwork done, but let’s be honest, a snow day means no school.

Last Friday we were finally back in action. Kim was at work with Jack and I was at school. More snow came Monday night but it was light and we laughed at its pitiful attempts to stop us. Now we have no snow until the Saturday… So if you’re thinking of coming to visit us (which you should be) maybe don’t come until August which is the earliest I can guarantee that these piles will be gone.

Thanks for all your calls and emails. We love hearing from you guys.

Adios for now.

A few shots of the car from the week. The first two are from the first storm and the second is after/during the second storm.

Patrick digging us out, literally.

Our car is behind that huge pile of snow on the right side of the street next to the telephone pole. You can't even see it.

Pictures of our walk after the first storm.

Patrick digging us out after the second storm. The cove our car is in will be there for the next 100 years probably.

I don't think these pictures do justist to the crazy amount of snow and huge piles of ice we have here.

Here is a picture from this week (Feb. 20th). Jack was doing a great job helping Patrick shovel away all the snow. A good Jack quote, "The snow LOVES the water!" with a delighted squeal as he puts the snow in the gutter that was like a little river taking the snow away. Another good Jack quote from the week, "I think I'm going to be in heaven before this snow is gone!" said with a sarcastic voice he could have only learned from me. Funny.

January 27, 2009: A Day that Will Live in Gloriousness

2010-02-12T18:59:00.005-05:00

If I’ve already called and told you all this then feel free to skip to the 10% off dry cleaning coupon at the bottom of the page, but on January 27^th I passed the final stage of the Foreign Service Officer selection process.

It’s a multi-stage process that I started years ago when I took the written exam, right after graduating from Western. Over the next couple of years I took the written part two more times before finally passing it in June of 2009. The next stage was to submit several short essays which I passed as well.

The oral section of the exam is the last and supposedly most difficult section. About 20% of people pass the first time with many taking it numerous times before passing. The thing that’s so frustrating is that if you fail you have to start the process over from the beginning.

When Kim and I got home from Christmas break I started studying and preparing. The State Department provides fairly comprehensive study and introductory materials. There are also several independently organized study groups in the area so I had no shortage of papers, files, personal accounts of the exam, etc. to get me started. The oral exam has three parts- a group exercise where six applicants are given several projects and limited resources and have to decide on which projects to fund, a memo writing section, and a 2-on-1 interview. For the group exercise I found a couple sample files on line and practiced with the study groups that meet around here. I also made Kim listen to me give my little presentations that each person has to give during the exercise. For the interview section I wrote up every question I could imagine them asking and then had Kim interview me. They didn’t ask me any of those questions but it was helpful practice.

The day of the exam I felt pretty confident. There were only six of us testing that day and we all got along and worked together well. After each of the exercises I felt I had performed well, but only at the end of the day do they tell you how you’ve done. After completing the final exercise we had to wait for more than an hour before receiving our results. I hadn’t been nervous all day but during this time I started to worry. Knowing that so few pass I was ready to get bad news and take the exam again. But as I sat there looking back on the day I felt strongly that I’d done well at everything. I was worried that if I didn’t pass I really wouldn’t know how to come back and improve a second time. Each stage had gone as well as I had hoped.

Finally they called each of our names one at a time. After everyone else had been called, a professor and I were called in together and told we had passed the oral exam. The examiners were very congratulatory and seemed genuinely excited that we had passed. It was a great day and texting Kim to tell her I’d passed was obviously fantastic.

Now we’re on to the next stage, medical and security clearances. I got my medical clearance on Friday and Kim will finish hers once the baby comes. The security clearance will take a lot longer. I’m supposed to expect a call in a month or so and then an investigator will start working with me to go through my background, contact all kinds of people, and basically make sure I’m not a threat to national security. We’ll keep you guys update but if it all goes smoothly I should be able to start training this summer and then be posted at an embassy by this time next year or even earlier.

Thanks for all your prayers and thanks for reading!

Here's Patrick the morning of the big test. Looking so handsome and confidant with his new suit and nice green tie he got for Christmas from my parents.

That Which I Hope to Never Experience Again

2010-01-04T20:40:00.003-05:00

Kim and I just returned from spending Christmas in Washington. The time there was worth it's own post but for now I'd like to focus on the debacle bookending our visit- the travel.

The week before we were scheduled to leave reports began to trickle in that a snow storm was headed our way. As our Saturday departure drew closer the storm grew in anticipated magnitude. Our flight was officially cancelled at 3 pm on Friday, about 4 hours before any snow fell. On what was supposed to be a celebratory final night in DC, I spent 2 hours on the phone rescheduling our flight. We were put on a 1:30 pm flight. I asked the customer service rep why our original flight at 8:30 had been cancelled but a 1:30 flight hadn't when the snow was predicted to get worse all day. After being on hold for two hours I was in no mood to get back on the phone if our new flight was cancelled. Sure enough, one hour after being assigned to the 1:30 flight it was cancelled. I got back on the phone and waited on hold for 3 hours. The only bright spot was that all 3 of those hours were spent playing Wii tennis. Eventually we were placed on a Sunday afternoon flight out of Baltimore.

The next day (Saturday) we sat inside and watched the snow pile up. In the afternoon I dug the car out in case we needed it on Sunday and was openly mocked by a neighbor for doing so. She informed me she would have left earlier in the week rather than traveling during a snow storm. Next time I buy a plane ticket 4 months out I'll be sure to check with her on what the weather will be.

Sunday morning I got up and dug the car out a second time. After weighing different options we decided to try to drive to the metro, which we did successfully thanks to plowed roads. The metro ride to Union Station was uneventful but slow. Arriving at Union Station we found that all trains had been cancelled for almost two days, turning the station into a refugee camp. People and luggage were crammed into every corner and there seemed to be no chance that a train would leave in time for us to catch our plane. Kim and I ran back down to the metro hoping to get back to our car in time for us to drive (slowly and cautiously) to Baltimore (an hour drive in normal conditions). We jumped on the first car and... sat there for 15 minutes. The metro was running slowly and the next car wasn't scheduled to leave for another 15 minutes. We grudgingly disembarked and trudged back up to the trains hoping some would leave soon.

By the time trains started leaving a general announcement was made that amounted to "if you have a ticket for any train, you may shove you way, caged animal-like, onto any departing train you choose." Kim and I managed to battle our way past a ticket lady intent on not letting us board and get seats on a train headed to Boston. It stopped at Baltimore airport allowing us to try and catch our plane which had been delayed enough to give us hope.

When we got into the airport we hopped in a long line hoping to check our luggage. The line did not move. It took several scouting expeditions to ascertain why not. Untied Airlines, in their unrivaled wisdom, had all four of their ticketing counters open to help any customer with any problem. The problem (obvious to all of us in the line) was that many people in the line were trying to reschedule cancelled flights. About an hour before our flight was to leave, Kim interrupted one of the agents to explain that unless a specific line was devoted to people wanting to check luggage, we would all miss our flights and then need to be rebooked as well. She told Kim there was nothing she could do. Really? No one there had the authority to redo the line plan? We finally found a lady willing to let us sneak to the front of one the lines and check our bags. I don't know what happened to the suckers in line behind us also waiting to check bags. Thankfully our flight was delayed even more, allowing us to make the flight.

After flying through Charlotte and Denver, we were relieved to find our last flight to Pasco delayed enough to let us catch it. As we sat waiting, assuming our troubles were behind us, a chipper young lady informed everyone that due to weather conditions in Pasco we might be dropped in Redmond and provided "alternate transportation". Redmond? Near Seattle? The chipper lady didn't know. Turned out to be Redmond, Oregon. In my politest voice I asked the desk lady why Redmond had been chosen when other airports were much closer. Walla Walla? Yakima? Spokane? She didn't know but later informed all of us that Spokane was the new alternate airport. So there we were at close to midnight, calling my uncle in Spokane, waking him up, and asking if he could pick us up at the Spokane airport in two hours. Ridiculous. Finally, minutes away from landing in Pasco, the captain came on and informed us that visibility was good enough for him to drop down close to the runway and determine whether or not he could land safely. For someone with a mild fear of flying I thought Kim remained remarkably calm at that announcement. We eventually did land in Pasco and stayed with my uncle, arriving at his house around 1 am Pacific Coast Time, that's 4 am our time, after over 18 hours of total travel time.

The trip home was less eventful but still frustrating. We arrived at Seatac to find that our flight to Dallas was delayed enough that we would miss our connection to DC. We were rebooked on a later flight out of Dallas. After enduring the standard screening we headed to our gate only to be told that our Seatac-Dallas flight was delayed even more, thus causing us to miss our rebooked connection. After another hour on the phone, we were put on a flight to Chicago with an immediate connection through to DC. We arrived in Chicago, hurried to our gate... and obviously found out that our connection was delayed due to mechanical problems. At this point our spirits, as well as any trust in airlines, were so crushed we could do nothing but slink to our seats and accept our fate like Thanksgiving turkeys. When we finally boarded, Kim and I were in the front row of the small airplane and thus perfectly able to hear the crew discuss the problems the plane was experiencing. We were also the first on board to hear the captain tell the stewardesses that we'd have to deboard the plane and wait still longer. So we did. And we waited again. For a long time. We got a call from our ride in DC telling us they'd be unable to pick us up as we were getting in so late. We eventually survived an extremely shaky landing, caught a cab home and climbed into bed at 2 am- more than 5 hours after we were originally supposed to get home.

For those of you still reading, I'll run down the final numbers.

Total time lost: about 39 hours

Total number of flights flown: 5

Total number of flights delayed or cancelled: 9

Price paid for direct flights we never got: $500

Hoping your travel went better than ours, Happy New Year!

Done with school, snowed in

2009-12-19T11:01:00.004-05:00

This week I (Patrick) finished my classes as well as my internship, leaving me free as a bird for two days. I spent the majority of those two days looking forward to being in Washington and was thus crushed when Kim called on Friday to say our Saturday morning flight had been cancelled due to an expected snow storm. Usually I love snow and callously disregard the people who might be inconvenienced by it.

After calling to rebook our flight I spent two hours on the phone with several customer service agents. We were eventually booked on a flight at 1:30 pm Saturday. I asked the agent why a 9 am flight would be cancelled but a 1:30 flight wouldn't when the storm was supposed to get worse throughout the day. We ended up booked on the 1:30 flight feeling certain that flight would be cancelled as well. It was. I then called to rebook again, only to be put on hold for (no exaggeration) 3 hours. We're currently booked on a 1:55 pm flight out of Baltimore that stops at most airports in the continental United States before getting to Pasco sometime just before the next presidential election. I'm not sure how we'll get to Baltimore if the flight should actually take off.

Oh, one bright spot is that the Shins (the family Kim nannies for) gave us a Wii for Christmas so our unexpected snow day can be spent bowling and playing tennis.

Apologies to all Eastern Washington family and hopefully we'll see you soon. Adios!

