Pentagon Picnic & A Surprise!!!

Soooo... our apartment still isn't completely set up. I know I know its taking forever but as soon as its ready, you'll know and I will post pictures. So... I will blog about my pentagon department's picnic and then... keep reading... we've been keeping a surprise from everyone and just can't keep it in anymore (NO.... it is NOT a baby...for those of you holding out on that, you're going to be waiting a long time....)

So each year, my department at the pentagon has a picnic. I volunteered to help this year and signed up for the first-ever bake off! Once my office found out that I could bake, they put all their faith in me and were REALLY into me winning. They even sent me home early the day before so I could start baking! I spent the two weeks before digging up my best recipes, mostly southern ones, from my mom, my grandmas, my mother in law, paula deen and anything else that looked good on the internet. There were 3 categories for the bake-off: cookies, cakes/cupcakes, and pies. I have to admit that I got way more into the competition than I needed to. But, when I could either unpack boxes or bake goodies, I definitely chose the baking. After lots of narrowing, I chose 10 recipes (sorry I didn't get pics of all of them):

CAKES:

Coffee-cream filled chocolate cupcakes

Deep-fried truffle stuffed cupcakes (sorry no pic, but they were delicious!)
Mississippi Mud Cake

Summer Strawberry Cake

COOKIES:
Ooey Gooey Chocolate Butter Cookies

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

Raspberry-Lemon Whoopie Pies

PIES:
Chocolate Chip Cheesecake (before getting covered in chocolate sauce)

Mini Key Lime Pie Tarts (sorry no pic!)

I can't tell you how much fun it was to play Betty Crocker for a week. The picnic was at a military base in DC. As a volunteer, I had to go pick up 10 trays of Subway sandwiches and 100 pounds of potato salad, carry 2 large coolers and bring all of my desserts. People up here drive miniature cars, so they were pleased with my 4Runner. For once, it was nice to have a big car up here.

Warning - you will think I'm a total loser for this, but I think my favorite part of the picnic was my t-shirt. Within 0SD-Policy there are several departments. SO/LIC basically covers counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and humanitarian aid. So, we had tshirts made that say "Thugs, Drugs, and Hugs" - I LOVE it!

The picnic was really fun except for the ridiculous heat. The heat index was around 118 that day. It was miserably hot, but the picnic was really fun! I was actually assigned the dessert table to guard until the judging. It sounds like an easy job, and a nice one since I was under the tent, but it was really hard! Not only did I have to make a list of each dessert that was submitted (over 30), but I had to slap away little kids' hands. It was awful. Not only that, but the picnic started at 11 and the desserts weren't judged until almost 1 o'clock, so I watched these beautiful desserts melt.... Poor desserts.

In the end, I took the prize for best cookies with my red velvet whoopies and best OVERALL dessert with my summer strawberry cake!

 

Since the picnic, people have been putting in orders for birthday parties... maybe I shouldn't have baked so much? Now the expectations are high... Oh well, in the end it was a great day to get out of the office and hang out with/get to know my co-workers.

And now.... for the surprise you've been waiting for.........

Although I prefaced this by saying the surprise was not a baby, I probably should have been more specific.... our family has grown, but not because I am pregnant. Meet our new baby:

RHETT BUTLER OSBORNE!!!!!!

How cute is she? We've been keeping her a secret for a long time, and I'm so excited I can now talk about her! And I know, I know, you are probably asking yourself why in the world we got another dog. Haha. Well... I've REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted another one, a sister for Scarlett. We are gone so much during the day, I'm afraid she gets lonely. Believe it or not, I picked her out at Christmas. I did alot of research to find a breeder, and he does a waiting list for the color you want. I got on the wait list this spring for a blue (basically grey) girl. Annnnddddd on May 3rd, our little blue and white parti girl was born! The only problem was that we definitely could not have had her in our old apartment, so the breeder agreed to hold on to her an extra month before we moved. Sooooo last Sunday, the day after we moved, we went to go get her!

