The Holidays are Here!

Early last week Corey got a fancy new camera so he took a house Christmas photo for us. Thought I would share that with all of you:

This week has been a blur of after work activities - most of them relating to the holidays. Monday was my evening to cook so I threw together an elaborate meal of spaghetti and garlic toast. In a random turn of events everyone was home so we played a game after dinner. Generally at least someone if not multiple people are busy in the evenings (except Thursdays which are reserved for house night).

Tuesday was my small group's Christmas party. We decorated cookies and had a White Elephant gift exchange. I left with a nice wooden bracelet from Africa I believe. Other popular items were a set of 22 tea candles, a slightly tacky santa advent calendar, the book Feminism is for Everyone, a Red Skins shirt, and many others.

Wednesday evening our office went to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to go bowling. You may be thinking "That's strange - thought that was an office building for white house staff and the VP" Well you are correct, but it just so happens to also have a bowling ally in the basement (which is connected to The White House!). One of my coworker's husband works for the administration in a different building, but still gets the perks of being able to reserve the alley. I even got a strike on my second frame! It was pretty awesome, but it is rather small and since we had little kids along and there is no electronic scoring we didn't actually play a game - it was just a free for all. Also the lanes tilt to the left - warning to all of you who may one day play there.

Tonight is our house gift exchange. We always seem to be running out of cups or washing them more than we need to simply because we don't know who's is who's. We are solving this problem by exchanging cups. We drew names last week so tonight we get to see what beverage container we will each now be using for the foreseeable future. I had Cara's name so I got a plain glass cup and then I used my etching cream to decorate it. I will snap a few shots of our new glassware tonight a post it soon.

Snow Day!

Once again these east coast people don't know how to handle a little snow. The government and schools have closed down because we are expecting an accumulation of 2-4 inches by the end of today. Right now my view looks like this:

Yes it is snowing, but who can't drive in that? Or walk to school? I think this is ridiculous, but hey, who am I to complain about getting a snow day?

This is also an opportunity for me to catch up on here. I know I said I would put up Thanksgiving pictures like a month ago, and so finally here they are:

Anne made three beautiful pies!

They were pumpkin, pecan, and apple. Grace also made a pumpkin cake. 

Here is the big spread! There was another turkey, bowl of potatoes, pan of stuffing, and dozens more rolls still out in the kitchen. For 13 people we made about twice as much food as we need. 

But no worries - the leftovers were gone by Saturday afternoon.

Busy Time of the Year

I am shocked that November is over already. I have pictures from Thanksgiving which I will post on here as soon as I have the time. I have been doing well and work is good. A few things that have happened/are happening:

*At work we received a really awesome 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant. This is going to guarantee our continued work for the coming years. We are going to be hiring on another full time office worker to oversee the grant and our staff at some of the program sites will get increased hours.

*On Thanksgiving the MVS house hosted a feast! We had around 9 different dishes for the 13 of us who were there. I was a lot of fun - lots of work, but still a lot of fun. Four of the guests were staying at the house which really filled it up.

*Corey learned that he will be heading to London in January to work. I really don't know what exactly he will be doing, but he will be there for 6 months. I am not looking forward to being in a long distance relationship once again but I am planning on visiting him in April so that will be awesome.

*Kid Power programs are having their holiday parties next week so we are working on getting all the gifts for the kids. On Monday we have a group of volunteers coming to wrap all the gifts. Hopefully they are able to make a big dent - not sure they are going to be able to finish them all in one morning.

*On Saturday I am taking Corey to the Kennedy Center for NPR's A Jazz Piano Christmas. I am really looking forward to it. The weather has been rather warm here so I am finding it difficult to get into the Christmas spirit, but this should help.

*I only have 3 more weeks of work before I our office closes for the holidays! In 18 days I will be flying down to Florida to spend the holidays with my family. I will be there for a week and then have an additional week of relaxing before going back to work.

Hockey Baking & Sewing

On Thursday Corey took me to see the Capitols take on the Minnesota Wild. We had amazing seats and the game was great. This until it came to a shoot out and the Wild lost. We both had a lot of fun though and I am really glad I was able to go with Corey. He takes hockey a lot more seriously than I do and each time we watch a game I learn a lot more about the sport. For instance on Thursday I learned that the jerseys are actually referred to as sweaters and boarding is an intense check in which the person who is sent into the boards (wall) is out of control (checking is perfectly legal though).

