Birthday Paw-ty

Scarlett has had quite an eventful week, starting with the snow storm and ending with her birthday paw-ty on Saturday. In case you are new to my blog, Scarlett and I are in the pomeranian club of Northern Virginia. And before you judge, Scarlett spends ALOT of time by herself in this apartment so its nice every now and again to play with other pomeranians. And, to reassure my mother-in-law and all other readers, this is safe, there are no axe murderers in the group. In fact, it is mostly middle-age/older ladies who have never married and have 3+ pomeranians as their children. This was our second event - we attended the Howl-o-ween Paw-ty in the fall and then on Saturday they held an event to celebrate all of the dogs' birthdays. The dogs played, the humans ate brunch, and then each dog got to leave with a birthday present. It was great fun! They are already planning a swimming paw-ty for the summer. Scarlett LOVES to swim so we can't wait. Here are some of my favorite pics of Scarlett from this last week of snow/paw-tying. Note: she wore her favorite sweater that my mom gave her for Christmas to the paw-ty. It was a big hit!

 Waiting not so patiently at the elevator to go on a walk

 Putting on our favorite sweater to go to the birthday paw-ty!!!

 Lounging! How can you resist this face!?!

Here are some of Scarlett's friends from the paw-ty!!!

Of course Scarlett would be the dog more interested in getting attention from the other owners than playing with the other dogs... Here she is being an attention hog

 Okay seriously... it's like she knows exactly what's she is doing and is so proud of herself...

 Her favorite part of the paw-ty was playing in the back yard!

 She thought she was going to jump in the pool and go for a swim only to find that it was completely frozen over and she skidded all the way across. I sooooo wish I had a video camera to tape it. She was so confused!

 Getting stuck in the snow

The snow was REALLY deep

 This is one of my favorite pics of Scarlett (she's running towards me) Of course the snow is as tall as she is haha

And here is the present she went home with. Inside was a stuffed ram which is made of such soft material is has no chance of making it past the week and a special towel for drying her off after baths. I guess I should take that as a sign that I should be giving her baths... we'll see.

Gratitude

Sorry for the blog delay. It has been a busy week. In fact, right now we are hunkered down for our first "blizzard." (I'm sure people from the northeast are laughing at that- but to me, 6+ inches of snow in a few hours is a blizzard!). Here are a few pictures of our snow storm, hour by hour:

And it's still snowing.... Neither of us has ever seen snow like this. Luckily my class got cancelled tonight and we are hoping for delayed starts tomorrow :)

Sooooo since I have some extra time on my hands, I'm catching up on my blogging. In my attempt to do more DC things, I've planned 1 fun thing for us to do each week. Last weekend, I had planned a trip to Arlington National Cemetery. When we woke up the temperature was 18 with a windchill of 11. It was sooooooo tempting to call it off, but I figured that set a bad precedent for my list of DC things to do/see, so we bundled up and off we went. We decided to make it a quick trip, 1 to 1 1/2 hrs tops.... We were there for 3 and I was pretty much dragging Caleb to the metro.

As someone who has never been to Arlington National Cemetery, I was overwhelmed by the emotions I felt there. I couldn't believe how many tombstones there were, it absolutely broke my heart. At one point we passed two young men, not much older than us, laying a wreath on a grave and crying as they walked away. I didn't know them or know of their loss, but I just wanted to cry with them. But at the same time, I was overwhelmed by an all-encompassing feeling of gratitude. Everywhere I walked I saw the names of those who had not only risked, but sacrificed, their lives for this country. It was unbelievable. I always knew there were alot of graves there, but until you see it, you can't understand the power of it.

Whatever you may think of the Kennedy family, the memorials to JFK and RFK were unbelievably inspirational. From their memorials you can look over a view of the entire city as you read famous quotes from them. It reminds you of the great dreams they had for America, and inspires you to pick up where they left off. Even Caleb, who does not think so highly of the Kennedys, agreed that their memorials are very well done.

 

I think his favorite part of the tour was going through Robert E. Lee's house, but he just has not been able to get past the fact that the US government stole his land and used it for the cemetery. Like I told him, yes, that was probably not very fun at the time, but if you could raise good ole Robert from the dead today, I'm fairly certain he would be honored that his land was used to honor the legacy and memory of American soldiers through the ages. He didn't like it... but he agreed.

It was a great mini-day trip. I can't wait to see what our other DC plans have in store. When we got back though, we were met with an unfortunate suprise. As we plopped in bed to go to bed Saturday night, we were greeted with a giant snapping noise. Awesome. We broke our bed.

I must confess that I have been very ungrateful lately. When we traveled from Dallas and when we went to NY, we stayed in hotels with King beds. I love king beds- I love all the space- and so I haven't been very nice about my queen bed. We are SOOOOOO lucky to have this bed- it was my great grandparents and when they moved, they let us have it. If they hadn't who knows what we would be sleeping on. BUT, lately I've been plotting when I can replace it with a nice big king bed, even though we don't have the money or space for a king bed, I've just been being ungrateful. So, you can imagine how I felt when the bed broke. Luckily, I was reminded of how grateful I should be a) for great grandparents who so generously let us have the bed b) a bed to sleep on at all and c) for a husband who was able to fix the bed AND willing to sleep on the futon 2 nights to let the glue set up.

