St. Nicholas Abbey, Barbados

St.Nicholas Abbey, located in the parish of St.Peter, was built in 1660 and is one of only three genuine Jacobean mansions in the Western Hemisphere. This beautiful home, and surrounding buildings, were built, apparently, only 30 years after Barbados was discovered and is one of the only standing structures from the 1600's in the world (I read that on the Internet, so who knows if it's true!). Regardless, it was still a beautiful place. I wish I had a picture of it from the front, but it started raining right at the end of our tour. So I stole the picture above from Google :)

metal rings used to make barrels to store the rum made on sight

I just had to take the picture below because it reminded me so much...
... of this shot I took in Villefranche!

Barbados sneak peak!

Obsessed? Probably.

with my new macro filters for my camera that is! I am LOVING these things! And such a bargain, costing roughly $600 less than an actual macro lens. Am I now going to post too many boring pictures of a red dahlia that I bought at a farmer's market a few weeks ago? Most definitely!

I don't usually do much Photoshopping on my photos, but I couldn't resist on this one!





Note: NO Photoshop on this one, all done with crazy lighting!
doesn't it look like the petals are sugar coated?

We're back, we're back

We're back from Barbados... it was AMAZING! AMAZING folks! Not only did I get to hang out with my Daddy (an occurance that happens far to often***), we got to explore new places on the island (my favorite may have been Harrison's Cave - fantastic!)

I, of course, took loads and loads of pictures, all of which I need to upload, sort and edit. But I promise to post a few pictures this weekend.

In the mean time, feel free to spend a few hours (literally) looking at my pictures from our February trip:

Port St. Charles

Bathsheba

Speightstown

The Gap (no, not the store, St. Lawrence Gap... but all the cool people just call it "The Gap")

***Editor's Note: Clearly I was drunk, or tired, or trying to multitask when I wrote this (I'm going with the last one). Obviously what I was trying to say was that I don't get to spend nearly enough time with my Dad :)

How do you spell relief?

B-A-R-B-A-D-O-S

We leave tomorrow!!!

Man, I love him

Ain't he cute?!

(all photos taken last night at dinner as we sat outside on a patio, sipping beverages and enjoying the amazing weather which has taken over our city the last few weeks)

MOVED!

We're all moved! The new place is an absolute disaster and poor Brad. Poooooor Brad. I am leaving him in our messy, messy, unorganized apartment because I'm headed to Austin, Texas for work later this afternoon. Luckily, I will be back tomorrow night, so, unless he gets hurried in the clutter, I can help set up. We love the new space though. There is soo much more room, especially in the kitchen cupboards (we went from two usable cupboards to like five!). I can't wait to get it all set up, so I can post some pictures. In the mean time...

only about half our books, piled two and three stacks deep on top of our desk

the only semi-organized room! ;) LOVE our new bed

Forgotten photos, Part II

In mid-July, Brad and I went to see one of our favorite country artists, Brad Paisley, in concert. Despite the fact that this was our third year in a row seeing him, he did not disappoint and put on a great show! We sat on the lawn, enjoyed our Subway and a beer and had a great evening.

The Post of Forgotten Photos, Part I

I have discovered the downside of having two cameras (my Nikon D40 that I use for "photography" and my Cannon SD1000, my point and shoot (aka P&S) that I love, but tend to use for snap shots... and yes, I realize I'm using conflicting brands, but I believe Cannon's P&S's are way better than Nikons!): I was going through my P&S this weekend and found all these old pictures! So, for your enjoyment, here are some pictures from when my Dad was in town the first week of July...

On Saturday, we went on tour of the Kennedy Center. It was really interesting - and free! Definitely worth checking out if you have some extra time while you're in D.C.

There are two main entrance halls to the Kennedy Center theaters: the Hall of States and the Hall of Nations. Below is the Hall of Nations, which features a flag from every country around the world that the U.S. has diplomatic relations with. The blue and yellow one with the pitch-fork looking thing in the middle is the Barbados flag!

The Great Hall
Presidential Box in the Concert Hall
Presidential Box in the Opera House
Beautiful chandelier in the Opera House

On Thursday, we went to watch the Nationals lose yet another game... at least the stadium is super nice and the tickets are cheap!

Dad with Mr. Running President himself, TR (the only running president, BTW, which has never won... check it out: http://www.cafepress.com/letteddywin)

Stay Tuned: Part II will feature pictures from the Brad Paisley concert we went to in the middle of June!

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