of course it was cold in florida

So I was in Florida two weeks ago for work and ending my four conferences in four weeks. So I was tired and just couldn't wait to be home! But I was looking forward to some sunshine as I was going to Florida after my cold cities in Indiana, Ohio and New York, but noooope, mother nature had other plans in store. When I was there (the last week of March) it was COLD. Tuesday was a high of 61 and it was windy, the low on Wednesday was in the 30s - it was technically warmers in the morning in DC.  But I took advantage on Tuesday to travel to a National Park! I went to Canaveral National Seashore which is about an hour from Orlando. And despite the chilly weather I did take a walk on the beach and enjoyed the sunshine!

National Park # 66! Woooooooo :)

Walking down onto the beach!

Nothing I love more!

So then I had a few fun filled days of conference life. Orlando was a bit crazy - so it made for a long few days. I just kept counting down until Sunday! So since the spring set of conferences is ending soon we celebrated Easter with a staff lunch out! All decked out in our Easter gear - we had a staff Easter egg hunt before we left!

Ladies lunch in Orlando - the whole staff this week was female!

Heather - my PC partner and I in our Easter bonnets!

So I flew back home on Monday morning and it was SO nice to be home! I relaxed and cleaned, laundry/all the fun things after being gone for 4 weeks. And then on Tuesday the boy and I went for a hike - it was a bit chilly but just great to get outside.

Gorgeous views of Virginia - the Shenandoah mountains are in the background

The rest of the week was uneventful - I was in the office 3 days this week. It was kinda crazy, but so nice to know that at 5pm I was done for the day! I'm looking forward to the next few months of just being in the office prepping for the summer. I enjoyed catching up on tv and just enjoying some quiet nights in. Friday night though I headed into the district to get my Cherry Blossom 10 miler bib for race day on Sunday! It was a gorgeous evening to be out and about and walking along the mall. 

This morning Patricia and I went on an adventure to MD so I could add a few more National Parks to my list. We went to Catocin Mountain Park and Monocacy Battlefield.

My trademark photo with signs! National Park # 67!

Patricia and I after a little frolic through the woods!

Pretty views!

Catocin has a neat history - FDR originally had the CCC and other WPA projects done here during the Depression and created a presidential retreat here. So somewhere in the park is Camp David! And then we drove a few miles away to Monocacy and learned all about this important battle in 1864!

July 1864 - Battle of Monocacy in MD

So now I'm off to bed, getting up super early tomorrow for the Cherry Blossom 10 miler! Wooo! I'm excited, though I haven't been running much. Hoping the Cherry Blossom's have bloomed more since I saw them on Friday - the cold weather has kept them from blooming! How have your last few weeks been?

new york city

After a few fun filled days in Westchester for work I was off to NYC on Sunday afternoon for a few days to relax between conferences. Sunday was St. Patrick's Day and all day long I wanted to be back in Cork and enjoying the day there with trad music and a pint of beamish. I had a wonderful St. Patrick's there in 2009 right before I left. I lived in Ireland for 2 years total - 19 months between 2007-2009 and then 4 months in 2005. But I was looking forward to going out with Suz and Meg this year!

So I took the train from Westchester and met Suz, Megan and other one of their friends Beth in midtown. They had been to a few other places before I met up with them, and the weirdest part was at this bar - The Perfect Pint we ran into 2 other girls we graduated high school from. What are the odds out of how many Irish bars in NYC for the 3 of us to run into 2 other girls from HS. We chatted for a few minutes and then escaped to another table - I haven't seen these girls in 10 years since we graduated.

Meg & Suz. I've known them both since 2nd grade and Suz was the first person I met when we moved to Green.

Meg was reserved - I was broken... Our table had a broken sign on it and we thought it was funny.

Suz, Meg and I

 So after we enjoyed a few pints and catching up around 9 we decided to head home. As the 3 of them had to work the next morning and well I was exhausted after the conference. But on the way home for stopped for a real Irish treat - a Shamrock Shake! It was delish! Suz and I just hung out chatting and finding a new gem of a show to watch. Myrtle Mannor on TLC. It is a "reality" show shot last summer at a trailer park in Myrtle Beach, SC. Absolutely hilarious!

