Christmas Cookies!

Riddle me this...what's more Christmasy than baking Christmas cookies? NOTHING! So imagine my excitement when my co-worker Michelle invited myself, Amy and Sarah over to her house to bake some yummy cookies. All we had to do was bring a recipe and a smile :) I really wanted to make mint choclate chip cookies, but the Safeway grocery store didn't have any mint choclate chips. Needless to say I was pretty bummed. Instead I bought some red and green striped choclate chips....festive, but not mint. Oh well.

After the grocery store we made our way to the Eastern Market area of DC (so cute!) to Michelle's house that she shares with four other roommates. Once there we began our baking. This is the part of the story where I want to drop a hint to all the bakers out there: olive oil does not equal vegetable oil!!! When we couldn't find the veggie oil, we thought "We'll use olive oil...same thing right." The answer is NO! What resulted is what we now refer to as--cookie blob.

After the disaster that was cookie blob, we decided to follow the recipe on the back of the choclate chip package...our perfect cookies came out of the oven just a few minutes later. We hung out for awhile, ate some cookies and chatted by the fire. Very cozy DC evening!

After leaving Michelle's we had plans to go see the national Christmas tree. We made it to the parking area around the tree, but not to the actual tree. It was soooooo cold that we only made it about 20 steps from the car. We decided we were not dressed for the cold and would come back another, not as cold, day to see the tree.

New Posts Coming Soon!

So to be honest...I hadn't been doing anything "blog worthy" until last weekend. So...get ready for two fun blogs coming your way this week!

First Snow!

While sitting at work today I looked out the window and to my surprise saw some snow falling!  It was just a few flurries and only lasted for a few minutes, but was the first time I've seen snow so early in the year.  I'm sure it was just the beginning of more to come!

My Top 10 Best Days Since Moving to DC

10. Every Sunday: The Pen15 Club might not have won our kickball division, but I think we had the most fun! I also think we were the best flip cuppers out there. Playing in the shadow of the Washington Monument is pretty awesome. Although I was glad to have my Sundays back at the end of the season, when the spring rolls around I'll be ready to get back out on the field.

9. Pumpkin Carving: Amy invited Sarah M. and I over to her house to carve pumpkins. I'd been missing Louisiana and after a conversation with Karen decided that I should try to make a fleur de lis pumpkin. I think it turned out rather well!

8. ICFJ Awards Dinner: It was a VERY long day, but what an amazing opportunity. Meeting George Stephanopoulos, Christiane Amanpour, George Irish and so many other amazing media people. Also hearing the speeches of the Award winners Aliaksei Karol of Belarus and Frank Nyakairu of Uganda was amazing. After spending a week with them and their families it was wonderful hearing them do so well and seeing others react to all the amazing things they've done.

7. Leesburg Outlet Mall: Do I really need to explain this one? Let's just say Amy and I had a very productive trip.

6. Hiking Great Falls: Amy, Elizabeth and I headed to Great Falls, VA and hiked all over the place. The trail was amazing...there were tons of rocks to climb all over. My favorite was hiking to the top of a tall rock that overlooked the river. We ate a picnic lunch and had a fantastic day in the wilderness.

5. My Birthday Weekend: So I know it's technically not one day, but it was a fantastic weekend! On my actual birthday I had to work, but the gals at the office bought me a delicious cupcake! You know it's bad news when Sarah M. and I go out, and that's exactly what happened on Friday. We started out going to The Space, this really random bar/event space by the convention center. It was a fundraiser for New Orleans so it was filled with Louisiana people...and one random guy from California who tried to tell us that USC was better than LSU. Did he realize where he was? After that, we of course ended up at Rumors...which is basically just a DC version of Fred's. Some of the guys from the LSU Alumni group joined us and we had a blast dancing to some great music. I spent most of Saturday recovering from Friday night. Saturday we went to Bourbon in Adams Morgan to celebrate. Turns out I was was too tired to do much celebrating...oh well it was still a great weekend!

4. Halloween: What's better than dressing up for Halloween once? Dressing up for Halloween twice of course! I went as a "Greek Goddess," toga and all, Amy went as a '80s rocker, but Sarah M. won best costume: Hannah Montana! On Halloween we went to a party at at friend of Sarah's. The party was great and we had fun meeting some new people. We tried to go out after the party...but the line to get into the bar was too long. Instead we ended up next door at a pizza place. And one slice just wasn't enough! The next night was my kickball end of season party at True Story in Adams Morgan. I have a feeling the bar didn't know what it was getting itself into...open bar with WAKA in attendance...not a good idea.

3. Misty's Trip to DC: Oh how I missed this girl! While Misty and Amy went to NKOTB I rested up for all the fun I knew we would have over the next few days. On Friday I met the ladies in Georgetown. The next day we played tourist and walked all over the city. We visited the Korean, Lincoln and Vietname Memorials, the Washington Monument, the Capitol and Union Station. Come back soon Misty!

2. Georgetown Boat Club: We were invited to the White House Photographer's BBQ at the Georgetown Boat Club. After spending the afternoon chowing down on hot dogs and hamburgers we sat on the dock of the club and watched the sun set over the Potomac. The boat club is on the river right below the Key Bridge. After dancing to the band we headed further into Georgetown in search of cupcakes, but all the cupcake shops were closed. Instead we went to a small pub and watched Michael Phelps win his billionth gold medal...Go Team USA!

1. Labor Day: This was without my favorite day of the past few months. It's hard to beat a day off of work, but Sarah M., Amy and I made the most of it. We knew we wanted to get out and do something touristy so we decided to stop at Cosi, grab lunch to go and head to the Iwo Jima Memorial. After finally making it to the memorial (it was hard to figure out how to drive to it) we sat in the shade and ate our lunch. I think we were all surprised at how big the memorial is, it definitely looks smaller in pictures. Next to the memorial is a bell tower given to the US by the Netherlands. We were able to climb to the top of the tower and were greeted

by one of the best views of DC I've ever seen. We were even more surprised to find out that we managed to get to the tower on a day where we could watch a guy play the bells. That's the thing I've discovered about DC...there's always something going on. After the memorial and bell tower we headed to Georgetown and visited the Old Stone House, DC's oldest building. It was this day that we developed our "DC To Do List" full of fun things that we want to do in the District. I'm sure I'll spend time filling this blogs with stories about the things on that list!

My First Blog!

Hi Everyone!

So I decided (after some prodding by my Dad) that I'm having too many great experiences in DC to not write them down and share them with others. So I'm starting a blog. I figure I make all my Fellows at work do it, so I might as well too!

I'll use this to document all the fun times I'm having here in DC...so look for updates soon!

Love,

Emily