Although her name is Rhett Butler, she is in fact a girl. Caleb calls her our gender confused dog. At first I doubted naming her Rhett, but it totally fits her. And now I have my gone-with-the-wind pair of poms. I would love to say that they are a match made in heaven, but just like the movies, they are kind of up and down. Rhett REALLY wants to be friends with Scarlett, but honestly, Scarlett "just don't give a damn!" In her defense, she came home to a brand new apartment and a new puppy, so its been a rough few weeks! It's getting better though, and I'm sure they will soon be best friends forever!

Rhett is a very different puppy than Scarlett was. She is very laid back, doesn't bark, and spends most of her time sleeping. She LOVES to play, including with Scarlett's toys, and has already learned her name. She hasn't destroyed anything yet... (knock on wood)... and her only fault is that she potties ALL-THE-TIME! Thank goodness for puppy pads! She weighs two pounds and definitely resembles a little skunk. So now I have a dog that looks like a fox, and a dog that looks like a skunk!

So that's our big surprise. We are now a happy family of 4! Other than that, Caleb and I are both just commuting, working, and coming home and attempting to unpack the endless boxes. I would say we should be finished by this weekend, but this is the weekend we have to completely clean our old apartment and hand over the keys. I thought I kept it clean this past year, but apparently not.... It's going to be a LONG weekend of cleaning.

Until next time, here is a face that is sure to make you smile!

Update Coming Soon!

Sorry blog readers. Honestly, I have just been too tired to update on our move. Friday night we went to see a show until late in the city (after my 1am movie the night before), we had an eventful move on Saturday, ran errands all day Sunday, and have just been crazed ever since. Today was our work picnic and I was up almost all night baking just I just don't have a post in me today. However, as a sneak preview, the following update will include:a set of keys down an elevator shaft and a random cat inviting itself into our new apartment (among many other things). I will do my best to get an update (with some pics of our new place!) by this weekend. Enjoy the rest of the week and try to stay inside!

We're Moving!

As I mentioned in the last post, we are in the process of moving. Our apartment here has been fine, and looking back on it, we both agree that this was the perfect place for us to live this year. It is extremely close to the city, with plenty of shops around us to make life easy. It is literally 100 feet from the metro in a well-lit and highly trafficked area, so it is safe. While these things have been great this year, unfortunately they have not come cheap. We decided that as great and easy as it is here, it is just too expensive. So, several months ago we started the process of looking for place to move.

Finding apartments here is very tricky. You can't really live in DC itself unless you have ALOT of money or are willing to live in the slums. So, the city was out. There are lots of nice places out down 66, but none of them are very metro accessible, which is still important to us. But, eventually, we found a place that met about 95% of our needs.

We are moving about 10 miles further out of the city. Technically we are going to be in Alexandria, just outside of the Beltway, but we'll also be REALLY close to Springfield and Kingstowne area. We like the area because it feels a little bit more like home - they have a walmart, a kohls, a movie theater, grocery store, puttputt golf, and other places we are used to right around the neighborhood. The community itself that we are living in used to be condos that they have converted into apartments. Each building is only 4 floors (WAY smaller than the 17 in our current building) and we are living on the 1st. This should make Scarlett's life a lot better. She can actually remember what real grass is like again : ) For significantly less than our current apartment, we have a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with full size washer/dryer in the unit (not the one for midgets that we currently have), our own single car garage, a large patio, and about 400 sqft. more space than here in Arlington. Technically, we are about 1/4 mile from the metro. You could walk it, but its not a real walker friendly route. BUT, our complex has a free shuttle in the morning and the evening to take you to the metro, and if you don't want to take their shuttle, the city bus stops right outside too. It's about a 5 minute ride to the metro station. We are going to be 5 metro stops further out than we currently are here, so I guess we will truly be commuters now.

