CRAZY WEEK!!!

I know I know. I did bad updating the blog this last week. ALOT happened and most nights I was lucky if I made it to 9pm without crashing in bed. Here is a quick recap of the week:

Wed.- My first day of orientation, technically site visit days. I had to be on campus, at the Elliott School by 730 sharp or they said they would leave me. This meant I had to be getting on the metro at 615 and get up at 445 to make sure I was ready. Man, being an adult and waking up at the crack of dawn is NOT fun! But this day it was TOTALLY worth it! I chose to go on the intelligence site visits which meant that the school took me to the CIA and the ONI (office of naval intelligence). I'm not exactly sure what I can post up here about my visits, but what I can say is that a) Security was INTENSE! b) I really want to work in intelligence and c) if you ever get a chance to go visit either of these places, you should, its awesome!

Anyways, by the time we got back to the school at 5 I was completely exhausted. Being professional and networking is so exhausting. I walked down into the metro and made my first metro riding mistake. Looking back, I'm not sure if I fell asleep on the bench, zoned out, or just was not paying attention at all. Anyways, I got on the wrong train and rode it 4 stops before I even realized it.....embarassing....so then I had to get off and backtrack. Needless to say I pay alot more attention now!

But by the time I walked back inside our apt. building I got the phone call that I had been waiting for all week. A few weeks ago I applied to by the teaching assistant for an undergraduate class in the Elliott School. It was a film and foreign policy class taught by Ambassador Indefurth (the director of my masters program). I applied thinking there was no way I'd get it because I wasn't qualified. Well, I got a phone interview, then a real interview, then they offered me the job!!! So, twice a week I'll be in the class helping the Ambassador teach his class and then grade all of the papers for him. I'm way excited! Since people have been asking just who Ambassador Indefurth is, here is his bio from the Elliott School Website:

Karl F. Inderfurth


John O. Rankin Professor of the Practice of International Affairs

Director, Graduate Program in International Affairs
 
Expertise:


U.S.-South Asian Relations; National Security Council; United Nations and Peacekeeping; Disarmament and Security Affairs



Background:

Ambassador Inderfurth served as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs (1997-2001), Special Representative of the President and Secretary of State for Global Humanitarian Demining (1997-98) and U.S. Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations, with ambassadorial rank, where he also served as Deputy U.S. Representative on the U.N. Security Council (1993-1997). Ambassador Inderfurth has worked as a national security and Moscow Correspondent for ABC News (1981-91) and received an Emmy Award in 1983. He has also served on the staffs of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees and the National Security Council. He co-authored Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council (2004), along with Professor Loch K. Johnson, and is a frequent op/ed contributor and commentator in the national media.

Needless to say, I had an awesome Wed.
 
Thursday- This was my official orientation day. We attended lots of seminars on academic success, career center counseling, plans of study, etc. I met lots of great people but it was pretty intimidating. I was surrounded by these amazing people who have been doing incredible things with their lives the last few years. It's kind of awkward when you ask someone "hey, nice to meet you, what have you been up to before you came here" response "oh, you know, I've just been working in Bolivia with an NGO to bring clean water to dying children. what have you been doing?" my response: "wow, that's awesome. I've been working the front desk of a lousy hotel in college station, tx." Lame. Oh well, I got in based on my past experienes (i.e. Kyrgyzstan) so usually throwing that detail into the mix made people like me a little better. During lunch I had to sneak away to fill out my newhire paperwork. Somehow our schedules worked out and Caleb and I were able to find a bench halfway between his school and mine to have a lovely lunch date! We'll definitely have to find time in our schedules to do that more often. At the end of orientation we had a "networking" event on the roof of the school. First, let me say that the view was AMAZING! You could see the entire Washington monument, the Capitol, State Department, most of the memorials. Wow. They served fru fru food (i.e. hummus) and drinks and told us to network with fellow students, faculty, staff, and employers. After these first two days it became clear that "networking" is one of the biggest things that the Elliott School pushes.
 
Friday- Friday I attended an orientation session for the library. After YEARS of library presentations, I have to say that this one was particularly entertaining. Plus, who can complain when the library actually lets you eat and drink in the library! Amazing!!!! After the library, I had several Crossmark retail projects to do from Maryland, DC and Virginia. Since Caleb is done early on Fridays, he went with me. It was nice to actually spend some time together that wasn't both of us sitting at our desks in the office.
 
