Crazy Week Part 2

Two Wednesday's ago, I flew from Cali to meet Ryan in Phoenix, AZ, for "Summit", an award getaway for all of the best employees at AT&T. Honestly, I don't know how many times they were told that they are the "best of the best"!! Talk about fulfilling an ego! Ryan arrived shortly before me and I was shuttled to meet him at the Phoenician in Scottsdale. First of all, Scottsdale is gorgeous! It's definitely one of those places Ryan and I wouldn't mind living in for a while (maybe now that we've said it, we'll end up there... we said it about DC a few years ago and, well...). The resort was absolutely breathtaking! I don't think we've ever stayed anywhere that was as luxurious! So, the first day, we just settled in to our little cabana (our room wasn't even attached to the main hotel) while waiting for our luggage. In the evening, we met everyone from Ryan's former region for drinks at the West Fountain... open bar! Then, everyone walked down to this little historic building and event area for a huge southwestern barbecue buffet, western music, and Native American performers. Our first taste of Phoenician food was delicious and the event was fun, but the desert wind was freezing and all the girls were totally under-dressed, so the evening ended pretty early.

The next day, everyone was scheduled to participate in a previously chosen activity. Ryan and his protege, Kevin, went trap and skeet shooting and they loved it! Ryan always loved gong shooting with Dennis in Cali and Kevin had never been, and now they are both addicted! While the boys were shooting, Kevin's fiancee, Jessica, and I had massages at the spa!! Jessica had never had a massage before and now she is addicted. I love massages and it totally made me miss going to Glen Ivy with my girls!! The best thing about these activities was that they were free!! AT&T covered everything for the whole weekend! After our massages, Jessica and I spent a few hours hanging out by the pool, enjoying a couple of drinks, brainstorming for her wedding and browsing through property catalogs for Ryan and me. By the time the boys were able to join us, we had to get ready for our formal dinner that evening. Everyone looked so gorgeous! Our food that night was amazing! They even served us spaetzle! And, the dessert was delicious! The best thing about the whole night was our surprise entertainer, Kellie Pickler!! Jessica and I were so excited! Ryan didn't even know who she was! She is fabulous live and just as goofy as you'd imagine! The night got even better because Ryan was given an invitation to a meet and greet... we were able to meet Kellie Pickler after the show and take pictures with her! I took and picture with her first, and then we took a picture with her together. When she saw how tall Ryan was, she took off her red high heels to look even shorter next to him... and Ryan thinks she touched his butt during the photo... I know I didn't! After that we joined everyone else at one of the bars so Ryan could schmooze a little. The whole day was fantastic!

On Friday, we decided to ditch our planned activity, a jeep tour of the desert, and met Kevin and Jessica for lunch on the golf course. The boys were able to go shooting again and Jessica and I went to the pool again. It was so nice to be able to work on my tan! Being an east coaster has made me feel so pale! By this time last year, I'd already been tanning at the pool for two months! That evening's dinner was at the Venue of Scottsdale and it was so much fun! The venue had a few different rooms and each room was a different theme: the center was a live band karaoke (most of the singers who volunteered were surprisingly good!); the left side had a mardi gras room with hurricanes, southern food, a gambling with fake money; the right side had a biker bar with diner food, pool tables, airbrush tattoos, and a green screen Harley Davidson photo booth; and upstairs was the ultra bar, where gourmet food was served in martini glasses and a lounge setting. The whole evening was a blast!! After that dinner, we checked out a local, open air bar and then headed back to the resort for last call. Saturday morning, was check-out time, and sadly, Ryan had to return to work! His Experience Store in China Town had it's official grand opening and he didn't want to miss the whole thing. I fortunately, was able to go back to California for my sorority chapter's 20th anniversary! Look for that in the next blog: Crazy Week Part 3!

Crazy Week Part 1

Well, the crazy week was actually more like two weeks. It started on Saturday the 12th when Ryan and I headed downtown for the Cherry Blossom/Japanese Culture Festival. We got to see some interesting Japanese performers and vendors, but it was so crowded, we didn't get to do the best part: eat Japanese food! I think we would have had to wait an hour at least because the lines were so long! After the festival we strolled by the Washington Monument to walk through the cherry blossom trees and realized we were really lucky to have driven through the weekend before because they were already gone! They just looked like plain trees! We both couldn't help but wonder if the trees are called cherry blossom trees because the blooms are pink or if they actually produce cherries... anyone know? Averi? This time we were able to walk through the all the beautiful tulips though and I found I know Dani would like; it was so dark purple it looked black!

