The ghost of visitors past...

I wish I had more of an excuse as to why it's taken me so long to post these pics {other than a trip to Philly, earthquakes and hurricanes, ahem}, but we had SUCH a great time with the Cahahuati's a few weeks ago! Mike, Laura, and baby bump Avery graced us with their presence earlier this month.

Laura was not only one of the cutest 6-month-pregnant ladies that I've ever seen, but she was such a trooper! She and Mike went sight seeing all day Thursday and Friday while Zeke and I were at work, plus she hung out with us at night and never skipped a beat. She was such the model example of "how to be the perfect preggo wife on a trip". And Mike was adorable- you can tell he's so excited for Avery to be here and loves Laura so much. He's such a good hubby/father already! They make this whole "having a baby" thing look easy. Not that we are ready any time soon, but Avery will need some friends to play with when we move back to Houston one day ;) I'm so excited for them and can't wait to meet their sweet little girl over Christmas when we are home.

A few highlights from their trip:

Water, water, and more water!

Loving P Brennan's :)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith with Eoghain

Cool pic Mike took of the Washington Monument 

Jefferson Memorial

Honest Abe

Dinner @ Marrakesh on Thursday night

Belly dancer @ Marrakesh 

Mama @ the Capitol

Mrs. Canahuati for President 2032!

National Cathedral

Serendpity in Georgetown 

@ Jammin' Java for the Gentleman and Thieves concert 

Tyler Brandt Band post-show
Tell your kids to sty off drugs

Georgetown Cupcake!

Decisions, decisions.

Kate: Are you gonna eat that?
Laura: Tell this B to back off my cupcakes.

The End.

Good times :) Love you Mike & Laura!!

This weekend, we are hosting Kurt and Bo and are so excited to see them. Kurt is one of Zeke's besties from college and was one of our groomsmen. Bo is his lovely GF and one of my favorite wine night buddies. Looking forward to some quality time with the two!

Hurricane Survival Kit

Good evening, folks! This is Mrs. Smith reporting live from the eye of the storm. Mr. Smith and I are hunkered down in Arlington, VA... waiting on our friend Irene to pay us a visit.

I know what most of the Texans are thinking as they are glued to the TV watching the storm updates:
1. Why is the East Coast getting all the rain? Not fair.
2. Category 1? Puh-lease.

The way the news channels are talking about this storm, North Carolina will be destroyed and Manhattan is going to become a sunken island with no hope of recovery. Give me a break!! Other than a constant drizzle and a few gusts of wind, it pretty much seems like a normal thunderstorm. Granted, the storm hasn't hit yet, but we aren't expecting anything crazy. I think the newscasters are happy they don't have to talk about the Dow, Libya, or the Recession.

The rain started around 10:30 this morning...

To be safe, Zeke and I went to the store to get some "hurricane survival kit" items like beer, wine, non-perishable food items.

45 minutes later, we left with the following:

1. 6 Pack of Flying Dog Raging Bitch {my new favorite after Beer Week}
2. 6 pack of Landshark
3. 1 bottle of Riesling
4. Liter of Cabernet (could be a long night- need reserves)
5. Chips and salsa
6. Ravoili
7. Carrots and celery
8. Ratatouille {no explanation, it looked good behind the glass and I don't have to cook it}
9. Selection of sharp cheddar, port wine, and garlic/herb cheese spreads
10. Crostinis'
11. Orange juice
12. Strawberry sorbet
13. Gatorade

We also got beef/chicken kabobs and tuna steaks to cook. Clearly we got a little sidetracked, so if the power actually does go out, we have no way to cook the ravioli or kabobs and will be really drunk. But at least we have chips, salsa, cheese, and carrots to eat. For entertainment purposes, we have Trivial pursuit, monopoly, catchphrase, and cards to entertain us.

Hubby just broke out the cheese plate and crostinis... time to pop a bottle of wine and enjoy the cable TV & power while we have it!

Thank you to everyone for your calls/texts, we are hanging in there just fine :) The brunt of the storm is supposed to hit us overnight, so we plan on passing out around midnight and sleeping right through it. I'll keep you posted if anything crazy happens.

Cheers!

#earthquake #WTF #isthisreallife?

I woke up this morning and for some reason popped right out of bed. I had this random itch to go run. I registered for a 5k on September 11th weekend, and considering I can't run 3 miles without stopping to ghasp for breath every 10 minutes, I need some practice. It was a BEAUTIFUL morning... 65, partly cloudy, nice breeze- I had a great run. And the weather was so nice, I even saved a screen shot from my weather App so I could send it to my mom later and say "nanny nanny boo boo- look how nice it is here!

The fact that I actually ran before work is an anomaly- I absolutely hate getting out of bed. {Not because I don't like life... but for some reason I think the most horrible things from the time my alarm clock rings until my feet are physically on the floor and I'm standing upright.} After I'm up, I'm fine.

Anywho, thanks to perfect metro timing, I got to work a few minutes early and had time to get my soy latte. I remember thinking to myself "this is going to be a great day"!