We had seriously awesome seats!

Thursday morning four of my house mates (the ones who are volunteers) left for a regional retreat and Friday morning Corey flew out to MN to go pheasant hunting. The rest of my house mates had other plans so I ended up relaxing all weekend. On Friday night I cut tons of fabric while watching Dexter. I figured a serial murdered would go well with craft time.

On Saturday I baked for several hours in order to make sweet treats for coffee hour at church. I was told to plan on around 200 people. I made two pans of bars and a bunch of little snickerdoodles. I cut the bars small in hopes that there would be enough without having to make a third pan.

I spent my Saturday night and Sunday afternoon continuing to cut fabric. At a certain point I got really sick of cutting hundreds of squares so I decided to start sewing. I know that I am eventually going to have to go back to cutting more squares, but by then I will have a good chunk of my quilt blocks completed. Here is my first quilt block:

Today I didn't have to work so I enjoyed sleeping in one last day. Corey came back today as well so we had pizza for lunch and watched a movie in the afternoon. Now I am back home working on this as well as sewing more blocks. 

Fall is Here

I don't know where October went but suddenly I am five days into November and not feeling too well. I woke up on Monday with a headache and was sore and achy all over. Today was even worse but I ended up going home before going to fill in at an after school site and got in a half hour nap. I can't tell you how amazing that nap was. I felt like death warmed over - my head swimming, cold all over, my nose running, the headache still there from the previous morning - but after that nap I was more alert and my headache was gone. I am still not at 100% and I am still feeling sore, but I no longer just want to curl up into bed and sleep forever. And while I am still sore, it is not as achy as before. Also I may just be sore from hiking on Sunday.

My last week has been filled with a variety of activities. I haven't had a day to sit around and do nothing in far too long (probably why I ended up sick). The last week of October was spent doing something every evening. Last Sunday our house went kayaking on the Potomac. It was a bit cool and some of us ended up a bit wet but we had a lot of fun. On Tuesdays I go to small group. It is a group of about 12 of us from church who meet together to discuss Sunday's message.The next evening I spent catching up with some friends over a few drinks until way too late. It really wouldn't have been so late if we hadn't gotten to know our server so well. He basically told us his life story, which was very interesting, but lead to a late night. I went to two halloween parties (not to mention the one I went to the previous weekend) one on Halloween and the other on Friday. Saturday I helped out at two different events as a volunteer.

My Saturday began at 6:30 when I arrived at RFK stadium's parking lot (where DC United plays - soccer team) and was then put in charge of signing in all the other volunteers who showed up. It was fun and I was kept very busy right up until I needed to leave at 10 to go to the Convention Center for my next volunteering gig. You would have thought I had gotten in all my volunteering last year. The event at RFK was Run or Dye (a family friendly color run) and Kid Power was named as the benefactor on the condition that we got at least 35 volunteers to help out. Since we found out about this opportunity roughly two weeks before the actual event I was told to be there to help our numbers since we weren't sure we would be able to get that many people to commit to helping. Turns out we had around 70 volunteers so I wasn't as critically needed as originally thought. But Kid Power got $50 for each volunteer we recruited and since we had more than 35 we got a $1,500 bonus.

The event at the convention center was Foster the City. DC127 and other area organization partnered together to put on the event. My church is responsible for starting DC127 and pays the staff of the organization so I have heard a lot about this event and wanted to help out. First off, the name DC127 is based off James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father considers pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the wold. Foster the City was all about how people and churches across the city can work together to reverse the wait list for foster children. Right now there are 1,300 kids waiting to get into a foster home and 300 kids waiting to be adopted. The goal is to have there be families waiting for foster children instead of children waiting for families. It was a lot of fun helping out and really encouraging to see people from churches all across the city focused on this one issue.

After I finished helping at Foster the City I went to Corey's and my house came over and we made pizzas and watched Star Wars. It was a nice way of ending the day but I was nearly asleep by the end of the second movie. The next morning I woke up early once again. This time I was headed out to the Shenandoah Valley for a hike with Corey and his friend Phil. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun, but we were also completely exhausted from the experience. It was a total of 9 miles and part of it was on the Appalachian Trail. Since I recently read a book about the AT I was excited to be on it even if it was only for a little less than a mile.

