A Lovely, if Windy, Oklahoma Weekend (In Pictures)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'm going with that theory this week. Particularly because 1) the end of the filing month is frantic at work and I'm definitely a little short on words at the moment, and 2) this week's pictures are so adorable.

There was nothing particularly notable about our crazy week except that it was in fact crazy, with me playing catchup at work after the long weekend and Seth working apparently slave-like hours at the Mission Command Conference. (Although I'm hard-pressed to feel too sorry for him, because many of his late night obligations seemed to be "mixers" involving beer.) He really enjoyed the mentorship opportunity though, from the sounds of it, and did in fact make it back in time to catch our flight on Friday. Barely. (The highlight of my week, on the other hand, was my first tamale-eating experience at Michelle's house. It was pretty tasty, in case you're ever curious. Although I'm pretty sure this was a gourmet tamale.)

At any rate, we eventually made it to tornado alley to visit the Oklahoma Walters- the complete absence of nonstop flights to OKC notwithstanding- and we had a terrific, relaxing weekend hanging out with our adorable niece. (And, alright, Ben & Lisa too.)

Saturday the whole crew went to April's house to grill out and, believe it or not, it was warm enough to swim. It was Natalie's first time, and she loved it. Almost as much as I loved her swimsuit with a pink tutu.

 

I got to see my godson, Gunnar Bronco, too, and he and Nat had fun playing together. (I cracked up at the pose he struck when I asked him to show me his new ninja turtle swim trunks. Practically David Beckham.)

 

When dragged from the pool, Natalie showed off her incredible tricycle-riding skills (she can even go backwards)...

 

... and scared me half to death scrambling up the rock wall to the top of Gunnar's playground. She's pretty fearless. 

 

She can also put away some strawberries!

 

 

Against our better judgment, April and Lisa and I left the boys in charge while we ran into town to pick up race packets (and cupcakes)...

...and came back to this. Although neither of the kids was worse for the wear.

 

Then, because why not? We took our niece to a bar for wings and a little UFC. She held her own pretty well with the old straw-in-the-nose trick.

And she even let Uncle Seth throw her around. And agreed with me that his prosthetic is "stinky" rather than scary.

 

Sunday morning started off bright and early, with tornado warnings for Lisa and I at the race start. This is how we felt about having gotten up at 5am and just to spend two hours waiting out a weather delay in various alcoves and parking garages.

(Because of this- as well as 60mph winds and quarter size hail.) In the picture to the right, you can see the very start of funnel clouds. Which, luckily, never touched down, although the announcements about "shelters along the race route" didn't do much to make this non-local feel any better about the possibility of a "Wizard of Oz" style twister.

Eventually the clouds broke, and we finally got started. We had a ton of fun along the race route. The course was nice, the crowds were super friendly, and we cracked up about the signs (and the random costumes.) Lisa, who just a year ago was training for her first 5k- never having even run a mile- never even stopped to walk. For 13.1 miles.

There are no words to describe how impressed and inspired I am by such a huge accomplishment! And how grateful I am to have gotten to share it. Tornadoes and all.

Photo of the week is the Oklahoma Walters' post-race photo, of course. Nat even had a cowbell.

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.

A Week of Travel, and a Much-Needed Weekend at HOME

I know I’ve read a great quote somewhere about travel making you appreciate being home. I combed the internet today, and all I could come up with was one about air travel being nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo. I guess that one describes my week pretty well too, although I didn’t get international travel out of it. It just felt like I did.
Thanks to the Army’s latest cost-cutting measures, TDY has become even more ridiculously painful than usual. Instead or the three separate trips I needed to take, I ended up with a smashed-into-three-days itinerary of six flights and almost no sleep. I headed to Miami first, with three uniforms stuffed in a bag, certain I had forgotten some mandatory accoutrement or other. (I hadn’t, but definitely appreciated the wool Army Service Uniform in 85 degree heat once I arrived.) There we pulled off a huge argument, a massive dog-and-pony show for SOUTHCOM lawyers (involving those outdated headphone translation devices we had seen only in movies), and a law school recruiting event. I had carefully carved out 15 minutes for pool time at the hotel, which neatly coincided with a hurricane (pictured, for evidence).

