quiet week

so it was a quieter week with the hurricane. luckily we didn't have it bad in no.va - i didn't have work monday & tuesday, i didn't loose power, but some of my friends did. it was pretty windy and the lights flickered a few times, but i was lucky to be home and take it easy. 

new jersey on the other hand... i still can't believe the devastation of my home state. all monday and tuesday as i was seeing pictures and the news i was in shock. while my family is from northwest nj -but we always went to the shore growing up and i have countless friends who live or have houses along the shore. seeing places where i've been destroyed, in the ocean or covered in sand is just so surreal. you never think a storm like this is going to effect your area - especially a hurricane. my hometown was hit with pretty high winds and a majority of it is still without power and a few roads are still closed. my parents were lucky and it came back on thursday afternoon. it is bad in our area because most people have wells, so without power we have no water. so compared to other parts of the state not having power for a week isn't bad, but not ideal. so it will be interesting to see when full power is restored to my area. also with the gas rationing - it is just crazy.

so it was a quiet week after work - halloween party at my apt on wednesday, happy hour drinks with a friend on friday. i'm hoping for a little bit more fun next week! but i was excited because my first birchbox arrived! it is fun little samples and it was really exciting! i LOVE the lip butter that was in my box! and i'm excited to try the others. each month you get a box of samples to try. i'm not that big into hair/makeup but it sounds like a fun way to try new things and to learn more. if you are interested in getting one let me know and i'll email you the link to sign up! i'd seen it on twitter but one of my hs friends was all about it so i decided to try it!

but my big fun was my friend kelly's wedding! i went to her bachelorette in baltimore a few weeks ago and had a blast there. the wedding was so much fun! great to see so many college friends - and the last time i saw a few of them was at my little's wedding two years ago! we had a fun night dancing and chatting. it was also great to see a few friends parents too! so i forgot my camera so i only took a few on my phone. i can't wait to see the wac photo from the professional ones. i love the alumni photos that end up in the college magazine!

little and i!

kelly and i 

brandon and i - we were history majors together and good friends in college. 2 years ago at little's wedding he randomly picks me up, we have since made it a tradition at weddings. brandon gets an invite to my wedding just to continue the tradition. 

so it was a lazy sunday after i got back home. watched football and actually menu planned for the week - yay for thinking about dinner more than when i get home! so ready for a new week. and i'm going to be like everyone right now - omg. how. is. it. november?!? and i hate time change. it was dark at 5pm. it makes me so sad! and it made me realize i need to print my favorite 2011 photos for the album as 2012 is almost over! crazy!

how was your weekend?

5 years

five years ago today i was celebrating my college graduation and walking across the stage collecting my diploma from washington college. saying goodbye to some amazing friends and reminiscing about an absolutely amazing four years and while knowing i can always go back to visit chestertown it would never be the same. and my life in the last five years while not exactly as i planned has been nothing short of amazing. i've grown so much since crossing the stage and had some crazy adventures.

so in the last five years since i graduated from college i have:

- spent an amazing summer living in asheville, north carolina teaching at an academic summer camp
- lived in ireland for two years
- graduated with honors with a masters in history
- travelled all around europe while living in ireland
- moved back to the states and spent a hilarious spring in mystic, connecticut
- started working conferences for high school students in washington, dc in summer 2009
- moved back to new jersey and had an incredible first year teaching social studies and coaching
- spent a summer back in connecticut sailing 
- been unemployed 
- ran my first half marathon
- been a nomad between nj, dc and all over working conferences for middle & high school students
- took off for a 3 week european adventure
- spent a summer living in nova, running conferences for 330 high school students
- moved to charleston, south carolina pretty much for an adventure
- tore my ACL and spent a few months in new jersey
- enjoying living in charleston and just trying to figure out my next step
- travelled to 15 states and 11 countries
- lived in 5 states
- made so many friends and have been so lucky to experience so many great places and adventures

it is kinda crazy how much i've been able to do and see, while my plan wasn't this unstructured i've had fun and i've gotten to travel and experience life which i know when i get the chance again i'll be an amazing teacher because of it

while my next step is still unsure i know i'll be ok. life is one big adventure and i'm just doing my best to live it and take advantage of every opportunity i've been given!

