Good news & Gettysburg/Harper's Ferry

It's been a long time since we've updated the blog, so here is the exciting news:

JASON IS GOING TO THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY!

Other exciting news:

JASON WAS AWARDED A FELLOWSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY!

This means tuition is going to be cheaper than we thought. Hurray!

Here is the letter awarding him the fellowship.

Pretty darn exciting, huh?

The only noteworthy thing I did today was wake up, take a shower, look at the clock and realize it was 1:00 a.m. and I'd only gotten one hour of sleep, and go back to bed. I'm not sure why I did that. It was pretty bizarre.

In other news, we went to Gettysburg and Harper's Ferry on Saturday with our Washington Seminar group. We left around 6:40 a.m. (too early!). We first went to the visitor's center, where we saw a pretty cool museum exhibit, an explanatory film, and the cyclorama. Yes, cycl-o-rama! It's a giant, 360 degree painting of the battlefield.

Afterward, we went on a tour of the battlefield. This is a field.

This is a giant tower, built in 1890. We climbed all 121 stairs to the top and took some pictures.

Jason looks so tiny next to it!

Here is Jason at the top of the tower overlooking the Gettysburg battlefield. FYI: This battlefield was much cooler than Valley Forge and we didn't have to stay at a crazy America Camp during a snowstorm this time.

The Frosts at the top of the rameumptum...I mean, giant observation tower.

Jason looking pensieve on the battlefield. I tried to take a couple of candid pictures, but he looked sad in all of them.

Me by the Eternal Flame of Peace. You may be interested to know that the natural gas flame was extinguished during the energy crisis of the 1970s.

After our Gettysburg tour, we went to General Pickett's Buffet for lunch. It certainly wasn't Chuck-a-rama, but the macaroni and cheese was half decent.

We drove to West Virginia and stopped at Harper's Ferry, site of John Brown's anti-slavery uprising.

This is a train.

Me overlooking the town and the Shenendoah (or perhaps the Potomac?)

Harper's Ferry is right in the middle of the Appalachian Trail.

The Frosts at Jefferson's Rock. Supposedly Thomas Jefferson visited this rock and spoke highly of its great view when he returned to Washington.

Me on the footbridge next to the train tracks.

This is below the railroad. Jason is quite the photographer.

When we got back, we hurried over to the Jazz vs. Wizards game. The Jazz won by a lot (thirty points or something)!

That's about it for now. I gave a tour to our neighbor's parents today, which was fun. Tomorrow we are having our friend Mitch over for dinner. We'll try to post some pictures from my parents' visit tomorrow!

Last week recap

So...I had all sorts of good intentions about posting pictures from the last week. However, something is wrong with the internet or blogger or my browser; for some reason, the pictures won't load normally and look like this:
Yep, our disembodied heads visited the Supreme Court. I like how you can see my arm and hand also.
Here is a lovely one of my mom and I with multi-colored faces.
I'll try to get this worked out so I can post some excellent-looking pictures; we took pretty great ones. For now, I will do a written recap.

Thursday
Mom and Dad flew into BWI in the afternoon. Jason and I metroed out to my Aunt Kathleen's house to see them and Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Bruce.
Friday
We all met up at the Supreme Court for class. Afterward, we got to see the room where cases are argued. I think this was one of my favorite Fridays. Following class, we went to Good Stuff Eatery for a Barack-a-burger (just kidding! It's really called an Obamaburger. Poor Mom!) and onion rings. My stomach is growling just thinking about it. FYI: if anyone else wants to come visit us soon, we'll go there with you.
After lunch, we went on a tour of the Capitol. My parents went to the McClellands for dinner and to see Sara's fam and Jason and I watched basketball with other marrieds of the Barlow Center.
Saturday
Jason and I had to go to a service project at 7:15 a.m. It took an hour and a half to get to the food bank, where we loaded one-pound units of dry pinto beans into plastic sacks. Our group worked hard and fast--too fast, actually, for the administrators of the food bank to keep up with. We finished around 9:30 and were excited to get back. Little did we know that a delayed bus (thank you, marathon!) extended our home-bound trip to two hours. We met up with my parents and had some lunch before heading to the WWII memorial. That evening, we watched the second round BYU basketball game at my parents' hotel.
Sunday
We hit up stake conference in the McLean ward, where the stake president was released. Afterward, we went to the capitol and listened to some of the health care arguments in the House chamber. It was incredibly cool; we saw Jason Chaffetz, Jesse Jackson, and Speaker Pelosi! When we came out, we walked down the back side of the capitol where there were thousands of protesters marching up to the capitol. A bunch of people took pictures of Jason as we walked by, which seemed odd. We didn't realize what was going on, though, until a woman asked if he had voted yet. It turns out that as the only person on the national mall dressed in a dark blue suit and tie, he looked just like a Member of the House! It was crazy; everyone was staring at him and some guy thanked him for being there. It was hilarious.
I baked some macaroni and cheese for dinner (and I just have to brag for one second: it was cheddar/gouda/mozzarella/provolone/parmesan macaroni and cheese). Delicious.
Hopefully I'll get some pictures of our adventures loaded soon.

