Tropical Storm Irene

We were prepared for Irene. Apparently, she wasn't prepared for us. More hype than harm.
Are we done with natural disasters for a while?

Crazy Week

I don't know if you've heard but we have had a crazy week here on the east coast. First, I've had these two little turkeys all week. Of course I had Asher, but we had cousin as well. The boys have a pretty good time together. Of course there has been a little bit of toy stealing, but that is to be expected, no? Sharing the red firetruck is so hard.
This picture might refresh your memory, here they are together at the ripe old age of 4 months (Asher) and 6 weeks (Cousin). They were so tiny. I like them!
They didn't share a crib, but Asher feels like his crib is so fun and bouncy, so Cousin had to give it a try too. And try out Asher's binki, in case it tastes better than his own.Anyway, these two boys kept me busy. Applause to all you mom's of twins or more.
So like I said, we were full of excitement around here. On Tuesday, we had a nice little earthquake. It was scary. Bill, the native Californian, didn't blink and eye. Although he did say it was the longest earthquake he has ever been in.
Here is the breakdown (if you care to know):
Boys are down for a nap. I'm brushing the cat in the kitchen. I feel a little rumble and walk over the balcony because I think it is just wind. Low and behold, the trees aren't moving. Then the real quake starts and I start running to the bedrooms where the boys are. I could see the walls moving, the book shelves swaying and things are falling off the shelves as I run by. I even managed to catch a vase. I am thinking to myself, "get to the bath tub".
(I'm a native Midwesterner. We grew up with tornado drills and you run to bathtub, I was only acting on my natural instinct, too bad it was the wrong natural disaster). Anyway, I make it to the bathroom door by the time the rumbling stops. The boys are awake and crying. Cousin had a baseball land in his crib, but no harm. Asher was fine.
Point is, it was scary. Cell phone lines were jammed. Only form of communication is email and facebook. Dang that social media, it really is handy. And I will say, it is nice to have a data plan on my cell phone.
The end, all family was fine and accounted for.We did have a tornado of little boys. They can make quite the mess...really fast.
And now, as I type this, we are experiencing tropical storm Irene, I'm glad we don't have the full hurricane to deal with. So fun. I'm just praying we don't lose power, or water.
So there you have it, a week of excitement with 3 natural disasters.

July

It has been a relatively busy month. Our dear friend Britton has been in town this week for a gathering of nerds at a conference (he is a smarty pants at Stanford) and for a wedding of a past roommate. We have been lucky enough to have him stay with us and we had to get a picture of Asher with his namesake since he was named after Britton.

Asher thinks he is so tricky and uses his cart as his new mode of transportation.
I ran a 5k on the 4th of July and placed top ten in the women's division.
We took a trip to Great Falls, the Virginia side this time. Thought it was time to try out the baby carrier for real.


Asher is rather mischievous. Of course when it gets quiet, he is getting into trouble. So we have been busy baby proofing Weaver style...with duct tape. It is pretty effective.
Bill has taped down all the dvd's. It gets rather trying picking up a million dvd's 4x's a day. We've also had to rig it so that Asher can't slide open the doors of the entertainment center. The buttons on the the play station are just too tempting to resist. As is the volume knob on the stereo system. So we jam a toy into the drawers so that he can't close them thus he can't open the doors. Mean parents...
As with the dvd's, removing the billion pens and office supplies we have from these drawers is a daily occurrence. It gets old really quick. Consequence, drawers taped shut.
And last but not least, Asher and I have utilized our pass to Mount Vernon and met up with good ol Thomas Jefferson. Bill doubts the authenticity of this TJ as he would probably make a better Benjamin Franklin, no? But alas he counts, therefore I have pictures with 3 different presidents of the US, I've got a lot more to go.