So Monday morning I was off exploring the city. So my goal of the day was to visit some National Park Sites. There are a ton in NYC but a lot of them are closed on Mondays... Boo! But I did go to General Grant's Tomb up in Riverside Park! It was cold and gross out - but still fun. I did have a few NYC firsts - rode the bus system, lost my metro card I had just put money on and saw it snow and went all over Manhattan from

 125th to the Lower East Side. I also wanted to try to go to St. Paul's Church but it was up so far north - aka out of the city and I got a late start due to work taking longer in the morning than I expected. But I also did head to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum which I had been to before in 2009 with students and they are affiliated with the NPS system but not an official but they do have a park stamp. So I got it and walked around the area and while in the bookshop at the museum got all excited looking at the different books on Irish and Immigration History. I miss studying it so much! 

Grant's Tomb - I took better pictures on my real camera but don't have the cord and my work computer doesn't have the memory card slot. 

Julia Grant and Ulysses Grant's tombs and the awesome mural of Lee & Grant at Appomattox

And then after my adventures of going all over Manhattan I went and got a much deserved mani/pedi and then I met up with Suz for a great dinner and it was snowing like crazy and sticking! Here was a view from dinner - we went to this cute pub type place and with the candles and snow falling it looked so quaint in the middle of NYC! 

So Tuesday was my fun travel day. To go from NYC to Albany I had a layover in Dulles. So for 2 sunny hours I was back home in Virginia while I went from snowy NYC to an even snowier Albany where it was snowing when I landed yesterday evening. Love the crazy of a travel day - luckily no delays!

And now it is time to kick off another conference! 

march so far

march has been great so far. but it is a crazy month. i'll be in my office for 2 days this month (both have already happened) and i'm traveling for work for 26 days with 20 of them in a row, and then 3 days of fun travel. i'm currently on day 2 of 20 of travel for work. so here are my adventures so far. 

yup - double knee brace skiing! i went with the boy to central pennsylvania and went skiing for a weekend. it was great to get out skiing again! and while the first few runs were rocky as i was rocking double knee braces by the last runs on sunday i was tearing it up down blacks. 

 

a little bit of ZTA pride for International Badge Day. I love my Zeta Badge and everything it stands for. 

  my day at o'hare last week. last tuesday i spent 6 hours in the airport hoping my flight would still be taking off so i could get to ohio. i found out monday morning that my original flight from chicago to columbus was cancelled so i was prepped to spend 5 hours in o'hare. luckily i had a united club pass and well i couldn't think of a better place to use it. 

so i spent 5 hours doing work in my office ---- while i waited for my flight and had snacks and did work and caught up on tv while doing it. so i had a pretty good day! my flight was slightly delayed but considering 80% of flights from o'hare were cancelled i couldn't complain! though i was exhausted when i finally got to the hotel!

woke up to this view outside my window of the ohio capitol building covered in snow! and then kicked off a fun conference in columbus!

a fun teambuilder - using  rolled up paper as light sabers and beating each other up! here i am beating up ali and then a program coordinator love picture after!

so then sunday after we finished work we went on a little adventure. so another co-worker paul mentioned the world's largest basket and he has some story about it and why his friends will never let him go. so because of that i was like i am getting to that basket. so jean and ali came with me and we had a fun 45 minute drive to newark, ohio and had a fun photo shoot with the basket. it is 7 stories tall and it the headquarters of longaberger baskets. and a fun way to spend the afternoon!   sunday evening i headed back to virginia for 36 hours. where i saw the boy and had a day in the office doing a million things and catching up with coworkers who weren't traveling that week. and then monday night was the end of an era. 