Slacker

Yep, we have slacked off for the last week. Pictures+update tomorrow.

Tuesday+Wednesday

I am now officially a Capitol Staff Tour-giver.

Look! I got a certificate!
Also, a pin!

I got a flash drive too, which is actually really nifty--leather with the Capitol on it--but didn't take a picture.

In other news, Jason was quoted in a presentation at his office today (the quote was from a report he wrote about the Tarahumara Indians for one of the staff members).

After lunch today I attended the impeachment initiation for a federal judge. Apparently only 15 judges have been impeached, so it was a pretty singular experience. All of the Senators were in attendance, which was really neat (though I wish I recognized more of them). Since it was St. Patrick's Day, most of them were wearing green ties or sweaters, which I thought was nice. If we can rally around St. Patty's Day, why not health care?! :) On my way down the Capitol escalator, I ended up behind John McCain.

Last night and tonight we had delicious curry (another simmer sauce from Trader Joe's because we can't find curry paste here. Otherwise I would definitely make it from scratch...) and jasmine rice.

This evening, we walked from our apartment to the Lincoln Memorial. Thanks to Daylight Savings, we actually have some light after I get home from work, which has already been glorious. The moon was just a sliver tonight, and the Washington Monument was so bright in the reflecting pool. It was absolutely beautiful; we are so lucky to live within walking distance.

My parents arrive tomorrow, but I don't think we will actually get to see them until Friday. Too bad.

Tomorrow is my office capitol tour-giving test. While the Capitol Visitor's Center believes I am qualified to lead around tour groups of up to fifteen individuals, my office requires that we pass a test first. Hopefully it will go well--I have been studying the leadership for the two houses of Congress and now know that Utah's first two Senators were Frank Cannon and Arthur Brown.

Tour training

I have to admit that I was wrong about tour training: it was engaging and interesting and well planned. Kudos to the planners/teachers.

We went on two tours today as part of the training: one to get a feel for the building (because I guess other offices don't send their interns on a million tours when they first arrive) and one to understand the logistics of tour training (i.e. where you stand when addressing a large group, where you can't go, etc.). The training went a little long, so I was back at the office by around 4:30 PM and then worked on a couple of projects until six. I'll post more thrilling tour details after my final session tomorrow; supposedly, upon completing the course, I will receive a pin and a certificate. Yipee!

That's about it for now. Tomorrow should be sunny.

Comparison shopping

One year for Christmas, my brother Grant bought me a cookbook. When selecting said gift at the bookstore, he and my father were faced with an array of potential choices. They decided to compare the possibilities across the board by checking each book for three randomly selected types of recipes: brownies, pancakes, and plantains. Theoretically, the book that featured all three (or the best combination of the three) would make the best gift. Well, it worked, and the cookbook I received has been my go-to cookbook for the last few years--though I cannot claim to have ever explored the plantain recipes.

Anyway, I thought I would put together a similar collection of information regarding the two schools to which Jason has been accepted.

Seton Hall

Mascot: Pirate

Location: South Orange, New Jersey

Number of people we know from South Orange: 0

Most expensive bookstore item: $72 silk tie

Distance to Disney World: 18 hours 48 minutes

Distance to DC: 4 hours 13 minutes

University of Kentucky

Mascot: Wildcat

Location: Lexington, Kentucky

Number of people we know from Lexington: 2

Most expensive bookstore item: $98 tote bag (after looking at a picture of the tote, I really hope this price is a mistake...it doesn't look worth it!)(I should also note that UK also sells a $72 silk tie)

Distance to Disney World: 13 hours 4 minutes

Distance to DC: 8 hours 35 minutes

Maybe I'll try to find more interesting comparative data later.

Tonight we went to the Kennedy Center to see my amazing cousin Julia's quartet. Thanks to Aunt Amy, we had prime seats. The music was stellar; we were definitely impressed.

We had pepperoni-pepper-onion-pineapple-ricotta-tomato pizza for dinner (made with Trader Joe's pizza dough--lazy, I know) and then talked to our respective families. It's been a good Sabbath.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering about our sacrament meeting musical number debut, we were awesome. Well, I started before everyone at this one part, which was semi-embarrassing. We were also supposed to have four couples singing, but one couple forgot it was daylight savings time, so they missed out. Overall: not too shabby.

Look!

Check this out! We lived through this!

Lazy Friday night

It's 6:21 PM on Friday night. We had to get up early for our briefings this morning, so Jason's taking a nap. He's been sleeping for a while, so I keep checking to make sure he's still breathing. So far so good.

