GPR

Dear Familia,

I'm lucky enough to have a husband that loves family as much as I do. Since we don't live in the same cities as our families, we do quite a bit of traveling to see our loved ones. While Zane's family has been very smart about combining vacations with trips to visit family, we usually just travel to AZ when it comes time to see my side of the family. Recently, we've been trying to change that. The first Garcia/Pattea/Ramadan or "GPR" trip happened spur of the moment while we were in AZ for the holidays.

They all want to be like their big bro Zane ;)

On December 30th, we took a spontaneous road trip to San Francisco with my six younger siblings. We rented a van and Zane drove the 11 hours to get us into the city. It was great because we got to start the tradition of celebrating our anniversary in a new city every year AND we got to hang out with Dean!

1st Anniversary: San Francisco, CA

WE LOVE BEGOOD!

One of my 30 before 30 goals is to be able to bring my kids to the different cities I live throughout my life. None of them got to come to Guatemala, which I did not like. So this year they are coming to visit DC! Kiki, Abbi, and Madi are going to come to Boston and see me graduate. Then Cassi, Rudy, and Johnny will join us in Virginia for a week at Zane's parents house on the Rappahanock River. Then we'll head to DC for 10 days to check it all out. Very excited. We'll be sure to get some pics and such.

Love,
Jem

PS Sam get on board.

My Sugar Daddy

 Dear Familia, 

Ok, don't get the wrong idea from the title. Hear me out. In honor of our anniversary, I would like to share a little story about my amazing my fiancé. 

While in DC this summer there was never ending talk about who has the best cupcakes. In Georgetown, there were 3 major contenders: Sprinkles, Baked & Wired, and Georgetown Cupcake. All Summer I wanted to do a taste comparison of the three, but for one reason or another it never really happened. Well, to be honest one of the biggest reasons was that you had to literally wait in line outside of Georgetown Cupcake to try one of those babies and it was hotter and stickier than even 2 minutes outside could justify. Haha. I still really wanted to try them all, but between school and the wedding and the move it just didn't seem like it would happen. 

THEN, one evening close to when I was heading off to Boston, Zane came home with a surprise...

The packaging 

Yep, that amazing man of mine had gone to all three bakeries, waited in line outside of Georgetown Cupcake and bought me 3 red velvet cupcakes. It's in the details ladies, and Zane has that down pat!

Baked & Wired

Georgetown Cupcake

Sprinkles

The Three Contenders 

I bet you're curious as to who came out on top, yes? Well I broke it down:

Frosting- Georgetown Cupcake
Cake- Sprinkles
Presentation- 3-way Tie...they all were great
Value- Georgetown Cupcake (the smallest, but also the cheapest)

Winner: Georgetown Cupcake...although if I were craving a cupcake, I wouldn't wait in line over it. I'd definitely pop into one of the other two shops. Or I could even try out one of the other DC cupcake shops :)

Ok, that is your story for the day. I am going to make it my goal to make a post about Boston soon. I'm actually caught up after today so I will have some time to update everyone.

Love,
Jem

Summer Wrap Up

Dear Familia,

I'm actually writing to you today from $30,000 feet (ok, I don't remember how many miles the pilot actually said, but we were allowed to turn on our electronic devices at 10,000 feet and we are still climbing). I think it's absolutely crazy that I can actually use Wi-Fi in the air!

Anyway, I just finished chatting with Zane on ichat and it reminded me that we had done some things over the summer that I never got around to telling everyone about. So without further ado, here are some random JZ outings:

The first time I went to DC (back in high school), we did a tour of the monuments at night and I really loved it. We finally checked them out near the middle of July, but it was pretty late when we got around to it and I was a but cranky, so we only ended up going to two of the monuments. However, we did end up going to the Washington Monument which I had never been to at night and it was AMAZING. I would highly recommend it for anyone visiting DC.

Washington Monument

The Jefferson Memorial also looked very pretty at night. Seeing this passage from the Declaration of Independence reminded me about the fact that in some Mesa schools the kids have to recite these lines. I really liked that little tradition.

Jefferson Memorial

I look so small against the walls of the memorial!

We also went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. At first, I wasn't very excited b/c museums can sometimes be a little "meh" for me, but I had a great time and I definitely want to go back. I think it's pretty incredible that all of those museums have completely free admission. They have a butterfly exhibit that was closed when we went, so I am going to have to do a little pre-planning before we go next time.

View from outside

Door Greeter

T-Rex

 We couldn't figure out if the meteor fragments from AZ were part of the meteor that left moissanite (remember from my ring) on Earth, but it was still very interesting!

