Party Rock is in the Naaational Catheeeedral.

Oh the weather outside’s delightful!

One of the many great things about being a school nurse is my work schedule is the same as DCPS’s schedule (District of Columbia - not Dodge City…. if you got confused). And DCPS’s superintendent likes to give plenty of weather-related breaks to the schools. Monday we got a two hour delay for about one inch of snow, that had melted by the time school started. And yesterday, we were off completely. Hello day of productivity!! The weather outside really was great, it was quite ridiculous. But I’m not complaining, I literally cannot think of a single person who would get upset about an underserved snow day. It was quite unfortunate that one of the directors of MVS came on Monday night and had planned on visiting each of us at our work sites on Tuesday. C’est la vie. We got  great Ethiopian food out of the whole deal.   

Saturday was a good day, although it didn’t start out great. I got up early to make bars for a Christmas party my work was having. I was planning on making “marble bars” which are my favorite bars that my mom would always make. I whipped up the ingredients, and stared at the bowl. The contents looked like soup…. desert soup. (Ps. is desert soup a thing? Because someone should invent that!)

 I read over my instructions again, shrugged, poured it into the pan, and put it in the oven.  After about a half an hour of me turning the oven off and on, watching my bars bubble and boil, and having no idea what I had done wrong, Grace solved the problem. Turns out the flour and the powdered sugar are in identical non-labeled containers, in the same cabinets. I had grabbed the powdered sugar.

So this is what bars look like when you substitute 2 ½ cups of powdered sugar for 2 ½ cups of flour.

This is AFTER I labeled them.
 Also they were turned on their side so I only saw the lid,
 and were in the same cabinet. 

Needless to say I had to make them over again. But not after handling the situation like a mature adult and falling on the kitchen floor in fetal position moaning “NO…. I don’t wanna do it again.” Life’s rough folks. But just like Kathleen Sebelius, I tried again, and my second batch was a success. (Yes I just compared my “marble bars” to “Healthcare.gov”. I stand by that comparison.  It’s a very good simile. My comparison of Kathleen to myself however, is atrocious, because she is wonderful times 10 and I cannot even begin to compete.

My bowl of choco-goo next to my actual bars... before they were baked. 

Moving along, Miriam’s family got the whole house tickets to Handel’s Messiah, sung by a children’s choir (with some adult soloists) in the National Cathedral. The national cathedral is freaking huge. Apparently it is longer than the Washington Monument is high. It’s also incredibly detailed and gorgeous. The director of the Messiah also directed the music to the Harry Potter and LOTR movies. WHATTTTT! It was beautiful. Very well done. Still, it only made my heart yearn even more for Bethel’s messiah sing. It’s hard to beat the sound of Mennonites young and old gathering together raising their voices in harmony, while being conducted by student directors. Especially student directors as talented as Nicky Smith!!! Nicky, I bet you could have conducted this Messiah as well. In fact, I bet you could have directed the music to HP and LOTR. Yep. I betcha coulda.

Cara and I outside the National Cathedral

Sadly, I couldn’t stay for the whole Messiah, and therefore missed out on the Hallelujah Chorus, because I had another social engagement. Briya had a holiday party, and it was super great. There was delicious food, and it was great to see all the Briya family together (we’re usually divided by 3 different sites) in a setting outside of work. There was even a Briya band. And Briya bands and the best kind of bands. Don’t ask me why, they just are. We also played crazy games where we had to decorate a paper Christmas tree behind our backs. It’s wayyy harder than it sounds.

Briya Band LIVE. Be Jeals.

The infamous Aimee Kelly, ladies and gentlemen. 

Santa even came and delivered toys to the children. AWWWW.

 Then I joined the Bancroft site’s flashmob dance to “Party Rock.” We were surprisingly synchronized for only practicing once together, five minutes before we did the flash mob, in the back room. I would show you the video of the flash mob… but my blog won’t let me upload videos. I know right? What is this 2005? (I know I know! It’s more than likely that there is a way, but I haven’t figured out how yet.) Meh… maybe someday I’ll put it on Facebook or something.

Ok, that’s all folks! Here are 2 pictures to prove that I was in a metro station all by myself for about 3 minutes. It was a surreal time.

Where are the people? Where?

Peace! 

Thanksblogging

So I was super sad this year because I couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving. This was my first Thanksgiving not spent with my family, and I missed out on the traditional card game playing, hymn singing, disc-golfing, movie-watching, home-made food eating, dictionary reading extravaganza that takes place at my house every year.  Most of my dad’s family shows up for Thanksgiving and for some, that’s the only time I get to see them the whole year. So I really value that time. Still, my friend SchraggyPants was visiting from the great state of New York, and Nicky and Eric were flying in separately from Kansas.  So that brightened my mood about the whole thing.

Nicky. Nuf said.

It turns out, the best kind of celebrations, are the ones that last for a least a whole week, which this one was. The celebration started on Saturday night when Nicky came to DC and became our entertainment for the night.  She told stories, sang songs (many were Nicky originals) and even showed off her acrobatic skillz.  

Yeah, there are no apologizes for this picture. Or for the other 50 that spammed your facebook. 

Then, at work on Wednesday, my school had a Thanksgiving celebration, which included a very accurate Thanksgiving play. I was a Native American. I taught Pilgrims how to hunt.  It was awesome.  Then of course, we feasted and had a mix of traditional Thanksgiving food with more cultural food. It was also awesome. This lady who no one knew (because she was one of the student’s friends) got up and just started dancing, she even got at least 20 other people to dance with her. It really was awesome. I didn’t dance though, I just watched and clapped. Lee Anne Womack would be so disappointed.