Our briefings today were in the Rayburn House office building. Let me just say, the House buildings are not nearly as cool as the Senate buildings (perhaps I'm a tiny bit biased, though)! We heard from Representative Jim Matheson who was awesome; I like him a lot. He had some really cogent ideas about health care reform and wore cowboy boots. For those of you West Wing buffs out there, the cowboy boots slightly reminded me of Bingo Bob Russell (Season 6?), but in a good way. Wow, that was some byzantine syntax. We had half an hour of class before our next briefers: the Kings. Sister King works for Nancy Pelosi and is head of the House Office of Interparliamentary Affairs and Brother King is the United States Ambassador to North Korea re: Human Rights. Both of them were really interesting. After they spoke, we had another half hour of class, then were released for the day. We got home around 2:00 p.m. and had some long-needed lunch (leftovers!). I meant to go grocery shopping today, but that didn't happen; it's been really rainy and I did not love the idea of trudging home with huge bags of food in the deluge.

Hmmm...BYU plays tonight, but I think the game starts at 9:30 PM, which means 11:30 PM our time. That might be just a little late for me.
I thought I'd try to load our mysteriously incompatible pictures from the FDR Memorial and they STILL won't load. Actually, let me clarify: they load like this.
Wait! These worked. Weird. This is Jason and I near the tidal basin on the way back from the Jefferson Memorial almost two weeks ago!
This is me with Thomas Jefferson's statue. My eyes look closed, but I determined on closer inspection that I am just squinting.
Jason by the tidal basin. Check out the Washington Monument in the background; I'll wager my picture-taking skills are improving! What a good lookin' man.

Leftovers and cookies

It's 10:42 p.m. here and we are listening to the BYU vs. TCU game. Come on Cougars!

Today was a pretty typical day. We went to work. We came home. We ate leftovers for dinner, which were actually very tasty. I tweaked our baked ziti recipe last night and it was delicious! We also bought some yukon gold potatoes (instead of our classic russet) last weekend, so we threw together some potato fries with seasoning salt and olive oil. Yum. Now I'm busy finishing up some chocolate chip cookies and Jason is reading. We're such skilled multi-taskers.

Tomorrow we get to hear from Representative Jim Matheson. Our briefing is in one of the House buildings, which is cool because I don't spend much time over there. We have class at the Barlow Center afterward and then...I don't really know what we're going to do.

That's about it for us!

Oh, almost forgot. When I got home today, I remembered that Jason wasn't home because he had his Guarani class. Usually he checks the mail, but I decided to grab it in his absence. Imagine my excitement when I found a postcard from Italia! Thank you Roni! I miss you and want to visit you.

Either way, we can keep our BYU gear

Both Seton Hall and the University of Kentucky's colors are blue and white! How handy that will be.

Jason was sick today, so he stayed home and slept. I went to work, answered a billion letters (read: 7) and answered phones almost all afternoon. We had baked ziti with marinara and ricotta (yum) for dinner; now we're working on our homework. I can't believe it's already Wednesday again. The weeks are going by really fast.

Last night we had a briefing with Senator Bennett in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee room in the Dirksen Senate Office building. Jason met me at work last night and we ate leftover enchiladas before the briefing. Senator Bennett's presentation was interesting; he's a very smart guy.

When we got home, we had singing practice with the other married couples of the Barlow Center. We sound not terrible. We'll see how Sunday goes.

That's all for now. I'm jealous that the Pullans are going to Goblin Valley this weekend; I'd love to see some wide open spaces right about now.

Go Wildcats!

Jason was accepted to the University of Kentucky! While this is very exciting news, it also means we have a big decision to make...and fast. We have to know by April 15th (preferably far sooner) where we are going next year!

We had our neighbors over for chicken enchiladas tonight, which was fun. The Holbeins brought brownies, which I have been craving, so I ate two. Yum.

That's about it for today; tomorrow we have a briefing with Senator Bennett on the hill in the evening, so that should be interesting.

As promised...

...thrilling pictures from the American History museum.

I guess now we know where to settle: Frostburgh.
Jason trying his hand at an inauguration speech. "Ask not..."
Look! It's a train.
Julia Child and I, the best of chums.
Jason with some Berlin Wall. The wars section was definitely our favorite. I wish I had gotten a picture of the really awesome TV display showing stuff about Vietnam; it was interesting.
Today we taught Sharing Time ("Prophets are called of God.") and had a wonderful testimony meeting. We also found out--to our disappointment--that we'll be having Stake Conference while my parents are out here. We really wanted them to come to our ward :(

This afternoon, we went to dinner at the McClellands. It was really fun to see them again; it feels like it's been a long time. We loved getting out of the district and into a real house! Thanks guys!

