Update on the Way

I promise! We've been kinda busy... my new job, we went to Boston, Ryan went to New York, and now we're moving... like, right this minute! Ryan got the keys to our new apartment in Arlington and we're moving small things starting now! We'll be fully in this weekend! More to come...

Air and Space

Last weekend, Ryan and I went to the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. It's one of the Smithsonian museums and it is amazing! It's not on the National Mall with the majority of the other museums because it's like a real airport hangar near the Dulles airport. It was stuffed full of airplanes, helicopters, space stuff, gliders, hot air balloon baskets, and historic air memorabilia from the last century. We think this is a must-see for any friends who come out for a second visit, especially if they have kiddos.

Working Woman

This is the first job that I have had that has been full time and permanent right from the start. When I started working at CSUSB, I was a temp and became permanent after Cynthia passed away. When I was on the Hill, I was an intern. Even though I was at AU for 10 months, I was a temp the whole time. So, this is my first full-time, permanent, job and it's pretty darn awesome!

Monday was my first day and I spent the entire day in orientation with five other new employees from other departments. It was a very thorough orientation and I feel very well oriented. I even received a pre-printed schedule of training sessions I am scheduled to attend for the next two months to further orient me. Yesterday was pretty slow, I pretty much just met people the whole day and set up my cubicle. Today, though, I was thrown into my job head first! A number of the staff are headed to a huge conference in Saudi Arabia for the next two weeks and there was a lot to be done. All I can say is, I sure am glad I wore flats today! Not only was I running around the office, I was running around all over downtown picking up supplies! When was the last time you walked to three Radio Shacks in one day?!

I'm feeling pretty happy there so far. Everyone keeps telling me how grateful they are to have me on the team. It seems like a pretty good working environment as well. I'm excited!

March Madness

During this week, two years ago, we were in the middle of a whirlwind adventure. Ryan had just received a promotion and we just secured our apartment here in Maryland and were preparing for the movers to arrive and pack up our apartment in California. On March 13, 2008, we left California for Maryland and now, here we are doing it again. We just secured a new, awesome, apartment in Arlington, Virginia. We'll be cutting our commute time in half by living closer and we were able to get a slightly larger apartment for a similar rent. We will have an extra half bathroom, which I have been calling "my bathroom" and an open den that we will be using as a dining room. We have been eating all of our meals at the coffee table for the last two years and I am so excited to finally be able to eat sitting up at a table INSIDE our apartment! Yes! Our patio is much smaller so we're going to bring our patio furniture inside, cover it up with a nice tablecloth and use it as our dining table. Our new place is near the Arlington Court House in an area full of people our age and awesome things to do. We're close enough to DC that we can walk to Georgetown or ride our bikes, which is even easier (and this means Ryan finally has to get a bike!). We're only a 15 minute walk from a Whole Foods and we can literally see a farmer's market from our window every Saturday morning! I'm so excited about that! We get our keys on March 24th and our big moving day will be March 27th. We were spoiled with our movers two years ago! It stinks to have to pack our own stuff! Since we moved so quickly last time, we didn't really have time to go through everything to see if there was anything we could donate, so I'm thankful to have a little more time to be able to sort through everything. Even though I have only packed two boxes, I've put together 3 full garbage-sized bags of items to donate to the Salvation Army and 7 grocery bags full of books to donate to our library's used book store. We're so excited to move, the 27th seems so far away! We know time will fly though because we have a lot going on between now and then. I start my new job on Monday and next weekend we will be meeting up with Jacque, Jeff, Kevin, and Jessica for a concert and some sightseeing in Boston! March is going to be a great month!!