Apartment

So I am officially moving into the Lenox Club.  Well, officially signing the paper work in the next couple of weeks.  But our new address will be 401 S 12th St, Arlington,VA 22202 Apartment 2015.  (I believe at least).

The Apartment will be a 1 bedroom with a den.  The balcony that is accessible from three rooms I think is pretty cool, and this actually has more square footage than the 2 bedroom.  So that's cool.  We also get 1 wall painted, so we need to figure out which color (and which wall) to get done.

Anyways, I believe both Dad and Stephen have gotten the weekend off (or are in the process of doing so) that I am moving in (June 15-18) to help me out!  So I am super excited that they are coming down.

Mom says she is excited about the year round indoor pool.

Visitations and Apartments

So, wow a couple weeks ago now Sara and Lindsey et al made it down to visit me.  Sadly I didn't actually end up taking any pictures of their time down here myself, but I do hope that they will post some soon!

I am definitely lucky and thankful that my Sisters have been so willing to come down here and visit me.  It really does mean a lot to me that they are willing to take their vacation time and spend it with me.  It is a great opportunity to hang out with them, and my wonderful nephews and niece!  I truly hope they had fun and will be willing to come down and visit me again!

Also on Monday I gave my 60 day notice to my apartment complex that I will not be renewing my lease.  I have lived in this apartment for 4 years now, and I am definitely ready for a change of scenery lol.  My lease officially ends on June 18, which is a Monday so I will probably be taking that weekend before (Father's day weekend actually) to do most of my moving.  So if anyone is interested in coming down to help me move.....  I'm thinking I"ll probably take the couple of days off right before that weekend to move the small stuff, and then the weekend to move the bigger stuff.

The current apartments I am looking at, in case anyone is curious are:
The Lenox Club
North Tract Lofts
Carlyle Mill

Black Belt and Colorado Trip

So I am officially a black belt!  I'm pretty excited.  I would say it took me about 2.5 years from when I started to get the belt.  Which I believe is considered pretty fast.  It's kind of a funny thing, because as the main instructor, Mr. Santillo was explaining, I'm not actually a better martial artist just because my belt is now a different color.  Outside of the days of practice since then.  The belt doesn't make me a good martial artist, but my practice during all those years leading up to it has.  But for me, the recognition that they believe that I am good enough to deserve the black belt is what makes it so cool.

And then the next day I went to Colorado!  We got a big house, and we filled it with 18 people lol.  Most people had bedrooms that they could share, but some ended up on the couch.  But overall it worked out pretty nicely I though.  The house was pretty amazing, it had a hot tub that we could soak in after a day of skiing.  Sadly though I didn't end up taking any pictures of the house.  I didn't really take too many pictures in general mainly because it was cold out, and I had to take off my gloves to take the picture.  As well as the fact that I was mainly focusing on getting better at skiing.  

For the most part it worked!  I feel like by the begining of the trip I was doing well on Blues (intermediate levels) and could do some easy blacks.  By the end of the week I feel like I could have done pretty much any black (advanced) course.  Not be pretty as I do it, but at least be able to get down the slope without embarassing myself too much.  The double black diamonds though I still very much avoided....  That all being said though, it was on a black that I ended up falling, and lost a ski lol.  But to be fair we were slightly off course, and doing some slightly more wilderness skiing at that point.

The pictures above and below were taken on the Breckenridge Ski Resort, which was the closest one to where we lived.  Basically we could walk about a block to where a shuttle picked us up and dropped us off on the lift.  Below is a picture of a black area ski lift.  The trees are part of the fun, as you get so ski around them, and then there were also a lot of mogels (mounds of snow that you ski around) that kinda killed me that day.  I think I fell down those mogels more than skiied down them lol.  But by the end of the week I was doing a lot better.

Below is my favorite picture.  This was at the highest lift on the mountain.  Behind Rachel there is the back side of the mountain, and you could see for miles on end.  It was pretty cool.  Technically speaking this area was a double black diamond area (expert) but there was a ridge ski path down, that while was technically considered a double black, was really only steep enough to be a black I think.  So I had no problems getting back down.

So in short the trip was quite a bit of fun!  And Rachel is already thinking of next years ski trip!  She is thinking next year will be in Utah I believe.

