2009 January « Mike * Laura

Snow! January 28, 2009

Filed under: 1 — Mike and Laura Icardi @ 8:53 pm

Yesterday was the first major / biggest snowfall of the season (and also the first time I saw a snowfall that heavy in my life)! Huge clumps of snow were falling fast and hard. I think we ended up with about 4 inches!

Even though the schools got snow days, we had to work. Boo… So I brought the camera along on my commute, and got very strange looks from other commuters. Whatever. Florida native, people. Be excited.

Here is the “Dunn Loring-Merrifield” Metro platform – our starting point for the day:

The train tracks that lead toward the Capitol. I would have included the Capitol building in this picture, but it was too foggy.

(This is along my walk to/from work)

Berries covered by snow… hooray! (This is along my walk to/from work, too)

Also along my walk to/from work – blanket of snow!

At the end of the day, I got into the truck in the Metro parking lot to see this. Mike de-iced and scraped it down so we could drive home.

That’s our townhouse…

This is our front stoop – we stepped straight from this into our house. I think our welcome mat was under there somewhere…

The backyard

This is Bailey’s first time in the snow:

Then Mike shoveled the front walkway and we took Bailey for a walk and enjoyed the snow together…

I found out today from Rod (work buddy) that it was a mistake to shovel because we got an ice storm last night. Shoveling the snow made the ice more slick this morning. And it was VERY slick this morning! I almost fell many times.

This is a trail through the woods that leads to a pretty neighborhood. We usually take this path because it’s pretty. It takes us by a creek, which is nice.

Check out the speed of that tail wagging action! Wow!

Uh-oh…

Yup, that’s a snowball. He threw at me about 30 seconds later… Ah, feel the love…

The creek… surprisingly not frozen…

Ok, it’s out of focus. But Bailey and I just HAD to run across an open area of smooth, untouched snow. So fun!

Mike and I took the dog and the camera inside after this and went back out to have a snowball fight. I made a snow angel, and we tried to make a snowman, but the snow was too powdery. All in all, even if we didn’t get a whole snow day, our snow evening was great!

I spent the evening post-snow-playing sitting in our kitchen bay window sipping hot cocoa, reading my Bible, journaling, and then writing a letter to my mother-in-love. Best Tuesday ever.

Today we had the great fun of dealing with freezing rain. The result was ice, ice, and more ice. The roads were soooo slick. I almost fell down the outside stairs a few times just trying to go out to get the mail! The snow is melting, and that’s sad… But it’s still pretty!!

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Cubicle Fever January 26, 2009

Filed under: 1 — Mike and Laura Icardi @ 10:35 am

I work in downtown Washington, DC. On my .5 mile walk from the Metro station to my office, I see three timeless DC landmarks: the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial. I see all this, and it still sometimes takes my breath away.

I also see the tip of the Smithsonian visitor’s center, also known as “the castle.” It used to house all of the Smithsonian museum exhibits. The Smithsonian now occupies dozens of buildings along the National Mall and elsewhere.

I also see other buildings which I now recognize as the American History museum, the Museum of Natural History, and, if I look closely enough, the Gallery of Art.

All day long I sit in a cubicle far from any window and “work.” I use quotes here because my job is so slow that I am, in fact, blogging while at work. Right now, this is all I could find to occupy my time. If only work were like… well, life. When there’s nothing left to do – just relax! But no, I come here every day, Monday through Friday, and I spend the better part of each day sitting, blogging, writing emails, checking silly websites, taking online quizzes, chatting with other people who also don’t have enough work to fill their time.

Your tax dollars at work.

And to make matters worse, it is now snowing outside. That’s right, I took a field trip to a window (- let me interrupt myself to point out just how sad that statement is : “a field trip to a window.” That is a travesty. But I digress -) to see the silent snow come fluttering to the ground. When I moved here, I thought about how cool it would be to live somewhere where it snows. Well, I might as well be working in Fiji, and the snow might as well be on Mars. If I can’t play in it, and it doesn’t cancel work, what is it good for? I can’t even watch it without taking a field trip…

And, it’s technically not even a flurry, according to weather.com. It is actual SNOW:

snow-forecast

So, you see, I have cubicle fever, a variation of cabin fever – that very ailment which plagued Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”

All work and no play(ing in snow) makes Laura a dull girl. And cranky.

I just hit the Refresh button on my webmail browser window and… no new emails. What now?

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Jill and Michael should move to DC! January 5, 2009

Filed under: 1 — Mike and Laura Icardi @ 8:37 pm

Jill and Michael came into town to visit us for a whole week. We explored DC all week long. Check it out:

Jill and I before a Metro ride – all bundled up for a cold day!

This is at the American History Museum in an old first-generation elevator…

Mike is so handsome – I can’t resist that guy!

I love candid pictures where I don’t look goofy…

Fake people are HI-larious! Ok, not really, but aren’t we convincing?

This is a timeline of Thomas Edison’s life, and I am pointing to the time where he was likely writing letters to my Grandpa.

Whoo, Thomas Edison is so dreamy!

Wow, houses for $13,000?? I’ll take two!!

The sunset was beautiful that night!

Jill and Michael… awww…

Still Floridians at heart!

Fuzzy, but cute! Lincoln, Jill, and me!

Ok, so on New Year’s Eve, it snowed for literally about a minute or two before the high winds blew it away. This is Jill and me experiencing the snow in our pajamas!

Jill looks like Carmen San Diego…

Jill and I just can’t go on!!

“Escalump: person who becomes a human speed bump by suddenly stopping at the top or bottom of metro escalator.”

Haha!

We went to the Capitol Visitors’ Center on the windiest day of the year. The clouds rolled by so fast!

The Capitol dome.

I like this chandelier in the Capitol

Pre-ice skating

The ice skating rink in Reston was much dirtier and slippier than the one by the Sculpture Garden in downtown DC. This is me trying not to fall. Mike and I skated hand in hand at times, and I felt like a high schooler during “couples skate” at the rink. Except this time, I had a cute boy by my side.