a kinda short era but one nevertheless. as we know friendships evolve and change as we get older and mj, patricia and i all met summer 2009 when we were coworkers at all of our first conferences. at the end of the summer mj stayed in dc, i moved to nj and patricia went back to kansas. i saw each of them separately a few times but it wasn't until fall 2010 we were back together in dc working conferences again. and now patricia had moved to dc as well and we were all in dc for a few months summer 2011 when i lived there for a bit and when i was in charleston we saw each other whenever i was in dc. and then for 7 glorious months we were all living in dc after i moved here and had almost weekly dinner dates if not bi-weekly. and in december mj got engaged and is getting married in may and while there was talk of moving i didn't expect it so soon - i was guessing summer. but last week mj's fiancee got a job in utah. and they are moving in mid-april. while i am so happy for them it just sucks that one of my closest friends is moving across the country. (and it is weird my friends are moving and i'm not the one bouncing around!) and also patricia moved in with her boyfriend last week too. so a lot of big news. so the crazy part is with my redic schedule and mj's the only day we had with all 3 of us in town before the wedding in may was monday night. so we did a quick plan for dinner and had a great night catching up over the last few weeks since we last got together. and got to see patricia's new place! so i'me excited for the new adventures and friendships to grow and hey, trips to utah! 

so tuesday morning i was back on the road. headed to westchester, ny for my next conference. and it was a gross rainy tuesday. my flight from dca to philly was delayed and i just barely (seriously 30 seconds) made my flight to westchester. after i landed in westchester i had calls from us air letting me know i was booked on the 4:20 flight and then letting me know the 4:20 flight was cancelled. sooooo glad i made that flight! but it was the worst flight ever. 45 minutes of turbulence in a propeller plane. and looking out the window you only saw white from the clouds - it was rough. i had such a headache from it. 

so now kicks off a weekend of fun in westchester for a conference and then i can't wait for sunday! i'm headed into the city to see suz for a few days and to play in nyc! including a little bit of st. patrick's fun on sunday! which i'll need! and i can't wait to hit a few of the manhattan national park sites on monday! then tuesday i'm headed to albany for another conference and then the next week to orlando! i won't be back in dc until april 1st! crazy crazy crazy. but i wouldn't have it any other way!

how has your march been?

recently

so heeeeey february... i'm really slacking on blogging in 2013.  so i've been a mix of busy and quiet the last few weeks and need to work on my wanting to be on my computer when i'm home.  so i've mostly been hanging out with friends - doing dinners a few times a week and being quiet on the weekends as work has been kinda crazy.  but saturday i did venture out and get my first national park of 2013 in! 

i went to fort washington - just across from alexandria, va in maryland. it is an old fort from the 19th century similar to fort mc henry, fort sumter... and your other atlantic coastal forts. so it was fun to get another fort in. it was a bit cold & windy but i can't wait to go back on  a nicer day as there were some nice hiking trails and it would be fun to go picnic there!

park #62

looking up at the fort from along the potomac

cute little lighthouse

love the cannons

so many national park passport stamps there!

so work has been busy busy busy. we just had a 5 day training for our next round of conferences for our staff. so i was teaching a lot this week and it is just so exhausting. it was fun though because these are our traveling conferences which i've done a few times so the staff is mostly people i've worked with in the past, which is fun, but now i'm their manager which adds a new dynamic to it all. but i'm ready to start traveling! it is nice that i'm in the office all this week and don't start until next week! my spring is pretty crazy but i'm excited to go to new places and see friends!

but i'm headed to:
feb 19-25: indy, indiana (work)
march 5-10: columbus, ohio (work)
march 12-17: westchester, ny (work)
march 17-19: nyc with suz
march 19-25: albany, ny (work)
march 25-26: austin, tx
march 26- april 1: orlando, florida (work)
april 9-14: columbia, south carolina (work)
april 15-17: charleston!!!!!!!
may 3-5: san diego/newport beach, cali - mj's wedding!
may 10-12: charleston for amy's graduation

so a interesting schedule the next few weeks - march i'll be traveling for 4 cities in a row, so it should be a bit crazy, but i'm looking forward to it! i need a little travel time - lots of flights coming up!

and then despite knowing what program i'm working this summer i went ahead and did the mega-ticket for 8 country concerts from may-september! i'm most excited about seeing luke in may! woooo! i'll probably have to miss 2-3 in june/july depending on what i work, but it was too good of a deal to pass up! you know my love of live country music and there is just nothing like a great concert in the summer! so very looking forward to that!

but before i head out on my travels i'm headed to jersey next weekend - i haven't been home in a bit and with the schedule i'm not sure the next time i'll be able to. plus my parents are moving sometime the spring and i'd like to go home and bring more of my boxes back to virginia.

how was everyone's weekend?

rocked it!

