Bri-Bri and the Best Happy Meal Toy EVER!

A couple of weeks ago, my big sis called me and wanted to know if she and her girls could come visit. My brother-in-law was out of town and they had nothing on their agenda and I hadn't seen them so they came up to visit.

Oh, and perhaps the biggest reason for the visit was so Raygan could see Bri-Bri. The kid is obsessed with my boyfriend. I totally understand why because he's an awesome guy but she is (almost) two-years-old and has only been around him a total of 8 days of her life. She walks around pretending to talk to Bri-Bri on the phone constantly but when she saw him face-to-face, she turned into the shy child that she's not. It might be that he's grown his hair out since she's seen him. Despite the shyness of Friday night, the next morning when she got up, she was very confused and asked, "Where's Bri?" Then she went to my window to look out for him and screamed "Bri, Where are you?" He only lives a mile from me and he might have been able to hear her, even in his deep sleep. That kid has quite a set of lungs.

So Bri-Bri, Ray-Ray, La-La, Beck-Beck, and Cay-Cay (we don't call Cayton that but it fits in this list) spent Saturday with a trip to the National Zoo. It was a beautiful day and apparently every family on the East Coast had the same idea we did. But it was very nice. And the animals even came out to play. Raygan had no interest in being confined to a stroller but letting her go free range is not exactly the best plan either. Brian was such a trooper to push her stroller around the entire zoo, whether she was in it or not. And Cayton and Raygan loved seeing the animals. We saw lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Plus some gorillas and chimps and monkeys. I'm sorry, they weren't monkeys. The zoo volunteer kept correcting Raygan saying "They aren't monkeys- they are gibbons." Sorry Mr. Zoo Volunteer but "gibbon" is not in her two-year-old vocabulary.After the zoo, Raygan and Laura took a nap. Cayton, Brian, and I hung out being silly. Both of them now call me Beck Beck Sillygirl. I don't understand why! :) We just played and played- at home and at my church's playground. I don't have a lot of toys at my house but there is a kids drawer in one of my dressers with random stuff that may or may not be fun for a kid to play with. But far and wide, the most popular, played-with toy from that drawer is this:

I got it in a Happy Meal when I was in college. I'm not even sure when that would have been because I never eat at McDonalds but clearly it was from my college days when the first Toy Story came out. It's a Little Bo Peep spinning top if you can't tell. Cayton played with it when she was little and it occupied HOURS when I kept Raygan this past summer. She would say "1....2...3...go" and get so excited watching it. And she remembered Bo Peep as soon as she saw her this time. Bo Peep is quite the spinner. She spins for about a minute at a time- I think her record is 70 seconds. At one point last July, part of her spinning thing broke but thank the good Lord it still works. I'm not sure how much it cost to make Bo Peep and I'm guessing I spent no more than $4 on the Happy Meal but the return in fun and excitement in watching her spin is immeasurable.

Looks can be deceiving!

Even though the trees are blooming and the cherry blossoms are beginning to peak, it's not as warm as the calendar indicates. Looks can be deceiving because I have heard that snow is in the forecast!!

Walking in Memphis

I headed to Memphis last weekend to visit my best friend from high school, Catherine, and her family. They just recently moved there from Raleigh and I was anxious to go see them in their new surroundings!


I've been to Memphis once before (maybe another time when I was really little but I don't remember) but only for the day but it goes down as one of my most fun trips in my career!! This is another instance where it's a sad, sad thing that I didn't blog back then because it would have been quite the post!! It was a trip to Graceland with POTUS 43 and Laura, and the Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. PM Koizumi was a HUGE Elvis fan and so Dubya decided to take him to Graceland on one of his visits to the US. I have never really had "Go to Graceland" on any bucket list but I got to go and cross it off in royal fashion. I was with them and Lisa Marie and Priscilla were there too. Our workspace was in the Elvis Car Museum which was sooo fun to be working right next to his cars! We got to go on the tour for free which was a good thing because I can't really imagine spending that much money to see his house. But it was fun nonetheless and at the end of the day PM Koizumi gave us all gold Elvis sunglasses!!

So since that visit to Graceland can't really be outdone or repeated, I decided I didn't need to go to Graceland with Catherine and her family. This weekend was about one thing- hanging out with them!! And that's what we did! I loved seeing their new house and just playing with the girls who are 4 and 1. The weather was a bit nasty 95% of the time I was there so it just forced us to stay inside and play and read books! I loved it!!! On Monday, we did go to the Memphis Zoo which was fun!! I had no idea we were talking about such a major zoo! There are one of four zoos in America that have pandas and they were actually out and about eating and playing while we were there!! We had a wonderful time walking around and looking at all the animals and the sun even came out in the afternoon!

We also met up with another friend of mine from high school, Shannon, and her boyfriend. Catherine and Shannon didn't know each other but it turns out that Shannon works at the same company as Jason (Catherine's husband) and we had a great time hanging out!! Maybe the four of them will hang out again in the future! We had some good barbecue but we missed going to Beals Street. I'm more than okay with that. It's not really my thing and I have to leave something to do the next time I'm in town!!

