Officially a Master!

Dear Familia,

I cannot believe it's been two years since I first started at HKS. Side note: in October we will have been back from Peace Corps for three years, crazy. Time is moving at warp speed these days. Seriously.

The official graduation picture

I originally didn't want to even go to graduation. I wanted to either spend more time in AZ or head back to DC to prepare for the summer visit from the kids. Even after I decided to go, I really didn't want anyone to travel to Cambridge for the ceremony. Luckily, it worked out to bring a few of the girls back with me when I came from AZ. I am VERY happy that Zane and three of the girls were with me to celebrate. It was super emotional for me to look back and see them cheering me on as I received my diploma.

Walking through JFK Park after the ceremony

A big thank you to all of the family and friends, and especially my husband, that have loved me and helped me throughout the past two years. I know that I was perma-stressed, but I am so thankful for the experience. Now it's time to find a job! Will keep you all posted.

Love,
Jem

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.

Annie and Ramsey

Dear Familia, 

Yay! I finally get to tell you a big secret I've been keeping. Last weekend I flew into Philly for a big surprise proposal party. Zane's older brother, Ramsey, asked Annie to marry him. And she of course said yes. It was was super fun and Ramsey really did it up big. First, they went apple picking and he arranged to be a private orchard so they could be alone when he got down on one knee. He also arranged for a photographer to be there to capture the special moment. On the way home he let her know that the whole family (his and hers) was waiting at their apartment to congratulate them. After hanging out a bit with everyone we headed over the Moshulu a beautiful boat turned restaurant on Penn's Landing. Ramsey rented out the top level and had all their friends waiting as another fun surprise. I was only able to stay in Philly for 24 hours (dang school), but it was great to see everyone and share in their special day. I'll leave you with the few pictures I took :)

Love,

Jem

The Boat/Restaurant

The Happy Couple walking up to the surprise party

Zane and Lena...this is how they decided to pose.

Love these Ikea lanterns...I had some in Guatemala

Courtesy of Zane

He took the picture so I'm not sure why he was prepared with a smile. Haha. 

A "Pickle Back" a shot chased with pickle juice...ya, not too sure, but they liked it!

YAY! They're engaged. 

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

Happy 3 Year Anniversary

Day 1 of 1,095

Dear Zane,

Happy Anniversary my love! It's been the most amazing 3 years and I can't wait for the 3 months (102 days!) until we get married.

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

Marriage Preparation Classes

Dear Familia,

The marriage prep classes have been going very well. We meet every Thursday and some saturdays with 7 other couples to talk about a range of topics to help us in our future married life. Last Thursday we were in charge of the snack. We brought a veggie tray and rice crispy treats from Smitten Kitchen. The class met this Saturday too to talk about the Meyers Briggs indicator test we took. Not surprisingly, Zane is a thinking introvert type and I am a feeling extrovert type. Hahaha.

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

The Ring

Dear Familia,

I've had lots of requests pertaining to the ring, so I thought I would give you some fun details.

1. The ring was custom made from a designer Zane found on Etsy*. Her name is Kate Szaabone and you can click on her name to see more of her work.

2. Knowing how much it would mean to me, Zane looked for a ring with a conflict-free stone. This one happens to be moissanite which is said to have "been born from the stars" and was originally found in a meteor crater in Arizona!

3. I'm not really a jewelry kind of girl, but Zane wanted me to have something special and he really just did an amazing job finding a ring that I love.

*I will have to do a different post about Etsy one of these days because I am obsessed.

The first three photos are courtesy of the jeweler and the last one is courtesy of yours truly :)

Paz,

Jem

Zane's Job

Dear Familia,

I get a lot of questions about what Zane does for a living so I thought I would take the time to give you all an answer. These days you can find this amazing man lending his numerous talents to the Overseas Programming and Training Support (OPATS) division of the Peace Corps headquarters in DC. The office has three main units: the Program Support Unit, the Training & Evaluation Unit, and the Knowledge Exchange Unit. They are in charge of pretty much anything and everything having to do with training in Peace Corps. 50% of his job is being the HR Rep for his office. When someone in OPATS has an HR issue he deals with the HR department for them.

The other 50% is being is the "Administrative Specialist" to the three unit managers, the Chief of Operations, and the Director of the Office. One of the very cool things he does in this role is attend the weekly Directors meetings where he gets to hear from development professionals with decades of experience under their belts. He mainly works with the Director of the Office but occasionally something will come up with one of the other four. This week the Chief of Operations had him help out on a new initiative USAID is rolling out called Feed the Future. The program is a government wide effort to increase investment in the agriculture sector and Zane was very excited that OPATS would be the lead Peace Corps agency on this initiative.

Right now he has a 2.5 year assignment and after that he might stay with OPATS or move within Peace Corps for another 2.5 year assignment or move on to another organization (kinda strange but you can only work for Peace Corps for a total of 5 years consecutively, then you have to wait 5 years before you can work for them again). Considering we can't even give you a 100% on a wedding date and location, giving you a 3 year plan is a stretch ;)

Paz,

Jem

PS The picture is from Peace Corps Guatemala...a tradition they started in his site of signing an American flag at Close of Service (COS). He was the first, but there will be 4 before the end of the year!

Wedding Questions

Dear Familia,

Since we've only been engaged 3 days, we still do not have a lot of the details ironed out. However, we do know that there is a 99% chance that it will be at All Saints Roman Catholic Parish in Mesa, Arizona in 2012 ;) What, not enough details for you?? Haha.

As some of you may know, I am currently waiting anxiously to hear back from Georgetown Law regarding my admission off their wait-list (and thus into the dual MPP/JD program with the public policy school). Their seat deposits are due today so I should find out in the next couple of weeks if I am in or not. Until then, it is hard to nail down the date which in turn makes it hard to nail down pretty much anything else. We have a list of 9 possible dates (compiled by my amazing fiance using my academic calendar) and I will let everyone know as soon as we choose one! Expect a wedding website to be up and running by June 1st.

Paz,

Jem