So it is a week post-PIC and I think I've finally adjusted. It was absolutely amazing experience and I am so proud of my team and what we were able to do. It was crazy to see 2000 high school students all at once, train and work with a staff of 108 plus the 15 people on my team running it all and just survive on minimal sleep. I'm glad this only happens once every 4 years. 

So I run leadership conferences for middle & high school students and we run one for the Presidential Inaugurations. Since I started my job in August I've been almost primarily focused on this conference at work and since mid-November was pretty much all I was thinking about. Last time I posted I was about to head into the 10 day stretch of staff training and conference. So mostly in pictures here is my experience. I don't have any photos from training but it was fun to bond with my team, meet the 108 staff members we hired and train them for the conference. After the 12ish hours of training - between set up and meetings/re-set for the next day I ended up hanging out with my fellow PCs and just laughing so much at the inside jokes we created and really just hoping things were going to go well. And it was so fun to see so many people I've worked with in the past all together! 

giving one of my two program overview speeches on arrival day - the second one had over 1000 students in the room!

Got to meet Condi!! I planned all our student interactions with our speaking events - room set up/seating,  photo opportunities, asking questions during events. It was really awesome to see it all come together during our speaking events! Plus I also got to meet Bob Woodward (I LOOOOVE Watergate), Nick Clooney & General Wesley Clark!

Bob Woodward & Nick Clooney during their panel! I need to find my picture with them!

My roomie and i on Inauguration morning. We had the Air & Space museum prior to the Inauguration and totally had McDonalds at 9:30 am when the staff opened it up just for my team! I had been up since 3:45 so it was totally lunch time!

I didn't go out onto the Mall until late-ish 10:30 so we were around 10th - the 7th street entrance had already closed. But still pretty cool!

Washington Monument behind us!

Out of the 1 million people on the Mall what are the odds I run into my 2 super good college friends?  Linds, Em and I lived together all 4 years! 

heeeeeey Anderson! 

My Inauguration buddy - Kaley and I!  And yes - if you saw anyone on the mall with a yellow/blue scarf they were a staff member for our conference!

My roomie and I stretching during a coordinator meeting - yup, we like to keep it professional after standing all morning for the Inauguration. Sadly this wasn't too weird when it was just us coordinators!

The student's final event was at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum - the big one that holds all the planes. It was a awesome time!

Roomie and I being all official at the dance! And yes - due to getting 13.5 hours of sleep in 4 nights I wore my glasses almost the whole conference except arrival day & inauguration! 

Survived! Susan and I at the staff party after all the students made it home! She was with the middle schoolers all week.

PC partner love! 

Sums up the week! 

 It was absolutely crazy in the best possible way. The weather gods were upon us with amazing weather on Inauguration Day and somehow all of our students got out on departure day. And it was just crazy to see 39 busses for 2000 students. Plus 13.5 hours of sleep in 4 nights. I was on an adrenaline high the whole time. I did have one minor freak out - about 2 hours before Condi and I was finishing organizing everything and saw the room set up was wrong and had emailed who I needed to make a switch, when my directors did a quick touch base - as soon as they asked how I was doing I burst into tears (I know, right!, when I'm stressed I get real emotional and I tend to cry when asked how I'm doing, plus I had only 2.5 hours of sleep the night before) but it was a good moment to remember to ask for help as I can't be in 3 places at once, teamwork and that the event was going to be awesome. I knew all the little details, but the 2000 students didn't so don't fret the un-important things. I am still just so happy I had the experience  with our speaking events and that my directors let me do that because it was so far from the usual things I do with curriculum. But I learned a lot about logistics and it will only make me better at what I do! But overall I was so proud of myself and my team for what we did with this conference and how much we rocked it! Wooooo!

keeping it classy with Michelle

The days after were a bit crazy. We had an all staff party on Wednesday night and it ended up with me bringing a cardboard cutout of Michelle Obama home - and somehow she ended up in my bed that night... and then continuing to drink and laugh with my coworkers Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights and a mimosa fueled brunch on Sunday.

Finally getting normal sleep patterns back! Woooo! But that is just a start to the crazy. We start our training on Monday for 5 days for our spring conferences and then I'm off around the country!

So never boring in my life!


What is everyone up to? I've missed blogs!