The trip was so fun and just a reminder of how blessed I am! Catherine and I have been friends since high school and I'm so blessed that we have been able to stay in touch and despite living far away and being in different life stages. I am so thankful for her and so many other friends that are in my life! Even if Lisa Marie and Priscilla had personally invited me over to Graceland, I would have still given Catherine and her family priority!! :)

P.S. I did get to see the King while I was in town. I had to meet Jason so he could take me to the airport and the best place to do that was in a parking lot of an Elvis souvenir shop. And within a few seconds of us being there, the King was walking to his Ford Taurus. I think it really was him!! But I wasn't quick enough to think to go get my picture with him!

Hola, el Presidente!

On Thursday, I saw POTUS again and frankly I was a little more focused on what he was saying and less distracted by the fact that I might have booked my wedding singer. It was also the first time that POTUS was taking questions from the media about Libya. I knew it was going to be a pretty big deal when I walked into the briefing room and there were approximately 1000 members of the Mexican press taking over the room!

I remember some of them from when el Presidente de Mexico (I have no idea if that is the right Spanish term. I took French in high school!) was here for his state visit last summer. So POTUS and the President of Mexico had another meeting and talked about all kinds of things like drug violence, immigration issues, trade, etc.

Each president took one question from their respective press corps. It used to be in these situations, that each president would take two questions each but not anymore. But the WH press corps has overcome this obstacle by tacitly agreeing to asking a multiple part question if you are called on. This time from the US side of things, the reporter of course asked about Libya but also surprisingly asked about the NFL players union strike. POTUS said he would hope they would work things out on their own because he has a lot of other things going on! It turns out that el Presidente de Mexico's wife is a huge NFL fan! Who knew?!?!

New Press Secretary/Wedding Singer

Wednesday was the first time I have seen POTUS all week. He's been kind of quiet all week, having meetings behind closed doors. But there is a new press secretary in the house, Jay Carney. I've actually known him for years when he used to do guest segments on the show I was an associate producer for. I mic'ed him up for years! I wish him the best of luck in his new job!

But that's not him behind the podium in the above picture. Yep, you're seeing it correctly. That's James Taylor!!!!! I got to meet him on Wednesday!!! He came to the briefing room and I got to talk to him!!! I even booked him to sing at my wedding!!!! (Well, sort of.)

No. I am not engaged. You didn't miss that announcement.

But let me back up and start from the beginning.

The real beginning. Well, like many Americans I have always loved James Taylor. I can't tell you how many times I've listened to his Greatest Hits. I love that CD!!! And for a long time, I've wanted James Taylor to sing for my wedding! At one point, I had a plan of marrying his son, Ben, so I could be sure that James would sing at my wedding. Well, Ben doesn't know that I exist and I have someone much more awesome in my life now so that plan went by the wayside. But having Sweet Baby James sing at my wedding has still been in my plans. :)

Well, fast forward to Wednesday when James Taylor was at the WH to receive his National Medal of Arts from POTUS. It was the first time in a while I had seen POTUS but I didn't care about him. I was just excited to be in the same room as James! POTUS said nice things about him and the other 19 winners of the Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medal. (I didn't get one but I put it on the list of my life's goals!) And then POTUS handed out all the medals. I'll be honest. I didn't know who most of the people were. Lots of poets, authors, dancers. I obviously knew who Meryl Streep was but she wasn't there. And I knew who Harper Lee was but she wasn't there either. I was bummed about that because I wanted to tell her that her book was one of the few books I actually read completely in junior high and high school and actually liked. Oh well. I did recognize Quincy Jones. But the rest were poets and other artsy people. I guess if you're a world famous poet and you're getting a medal from POTUS, you don't care what you look like. Anyway, back to James. After it was all over, I went back to the booth and had a lot of work to do. But a few minutes later, one of my camera guys called to tell me that James was upstairs in the briefing room! So of course, I ran upstairs and started taking pictures of James. Soon, there were tons of reporters and photographers taking pictures and it turned into somewhat of a small press conference with James!! He was showing off his medal and chatting with us. I'm not sure exactly what he was saying but at one point things got too serious and James was pontificating about politics and POTUS. All I could think about was asking him to sing at my wedding!! So finally, I decided to jump in the discussion and yelled out, "James, will you play at my wedding??" Everyone just laughed! He said "Sure! When's the date?" Unfortunately, I don't have a date because I'm not engaged yet. Instead of just making up a date and discussing it with Brian later, I just said, "I'm not sure. But I can work around your schedule!" James said, "Ok, let me know!!!" Seriously, I think he agreed to it!! Once I do get engaged, after calling our parents, I think the next phone call will be to James!!! :)

Well, after all was said and done and James had agreed to be my wedding singer, I went back to work and just thought "Wow!! I just met James Taylor!! He might play at my wedding!" This was one of those days where I realize how cool my job is!! A few minutes later, I was giving one of our interns a tour of the briefing room and showed her the wall of the old swimming pool under the briefing room where everyone signs when they come to the White House. As we were leaving, I looked over and saw the fresh signature of my James!! It's hard to read in this picture but he said "Got my medal. Feel so proud" Signed James "Fire & Rain" Taylor. I'll guess I'll get him to give me a personal autograph at my wedding. Whenever that might be!!