Easter on the Hudson, and A Bit of Nieman News

 Seth’s gone this week, speaking at something called a Mission Command Conference at West Point. I’m excited that he gets the opportunity to mentor young cadets and touch bases with the Army athletic staff there- he’s busy laying the groundwork for the new job!- and I love that, after all this time focusing on the 25 meter targets (get through this surgery/ get rid of the wound vac/ get out of the wheelchair/ walk again/ lose the “wheelchair weight”/ run again, etc.) he’s finally able to expend some energy on the 300 meter ones too.

But I miss him. Whenever we’re apart, but especially when I’m home and he’s away instead of vice versa, I have a set routine. For the first 24 hours, I’m ecstatic that I can clean the house and it stays that way, that there is no laundry on the floor, and that I can eat cereal out of the box for dinner and watch what I want on TV and go to bed at a decent hour for a change. And then the second day, I walk in the door and the house just feels… empty. And quiet. Within a couple hours, I find that I am actually wishing for even one stray dirty sock peeking out from underneath the bed.

When I’m trying to be positive, though, I tell myself that it’s nice to be married to someone you miss when you’re apart for only a few days. And that we’re lucky that we’re at a point in our lives and careers and world events that we don’t have to contemplate long deployments and geo-bachelorhood. (Although one should always knock on wood when considering this.)

And in this case, at least we had had a really nice weekend away to tide us over. After an absurd trains-metros-automobiles Friday night adventure to get us both up to West Point in eastern seaboard pre-weekend gridlock (I actually scored with the train option, despite having one break and leave me trackside in Harlem), we survived a frantic Friday-Saturday lineup of events surrounding the spring football game, for which Seth had been named an honorary captain. http://blogs.hudsonvalley.com/west-point-army-football/2014/04/14/black-and-gold-game-details-supe-to-coach-black/

While Seth scurried from meeting to event to meeting and then raced up and down the sidelines looking very official, I had a lazy brunch with friends in Cornwall and basked in the sunny stands on an unexpectedly warm day. Seth’s team lost but a good time was had by all, and he and all of his former Army football player buddies waxed poetic about the future of the team under the new coach, who we really like. As with all of these reunion-type events (I assume we’ll be inundated with them once we move to the Hudson Valley), Seth spent lots of time catching up with old friends, mentors, and teammates. I was grateful that they all made an effort to make me feel included- Seth is a smart guy and had been prepping that, knowing, no doubt, that if the West Point exclusivity got under my skin it was going to be a long couple of years there. It worked, and I came away from the weekend reminded that West Point, although unfortunately situated in the cesspool that is the state of New York, is spectacularly beautiful, occasionally warm, and a terrific place for families. Which is more important to us than ever.

We're bad at keeping secrets and finally made this announcement this weekend, in case you somehow missed it:

All the important details: we’re ecstatic, I haven’t been too sick, Seth's been terrific, I definitely required Spanx under my dress at the football banquet, and the littlest Nieman will be here before the Army-Navy game. (And I fervently look forward to my return to tailgating.)

We finally got a breather Sunday, and instead of dragging ourselves to Easter services for more handshaking (it does get exhausting), we slept in and headed up the valley for the best chocolate chip pancakes I have ever had in my life (Painter’s in Cornwall, don’t miss it) and an Easter bike ride along the river, followed by a pilgrimage to Seth’s favorite steakhouse. (Not that the highlights of our weekend were food...) 

I had taken Monday off, since- outrageously- USALSA didn’t get any days off for the Easter holiday, which gave us another blissful day to sleep late and wander around West Point and then head into the city for dinner with Mike & Marlena before I had to catch a late flight back to DC. I’ll spare the details of my “public transportation to JFK adventure”- especially since I still (unbelievably) made it home to Bethesda before Seth made it back to West Point.

At any rate, I’m home, playing catchup at work, and before we know it we'll be heading to Oklahoma City to see the Oklahoma Walters this weekend. It’s definitely an on-the-go spring for us!

Pictures of the week are of our adorable nieces’ Easter egg hunts.

Oh, and this one (from the banquet) just kind of cracked me up. In an unrelated note, the cheesecake (also pictured) was delicious.