Monday, August 25

Maryland Ave

Soooo I've had a couple of immediate requests for pictures of our new place!! Here are a few undecorated pictures of our new place. :)


This is our living area. Our couch is going to be located here and this is where we sleep! It is a lot bigger than before! Check out our fireplace. Booyah.

Here is the bathroom. We love the sliding door frame and it is actually bigger than our bathroom in Jackson Square.
My favorite aspect! Our new kitchen! Full sink, garbage disposal, gas burners, open windows to the patio, and it's in its own room! LOVE IT. I am so excited. :)

That's all, and we love it!!!

LO

Sunday, August 24

The Big Move!!!

Well today........ Wesley and I moved!!! Our new place is so great and so much bigger than our old place. It is amazing what you learn to love when you don't have it anymore.. We actually have a full size bed now AND a separate kitchen that has a dishwasher (we didn't have one in our old place)!! And we have air conditioning now... yes, we had no air conditioning before.. for five weeks... in the swamp heat of DC. We have two closets so we have plenty of room and our bathroom is actually bigger than it was in Oxford. I have no pictures tonight, but will try to pull through with some tomorrow (and definitely some of the kitchen). Off to bed for week SIX of work!

**Side note: I will say a sad farewell to the summer Olympics 2008. Until 2012... whoop whoopp... LONDON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Miss EVERYONE.

Wednesday, August 20

One Quick Note.....

Wesley and I wanted to say a quick thanks for everyone who has been praying for us this past month. We truly appreciate it and can feel all the support and love from all yall.

Second, I wanted to ask everyone to pray for my grandma Cherry. She has been having a hard time lately and I just ask that yall give her a quick mention in your prayers just asking to make her as strong as we know she is.

Also, a quick prayer for my mom as she goes through all this. One day I can only hope I will be as strong and faithful a woman as she is.

Thanks and miss yall :(

Love, Lo

Tuesday, August 19

ONE MONTH!!!

I know it doesn't seem like a long time to yall, but Wesley and I are so excited we have been here for a month! We have been thinking and here is a list of all the things that Wesley and I have learned this first month in DC....

- Everyone here walks extremely fast... and never sweats. What a phenomenon.
- We have drank more beer here than we ever have in our lives. (Not in quantity... just frequency..) Beer is cheap.
- Have a good bitch look. Don't look anyone in the eye and ACT like you know what's going on...
- Do not stand still on the right side of the escalator. That is the "express lane". You WILL get run over.
- Walking to work in a skirt and tennis shoes is not a fashion faux pas. If you had to walk back and forth to work for 3 miles you would do it too. (Actually, I wear my Tory Burch sandals, but I sometimes wish I had my tennys... you get the point.)
- We love wings. If you could get them for 10 cents a piece, you would love them too.
- Avoid the creepy trash man on the streets. All he wants is your dollars.
- Recess - awesome. Less wait at restaurants.
- Everyone here loves pizza deal. Live it up!
- On the Metro, you can go negative one time. Awesome.
- We're not in a small town anymore... going to the gym is EXPENSIVE.
-
-... there is a lot more, but that's all for now!

Quote of the day.


"No one can tell if the future is going to be good or bad, so why worry about it?"

Mimzi, The Secret Life of an American Teenager

hahaha...yes.....that is where it is from. This is our new philosophy on life. It's a damn good one.


Sunday, August 17

Home Sweet Home............. kinda.

For all of you who haven't seen our lovely abode here in the District, I have attached a couple pictures for your enjoyment. Miraculously, we haven't hated it too much and actually haven't killed each other! Haha, kidding... but it is VERY TIGHT quarters. We like to say optimistically that we're glad it's small because it has forced us to get out of the indoors and get outside and explore our city. It is only temporary though, and we're actually moving one week from today!!!! Yay. Wesley says our new place is much bigger and we are going to have room for a couch. It's amazing how you understand how important a great couch is after you don't have one for a month. Tear.... big red comfy couch. Anyway, here are the unbelievable pictures. Look next week for picture of our new place!

(YEP. That's it. The whole thing. Love it.)