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler

This past weekend, I ran the Cherry Blossom 10 miler with my friend from our ward. It went better than I ever expected. I was a little concerned that my goal time was a little lofty for the type of training I had been doing for this race. We don't have access to a gym right now, and so quite a few runs were canceled due to the weather, or because I was sick (4 times within 6 months). Despite any of the setbacks, I was very pleased with the outcome of the run. It was a fun course which started at the Washington Monument, ran over the Memorial bridge to Arlington Cemetery, ran by the Watergate Hotel, back through the Tidal Basin and back to the Washington Monument. I even managed to run it 30 seconds faster than my goal time.
My running partner. We've signed up for the Baltimore marathon and half marathon. I'm the half, I'm over running marathons right now. Imagine that?
Asher did not have as much fun as I did. In fact, he was pretty miserable the whole time. Many cheerios were eaten to hold of the crying. It was a little chilly to be standing around.
I'm in the blue. Bill says I'm really good at running behind people just when he is trying to take a picture. Whatever. I wore my new Nike LunaRacers for this race, and despite have a great training run in them, I had monstrous blisters on my toes afterwords. Disappointing, but they look pretty sharp and fast.After the race, Bill and I saw this lady walking up the hill carrying her dog like a baby. It was pretty funny, no? The dog seemed to be enjoying the ride.A post race family shot. Washington Monument in the back ground and Asher crying, he had had enough.

Bill the Baller or Gala-er

So last weekend Bill was invited to a black tie event - the Lombardi Gala, or something like that. His firm represents the NFL or some aspect of it, and since he worked on the case that went to the supreme court last summer, one of the partners invited him to come along to the event. The firm bought a table, but alas, since people from the NY office and DC office would be there, there was no room for me. Poor me, it would of been fun, but it would have been a nightmare coming up with a formal dress in 3 days time (excuses excuses, I would have made it happen). Anyway, we checked out tux rentals, they are very expensive. Luckily, Bill found one on sale. When he told me that, I asked him if it was baby blue or brown (because who would have a decent looking tux on sale for such an amazing price?). He said it's just black. Score, so Bill is now an owner of a tux, and he looked great if I may say so myself. All the pictures of just him had bad lighting, so you'll have to see my tuxed boy with a pant-less boy. He had a grand time eating good food, and talking law. Oh yeah, and there were even NFL hall of famers. Don't ask who they were, because unless they are Joe Montana or Steve Young, I probably have no idea who they are.

And lastly, here is a few pictures from out trip to the Shenandoah mountains. The colors were amazing and the crowds were ridiculous.

We're Here

Hello, anybody out there? I'm here, I promise. I just got internet TODAY! Who knew I was so dependent on the internet, but not having it for the last 3 weeks has be difficult....torture even. Can't look up destinations, or recommendations for this that or the other. Luckily, my blackberry has gotten me through a few rough patches (where is the closest CVS...)Anyway, we left Chicago on Saturday morning, and got to DC in about 12 hours. The babe was a trouper and only really had a melt down during the last hour of the drive. I'll take it. I expected him to be way worse! Anyway, last family picture in Chicago next to old reliable - the Camry.In our new place. We decided to paint before all of our stuff arrived. Someone had the bad idea of painting the whole apartment purple.
My sweet babe, growing like a weed. His hair stands on end and he eats his feet and rolls like a potato bug. (it's causing problems, he likes to roll the most when he should be sleeping:(
Bill has started work and is loving it. So while he is working hard for the money, I'm hanging with my sister. We're fun like that.
And the boys like playing together. So we indulge and have regular play dates. There has only been one incident of hair pulling. Of course only one of them has enough hair to pull (see Asher's hair stands on end).And there you have it. Hello from DC!

Veni, Vidi, Vici

I went out to DC this weekend to look for an apartment and to see my sister and her little family. She had a baby in June and I felt like our kids needed to meet. We had a little photo shoot on the couch. My babe is almost 4 months old, and her babe is 5 weeks old. I forget how small they are. He makes my baby look gigantic. I'm glad that the bigger baby is being held up by a 5 week old. Here is more of our photo shoot.
Does this make me a bad mom because instead of putting the babies up right again, I laughed and snapped some more pictures (neither were crying). Oops. Couldn't help myself. Come on, don't tell me this isn't funny.
In other news, we found an apartment! Hurray. I may have cried hysterically 2 or 3 times while searching, but we came, we saw, and we conquered! Let me just brag for a minute. It has a washer and dryer in the unit! I'm excited. And it's reasonably priced...for DC...cough cough. Searching for apartments is the worst. process. EVER! Thank goodness it's over for at least a year.