And this basically explains why I woke up feeling sore all over and sick. Now for some pictures:

The Dread Pirate Robert, a construction worker, and a detective (aka: Phil, Me, and Corey) 

at the Halloween party the weekend before Halloween

Anne and Mariah (Days 5 and 6) getting ready for the Halloween Party at the SoJo house

The 7 Days of creation: 1 (me) Separation of Light and Darkness, 2 (Grace) Separation of the Sky and the waters, 3 (Cara) Dry land and plants, 4 (Miriam) Sun Moon and Stars and seasons, 5 (Mariah) Birds of the air and Fish of the sea, 6 (Anne) Animals and humans, 7 (Keith) Rest

 Anne and I were the slowest of the kayaks

Yet, somehow we ended up waiting with Cara and Mariah for the others. Apparently they were trying out a "short cut" that turned out to be a dead end so after attempting to portage they finally went back and headed to the dock.

Last Friday I spent the day at Jefferson Academy where Kid Power students were working with a band to film a music video "No More" The song is in response to the New Town shootings last year and it is focused on ending school violence. 

 Hiking!

We made it to the top!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Last week I turned 24. That sounds so much older than I feel. It seems like I just got out of college and now suddenly I have a "real" job. I was able to leave work a little early on my birthday which was nice. Corey came over to our house and he cooked up a delicious meal. It was a strange meal, but very good. We had: homemade mozzarella sticks, pot roast, mashed potatoes, and homemade mini donuts for dessert. Some friends of ours also came over to eat with us, Aaron and Acsa. (Aaron works with Corey) Over the weekend I relaxed and took it easy for the most part. On Saturday Corey and I went to Taste of DC. It is a street festival on Pennsylvania Ave where there are tons of food vendors and food trucks set up and also a rather extensive selection of beer and wine. The vendors all had $2 or $3 sample plates and also regular portions for sale. We ate a ton! Including a funnel cake and flash fried cheese cake.

Last night I went out to dinner/drinks for the birthday of a friend from church. She has been here working for the last year and a half, is in my small group, and is the leader of week 2 hospitality at church which I serve on. She has a job she really seems to enjoy and appears to have her life together in general. Turns out she is turning 23. I know I shouldn't be comparing myself to her, but it just seems like she is much more mature in some respects and that in comparison my life is not at all together. This is me being over dramatic, but it was very shocking to realize I am a year older than her. Not that I think my life is a disaster, but I am still living in the VS house which makes me feel not completely independent and while I don't dislike my job, I just know that I don't want to do this forever and I don't know what it is that I want to do.

Speaking of the house though, Cara has moved back in and Keith was going to move out today, but he has decided that he wants to stay. He found a place, but didn't know the people he was going to be living with and only chose the place because he could afford it and he felt like he needed to move out.  He hasn't been able to clear staying with our local mvs leadership because they are at a church conference or something. That said, I am pretty positive he will be allowed to stay. I am excited and it should be fun having a completely full house. With him staying, we have seven people in seven bedrooms. This also means that everyone from the house last year, except for Alisha Bender, is staying on as an associate or 2nd year MVSer.

Trying to Relax

The last week has been rather stressful here in DC. A large percentage of the population of DC and the surrounding area is affected by the government shut down. On top of the 800,000 federal employees forced to take unpaid leave there are many contract companies here that are facing layoffs due to a lack of work. If you don't believe that people are feeling rather on edge, just look at the news. On Thursday there was the incident with the lady who was shot near the capital and then on Friday while walking from work I saw that part of the mall was taped off and there were police everywhere. Turns out a guy set himself on fire. I don't know why this is all happening, but it seems that many people are feeling more stress than normal. One of my coworkers has a husband who works at the White House. On Wednesday he was trying to figure out how long they can afford their mortgage. He is going to have to start looking for other work even though he really likes his job. I don't know what the solution to the government stalemate is, but those who are making the decisions don't appear to be affected by the consequences of their inaction which is the most frustrating. 

I spent this weekend hanging out at home for the most part which was nice. I cleaned some, though not as much as I should have, made puppy chow, and spinach and artichoke dip. It was nice to lay around and not feel busy or rushed for a few days. Corey wasn't around because once he heard the government was closed and therefore he wasn't going to be working for awhile he flew out to Minnesota to see family. He came back today. I am a bit jealous that he was able to go home, especially since it is really cheap for him since his mother works for Delta, but it also nice to know that I am still earning money since I now pay rent. Yesterday Cara Smith moved back into our house. She was in MVS last year and moved out at the beginning of September. Turns out she didn't really like the neighborhood she was in and missed the MVS house. After consulting the new house members, the support committee decided to let her move back in since we have an empty bedroom and we are all excited to have her join us. Keith is still looking for a place to live but for two weeks he is house-sitting for a couple so for now he isn't at the house. 