I made my way to Kansas City alone, having lost two travel companions to army travel hiccups, arriving in time to grab a few hours of sleep in the hotel room I didn’t have to share only by virtue of being the only girl in our office. Bleary-eyed the next morning, I found my Captains, who had arrived the day before in time for Kansas City barbecue- a fact of which I was insanely jealous, having subsisted on granola bars and the odd airport chicken wrap for day- and we took off for the day's overscheduled (but budget-friendly!) adventures. The morning at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, lunch in a six-way video teleconference, and the afternoon teaching classes, followed by a mad dash back to the airport. In our minivan. 

Just when I thought the travel gods had finished with me, I had snagged a last row seat on a full flight next to the toilet, which promptly overflowed. At least the awful face I had made in my passport photo wasn’t green! I eventually made it home after midnight, made myself shower before falling into bed next to my adorable husband who had waited up for me, and passed out… for a couple of hours, before the alarm warned me that I needed to get moving because we had mandatory fun this morning. But of course. This week’s schedule really had been concocted by some kind of masochist.

The mandatory fun turned out to be terrific though- a run (well, shuffle for those of us still nursing ankle injuries) around the tidal basin to see the cherry blossoms in peak bloom before the throngs of tourists were out- and I gutted out the email catchup that necessarily follows a week out of the office. But Friday date night turned into whatever was in the fridge and passing out on the couch while it was still light out. What a week! I was thrilled to just be home. Seth had knocked off most of a long honey-do list and brought me flowers, and spring had finally sprung in Bethesda.

We had a beautiful, relaxing “recovery” weekend, sleeping in and hanging out in the backyard and enjoying the balmy weather and flowers and cherry trees that we thought rivaled those downtown. Sunday we got to enjoy a rare treat: a visit with Mamma Gran and Aunt Mary Pat, who were passing through on what sounded like a hilarious tour, and Mom’s homemade strawberry shortcake.

Oh, and Seth shared his milestone news: his PEB was complete, and he was found fit for duty! We’re thrilled, and I couldn’t be more proud that this has been his focus all along: getting back to the business of being a Soldier. Seeing those words is a concrete validation of all his hard work and mental toughness and perseverance (and, yes, of our commitment to achieving that goal as a team.) It feels like a major victory on the road back to normal.

As I walked out the door this morning, almost recovered from Army travel and enjoying the sight of a different kind of “snow” (the warm wind blowing the petals off the flowering trees on our cul-de-sac), I definitely had a “Wizard of Oz” moment: there really is no place like home. 

Photos of the week: I love this one of Seth and Dad, hard at work at the grill on Sunday…

… but the prize has to go to our two priceless nieces. As usual. (Lehua, enjoying Friday at the beach, and Natalie, learning to be a birdwatcher like Mom & Dad.)

"Valor Awards Week," and a Whole Lot of Travel

Sara reminded me today that I’m way behind on updating this blog. If she only knew. I’m behind on that and pretty much everything else. We’ve been running around like crazy lately, without a ton of downtime. Eventually our plan is to sleep in and do some yardwork (since last week’s snow was hopefully our last!) Maybe this weekend...

In exciting news, Seth took the GRE last weekend, and he nailed it. I was stoked that his weeks of late night and early morning studying had paid off (even though this means I’ll have to give up my sole ownership of the remote.) I think he’s just excited to be able to give all the stacks and stacks of GRE books away for good!

 He left the next day for Portland. Sometimes I hate my job, because it means that- unlike the wives and girlfriends of all our Walter Reed friends, of whom I’m often jealous- I can’t just pick up to travel (fun trips and otherwise), and we don’t always get to do stuff as a team. But then I remember that it’s nice to have my own job, my own identity, and- I admit- no obligation to justify the cost of pedicures and lululemon splurges. At any rate, Seth needed to get out of the house after his GRE-imposed hostage situation, and I think he enjoyed the break. Even if he had to deal with a “pea green with envy” wife who was feeling very downtrodden, stuck in traffic while he hung out on my favorite coast.

It was an insanely quick trip (I definitely didn’t envy that part), but it meant the world to him to be able to pin Doug’s silver star on him. Story here: http://www.katu.com/news/local/Oregon-Air-National-Guard-airman-receives-Silver-Star-3-others-Bronze-252131451.html?mobile=y

And because it seemed to be “valor awards week,” we turned around basically the minute he got back and made the long haul down to Bragg to see the rest of his team receive awards ranging from silver stars to multiple purple hearts. Story here: http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140327/NEWS/303270061/Special-Forces-soldiers-honored-valor-Afghanistan

It was really special to be there for the presentation of those awards- many of them stemming from the same incident in which Seth lost his leg- and we always love the opportunity to catch up with friends. (Plus, Seth found time to get a new tattoo in his effort to beat the promulgation of the new regs limiting them.) But trying to cram everything into short trips always gets the better of us. After a couple days of running around- me in the rental car we broke down and procured after we realized how much driving we were both going to wind up doing- and living out of our suitcases and going from party to restaurant to bar, we were thoroughly exhausted and ready to go home.