11:00 am rolls around, and I get an email from our benefits dept that my stock options are waiting for me to approve. Stock options? That's a nice little surprise for a Tuesday! I wasn't expecting them this soon. {#IPOplease}. Again, I thought "this day is pretty flippin sweet".

At 12:00, I went for a stroll with Hannah and Katie to the Sauca truck- one of my favorite food trucks in DC! Another score. What else is going to go my way today?!

At 2:00, I just hung up from a call (that turned into a deal- sweeeet!) and was entering their info into our system. All of the sudden, my desk started vibrating. I thought Casey, the guy that sits across from me, was kicking it to mess with me.

Me: "Dude, Casey, you're kicking my desk"
Casey: "Ummm no, I'm not"
Me: "Seriously, stop messing with me."
Casey: "Kate, I'm not. Mine is shaking too. What the hell is going on?"

We both stood up and looked around, and everyone had the same panicked/confused look on their faces. A few people were yelling "Earthquake!" {amongst other explicatives}, but I thought one of two things. Either a) the building was randomly falling down because we have so many people packed into the office or b) there was a terrorist attack on the White House, and we were feeling the force from a bomb.

My heart was pounding, and all I kept saying was "I didn't know there were fault lines in Virginia!" Of all of the things I could have said, that's what was coming out of my mouth. Really, Kate?!

Since we're on the second floor, no one really knew what to do, so we all just headed for the stairs. I kept having this mental picture of the floors giving way and all of us crashing down to the first floor. We packed into the stairwell and ran outside like Godzilla was coming or something!

Once we got outside, everyone else was panicked as well. I've never seen the streets of Chinatown so packed- it was like the twilight zone! It really did feel like we were in a dream.

Once I realized that we weren't under attack and the structural integrity of our building wasn't compromised due to maximum capacity, I returned to my normal self and immediately thought what a great blog post this would be.

As I reached for my phone in my purse, I realized- GHASP- I left my phone inside! Thankfully, my co-worker Krystina had hers and snapped a few pics of the scene.

#WTF

#isthisreallife

Thankfully, everyone was ok, and this was just another thing to add to my list of "50 Things I've Done".  After a 1.5 hour commute home {the metro trains are only allowed to go 15 mph post-quake}, I was anxious to survey the apt and make sure nothing was broken.

I wish I could blame the earthquake for leaving the straightener on and not making the bed... but unfortunately that's my fault. This was the extent of the "damage":

Grocery cart fell over

Diplomas were shifted
Although, I'm not sure they were entirely straight before- HA!

I'm happy to report that Mr. And Mrs. Smith survived the MOST DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND the 5.9 Virginia Earthquake without any major hiccups.

Zeke is playing in his Tuesday night golf league {yes, I have an uber-yuppy hubby} and I'm heading to  aftershock celebration drinks with Britt at a new bar in Clarendon ;)

Have a great night!

Ever driven 4 hours for a Philly Cheesesteak?

We have!

To be honest... we didn't decide that we were going until 10:00 pm on Friday. We tossed the idea around 2 weeks ago, but I was the "voice of reason" telling Zeke how we really need to relax, get ready for visitors, save some $$ for the upcoming move {more on that later}. I also said it's ridiculous to drive 4 states to eat, sight see, and bike ride for 24 hours only.

Something must have bit me Friday, because I was suddenly hell bent on going. My poor husband {and my best friends/family} know that once I get an idea in my head, there's no turning back. The fact that Zeke was able to do a cool ride in in PA helped by case juuuuuust a tad ;)

We woke up, worked out, threw clothes in a bag, and left Virginia around noon on Saturday. Donna {our GPS} said we would be there at 3:00. Ha! 4 states, 4 hours, and several curse words later, we fought the traffic and finally made it to Philly in one piece. Since I uploaded the pics on Facebook already, I'll post the highlights:

First stop- grub.

Highly recommended by Zeke's Philly co-workers

As seen on MVF and Throwdown with Bobby Flay

Classic cheesesteak with Whiz, Onions, Hot Peppers

Second Stop: Old City

Liberty Bell
Fun fact: the crack was caused by trying to fix a tiny imperfection!

Independence Hall:
Room where Declaration of Independence was signed

Ben Franklin's grave

Oldest bar in the US, burned down and re-built.

Presidential Beer Sampler

Saturday night: Bar

Jameson and Pickle Juice- a Philly delicacy  

Sunday: Brunch at The Continental

Best. Brunch. Ever.

Love Park on JFK:

Last Stop: Philadelphia Museum of Art for Rocky Pics

Rocky photo

Skyline kissy pic

And there you have it! Our 24 hours rendezvous in PA. Overall impression? Cool historical stops, but more homeless people than I've ever seen in my life, it's dirty, and it smells like a zoo. Then again, we only saw a few parts of town, and I'm not one to judge, so I'm excited to give it a whirl when we plan more than one night in advance. The cheesesteak and eggs benedict made it totally worth the trip, though.