Work has been going well. Starting tomorrow all of our sites except for one will have started. We have our federal work study starting as well so I am no longer going to be filling in for site associates every day. I will still be going to sites a few days a week, but now it will change up and wont be the same all the time. I am interested to see how the different sites run. Also this Tuesday we are having a happy hour fundraiser. It should be fun, but I am wondering how many people will show up since there are a lot of people not working right now. If nothing else I will get to chill out with the few people who come and count it as a work function. 

Work, Retreat, Work, Hockey, Flug Tag, Work

It has been brought to my attention that I have not updated this in some time. I do apologize to those of you who actually read this. I have been pretty busy with work the last few weeks. We have started up at four of our sites and unfortunately we do not yet have all our Federal Work Study students hired. This means that I have been filling in at these sites as needed. So far it is three middle schools and one elementary. I have been working at one of the middle schools in SE at least twice a week so far. This means I have around an hour to an hour and a half commute home those evenings. I am beginning to feel like I am constantly working because when I get home I don't do anything but eat, possibly read or watch some TV and then go to bed and start it all over.

A few weeks ago was our house retreat. I meant to post about it earlier, but I got a lot busier than I expected. We went to West Virginia and had a lot of fun staying in a remote cabin. It was a nice break from the city and we were able to get to know one another a lot better. Here are some pictures from our retreat:

 Mariah and Anne chilling in the cabin

 Mariah, Anne, and Miriam 

For some reason they thought crossing this stream on a narrow branch was a good idea. 

Grace and Miriam enjoying the rock chairs we found. 

I was also able to go to a few preseason hockey games with Corey. We got to see the Blackhawks on the 20th and the Fliers on the 27th. There were five fights at the Caps, Fliers game! It was pretty ridiculous, but we won and it was still a lot of fun.

Corey and Ellen (a friend from Calvin) at the Blackhawks game.

On the 21st Corey and I went to Flug Tag (fly day) with a friend of Corey's from work and his wife. We had lots of fun until it started to pour and the announcers kept getting more and more annoying. There was a lot of down time between flights which drug on a lot. We ended up leaving early because we were tired and didn't want to get caught in a second downpour.

The team that designed this "air craft" said their goal was a make a flying machine that can sail the farthest.

On Saturday I had to run a farmer's market for work. I had help from two volunteers and also a student. I had to get up early, but it was a nice day and the market was fun. We didn't sell too much, but our table looked nice at least.

Work Stuff

This week Kid Power started up at two middle school sites. I spent every afternoon this week out at the schools. In my new position I am simply there as support and some guidance for the coordinators. It is a lot of fun because now I have the opportunity to get to know the students a little better as individuals and not worry about the group as a whole all the time. I was at Jefferson Academy on Monday and Tuesday and some of the students even remembered me from last year when I was there for the last two weeks of program. Those students have a ton of energy and get very excited over just about anything. I think they will have a good program this year so long as we can channel all the energy. On Wednesday and Thursday I went to Sousa Middle School. This is the first year we have a program at this school and it is going really well so far. The students are great and the coordinator is awesome. The school staff is also very supportive and the teachers who help out are all over the homework help. On Thursday a lady come to do pottery with the students. She had plain ceramic bowls for each of the students to paint. The kids were very excited and had a lot of fun showing their creativity.

The main problem with going to Sousa is that I have to take the metro and a bus to get there. It takes around an hour. Yesterday when I was leaving it was down-pouring so by the time I got on the bus I was completely soaked and then of course the bus had the AC on so I was freezing. It was a rather uncomfortable trip. I was happy that my book did not get wet inside my purse though.

Today I am not going into work because our house is leaving for retreat in just a few hours. I probably could have put in a half day, but that just didn't sound like fun. I am looking forward to a weekend up in the mountains with nothing to do but talk about the coming year and read a lot. I finally got a library card out here so I have a few books along. We are also taking a puzzle and games so it should be a lot of fun. I will make sure to take some pictures.

New Room!

Finally the pictures are here! First, The Before:

Yes that is a bare concrete floor.