Of course, when we finally got home we literally threw our suitcases of dirty laundry in the washer and headed out the door for dinner with a good friend of Seth’s who was in town for a conference. Maybe it was a good thing, since we hadn’t eaten at home in so long we had nothing but wilted spinach and spoiled milk in the refrigerator.

I was so beat by the time I got done playing catchup Monday, I was dreading coming home late to a long list of chores and a dirty house. Starting a workweek without a real Sunday to prep for it is the worst. To my delight, however, Seth had spent most of his “grad school admin. day” knocking things off the to-do list. The laundry was done, recycling separated and taken out, new coffee table assembled, and the house looked terrific. And there were flowers on the table. My cup runneth (ranneth? plain old “ran” doesn’t sound as good) over. We polished off our frozen pizza dinner and crashed early. I, for one, am beyond grateful  to be married to such a terrific team player.

So it looks like we’re going to make it to Friday after all. We can’t wait.

Picture of the week is the priceless Lehua, with her 2^nd birthday present from us. A beach bag that we ordered online, not realizing it would be nearly twice her size.

Oh, and this one of Seth, all dressed up to start his internship this week.

Studying and Even More Snow

It snowed on Saint Patrick’s Day.

I love a good snow day as much as the next guy- probably more, in fact- but this is getting ridiculous. We’re only a couple days from the first official day of Spring! and we had finally had to break down and buy a snow shovel.

I know, after the year we’ve had it’s pretty unbelievable that our resolve to avoid the purchase of  shovels and ice scrapers lasted this long, but we’re both spoiled by years in the south, where snow is a novelty and no one is required to travel in it.

Incidentally, this is the snow shovel Seth bought. I’m not even sure how it works. What’s going on with that wheel, anyway?

At any rate, we’ve had another quiet week or so. Seth has to retake the GRE, having gotten into grad school but missing the Army Civil Schooling cutoff by a couple points. It appears that he’s actually studying this time, so we’ve settled into low key evenings where he takes practice test after practice test on my work computer and I lounge on our giant couch with the remote. Kind of a funny role reversal. Plus it cracks me up that, in order to accommodate my "Drop Dead Diva" watching, Seth wears his shooting earmuffs while studying.

Our weekend was uneventful. I entertained myself with a fruitless trip to Sterling in search of a new coffee table, and came back with nothing but smoothies and thirteen fewer dollars, thanks to the abominable Dulles Toll Road. Seth took a break and cleaned the man cave (which made me happy enough to grill for him, usually The Man’s Territory in our house. My chicken souvlaki was actually not half bad. If I do say so myself.)

Because studying is the priority right now, our St. Patrick’s Day was uncharacteristically chill. Seth took me to a local “Irish” dive the night before, where we consumed the requisite Guiness and potatoes while rich white people decked out in green went crazy for an “old white lady singing Kenny G songs,” as Seth put it. Not very Irish, but classic Bethesda, we thought.

We had a snow day for the actual holiday, so Seth studied and I took myself snowshoeing on the canal. Fresh powder, DC-style… There’s only so much corned beef hash anyone can choke down, as Missy points out, so we did “pinot and pizza” instead at Haven, a coal-fired Italian place we hadn’t tried before. It was not half bad- and way better than crowding into one of Bethesda’s two fake-Irish bars with the rest of town. Maybe we’re getting old, but we’re doing it in style!

And now it’s back to the grind.

Photo of the week is this one, which I sneakily took right after we got done swimming laps. I was half afraid I would be arrested for being a camera creep at the pool, but I’m just so proud of Seth I had to share. The guy who only recently had to be coaxed into the water now swims a mile nearly every day- and he's lost 30 pounds of wheelchair weight doing it!

Recovery Week

We got home from California well after midnight on Monday. I had to work in just a few hours (we always try to squeeze every last second out of vacation!), and our return was jarring, to say the least. It had dumped snow on DC again, meaning we spent most of the trip back concerned about flight cancellations. That and, after 65 degree weather in Fresno, it was 8 when we landed and the roads were terrible. We slipped and slid the whole way home, wishing we were still on the West Coast.

