The 11th Hour

If hours equal months, then this is the 11th hour of our stay in Washington and undoubtedly the toughest one of all. Today marks exactly one month from the day I'll finish our assignment out here and head back to Denver. It's been an amazing trip out here. I've worked with and learned from some of the best people I'll ever get to work with in my career. I'll never forget the lessons I learned here and the people who taught me them. From a personal perspective, Jenn and I've gone out more this year than we have over the past three years combined. The kids have been so lucky to have my wonderful wife as a stay-at-home mom all year, sacrificing her sanity and the great job she had back in CO for this opportunity.

Today is also significant because it's one week until Christmas, and Jenn and I have never missed a Christmas at home. When you're our age, usually most childhood traditions have gone by the wayside to make way for the traditions of the new family. So I have one more sacrifice to thank her for because my contract ends on January 18th. We won't be able to come home to due work obligations (that and I'm pretty sure the FAA has banned us from flying with our children until they're both 25). It'll be tough, but we are planning to do a Tour de Wyoming as soon as we get back to visit everyone we've been missing so much all year and especially now towards the end of our stay.

Keeping busy helps. We visited the National Christmas Tree last weekend, something Jenn has been excited to do since we got here. We thought we'd save money and drive into the city instead of taking the Metro. To any of our fellow DC-ites, spend the money. It took forever and a day, and the Garmin Lady getting a little snooty, but we finally found a good spot and walked to the tree. Because we parked in a different spot than usual, our walk took by a building we'd never seen before, the Executive Office Building. A beautiful old building that if we get time in the New Year, we'll try and visit again. We made it to the Christmas tree and it was fantastic....and crowded. A 28 foot Colorado blue spruce beautifully lit with 50 stars and over 45,000 LED lights, they setup a very narrow pathway to visit and with a double stroller, it was a very slow crawl to get close. All-in-all though, we had a great time and checked one more thing off our DC bucket list.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to visit an ice sculpture exhibit dedicated to the Shrek movies. Given our son's obsession with all things Shrek, we had to do this. They kept it at eight degrees in an effort to keep the two million pounds of ice frozen. They hire a bunch of excellent craftsmen and did an amazing job. Jonah was in a state of shock the whole time and spent the entire time jumping up and down and getting whiplash as he swiveled his head from amazing ice sculpture to amazing ice sculpture. At eight degrees, we were very happy when we saw the exit door, but so glad we'd had this great experience.

This weekend, we're going to visit Mount Vernon, probably for the last time. Apparently they bring in a camel (not relaly sure what that has to do with George Washington), so that'll be fun for the kids. The hardest part will be once the holidays are over, because we'll still have almost three weeks before we leave. If I'm already anxious with a month to go, I can't imagine what the first half of January will be like. For now, we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas (yes I said Christmas), a Happy New Year and we can't to see many of you in January!