So we are back to normal and I am learning to be happy with what I have. I can dream of king beds, but for now I am loving my queen. Well, I think I'm going to make hot chocolate and put in a movie to top off our blizzard day, but I will definitely update again soon!

O, I almost forgot- Scarlett is good to. Just lounging around like a spoiled dog, BUT she does have something very fun coming up this weekend!!! She looks excited doesn't she?

New York City

For all of you who thought our 1st anniversary celebration of leftovers and errands wasn't romantic, don't worry, we all but made up for it with our weekend trip to NYC!!! Since Monday was holiday from work and school, we decided to get away for a weekend. I've been to New York before, but this was Caleb's first trip. We had SO SO SO SO SO much fun. We really didn't want to come back. I warn you this blog post will be long- we crammed SO much fun in 3 days.

As you are probably thinking, flights to New York are expensive. So, we took the bus! For $15, you too can ride a double decker bus with free wi-fi to New York City. Unfortunately our bus was late leaving on Friday and overbooked so we got to watch some angry New Yorkers get left behind and didn't even get to the city until about 8pm. Once we got there, we went out for a nice anniversary dinner

And then we walked around time square!

We turned in early because we had tickets to take a boat out to the Statue of Liberty first thing the next morning. Let me start by saying that DC is cold, New York is FRIGID! We are talking single digits/teens with windchills even colder. So, first thing Saturday morning standing in a line next to the water/riding on a boat was MISERABLE. Luckily, while we waited in line, we met an Aggie family. They were entertaining their kids with a trivia game- Caleb and I secretly played along. Of course there were also a set of British men who found it "ridiculous" and "ludicrous" that they were being shuffled around "like cattle." Caleb found them incredibly entertaining.

When we finally got to the island, we dashed for the indoor line. Luckily we reserved tickets in advance and got to go all the way up to the crown! First you go through a museum where you get to see the original torch

Then started the fun part. First there are about 150 regular staircase steps to remind you how out of shape you are. Then starts the winding staircase- another 200+ steps that are so steep and narrow they make you wonder if you've made a mistake going up them...

But right about the time you think you might freak out, you make it to the top. Here we are in the crown of the statue of liberty!!!

The problem is that once you get to the top, you get to walk all the way back down. My legs were like jello the rest of the time. When we got to the bottom and started figuring out the rest of our day, we realized we needed to grab food on the island and eat it fast. We got a burgers and fries and started speed walking towards the boat. We were almost there when something hit me in the face and grabbed my hand. IT WAS A SEAGULL! A BRAZEN seagull the dared to flap me in the face and attempt to grab my burger out of my hand... as I was raising it to my mouth! I was furious and kind of freaked out. Needless to say I did not eat any more of my burger and was afraid of birds the rest of the trip. Here are a few pics from the boat

We didn't have time to actually visit Ellis Island but Caleb ran off the boat while they docked so he could say he at least went there and went inside the museum. Once back, we dashed over for Caleb to be able to see Ground Zero. It has changed so much since I was last there. I went with my youth group in 2003 when it was still just a hole in the ground with flowers and pictures and letters against the grate. Now there are cranes and the beginnings of new buildings. After Ground Zero, we walked down to Wall Street.

That night we went to a restaurant called Buddakan. My friend Lindsay used to work there AND a chef from my favorite tv show Top Chef, Dale, works there as the chef. The food was FANTASTIC- seriously the best food either one of us has maybe ever eaten. PLUS, they brought out Dale and I got to meet him. He was soooooo nice. AND, to top it off, Kelly Ripa sat across the room from us. How much cooler could that place have been? It was awesome!! After dinner we walked around Chelsea Market before heading in for the night.

Sunday we slept in which was SO nice. When we woke up we wandered around Time Square a bit and found...

Then came the main event. We got on the subway and headed to the bronx...

After our tour of Yankee Stadium, which by the way our tour consisted of all loud, obnxious locals..... and us..... we were like true New Yorkers and ate pizza in a hole in the wall place in the Bronx. Delicious. After that we headed back and made a stop at the Museum of Natual History. It was PACKED- I've never seen so many people in a museum.

Sunday night we went to see the Lion King. When I was little my dad took me to see the tour of it in Dallas and I remember it being one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I was hoping Caleb would like it as well. It was great, better than I remember it when I was a kid. Caleb liked it to!

After the show we ate at Stardust diner, where all the people who haven't quite made their big break on broadway yet work. They sing to you while you eat. After that we wandered around Times Square for awhile and had a blast!

Then we made a detour over to Rockefeller Center

Monday was our last half day. We got up early and headed to the Empire State building. At first we were just going up to the 86th floor but then decided to go on up to the 102.

Unfortunately that was the end of our New York adventure. We had to catch a bus back to DC, to the snow and sleet, to work and to school - reality. Although neither one of us wanted to come back, we feel so refreshed. Sometimes you just need to get away for awhile. Plus, I can't think of a better way to celebrate our 1st anniversary. Traveling and adventures are something I love, and to be able to share those passions with Caleb- I can't think of anything better. As we drive out of NYC, we said that it may be 5-10 years before we get to do anything as fun/cool as this trip, but that gives us 5-10 years to plan something really amazing!