Nashville Skyline

2009-12-03T22:21:00.004-05:00

For Thanksgiving Kim and I went to Nashville to visit the Verner family, recently ranked the #7 family in the country for "Good times with Amy Grant relatives". It was a fantastic trip and a reminder how good it is to be surrounded by good friends. We stayed in Brentwood with Pace and Brandon Verner (great hosts) and their too-cute-to-be-true sons Afton and Sims. Afton is 3 years old and can say his ABC's in a killer country accent. Sims is 5 months old and does a lot of smiling.

We left on Wednesday and drove more than 10 hours to Nashville. Deep in rural Virginia we hit a bizarre traffic jam. Who goes out there? We hit the same thing on the way back, so apparently more people than I would've thought. We got in late, reunited with Hunter and Laura and crashed.

On Thanksgiving day we joined Hunter's extended family at his uncle's cabin. It's a beautiful log cabin sandwiched between a river and small hay fields. Seriously an amazing place. It was like summer camp: we went on a bike ride, played kickball, went on a hike, ate amazing food, and then played around on hay bales.

The next day was a work day. I won't try to explain to you what we did as i could spend pages and I'm not sure I'd really convey what happened. Basically it took 8 dudes 4 hours to get a 350 lb. roof to sit precariously on top of a vertical 18 foot log. For lunch that day several people suggested we have a "meat n' three". As the name suggests, one chooses a meat and three accompanying vegetables. Example: "Hey, I'm getting hungry. Wanna grab a meat n' three?" That night some cousins came over and we had a game night. Kim's sculpterade of a saddle could also have passed for Jabba the Hut. We also attended a performance of "The First Thanksgiving" as interpreted by a 3 and 6 year old which was one of the funniest shows I've ever seen.

On Saturday we slept in, took a walk around a nearby lake, and spent the afternoon hanging out with the relatives across the street brewing beer in the garage and watching football. That night we went to Jane and Glenn's house for a delicious Verner family dinner. What did they put on their cornbread you may be asking? Butter? Honey? No no. Yogurt and cayenne pepper obviously. Basically a perfect day.

On Sunday we got up and headed home. Unfortunately we ran into traffic again on the way back and spent 12 HOURS in the car. That is basically an intolerable amount of time. But it didn't ruin the amazing Thanksgiving weekend we'd just had.

Thanks Pace, Brandon, Afton, Sims, Hunter, Laura, Stuart, Erin, Katherine, Jane and Glenn! Hopefully we'll see you again soon

Baby Connally

2009-11-30T12:33:00.008-05:00

By now you all know we have a little girl on the way. I am almost 25 weeks along. She will be coming around the end of March or begain of April. Patrick and I are very excited as are our parents, family and friends. There has not been a girl in the Connally family for 82 years!! So, yes, we are all very very excited. Here are some common questions people have had and my answers:

How were/are you feeling?

The first trimester was very hard, I was extremely tired. Everyone tells you that pregnancy makes you tired but I had no idea... Patrick has been working and then going to school from 7:30-10 four nights a week, so life was pretty hard for the first 20 or so weeks. He will be done in two weeks and won't be working next semester so life will slow down a lot.

I was never really sick until like 16 weeks when everything I smelled or put in my mouth made me throw up, even some sounds make me throw up... weird. During this time I didn't have any real cravings it was more like there were only a few things I could eat with out throwing up.

For the last month or so I've been feeling really really good. I've had way more energy and have been able to go on longer walks and eat almost anything. Which makes me and the baby and Patrick very happy. Patrick was great during those first weeks, he helped out a lot around the house and made dinner most mornings for us to eat that night. Amazing.

Do you have any names picked out?

We have been having a very hard time coming up with girl names, so no, we don't have any names... not even a list of names we like...

Patrick has said that once we've decided on a name we will not tell anyone. But at this rate you will find out when we do, a day or so after she is born. : )

Do you have a room for her?

We will have her in a little bassinet with us for the first few months until Patrick gets done with school in mid May. Then we will move our guest room down to where his office is now and we will make a nursery of the what is now a guest room. So, there will be a room for all of you when you come to visit, even after baby.

Well, I think that about does it for questions. If you have any others then please post them and I will get back to you. : )

A few quick fun stories:

The Sunday morning after we found out the baby was a girl, we were woken by a knock on the door, it was Jack, the little guy I nanny. He had a little outfit in his hand with his arm extended toward us. The outfit has little panda heads on the feet, and when we asked Jack where the baby's feet went he said, "In the panda slippers." Too cute!

Last Tuesday night we were packing for Nashville and I laid down to rest and the baby was kicking like crazy. It was really cool because it was the first time we could actually see her kicking. My belly was dancing around like Frosty when he has his hat on (ok I'm listening to that song right now). So Patrick and I obviously sat there for like 30 mins just watching her getting it done.

I was going to have Patrick edit this and write in his own thoughts but he has a final paper due tomorrow and a huge final next week so he won't have time to do look it over, so forgive the poor grammar and ramblings. I will say for him though that he is very excited to be a daddy. He is going to be great! I would say the best dad but then that would make him better than my dad and his dad so maybe just a tie for the best with both of them. : )

Here are some pictures of her first sonogram at 11 weeks:

Here's the belly at 16 Weeks

Belly at 20 Weeks

This is the sonogram from Nov. 6th when we found out she was a girl. She had been waving to us right before we turned the camera on. It's not the best video but it's still pretty cool.

Our Summer

2009-10-14T17:54:00.010-04:00

Ok so the summer has been here and gone for a long time now. So I will quickly give you a recap of what we did and who we got to see...as I remember it anyway. We have been busy busy busy this summer. On Aug. 29th we were here for one full year. During that year we had 52 visitors from WA, amazing.

My summer visitors started when Patrick left to Europe. I had two friends come and visit during that time, Pami and Anna. Pami came the first week Patrick was gone and Anna came the last. It was great timing. Pami and I went to a Carbon Leaf concert and other fun excursions around Washington. Anna, Jack and I hung out a lot. We played, explored and painted our living room and dining room. It was really nice.

Patrick returned home on a Wed. and we left to Bellingham for Hunter and Laura's wedding that Friday. But before we left some family friends, the Kageys, came to town on vacation and had dinner with us one night. It was nice to catch up with them. The wedding weekend was a great 4 days, we got to see all of our college friends and both our parents. We had one last breakfast with the whole Connally family before Brendan and Erin left for Peru for the next chapter of their lives. It was a beautiful, fun and refreshing weekend.

Us with the happy couple

Patrick with four of his best friends

12 of the 14 guys from their college house... oh the stories these guys have from that house

Me, Carlee and Lily Lim

The brothers together for the last time before Brendan and Erin head to Peru

We flew back to DC and that weekend my grandparents, aunt, her two kids and my mom came to visit. They all stayed at the house and it was one of the best weeks ever. They visited a lot of what Washington has to offer and came home so tired they didn't even fight at night : ) They were here over the 4th of July so we left grandma and grandpa at home and the rest of us plus another cousin that lives here, Chris, braved the metro and ppl to see the awesome fireworks over the Potomac with the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument in the background. It was really an awe inspiring sight. The week was great and went by too quickly. Everyone went back the next Sunday but my mom stayed for an extra week. It was really nice to have her here. Jack really loves having her here too because he gets special crafts and cookie making time, which is a great thing when you're 3 : ) That week also went by very quickly too soon we were saying good bye to mom.

EmmaLee lost her first tooth while she was here. Good thing the Tooth Fairy found her here.

Kobe, EmmaLee and Jack in his soccer outfit Patrick brought back for him

Me and Kobe on the metro on the way home from the 4th of July fireworks

Brendan and Erin with Jack

Then Patrick and I had about three weeks to ourselves before more visitors arrived. During those weeks we celebrated our 3rd anniversary and three days later found out I was pregnant. You all know the story behind this but I'm going to write another blog about that and how it's going after this one. It was a great time for us and we were very happy and excited for our baby to come.

The next set of visitors arrived in early August. The Clare family is a great family who have three kids, two in highschool and one in middle school. Lorraine taught 4th grade my last year at First Pres. and now has my job as the 5th/4th grade teacher. They were really fun to have visit us. The whole family ran around like crazy seeing everything all day long then came home and hung out with us. We really enjoyed having them and seeing how much they loved and appreciated this amazing city.

Patrick and the boys playing football while waiting to go to the top of the Washington Monument

The day after the Clares left three more friends came into town, Andy, Anna and Lucy. We had them for a week of playing and hanging out. We visited Philadelphia while they were here and basically just hung out bc I was too tired to do much of anything. It was great time though.

Anna and Jack swinging

Andy and Jack at McDonald's Play Land

Philadelphia

In September Paul and Sybil from Tacoma came into town for business and came over for dinner one night and spent an afternoon at Mt. Vernon with us and Jack. Paul climbed Mt. Adams and Mt. Ranier with Patrick the past two summers and this year they conquered Mt. Vernon together.... : ) It was really nice to see them and show them around a bit.

Mid October the Connallys came out for a visit. They were here for about 10 days two of which were spent in Baltimore at an insurance conference for BCRA (super exciting I'm sure). It was really nice to have them here. Rory did little projects around the house and Connie made dinner and lunch most days. Excellent! They are both very excited about the baby coming and did their fair share of practicing one day when we took Jack to the zoo. Patrick was really busy that week but did manage to spend some time home and with his parents.

When the Connallys left we had about 4 days until our next visitors. Our friends from Walla Walla, Mell and Riley Gribnau. Riley is 9 and was so excited to be visiting the Capital and Mell is a teacher in Walla Walla so she too was very excited to be here to learn and also to see us. They were here for 10 days as well. They were very fun to have around. Riley is hilarious and both are adventurous.

Now we're taking a quick breather before we head to Nashville to spend Thanksgiving with Hunter's family. After that it's only a few weeks before we take another trip back to the homeland.

Thanks for reading and we hope to see all you soon!

Time in Europe

2009-10-03T11:00:00.007-04:00

Before I start this, I just want to apologize for the lack of postings to this point. We promised regular updates and have clearly disappointed both loyal readers of this blog.
That said, it’s been an eventful summer to say the least. I finished classes in early May and on May 19th I took off for a month in Europe. Kim was amazingly supportive of me making the trip. Thanks babe.

I visited a friend in London and then spent 5 days in Prague and 3 in Bratislava for a class on central European politics. There were only six of us in the class and we met politicians, academics, social scientists, and the like. It was an eventful time to be there as the Czech Republic held the EU’s rotating presidency and elections to the European Parliament were a few weeks away. I loved Prague but there’s something lost when the people you most want to share it with are on another continent. Bratislava felt like a real working class town. Much of it looked shabby but was quite active and upbeat. The old town was beautiful, but you get the feeling that real life is lived elsewhere. We didn’t get out of the cities much so I guess I’ll have to make another trip to see the countryside.

