Night of A Thousand Candles and Beaching in December!

Last weekend, Mike and I got to enjoy Christmas round #1 with his grandparents and dad in Litchfield, SC. This post has tons of pictures, so I will mostly focus on captions:)

Giant Christmas tree and American flag in Reagan where we got ready for our 4am flight.

The first night we were at Litchfield, we went to Brookgreen Gardens for the "Night of a Thousand Candles" which I had been looking forward to forever. It greatly exceeded my expectations, and is easily one of my favorite Christmas experiences. 

Candles on the water and lights in the trees.

Curtains of lights hanging from trees.

Mike brought along our nice camera and skillfully captured my moments of joy.

Yay!

Picture this, but in different color schemes, and absolutely everywhere you look.

Baboon statue chilling with some lights.

And then we found a snow machine...

Pure glee...

Sitting in the same butterfly chair I sat in over the summer:)

We tried to mimic the bear statues, but my tiny bear wasn't in the picture.

The water of this indoor sculpture garden was filled with cranberries!

This is what happens when you fill glass bottles with Christmas lights!:)

Outside with the Christmas lights!

Candle lights arranged to be a Christmas tree!

And then we found homemade hot chocolate and Mike took a picture of me trying to get to the marshmallows.

Picturesque reflection of lights on a pool.

Candles and lanterns.

Probably the biggest Christmas tree I've ever seen!

After opening Christmas presents with the grandparents. 

Pink sunset after a 70 degree beach day where we listened to Christmas music on the beach!

Nothing but blue skies!

It doesn't get any better than this in December!

Thank you so much to the Johnsons for having us down, picking us up from the airport, feeding us every day, and helping us to kick off Christmas to a great start!! It was such incredible fun!

Kels Goes Seaside

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to go on a trip with GW's Office of Military and Veteran Services to Norfolk to tour the USS Cole! Members of my office were invited if they could get a day off of work and my supervisor graciously let me  I have never been on a ship before or on a base observing what military members do in a daily basis, so this was a once in a lifetime experience for me. 

It was a perfectly gray and rainy day at Norfolk Navy yard, so the ships really blended in with their surroundings.

I love how perfectly the ships blend in with the water.

We had a retired Admiral with our group who gave the Captain of the ship our GW VALOR (for veteran students) gold coin.

The Executive Officer of the ship, and our tour guide for the day.

Stars commemorating those who lost their lives on the Cole in 2000.

Trying to fit the whole ship in one picture.

Last look at the ship.

Sailors and flag at half mast.

Sitting in the Captain's chair.

This is not a picture I took that day, but one I took running at some point. I believe the flags were at half mast because of the Paris attacks. I'm sure I've run by this monument several times where the flags were at half mast, but this time really made me stop and feel grateful for the sacrifice of our service members and hopeful for peace in the future.

Thanksgiving in Cumberland

I love it when the Thanksgiving/Christmas/NewYears holiday season rolls around because we gets lots of different inflatable decoration set-ups from our neighbors. I'm not sure if the turkey was there last Thanksgiving, but it goes in and out of the pot with a motor controlling it.

Don't miss Snoopy in the corner!

We've also been seeing some good movies in theaters lately. The last of the Hunger Games movies came out. We also enjoyed Spectre (the James Bond movie) and are looking forward to the new Star Wars movie coming out.

Because Josh gave me a mockingjay pin to wear, I also had to try to braid my hair like Katniss.

We were pretty excited when Thanksgiving weekend rolled around. This was my first time doing Thanksgiving with Mike's family in Cumberland. On Wednesday, both Mike and I got off of work early and made our way through some holiday traffic (thank you for driving, Mike!) before making it to the Buchanans' in time for dinner. We had enchiladas and dessert and spent a lot of the evening working on a puzzle Leslie had brought with her. I got to meet Mike's uncle Mike, aunt Wendy, and cousin Elizabeth. His cousin David showed up later that evening with his girlfriend Ashley. A theme for the week was that I consistently got tired at around 8:30, so we ended up going back to our hotel before 10pm each evening. The sleep was glorious! We were staying at a brand new hotel, so the beds were perfect. (One night I got so excited that we could control the heat ourselves, I turned it up to like 75 and almost broke the heater...oops.)

