False Spring

Um, hi, this is what we woke up to this morning:


You have to be kidding me.

I felt sorry for all those Cherry Blossom Festivalers stamping around to keep warm while trying to figure out which puffy white things were flowers and which were snowballs. Unbelieveable.

We, meanwhile, were having a delightful weekend, snow and all. As a birthday treat, Jason booked a night at the Marriott Ranch near Front Royal, Virginia, just shy of the Shenandoahs. It's the one bed and breakfast in the Marriott chain and was once the vacation home of the Marriotts...after it was the home of James Marshall, brother of John Marshall, the Supreme Court Chief Justice. That was in, like 1814.

We'd hoped to spend the weekend walking or bike riding, assuming that the 70+ degree weather from last weekend was here to stay (ha!). Even so, we enjoyed curling up with cheese and books and napping under blankets just fine. We had a fabulous dinner at Apartment 2g in Front Royal, where we ate five courses, watched the chefs cook, and had to roll ourselves on of the restaurant and back to the Ranch.


We stayed long enough for breakfast today and then drove back, and we felt fantastically rested. The heart just pumps a little slower outside of the city.

Birthday Weekend Recap

Apparently in my old age I can't blog in a timely fashion anymore. No matter--since today was the final part of my annual week-long birthday celebration, it's totally timely to post about birthday weekend now.

Birthday weekend was not only my birthday this year--we were rockin' and rollin' with the b-day parties. I can hardly keep up with all the birthday celebrations in my own family this month (as can be attested to all the extra postage I've paid for gifts in order to get them there on time)...first Casey, then Mini-Coop, then Kim, then Adam is Saturday, and Jenny is just around the corner. Phew! Ready for the break that is May!

Anyway. My birthday. Perfect day. Jason started it out with chocolate croissants and tea, and we ended things at Duangrats, my favorite Thai place near our house--last year's celebration was so fun, I thought we might as well do it again! Jason made me an amazing chocolate cake and my friends came out to celebrate. Such fun.

Saturday morning I headed to Dawn's where she hosted some friends for a lovely birthday tea party (if you remember, her birthday is the day before mine--"Our Birthday," as we call it). She'd done up the table just perfectly, the jasmine tea was delightful, and I ate way too many cucumber sandwiches. And we wore hats. Fun.


I got home in time for us to turn around and walk across the neighborhood to Hudson's first birthday party--an "I Love You, Stinkyface" party. Hudson is the youngest of the "five in six months" babies born in our dear group of friends, and his was the first party where all of the babies had basically turned into interested toddlers--below is the picture of Carter (who, at 4 1/2 months, is remarkably good at sitting in a chair!), Carly, Walker, and Anna listening to the story.

Somehow we didn't get a single picture of the birthday boy!

Champions at heart

My ice hockey team played in the winter season final match a few weeks ago. Though we entered the third period leading 2 goals to 1, we lost in the end 3 to 2 in what became a competitive and physical game. A supportive crowd came to cheer me on (Mark Wojo and two of his boys, the Harveys, the Petersons, Kevin Patterson, and Missy of course)! While we turned out our best season ever since we became a team two years ago, it was still a disappointing end. On to summer season -- starts March 25!

Little Dresses

It was Dress Day around here--the girls in our Sunday school class got together to spend the afternoon turning pillow cases into dresses for little girls in Africa who have lost their parents to AIDS. Pretty cool idea--check out the website here.

We had a fun crowd--seven girls brought their sewing machines, and we had lots of extra hands to iron, cut, and pin. We ended up working well into early evening and finished 13 dresses. We have 15 more waiting for the final step. I was thankful for all those Caravans badges in sewing, I tell you what! I'm also thankful for Amy's great camera skills that captured the day!

Missy gives us a demonstration so that we have a small inkling of what we're doing!

Lots of cutting...

Kathryn sews casings while Maria measures elastic.

It turns out sewing is not always fun...right Natalie?

Donna ironed bias tape for hours.

The finished product was beautiful!

This Week at Work

We're in the middle of the mad season at work again. After ten years (!!!), I've gotten used to the crazy days and late nights, but I have yet to develop a taste for it. Sometimes we get by on plain silliness. For example, this week:

* MJ celebrated Justin Bieber's birthday by bringing in her ukulele and singing that "like, baby, baby, baby" song for us all. And by us all, I mean the entire staff and the Congressman. And the night mail clerk.

* We had our first hearings with my boss as the Chairman. I sat behind him for three hours while the EPA Administrator testified, and all I could think of the whole time was that some reporter was going to take a picture of my boss in which I was going to be chewing on my lip awkwardly or sneezing or rolling my eyes to the back of my head, and that picture was going to be plastered all over every news website in Idaho. Forever. Why do I think this? Because this picture has been used for the past two years every time my boss is mentioned. Poor Kaylyn and Megan.

* One of our district staffers was in town, and she convinced all of us to wear pink on Thursday, because that was what she had brought to wear. So we did. I don't know why. It's not Breast Cancer Awareness Month or anything. I also don't know why it was so easy to convince us. But I know it was funny--especially when Mike sat up in the dias with his pink tie and I sat right behind him with a matching shirt. (As you'll note from the picture, Nate had to balance out his pink tie by covering it with a blue sweater. Just in case.)

(And by the way, this picture makes me want to roll on the floor laughing. Not only did we decide to take a picture right before Mike left and had therefore changed into a polo (which looks great with the pink tie), but his expression is classic. I love working for him!)

* We have our own barista in the office, as Nate makes coffee each morning in his French press. He and I have been the only coffee drinkers in the office, but in the past few weeks two new staffers have started. Between them and the visiting Nikki, he had to press two pots this morning. I think we should probably start tipping him.

* One of our new staffers is a nuclear engineer doing a fellowship in our office. He told me during his first week that he thought I was too cynical for someone so young. This week he started responding to constituent mail. Suddenly I don't look so unreasonably cynical...

Don't worry, we also had five hearings this week, passed some legislation, prepared a handful of speeches, and met with a lot of people. We just figure that we might as well add a little color to make these busy days a bit brighter...and if that color is pink, well, fun for us!