After Bratislava I took the train up to Krakow, Poland. I was hoping it would go through the mountains of northern Slovakia, but it took the wussy way out and went through eastern Czech Republic. Krakow is a fantastic city with more history than can be consumed in one sitting. Or ten. I guess if a city hasn’t been repeatedly invaded by Asian hordes, it hasn’t really lived. I visited a salt mine outside of town- very touristy, but still very cool. The miners carved statues, chandeliers, and whole chapels out of the salt. Good work Poles.

After Krakow I headed north to Warsaw, but not after purchasing a ticket to the wrong city. That’s what I get for trying to pronounce ‘Warsaw’ correctly to the ticket lady. Apparently I butchered it enough that it was mistaken for ‘Wroclaw’. In Warsaw I stayed with a friend from school whose family is Polish and owns a flat in the center of town. It was great to be shown around and learn a couple things: 1. The city of Warsaw was almost 100% destroyed during WWII. 2. The Polish underground resistance during the war was 68 times more effective than the French resistance as they actually succeeded in resisting. 3. The Warsaw subway is fairly easy to navigate as there’s only one line.

After three days in Warsaw I took an overnight bus to Lithuania (and slept surprisingly well). The forests are beautiful, but the towns we passed looked tired and worn out. The capital city of Vilnius is a compact architectural jewel with beautiful streets and churches. An old tower on a steep hill overlooks the main cathedral square and the whole city. In fact, the entire old town is surrounded by gorgeous hills in which I thought it might be exciting to take a stroll. I was lulled into a false sense of outdoor perfection by their wooded beauty and then blindsided by hills that were completely covered in trash. There was seriously trash everywhere. And tons of it. I was so distraught that I started making plans in my head to lead a clean up team the next day made up of people from the hostel. I really couldn’t believe that the people of Vilnius would allow the hills that surround their city to become the de facto town trash pit. Oh, and it rained on me a lot. And it was cold. I had mistakenly assumed that as it was summer I’d be ok with just a light jacket. Oh no, it was 45 degrees out and raining most of the time I was there. Maybe they didn’t get the “it’s summer now” memo.

A short plane ride brought me to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia which quickly became one of my favorite cities. Despite the fact that it was freezing and raining there as well I would have stayed a lot longer if I could. The medieval city walls and towers are almost all intact as are many of the old churches and merchant houses. There's also a smattering of interesting museums about how the city has developed over the centuries as different powers controlled it. Outside of the old town there are new apartment and office buildings that don’t feel as offensively dreary as many in Eastern Europe. The second day I was there I took a bus an hour east of the city and walked to a hotel I had heard about that rented bikes. The bikes they had were super old school swoop handle-barred girl bikes. But I took it and did a 45km ride that took me up to the coast and past all kinds of houses tucked into the woods each looking more bucolic than the last. The section of coast that I explored was strewn with huge boulders left over from retreating glaciers. Good work glaciers, I love what you’ve done with the place. The guide books promised me endless moose sightings but I was let down on that account.
After Tallinn I took a bus down to Riga, the Latvian capital. By this time I was pretty tired of being cold and wet but I gave Riga a good effort even though I was only there for 24 hours. The market was one of the most expansive I’ve ever seen with row after row of meat, fish, cheese, spices, clothes, shoes, fruits, vegetables, and really anything you could ever want to eat or wear.
The next morning I caught a flight to Brussels followed by a train to The Hague so I could take my Foreign Service Officer test at the embassy. My brief stay at the Hague convinced me that Kim and I need to spend a lot more time in the Netherlands in the future. After my test I went back to Brussels and spent a day exploring the city. Despite bad reports of a stifling city full of bad coffee and ugly people I had a great time. I loved the strange mix of buildings, the beer, and the different people from all over Europe. But my time there was all-too-short and I headed to Nurlu, France to spend a few days with the Baughmans.

Time with the Baughmans was great- besides their exceptionally large family there were some people from the US, so quite a large contingent altogether. I had a lot of time with the family, enjoyed some large family meals, distributed flyers for their church in St. Quentin with Morgan, saw a bit of Andy's soccer practice and had a very relaxing time.
Next I took the TGV to Paris, flew to Birmingham, and spent a couple days with a Jon and Valin Wells and their son JJ. Jon and I met in France 10 years ago when I was studying there and have stayed in good contact since. It was nice to get a weekend with Jon to catch up and see some beautiful countryside.

I finally got home on June 15 after almost a month. Thanks for encouraging me to go Kim; I promise not to do it again any time soon.

wow it's been too long and too much to say

2009-05-26T17:51:00.010-04:00

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!

Jack and Patrick at the "real bowling" as opposed to Wii Bowling.

Rory and Patrick building our back little patio for the garbage and recycling bins. Rory did more work than this picture gives him credit for. : )

Good times in Jamestown.

This was a game that the Native American's played. It was like lawn darts.

Look Mom, a Native American molcajeta!

This is from Liberty Island.
A cute church in NYC.

Patrick so happy on Draft Day outside of Radio City Music Hall with all the crazy NFL fans.

I thought you would like this, Dad. It's a baseball field in the middle of Manhattan.

This was where we sat in Brooklyn with our lunch one day.

Mom and Jack at the zoo with a cute puzzle Mom got him.

Gardening

Patrick and Jack finding Newts.

Mom made Jack this cute Dora apron. He loves it! We made cookies this day.

A house divided

2009-02-22T23:08:00.003-05:00

Kim reminded me of one more thought that struck us one the Gettysburg trip. Probably thanks largely to Abraham Lincoln, the Union, and the United States in general, was shockingly forgiving of the Confederacy immediately after the end of the war. All of the soldiers were regranted citizenship, and none of the generals or Southern leaders were hung as traitors would have been in nearly any other situation. Not only were the traitors tolerated, they were allowed to put up memorials to their fallen heroes, name streets and parks after Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, and were brought back into national life as equals to the states they had just spurned. And on top of that the North poured money into reconstructing the South. This is a remarkable example of forgiveness and of a nation collectively putting past wrongs behind it. The South could have been held responsible for the deaths of 650,000 people but they weren't. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it's remarkable.

Gettysburg

2009-02-22T18:21:00.004-05:00

This posting will deal mainly with a trip Kim and I took last weekend to Gettysburg. However, before I get on to the main dish, I thought we'd start with something that has bothered me for a long time. I am referring, of course, to people saying that they are in a 'insert type here' sandwich when they stand between two people who share a particular characteristic. "I'm in a Michael sandwich!" (when standing between two Michaels) or "I'm in a software engineer sandwich..." (said with disappointment and slight apprehension). The problem with this class of statement is that sandwiches are named for what's in between the two pieces of bread. This is so obvious it's embarrassing to say. Only in specific cases does the bread get a mention in the name of the sandwich. Which is why saying "I'm in a Michael sandwich" is like saying, "I'm having a wheat bread sandwich for lunch". A true Michael sandwich would have a Michael in the middle and two people on the outside with some similar characteristic. But unless they were particularly unusual or interesting, they wouldn't warrant a mention. Thanks for bearing with me on that.

Now on to Gettysburg! Last Friday Kim and I took off on Friday evening and headed North through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, arriving at Gettysburg just after 9 pm. As we went to pull into our old farmhouse bed and breakfast, I turned (in the pitch black darkness mind you) into what I thought (because of the sign placement and lighting) was the driveway. Turns out it was the front yard. We had to just sit there and wait for cars to pass before I could back onto the roadway, drive 20 feet further down the road, and enter the actual driveway. Embarrassing.

Kim and I both shared a fear that Gettysburg would be an uninspiring expanse of fields and woods coupled with boring museum exhibits. In fact, Gettysburg turned out to be fantastic. We started at the new visitors center (very cool) and watched a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman about the battlefield. I decided that if a movie is ever made about my life, I want Morgan Freeman to narrate it. Or Alastair Moyer. Or Kim. After the movie we went upstairs to an exhibit called the "Cyclorama". You're forgiven for assuming that a "Cyclorama" is a bicycle exhibition. In fact, it's a huge 360 degree painting which depicts a crucial moment on the last day of the battle. It was done by a French painter and includes thousands of figures. You stand in the middle while a guide points out the most interesting parts of the pictures. Downstairs there's a big museum, which is interesting but overwhelming.

After the visitor center we headed over to lunch at a little restaurant (cheeseburger: $4.50) and then walked through the town center. We stopped at an antique shop where a man who saw our license plate asked us some questions about being from Washington. As we turned to leave he asked us a couple more. Then as we attempted to make our way to the door he continued asking us rephrased versions of questions we'd always answered. We eventually managed to squeeze out the door.

One place that surprised us was a store that billed itself as a "museum where everything's on sale". It was all real artifacts with price tags on them. We bought a bullet for $2 and sent it to my dad. We were going to buy the tree stump with a cannonball and bullets in it for $15,000 but it had already been sold.

That evening we started out on an audio tour of which we were both a little dubious. The idea is that you drive around the battlefield while listening to explanatory history on CD. It actually turned out to be amazing as we sat at each spot hearing what happened there. Once it got dark we headed over to a cool underground restaurant Kim had found for dinner.

The next day we finished up the audio tour and felt like we'd really gotten a good feel for the history of the area and what happened. Little Round Top was just like I'd imagined it. Devil's Den was an out of place outcropping of huge rocks that look like it was made to film a war movie. It's sobering to think of what actually happened there. The strangest part of the battlefield was standing on the Confederate positions and looking across the field they charged. And by 'charged' I mean 'walked slowly' while getting mowed down by cannons and bullets. Then to go across the field and see what the Union soldiers would have seen at the same moment. It had to be stunning for them that the Confederates would just line up and walk towards them like they did. Crazy. Also, the whole battlefield is littered with hundreds of monuments to different states and regiments and brigades. Some of them had flowers on them.

That night we watched the movie 'Gettysburg'. It's about 15 years old (and looks it), but it's quite moving as it tells the stories of different soldiers on each side of the battle. All together, we feel like we got a thorough understanding of the battle, the history behind it, and a picture of the different people involved. We highly recommend it.

Just a quick note if you do go: You'll probably expect places like 'Cemetery Ridge' and 'Seminary Ridge' to be located on land discernibly higher than the land around it. In South Eastern Pennsylvania, you'd be surprised as what qualifies as a topographical feature. Kim and I were routinely confused by discussions about the Union troops occupying the 'high ground' that was pointed out to us. Usually this amounted to a piece of land that would only be recognized as higher in elevation than that around it by an experienced surveying crew.

On the way back we stopped in Frederick, Maryland to patronize "the largest used book store in the Washington-Baltimore area". As Kim and I are both book people, we were visibly excited, having prepared our lists of what books we want. What we found was "the least organized book store in the Washington-Baltimore-Ottawa-Fairbanks-Kansas City-Los Angeles-Tokyo area". The store was divided into traditional book store sections. From there it's all downhill as books of the same subject (interpreted loosely) are crammed into shelves in no particular order. I asked about a particular book and was taken to a corner of the store and told the book 'would be in here if we have it'. The section was a horrifically shelved section of books, many of which belonged in another section. One upside was that all books in Russian were $.99. So there's that.