george and i 

barkley and the garrett c awards

worcester girls four years later

with the lovers

family

happy birthday george

a big happy happy 280th birthday to my favorite president george washington!

celebrating at mt. vernon with the wac book prize crew - may 2006

all snazzy for graduation - may 2007

my graduation - may 2007

love him - november 2009

gotta say hi to george - june 2011

we did this a lot sophomore year - spring 2005

playing in the snow - feb 2006

martha not happy with me at mt. vernon - june 2011

i've given him a lot of love over the years... these are just a few of the many many photos of me and george over the years!

hope wac has a wonderful weekend of wishing him happy birthday!

check out this hilarious video of george on campus!


why i love my college & gw!

chestertown reunion

so this weekend was one of the best weekends in a long time. it was a long long overdue weekend at wac with some of the worcester crew but more specifically to see aubrey and her husband. aubrey in college was one of my best friends and with hilary the three of us were the berries. i had a lot of rediculous adventures with those two freshman and sophomore year and we were still super great friends junior and senior years but not living together and we have hundreds of saved emails and countless mixed cds and thousands of memories. but after college i moved to ireland, hil back to dc and aubs went home to colorado for a bit, decided to teach english in thailand where she met a british guy and fell in love and finally moved over to england in spring 2010 and married him. so  we hadn't seen aubs since college graduation 4 years ago. and she was finally coming to the east coast so we could all meet her husband and have a mini reunion! 

outside our freshman year dorm - worcester! 

our dorm was on the left! view from the new dining hall

so friday after work i met aubs and martin, hil and emmy and we went to jazz in the park which was fun and then we headed out to dinner. it was amazing to just catch up on our lives - we've all been email slackers the last year and well it was fun to catch up on work, love, relationships, people and just life. and it was great to finally meet martin! and then saturday morning we were off to chestertown! it was fun going with hil, emmy, martin & aubs. a lot of laughing about college memories and the silly things we did. once we arrived we met up with eye and her husband, alex and her bf and then bill and chris. and we went to our favorite pizza place in town. and yum! i love proc's and the ziti pizza is heavenly! and of course we took martin around campus and stopped by all our old dorms and laughed about the specific memories from each one! and just had a great time going through all the new buildings and laughing about how different everything is with the new dorms, dining hall and theatre. we all said hi to george and laughed about may day, birthday balls, the hundreds of sporting events we went to. so it was fun to frolic about campus and think of all the theme parties, late nights, meals in the dining hall, classes together and just college life. 

us with the lovely george washington! 

toast to the happy couple!

after that we checked into the slightly sketchy hotel in town (not my choice) and prepared for aubrey's surprise. since they didn't have a wedding when they got married we thought it would be fun to have a cake, a champagne toast and celebrate their marriage! so that was fun and we definitely surprised them! and then we learned earlier this week that martin has never played beer pong so we had put that on the things to do list. so we started drinking and playing beer pong and getting the party started. which was just fun. martin caught on early how to play and well as we all knew with my talent, i'm not good until much, much later in the evening. but we had fun hanging out until it was time to head to rock hall!

with my crab!

we went to the best place for crabs in the eastern shore. waterman's in rock hall! now i'm not gonna lie, i went to college in maryland, i've gone to a bunch of crab houses and i had never had crab before. i've always been weary of seafood and i just don't like most of it. but i've been eating crab dip for a while now and i've had crab cakes and well last summer i attempted to eat a lobster. so this was it. so i enjoyed playing with the crabs and i did eat one! it was ok - not something i was in love with, but i would do it again. but sooo much work for so little food! but everyone had a blast at waterman's! 

all the wac-sters at watermans!

berries reunited 4 years later!

us with timmy!

and after waterman's we went back to the college favorite bar. the bird. it is closer to where i lived senior year than my classes or the dining hall. (and my campus is small) so we had a great time. and now the bird it awesome because well it is a dive bar and it has the cheapest drinks known to man. a pitcher of beer is $4.50. yes - i pay more for one beer in dc than i do for a pitcher at the bird. and we did shakers of shots for $15. now the shots may be slightly smaller than a regular shot but we could get 12 out of a shaker. so as you can imagine the beer and shots were flowing all night long. it was just one of those nights were we were all having fun, playing good music on the jukebox, playing pool, drinking, erotic photo hunt, and laughing. and best of all our favorite 

bartender/owner was at the bar that night drinking. we were kinda sad because we remembered it was saturday night and timmy never works on saturday night - but he was there and of course we got a group shot with timmy! so we reluctantly left at closing and headed across the street to our hotel where we continued to play beer pong and drank all the beer/champagne we purchased for the festivities. and as we all know i was on fire with beer pong later that evening when we got back! so we finally stumbled to bed at 3 am... which meant that i was continuously drinking for 12 hours - something i haven't done since i did it once or twice in college. 