Saturday- To escape from a week's worth of law school, Caleb got up early on Saturday and went with a friend from the Bush school down to the Glen Beck rally. The metro was so packed that they ended up WALKING to the Lincoln memorial. That's about a 3 mile walk, around the Pentagon and across the bridge. I can't believe they walked that far. Anyways, they really enjoyed that rally and according to them, there were 500,000 people there. By Saturday night, I needed a break from the apartment, so we road the metro down to the Capitol and went to a restaurant called "Good Stuff Eatery." It's a burger, fries, and milkshake place and it was AMAZING! If anyone watches Top Chef on Bravo, it's Spike from a few seasons' ago restaurant. It was easily the best burger I've ever had. And the place was PACKED! I'm thinking about having my birthday dinner there.
 
Sunday- Since we got up here, we have been attending First Baptist Church of Alexandria. It's really funny, for MONTHS before we moved up here we prayed and prayed that God would show us the perfect church to go to. The first weekend we were up here we just happened to visit there because it was close and someone from Caleb's church in Little Rock suggested it. So far it has been amazing. The church has probably about 2,500 people in 2 services on Sunday, its a perfect mix of classic and contemporary service, they are VERY misssion oriented, especially towards Central Asia and have even had a Kyrgyz yurt up in the church the last few weeks and served Kyrgyz food as a way to tell about their mission work. We have LOVED the sunday school class we have been visiting, the Fun Young Couples, which includes an Aggie couple, a Baylor couple, and several others from the South. AND, yesterday I caught up with one of my sorority sisters who apparently that is her home church! It's amazing how God brought us directly to this church. Anyways, on Sunday we joined! We just felt like it was so perfect we wanted to go ahead and join and get involved. We came home and made our own fajitas for lunch, which was great and then just spent the afternoon hanging out.
 
Monday- Caleb headed back to school. He feels like he is getting a good grasp on law school, which is good! And it seems like he keeps meeting more people like him. Yesterday he met an Ok. Sooner that he liked. Yesterday I ended up having an interview for ANOTHER teaching assistant position- this one for an intro to Russian and Eurasian history course. I thought the interview just went okay. Then, I had to meet with the Ambassador to prepare for the first class on Tuesday. He is already putting me to work! I'm a little nervous. As Caleb and I met up to ride the metro home together, the other professor called and offered me the other TA job! So now I'm "teaching" 2 classes!!! I'm super excited- and we definitely needed the money. This way I'll be on campus more, can probably see Caleb more, and can hopefully keep on top of my own work.
 
Tuesday- Today is my first day of class! I have to prep and assist the Ambassador's class at 3:30 until 6:00 today and then I have my first class from 7:10-9pm. Since the Elliott School only has night class, I'm having to adjust to living my schedule backwards. Now, I get up early and do all of my work and when everyone else is finishing school around 3-5, I'm heading TO school. I was nice today, I laid out everything for Caleb to cook dinner tonight. Ah, the roles have reversed. Should be interesting!
 
I promise to be better about updating. If there is anything else you want to hear about from us just let me know! Sometimes I feel like my updates are boring. Have a great day everyone!

First Day

Well, today was Caleb's first day of law school. I got up early and made his favorite breakfast

Then we packed his bag, packed his lunch, and sent him on his way! All morning, Scarlett knew something was up. She laid by his backpack and acted sad.

Here is Caleb's first day of law school picture:

And here is Scarlett's "my dad just left on his first day of law school" face:

He had a really great day today. 3 different classes. Luckily the metro cooperated this morning and he had no problem getting to school. He seems to like his professors and his classmates pretty well. He was surprised that they weren't harder on them on the first day. I'm sure that they were just trying to be nice on the first day :)

I was so nervous for him last night that I ended up doing all of our laundry, cleaning the entire kitchen (including the refrigerator), doing the dishes, vacumning the entire apartment, and cleaning both bathrooms. Crazy... I know. I realized that I hadn't put up picture for the rest of the apartment! Here are pics of everything else but the office (its still a mess).

Caleb's bathroom

Of course there is a pic of George Washington

My bathroom

The bedroom

Caleb's side of the bed

My side of the bed

Closet

Well, I guess that's all I've got for tonight. Tomorrow is my last day of freedom. Wednesday is my career site visit day, Thursday is official orientation, and Friday is Introduction to the library day (I take it as a bad sign there is a whole day devoted to this)

Inspirational Trip

Caleb has been wanting to take an inspirational trip to Mt. Vernon before school started. We tried last weekend but when we pulled into the parking lot at 10am it was PACKED and we decided to abort the mission. We also decided that we we try again this weekend but made sure that we were there by 9am. Much better. We watched a movie about the trials and tribulations that Washington faced (the film was introduced by Pat Sajack in colonial garb- hilarious!), went on a tour of the mansion and then walked the grounds.