After the bookstore we went and saw Averill at Goucher College in Baltimore. We went and got lunch which made Averill's day as it was not the Goucher cafeteria. Then it was picking up a new chair at Ikea (an excellent reading chair that you can enjoy should you come visit us) and back home to get ready for the week.

Gosh, I always go way too long on this. Sorry everyone.

Our Bed and Breakfast

This is the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge. In the background on the right are Little Round Top and Big Round Top.

This is the field that the Confederates marched across during Pickett's Charge on the last day of the battle.

This is the view from Little Round Top. The rocks in the middle of the picture is called Devil's Den. On the left near the little shed is the area called the Slaughter Pen because of all the men who died there. The Union troops on this hill had clear shots at Confederate soldiers attacking up the hill.

Here we are standing on top of Devil's Den.

Gettysburg from a look out tower.

This picture was taken behind the center of the Union lines. Pickett's Charge got as far as the tree in the middle before being pushed back.

In the background you can see all the monuments to all the different regiments and brigades. These were everywhere on the battlefield. This exact spot marked the turning point of the war.

Not to Brag but...

2009-02-10T17:32:00.003-05:00

The weather here has been ridiculously beautiful! Averill, one of the kids in the youth group, came to visit this weekend. He is going to college about 60 miles north of us. We went to the zoo on Sun with Jason and Jack. It was 73 degrees and so fun. Yesterday Jack and I ran around Roosevelt Island and today we played in a creek by his house forever in 60 degree weather. It has been so nice to have the sun out and having it feel like spring. Patrick had pipe night a couple of nights ago bc it was so nice outside. Not to worry, the weather is going to get cold again this weekend just in time for our trip to Gettysburg. We'll follow up about Gettysburg next week. Hope everyone is well.

Baraking the Weekend

2009-01-24T09:27:00.006-05:00

I could spend hours detailing all the things that happened this weekend and what all we did but I'm not sure how many of you would appreciate that or read it as it would stretch for pages and the little bubble on the side of the screen indicating how far down the screen you've scrolled would be barely visible as it would be so small. But our friends who visited this weekend did a great job of chronicling the events blow by blow and other pictures- you can check that out here:http://losloya.blogspot.com/
Jake and Carlee are two great friends from Bellingham who are some of the best people you could ever want to meet. Unless you're uncomfortable being mocked a little. In that case, go find other friends. They arrived Friday night and it was cold. By cold I mean -3 wind chill or something like that. If anyone from Wisconsin or Maine is reading this, sorry to complain about 11 degrees when you're in the middle of -45 degrees, and also, can you send me some cheese or lobster? It's just uncomfortable to leave the house right now.
Here are the highlights of the past couple of days:
1. Inauguration opening concert on Sunday the 18th. We knew we'd have to arrive early as only 3 musicians and actors in the whole country had been left out of the lineup. We wanted to get a prime spot but honestly there were so many performs I thought they might be taking up the prime spots. And I didn't want to have to push James Taylor out of the way just to get a better view of the stage.
We arrived at 7:30 am for a 2:30 show. Plenty of time? Barely. We got a pretty good spot near the front and next to tree we were hoping we could climb on a little to get a better view. Things filled in pretty quickly and we thought all was progressing nicely until Jake and Carlee left to get food. They almost didn't get back. As more and more people started arriving they just kept pressing forward. And forward. No room? No problem, just keep shoving in! You had to keep your extremities close to your body because if not before you knew what was happening there'd be a whole family camped out in between you and your arm. After they had returned victoriously with the food I made the mistake of having to go to the bathroom. I have never really fought my way through a crowd like this before. (Keep in mind we're still 3 hours away from show time here). I was able to reach the bathrooms (about 75 yards away) in only 10 minutes or so, but when I came out, someone on stage started playing. It was only a mic test but no matter, let's all 400,000 (actual number) of us press forward towards the stage anyway and crush all in our path! It was sort of like watching a tunnel collapse- instead of making your way through a maze, now you have to swim through the rubble. It took over 45 minutes for us to travel those 75 yards and people were not happy about it. The whole story's long but I almost got in a fight with two guys who just REFUSED to let me by. At first they were annoyed and then it became a matter of principle for them that I would not get by. At one point I tried to push past one of the guys only for him to reach out and push be back while yelling "Aint gon happen!" Basically everyone around us got involved and was arguing about whether or not I should be able to get through. Kim and Jake could see me and were yelling and when I finally broke through (at much personal risk to my own safety) the whole crowd cheered. It felt like something out of a cheesy Disney movie.
Ok, that was really long and I left out the crazy guy climbing our tree, falling out of the tree, barely missing Jake, but not missing 3 other people, one of whom got really crushed. The concert itself was good as each performer did one piece or a couple of them played together. We were close enough to really see all of them which was cool. Obama spoke which was cool too. People went crazy every time they saw him on the screen and then when he came on stage. Finally the show was over and we headed into town to get dinner... That was a whole nother adventure which I'll spare you.
On Tuesday we got up at 3:00 am, were at the metro by 4:30, rode into town, got off at our stop by 5:15 because the metro was already backed up from all the cars on the track, and then... Just stopped. The metro station was full. Just full. Like when a pot is full, the extra water spills out, this was like that. People were slowly crushing toward the exit and swarming up the stopped escalators. But the crowd was happy. Everyone was waving flags and cheering. We finally got up the stairs, out onto the street, now let's run to the mall! Wait, the streets are also full... We finally make it the 3 blocks to the mall and the street was closed off. We were on 7th and they said we'd have to go down to 12th to get in. Good grief, could this get more complicated? Oh yes, it can. The street was closed to traffic but we still couldn't walk on it because every police car and horse carrier from the NE United States was parked on that street. And the cops kept yelling for us all to get on the sidewalks. Have they seen the sidewalks? Nowhere near enough room. Finally we made it onto the mall, and by 6:15 had staked out a good spot in view of the capital, in view of a jumbotron, near some speakers. We were the only ones with chairs and sleeping bags because we ignored the "No Backpacks" rule. Suckers. The crowd crush happened all over again and by 7:30 there was no hope of going anywhere. And it was really cold. The ceremony was pretty cool. It was short and to the point. Barak's speech was very good. On our way home we quickly found streets closed and the metro stations jammed to overflowing. And when I say overflowing I mean several city blocks surrounding the entrances just crammed with people. I'd never seen anything like it. We walked home.
Ok, I'll just finish up with some thoughts for you.
1. It was truly amazing to be a part of history like this. You could feel it and see it in the faces around you. The crowd was so excited and didn't seem to mind the cold or the crush. I (Patrick) don't know if I've ever really felt involved in something so specifically American like that before. At the same time I felt a little bit like an outsider. The people around me seemed to be universally hailing Barak as the savior of the world, he who shall undo all past wrongs and make all things right. Let us trust ourselves into his strong hands and may his wisdom pour over us blah blah blah. But I wasn't feeling it. I voted for him, and I think he's exceedingly capable and intelligent. But I wouldn't ask him to kiss my baby. I'm worried about some potential Obama policies. It was just kind of funny feeling, feeling a part of something and yet somehow an outsider.
2. I never want to be in a crazed mob. It felt dangerous to be in a crowd like that where everyone was singing and talking to each other. I can't imagine if everyone was fearing for their lives and running.
3. While I'm still hoping that Obama really will usher in a more bi-partisan ethos in government (don't we say that every four years?), it didn't start at the inauguration ceremony, at least not with the crowd. When Bush was shown on the jumbotron the crows booed like it was their job. When Cheney appeared they booed louder. That didn't offend me. They probably deserved it. But booing George H W Bush and Martha Bush? He was a legitimately good president who embodied many of the things his son didn't. It was just a little disappointing to witness the same old "boo all Republicans and cheer all Democrats". And it would have been exactly the same had McCain won. Oh well. To be fair, Colin Powell got a raucous cheer, but maybe just because he endorsed Obama, who knows.
4. Altogether, it was amazing to be there and I'm glad we endured the early mornings and cold and having to pee. It was even better to do it all with Jake and Carlee. I even think I did a good job of not letting on how insanely jealous I am of all the traveling they've done.
5. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this and in a spirit of renewed American excitement, let me just say that I'm praying for Obama and his family and looking forward to where the next couple of years take us.
Here we are seeing them put the finishing touches on the stage just days before the big day.

This is the line to the concert. Thankfully we were towards the front.

Camped out for the next 7 hours while thousands of people try to crush us.

These are all the crazy people like us waiting to see the concert and hopefully Obama.

There he is welcoming us all to his inauguration weekend.

Yay we survived. This is the little lady that Patrick helped get through the crowds to the bathroom and back, she was so little.

Carlee and I trying to keep warm at 5:30AM on Tuesday. Note that at this point we all looked homeless.

Cheering for something, Oprah, Obama, or maybe even Beyonce or maybe just the fact that the inauguration was finally starting.

Jason (Jack's dad), Patrick, Me, Carlee and Jake enjoying our new President, waiting to check our real lives to see if all our problems are solved yet. Not knowing that the first thing he did in office was force us to walk 6 miles home...sucky.

This is a poster that I (Kim) asked our friend Conner Peirson to make. The faith people are placing on Obama just seems like the type of faith and hope we should be placing in Jesus.