everyone at the bar

and sunday morning surprisingly we weren't really hungover - don't know how. but we all did go to ellen's for some fabulous breakfast and to laugh about the antics of the night before. pretty much what we used to do in college. and then we drove back across the bay to dc and we all said goodbye.  

all our signed dollars at the bird

it was an amazing weekend with great friends and catching up on our lives in the last 4 years. in our crew we've been to many different places and including the people who weren't able to attend we've hit living since graduation on 5 continents, 3 marriages, many different jobs, a few MA degrees, many weekends together, many boyfriends and lots of crazy living. i'm glad we made the time this weekend to see each other and i don't want to wait the next 4 years to see everyone. so i'm hoping we can make this a yearly event because i love seeing my friends and i don't want to take them for granted. 

last few weeks

woooo! done with 11 days in the field with 337 high school students running a leadership conference and now i'm spending my day off sick in bed. i haven't moved from my bed and i've been reading, watching episodes of tv on netflix and sleeping. what a way to spend my day off...  i should be doing laundry, putting away all my stuff, maybe enjoying a day in the district, going to a place on my to do list or sitting out along the potomac at great falls.

it was an interesting 11 days - most night i was lucky if i got 5 hours of sleep and on too many to count i only got 2 hours (and we wonder why i'm sick) i realized the whole role of my job was problem solving. well maybe not the whole role - but pretty much what i was doing 95% of the time. i think i handled some of the crazy stressful times ok, but there were a few times i was kinda snappy at my staff (but if they would use their resources and not ask the same questions) but those are things i can work on next session. i had some fun with the students playing a joke on them with lifejackets and the farewell boat cruise. but despite the sleep deprivation i had a great time and i'm glad i took the challenge and step up in running conferences this summer.

so here are some fun pictures from the last two weeks and the fun i had at jones's wedding and then some fun in and around dc! 

jones's wedding was so much fun! since her husband is also from wac - it was a great wedding because it was a mini college reunion in the process! loves it! the crew girls and i had a blast and it was the first time since graduation the 5 of us were together!

prom style pic at walburn's parents house where we got ready

the wac photo - yay for the college magazine! 

us with jones when we serenaded her with our song "for the longest time" by billy joel

the happy couple during the first dance

amy and i 

my hott dates :)

the wedding was a blast and it was great too see my lovely ladies (and travis) but it was a bit of a crazy start to the session as i was up at 5:45 to get to the hotel by 7 to start work... but i wouldn't have missed her wedding for anything! and now some pics from the week! i got to go to a few new places and a few old favs!

with my lover george washington (and martha too) at mt. vernon

the joke i played on the students - we joke that on the dinner cruise they have to wear lifejackets - and so i actually showed up at bus boarding and wore my pink lifejacket most of the evening (and it matched my dress!)

little washington nationals action - they beat the o's the night we went! and i also got completely soaked! 

view of the capital from the newseum - which i LOVED 

went to ashton kutcher's restaurant - ketchup in the national harbor - not that great... but the truffle tator tots were yum!

the awakening - in the national harbor 

iwo jima at sunset 

view of the potomac from mt. vernon - made me miss the last time i was there for the book prize!

little college admissions tour at georgetown

i can't wait for this weekend - a mini college reunion in chestertown with many of my fabulous worcester girls and i get to see aubrey after 4 long years! eeeeee :)

4 years!

the worcester girls 4 years later

college was an amazing four years and four years ago today i graduated from wac. so i am now at the point where i've been out of college as long as i was there. and these last four years have been just as crazy.

barkley wearing our suite's
graduation bling

i spent a summer teaching at an academic camp in north carolina, moved to ireland for two years and did a masters degree, moved to connecticut and worked at a maritime museum, went to dc for the summer and worked at a high school leadership conference, ended up with a teaching job back home in new jersey, spent a summer as an alternate director of a sailing camp in connecticut, went back down to dc to work high school leadership

as well as kept in touch with some amazing college friends, made some new friends along the way, traveled around europe and the us, dated a few people, moved back in with my parents, been unemployed and through it all kept loving life enjoying every second of the adventure.

