Winter Formal Flashback

My handsome 16-year-old brother Marc went to his first formal dance this past weekend. His date was a girl from church and they went with a big group of other friends. Marc sent my sister Rebecca this cute picture and she forwarded it on to me. How cute are they?!



I can't believe Marc is old enough to date and go to high school dances and it got me reminiscing about some of my high school experiences, the dances in particular. I got out my old scrapbooks and had a good time looking back at the pictures of all my high school friends and all the fun we had together. For your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of me at my first formal dance when I was 16...



I went with my friend Sean and I was, not surprisingly, taller than him. (At 6'1'', I was taller than practically everyone in my high school.) That is why I am leaning on the chair, because the photographer thought it would look better than to have me standing a few inches taller than my date. It was experiences like those that led me to marry Russ, who is taller than me even when I'm wearing 3-inch heels! (No hard feelings, Sean - it just wasn't meant to be.)

Snowed In

As I’m sure you have all heard, D.C. is experiencing one of the craziest blizzards in history right now and Russ and I are officially snowed in. Church has been cancelled for the second Sunday in row (the third time in the past two months) and our power is out. Without the power, there is no way to listen to music, no way to turn on my keyboard, no surfing the internet and no way to mess around in the kitchen – we have a galley kitchen with no windows, which makes for a very dark cooking experience when no lights are on. I could read a book, but I’ve been doing that for the last 12 waking hours and Russ and I have already played 4 rounds of Rummikub. I have essentially run out of options and therefore I’ve decided to write a very long-overdue post about the last few months. Feel free to skip it, as it will be overloaded with pictures and quite long. (I’m writing this in Word using my laptop battery and I’ll post it with pictures as soon as the power returns.)

Over the last three months, Russ and I got to:

Spend a fun weekend on our 2^nd Annual autumn trip to Luray, VA

We stayed at the Mimslyn Inn, which I think is just beautiful

Bought pumpkins and apple butter and had a snack of cider and apple donuts.

Russ and I spent Thanksgiving in San Diego with my family and headed off to Disneyland about 8 hours after our plane landed.

We also got to enjoy a sunset at the beautiful Del Mar beach

And take family pictures

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday season and bought our first tree

Had dinner parties at our place

And a went to a work party at the Andrew Mellon Auditorium downtown (this was the night the first huge snowstorm hit D.C.)

We spent Christmas Eve with my uncle and aunt, Jim and Kristina, and their kids including our newest cousin Sophia Elizabeth, born December 19^th. On Christmas Day we had a relaxing morning at home and had dinner with a big group of Russ’ extended family at his parent’s home.

We are looking forward to all the fun things on the docket for the coming months, which hopefully means you'll see some more regular posting from me!