Low key weekends are the best!

After having parents in town the last three weekends (not that we don't love you!), Brad and I finally had a low key weekend all to ourselves. Unfortunately, I have no pictures, so you'll just have to read!

Friday evening Brad and I headed out for our special surprise date night. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a very hard time keeping my mouth shut, especially when I'm excited about a surprise. I am proud to say that I managed to keep this surprise from Brad until two hours before the show! We drove out to Wolftrap, an outdoor amphitheater that has plays, concerts, and everything else - think of it as an outdoor Kennedy Center. I packed a great little picnic of various kinds of cheese (Brad's favorite) and some anti-pasti meats, a baguette, yummy chocolate dessert cups filled with fruit and, the best thing about Wolftrap lawn seats, a bottle of wine! We listened to the National Symphony Orchestra play a program of romantic classical music and enjoyed the relatively cool, low humidity evening cuddled on our blanket under the stars. It was really quite enjoyable!

Saturday morning, instead of heading to the gym, we decided to go to a big park by our house (ok, actually not even close to our house... more like 40 minutes away!) and go for a nature hike. All five miles of the nature hike. I pretty much thought I was going to die! But we made it through and, in the end, it was a lot more fun than just going to the gym on a beautiful day! The rest of Saturday was relatively low key. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner (thanks for making the meatballs while you were here Dad!) and then went to see the Batman movie. Brad LOVED it, I thought it was pretty good. Obviously, though, now Brad has to go see "Momma Mia" with me next weekend :)

Sunday we got up and treated ourselves to an IHOP breakfast. It's honestly the first time I've had pancakes in literally six months, so it was a nice little treat. Plus, they were a side item with my veggie omelet, so clearly they didn't count! In the afternoon we ran errands (including our 50 millionth trip to Ritz camera for prints, a way-too-long experience in the anxiety inducing horrible place that is Babies R Us and some crazy grocery shopping) and then took a mega hardcore nap. We were supposed to do laundry in the evening (unfortunately, our usual Sunday night routine), but we decided that we were in a Sunday night rut and needed to do something fun. So, we went out for a yummy dinner and then came home and discussed health insurance options, since we have to make a decision soon with my new job and insurance. I'm not sure how health insurance is more fun than laundry, but at least it's another check off our to-do list. I did get to read the Sunday Washington Post before I went to bed, so I guess the evening capped off ok.

Well, it's lunch time now, so I guess I'll wrap up this long boring post!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took around our neighborhood during that fabulous week off I had a few weeks ago. Oh, and the new job is going well, thanks for wondering. I blogged about it on the family blog, which you can see here.

doesn't this kind of remind you of a sun setting on the horizon?
isn't the front porch of this house totally cute?

this house has all kinds of flowers painted on the side of it

chairs stacked outside on the patio of the awesome Evening Star Cafe

Del Ray = LOTS of white picket fences

Enjoying the break...

Just a note to say how incredibly wonderful it is to have a whole week off between jobs when the only Internet access I have is to hack onto Brad's work laptop in the evening!! No BlackBerry, no official cell phone, no worrying about what's in the paper at 6am, no NOTHING! It's fantastic, even if it's only for a week. Yesterday Dad and I played tourist at the National Portrait Gallery and then he came and made Brad and I dinner. It was so nice to have a good homemade dinner! Today I just lounged around and did nothing. Caught back to back episodes of the Golden Girls, Fraiser and Will and Grace on Lifetime (harkening back to my college years!) and then ran arrends around town. Tomorrow's agenda includes the Sex and the City movie and a pedicure. Yes friends, life is good :)

Au Revoir

Well, today is my last day in the Congressman's office. I have come to today with very mixed emotions: I'm excited to do something new, but it will be hard to leave my comfort zone and all the awesome people I work with. Not working in the government will be something new for me, since that has all I've done for the past six (!) years. But I am looking forward to a new challenge and working on issues that I'm truly passionate about.

Things I will miss about the Hill:
1. recess
2. my awesome coworkers
3. Pelosi cafe
4. the Capitol Police and the wonderful nurse who always gives me Advil/bandages my cuts, scrapes and burns/monitors my blood pressure/encourages my weight loss attempts and weekly weigh-ins
5. my parking spot

Things I will not miss about the Hill:
1. cubicles
2. interns who don't care (the interns who do care I will miss very much!)
3. Pelosi cafe (very mixed feelings on our current cafeteria situation!)
4. my office issued BlackBerry (again, mixed feelings about this one)
5. evacuation drills/there's a plane coming, run for your life