The Mansion

View of the Potomac from the back of the house

They have preserved the grounds as a real farm so we got to see lots of livestock and plants.

Me and Old George's mule

Caleb and the mule

Chickens

Pigs

We walked through the gardens and the orchards and looked at all the plants. They have a map that identifies all of the trees for you. We saw apples, plums, pears, peaches, and then it claims that there are cherry trees. In the entire orchard, this was the only one we found.

We thought it was weird that the single small limb was all that Washington's home had of a cherry tree, but then we remembered a particular story from history, reminding us that Washington was known to chop down his cherry trees.....

We were going to go to Baltimore last night to watch the Rangers play the Orioles but the Rangers have played so lousy lately, we didn't want to waste the money. Plus, Caleb already has tons of homework to do, even though school doesn't start until Monday.

Scarlett doesn't seem to understand that her mom and dad are going to be very busy studying and can't play with her all the time. She insists on being played with, to the point of making herself a complete pest. Caleb was trying to read last night and I caught this showdown

I'll let you guess who won this power of wills! I thought it was pretty cute.

New Identities

This story begins last Friday. Caleb and I decided that before school got crazy we better go and get our Virginia driver's licenses. The Virginia DMV has what seemed to be the coolest thing ever - you can go online and see what the average wait time is at all of the nearby DMVs. When we checked the website, it said that Arlington was 45 minutes, Springfield was 40 minutes, and Alexandria was 18 minutes. Obviously we chose Alexandria.

By the time we made it to the DMV in Alexandria, which I should mention here is a very diverse area, the line was literally out the door. We waited 20 minutes just to get our ticket and sit down. We also waited behind a girl who I have affectionately been calling "jammies" because she was not only wearing her pajamas and slippers, but looked like she had JUST rolled out of bed and smelled like she had last showered I don't even know when. Anyways, that is beside the point.

When we got out tickets, we were 37C and 38C. The board showed that they were on 28C. The 18 minute wait came and went. After about 20 minutes we finally found seats together. We quickly learned that there were MANY categories of people being called, in fact, there were A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, M, N, P, R, T, and X. Ridiculous right!

We sat, and sat and sat and saw some REALLY interesting things. Let's start with the girl who sat 2 rows behind us with her mom. She was there for her first license. We didn't hear anything out of her until another young guy sat down next to Caleb. Apparently they went to the same school before she got kicked out and sent to juvy.... o, and by the way, her mom won't let her out of the house until she gives birth to her baby. Whoa....

Next, we'll turn to Mr. Anger Managment. The DMV was set up so that there were about 12 counters at the front and then the rest of the room had chairs sitting and facing the counters so you could see what was happening. This guy was wearing work boots, shorts, a tshirt and a nationals vizer. He had been at the counter about 15 minutes and finally got through all of the paperwork to take his picture for his license. I guess the lady asked him to lower his chin but didn't take the picture fast enough for his pleasure. He voiced his displeasure rather loudly and rudely. The frightened worker then refused to serve him any further. This infuriated him. The manager then got involved. She explained the process to him and asked him to calm down. He was still mad that the other girl would not serve him. As he mouthed off about it being his tax dollars that kept the DMV open to serve him, a US citizen, the manager called for security. Things got really real really fast. As security touched him on the arm, it was like a bomb exploded. Obsenities, racials slurs, I mean EVERYTHING came out of his mouth. I actually remember judging the distance between me in him in case he tried to escape from the security officer/pull a gun. In retrospect, I was overreacting, but it was still incredibly scary and yet entertaining. I think the guy is a moron because he waited 1 1/2 hours, got all the way to the point of taking his picture, and just ended up getting escorted out by security.

We continued to wait. At the 2 hour point, they called my number. Unlike in Texas where all you have to do is show them your driver's license and a local piece of mail, Virginia seriously does a full background check. I had to have: my Tx driver's license, my social security card, my passport, my marriage certificate, and a piece of local mail. Ridiculous. PLUS, once I got to the window, the girl decided that my Verizon service order with my full name and address on it wouldn't work! Luckily, I had prepared for the worst. I brought an old pay stub with our forwarding address on it. She still wouldn't accept it! Because I had done a family forwarding and so it only had "Osborne" as the forwarding name, she couldn't verify it was mine.... EVEN THOUGH IT WAS A PAY STUB WITH MY NAME ON IT! I was about to pull a Mr. Anger Management and freak out on them, when the girl said she would ask her manager. Like I told Caleb, I had waited for more than 2 hours, I wasn't leaving without my license (ironic that is the same phrase that got Mr. Anger Management kicked out).