In which we eat good food and go to a museum

(I forgot to post this yesterday)

This morning we had a terrific breakfast; we cooked up some hashbrown patties and Jason made delicious eggs. We went to Trader Joe's later to stock up on groceries for the week, then had leftovers for lunch.

In the afternoon, we went to the American History museum. It was pretty crowded, but we got to see the big flag and the first ladies' dresses, etc. We really enjoyed the parts about war and the presidency. We took some pictures; I'll post them tonight.

After the museum, we went out to eat with Jason's fellow intern, who is going back to Dartmouth on Tuesday. We went to Taj of India in Georgetown, which is maybe a three minute walk from our house. It was really fun and the food was excellent. We were pretty beat when we came home, but we started planning our sharing time for tomorrow (today) and went to sleep.

Hoy es Viernes.

Today we had class and two very interesting briefings. The first was about North Korea and the second one was about the mortgage crisis. Class started a little later than usual and went until afternoon. Now Jason is vacuuming and I want to make cookies.

I think tomorrow we are going to go to the American History museum. It's supposed to be really nice weather, so maybe we'll walk. We also need to go grocery shopping and might try to watch/listen to the BYU vs. TCU game.

Frosts on the Hill

Jason and I both spent today on the Hill. He was delivering Congressional Budget Justifications to House offices and picked me up after work so we could metro home together. Don't you love how I just used "metro" as a verb; it's as though I'm a local or something!! In case you have any doubt, I also spend my time talking about how horrible public transportation is and the weather. Not really! I recognize that I have "Utah Tourist" written all over me and that DC-ers are far more complex than I just gave them credit for.

Moving on...

1. Jason and I went to a panel discussion on international security issues tonight, which featured high-ranking military officials from Jordan, Australia, Great Britain, Pakistan, Columbia, and Malaysia who are studying in the United States. It was really interesting and afterward we got to talk to the representative from Columbia for a while. He thought it was neat that Jason spoke Spanish.

2. We're both working on our enrichment papers for class tomorrow....wait, Jason just finished.

3. Today I saw Bob Bennett and he said "Good morning."

4. Tomorrow is Friday (which is sort of like Saturday)!

5. Tonight we had macaroni and cheese (from the box) and a frozen pizza for dinner--very nutritious.

6. We're supposedly singing in church in two Sundays with the other married couples in the Barlow Center. I think the last time I sang in a small group in sacrament meeting was when my family sang "The Iron Rod" together when I was four. (FYI: I still remember all the words to the song!)

7. Last night we had dinner with our neighbors and had the most delicious Chicken Artichoke casserole. Muy bien!

Yesterday's date was 3/2/10!

Exciting news of today:

This is a picture of Jason's publication from work! We tried to get a picture of his name printed on the inside, but the camera wouldn't focus on it.

Neat, huh?

We also learned last night that my parents are going to come visit in two weeks. Hurray!

My old roommate Priscila got her mission call to New Jersey! Maybe we'll see her if we go there.

BYU is currently annihilating the Utes.

I accepted the Office Safety Award on behalf of the Senator today. It was pretty exciting. Only 64% of Senate office were honored with the award. They did take a picture of me when I picked up the certificate, though; I'll have to post it when it becomes available.

Sundry Happenings

Today was a really great day. I have the best husband in the whole world.
I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Here's what happened today.

1. Jason received an advance copy of the IAF publication that he edited and it looks awesome.

2. I was asked to stay after at work today to screen calls for a tele-townhall meeting. Here's how such a thing works: a third-party company who designed the tele-townhall software dials the numbers of constituents in Utah. The constituents answer the phone and hear a recording inviting them to the town hall meeting. If they want to ask a question, they push 1 (or something). Then, I would answer the call using my computer hooked up to my telephone (all very technical). After hearing their questions, I would send them through to the Senator. It was really a neat experience! A woman I work with drove me home so I wouldn't have to take the Metro at 8:30 p.m., which was very kind.

3. I got through the first/second stage of the Teach For America application process. FYI: Teach for America is a program where college graduates teach school in low-income areas for two years and then emerge licensed educators. Today I learned that I won't have to have a phone interview (thank goodness!), but will go straight to the in-person interview. Hurray!

4. At the tele-townhall meeting, we had dinner, which included Cape Cod brand chips: Jason's favorite. I had to bring some home for him.

5. Free bagels at work today!

6. On Thursday, Jason will be on the Hill delivering the publication he helped edit to the House offices and we'll probably get to have lunch together!

7. Best part of the whole day: I arrived home and Jason had bought me some very pretty flowers. It was a very good day.

The rest of the pictures still won't load.

Well, we worked today and had enchiladas for dinner. What more can I say? I guess I could confirm that Jason finished his U of U application yesterday evening and that today I got to refill all the hand sanitizer dispensers at work...

Tomorrow we will have been married for 10 months!