A sports prejudice revisited

2008-12-17T14:48:00.001-05:00

As some of you may know, I (Patrick) am a sports fan. This fandom, however, does not extend to all sports. Football, in any of its many forms, is worthy of being showered with praise and honor. Basketball is an undeniably fun sport who's playoffs and finals can justifiably be watched on TV. Baseball's history combined with the mental aspect of the game make it a sport that, while boring at times, is great if your team's competing. I have nothing against soccer and played rugby in college.
That said, there are some sports that are not worth getting out of bed for (Note: I am talking here about watching these sports, not participating in them). I realize that by evening mentioning them on this little-read blog I am wasting your time and mine. These sports are, in no particular order: car racing of any kind, animal racing of any kind, bowling, women's collegiate sports (sorry ladies), rowing, body building, the WNBA, billiards, and many other "sports" that occasionally appear on TV. You are probably thinking that many of the activities I just listed don't even count as sports. You are correct. And I didn't even mention poker.
All that to say that I have firm opinions about every sport. Almost. Hockey has always been difficult for me to categorize. I enjoyed floor hockey in P.E. Activities where i furiously hit things and people repeatedly with sticks usually go over well with me. But the NHL has continually confused me. The sport is fast, very athletic and physical, and requires excellent team work. And yet somehow i was never interested and even bored by it. Here are my main beefs with hockey:
1. The fighting seems like a silly side show. Sports should be interesting and not need drama to punch up the story lines.
2. The goalie and his padding take up 7/8 of the net. I'm sorry, but when your job is best accomplished by laying down and hoping for the best you lose me.
3. There's no way to follow the puck (But read more on this later). The fact the hockey has a spinning red light to let people know their team has scored clues you in that the action is hard to follow.
4. It's not a sport you can just grab a couple friends and go play. Unless you live near a frozen lake. Which not even most polar bears do these days.
Last week a friend here invited Kim and I to an NHL game. The response "I'd rather eat the pencil I'm holding" was almost on my lips when he slipped in the twist: It was free. All of a sudden my curiosity was piqued. I had never been to an NHL game. I could put my long held prejudices to the test and surround myself with people actually interested in hockey. We immediately accepted the invitation while I prepared some of my best hockey-scorning facial expressions.
We arrived at the game (Washington Capitals v. Ottawa Senators) right as it started and found our seats, which, despite being as far from the ice as possible, gave a great view of everything. The only bad thing about our location was that we were out of range of the t-shirt cannon. Seeing the game in person, several things struck me immediately:
1. The puck is (mostly) visible. You can basically follow all the action. Slap shots are still invisible. If the red light goes off it means the shot went in the net. If another player mysteriously appears with the puck somewhere else then the shot must not have gone in the net.
2. I like sports fans no matter what they're rooting for (does not apply to car racing). A family behind us was coaching their 3 year old daughter to say things like 'Go Caps!' and 'The Caps are so good!' Cute.
3. The fouls in hockey are like penalties in football: they can be called at anytime for just about anything. The definition for hooking (which flashed on the jumbotron) is "using your stick to impede the movement of another player" The definition of holding is "holding an opponent from moving with your hands or stick". If both of these weren't happening all game then I must have been watching something else.
4. The intermissions are HORRIBLE. One 15 minute half time is bad enough to sit through in any sport but in hockey both intermissions are 17 minutes. I should have brought a Dostoevsky novel.
5. The most fun part to watch is skirmishes near the goal that usually involve the goal tender, totally unaware of the puck's location, flailing on the ground like a beached whale. Every time the goalie ended up on his back making ice angels I giggled to myself.
I have to admit, barring the endless intermissions, I had a good time at the game. The action was fast and skillful and the fans were fired up. I would still rather go to almost any other sporting event but at least next time I'll know to bring a long novel. And $140 if I want to buy a jersey.

A Day in the Life of Kim and Jack

2008-12-05T18:04:00.000-05:00

Today Jack and I made Christmas cookies. It was super fun. I showed up with most of the stuff to make them, shape them, and frost them. When I told Jack that we were making cookies he was stoked. Then I started to pull all the ingredient out while telling him what they were for and how we would use them to make the cookies. Once I pulled everything out he said, "Kim, where are the cookies, I want to eat them." Cute. Later we put all the stuff together and had our dough and again he asked where the cookies were. We cut out Rudolphs, Mittens, Presents, Snowmen that Jack called Johnny the Snowman, and Stockings, baked them and made frosting, lots of frosting of different colors. While they were baking Jack sat in front of the oven and watched them bake making funny faces in the window and saying things like, "oooo", "Kim, can I eat them now?", when I said, no they are too hot right now in the oven he said, "I think they're cold now." Then, you guessed it we frosted the cookies. Jack was making his cookies for the "art show", not sure what that meant but it was cute. All this fun with some good Christmas music in the background. Once we were done we ate cookies and watched Rudolph. Then went back for round two of frosting. It was a fun day.

"I'm ready Kim!"

"Wow, we're making a mess."

"ooooo, I think they're cold now."

"That Good!"

The Cernas in Town

2008-12-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

My family plus Meghan (David's girlfriend) came for Thanksgiving. It was so great having them here. I think DC wore them out though, they went to all the major museums, to the top of the Washington Monument, saw the glory of the National Cathedral and still had time to shop and just hang out. I loved having everyone in our little house, surprisingly it fit us all well. Meghan and David did take turns on the couch and the floor-sorry guys, but they didn't complain at all. Meghan and I made dinner for the family and Jack and his parents. My family enjoyed meeting them. It was an all around good week and I really miss having Dad asking me 101 questions about everything I do : ), Meghan and David constantly teasing and laughing with each other and Mom's funny one liners and expressions. It's really quiet here now and I can't wait to see them again for Christmas.

Our table...we had more food than this. Seeing as how we barely had room for our immediate family we decided that we are a long way from being able to host a real Thanksgiving.

Patrick being such the man of the house by carving the turkey he made.

The only thing Meghan bought while she was here, a finger puppet from the Native American Museum.

Mom and Dad walking The Mall.

One of David's cool pictures from the Washington Monument.

Meghan making her Inaugural Address.

Mom and Meghan riding the carousel in at the National Mall (they were the only ones on the "ride").

Here we are totally bored with the DC scene.
(That is Barak's Inauguration stage being build in front of the Capitol.)

Patrick at Work and Play

2008-11-22T16:52:00.000-05:00

Well, I know it's been a while since I rapped at y'all but I'm back and I've got some good news.
As some of you know, all my classes are in the evening because the school expects that students will hold jobs and find internships during the day. I've devoted a lot of time this fall to applying for different positions at a lot of places around the city.
In the last couple of weeks I secured two different internships for next semester.
The first is a 15 hour per week research position at the Hudson Institute. I'll be helping the director of the political/military section with several research projects that he has going on. Most of them focus on Russia or central Asia. It's an unpaid position but is extremely flexible. I can work from home or come in to the office. Also, research work is great to have on my resume. Ask me in mid-January how it's going.
The other is a congressional internship (paid!) with Adam Smith from District 9 in Washington. He serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee so I'm looking forward to being involved in that in some way. There will a fair amount of phone answering and mail opening but that's life. Again, I'll let you know how that's going in January.
For now I only have a couple weeks left in my first semester. I have finals in two out of three classes and big papers in two out of three as well. Classes on the whole have been very good. My European Union class is fantastic and I've learned way more than I expected to. I also have an intro to Europe, Eurasia, and Russia. That class has been up and down but I'll be happy to be done with it. My last class is a history of Eastern Europe class which has been good, but I would have liked more lecture. The professor seems to think we understand things better than we do and continually looks for in-depth discussion among the students. The only problem is that we usually don't know what we're talking about. Kim here, real quick Patrick is doing really well in his classes and I am very proud of him.

Enough about work and school, on to other subjects!

Kim's family is coming this week which promises to be a great week. We're really excited to have visitors again and Kim has the whole week scheduled out for them. Kim? Making a detailed schedule? Shocking.

We also bought our tickets home. We get in on the 18th and head straight to Walla Walla. We'll get back to Tacoma on the 24th and be at the First Pres. Christmas Eve service. Then we'll be in Tacoma until the morning of the 1st. Kim is using all her vacation days to be gone for that long. Yikes. No trips home in our future after Christmas for a long time.

Tuesday Nov. 4th

2008-11-09T19:39:00.000-05:00

As some of you may have heard, there was an election on Tuesday. Kim and I watched the coverage on Tuesday night and had a map of the US on the wall. As the results came in we colored each state red or blue. We were ready to go to bed at midnight when they showed some footage taken outside the White House. There was a huge crowd (mainly college students) celebrating outside. Kim and I threw on our coats and headed down there. We walked through the crowds and watched as people celebrated. I couldn't help wondering if they knew exactly why they were so happy. Are they just stoked to see a black president or do they really expect life to drastically improve? Or was it just a chance to be a part of something historic?
Immediately follow the election a lot of emotions came to the surface. The coverage on TV immediately turned to Barack's election as historic because he's black. While I appreciate this and understand it's historic significance, many of the comment made on TV bothered me. "America has finally put its racist past behind it." Really? And if the voters of the US had decided that John McCain had better policies and would make a better president then that would mean that we still hadn't dealt with our racism?
"America did the right thing." Did those who vote for McCain do the wrong thing? Have they refused to put their racist past behind them?
I guess I loved that race wasn't an issue during the campaign but it comes out immediately following the results. I do understand how historic it is and I hope it's a great celebration for now and quickly fades to the background. I (Kim) think it will because like our friend Liz said he did not have race as his platform and it's great to rejoice in it but I think his plans and ideas do not revolve around his race.
The other thing that Kim and I had trouble with was the reaction from the Christian community. Not the wider Christian community, just the people with whom we interact. There was such a 'the sky is falling' reaction. A couple people said they were moving to Canada, apparently betraying their ignorance about Canadian social policy. I understand why someone would be worried about aspects of an Obama presidency. But there was so much angry, unthoughtful, reaction. If we are looking to involve ourselves in society, to influence society, and to make our society a more just and godly place, reacting to this election with cynicism, sarcasm, and anger is exactly the wrong way to do it.
Obama won this election because he has a positive and productive view for America's future. McCain came across as not having a positive forward looking program, but as simply attacking Obama. I don't want to follow someone with no idea where to go, I want to follow someone who powerfully points the way to the future. That is what the Christian community needs to do. We do ourselves no good by making thoughtless and reactionary judgments on what the next 4-8 years hold. We will have an impact when we can point the way to a future that others want to be apart of. Right now a lot of Christians aren't doing that.

Kid in a Volvo: Such a beautiful example of Swedish-American unity.

This is the crowd outside the White House.

Milton Delaware

2008-11-09T18:20:00.000-05:00

For my birthday Patrick planned a trip out to the Delaware coast. There were a few milestones on this trip. The first was that we had never been to the Atlantic Coast before. It was great seeing it and it was strange seeing the sun set behind us while we looked out on the ocean. Another milestone was while we were driving our Civic hit 100,000 miles! The bummer was that we missed it! So we celebrated the 100,010th mile, which was still ok. And the last milestone was that we bought gas for $1.99!
While we were were there we stayed at bed and breakfast called the Governor's Bed and Breakfast. It was cool, because a lot of Delaware governors are from Milton and some of them lived in this house. While we were there it was 74 degrees and beautiful. We played in the water and went to the little shops around the coast. It was a great break from studying for Patrick and a good change of pace for me.

Patrick's footsteps heading to France instead of Hawaii. That's the Atlantic for you.

This one's for you Brett Taylor! : )

Here we are celebrating our 100,010th mile!

The beautiful drive home. A week later the colors are even more brilliant.

Wow It's Almost Been a Month!

