autumn

I can't choose a favorite season.  I just can't do it.  Summer means beach and family, spring means flowers and Easter, winter means skiing and Christmas and more family, and fall means beautiful colors, crunchy leaves, hot apple cider, thanksgiving, pilgrims, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin ice cream, trick or treating, a new school year (or job), and the perfect running weather...
So maybe I am a little biased towards one season... or maybe it's just the fact that autumn on the east coast is the most beautiful sight EVER. 

Speaking of running (we weren't really speaking of running, but whatever), I'm in love.  With running.  I ran my first marathon last saturday, the Baltimore Under Armour Marathon.  It was the most incredible experience- to train so hard for 18 weeks and then to actually complete such a big goal was one of the best experiences of my life!  I had incredible support from my mom, grandparents, aunt, cousins, other family members, and countless friends who all wished me good luck, helped me de-stress, and cheered for me along the way.  I couldn't have done it without everyone!

I can't possibly give a recap on the past few weeks of my life- but I have some cool pictures that I've snatched from different people's fbooks... so here is life as an intern in pictures...

Some of the crew in Central Park

Me and Britt

Best day of work!  I'm walking through the U.S. Capitol and to my disbelief, there's the Gummow Family!

More NYC

Air and Space Museum- for some strange reason I look really short...

One of the most powerful rooms in the world

Rehobeth Beach with Bre

National Gallery of Art- I grew up with this painting hanging on my wall. Such good memories!

Good Stuff Eatery- I'm not sure if a single person was ready for this picture...

Love this place and these people.

I can't believe I'm more than halfway done.  I feel like I just moved here.  This is my home!  Especially since I get to see these guys about once a week:



Well, except for him:

Which stinks. But more on that later...

Bottom line: life in the district is sweet.  I love DC.



Oops...

I know this is probably the lamest blog you've ever read.  It's definitely the lamest-looking blog (i still haven't figured out how to make it cute... and even if I knew how i highly doubt i'd ever make time to do it).  And I know I should probably vow to be better at blogging and apologize for my three weeks of neglect... but let's be honest- I'm probably going to ignore this blog for another month after today's post.

With that being said, I do promise to put lots of fun pictures in this post.  That's good for something, right???

Introducing my new place of employment: the U.S. Capitol.

Okay technically I work here:

The Cannon House office building. But it is connected to the capitol by secret underground tunnels and I spend many hours each day in the capitol, so whatever.

 I am officially an intern on capitol hill, working for a member of the House of Representatives.  I get to give capitol tours, answer constituent mail and phone calls, process flag requests, attend meetings, briefings, and hearings, and pretty much spend my whole day in one of the coolest environments in the world.

For example, today I went to the White House. No biggie.



                                                 Me with my intern buddies, David and Megan. They are really cool.

Other than that, I don't have much else to report...

Oh yeah, I went to NYC this weekend.  That was incredible.

                     In Times Sqaure with some of the coolest people ever... (thanks aj for letting me swipe your pics...)

                                      My first time ever walking across the Brooklyn Bridge!

and of course, a trip to NYC is never complete without a stroll/statue climb in central park...

There will be more pictures to come- I promise!

We also took a day trip to Gettysburg and Harpers Ferry- I just love road trips!  We had such a fun day out in the beautiful western pennsylvania/maryland/virginia area.  The east coast is simply gorgeous.

Jefferson Rock, Harpers Ferry

Such a cool setting for a photo, right???  Cemetary dating back to the 1700's...

The beautiful Shenandoah River and valley

I could go on and on- we've done so many exciting things in the past month and visited so many incredible places that I don't even know where to begin... Basically, I'm in love with DC.

The greatest blessing of living here is definitely the fact that my family is so close.  I've been home twice now, I went to the beach with my family, my mom and sisters came to visit me last week and are planning a return visit for next week, my dad and I had lunch and dinner together at least twice a week for the past month, and my mom and I are having a girl's retreat in Baltimore this weekend.  Well, at least my mom is... I'm having more of a psycho-delusional insanity high-stress weekend. This saturday is the big day:

The Baltimore Marathon.

See you on the other side.