True meaning of Thanksgiving right here folks. 

Anyhousen, a million zwebach, multiple casseroles, mashed potatoes, two turkeys, and two more Bethel friends later (we didn’t make the Bethel friends, they just showed up) we were ready to eat our thanksgiving meal.  

Cookin!

Wishbonin. 

laughin

youtubin how to cut a turkey

Preparin

Smilin

Digestin

. Yeah, it doesn't get much cheerier than this. 

Oh yeah.... then Nicky entertained us some more. It really was non-stop entertainment from this girl. 

Tourism Time!

Most people want to see the sites while they are in D.C.  There are plenty of sites, and museums, and cemetaries. But I wanted to take my guests to a place that they couldn't go to in Kansas.... R.E.I.

Proof we bought stuff at R.E.I.
Also I like signs with teeter-totters on them. 

On Saturday, Nicky left us... for Kansas. So we got rid of our sorrows by visiting Obama's house. He didn't even invite us inside... rude.

White house Baby!

Jumping photo, baby!

All of us jumping photo, Baby!

Protesters baby!

Blindfolded protesters baby! 

Mirmir showed us where she works, and then promptly started workin.
Workaholic much?

Mirmir outside of her job!

Ok, so then we went to the library to print out Schraggypant's ticket home, and I freaked out and took a million pictures of 3d printers. I mean, I'd heard of them before, but I had never seen one, nor had I ever seen a product of one. 

Our future ladies and gentlemen.

In the making. This took about 33 minutes to make. 

Ahhhh! How does it... it folds... what... ahhhhh!!! Future!

Of course it's strong enough to support a full grown man standing on it.
I wouldn't expect anything less from a 3d printer product. 

Now for fun facts about 3d printers. The plastic is a non-toxic (and therefore edible) plant-based, tapioca-like plastic. (At least that's what the nice librarian told me.). The plastic is biodegradable and is also cradle-to-cradle recyclable which means you can bring it back to it's basic material. The printer melts the plastic filaments and builds the shape up layer by layer.   

Alright ya'll... until next time. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Happy Hollidays and whatnot!

Peace

Mariah

Pictures are more interesting any way.

The nice thing about having a blog is I'm taking a lot more pictures of my life. Whenever I take a picture I always have to say "This is for my blaaaaaahhhhg" in a really obnoxious voice. Mainly because I have a lot of internal conflict about having a blog that I'm not going to get into.

So anyway, I thought I'd let the pictures tell the story and I'll just add captions.

I went hiking with people I didn't know. They were really nice and accepting of the random girl who went hiking with them. I had a great time with them. They are not pictured. They thought Kansas was next to Ohio. Also, I thought the "Difficult trail" sign was funny.... because it wasn't a hike, it was a walk in nature. Why would you need an emergency exit?

The hike was really beautiful. The hikers on the trail varied from a girl in high heels and a yellow purse, to a man in only top-of-the-line athletic gear and a camelback-water-backpack thing. But really.... aint these views just dandy!

On to the next order of business, this was on the Metro. CAN'TSTOPWON'TSTOP! Also the guy on the left totally thought I was taking a million pictures of him.

So my house and I went kayaking on the Potomac one day.

Top: whole crew.
Top right: Grace and Mirmir.... cuties
Right: Me and Cara being awesome.
Bottom: Poor alone Keith.

We crashed into each other for a while To wait for Bailey and Anne

Cara keeping it gansta

Here they come.

Oh yeah. So I went to this "high heel race." That I guess started out as just a high heel race 25 years ago, and now is strictly men in drag.... strutting their stuff.... and then kinda racing. 

Dolly and fan.  

 I don't even know.

 League of their own.... in drag form. 

 Just married "runners."

 No idea what's happening here.

 I think their supposed to be conservative Muslim drag...... I think.   

If anyone from Dodge can remember correctly, didn't Taylor and Daniel dress up exactly like this one year for Halloween? 

Spice drag.

                  Drag scouts?

Then, Mayor Vincent Gray showed up and high-fived people.

So at work we all dressed up as crayons. For some reason I didn't get a picture of the whole office. But we were adorable. It's on facebook. But here is a picture of me and Aimee Kelly being black crayons.

But then I got a phone call and had to leave Aimee mid photo shoot. I don't know if she is posing or not, but this picture cracks me up.

This is a picture of my house's Halloweeen outfits. We are the 7 days of creation. I'm not going to explain our costumes because you can just open your Bible to page 1 and figure it out. I'm day 5, and I'm a bird, in case that wasn't apparent.

Reject costume ideas:

• 7 dwarves
• 7 deadly sins
• 7 social sins Gandhi talked about
• The 7 elevens. (Wearing the #11 around our necks.)

Harry Potter specific rejects:

• 7 Harrys.... throughout the years
• 7 Horcruxes
• 7 DADA teachers
• 7 chambers before the sorcerers stone
• 7 seven year old muggles (our personal favorite.)

 Also my Sister came to visit. See, she married into this awesome family. They all came for an uncle's wedding. I took a metro an hour to meet them in Arlington Cemetery. I was there long enough for a security guard to tell me not to run, I hugged them, and then it was time to get back on the metro to go to their hotel. It was in Foggy Bottoms, which Brian called Flushing Downs.


So, this is proof I was at the Arlington Cemetery for 3 minutes. 

 Brian was in tourist mode.

Our beautiful scaffolded Washington Monument.

Our actually beautiful autumn trees. 

 Sierra and I played in the reflection pool.









Brian and Mark were being weird tourists, so I got a weird tourist pic.

Sierra's shoes hurt her feet. So piggy back time.

 Alright! Have a good week guys! I know I did!