Tiny, I know.

Now, The During:

And finally, The After:

And lastly, meet Marjorie. This was my room-warming gift from Corey

Time Flies

So I have to start with an apology; I promised to have pictures of my redone room on here by now and they obviously aren't. I have my room done and most of my stuff put away I have just been too distracted lately to post the pictures. The weekend of August 24th I flew home to surprise my parents. Their 30th anniversary was on the 27th so I went home. That meant that I had to just throw everything into my room before I left because the new MVSer's moved in over that weekend. I spent last week moving things around and trying to get organized, but there is still more to do. 

Until yesterday our house was full! For about a week there were 8 people living in our house. We have had a girl staying with us until she found housing and then with the new MVSers we were at capacity. Yesterday Cara and Erica (our guest) moved out so now we are down to the the 4 MVSers, myself (an associate), and Keith. It will be nice to have things settle down a bit. This transition of volunteers has been very drug out and has lead to a lot of overlap. I have really enjoyed this summer being in DC but I have just been way too busy. With fall coming I think things are going to be calming down a lot which will mean I should have more time to tackle a variety of projects I keep meaning to do. Included in the list is keeping this blog updated so hopefully I get a little better at that. 

Update

Things have been happening very quickly this last week. It was only last Tuesday that I accepted a position at Kid Power as the Operations Director and now I am sitting here at my desk on my third day of work. I didn't end up going to that other job interview and instead decided to stop looking and take the position I had been offered. The stuff I am currently working on is stuff that I probably would be doing anyway since this is the time between summer camp and school year programing. I am being put in charge of a lot of the office organizing - looking for a place where we can get rid of old office furniture, cleaning our filing cabinets, organizing binders and throwing out old papers. I am also putting together packets and binders for our new site coordinators (what I was last year) and planning out some trainings for them. Like I said, right now the position doesn't feel very different, but once our programs begin and the year gets started I am sure that will change. 

My room is coming together! I have all the furniture in there, most of my clothes moved down, curtains hung, and a new lamp bought. I started sleeping in there Monday, but still am not finished moving because yesterday our flag football team had a double header so we weren't done until 8:30 or 9 and then I was too tired and hungry to move anything. Saturday was our cleaning day and I have to say that I don't know if the bathrooms in that house have ever been so clean. We spent time on the basement as well so now our little livingroom place feels much more useable which I appreciate. I need to get a dehumidifier for the basement and our laundry area could use a once over, but on the whole it is all looking very nice. Again, I promise to have pictures up before the week is out. Perhaps tonight I will be able to finish the move and take a few to put up here. 

Job News

I am very excited to announce that I have accepted a position as Operations Director at Kid Power. This is the same place I have been working (through MVS) for the last year, but now I get paid!! This position is a new one in which I will be taking on a variety of responsibilities such as training new staff, completing site visits for quality control, entering attendance data, and various other office duties. I still have another job interview for a math teaching position tomorrow. I may or may not go since I am not sure how I feel about being a classroom teacher at this point. I have to have an entire hour long lesson ready to go as part of the interview process so I am going to begin working on that tonight in case I decide to go. The thing is, I am feeling really excited about this position at Kid Power and know that I will enjoy working there. During the last year I have been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do as far as a career. I realize I am not passionate about teaching, but it is what I am qualified to do. Teaching also pays better than what I am doing now so I almost feel like I am cheating myself. But teaching is much more demanding and I won't be done with work when I get home at 6 each evening. I don't know if I am trying to justify wanting to take the Kid Power job (because it is easier) or if I honestly don't want to teach at all. Before other job interviews Ihave felt nervous, but right now I feel a sense of dread. Perhaps God has provided me with my answer simply through that. I am afraid that I am over-thinking everything now.

In other news since I am staying in the MVS house next year I am planning on moving to the basement where I will have my own bathroom. The room is only 8' x 13' and has no carpeting - only cold rough cement. The room I am in now is twice the size. It was also a really ugly bright purple until yesterday. I spent my first day of unemployment painting the room "bird's egg blue" and I painted the trim "woven basket" yellow today. The yellow is left over from when Mom and I painted my current room back in October. I am excited to get some carpeting and put up lights in the closet so that I can begin moving in at some point. It still needs a lot of work, but it is looking 100x's better already. There is still trim missing from around the door to the room and all along one wall. I have "before" and "during" pictures, but I am going to wait to post them until I have the "after" pictures as well. To be clear, I am not being forced to move to the basement, I decided that since I am going to be changing rooms anyway having a project to work on while I am unemployed sounded good. I like the idea of taking something ugly and run down and getting it into much nicer shape. Also I have a few leads on carpeting so that should be taken care of by the end of the week. I am hoping to be moved sometime next week so I will post pictures then.