That Sunday, Mama's birthday, we spent relaxing at home and prepping for the crazy week ahead. Monday morning bright and early, Ryan dropped me off at the airport so I could fly to California to visit Daniela and Wally!! Wally (pronounced like it begins with a V) has been my mom's best friend forever and Daniela is her daughter. We've grown up together. In fact, when we were kids living in England, we caught the chicken pox from Daniela and her brother, Jan (pronounced Yan) during an Easter vacation. Monday evening, they still weren't back from picking up Alex (Daniela's boyfriend) at LAX, so I went over to Jenn's to "check in", eat some yummy Sunnymead Burger for dinner, and hang out a little bit. I love being at Jenn's! We've been friends for so long, her family is like family to me! Finally, they all arrived at my mom's and we finally were able to catch up! It was so nice!

Tuesday was a pretty relaxing day as well. They were all on the verge of exhaustion as their trip was coming to an end so we just spent a couple of hours shopping at Victoria Gardens (I love that place!) and enjoying a delicous lunch at Lucille's (I love that place too!!).

Sadly, Wally, Daniela, and Alex flew back to Germany Wednesday morning. Fortunately, I was able to send them off. As they were leaving, I was finishing repacking my stuff to meet Ryan in Arizona for Summit, a big reward getaway for the top performers at AT&T. On the way to the airport, I was able to stop by Cal State and visit Natalie and Albert and take care of a few loose ends.

By early afternoon, after being in California for only two days, I was flying into Phoenix...

Fun Week Last Week!

We had a crazy week and a half!! We've been busy all day and I'm exhausted, so look forward to a post coming soon!

Adventures of a "Housegirlfriend"

I had a couple dramatic incidents with appliances/fixtures this week. I decided to be ambitious on Tuesday and not only wash the sheets and the bedding, but also to wash all of the pillows. I had never done this before but I have read that bacteria can collect in the pillows which can contribute to skin problems, so I decided to wash them. We have a few different kinds of pillows on our bed. They're all the same size, but are different consistencies. The first load of two pillows was perfect. The second turned out to be an adventure! I put two pillows in the washer and went over to the computer and for a few minutes, everything was fine. All of a sudden, the washer and dryer began to bang on the door of it's little cubby! It was so loud I thought it was going to break through the door and scare the neighbors! I ran over and turned it off, situated the pillows and turned it back on. It happened again!! The pillows were washed and rinsed, but saturation made them too heavy for the rinse cycle. So I pulled out the heaviest pillow and it felt like a ton of bricks! No wonder it wouldn't spin! It spun perfectly with the remaining pillow, so I ended up throwing the heavy one away!

Adventure 2: Wednesday morning, breakfast, I loaded the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher and turned it on. I washed a couple of mixing bowls in the sink and then left the kitchen to go vacuum and clean up the living room. When I returned to the kitchen, the sink was within an inch of the top on both sides! Ahh! I tried to run the garbage disposal and it just bubbled on that side, but filled up the other side! Ahh! And, the dishwasher was still washing! Ahh! I literally sat in the kitchen and watched the sink just in case I needed to scoop out the water with a bucket. It took 7 hours for the sink to completely drain! We ended up having to go out to dinner because I couldn't use the sink to wash veggies, wash chicken, or drain pasta and we didn't have anything we could microwave. Maintenance couldn't come until the next morning, but they knew exactly what was wrong...so apparently, this is a common problem...

Good news this week: my resume is finally done!! As part of Ryan's relocation, my resume was professionally written and it is amazing now! I've been on the computer since Wednesday applying for jobs. Keep your fingers crossed!! I need a career!

Today is Friday! Yay! I love weekends because I get to hang out with Ryan without the interruption of work! Tonight, after we ate dinner, we headed next door to the Marriott to check out their bar/lounge. We heard they had a good happy hour and jazz on Friday nights. It was fun! The music was good and so was my wine! Yum! I think we'll be going there on Tuesdays though: 2 for 1 draft beers during happy hour! Ryan was exited about that!

Our new "dining room table"

So, for the last few weeks, we have been to store after store in all of the the neighboring towns in search of the perfect dining room table. We had some good leads on tables and had ideas of what we might settle for when we went to Tyson's Corner mall yesterday and we finally found what we were looking for!

http://www.lovesac.com/supersac.asp

We realized one of the reasons we were having such a tough time finding a table was because the space we had available just wasn't that "table-y". When we saw the LoveSac store, Ryan was curious because he had never seen one before. We plopped down on one and he got the biggest smile! Then they showed us the prices and told us they were having a sale on covers and we realized a SuperSac would take up just as much room as a table, be super comfortable, and be cheaper than a table! We thought about it all night and I picked it up this afternoon! Our new table is a LoveSac!

Fun weekend!

