Getting Ready

Rehearsal

(thanks for playing photographer Brad!)

The wedding of the year!

Last weekend, my good friend Gena (who was my Maid of Honor) and her wonderful finacee Mike got hitched! Their wedding is something I have been looking forward to for quite a while and I was so honored to be a bridesmaid and stand up for them as they took their vows. Gena looked so beautiful! I took, literally, 500 pictures throughout the weekend, so I thought I'd break them up into several posts.

Congratulations guys - Brad and I are so happy for you!

Some more graduation pics

the building where Brad and I met!
Oval reflections

Congrats lil' bro!!

Brad and I were excited to travel to Ohio this past weekend to see my awesome brother-in-law graduate from Ohio State! All my 200-something pictures are still in my other camera, but here's a fun one I took with my point and shoot while were were waiting for the ceremony to begin. There are very few guys in this world would I would sit outside in 95 degree heat for, but this one is worth it. On top of it all, the speaker was Brian Williams who was short, sweet, funny (ok, hilarious with all his Michigan jokes) and non-political, but timely, which was just fantastic.

Congratulations Brian - I'm proud :)

Big News!

I have been so blessed in my short professional life to have always been given the most amazing career opportunities, starting my junion year of college, when most 21 year olds were downing pizza and beer and sleeping till 10am. Well, the next step in my so far adventurous working life has come: as of about ten minutes ago, I have officially accepted a position with the Amercian Cancer Society! I will be serving in the role of manager for media advocacy and will be working out of their office here in D.C. (located right behind the FBI and very close to good food... and a Penn Camera (which is going to be the undoing of my checking account!!)).

I am very sad to leave behind the fantastic coworkers I have in Mr. Sullivan's office, where I have served the last two years, but am really looking forward to this new opportunity and challenge.

This all has me thinking back to my last day in Mr. Voinovich's office, in Feb. 2006...

That nice looking lady in the green sweater is my good friend Laura, who was also one of our bridesmaid's! I was so fortunate for the experiences I had in Mr. Voinovich's office, that the friendship was such an added bonus.

I feel much the same about my current office. Although I work with mostly boys, I love these guys like brothers and will greatly miss them.

hanging out at the Team Sully Bowl-a-Rama - also my birthday this year!

touring the new Capitol Visitor Center

on a tour of the Capitol dome... one of the truly awesome things I got to do in this office

Root, root, root for the Nationals

Last night, a bunch of people from Brad's office got tickets to see the Nationals play. I was very excited to see them for the first time in their new ballpark, even if the weather was unseasonably cold (60 degrees and dropping at game time!). Unfortunately, it was a boring game, as no one scored until the ninth inning and the game ended with an unriviting score of 1-0, Phillies. It was still fun though!

Philly and Milwaukee have sausage races... we have the running of the president's. Washington, Jefferson, TR and Lincoln
With a mega-head start, Washington won last night!
but TR got some good crowd mingling in :)

Newlyweds Julie and Matt!

This past weekend, Brad and I traveled to Cincinnati for the wedding of our friends Julie and Matt. You'll remember that Matt was a groomsman in our wedding and Brad was more than happy to return the honor. They had a beautiful ceremony, followed up by a really fun reception. Congratulations guys!!!!

Brad read the responsorial psalm

Cheesy grins outside the reception in the beautiful evening light


Brad and Julie busting a move on the dance floor

National Cathedral

Last weekend, Brad and I wandered up to northwest DC to check out the FlowerMart at the National Cathedral. What we found were cool booths with arts, crafts, food and a few flowers. I got some great shots of the very photogenic cathedral that I thought I'd share. The rest of my shots, including the ones from our climb to the top of the bell tower, can be see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/54672484@N00/sets/72157600115719294/

Being married means...

doing something nice for the other person, even when you don't want to. This week, Brad is attending training for work out at a hotel out by Dulles airport (ie in the middle of nowhere). This training requires him to stay at the Hilton hotel where his training is, resulting in a mini business trip without really leaving town.

Last night, after a long day of work and a reception I had to attend after work, I drove the 45 minutes out there to meet him for dinner. I was exhausted, but excited too. We had a great dinner at a very random thai place which was recommended by the Washington Post. We never would have gone to the place had it not been for the Wash Po!

After much back and forth, I decided to stay over night at his hotel. It was so nice to crawl in to the big king sized bed with my hubby after spending the night before apart. We were nerdy and not only went to bed early, but I stayed up and watched a documentary on PBS about Bush 41's presidency (hey, it was pretty interesting AND the room had a huge like 40-something inch flat screen HDTV!).

The downside of all this? It took me almost two hours to get to work this morning, instead of my usual 20 minutes :( But it was all worth it to spend the evening with my sweetie, especially since we won't see each other again until Friday.

The moral of the story: being married means sometimes you have to give a little bit more than you feel like and it's almost always well worth it in the end.