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.