2008-10-25T11:55:00.000-04:00

I finally have stuff to write about other than mosquito bites! Actually quite a bit so here I go:

The Taylor's Visit

Two weeks ago our friends from Tacoma, the Taylors (Brett, Pami, Madison and Elliott), surprised me with a visit. The story starts out months ago when I said that Madonna was going to be performing in NYC and that I didn't think that there would be many other concerts that could be better than that, Madonna in NYC. Pami was one of a few friends who I tried to talk into flying over and going to the concert with me, she told me that she looked up tickets but they were all sold out. So the hope of a Madonna concert ended there for me. Little did I know that she, Brett and Patrick were scheming up a plan. It all came to fruition on October 9th. Patrick called me and asked me to go to FedEx Kinkos so that I could sign some paper work the insurance lady was sending over for his bike that was stolen. I was a bit frustrated bc I thought that it would be better if we did it together bc the parking in that area is horrific, but I went anyway knowing how stoked he was to get his bike ASAP. So I get there and I asked for the paper. I was given on that said, "Happy Birthday for the other Washington! Love the Taylors." I was kind of mad bc I thought it was so dumb for them to fax that over when they could have just emailed it. So (with out paying, I didn't realize this until later) I turned around to walk out the door but I heard someone say "Hi Kim" and when I turned around the whole Taylor family was there. Then before dinner that night they gave me a little envelope and inside was a tickets for me and Taylors up to NYC on the train and tickets for me and Pami to Madonna! It was such a great surprise.

Brett and Elliot hiding and waiting for me at FedEx

Me and the Taylors at FedEx

So they stayed with us in DC for two nights and about a day and a half. We saw some of DC's main attractions. One thing Patrick and I hadn't done yet was visit the Georgetown area and walk up and down M Street, so we took the Taylors there. It was amazing, all kinds of cute shops and fun restaurants. We also visited the oldest house in DC cleverly named, "The Old Stone House." There wasn't much to see other than the amazing back yard. We had a great dinner down there and the next afternoon took the train into NYC.
Oh, upon Julianne's request I also feel compelled to tell you that Patrick and Brett hung out one night with Paul and Christian Werner, Julianne's dad and uncle. But really, they had a great time and it was great for Patrick to see Paul while he was here and meet Christian, who is studding at Johns Hopkins.

Taylors and Connallys outside the Capitol

Natural History Museum's new Ocean Exhibit

Us and the kids

The boys smoking their cigars and having a beer on the porch

Now about Madonna. No matter what you think of her or her music you can not say that she is not an amazing entertainer. It is like not liking Alex Rodriguez or baseball but appreciating seeing him turn an amazing double play or hitting a grand slam, it's still really fascinating. Or like if you think history is really boring but being amazed at the monuments around here and being intrigued to learn more. That's how the concert was for me. I was not a huge Madonna fan, I have great memories of listening to her and Micheal Jackson with my parents when I was little and hearing album after album of hers while growing up. So I was stoked to see her and knowing that she is one of the best at her job just increased the excitement. I was just so impressed with her musical and physical talent (she was dancing and running around stage all night and played the guitar). The way that she mixed all her old music into her new music was really cool. The production was amazing. I have been to musicals in London, on Broadway and several in Seattle and I have been to several concerts but I've seen anything as elaborated and as well choreographed as this concert was. The dancers and musicians that she brought in were fabulous. Here is all the types of music she played: pop, old school rap, Romanian Folk (with amazing Romanian musicians), Latin, disco, and tecno. Crazy, right? They had hip hop dancing, break dancing, tap dancing, and Latin dancing. It was so good and fun! Thanks Taylors!

Me and Pami at Madison Square Garden just after seeing Madonna

October Days

Besides the Taylors coming we've had a few other excursions this month. We went for a walk along the C&O Canal which runs right along the Potomac River. There was a path that cut through to the Potomac and we explored that as well. It was a fun day.

C&O Canal

Potomac River

We bought our first pumpkins for our house. There is a cute little pumpkin stand near our house that we visited and now we have pumpkins.

Patrick and I decided to head into town last Saturday to see the American History Museum that we hadn't seen yet. Turns out it was closed for remodel until the end of November. So we went to the Old Post Office Tower. There is a great view from the top. We also visited Potbelly for the first time. It is the best sandwich place ever! yum. Then on our walk back to the car Patrick fed a squirrel. Cute. These are the kind of stories you get when I write, sorry.

View from the Old Post Office

Patrick feeding the squirrel : )

Today we had the 4th rainfall since we've been here. Boy, does it know how to rain here. It is coming down like a hurricane right now. It's pretty cool too bc it's really warm out.

Jack

Times with Jack get better and better each week. We are two good buddies now. I love hanging out with him. We made tye-dye pumpkin t-shirts last week and planed flowers and beans this week. We've also explored various parks and the river as well. The kid is fantastic and fun. I have another amazing job.

Hanging out on the Potomac watching the planes fly right over us to land

Our Pumpkin Tye-Dye T-shirt

Quick Hits

2008-09-28T20:24:00.000-04:00

Here are today's quick updates:

The bike saga is winding its way to a good conclusion. My stolen bike will be covered under renters insurance so my friend Jon found me a sweet new mountain bike. I'll probably have it in a couple weeks and when I do, rest assured, you will see pictures. I also got an old road bike to take to school which is really important. I ride 40+ miles a week just getting to class and back and save quite a bit of money by not taking the metro.
Kim is covered with mosquito bites. They drive her crazy and I never seem to get them. (my life is pretty boring if all we can find to talk about are my mosquitoes... - Kim)
My parents came to visit for six days this week. It was great to have them give the guest bedroom a test run. We went to some Smithsonians and Mt. Vernon. and did some general city exploring. They did a lot on their own also. We had a sweet BBQ on Sunday with our friends the Tifts also. It was a really good week.
Seattle is undoubtedly the worst place in the USA for a sports fan. The Sonics left, the Mariners are the worst team in baseball, the Seahawks are 1-2 and have everyone injured and just called me to come in for tryouts (but I took a page out of my brother-in-law's playbook and turned down a sure-fire football career), the Huskies are worse than I've ever seen them and the Cougars look like they just might be worse than the Huskies. Just to add insult to injury we also have a WNBA team. At least that's the rumor.
Kim's nanny work is still going well and she's working with 2 1/2 year old Jack on his reading.
Get your reservations in soon for staying at the Connally hotel. October is wide open but will fill up quickly, for sure.

That's about it.

Lunch with the Connallys and the Tifts.
Patrick's new bike.
Cute Jack at the Natural History Museum
Mt. Vernon

Roosevelt Island. Kathryn, here is the dragonfly we saved for you, then it got eaten on our front porch. Sorry.

Classes

2008-09-28T19:33:00.000-04:00

Some of you have asked about my classes and while I've tried to give a reasonable description of each class I thought I'd give the official class explanation here. If you have any remaining questions, you are too interested in my classes.

History of Eastern Europe:
This class covers Austria-Hungary, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire (and touching on Russian and Prussia) from 1740 or so until the beginning of the first World War. The professor is great, and really knows this history well. The only problem is that he turns about 1/4 of the class time over to us who do not know this history well. He's stoked to have us present on articles and discuss them. It's fine, but he gives us a ton of time. Pretty soon I start to feel like I would rather hear from the guy who knows what he's talking about. I think I'm just not much of a discussion guy. Most of the time students don't have a lot to contribute and the professors feel like they're really facilitating a great learning experience when they're actually facilitating an ignorance exchange. That said, I am learning a lot in this class and I like the readings.

Colloquium on Europe and Eurasia:
This is my background class required for everyone in my program. Right now we're doing an intro to Europe and in the coming weeks we'll do an intro to Russia. The class is interesting and I like the other students. The notable thing about this class is the teacher. She's a visiting professor from Italy and she's a crack up. Here are a couple of her gems of wisdom:
-Never trust a Greek as they will agree to anything and then do nothing
-Belgians are ugly and have bad coffee
-Norwegians are bad dressers
-Being married to one person your whole life is boring
I'll keep you updated if there's anything I just don't think you can live without.
The class is pretty good and I feel like I'm getting more confident in class and learning what I should be learning. When we switch to other subjects we'll have different teachers which should be cool.

Current Issues in the European Union:
This is the best class ever. I'm learning so much my brain is exploding. The teacher is a Romanian professor who knows the EU ridiculously well. She seems to know the different treaties by heart and assigns a ton of reading. Her lectures are great and she doesn't let anyone get away with a wrong answer. Here's a sample in class exchange:
Professor: Who can tell me why Britain would agree to French agricultural demands?
Student: (confidently) Because they are a powerful country and they thought they could manipulate... (trails off as professor looks at him disapprovingly)
Professor: No. That is wrong. Anyone else?
I love this class because she lectures non-stop for two hours and I just try to keep up. She assigns a ton of reading but I am learning a lot. She keeps asking if she's making it too hard but I appreciate her assuming we can take a lot and learn it. We finished going through the EU structures and now we're learning about different policy areas. Good times.

French Classes:
I'm also taking two French classes at the Alliance Francaise, a local place where they do all kinds of French language promotion. I have one grammar and conversation class and one class on the EU, but given in French and from a French perspective. What I've learned so far is that I am super rusty at French, my accent is worse than it's ever been (not like it was great to start with), but I can still understand almost everything.

Anyway, that's it for classes. Thanks for asking.

General Life Update

2008-09-13T23:25:00.000-04:00

Here's the blow by blow update of everything going on:

1. Our first visitor! Ken Rowan, of BCRA fame, became our first visitor from Washington (sorry Anna) when he came over on Tuesday for dinner. He's over for some meetings because BCRA is so sweet it's taking over the whole country. There is no escape.
2. School. Thanks for everyone for asking, school is going well. I have three classes (Intro to Europe and Eurasia, EU issues, History of Eastern Europe) and all of them seem super interesting. My professors are real experts and are also approachable and interesting. In my EU issues class the professor is from Romania and is super hard core. She lectures super fast and knows a baffling amount about EU treaties. I have a ton of reading to do, but it's all relevant and I really feel like I'm learning a lot. If you need to know something about the EU, feel free to email your question. I will then spend too much time making up an answer that sounds smart but may or may not be correct. I promise to use phrases like 'supranational government' and 'pooling of sovereignty'.
3. Nannying. Kim is doing a great job with little Jack. He's super cute and fun and says really funny stuff, we will one day write a long email of just Jack quotes. We've posted a picture of him here. If you want to know more just send Kim an email with a subject line of "Nigerian Prince seeking someone to help with bail." She always opens those ones first.
4. Unpacking: This is the biggest news that we have yet released so prepare yourself mentally: We are basically done setting up our house. Everything is hung on the walls, set up, put away (kinda), etc. If this seems less than breathtaking to you, you are forgiven, but trust us, it is a big deal. Kim did a great job organizing stuff and thanks to her tireless work, the house is now not a stress causing headache.
Here are some pictures of the place. You can see that it's not finished, but compare the 'before' picture featuring the iron to the others and you can see why we're celebrating. Kim again, for the record, the room is a disaster because I couldn't find my dress for Kev's wedding...so naturally I just threw everything that was in boxes all over the room.