We needed a recovery week at home after our trip, though, and enjoyed every minute of it. We gutted out the week, and spent the weekend catching up on sleep and laundry. We obsessively followed the Iditarod, with the help of our own Alaska Insider. (It just wound up today, and WHAT an epic finish!) And we both went for a swim Saturday- Seth in the pool, and me in the Potomac. (I did a charity Polar Bear Plunge with my office. It was freezing.)  

We got to catch up with some great Walter Reed friends this weekend, too, which we really need to do more often. We’re on the go so often, we sometimes forget to enjoy Bethesda! After I recovered from my icy dip, we checked out a hilarious comedy show with Taylor and Danielle (http://taylormorris.org/), and discovered a new local dive bar.

Sunday we helped Flip and Jess (https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfFlip) move to their new place in Gaithersburg, and they rewarded us with margaritas and delicious Salvadoran food at their new local dive.

And that’s about all our news- we’re finally caught up, just in time for daylight savings to throw us for another loop.

The photo of the week is of Seth’s admission letter to the University of Maryland kinesiology graduate program. I’m super proud of him, and excited about this new chapter in our adventures.

Adventures in "Sunny" Southern Cal

I gripped the wheel with both hands, squinted out the window through the rain and fog, and sighed loudly. Seth, next to me, was a study of patience and calm. “We seriously can’t win with this weather,” I said, for probably the seventh time that morning. “I’m having fun,” he said. “Let’s stop here and get some lunch and a beer.”

A couple of beachside tacos and a pint or two later, and I was feeling better. Seth does know how to handle the occasional fit of temper. This one was, I thought, well-warranted. I had been looking forward to showing him California practically since we met, and had spent weeks making plans to see friends and squeeze in as much scenic beautiful as humanly possible over the long weekend, when “Snowmageddon” ruined out trip. We had rescheduled for this weekend, and arrived to LA Times headlines about the huge storm: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-california-storms-big-waves-tornado-warning-more-rain-ahead-20140301,0,7788366.story#axzz2v7pXxASh I was nearly inconsolable.

The weather, at least, turned out to be as bad as it sounded. We got dressed up for dinner one night and dashed through the deluge from the valet stand, looking like drowned rats by the time we got inside. I white-knuckled most of the driving as the rain came down in sheets. For the bulk of the scenic drive of the Pacific Coast Highway- which I had been talking up for more than a year- you couldn’t even see the ocean, or tell that the winding road hugged stunning cliffs. We had to avoid Malibu entirely due to mudslides. The redwoods were obscured by fog and downed branches, and we had to squint through pea soup fog to see the iconic Golden Gate and the Hollywood sign.

Hollywood was another story, since I had forgotten all about Academy Awards weekend. The streets
were so blocked off, we couldn’t even get in the obligatory glance at Graumann’s Theater and the Walk of Fame.

Seth promised we could have a “redo,” which cheered me up a little bit, and he was so cheerful about the whole thing that I eventually had to laugh about the weather conspiracy. And we still had a great time. Even though I was so indignant about his missing the Big Sur views that I made him google “what it usually looks like.”

I got to introduce Seth to some of my very closest friends (and vice versa), and we had a great time with all of them. We made a pilgrimage to Manhattan Beach, went to a killer new beach restaurant with Petey and Lauren, got to see Jean and Travis’ gorgeous new house and cute toddler, and had dinner and cocktails (with mandatory celebrity sighting, of course) in Hollywood with Tori and Todd.

Largely thanks to Seth we enjoyed our soggy road trip, and he got to catch up with a friend in San Francisco. (The nerd I married also insisted that- with hundreds of miles of the most beautiful coastline in the world to see- we go to the Reagan Library. And it was kind of cool.)

We spent a rainy afternoon in bed with room service in Studio City, and found the only dive bar in beautiful- and insanely upscale- Carmel, which served, yes, a bacon bloody Mary. Seth was in heaven. And finally, I got to show him why a trip to Fresno to see the Russos, who make five-star Italian dinners and never let a wine glass go empty, is always worth the trip.

The whole thing- monsoon notwithstanding- in retrospect, was pretty magical, if comical. I’m beyond thrilled that Seth enjoyed my favorite people and places, and patting myself on the back for marrying a guy who’s a killer road trip buddy- and always knows when to pull over for a beer.

The photo of the week is Seth's completely outrageous fortune cookie from dinner one night. Unbelievable.

Oh, and our obligatory souvenir photo from the Reagan Museum. His Air Force One really is inside it.

And one more, since we got great news while we were gone: Ben's home!!!