This past weekend, we took possession of the apartment and decided to paint a few accent walls to make it homier. Moment of honesty - sometimes I struggle with being jealous of our friends and Caleb's siblings - we aren't ready to start a family yet, we don't have the job security to buy a house, we don't have the money to take vacations to fun places like hawaii or Europe. It's really hard for us to feel like we are really young married adults with our current situation and not just college kids. I know that is the way it has to be for now, and I'm sure someday we will look back at this time with fond memories, but right now, I'm just jealous of our friends and ready to move on to the REAL young married adult stage of life. Anyways, enough of that. This weekend we were able to go to Sherwin Williams and buy paint together... which I know doesn't sound like much. BUT, it was a HUGE deal to us. We spent WAY more time in there than we needed making plans for "when we grow up and have a real house." I told Caleb, we may not be in the same place as most of our friends our age, but by golly we can buy paint too! It's like we are slowly making our way into the world of being married adults haha. It may sound dumb, but here is a picture of the first bucket of paint we bought together as a married couple!

In case you were wondering, the color is foxy... it's in my kitchen : )


I wish I could say that we are expert painters.... We spent HOURS meticulously putting up tape and drop clothes, but we still had a few spills on the guard rail and ceiling. Oh well, nothing got on the carpet, it was fun and I actually love the colors. This weekend the real moving begins. Caleb's friend Jim is going to help us get all of our furniture from the 9th floor down to the loading dock, onto the truck, to the new apartment and unloaded..... all in 105 degree weather! My parents helped us move in up here last summer and as soon as we got the stuff up to the apartment they let us know that they would be conveniently unavailable whenever we decided to move it out haha. I don't blame them....Definitely be sure to check back in a few days for the before/after pictures of our apartment as well as the stories I am sure to come out of our moving adventure.

Happy Harry Potter 7 release day to all!!! And yes, I did go see the 1am showing last night AND still make it into work ON TIME and stay concious. We'll see how helpful I am when it comes to moving tomorrow... haha

New Jobs, Softball Finals & the 4th of July

Sorry blog readers. Working 40 hours a week has pretty much meant that I come home, make dinner (if Caleb's lucky), lay on the couch and fall asleep about 10pm. That's sad, I know, but I think maybe I am finally getting into the swing of things.

I have now been at my internship for 2 weeks. I am working for the Department of Defense (DoD) at the Pentagon. To explain where I work in DoD is a bit complicated, but I'll give it my best shot. The Secretary of Defense (SecDef) has several UnderSecretarys.  I am in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) under the UnderSecretary for Policy (OSDP). From there, I am under the AssistantSecretary of Defense (ASD) for Special Operations, Low Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities (SOL/IC) and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Partnership, Strategy and Stability Operations (PSO) and the Director for Humanitarian Assistance, Disaster Relief (HA/DR) and Global Health.... YAY for acronyms! And yes, it did take me two weeks to learn that. The good news is that now that Mr. Panetta is the new SecDef, he has made it clear that he speaks English, not DoD, so hopefully some of the jibberish will go away. Sometimes when I come to work I feel like I carry on conversation in code, and I'm lucky if I pick up 10% of it.

I LOVE my new internship. I was a bit apprehensive about coming back to work for the government after my "learning experience" with USAID. The people here are fantastic, brilliant at what they do, focused when necessary, but so laid back. I already feel like they are my friends. I have my own cubicle and after 3 days even was able to find it on my own. Even though the Pentagon is only 1 metro stop away, one of the girls showed me a tunnel that cuts underneath the highway so that I can walk to work. It takes about 20+ minutes, but it saves me $5/day.

I spent 2 days this week in training, which was like torture, but now I understand this place a lot better. Last week was SecDef Gates' last week, which was pretty sad, but I got to take a picture with him! What's ironic is that I actually got to see him off when he left being Texas A&M's president, and now I got to see him off again! When they took the picture, he shook my hand and thanked me for my service. I responded by thanking HIM for HIS service and said "thanks and gig em." He smiled. It's my new claim to fame. When I get my copy of the picture, I'll be sure to put it on the blog.

We are having a Policy picnic here in a few weeks and I thought I would get into the spirit by signing up for the baking competition. Little did I know that this would truly endear me to my office. They have all their hopes of winning the contest on me, so they are "letting me" try out my recipes on them first and then making the best one of that day. Today I brought in a chocolate chip cheesecake. I caught them in the boss's office eating it with their hands. I think I'll consider that a victory.