Oh ya Arizona, represent!

Really cool photo installation...this was one of my faves

Cute Sea Creature

Life size!

After the museum we went to Silver Diner which is Zane's version of Denny's. Then we walked home and it took 45 minutes and my feet felt like they were on fire. Not great, but it felt good to walk off some of that greasy diner food. Haha.

Another cool thing we did was head out to the Theodore Roosevelt Island for a jog. It was actually pretty fun and they had a really cool monument on the inside of the island. Felt very "Lost" while we were there. This was of course in my running days. I have to say that even after that little running class business, I'm still not a big fan. I could bike for miles, but running is a bit of a downer for me.

So ya, that's the skinny. I should have some Boston posts for you soon :)

Love,
Jem

Trip back to DC

Dear Familia,

Made it back to DC safely...it only took a million hours. I left Mesa with Auntie Lucy at 10:30 pm for a United Flight that left at 11:55 pm. I paid $60 for the 2 bags I wanted to check (I say this because sometime soon I am going to do a post on my favorite airline that does not charge for bags). I was literally one of 3 people checking in at the counter and the only person going through security. I knew from checking in that the flight was delayed till 12:40 am, but at the gate I found out it was more like 1:10 am. This meant that I would miss my connection in Chicago so they put me on a later flight. I got to Chicago at 6:30 am pretty tired after not being able to sleep most of the flight because it was FREEZING. We were supposed to leave to DC at 7:55 am. We were all set in the plane to leave, but as we were taxi-ing a huge storm dropped in and we were left on the runway for hours (not really sure how many). They finally brought us back to the gate because by law they had to let us off to get something to eat. About 45 minutes to an hour later we finally were able to take off. Because we had to avoid the storm and fly pretty far south, the flight took about 2 hours. I landed at Reagan at 2:40 pm...6 hours later than I had originally planned. After unpacking, showering, and eating dinner, I fell asleep at 8 pm :) I'll try to do a couple of posts today to catch up.

Love,

Jem

DC Zoo Part 2

Dear Madi, Rudy, and Johnny,

Here are some more shots, but seriously...we need to come!

We only saw one of the pandas b/c the lady panda was in isolation on "pregnancy watch"...there might be a new baby panda soon :)

Zane's favorite zoo animal...

This was a very awesome part of the zoo...there are cables and platforms all over the zoo where the orangutans can swing around above the crowds.

Love,

Jem

DC Zoo Part 1

Dear Madi, Rudy, and Johnny,

We absolutely HAVE to go to the DC zoo at some point. There are so many cool animals AND it's FREE. Here are some highlights:

It's a little strange to see the gorillas doing things like humans...

The gorillas had a baby girl...she was so adorable!

I still have no idea if this thing was alive or not...it did not move at all the 5 minutes I sat there watching it...

There were also lion cubs, but they were huge and not that cute. However, the dad, Luke, was HUGE and very cool to see.

Anteater...a crazy looking animal for sure.

Love,

Jem

Red and Blue in Georgetown

Dear Familia,

Reason #2 I love Georgetown: so much Red & Blue. These 4 houses were from 1 block! Seriously.

Love,

Jem

1 week in DC

Dear Familia,

Tonight I will have officially been in DC for one week. I've been absolutely horrible about taking pictures, but here are a few random shots thus far.

Saturday we walked down by the Potomac River and yesterday we used the running path by the river to get in a short run.

We've been eating a lot! Here is a picture of a no-bake cheesecake I made. Delicious as always.

On Saturdays and Wednesdays Zane plays in a YMCA basketball league. This is him on Saturday up against a guy that is actually on the Redskins! Zane's team dominated.

On Thursdays we have our marriage prep classes. We got beautiful binders on our first class. I was in love from minute one.

During the day I've been wedding planning and house hunting for the fall. Oh and I met up with Zane a few times for lunch (really, eating takes up about 75% of our time). This week it's more wedding planning and house hunting.

Love,

Jem

June?

Pop Castle

Dear Familia,

Can you believe it is June?? Where has the time gone? It's hot and humid here in DC...I'm pretty much drenched in my own sweat by the time I get to my final destination, even if that destination is 5 minutes away. I did Bikram yoga for a month earlier this year, but this is basically like Bikram everything. Crazy.

I got into town Sunday and we immediately drove from the airport to Whitestone, VA to spend time with Zane's mom at their house on the Rappahannock River. I'll have to do a post on this house b/c it has a very fun history. It even has it's own name, Pop Castle :) We got into DC Monday night and I've been mostly house hunting since then. I'll fill you in on some other particulars in the next few posts.

Love,

Jem