Where I place my hope

I still have not gotten a job offer. I know that I could be really stressed out about this, but I have been working really hard on making sure that I am placing my hope in Christ. Today during work I listened to a sermon I missed while I was home a few weeks ago. It is titled Being a Woman and if you are interested you can listen to it here. It reminded me once again that ultimately I have no control over my future and stressing is not going to help. I need to learn to be happy with who I am and trust that God, who loves me, will take care of me and lead me to the position that is right for me. He knows me better than I do and other than put in dozens of job applications there isn't much else I can do right now. Which is exactly what I have been doing. There is nothing for me to do in the office since summer camp is over and the school year doesn't start for about another month so I have been filling our job applications nonstop.

I have another job interview tomorrow afternoon. I applied to this position a month ago and I had written it off since I hadn't heard from them until now. It would be another Americorp position so it would not pay very well, but I just agreed to live in the MVS house for another year as an associate. This means that I will be a member of the MVS house community and take part in their activities while paying rent instead of working as a volunteer. I know three people who have done this job before and they all said they liked it and that I would be really good at it so I am very hopeful that it will work out.

In other, more fun, news on Saturday our house went to the beach! It was nice to get away and do something different. This also means that I got nothing done over the weekend and my room is a mess not to mention the pile of laundry I need to work on. We had a lot of fun though (despite getting mixed up on the buses in Ocean City and wasting a lot of time and some money). I got a sunburn on my back though so I ended up bringing back a little more than hidden sand.

The last Month

So I realize it has been a full month since I last posted on here. Summer camp has started and so I am keeping busy. I am in charge of the reading and writing class and cooking class. So far I have had the students look at song lyrics to find literary devices, write stories based on the pictures from Chris Van Allsbusg's book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, and now they are working on a comic book. There are still three weeks left of camp and I feel like I am running out of ideas for these kids. The really don't want to have to "do work" but I have to do something academic with them that involves reading and writing for 45 minutes each day. We are through with the first three weeks of camp so there are just three more weeks to go. This also means that my volunteer position is ending in about a month.

I am still not sure what I am going to do after my MVS term is done come mid-August. I have made a contact at Montgomery County Public Schools so there is the potential that I may get a paraeducator position. I have also been back and forth with a family who is looking for a nanny for their 6 month old son. The nanny position would be only until December and the paraeducator position would be outside the city so I am unsure of which I prefer at this point. Assuming that I get one of these positions - or another in the next few weeks - I will also need somewhere to live. I have been feeling very stressed as I try to figure out these things so prayers are welcome. I keep trying to remind myself that God as a plan for me but that is hard to believe at times when I look at the calendar and realize that in a month I am going to be homeless and without a job if something doesn't come together soon. (Well really I will just move home to Iowa - but I still won't have a job)

Despite all the stress I have been feeling I have managed to enjoy myself. On the 29th of June I participated in the Armageddon Ambush with Corey, Alisha, and Cara. It was a 5K mud and color run that included 15 obstacles. It was a lot of fun but at lest 8 of those obstacles were hills which sucked. The following week included the 4th which was fun. I didn't go to the mall for the fireworks but instead sat on Corey's balcony where we could see around 10 different shows - although they were far away. On the 5th Anne, Keith and I had the day off so we drove to Great Falls and checked out some views, hiked, and climbed on many rocks. On the 6th Catrina showed up and so we had fun hanging out and catching up. We were able to see a Nats game on Sunday that included several home runs (one of which was a grand-slam) and a concert by Third Day after the game. She was here until Wednesday. On Tuesday was my first flag football game. Our team is new and trying to figure out all the strange rules of the league, but we managed to win our first game so that is promising.

Here are some pictures of everything that has been happening:

 The Great Falls

Keith dropping his water bottle in the river as he attempted to touch the water.

Our garden has been growing!

We also spent a day putting mulch around the garden beds to keep it all looking nice. 

National's Game!

The concert after.

Catrina and I decided to try oysters for the first (and probably last) time.