August Recap

It's hard to believe August is almost over! Man, oh man. It feels like the month just started. Which isn't good because I have a lot of work to do before recess is over.

I spent the first day of the month, which was the last day the House was in session, reading the Politico blog and wondering what the heck was going on on the House floor, then traipsing down there with my coworkers to watch the show as Republican Members held an impromptu session after Nancy Pelosi turned off the lights, cameras and microphones to protest the lack of action on energy. We finished off the day by joining with the assembled crowd in singing "God Bless America" led by Rep. Tom Price, and shouting "USA! USA!" It was so much fun. Only in America.

That evening, Brian and I had planned to fly to California, but instead ended up spending 3+ hours standing at the US Airways ticket counter and finally getting on an American Airlines flight the next morning. I'm never flying US Airways again. Our friend Adriel, who just got back from a 3-month vacation in Costa Rica and is crashing at our place for a while, was awesome, though - he waited for us at the airport the entire time to drive us home.

We spent the next week in sunny, beautiful California. It was a wonderful break that we both really needed. The first weekend we spent with my family, and helped my parents design their soon-to-be-new kitchen. I got to hang out with my little sister Kathryn, who is getting more beautiful and more grown up every day. I realized how much I miss seeing her grow up. It seems like she was only 4 years old last year, and now she's almost as tall as I am and getting ready to start 6th grade. Time sure does fly.

Sunday night we drove down to our favorite place in the world, Disneyland. We had such a wonderful, relaxing time. The best thing about having season passes is we can go and not feel like we have to actually do anything while we're there. We can just enjoy the stress-free atmosphere and go at our own pace. It was so much fun.

We also got to have dinner with our good friends Kimmie and Jared and their adorable little boy, Caleb. I think he ended up with more food on his face than in his stomach by the end of the night, but we had a blast.


After 2 days in LA we drove up the coast to Brian's grandma's house in San Luis. We spent the evening with his parents who were there taking care of her, and then drove back to Clovis that night to get ready for his brother's wedding. It was the most disorganized, dysfunctional wedding I've ever gone to, and I think we were all glad when it was over.

Saturday was our last day in Fresno, and I spent the morning getting the most amazing massage ever from my mom at her spa in Old Town Clovis. Then Robbie (who flew in from DC the night before) and Kathryn met up with us for lunch at Dog House Grill across from Fresno State, which has the most amazing Tri-Tip sandwiches ever. Somehow we're going to figure out a way to bring Tri-Tip to the east coast. The rest of the day we spent packing, then we hit up other places we couldn't get in DC - Jamba Juice for smoothies in River Park and Me 'N Ed's for dinner - before saying goodbye to our parents and riding the red-eye back home to DC.

The rest of the month has been relatively uneventful. Brian was in Minnesota for a couple days for work, and Robbie and I went to part of The Call DC last weekend, which was really good. We celebrated Rob's 22nd birthday this week at Clyde's in Chinatown (one of our faves), and Brian is getting ready to head to Denver to do some work before the DNC Convention.

Oh yeah, the Olympics. I'm completely addicted. To the point that I haven't gone to bed before 1 a.m. pretty much since they started. I love the Olympics, and I've gotten much more into them than I have in the past. Especially women's gymnastics (always my fave) and the amazing, super-human Michael Phelps. Diving, beach volleyball, and track and field are up there as well.

Okay enough distraction... back to the Olympics!