I have to admit that most days I feel pretty cool when I realize that I'm in the Pentagon, in my own cube, drinking my Moroccan mint tea and reading through classified documents and creating new ones. How did I ever get here? I don't really care, but its awesome! The best part is that they told me I could stay on as long as I want until I graduate next Spring. Yay!

On to Caleb - I would tell you about his internship, but then I'd have to kill you.... Just kidding, but I seriously can't tell you anything about that. They basically told them on the first day that if they mentioned anything about their internship on a blog, they would be fired. BUT, I can say that he enjoys wearing his new suits and ties and feels pretty cool being over by the Capitol. It has also been nice because one of the guys from our Sunday School Class actually works on that committee, so he's made a new friend.

Last Thursday night was the semi finals and championship game for our softball league. We played at 6:45 and the winner would play the winner of the next game at 9. We played terrible. I mean terrible. We were pretty disappointed not to get to play in the championships, but I'm a little relieved it's over. Our team was getting a little too competitive for our own good. I am one of the most competitive people in the world, and I thought it was getting ridiculous. I kept telling people, "it's just church league softball!" Oh well. It worked out that was our last game because I actually sprained my ankle. I honestly have no idea how it happened. I was out in right field and ran after a ball and it just started hurting really bad. At least it wasn't my foot that has had all the surgeries. But it hurt so bad I went to the doctor the next day and she confirmed definitely a sprain and gave me an air cast and crutches. I refuse to use the crutches, but I've worn the brace around. I had to since I walked a million miles a day in the Pentagon.

Caleb up to bat

 Our team in the dugout.... men, women, and even kids : )

The championship trophy that wasn't meant to be ours....

 About to smack it to the back of the outfield!

Unfortunately, this all happened right before the 4th of July. I shouldn't act like its that big of a deal because we didn't exactly have plans... We spent most of the weekend just lounging and watching movies. On Monday, we decided to do a few fun things. We drove about 20 miles out of town to a place features on the Food Network show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives." The place is called Dixie Bones, and it looked and tasted exactly like you are imagining. It was definitely the best BBQ we've had since we moved up here. AND, the portions were HUGE! If anyone ever comes to visit us up here, we'll take you there. We enjoyed that you ordered your meat, chose your sides, and then they had tons of bottles of different sauces on the table to try on your meat. Yum! In case you are interested in checking them out, here is there website:

http://www.dixiebones.com/menu.html

Afterwards we decided we should at least do SOMETHING inside DC on the 4th. We drove up to Georgetown and waited in a line down the street for 45 minutes to get cupcakes from the shop featured on the TLC show "Georgetown Cupcakes." It's a shop run by 2 sisters, and its a HUGE tourist site. We've never been, but decided the 4th was a great time to try it. At first we were each going to get 1 cupcake each, but after we waited in the heat for almost an hour, we each ended up getting 3.... Caleb tried 3 different types of chocolate - shocking, I know. I tried the seasonal special, Mint Julep, another seasonal, Strawberry, and Cinnamon. Yum! They were delicious, and the waiting in line was completely worth it!

We debated all week whether to go into town for the holiday celebration at the Capitol. They had lots of performers, like Steve Martin, Little Richard, Jordin Sparks, etc. BUT, they started predicting 500,000 people showing up. The thought of having to fight those people not only to get there, but also to get home, just wasn't worth it. So, we watched the special on PBS and then ran up to the 17th floor of our apartment complex to watch the fireworks. They were really fantastic! You could not only see the "official" fireworks over the Capitol, but also the hundreds of others fireworks displays going on in the background of the metro area. Next year maybe we'll be brave enough to fight off the crowds in town, but I really think this 4th of July was perfect. Things have been so crazy with starting our new jobs and getting ready to move, that it was nice just to relax and enjoy the holiday together.

I promise to be better about updating the blog. Be sure to check back in, in a few days because we have officially taken possession of our new apartment (we are moving this weekend) and we attempted to paint it this past weekend...