POTUS's Post- SOTU swing

Say that ten times fast! It's not easy!

Well this year, I didn't have to work late for POTUS's annual State of the Union speech (SOTU for short). So I had the privilege of watching it on my couch. I had the advanced text so I followed along and took note of what lines garnered applause, etc. But the second it was over, I had to hit the hay because we left early the next day for a five-state, three day tour.

Actually it turned into a four-state, three-day tour for us. Only POTUS and the travel pool made it to the fifth state. Which was fine by me.

We started by heading to Phoenix, Arizona where we would be in place and work from while POTUS stopped in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Nothing against Iowa at all but I can't say that I missed being there too badly because it was 75 degrees in Phoenix and just lovely.

We were at the Intel plant in Chandler, Arizona and POTUS spoke in front of some construction of something hi-tech. Forgive me for not remembering and/or understanding exactly what that was. All I know is that it was big and we worked out of a tent in a parking lot for about eight hours. And so there were no restrooms, just portapotties. I hate portapotties. I only use them in cases of emergency. But eight hours is a long time. This might be in the category of too much information but I was successful in avoiding having to use them!
So POTUS came and spoke but the only story anyone was talking about was his meeting on the tarmac with the governor of Arizona. I was asked to write a short wire story about it and next thing I knew, it was the top story on my network's website.

We scooted off for Vegas for the night. I had been up since about 2a so by the time we got checked into our hotel close to midnight and my colleagues wanted to go out, I promptly turned them down. I think I'm too old for that any more! Not that it was ever my scene to begin with! Anyway, after a lovely short night's sleep in a nice hotel, we got up and went to the UPS facility in Las Vegas so POTUS could make some more remarks. While he was talking about his SOTU themes, I was trying to figure out if I had any packages at the facility that I could just pick up while I was there!From there we headed to Denver, Colorado where POTUS visited Edwards AFB. He spoke to several hundred airmen about more SOTU stuff. I think he was tired by this point. I know I was! We were only on the ground in Colorado for about three hours total. If I had been there longer, I would have tried to go visit my former youth minister and his family. But alas, there was no time!
After his speech there, we hustled off to Detroit to spend the night. Once again, we got there about 1am and some of my colleagues wanted to go out. Again, I said no and went to sleep. I had to be on a bus at 6a the next morning!!

Our final stop was actually in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan's football practice facility. I was so tired by this point that it actually took me a couple of hours to realize where I was! I realized that I don't actually like Michigan because we played them in this year's Sugar Bowl and should have won that game but didn't due to a terrible call by the refs. It was a bit crushing to hear POTUS congratulate them for their victory. But instead of causing a scene, I decided to keep my mouth shut and thus not getting in trouble and loosing my press credentials. :)

Wild Week in Sports at the White House

Actually wild month in sports at the White House!

In the past two and half weeks, POTUS has welcomed every national championship team under the sun to the WH to celebrate their victories. And I have been to every ceremony. I might be exaggerating a bit but I've been doing this job for quite a while and I don't ever remember having to go so many of these things in a row. I should say, "getting to go" because I do realize there are many, many fans that would love the opportunity to see their players face to face with POTUS.

So the first team up was the Dallas Mavericks. I am proud to say that I knew who many of those players are. I can also proudly say that I watched nearly every moment of the championship series against the Miami Heat. I can't say that watching every moment was my idea but because my wonderful fiance loves basketball, we watched all six games. I knew who Jason Kidd and Dirk were from the Mavs. I felt like an informed journalist without having to do any studying up!

About a week later, it was the St. Louis Cardinals turn. Again, I think we watched every moment of the seven game World Series too. I have always loved the St. Louis Cardinals. Well not always. But ever since I lived in St. Louis one summer during college where I participated in a summer missions project. We lived within walking distance of the stadium and went a couple of times. I saw Ozzie Smith in his last season. A few years later, my sister moved to Missouri for school and now lives in St. Louis so my entire family likes the Cardinals but I'd like to say that I was the first. I didn't recognize as many players because there were more of them and they weren't wearing uniforms with their names on their backs. But it was fun to be there nonetheless. Of course, in the middle of the event, I started to get a migraine so I ended up snapping a few pictures and then running back to my office before I got sick.Finally, it was the Boston Bruins turn. I don't pretend to know about hockey and the players and I might have well been in an event with famous scientists because I knew none of them. I didn't know their story to victory and hadn't seen any of the championship. But I know enough to know that the Stanley Cup is a big deal so getting to see it once again in real life was a chance that many people would love. To me, it looks like a big punch bowl but I know it has special meaning to many others!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year!! Better late than never, right? My goal was to update the good old blog before mid-month and technically I made that goal. Now I realize the goal I set was pretty lax but whatever! Here I am!