4 years later and still going strong!

i learned a lot about myself in those 4 years in chestertown - fell in love with a new sport (rowing), joined an amazing sisterhood (zta), studied abroad in ireland, met some amazing people and still keep in touch with many of them, had a few boyfriends, realized my passion for history, learned how to be an amazing teacher, had fabulous relationships with my professors, learned how to write, my confidence in myself grew, i found an amazing place i know i can alway go back to and laugh about the memories from those 4 years, learned so much from the people around me and took advantage of every opportunity. and in the 4 years since graduating i have continued to do those things. and i plan on continuing to learn and grow. so thank you washington college for 4 amazing years both in college and post college.

next year i will be back in chestertown for the reunion weekend and hope all my friends have fun there this weekend!

busy, busy this week in dc for me. tuesday went all over the district for work talking about visiting all the memorials and sites we go to, which was fun! went to dinner with patricia on wednesday night for our weekly catch up and yesterday night i met up with travis (jeanne's fiancee) he was in town for work and i met up with him and we went out to dinner at this great irish pub in old towne. so that was a fun night! and this weekend is shaping up to be quite awesome! i was gchatting with my friend ellie on wednesday and she said she was going to a brett dennen concert on saturday night at the 930 club and said i should go. now i have no idea who he was - but i went and listened to some of his music and really enjoyed it so decided why not! and then i had been thinking about going to the sugarland concert on sunday night by myself and i saw a fellow former blogger/twitter amanda's tweet about wanting to go. so we struck up a conversation and a little bit later i'm buying a ticket to go! which is super awesome because her and i have been trying to meet up with each other since i was in dc this fall! so i get to meet amanda and go to a sugarland concert! yay! plus i'm seeing my little & glittle for lunch on sunday too! so lots going on and then next week will be crazy at work, then it is memorial day weekend and i'm seeing jeanne & amy! and then conference life starts! i can't believe how fast life is going, but i'm loving it!

any fun plans this weekend?

ohhhh - and check out my guest post about a funny teaching story over on one of favorite bloggers the fabulous lucy the valiant! i had a great time meeting her and her family when i was in dallas!

philly and happy birthday george!

i'm back from one of the most fabulous weekends i've had in a long time with friends. it was great to see amy & jeanne and play in philly! i've been to philly a bunch of times, usually along the schuylkill for a regatta, but a few times i was able to play. and so this time it was a super touristy day in philly but i LOVED it! the highlight was going to independence hall and seeing where they signed the declaration of independence and debated the constitution! i could just feel the love and magic of those amazing documents in that room.

where they signed the constitution and declaration of independence!!!

liberty bell

LOVE

view from top of city hall

irish famine memorial 

and then saturday amy, jeanne and i headed to chestertown to wish our favorite president happy birthday in style. but before we celebrated we went for a nice 3.5 mile run along the chester river. it reminded us of our college days and the crazy birthday ball competition practice we would have that morning with rowing. so it was fun to go for a nice, gorgeous run! and then went to get pizza for dinner and with our other friends walburn, kaity & her bf nate kicked off the night with a toast while getting ready! so we had some fun before heading to campus for birthday ball. i was really lucky as a huge percentage of my good college friends were at birthday ball. the girls and then my little & glittle and ash! so it was super nice to see so many friends in one weekend! so birthday ball was fun - the usual wac craziness! and of course the post ball midnight breakfast in the dining hall!

with my girls 

and my frippet

amy, me, little & kspice

happy birthday george!

this morning when we woke up we realized we were growing up when we weren't hungover after a birthday ball... and went to brunch before parting ways and heading back home. this weekend reminded me and my friends of why we need to see each other more and how special our friendship is!

so a busy week. i was gonna go skiing on monday, buuut it is supposed to rain all day, so we went to a back-up plan. and then wednesday i'm off to pittsburgh and the crazy of conferences for the next three weeks!

how was your weekend?