A Good Day

The exciting news of today: the First Presidency announced a new temple in Payson, UT! Jason called to tell me while I was coming out of the metro and I almost couldn't believe it. It will be neat to see it come together over the next while.

In other news, Jason gets to take a class in Guarani, an indigenous language of Paraguay, Brazil, and parts of Argentina, and I started a project for the finance committee today.

Today was a beautiful day; it was sixty-five degrees out when I went to lunch! It's supposed to snow on Saturday, though. We also got our first taste of humidity today and it did a number on my hair...tomorrow will be a ponytail day for sure.

Update: I got an email from the Daily Universe asking for my input (as a distinguished Paysonite) on the new temple. I'm sure they won't use my excellent quote, but Hannah can look for it anyway.

It always rains on Sunday

Our trip to Washington by the numbers...

Total number of Capitol tours for both of us combined: 5

Distance from the apartment to the White House: 1.1 miles

False fire alarms: 1

Books in our apartment (not including scriptures): 15

Motorcades witnessed by Amanda: 4

Car horn honks heard in the last 60 seconds: 6

Chinese restaurants within one mile of our apartment: 10

Number of times we have eaten Chinese food: 0

Distance from our apartment to the Pullan's house: 2,131 miles

Distance from our apartment to the Frost's house: 341 miles

Temperature outside right now: 46 degrees fahrenheit

Minutes until our lasagna is cooked: 41

We didn't think we were going to have to teach primary today, but then the teacher for the senior primary boys was unexpectedly absent. Our class consisted of two boys. Partway through the lesson, one of their moms came in and sat in for the rest of the lesson. She was a recent convert and really contributed to the lesson. Although we've been counseled to spread the gospel via new media forms, I still feel weird about sharing spiritual things on a blog, but it's Sunday, so I guess I can. Anyway, the mother bore a wonderful testimony at the end of our lesson. It made me think about my own testimony and what a blessing it is to have the gospel in my life.

I hope you all had a good Sunday! Hopefully we'll have more exciting news to report in the coming week. Jason's grad school applications should be done soon and we get to go to the temple on Saturday!! Hooray!

White House Tour!

We went on a tour of the White House this morning!! It was awesome. We couldn't take any pictures inside, but I have gathered some from the internet for your viewing pleasure.

This is the East Room.
This is the Green Room.
Here's the Red Room (Jason's personal favorite).
This is the Blue Room. It's also where they put the White House Christmas tree. The State Dining Room. This was probably my favorite room.

The tour was great. Our guide was actually a member of the Secret Service. I had no idea that giving tours was part of their job. It was neat to think that we were walking around in places that are still used by the President and First Lady.

There were some really neat works of art along the tour, including a John Singer Sargent painting that I really liked and JFK's presidential portrait. We also got to see the Kennedy china. Sadly, you have to go on a separate "Executive Tour" to see any of the West Wing, but we saw it from afar. We'll have to make friends with some White House staffers.

Afterward, we went to the White House gift shop, which was kind of disappointing and then came home to our igloo for lunch. I don't know what we're going to do for the rest of the day, but it's a little chilly outside too.

A little later in the day...

We hear sirens all the time at our apartment and I was thinking that perhaps we live in a crime-ridden area. Then, I looked out the window when I heard sirens today and realized that since we're on Pennsylvania Avenue, we just have a lot of motorcades going by. I like that explanation much better.

We got a package!

Apparently they've been doing some work on the Barlow Center heating system and by "doing some work," I think they mean "turned it off and aren't planning on turning it on again anytime soon." Our apartment is getting a little chilly. Don't worry about us, though; we have a giant green blanket, courtesy of the Frosts and it is keeping us toasty warm. While talking to Roni via webcam today, she reminded me of our bitterly cold freshman dorm and how she used to do her homework sitting next to the open, turned-on oven. We won't resort to that.

The best news of today is that we received two packages in the mail! The mail came really late today, so we didn't actually get the packages until approximately twenty minutes ago. We'll start with the first, less-exciting package from Amazon.