This was a fun weekend for us! Fortunately, Ryan didn't have to work like last weekend and we were able to be adventurous!! Yesterday, we slept in and headed out to the waterfront in the early afternoon to get some sunshine and check out the cherry blossoms. We decided to drive rather than take the Metro and learned why we should take the Metro when it took about an hour and a half to get to the right area of the waterfront when it should have taken a half an hour!! That was ok though because we found Nationals stadium on accident! We finally found the area of the waterfront that Karen showed us and decided to get some really, I mean really, fresh seafood! It's a huge fish market down there, you can literally find all kinds of local sea food and a bug selection from all over. We had some fried shrimp, fried clams, and Ryan had a delicious crab cake sandwich- it was almost all crab! We were able to see the cherry blossom trees across the water but didn't think it was a big deal until...



we crossed to the other side of the bridge and both couldn't help but sigh, "woooooow!" It was so breathtaking! All of the trees! All of the people!! We just drove through the crowds taking pictures and admiring the beauty of the trees! It was so pretty! After that we drove back over near our neighborhood to so some browsing in Chevy Chase. It was supposed to be shopping, but we learned that most of the stores in Chevy Chase are substantially higher in price than our budget will currently allow... the only affordable places there were Starbuck's and World Market! You know it's pricey when World Market looks cheaper! We also stopped by a restaurant/bar and got Ryan a beer to relieve him of the stress of shopping. Our bartender was great and he even hooked Ryan up with a free beer!

Today, we went to explore a mall in Virginia, Tyson's Corner! It was huge! We found some new jeans for Ryan (an amazing feat!), had some yummy Chinese food for lunch, and we think we might have found our "dining room table"! More on the table tomorrow. After shopping we headed back to Chevy Chase to try a restaurant for dinner and we think we may have found a favorite place: Chadwick's, where we stopped for Ryan's beer yesterday! Our food was delicious and so was the dessert! Ryan has a new favorite dessert: cinnamon apple bread pudding with English ice cream and toffee syrup- yum!

Hope you all had a good weekend too! Have a great week!

New Section

It sounds like many of you miss us and we miss you too!! Ryan suggested we add a little section on our blog that will help you if you plan on visiting... and we hope you do because we can't wait to share our new home with you! So, check out "vacations and visitors" on the sidebar to help you schedule your next vacation!! We miss you all like crazy and hope to see you soon!!

Check Out Ryan's Office!! And, the Bedroom is DONE!

Monday Ryan opened his brand new store!! It's an experience store which means it has some cool stuff to play with and try! There are only a handful of these stores across the country.

The new store.


Gate to China Town.


Installing projectors to advertise on the front windows!


Second floor views.






View from the second floor.


Microsoft surface tables will be on the second floor soon!



While Ryan has been busy at work, I finished organizing our bedroom, closet, and bathroom!! Yay!! Only one room to go!!

Bedroom pics.












Closet.


Bathroom.

The Kitchen is DONE!

Today I cracked down and totally finished the kitchen!! I had to figure out places to put our new stuff and, thanks to my handy dandy new stepladder, I was able to utilize the top shelves!

Here are some pictures of our completed kitchen!








In addition to my awesome kitchen organizing skills, today I also made poached eggs for the first time for Ryan's dinner, added an end table as a nightstand in my room and reorganized all that, and sewed up a hole in the pocket of a pair of his work pants... I'm a super housegirlfriend!

New Furniture!

That's right! Today, Ryan put the hammock together...

in the living room.


We decided to enjoy some tv!


Once we were in, we didn't want to get up!


Finally, we moved it onto the balcony. Now, it needs to not rain so we can enjoy it more... but it looks like it's going to rain 'til Saturday!

New Stuff!!

Yesterday I checked the mail and found a note that we had 6 huge boxes to pick up from the front desk, which was really fun to bring up to our apartment on the dolly with a flat tire! Ryan earns rewards points through work and we had to use them last week before they expired, so we got a bunch of new stuff! We'd been using them slowly, very slowly all year, but have been using them more recently for stuff around the house. Ryan got Rock Band, Smash Brothers for Wii, a comfy new desk chair, and a hammock. I got a ton of stuff for the kitchen, since I've recently become Martha Stewart. I got a Kitchenaid mixer, ice cream maker, wok with a lid, egg poacher (that's really for Ryan) and a vacuum (our old one is awful). It's been like Christmas!

Ryan's new store opened on Monday in Chinatown without a hitch! I can't wait for things to be running smoothly so I can go in and play with all the high tech toys. It will also be fun to see Ryan's new office!

Yesterday we got news of our first officially booked visitor: Karen! I am so excited for her visit at the end of the month!! I will feel like the tourist with her because she lived here for awhile as an intern. It's because of Karen that we know about the giant pizza slices, Adams Morgan, and the coolest monument in DC! I'm excited to see the places she thinks are cool and worth revisiting!

Today we had our first really warm day! It was so nice! It got to 75 degrees!! I know that doesn't sound like much to the Californians, but it sure felt like California in our sweltering apartment! Note to self: don't leave the blinds open with the glass closed on a warm day when you go to the gym while the sun is streaming in... it creates a sauna! I actually had to close the blinds and turn on the AC for 30 minutes so the place could cool down before I made dinner. Lesson learned! I guess I have a few things to relearn about east coast climate.