Two Years.

Exactly one month ago, Mike and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. I think about our wedding day often. It was the funnest day of my life. If only we could re-live it every year...

We celebrated by going to the temple and the National Museum of American History, and then enjoying a nice dinner at a french restaurant called Bistro d'OC.

This was part of an exhibit in the American's at War section of the museum. I especially enjoyed the poster on the right.

Vote for me!

To many, many more years....

New Couch.

Yesterday was a big day in the Barnett household. We finally got to put away the air mattress because our new couch came!!! And I love it.

We're so happy to finally have a place to sit.

The National Mall.

Our favorite part about living in D.C. is the endless amount of activities and things to see.  We've set a goal to try and see at least one tourist attraction each weekend, and with the exception of the hurricane Irene weekend when we didn't leave our house, we have been successful.  Our first weekend here we decided to hit the National Mall.   

 I like to do all the dorky tourist things like pretend to push the Washington Monument because Mike gets so embarrassed! I think it's pretty funny.

 This soldier proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of the World War II memorial. Everybody clapped and cheered for the happy couple. Can you get any more cheesy?

 There is always a sense of reverence at all the memorials and monuments. I love it because it gives me a chance to reflect on the many people that have done so much for this great country.

For some reason I thought this would be a good pose to do in front of the White House. But, what am I DOING? I look like a fool. If you look in the background, there is a girl doing an equally embarrassing pose. I guess the White House just makes you want to strike a pose :)

Staying Classy.

Chinchilla and sheepskin. We should have bought these coats.....

Come on Irene.

There's never a dull moment when you live on the East Coast. This is something that we learned really early on, and this week was definitely no exception.

The excitement all started on Tuesday, August 23. Right around 1:50 pm the ground began to rumble...I was sitting at my desk at work and I knew it was an earthquake RIGHT when the ground started to shake. It was very subtle at first, so I looked around at my co-workers to see if any one else was feeling it. Heads started to turn when the rumbling got stronger and that's when I dove under my desk. I tried to calmly tell everyone else, "This is an earthquake, you might want to get under your desks." BUT, they all just stared at me like I was the biggest weird-o.  Bunch of idiots, I would have been the only one to survive if the earthquake was bigger :)

This will come as no shock to people that know my dad, but literally about 2 minutes after the earthquake happened, I got a text from my dad asking me if I felt the earthquake. How did he already know?? Well, he is ALWAYS watching the news and he'll tell you news that's happening by you before you even know it yourself. This made me laugh.

Shortly after the quake, I was evacuated from my office building and told to go home for the rest of the day. Booya! You don't have to tell me to leave work twice!! I couldn't get a hold of Mike because cell phone service was so backed up in our area, so I called my dad to tell him that I was sent home from work, and we both just laughed at how dramatic people are out here. If we were in LA and a 5.9 earthquake happened, we would just keep on working. NO BIG DEAL.

Well, Mike was also sent home from work (along with every other person in the entire area), so as you can imagine, the streets were NUTS! The metro was still running, but at reduced speeds, and the trains were packed. After only taking the metro for one stop, he decided it would be faster to just run. So poor Mike had to RUN home from work. Fortunately, he had work out clothes with him.

He was sooo exhausted when he finally got home. Running in the middle of the day with the ridiculous humidity here would normally be a TERRIBLE idea, but under these circumstances it was the best option he had.

After all the dust settled from the earthquake, Mike and I went shopping and enjoyed an afternoon when we didn't have to be a work :) It was glorious.

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Well, it was one natural disaster to the next...hurricane Irene was making its way up the East Coast and EVERYONE was talking about it. I can't even tell you how many grocery/drug stores Mike and I went to in an attempt to stock up on water, flashlights, and batteries. Couldn't find anything anywhere! It was actually really frustrating. We finally were able to get the supplies that we needed and we were ready for Irene.

This is what the sky looked like on Saturday morning as we were making our last-minute preparations. Kinda SCARY!

This was our water supply. We didn't have to evacuate or anything , but we were told to be ready for power outages because I guess the power goes out pretty easily in our area (sometimes even when it gets too hot in the summer).

Mike was on storm watch and I was in charge of making treats and keeping us happy.

We don't have a couch yet, so we just layed on our air mattress all day and night. The news stations kept telling everyone to "hunker down". I've never heard of "hunkering" in my life, what does that even mean?? Well, we didn't leave our house from 3 pm on Saturday until about 3 pm on Sunday. (I think we did a good job trying to hunker.) Our church meetings were canceled because of the hurricane, so we just enjoyed a nice relaxing day at home because nothing even happened to us. Not even a flicker of the lights! Millions of people lost power in Virginia, so I guess we were some of the lucky ones.  The only damage Irene did to us was make our backs hurt from laying around for hours :) We survived!

Cross country roadtrip.

I want to go back in time a few weeks to talk about our roadtrip across the United States because it was actually a pretty fun (yet exhausting) experience. (I know my brother Tim was jealous.)

Day 1 [August 2, 2011]
Destination: Omaha, Nebraska
Distance: 926 miles
Hours in car: 13
States driven through: Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska

Let me tell you, Wyoming and Nebraska are NOT exactly the most exciting states in the U.S. We got so sick of looking at corn fields, so we had to rely on our iPod, our snacks, and each other to stay entertained. I drove the first leg of the day, and by the time it was Mike's turn to drive I found these awesome self-portraits on my phone.

This curled-up moustache picture is such a classic. We both laughed pretty hard when Mike did this.

Day 2 [August 3, 2011]
Destination: Chicago, Illinois
Distance: 475 Miles
Time in car: 7.5 hours
States driven through: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois

We decided to take it a little easier on day 2 to make sure we made the whole experience an enjoyable one. The drive to Chicago was also full of LOTS and LOTS of corn fields, but it was definitely a cool feeling to drive across the Mississippi river.

You can't really tell just how big the river is from these pictures, but it is BIG.

Soon after crossing the Mississippi, we arrived in Chicago. Mike and I both LOVED Chicago. It is such an awesome city. We tried to cram in all the classic tourist attractions in the short time we had there.

We took the short train ride from our hotel into the city and started with Millennium Park.

The Bean!!!

 

There was an outdoor symphony performing that evening, which definitely added to ambiance of the park.

Next, we ate some Chicago-style pizza for dinner at Giordano's which was recommended by my sister Carin AND the concierge in our hotel. It was delicioso.

After dinner we enjoyed a banana split in the park and then walked down to the Buckingham Fountain. By this time, we were beat, so we decided to head back to our hotel to relax and gear up for the next LONG day of driving.

Day 3 [August 4, 2011]
Destination: Gaithersburg, Maryland
Distance: 754 miles

Time in car: 12.5 hours
States driven through: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland

By the third day of our trip, I was EXHAUSTED. Luckily, Mike still had energy to drive so I let him do just that. Mike drove 3/4 of the distance on this day and I was sooo grateful. The scenery was much more exciting, especially as we got to the eastern part of Ohio and into Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Lots of HUGE, green trees. Beautiful.

My sister and brother-in law, Kari and Matt's friends, the Peo's, were kind enough to let us stay with them for a few days. However, the situation was complicated by the fact that Mandi was 9 months pregnant at the time! We were very fortunate to find our house, AND move in on the FIRST day we went out looking. So things worked out perfectly.

This was our speedometer when we finally arrived in Maryland (which is only a 20 minute drive to our place in Arlington). That is a whole lot of miles to drive without getting lost (not even once) or having car problems!! What a blessing.