It contained three books, including these two:

We've read all the books that we brought with us and aren't allowed to check anything out of the George Washington University library. I technically have permission to remove volumes from the Senate library, but it is very small and unless I'm interested in reading back issues of Congressional Quarterly (which, actually, I would probably be a more well-informed human being if I did so), I'm out of luck. The book on the left is for Jason so he can change the world, and the one on the left is for me so I can pretend to know more about economics.

Now for the more exciting package; it's from the Frosts!

Notice how Jason is the one operating the knife here. He still has his totin' chip! The package contained all this good stuff: granola bars, two kinds of tasty chili, peanut butter cookie mix, rice, the works!

Probably my favorite inclusion was the crushed red pepper. Jason makes fun of me because (when we're at home and it's available) I eat it on everything. Thank you guys so much!!!!!!!

I am also excited about the cinnamon; I've been longing for a good cinnamon roll ever since we arrived and now we can make some. Hurray!

We had class a little later than usual this morning and heard from two good speakers. The first was a political appointee from the Bush administration who now heads the Eagle Forum. The next one was Elder Hardy, a member of the sixth Quorum of the Seventy who also happens to be a DC lawyer/lobbyist. Both were very interesting.

Our neighbors invited us over for tacos tonight and then we watched a couple of West Wing episodes. Now we're at home, we just got off the phone with my parents, and the apartment is still cold. I hope this problem gets fixed soon. Thankfully, tomorrow we are going downtown to tour the White House and perhaps hit a museum, so we will likely be in slightly warmer buildings for most of the day.

We love you all! Thanks for the package!!

Thursday

This will likely be a short post (with no recipe at the end). I remembered today that I forgot to write about two exciting things that happened yesterday.

1. I saw a motorcade on my way to work. Lights, police, very nice cars, the works. Very exciting.

2. On my way into the metro station on the way home, this homeless guy was singing "All Along the Watchtower" and playing his guitar. It was one of those serendipitous moments when the diegetic music matches your mood exactly and it feels like your life is a movie. Perhaps that is a dorky and sentimental notion, but that is the best way to describe my experience yesterday.

Exciting things that happened today:

1. I was worried I would be late to work because I left a couple minutes later than I normally do (so I was a tiny bit frantic), but then two metro trains had mechanical difficulties right before and right after Foggy Bottom station, so I was detained but it wasn't my fault! I was able to call my boss (who was very understanding of my transportation travails) and I arrived at work only 20 minutes late.

2. I got an email alert from Capitol Police today saying that they were responding to a protest on the front Capitol steps and that staff should avoid the area. Five minutes later, the protesters had apparently moved into the rotunda (not sure how they got there. The little old man guarding the escalator last time asked me a lot of questions about my whereabouts despite my powerful badge), so we weren't supposed to go there either. I guess the police solved the problem, eventually arresting the miscreants. Apparently they were protesting Guantanamo Bay by going on a liquid-only fast and carrying signs at the Capitol. I personally think there are more reasonable ways to get your message out in the open, but I digress...

3. I had to go find the Senate Curator today to donate a gift received from a foreign dignitary. It's located on the fourth floor, which you can only get to by getting off the at the third floor and going through a maze of passages up to a tiny staircase semi-creepily illuminated with carriage lights. I thought I was pretty familiar with the Capitol, but I was wrong. My attempt to find the office led me to the press room (which you have to actually walk through to get to the fourth floor), this random warehouse, and a secret door that I think might have been very close to the Senate floor.

4. I met the Senator again. I went to a judiciary markup today and left after about an hour. When I got back to the office, he was talking to someone right in the doorway! He greeted me as I came in, then came back to intern row and talked to me for a few minutes about my schooling and how the internship is going so far. All the other interns were either in hearings or on a tour, so I felt pretty privileged. He really seems like a good guy.

The rest of the day was pretty low-key. I'm looking forward to getting some new projects next week. Overall, the internship has been a great learning experience so far.