The next morning, waking refreshed and thankful, I took a photo montage of Mike and I in the car (I don't know why, I was feeling silly). There were some special pictures he wanted to make sure I shared.

This is my favorite.

This is a picture that Mike's cousin, Elizabeth, painted for her Nanny and Papa Buck for Christmas. I liked it so much that I posted it to my instagram and (really hilarious) one of my friends texted me asking if it meant I was pregnant..... I guess that demonstrates what stage of our lives we are in haha.

The whole Buchanan clan! L to R and front to back: Leslie, Linda, Auntie Deb, Frances, Papa Buck, Mike, me, Elizabeth, Wendy, Ashley, David, Mike.

I got sent this picture of Ashton while Courtney was decorating. Someone is definitely ready for Christmas. :)

And when we got back home, our neighbors had already put their lights up too! Can't wait until the inflatables get up there:)

I decided it was time to put our little tree up, too, and Rupert was very pleased.

Alexandria and the Art Factory

I (Kelsey) am trying a new thing where I go with the flow and am flexible with plans;), so while we knew we were hanging out with both Shannan and David and Kelly and Alex this weekend, I made an increased effort to not need to schedule things or need to know details in advance, and (as is always the case with irony), I think things ended up better than I could have planned.

On Saturday we met up with David and Shannan for brunch at one of our favorite brunch spots in Del Ray, Stomping Ground (aka biscuit heaven). Then we drive to Alexandria to walk around the waterfront and Old Town. Maybe it was the weather or the fact that I'd never explored this area of Alexandria, but it was just a perfect outing. Mike brought his camera to capture it. (The big pictures are the ones he took.)

Playing the game where you try to guess the cost of the house. Such a fun game in this area haha!

Pic I took of the water. I did use an Instagram filter though.

Trying to capture the sunshine!

Showing David and Shannan my Instagram pictures of the water.

Then we went to the Torpedo factory which is basically an artistic/creative sanctuary in downtown Alexandria, where local artists display their works. Might be my new favorite Nova art retreat!

A display an artist set up in light of the Paris attacks. 

I love this picture that Mike took and how this building was re-purposed for creativity.

After the torpedo factory, we spotted a Trader Joe's on the walk back to the car, and randomly decided it was a great time to go grocery shopping. Of course, Mike and I cannot grocery shop like normal people, so we carried 3 heavy bags back to the car, but we've determined that if friends can grocery shop with us and still be friends with us after, they are friends for life. 

When we got back to the house, we watched some of the Bond movies Josh and Ross were marathoning and then saw the new Bond movie with them that evening. Reviews of it have been a little disappointed, but Mike and I really enjoyed it....even though it's hard for us to stay up past 9pm these days.

On Sunday, we went for a run outside in the morning and Mike picked up some garam masala to make chicken tikka masala. In the afternoon, we participated in a Google Hangout with the Barons/SBs, because Jake and Marilyn are in London and all of us are spread out. It was so good to see everyone!

Later that evening, we headed over to Kelly and Alex's to watch The Walking Dead.

It felt good just to spend a weekend hanging out with friends, enjoying the sunshines, seeing art, and not worrying about anything on the To Do list.

Red Wine Tasting Party and Ashton Turns 2

Last night, Mike and I were up late catching up on Rachel's blog and taking turns laughing at her hilarious stories and sarcasm. We cannot wait to get over there in next April and just recently finalized our dates for the trip: April 7th-17th. It will be my first time in Europe and when I mentioned this to one of my (apparently well-traveled) students recently, he spent about 15 minutes giving me recommendations on experience I needed to have while abroad.

