Third times a charm!

The weekend past could not have been better. Dan and I spent Friday night and Saturday with the newest addition to our family, Lane. Laney is what we call her and she is just beautiful. See!
Going back in time beginning with Catie, Daniel was never too keen on holding a newborn. With Audrey he came close but Laney fell right into his arms. He said "she smells so good".
Sigh...we are very proud to be called Aunt and Uncle, these girls are tons of fun.
We did not get to see Audrey and Catie but we did hear that they are thrilled. When they arrived to the hospital for the first time to meet their sister, Audrey had a shirt on that said "I'm the big sister" and Catie's shirt read "I'm the Biggest sister"! The two girls are so sweet with Laney, Catie very nurturing imitating everything Christie does and Audrey just sweet and gentle with her little sister.
Laney was born at 7:59 on Wednesday March 11th.


















She went home from the hospital on Saturday afternoon. Christie is doing well relaxing and recuperating at home. Fortunately her Mom Rita is here for the next two weeks and her sister

Shey is here for one week visiting and helping Christie.

So, we were not surprised when we felt the baton pass on to us. There was really no need for conversation but it was inevitable..."it's your turn, we are done" says Christie and Christopher. Pretty matter of fact!

Big Day Tomorrow!!

Baby Lane is on her way tomorrow! We can't wait to meet her!

So

There it is...I am sure I have missed much but I think I am as current as possible for the moment!

One more step back

One more step back in the Valentino time machine.
My friend Ellie Tiehen is back in DC!! We met at the National Gallery of Art. Ellie worked for a short time there and returned to Nebraska to further her education. It is so good to have her back! Rachel flew out to Nebraska and drove with Ellie, road trips are always better with a friend! Of course we had dinner at Bombay Curry Co. to celebrate!

Baby Jesus

It seems that Audrey could not let the Christmas nativity go. She enjoyed it so much she preferred not to put it away for next Christmas but to leave it out all year long. This is one of the miniature nativities and the baby Jesus had gone missing. While we were visiting Audrey disappeared for a while and the suddenly she came running back into the room excited and smiling yelling,
"I found Jesus, I found Jesus!"

We all had a good chuckle from this but I have to admit it was so charming to see her very happy to find the baby Jesus.
And here she is... explaining how and where she found him!

Birthday cupcakes

I think there is probably nothing better than cupcakes except maybe pink cupcakes! This was Audrey's birthday. We had loads of fun back in February celebrating, eating cupcakes and of course Uncle Dan acting silly playing pirate ARRRHHHH with the girls!

Back in time

Several weeks ago our good friends Rachel and Rusty came to visit. They attended a wedding and were looking very dapper when they left.

What a week!

This week was so long and I believe it had everything to do with the weather!
Mom was here visiting last weekend and on Sunday the good 'ol weatherman was calling for snow. Since we never actually get anything but a bunch of hype we chose to ignore the forecast. It absolutely did snow. Mom ended up staying four days with us, I think she was ready to go home! With 4-6 inches here in Virginia and east of us with even more this was the most snow we had all season! The most incredible part of this is that today it was 68 and tomorrow they are calling for high 70's. So Monday we were wearing snow boots, it was in the teens and very windy and today we are walking around without a coat. Ridiculous!

On Thursday I walked to the train and took the 25 minute ride to my office as usual. To my surprise Angelina Jolie was in town filming SALT. Actually, the filming took place in the plaza right outside my office building and at my metro stop (Archives Navy Memorial). A coworker of mine Nancy joined me on the roof of our building to watch a few takes. It was a pretty exciting day because what happens next turns a perfectly fine day and productive week into a BIG drag.
I spend a lot of time on the Internet, it is part of what I do, reading about trends brushing up on art history and looking at multiple vendors who have their catalog of merchandise online. On this particular day I was preparing for an afternoon meeting. Searching through the hundreds of quotes by artist's and then WHAM...computer virus! It appeared on the screen counting down and scanning for viruses so it claimed. I called our IT help desk and faster than you can say...GUCCI they responded "shut 'er down!" I was told to sit tight someone was on their way and they would have a few questions for me. Interrogation? They also told me to be prepared, they may have to take it away. I missed a planned lunch with my girlfriends (BOO HOO) and waited and waited and waited and finally...someone arrived. Thankfully our IT department was able to get the computer running again (after several hours) but by then it was 5:00pm and I only had a half hour left in my workday.
Friday morning was another busy day for me. I was making my way through multiple accounts payable issues and then it started. Trojan virus scanned. Here I go again with the help desk. Nevertheless no computer until Monday...maybe (sigh).
I was still able to be productive, thankfully I keep some paper files on vendors!!

The end of the day, the end of the week HOORAY!
Dan finished up around 6:30pm, he had his own fair share of issues this week including the entire Ronald Reagan building losing power in the middle of a massive project!
So the week is wrapped up and we decided a quick bite and the E Street cinema is just what we needed. Janet (my boss) joined us for Slum Dog Millionaire. WOW I really enjoyed this film. While Dan pointed out the ending is unrealistic (love story...hello!) it was a wonderful story of three musketeers.

So much can happen in a week!