Jason had an awesome day at work also. He put together some research materials for one of his co-workers and the co-worker was VERY impressed. I'm probably telling the story wrong, but he can correct this if he wants. He is also working on some brochures for the foundation about projects with environmental impact. Yesterday, he informed me that people in government (not in his office) insist on politically correct terminology: it's "asset-deprived," not "poor." I laughed.

Wow, this ended up being a lot longer than I expected. Jason is doing the laundry right now because he is a wonderful spouse, and then I think we will watch an episode of The West Wing...or perhaps two.

Hungry? Me too.

Another good day for the Frosts. Jason says he will write later, so I will detail the most notable ten minutes of my day.

I went to a judiciary hearing today about the Christmas Day airline bombing attempt. It was pretty interesting; I now know that I never want to be interrogated by a Senate committee. After the hearing, I walked toward my office, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. I looked forward and discovered that I was walking right behind Senator Franken and his staff who had just left the hearing. Weird.

When I got back, the office was filled with large, athletic men. One of them opened the door for me. Another intern informed me that they were NFL players. Crazy! I'm not sure who any of them were, but they were huge.

Only minutes later, I met the senator! This was definitely the most exciting part of my day. He was very nice. I was actually really lucky to be there; he stopped by the intern desks on his way out of a meeting and there were only two of us in the office. It was very cool to finally meet him.

Well, I feel like I haven't shared very much today, so here is a fantastic recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I stole from The New York Times and promised to email my mom. Here you go, mom!

Cookies Stolen From The New York Times

3 2/3 C minus 2 Tbsp flour

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 sticks of butter

1/2 C light brown sugar

1 C plus 2 Tbsp sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

A bunch of chocolate chips

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix butter, brown sugar, and white sugar for five minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla.

Combine dry ingredients with wet ingredients and mix sparingly (only enough to just combine!). Add chocolate chips.

The recipe suggests rolling the dough into a roll and chilling for 24 hours, but I let them chill for an hour or so and they turned out just fine.

Roll chilled dough into pretty large circles (at least golfball sized) and bake six per cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 12-ish minutes (depending on how big you make the dough-balls) or until light golden brown.

These are definitely not the most efficient cookies, but they spread a lot and are very tasty.

Remove from baking sheet and cool on a rack. Best if eaten warm.

Now we're listening to the BYU basketball game and pretending to do our homework. Jason is actually doing homework. What a good student.

Hope everyone is doing well! I miss you!

Election Night

It seems like everyone in Washington is worked up about the Massachusetts special election tonight and the Frosts are no exception! Since we do not have a TV (unless you count the communal one downstairs...which I don't), we have been watching periodic updates on the New York Times website. As of right this second, Brown has 52.8% with 60% of precincts reporting. Thrilling.

Today was a great day for Jason and a predominantly good day for me. I experienced one major gaffe at work that, while not jeopardizing my illustrious senate employment, left me absolutely humiliated. This morning, I was assigned to run some stuff down to the Senator's car. I had received very specific instructions about where the vehicle was parked, and had the key, which was attached to one of those fob things that unlocks the car remotely. Well, I approached the car and clicked the little "unlock" button on the fob. Nothing happened. At this point, I began to question my ability to operate the fob; after all, Jason and I have to unlock our car doors by hand! Perhaps I was incapable of operating possibly the simplest piece of technology the modern world has to offer. I continued clicking the button with no discernible result. Growing frustrated, I decided to unlock the car by hand. As I put the key in the ignition, the car alarm started. It was very loud, very annoying and, since this is DC we're talking about, attracted three security guards (who didn't help, by the way. They just stood around and glared at me suspiciously. Yeah, the girl with the suit and the intern badge is just going to waltz in and commit grand theft auto right under the nose of the United States government. I don't think so). I tried canceling the alarm with the useless fob and--when that didn't work--opened the door and pushed a button on the steering wheel. This, of course, turned on the radio. Thankfully, another security guard sitting in a giant black Escalade next to me advised me to put the key in the ignition, which stopped the alarm. I sheepishly returned to the desk, grateful none of my colleagues had wandered into the parking garage that morning.

That was probably the most exciting thing that happened to me today. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.