Winter Hiking and Skiing

A couple of weekends ago Rachel and I went hiking up near the apps.  The hiking trail was about 2.5 miles of up a ravine.  It was pretty cool.  We followed a small river, er, creek?  That flowed down a valley in the mountain.  The path itself was, pretty steep, but followed the river pretty much to the top of the little mountain.  The trail winded back and forth across this creek at least a half a dozen times.  It was a really nice trail and pretty cool.  And since it was winter, there was some cool ice formations on the creek.  Here are some pictures!

As I have posted earlier, in a couple of weeks already, Rachel and I are heading out West to Colorado to go skiing.  Last year in Tahoe, I felt I got fairly good during the time we were there at skiing.  I was able to do some blues (medium difficulty) slopes out west pretty consistently.  But that was like a year ago!  So to make sure that I hadn't totally forgotten how to ski, Rachel and I went out to an east coast slope, specifically Whitetail.  Luckily this past weekend was a nice and cold weekend, even with some snow!  So the slopes were pretty good!  I even managed to go down some of the blacks!  So yeah for that!  Though according to Rachel, the "blacks" (hard level slopes) out East here are not worth the name.  And I would agree, some of the blues that I did in Tahoe were more difficult than the ones at Whitetail.  Still, blacks!  I was excited for myself.  

Sadly, I lost my brand new ski goggles even prior to hitting the slopes :-/.  My second pair for me to lose.... I'm pretty lame.  I did manage to buy some new ones though, so I at least will be set for Colorado.  

Quilt and Dates

So this past Christmas I got many great gifts and I do indeed want to thank everyone who got me something!  But that being said, the biggest surprise, and a pleasant surprise it was, was my quilt finally finished!  Lindsey asked to see a picture of it on my bed, and of course I will comply.  Though, I'm fairly confident it was all just a way to trick me into making my bed.

As you can see, it was quite worth the wait.  I know I gave mom a hard time about this quilt, but it for sure lived up to it.  

Now on an unrelated note, some relevant upcoming dates.  Because it is important to know when to worry.

Feb 3 -- Black Belt Test

Feb 4-11 -- Colorado Ski Trip

Feb 11 -- End of my partial sig program (for work)

April  29 -- Kempo Tournament

Linds, if you can, give me the dates you will be down here again?  Then I will for sure add them to the list!

Worldbuilders

I figured I'd make a quick post about Worldbuilders.  Worldbuilders is a charity that I give to, at least last year and this year.  The charity supports Heifer International, which specializes in giving poor familys all the things that they need.  Like it won't just give them free food, it gives them a goat so they can get milk, and cheese, and other such things they need to sustain themselves.  Anyways, I think it is a good charity.

Worldbuilders then is a raffle.  For every $10 you donate, you get a raffle ticket.  I donated $50 and so I get 5 raffle tickets.  What you win are rare books, dvd collections, lots of signed stuff.  The main genre are fantasy, science fiction, urban fantasy, and a lot of other such things.  Basically a lot of what I read, as well as what a lot of you, my family reads as well.  There are lots and lots of items in the raffle, so there is a very good chance you will actually win something.  That is what I really like about it.  Last year I won a book autographed by like 20 authors.  Pretty cool I think.

Anyways, So I encourage everyone to donate.  If you win a book that you don't like, I"m sure we can share them around.  And honestly if you don't win anything at all, then you are still giving to a great cause.  So a win win all around.

Update

As Sara so eloquently pointed out, it too has been a month since my last post, and that one not being too exciting 

But this last weekend was a fun one.  I managed to test for my 3rd degree Brown Belt on Friday night.  It was a very fun test, it was a great group.  Though it lasted from 8:00 pm to 12:00 am.  For those keeping track, this is the penultimate belt before black.  Next time I test it will be for black.  Which, will at the earliest be at least 3 months away most likely.  But I don't know for sure when they will think me to be ready.

After the belt test I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep before having to wake up for the Hot Chocolate 15 k race.  It was a very cold morning, and they ended up delaying the race for an hour... But I finished!  And this on little sleep and when I was already physically tired from the test the previous night lol.  After the race there was some chocolate fondue and some Hot Chocolate provided by Ghiradelli.  Talk about a fun way to end a race lol.  For those interested the results are here if you look at the list Rachel did an amazing job running an 8:23 mile, and placing overall 1659.  Myself I didn't do quite as well, running a 10:04 minute mile and coming in  6061 place overall.  Don't hold it against me, I'm convinced I could have been solidly under a ten minute mile had I, you know not started the race sleep deprived and tired lol.

Update:

Some pictures from the Run HERE