Luckily, the manager was a reasonable woman and said my verizon work order would work.... either that, or she saw the look in my eye and figured she didn't want to have a repeat and have to deal with Mrs. Anger Management. Next interesting thing about VA licenses.... you aren't allowed to smile! And, they're black and white. At that point, I didn't care. I gave them my best "neutral expression," paid my $30 and walked out the door. Caleb and I are trying not to spend money, but after that we had to go out to lunch and go shopping for a bit.

Anyways, all that story to say that our licenses came in the mail today. I seriously laughed out loud for 5 minutes when I opened them. I don't know if it's that they are black and white, I don't know if it's because we weren't allowed to smile, or if it was all the stress of 2 hours in the DMV, but they look like mug shots. Seriously. Ready to have a laugh?

Don't we make an attractive, happy looking pair? Best part... these will be our IDs until 2017. Whoop!

Grocery Store Appreciation Day

I am declaring today grocery store appreciation day. Most of you probably don't know, but to help Caleb and I earn a little bit of money, I am doing retail work for Crossmark. What exactly is retail work? Well, I'm glad you asked. There are 2 types, resets and projects work. Project work is where you go into individual stores and do a task by yourself- example: this week I have to go to 9 CVS's in the area and

a) measure their gastro intestinal section and report back its size and
b) set up sunscreen displays and make sure that everything is stocked.

Not bad, especially because it is flexible. You get assigned tasks and have 2 weeks to go do it. Perfect for a student. Alright, then there are resets. Let me preface this by saying, STEPHANIE HATES RESETS. These are where you go into a store as part of a team and do a HUGE (usually 4-8 hour) project. Last week, I was assigned to my first reset. I met with 10 of my new "friends" in Mclean, VA at a grocery store. We proceeded to take EVERY box of cereal off of the rack, change the aisle from being 4 shelves to 5 shelves and then completely reorder, restock, tag, and stock all of the cereal. You can imagine how fun it was.

Now, on to why today is grocery appreciation day. Today I started day one of a three day, 8 1/2 hour a day project. Fun, huh. I was told it was a reset in Centreville (45 minutes away). When I showed up, I found an ethnic grocery store under construction. But to my surprise, this was not so much a reset as much as it was a set up....

Have you every wondered how all of the food in a grocery store got put in its place, how it all fit correctly, how it was organized, continually stocked, etc? Drum roll please..... yes, that was me today. I walked into an empty grocery store with 25 pallets of food that were taller than me. We had to lug the boxes down the aisles to their general "food group." Then we had to build all of the shelves. Next, we had to organize and figure out how to fit everything nicely on the shelves, then place all the price tags. Next we had to unpack all the boxes and stock the shelves. There were 20 of us there and we worked 8 1/2 hours. We finished 1 and a half aisles..... ya.

So, in honor of all my hard work today I am declaring it grocery store appreciation day. The next time you are in the grocery store, take a moment to appreciate the food you are taking off of the shelves. Say a silent thank you to the people like me who get up at the crack of dawn and kill themselves so that the food is so nicely organized for you. If you take something off of the shelf, put it back in its spot and make sure its facing forward. Because you know why.... when you don't.... people like me get up at the crack of dawn and come back behind you and spin it back to face forward. : )

Anyways, enough of that. Tomorrow is Caleb's first day of law school orientation, so if you get a moment say a quick prayer for him tomorrow. I know he's going to great! Well, I better start heading to bed... I have to be in my car on the road at 6am tomorrow. Ah, a day in the life of a grocery store resetter.

WE MADE IT!!!!

WE MADE IT!!!! And it seems like so much has happened since I last posted I have enough info for 100 posts! Here is the brief version.....

Micah and Kelsey are married!!!!!