I do want to apologize to my handful of faithful blog readers in advanced because I am quickly realizing that planning a wedding takes a lot of time. And even if you don't intend on having an elaborate affair, even the basics take time. So in the next 100 days until the wedding, much of my free time will be devoted to taking care of those 100,000 details that need to be decided.

But I know that 2012 is going to be an awesome year! I'm fully confident of it!

Let me see if I can catch you up in the past few weeks....

I worked the week before Christmas... mainly waiting for Congress to figure out the whole payroll tax extension thing. I'll be honest, I've already forgotten 75% of the details that were being fought over even though it hasn't been that long. I figure I'll read up really quickly to refresh my memory the next time the story comes up. It happens every year it seems. Congress has to finish up business before recess. POTUS can't go to Hawaii until it happens. And I get stuck working until right before Christmas.

However, right before POTUS left, he did what he did last year and came and shook our hands before getting on the chopper. He did the same thing last year but this year it was much warmer.

Brian and I left later that evening to head to Roanoke to spend Christmas with my family. Before I go any further, let me reiterate that I love, love, love my family. Love them. Everyone was there and I was so glad to get to see Katherine and Mark and Nolan. We had a wonderful time with everyone. There were many happy memories made and no drama. But it was anything but quiet and relaxing. Any household of eight adults, an 8 year old and two 2-year-olds and a dog is a hopping, active place. Ours was no exception. We had so much fun playing with the kids and hanging out with everyone. Maybe it's because I'm old but it wore me out!

I'll update in the coming days with more pictures but my nieces and nephew are the most adorable creatures on earth. Seriously, they are. They all love Brian (I don't blame them!) and he loves them too! We just had a great time!

I think my most favorite memory was on Christmas Eve when we were trying to do our family Christmas Eve tradition of singing carols around the piano and reading the account of Jesus's birth from Luke 2. The two little ones were a bit restless, to say the least. It was past their bedtimes and crankiness was somewhat prevailing. But I put them on the piano bench with me and we sang carols and Christmas songs. They sang their hearts out to Silent Night and to Frosty the Snowman and of course, Jingle Bells. But their little voices were so incredibly precious!

Spending Christmas morning and watching it through their eyes was wonderful. It reminded me a lot of my childhood since many of the traditions are the same as what we did!

Katherine and her family and Brian left the madness on Monday and I had a few extra days to spend with the rest of my family. Cayton and I had one day together where we went to get our nails done, try on flower girl dresses and we saw the Muppets Movie. It was just quality time with my family and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

White House Christmas

I had the honor to once again go to the White House Holiday Party, or as I refer to it, the White House Christmas Party. This year, I took my friend Audrey as my guest. Honestly, she had been on the top of my list last year but then I met this boy, invited him, and she got moved down the list. Now that the boy is my fiance, I figured it was definitely her turn. Audrey is a dear friend (we traveled to Moscow together last fall) and she's going to be helping me with several things in the wedding planning process so I thought it would be nice to take her with me.

Of course, the highlight was getting our picture taken with POTUS and FLOTUS. Audrey talked to POTUS for a few minutes and invited him to church. I didn't have anything planned to say so I ended up having small talk with FLOTUS about the trip to Hawaii and the organic farm I went to with her. By the end of the conversation, my neck was hurting because THAT WOMAN IS TALL!! If you notice, I come to her WAIST! And I'm wearing heels!!

We had a great, great time! As I've mentioned before, one of the best things is taking someone who has never experienced being in the WH before and seeing it through their eyes. I'm pretty sure that Audrey loved it and had a great time! The White House was decorated beautifully as always and we had a great time mingling with my colleagues and sitting on pretty much every piece of furniture possible. It was a truly fun and memorable evening and I really do appreciate the Obamas for opening their home for us! :)

Crazy Realization!!!

I came to the realization that I am officially old enough to be POTUS. My birthday was recently, and I realized that I am now OLD ENOUGH TO BE THE POTUS!! I could run the country. I love America, don't get me wrong but I can't believe that the constitution allows someone like ME to run this wonderful nation!!

My birthday was spent with the best person in the world, Brian! We spent the day playing tourists and crossing things off of our list of things to do together. We started with a nice lunch downtown and then went to the International Spy Museum. The Spy Museum is one of Brian's favorites (it's like his version of how the Newseum is to me!) but I had never been! So we went and learned a lot. The only down side is that I am now exceptionally paranoid and think everyone around me is a spy!! :)

We also celebrated with birthday cupcakes at Red Velvet Cupcakes and then went to see the presidential portraits collection in the National Portrait Gallery. We ended the day at a Christmas party (that's one of the blessings or curses of having a Christmas birthday and it just so happens to fall on a weekend!) with friends from church. We had a great time and just spending the day together with nothing really on the agenda was a wonderful treat!