I know next Spring will be here before we know it, because we're staying busy on the weekends and trying to savor some special moments at home. 

This past Saturday, we got together with one of my coworkers who happens to live a 10 minute walk from us. She invited us for a very grown-up wine tasting with plenty of food, games, and...a dog! The dog ended up laying on Mike's lap even though she "doesn't like guys that much" and now he really wants one. My coworker has promised to convince me of how much work dogs are, though. 

Sunday we ended up going home for this guy's birthday!

The big two-year-old in his fire truck pajamas (that we got him) and his new cleaning toys (since he always takes Courtney's real cleaning supplies).

Mike going through the Peanut character with Ashton. Obviously, he knows all of them.

Courtney did the BEST job organizing a Charlie-Brown themed party. I mean...there's just no way I would be able to put this much effort into anything....but Ashton really appreciated being surrounded by his favorite characters all day.

Ashton playing with his tennis racket that my mom and Rick got him.

I have no clue what's going on in this picture.

He's such a good sharer with his friend Kenley! (Also: no one really wanted to play with Franklin when Snoopy was around. I felt bad for him.)

This is where I took his hat because I was being the super hilarious auntie that I am. 

And then that time Ashton and I had too much fun trying to communicate through a glass door. 

Mom and dad and the Charlie Brown cake that Courtney made.

Mike had two coworkers who were promoted this past week at Robert E. Lee's house, which has a view of the Washington monument. Perks of being promoted in DC. All I can think of is "Soon, all this will be yours." Mike will get his turn in February.

Job Updates: 

Mike started his Command Services rotation which means (and this is the Kelsey-translation) that he does a lot of administrative legal things and one of those things reviewing rules about important things at his base. This can mean traffic and parking codes.

I've been loving my 'new job' that I'm officially about 4 months into. It's challenging, busy, and I learn new stuff every day, but I feel like it is the perfect blend of teaching, counseling, and strategic big picture thinking. Last week, I got to teach two freshman classes back-to-back about career development and this week I had a student I directly helped tell me that he got his dream internship with the American Red Cross. 

Veteran's Day is tomorrow and Mike gets the day off, although I don't. His plans are mostly to play around with finances, probably make waffles, and then go to a show in the evening.

Hope everyone is having a good week!

Hello November

One of our neighbors puts up inflatable decorations for every holiday. This includes holidays like Arbor Day. He has a glorious mustache and no discernible reason for putting up these inflatables, but he does it anyway. One day we would like to be that house, but for now we lack both the inflatables and the space to store them.

The Pumpkin-Skeletons Dance, Too

Things finally got cold up here and we pulled out our winter clothes. Our favorite spots have also started to welcome the new(ish) season:

Leaves on our old running path...

Our friend Joe turning everything into a pumpkin...

The Stomping Ground shoving Nutella into pastries...

So that has been good. And our jobs have been good. Mine (Mike's) got considerably easier after finishing the first of my four required rotations. Kelsey's has also been good. She is interacting with students and making them cry, but in a good way, which is sort of her favorite thing to do.

Kelsey's office setup.

Last week was Halloween, so we went to Absi's place for her annual Halloweentown party and watched the traditional terrible/great Disney movie from so many years ago. Before the party, Josh, Kelsey, and I went to our first official (Midsummer was a freebie) Shakespeare Theater show of the season: Salome.... A new version of Salome.... In which Salome is a political rebel and her mother isn't even a character in the show. 

The cookie was delicious. The show was... not as bad as we thought it would be, given the high-art nature of it all.

November 1st Kelsey and I woke up bright and early to run a 10k for no real reason. We had signed up for it last year and then forgotten about it, but the nice people who run the race (in the business sense) let us transfer our registration to this year. We almost forgot about it again, but we wanted our free race t-shirts and medals.

It was a bit rainy...

But we made it!

That's it for now. Lots of little trips coming up as we move into holiday season, and we're excited to be able to spend a little more time with our friends and families!