The wedding was absolutely beautiful and the reception so much fun! I officially now have my 4th sister! Sunday after the wedding, we had one last family lunch with Caleb's family before my parents picked us up to hit the road. We thought it would be a good idea to leave the uhaul at the church and just have them pick us up in the 4runner and then go back to the truck because Caleb's street is so hilly. However.... we didn't think about that the car would have the seats down in the back and be completely packed with stuff. So..... this is how me and my mom road back to the uhaul

It was interesting but at least it distracted us from crying as we drove away. Our first stop was Nashville. I should probably stop here and say that the only pictures I took between here and DC were of Scarlett. By the end of each day, having driven/rode in the 4runner with the dog or in the uhaul I was so tired and so gross I definitely didn't want to take pictures of myself so......

Here is Scarlett at the hotel in Nashville

Here is Scarlett in the hotel in Harrisonburg, VA

Here is Scarlett in our new place saying please don't put me in the car anymore!

We finally made it in to Arlington, VA around lunch last Tuesday and the moving craziness began. The initial plan was for us to live here for a year and then move somewhere else. Let's just say that after moving everything in here, we won't be going anywhere for a long time.

We are learning that the 9th floor has its advantages and disadvantages. It took a couple of days but we have finally convinced Scarlett to use her puppy pad on the balcony. We still try to take her down to the park out front at least once/twice a day, but for the rest of the time, the balcony it is!

We thought it would be nice that we are facing the park and not the busy street and mall, which it is, BUT the park has a public soccer field and I promise you people are out there 24-7 playing. We like to leave our balcony door open for some fresh air, but then you have to listen to them hoop and holler over there. Caleb thinks we should find the schedules, pick teams and actually start following them.

Alot of people have been asking, and where we live is technically Arlington, VA. We live in an area called Pentagon City which is right on the metro. We live just down the street from the Pentagon, just across the river from DC, and just North of Alexandria. If you walk out our front door, you walk straight to a park. If you walk straight out the back door, you walk about 20 feet into a Nordstroms (HEAVEN!!!!) Attached to the Nordstroms is a Ritz Carlton and a 4 story mall full of EVERYTHING you could ever want. The metro itself is actually beneath the mall so its SUPER close. Across the street from the mall is a California Pizza Kitchen, Best Buy, Costco, Nordstrom Rack, and a Mexican food restaurant that's not too bad (yay!) If you walk the other direction, there is a nice area called Pentagon row. It's got lots of shops/cafes on the bottom floors and then apartments above. There is a Champs, Bally's fitness, Bed Bath and Beyond, Smoothie King, Harris Teeter (our grocery store), etc. etc. So we basically live within reach of anything we could need. It took about 2 days to find but if you drive 2 miles we can get to a Target and a movie theater.

Even though our apartment is not that big it has taken FOREVER to get everything put away. We also had to wait a week once we got here for them to come set up cable and internet (which is why this blog post is so delayed). It is just now finally starting to feel like a real house. Here are a few pictures of the more "finished" rooms:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this kitchen. The one in our first place (which I from here on will refer to as "the hole" was so old and nasty. This kitchen has stainless steel appliances, and an oven that actually works, a nice microwave, a sprayer connected to the sink, the dishwasher actually cleans the dishes, and there is counter space! AHHHHH I LOVE it! I drug Caleb to Whole Foods with me to load up with good food (his comment is that he approves of the food but doesn't feel very manly in there so from here on out I have to shop by myself). My mother-in-law also makes the BEST chocolate chip cheesecake, so to honor my new kitchen, I made one:

Here are a few pictures of/from our balcony.

Our view of the soccer field

My plant and Scarlett's puppy pad

Scarlett LOVES her new home

Ok, this is the last room I'm posting for the night. When you first walk into our apartment, there are two closets immediately to the right. One is our linen/trash/cleaning supply/junk closet and the other is the pantry. The kitchen is to the left and the living room walks straight through to the balcony.

Yes, I know. We have alot of books..... We also want to put a few pictures on the wall but we can't seem to find any good ones... like old black and white or DC landmarks etc. We're still looking but its a good start. Our "entertainment center" is actually 4 different pieces from ikea (Caleb hated me for making him put them together but they were cheap!) and then our tv. I LOVE it! It makes it look like an entertainment center even though its just bookcases and dvd shelves. As you probably noticed, no, we do not have a dining room table. Sadly, it was one of the pieces of furniture that did not make it out of College Station when the trailer was too full. Sooooo, until further notice we are eating on TV trays. I kind of like it. I think it fits us... two poor students living in the big city haha. O well.

Well, I better turn in. We tried a church last weekend that we liked and are going back to visit a Sunday school class there tomorrow. I'll update again soon and show off some of the other rooms! Also, if there is anyone else that you think would enjoy reading this or keeping track of us, feel free to pass it along! Goodnite!