'Tis the Season!!

Oh my! It's been a while! I guess I should apologize once again for my blog-slackness! Planning a wedding is not helping in my quest to be a good blogger. Who knew it was so much work? :) But it will be well worth it!

So let me catch you up on the month of December so far! Well, I had a week off work at the beginning of the month. I had a to-do list ten miles long to prepare for Christmas and cross some things off the wedding prep list. I'm proud to say that I accomplished most of what I set out to do. Unfortunately, there are still several biggies on the wedding prep list but I'm not stressing about them. I'm trying to keep this wedding planning thing as low-stressed as possible. Many people have told me that planning a wedding will make me want to elope and I just don't want that to be the case!

Anyway, back to the events of recent days.... We put up my Christmas tree before December 1st so it's been great to be in the Christmas spirit all month long! Every year, I really enjoy putting up each ornament and remembering where I got each ornament from. I love reliving each trip and story and remembering dear friends who have contributed to the collection! All of the ornaments from my childhood are on there, as well as the ornaments that my mom has made through the years. Perhaps some of my favorites are ones that my mom gave me from ornaments from her tree when she was a little girl and in particular the little blue glass ball that was on my grandparents' tree when they were first married nearly 75 years ago!

Once again, I played the oboe in my church's Living Christmas Tree. There were several oboe solo lines and I didn't screw up on any of them. In fact, despite of my playing, the music was beautiful, if I do say so myself! Every year, the LCT seems to go by quicker and quicker but this year my lips hurt more than ever too! But it was a lot of fun and gave a really good message about the birth of Christ and his impact on our lives. I encourage anyone in the area to check it out next year!!

The Prettiest Place on Earth

Well, at least one of them! Our last leg of our island hopping was a trip to Kauai, which was one of the greenest, most beautiful places I had ever been to! We had a day and a half to spend in Kauai and once again, we wanted to get as much in as possible

Of course the first thing on our agenda (after getting food) was to see none other than a waterfalls. Bless Brian's heart for going along with this plan. At least waterfalls are generally beautiful so it's a win-win for everyone! It's not like I was dragging him to landfills or something!

Anyway, we went to see more of God's beautiful creation when we saw Wailua Falls. Kauai gets the most rain of anywhere on earth so I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that it was raining. But it was still a pretty drive and waterfalls are beautiful no matter what the weather! These waterfalls were made famous when they were in the opening of the show Fantasy Island. I didn't watch that show (I'm a little too young) so I can't verify that but that's what they say! Then we drove a little more and went to our final waterfall stop of the trip. I know, you're sad. We were too. :) We saw Opeakaa Falls which were a little far away but beautiful nonetheless.
During the afternoon, we decided to just relax at our hotel. I was beginning to come down with allergies or some sinus-related issue and rest was just what we needed. And we had a beautiful location to do just that. I fell asleep on a huge sofa like thing near the pool deck, right by the ocean. I was totally chilling and it was nice!!

On Friday, the last day of our adventure, we decided to drive to the north part of the island to see what we could of the Na Poli Coast. The best way to see the coast is by way of helicopter but we decided to leave something to do if we ever came back! Everywhere we went, we still saw some incredible beauty, despite the rain, and it was beautiful!
On our way back, we decided to find somewhere to go snorkeling. Brian had been while I was working earlier in the week but I wanted in on that fun too! We drove to several spots where the surf was a bit too rough before finding a place on Anini Beach. It was great! We swam and snorkeled out to see a bunch of fish! Brian said he saw more during his Oahu snorkeling outing but this one we had to work for a little bit more. And the payoff was great! We saw a lot of fish!!

After changing back to real clothes, we then decided we had time to go see Waimea Canyon on a different part of the island. And I'm so glad we did because that too was amazing! I've actually never see the Grand Canyon before so I was automatically blown away by the beauty and craftsmanship of God!! It was beautiful!!! I couldn't stop thinking about the majesty and glory of God!What an awesome way to end our little adventure! We covered a lot in a matter of 4 days! We left the canyon and drove straight to the airport to take the red-eye home. We really had an amazing time exploring the islands! It was a bit rough to return home where it was 43 degrees cooler!! I am so grateful for the opportunity to see as much as we did! Hawaii is definitely a place to enjoy a variety of God's creations!!