Trail of Tears

2008-09-13T22:47:00.000-04:00

Unless you're prepared to join me in my sadness, please stop reading now and go back to minesweeper. That said, my bike got stolen this week. As soon as I realized what had happened, I got angry, got angry with myself, and sat down not knowing what to do but feeling completely defeated. A little history:
During the summer of 2003 I was away for the summer and Jon Frederick, who had lent me his bikes a hundred times over the years, found me a Cannondale Super V at a great price. Since then I've had too many good times on that bike to remember. Riding at Glabraith, Whistler, places around Tacoma, and always with friends like Jon. Some of my best memories are on trails. Some of my best scars are from trails. In Tacoma I rode the bike to work whenever I could.
Here in DC, I rode it to school for the first week and a half. I would park it outside the building along with 20-30 other bikes everyday. My friend Hunter told me it might not be the best idea to take it in everyday but I felt ok about the bike being there with so many others. I had a good lock and many of the bikes there were nicer than mine and no better protected.
When I realized the bike was gone a wave of guilt rushed over me as I thought of someone throwing it in the back of a truck and getting $300 for it online or wherever. In general I hold my possessions with an open hand and consider myself unattached to what I own. But as I've been thinking about the bike situation I'm realizing that I do value what I own but almost more than that, I value the power I have to dispose of my possessions as I wish. If I had given the bike away, it would feel fine. If the bike had been run over or broke, I would be frustrated but as I would have the choice to fix the bike or not, I would be ok with that as well. But having that taken out of my hands is hard. It feels so invasive that someone can have that kind of power.
It also made me realize that the things we own mean so much more than just what they can do for us. The Cannondale was a downhill bike, meant to be used to bomb down steep trails and over different obstacles. But there's nothing like that within a three hour drive here. So I wouldn't really be able to use the bike for what it was meant for. It was ok for getting me to school but I was already looking for cheap commuter bike to ride instead. So losing the bike won't really affect me too badly here. I'll still get a cheap bike to ride back and forth and I won't do any down hill riding- exactly what would have happened if I still had the Cannondale. But it kills me to lose that bike because of all the memories tied up in it. I've been out riding with almost every good friend I have and Jon went out of his way to get me the bike in the first place. The bike really opened up a ton of cool outdoor stuff that I would never have gotten to see.
Kim and I are checking craigslist, ebay, pawnshops, etc. to see if the bike shows up, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope for that. I'll keep you up to date.

Unpacking

2008-09-08T22:14:00.000-04:00

So our stuff finally arrived on Wed. We worked all day Thur. and left for Kev's wedding on Friday (which was great!). So today is our first real day of unpacking. It is going well, things are everywhere and we are very happy to see our stuff. I took some pictures and once I find the adapter to apple I will show you guys the mess... : )

Things with Jack are going really well. Patrick's having a great time at school, learning all about EU policies and Eastern Europe history. Lots of reading but he is loving it.

Here is a plug for JetBlue, they are a great airline to fly with. I really liked all the leg room, and the directTV, it kept us busy. They fly daily directly from Seattle to Reagan...hint...hint.

Patrick here with a couple thoughts. Kev and Melody's wedding was great and it was cool to see so many of you. Pretty soon here I'll do a post about school so you can look forward to that and check back 4-5 times per day for it.

We love you guys.

Our Cute House

2008-08-27T14:12:00.000-04:00

Our house is awesome! Fully ready (when the moving company comes with our stuff) for plenty of people to come visit and hang out. We have 2 bedrooms, a study for Patrick, a nice backyard and patio for grilling, a new bathroom and kitchen, living room and dinning room and our own laundry room. So here are some pictures of our place for you to check out. We'll post more when our stuff is here and it looks more lived in and not camped in.

To Patrick's below post I will add that by the time you guys come to visit we will know most everything there is to know about how to get you to the places you want to be so you don't have to work through the African village man thing.

I would also like to say that we have met the family that I will be working with and they have been great! They loaned us a TV (can't miss the upcoming football season) and a folding table with chairs and have just been really helpful. I'm stoked to start hanging out with Jack, he is just too cute!

Also, our friends Randy and Vesna have been a huge help with letting us use their internet and some pots and pans and just being around to hang out with. They have two kids who are super fun too.

I'm not sure how this could get much more difficult...

2008-08-27T13:35:00.000-04:00

Figuring out life here reminds me of African villages where the boys must hunt and kill a lion on their own to be considered a man. Here in DC if you can successfully purchase, activate, and use a metro smart pass (subway and bus pass basically) you are deemed worthy of entering society. But they don't make it easy. I will spare you the whole story but we've been trying to purchase the elusive passes for almost a week now. Everyone has one and they're key to the metro running smoothly. So it must be easy to get one? There are pamphlets extolling the virtues of the smart pass that tell you to buy one as soon as possible with no indication as to where or how to do this. There are people in booths at most metro stations with cash registers and credit card machines who are unable to sell passes. I asked one of these attendants how to get a card. Through the crackly speaking box it seemed like she was telling me to exit the station and find a bus. Why? "Go to the commuter bus." It was like a mysterious prophecy. It didn't make sense and she refused to explain it but I figured I should follow it. I went and found a bus and asked the driver about buying a pass. He told me (I'm not making this up) that there is a bus that drives around to different stations. On that bus you can purchase any transit related good you'd ever want. I had only just missed it! Did he know where the bus was now? No. Is there a schedule saying where the bus will be? No. How do I find it? You can't. You just have to stumble across it. Amazing. The driver also told me I could purchase a pass at any metro stop with an official metro parking lot. Which ones have parking lots? He didn't know and I searched a nearby metro map which apparently didn't know either. Someone helpfully informed me that they thought there was a store at a nearby mall that might sell them. They didn't know the name of the store or exactly where the mall was.
Eventually a passerby who heard some of these conversations informed me that you can also purchase them at the main station in the middle of town. We went, we stood in line, and we finally purchased our passes. And here's the killer thing. When I bought our passes, the guy just picked two off a pile and handed them to me. Clearly a super intensive task that can only be done at the most secretive and secure of locations.
So here are my humble suggestions for making the DC transit system easier for the uninitiated.
1. Sell smart passes at each metro booth, on each bus, and at the vending machines that sell other passes. On your literature advertising these passes, tell people how they might actually do what you're trying to get them to do.
2. Put up some maps (in the stations themselves and in the subway cars) for crying out loud and have paper copies of maps that people can carry around.
3. Visit London. The London underground is incredibly large and complicated, yet painfully easy to navigate thanks to the simple payment options, the abundance of easy to read maps, and the ubiquitous signs directing commuters to various destinations. It makes me want to weep, it's just so beautiful. Although I have to say, the NYC system was worse, with maps completely missing from main stations and not even available at the manned booths... "I'm sorry sir, we don't have maps to give out. There should be one on the wall just there... Oh, there's not. There's probably one downstairs... Oh, you already checked? I can just tell you how to get where you need to go..."
Now for the buses here...
Please, I beg you, somewhere, anywhere, put a map of where you're going and make one available to me. It may be that Arlington is trying to improve community relations by making everyone ask several people for help before arriving at a destination, and if this is the case they should post a sign saying so. All we need is one map of the bus system and we'll be fine. They have one at the main station but nowhere else. The bus driver told me I could go online and print out a map of each route individually. What if I'm at home and need to know how to take the bus somewhere? If I don't have the internet or haven't printed off EVERY map, I just won't know. I would pay for that big map of all the routes. But I can't.
Ok, that's all for now but don't get me started on the moving company (our stuff is still in LA, we're camping in our own house) or the cable/internet people.

New York City

2008-08-27T12:27:00.000-04:00

After finding out that our stuff would not arrive before Anna left we all decided to head up to NYC for a night. We arrived in the mid afternoon, checked into hotel and ran to get into line for Broadway tickets. We took our place in line and sat and waited for the day-of ticket booth to open. The cool thing about this is that they have what is left over and they sell them for 50-20% off the original price. We sat next to a really nice lady who teaches at a Canadian school in the Middle East...wow. Her name is Heather, that's her in the picture with us. In the end Patrick and I went to Phantom of the Opera (amazing!) and Anna went to Rent (4th row from the front!). After purchasing our tickets for later that evening we took a walk up Broadway, through Time Square and Rockefeller Plaza and then ventured up 5th Ave to Central Park. The city is amazing, the shopping, the food (street carts - amazing!!), the people, the loud noises and lights, we loved it! After walking around all afternoon we ate NYC pizza and headed back to the hotel to change for our shows. The shows were great and it was all that Broadway could have been. The next day we saw the Statue of Liberty (way far away, I always thought it was close), China Town (interesting, we saw everything from dried shrimp for snackers to live frogs for I'm not sure what.), Little Italy (not so interesting), a Free Tibet protest and finally back to Time Square to catch our bus. It was a good, quick weekend. I am excited to visit again.

Real Update to Come

2008-08-25T23:16:00.000-04:00

out internet should be up and running this week and we will give you a sweet update with pictures and all stay tuned..we love you and miss you all

Nashville Skyline

2008-08-17T13:25:00.000-04:00

In an hour or so we'll leave Nashville and head North. The last few days have been fantastic though. We left Denver on Wednesday morning and drove east through Kansas and Missouri before stopping for the night at a campground outside of St. Louis. We arrived late and the gate was shut but thankfully someone with the gate code arrived and we followed them in. Here's something I learned about life in the south: The cicadas are loud. Like jet-taking-off loud. Hunter and I slept next to each other on the grass and I had to raise my voice so he could hear me. I thought they'd be too loud for me to get to sleep, but no. It was the humidity and the biting bugs that kept me awake.
On Thursday we spent the morning and afternoon at The City Museum in St. Louis. It's one of the sweetest places I've ever been. Someone (I clearly don't know the story too well) salvaged all kinds of things from around St. Louis as buildings were torn down or remodeled. There's everything from sculptures to a huge bank vault, to conveyor belt rollers, to tiny cogs from machines. They then crammed it all into an old warehouse. The cool thing is that instead of looking at the stuff you play on it. You can climb on everything and there are tunnels and ladders and secret passages everywhere. It's like a five story jungle gym for kids and adults. There are slides made from industrial chutes, some planes you can crawl through 4 stories off the ground, and a school bus hanging off the edge of the roof. We stayed there over three hours and left because we were tired, not because we had explored everything. It's a very inspiring example of preserving a city's history and making it something that people want to experience, something that enriches the city in a new and vibrant way.
Thursday evening we arrived in Nashville. On Friday Hunter showed us around and then we had dinner with his family. On Saturday Hunter flew home to Bellingham and Kim and Anna and I spent the day in Downtown Nashville. Today we went to church and now we're heading from Mammoth Caves in Kentucky.
Two thoughts for you:
1. Hunter's family is awesome. If you ever get a chance to stay with them, I highly suggest it. Brandon and Pace and Afton were great hosts for us. They're fun and relaxed and were genuinely stoked we were there. Hunter's mom Jane made an incredible meal for us all on Friday night. Southern hospitality extended itself to Hunter's dad offering to give me a hair cut, which he did.
2. Nashville is genuinely into country music. Maybe that shouldn't have surprised me, but I feel like walking around Seattle, you aren't overwhelmed by coffee and computers. But here there are billboards and signs everywhere for the latest country music artist or concert. And on Broadway the bars all had live honky-tonk bands going full speed. I was laughing because if that music came on the radio I'd pull something trying to change the station so fast but sitting in Robert's listening to the band play and just watching the people in the bar and on the street we was loving every second of it.
We'll be in Kentucky the next two days and then arrive in DC on Tuesday. Thanks for all your phone calls and prayers and thanks for reading.