Eastern Market

Saturday, Wesley and I found our new favorite thing in DC. Eastern Market!!! Eastern Market is here on the Hill where we live and is about 3.5 blocks away from our apartment. It is an open air market where all the local farmers and artists come on Saturdays and Sundays and set up tents on 7th Street. Local seafood, meat, cheese, produce, and art work is lining the street on both sides. So basically, it's just like the fruit stands I love in Mississippi, but even better!!! There is an indoor section which is shown here in the picture (I didn't actually take this one; I got it on the internet). Inside here there is every kind of fresh seafood and meat you can think of. Wesley and I found our favorite stand... the cheese stand!! It a local, family owned business called Bower's Dairy and if you stand there they just let you try all their cheese. SO GREAT. We tried a few and of course had to buy some. Gouda w/Parmesan. Fantastic. This is definitely going to be something we'll be going to every weekend. Check it out at www.easternmarketdc.com. They also have local artists who have paintings and sketches of DC. You know I had to get something. Good thing Wesley is sweet! I got this painting. It is of Penn Ave where Wesley and I always eat w/the Capitol right behind it. Love it.

Screen on the Green

Okay, I am back in action after a short break due to my Olympics obsession. Now that I am back I will have to catch yall up on some things. This might taken multiples postings since I haven't made it back in a while.

First of all, I just finished my fourth week at work! I am really enjoying it and loving the fast paced busy schedule of working at the Embassy. Cheers!

One of the fun (and free!) things Wesley and I have discovered about the District is Screen on the Green. We actually only got here for the last two showings, but it is still fun. They set up a huge screen on the National Mall and everyone comes after work and brings their blankets and food/wine and sit out and watch the movie!!! We saw The Apartment and the original Superman. I will go ahead and admit that, as I do enjoy watching the actual movie, I even more enjoy the whole process of it! I loved getting our food & wine together and packing our dinner in our makeshift picnic basket and sitting out and reading our books until the movie starts. With that being said, I am always ready to go home about 20 minutes into the movie. Oh well, typical I know.


Last time we went Wesley had me a great surprise! Wesley is in charge of getting all the food together. He told me on the way that he had me a surprise.... when we sat down he pulled out A SAUSAGE AND CHEESE PLATE!!!!!!!! Homemade and so YOMMY! I hadn't had one in a month and I was so excited! Needless to say we ate the whole cheese block... we miss Taylor Grocery. :(

Thursday, August 14

GO USA!!!!!


***Due to conflicting schedules, Lauren will not be available for posting until the Olympics are over. Anyone who knows her knows she is OBSESSED with the Olympics. (I actually have to go now. Swimming is on. ) She will be back for constant posting once this event has ended. Thank you for your time.. and attention. She is sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.***

That being said................. GO USA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Existential Quarter-Life Crisis

As I was riding the metro yesterday, I overheard two girls chatting in the seat behind me. Lauren always gets mad at me for doing this (listening in on other people's conversations) but in this case, they had no idea I was listening. I was being sly. One of the girls was talking about her existential quarter-life crisis. I will not go into the details of her life, except that she couldn't decide on Harvard or Yale Law School. Hmmmm.....doesn't sound like a crisis to me. After they got off, I ponder at my life. Did I ever go through this? I have heard of a mid-life crisis, but quarter-life? We have barely lived/experienced life and already questioning it. Sounds like a bunch of democrats to me (sorry if you are a friend/democrat). However, I continued to ponder. I have questioned the purpose of my life many times. I'm sure we all have.

Note: None of these questions or thoughts have to do with my wife. She was never questioned at all. She was the reason I never fully experienced my quarter-life crisis. Thanks Lo! You're sweet.

Now that I got that off my chest and will not be in the dog house for this post, I will continue. I would have to say though that recently I have wondered the purpose of my career path. Where would I go? What would I do there? Well D.C. has answered those questions. I started working at Senator Wicker's office today, so Chief of Staff HERE I COME!!! Lucky for me my "existential quarter-life crisis" was brief.

