grateful

Soooooooo... new year, new me. I made some resolutions, mostly about me becoming a grown-up and looking good in time for my wedding day. I guess I should care more about my health, but I just love eating! I know it would be good for EVERYTHING in my life to be more healthy and exercise. I guess you'll see in this blog whether or not I'm being good about it.

In related news, since the new year has started, I've been doing so many fun things! Dusty and I had a wonderful time at a restaurant with open bar & buffet ringing in the new year with good friends from az and new ones from d.c. Afterwards, we went to an az friends' mansion that she house sits in all year round... and there are 11 bedrooms! It's a former embassy and AMAZING. So we were able to have breakfast and were in that house until 1 or 2 p.m. on New Year's Day and it made me feel like 2010 was going to be an excellent and very happy year. First meal of 2010: Honey Bunches of oats! YES!

Work has been a bit hectic since getting back from the holidays. We've been working hard to develop a show called Vancouver Today that I am producing and doing the production for. It's a daily show that USA TODAY is going to post to their site from Vancouver, the host of the 2010 Winter Olympics. We're getting all the equpment together, show themes, and editing pieces so it's all ready to go for the show.

The weekend after that we went to Atlantic City. My brother had a deal for two comped nights so we got a free room! Andrea and Scott also came in from Philadelphia, to add to our group of me, Dusty, Renee, Jim, & Renee's brother, Eric. We had a great time! My favorite part of the trip was probably when we went to Smithville, a small shopping villa right outside of Atlantic City. The Renault Winery is there and it had lots of cool history--like how the winery stayed in business during Prohibition by selling "health tonics" that had warnings proclaiming: Do not keep in fridge, will turn to wine. Crazy, huh? They gave us so many samples that Dusty & I were feeling it! The gift shop had this delicious hot apple wine in mulling spices. Yum; so good!! Then, we went to these other shops, and they had MORE wine samples! Very fun... I bought garlic cheese from this wonderful cheese shop with, yes, you guessed it, many free samples; and I also bought a plaque with a gaelic greeting: Cead Mile Falte - A thousand welcomes. I have plans to hang it up near the door into my apartment. I won $40 at the slots, and we all had a pretty fun game of King's Cup in the hotel on Saturday night!

So now... this weekend, Dusty and I were invited to go to the White House with a family that I used to babysit. It was really cool! We went through the whole first floor of the White House, which shows off the historical rooms - about 8 rooms in total, and the tour took about 15 minutes. It was VERY fancy! In a way, it reminded me of my brother's college, Monmouth, which was President Woodrow Wilson's summer home... and starred in the 80's version of the movie musical Annie as Daddy Warbucks' mansion. It also reminded me of Mount Vernon. Pretty fun, but also quick so if I could do it again (which I very much want to) I would take my time and go through more slowly.

We went to Cosi with Bob & Myra, the parents of Julia and Alissa, the girls I used to babysit. It's funny how they've grown up so quickly and are talking about college... Wow! We went to the American History Museum to see Julia Child's kitchen - very fun. We also went to see the Capitol which I think was cooler than the White House. It's breathtaking and the rooms are cavernous and powerful. The tour was guided so it was packed with information with all the things we were seeing. We first went into "the crypt" which is a room with tons of sandstone columns that help keep up the huge rotunda at the top. The star at the middle of this room is where the four sections of D.C. (NW, SW, SE, NE) intersect. We walked by Nancy Pelosi's suite of offices, and the room that the first Congress used to meet. The artwork is incredible and everything is so close and present--we could have touched all the beautiful marble sculptures if there wasn't a guard to yell at us immediately after! It made me want to read Dan Brown's book about D.C. because I'm sure there are lots of mysteries present in that building. Of course, the best part of the tour was the rotunda... There was artwork that wound it's way around the curve completely around that shows a history of America since the time of Columbus. It's where presidents lie in state... and the artwork at the very top of the rotunda seems so close... yet the guide told us that the Statue of Liberty could stand in the rotunda and still have 30 feet above its torch before it would reach the HUGE painting at the top of the glorification of George Washington. In this painting, where he is recieved in heaven, there are 13 maidens--one fore each colony. Strange, eh?

The only thing that was tough is that sercurity was strict at the White House, so I didn't have a camera with me : ( sad day... But next time I tour the Capitol I will surely bring one with me!

Anyway, sending love (AND GRATITUDE) out to the blogosphere...