The Drive Begins

2008-08-12T19:11:00.000-04:00

Our time with Kim's parents was great. We relaxed, did a little yard work, saw friends, read a lot, and feel pretty recharged.
After two weeks in Walla Walla, we set out for DC yesterday with our friends Hunter and Anna. We're currently at our first stop in Denver with Jon and Kelly Frederick. Jon and I have been friends since high school, and Jon, Hunter, and I all lived together during college.
The drive from Walla Walla was long. And by long I mean unending. We spent what felt like four days making our way through southern Idaho. When we finally escaped we made our way though southern Wyoming and then down into Colorado to Denver. Hunter and Anna are great road trip companions. We felt lucky to get both of them in the road trip draft. We picked Anna with the #1 overall pick and then traded our 3rd and 4th round picks to some guys from Tallahassee for Hunter. Anna's a road trip rookie so we don't expect a lot out of her this trip- we've got her on the practice squad and we're bringing her up to speed slowly. Hunter's a seasoned veteran who can really kick it into high gear around hour 19 of driving. We don't even give him bathroom breaks. So far it's worked out well but we'll see how they do as the trip progresses. I'll let you know if they break under the pressure.
Tomorrow we're heading east through Kansas then through Kansas City and on to St. Louis. We'll camp there and then head to Nashville the next day where we'll stay with Hunter's family for a couple days.
Kim and I are really ready to get to DC. We found a fantastic house, but more on that when we actually sign the lease.
Thanks for all your prayers. Things are going well on our end.

Just Jack

2008-08-01T00:01:00.001-04:00

Ok so to make the lower post more manageable here is some really good news. I was officially offered a job today. I will be the nanny of a 2.5 year old boy, Jack. I am very excited about this opportunity. It is full time, something that I was not so sure about at first but I feel really comfortable with his mom and with the hours, 8:30-4:30 with occasional Fridays paid off. I'm excited to explore the city with Jack and to help him learn and grow this year. Thanks for all of your support and prayers during this job hunt. I'll keep you updated with stories from Jack.

The Purgatory of House Hunting

2008-07-31T23:22:00.000-04:00

I don't really vent very often but Kim and I have spent the past couple months looking for housing in DC. Admittedly, we are limiting ourselves by looking for a 2 bedroom place in the city, but it seems that those are reasonable requests. Some of our other 'must-haves' are apparently not not so easy to fulfill. For the past two days we've been talking to the owner of a great row house in an up and coming area of town. It's a beautiful place and within our budget (barely). The only problem? It's not a huge deal, just a drug related homicide last week 30 ft. from the front door. I've always felt that not dying adds a great deal to quality of life and Kim's a real stickler for the whole "let's live in a place where we don't fear for our lives" thing. So the search continues.
Also annoying is the fact that DC is completely devoid of mid range apartments. Everything with a functional ceiling that's within walking distance of running water commands outrageous prices. There are three choices for apartments: 1. Live with 7 other students in a studio apartment with no windows. The upside to this is that it's only $750 per person. 2. Rent an acceptable apartment at an unethical price 3-4 hrs. outside of DC. This option is looking distressingly attractive. 3. Take out 3 loans and promise Don Corleone both kidneys someday to rent a newly remodeled luxury apartment in the city. But aren't there any regular apartments? No. There just aren't. Apparently all of them have been remodeled into luxury apts. in the last year. I don't need granite counter tops, but I will probably have them. I would gladly trade the work out room, business center, bell hop service, presidential suite furniture and community room with huge HD tv, bar, overstuffed furniture and Monet paintings for $100 off my rent each month.
When my dad and I visited last spring we saw one apartment complex that, thanks to rent controls, was only $1500 for a very small, cheaply built 2 bedroom apartment. It was in a high density neighborhood where parking was difficult to find. A parking pass at this apartment costs $250 per month...
So Kim and I continue the search for a place to live where we won't die or be in debt until we're in a nursing home. We'll let you know what we find. We'll also let you know if we find the tooth fairy, Santa Claus, or a running game for the Seahawks.
Kim here, things are not that bleak...well not really. We will have a great life in DC even if it is "3-4 hours outside the city" or leaving us owing our first beautiful child to Don Corleone (our first ugly child can be ours).

Mt. Hood

2008-07-31T23:00:00.000-04:00

So for Christmas my parents gave Kim and I (give yourself ten points if you realized it should be 'me and Kim' instead of 'Kim and I') a gift certificate to the Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood. We tried to use it a couple of times during the year but it never worked out due to the apparent policy at the Timberline Lodge of being booked full 4 months out. So instead we used it as a brief rest in between Tacoma and Walla Walla. We spent an afternoon in Portland, and by Portland I mean Powell's book store. Neither of us had ever been to Powell's before but it is overwhelming. It's a 3 story, full city block of new and used books. We spent maybe 3 hours there and barely scratched the surface of what's available. My favorite book (which I didn't buy because I read the whole thing while standing there) was called "What White People Like" It included such entries as 'not owning a tv', 'adopting foreign children', 'Arrested Development', and 'pretending to be Canadian while in Europe'. I didn't find casserole or fondue but maybe I just missed those.
After Powell's we headed up to the lodge and had a great 3 days. We went hiking, read a lot, ate good food, relaxed, and learned the word 'hygrometer' from a dial in the sauna. The mountain looks like it used to have huge glaciers, but like Mt. Adams, now is mostly dirt in late summer. The lodge was built in the 30's by the WPA and is beautiful. Everything is wood and there are huge beams in every room. In many places it looks like whole trees were used. Thanks for the great present M&D!

Going Away. At least until Sept. 6th.

2008-07-31T22:30:00.000-04:00

On Friday the 25th we had our going away party up at camp. I had just finished a week at middle school camp and Kim had just finished a week packing our lives into liquor boxes. Thanks to all of you who came and made the going away party a great time for us. Thanks for your words, letters, gifts, memories, and everything else. Three things about the evening really stand out: Playing in the lake with Brendan and Kevin one last time, hearing from all of you what you remember about our three years here, and Kevin standing in front of everyone in the Ricky Martin belly shirt, wet jeans he cut into shorts only moments ago, and long dripping hair, saying, "sometimes I do some strange things..." Yes you do. Yes you do.
Thanks again to everyone for coming and encouraging us. I'll just leave you with this: Life is like a river sweeping us away to a new place but the going away party was like a band of forest animals standing on the bank and waving to us. Then when we look back, the animals are all gone because they've gone to forage for nuts and avoid predators. Except there's one smiling baby squirrel that just keeps waving and then his mom has to whisk him away from a diving hawk at that last minute. That was probably one of the most profound things I've ever written... George Washington University, here I come.

A good week of local climbing

2008-07-13T22:59:00.000-04:00

Last week at this time I was on my way home from Mt. Rainier and about to leave for 3 days of climbing in Squamish with friends from Western. Altogether it was a great week of climbing but it left me with some thoughts that I'll pass on if you've got the time...
We left for Rainier on Friday morning and hiked up to Camp Muir at 10,000 ft. The snow and fog started right at the parking lot and didn't let up until we were 50 yards from camp. The whole hike had the surreal feeling of being on some kind of mountain treadmill with the wind and fog blowing past as we couldn't see anything around us. The weather was great that night and we went to bed with plans of moving camp up to Ingraham Flats at 11,000 ft. the next morning. The weather had other ideas and we sat in camp all day Saturday as the wind and rain/snow blew like crazy. Several teams who had tried to summit that morning crawled back to camp throughout the day wet and looking pretty defeated. No one we talked to had summited. Saturday afternoon we moved into the shelters there at Camp Muir (which are like mountain side paradise resorts compared to sitting in a tent) and waited for the weather to break. I went to sleep around 5:30pm with the wind blowing as hard as ever and the snow screaming sideways past the doors. When we woke at 11 pm there were only hints of wind, and the stars were out in impressive fashion. It was smooth sailing from there and we summited around 8 am. I think we were one of the slower teams on the mountain that day but I loved the pace. I felt rested almost the whole trip up and didn't start to really feel the elevation until about 13,500 ft. We spent almost an hour at the top and then made our way back to camp, packed up, headed back to the car, ate dinner in Ashford, and finally got home close to 9pm on Sunday.

The next day Kim and I headed to Bellingham. Kim stayed with friends there for the week and I continued up to Squamish, BC for 3 days of rock climbing with Art, Jon, Hunter, and Garrett, 4 amazing men I lived with in college. The climbing was great. I had only done a few crack climbs before in my life but we did a bunch of classic Squamish cracks and I loved it. My hands have scabs all over them now and I'm doing my best not to pick at them. In addition to the climbing, the company was USDA certified grade-A.
All in all it was a splendid week of climbing.
After a week of different types of climbing with different people, I think I'm slowly starting to understand my own love of the outdoors and where it comes from. I don't particularly enjoy doing things just because they are difficult. Several of my friends, who have abilities and endurance far beyond my own, climb for the challenge and aren't as interested in doing a hike or climb that is not exceedingly challenging. I'm realizing that location and significance matter more to me than technical skills and if the route is hard, that's ok. If the route is easy, that's ok too. What means most to me is experiencing up close the beauty that I see every day from the places I live and visit. The Rainier climb was so powerful because I saw in new ways the mountain that I see everyday from Tacoma. The glaciers cracking and crumbling have a different kind of power up close than they do from 75 miles away. Brown and gray smudges become towering rock faces up close. Climbing in Squamish lets you feel and work with the rock that surrounds you when you're in the valley. I love my scabby hands because they remind me of the granite that looks so smooth from the highway but is actually all crystals and extremely textured.
I guess I'm realizing that location means a lot to me. Traveling somewhere to climb doesn't excite me as much but climbing the wilderness that surrounds me seems to give me more perspective. The mountain seen from the city is not the mountain seen from below looming above you or from on top stretched out below you.
So that's what I've been thinking about lately, congrats for getting through this, I went a little long.

Mt. Rainer

2008-07-04T01:41:00.000-04:00

So, Patrick and a crew of 5 other guys will be climbing Mt. Rainer tomorrow morning. They will be summiting at 8AM on Sunday and will hopefully find them selves overlooking Tacoma.
I am currently taking pictures of him packing up is 50lb pack and loving his life.
As his wife of nearly 2 years, I am excited for him to come home safely and proud of him for following his dreams.