***I just had one of those future moments as I finished that last sentence. I can only imagine what Lauren's will be? Oh goodness. May the Lord give me patience. Good thing I have a few more years to prepare myself. So upon conclusion, I ask you to think back (if that applies to you) and remember your existential quarter-life crisis. However, if you are one of those who have yet to experience this life changing phenomenon, may you achieve rapid success and only go through a minimal amount of insecurities, questions, and pondering concerning your life and its worth.

Tuesday, August 12

Its Been A While........

Greetings. Can you believe we have been away for almost a month? Time is passing by us at a fast pace. We just got back from a weekend in Nashville. It was short, but fun. After a we waited for over an hour to leave from Baltimore, we finally arrived in Nashville. We headed to Brentwood via Andrew Galbierz and got ready for the Big Green Egg. As always, it was a success. We dined outside because as all of you know; the weather was amazing.

Saturday morning, to Lo's dismay, we woke up early. It was going to be a busy day so we needed to shine. We went to the grocery store and gathered the items needed for our brunch. Candace "Kramer" Shelton, Charles Plunkett (Kramer's boyfriend) and Erin Johnson joined us for brunch on the porch. The menu consisted of letter-shaped pancakes, a variety of fruits, biscuits, and of course Bloody Mary's. It was a fun time to catch up with friends.

Saturday evening we got ready for the event that had finally arrived, Jefferson & Eve's wedding. There is nothing like a Brentwood wedding and this one wasn't any different. Sunday, we went to brunch for Lauren's father's birthday at Germantown Cafe. The food was great as always, but they need to enhance their sub par Bloody Mary's. After brunch, we headed to the airport, only to wait almost two hours before taking off.

All in all the weekend was fun. Lauren will be posting her thoughts on some of the activities that the WoLo clan has participated in since we last wrote to everyone. She even has a few surprises for everyone. Hope all is well with everyone.

Saturday, August 2

Old Town

Well well, it's finally the weekend. Wesley and I have renamed Saturday to "Funday" as our new day of the week because we always have fun on Saturdays!! Anyway, before we get into the weekend, I am going to backtrack into the work week.....

Work has been going GREAT. I am getting a lot of responsibility and am even doing a Embassy induction for a Diplomat on Tuesday!!! So I am really enjoying it. They are always seeming to have parties... Wednesday was someone's last day so we had champagne, etc etc. On Thursday we all received an email saying there was an "open house - private office." Me... not knowing anything... was like... what is the private office?? Well, it just so happens to be the Ambassador's Office. We all were able to go up there (because we usually don't have clearance to go in) and they had tacos, dip and chips, and all sorts of other food. They were also serving Pimm's. Pimm's is an extremely British drink that is typically drank in the summer. It is a combination of Pimm's liquor, ginger ale, and lemonade. It's so good!!!! I had two... yes two alcoholic drinks at work. Still something I am getting use to. Before I tried it I asked one of the women I work with who is Scottish if they were similar to Mint Juleps... which she of course didn't know what it was and I had to explain it to a huge group of Brits and they thought it was soo funny.

Anyway, the point of this blog was to tell about Old Town Alexandria. By hopping on the Yellow Line and riding the Metro for about 20 minutes you are taken into Virginia, and more specifically, Alexandria, VA. Old Town is considered one of the oldest settlements/towns in the United States. We walked the 16 blocks down to the Waterfront where they just so happened to be having an Irish festival which we walked around for a minute. King Street is the middle of it all and there are TONS of little shops, restaurants, and bars. On one of the side streets we stumbled upon this little shop called Grape + Bean (www.grapeandbean.com). They had all sorts of fantastic wine I had never seen (it is also a coffee shop, but who cares about that! haha kidding kidding) and it's all reasonably priced. I immediately thought of my Dad because of all the great wines! Anyway, we got a reuseable bag from there for .99 cents and we plan on going back! I'll have to get back on how the bottle we got tastes. Anyway, Wesley and I aren't sure what we're going to do tonight - maybe go to Dupont Circle for some dinner and come home. Where the wind..... well, actually the Metro........ takes us!!!!!!! Until next time............


Oh yea. This is Lauren.. by the way. :)