Eleven Years

I met Nick at the first time visitor's table in the PBC college class eleven years ago on September 9th.

And I do remember 9/11 very vividly for many reasons.

But mostly because I got my very first email from Nick that day, checking on me.

I wonder how many emails we've exchanged since that day?

Not enough.

I pray that there are hundreds more to come.

Date Night

We have a crazy week or two ahead.

Nick leaves Saturday for the SBC in NOLA and returns Thursday.

I am hosting a social for CHBC women on Saturday at our house.  

The latest head count is 70.  I'm so excited, though!

I am flying solo until Wednesday night, when Mom and Dad come (hooray!)...

we didn't know Nick was going to be gone, or they probably would have come earlier.

I leave Thursday for a work trip to Providence, RI and will miss Nick in the air.

Then I come back Saturday night at midnight.

So, we went on a date last night since Nick is also gone tonight and tomorrow night.

We went to Matchbox, a tried and true favorite that's easy to get to and never disappoints.

I had a Proscuitto and Fig pizza and Nick had salmon and cheese grits.

Both were amazing.

And Maddie babysat for us; it was so perfect!

Mother's Day Getaway

So earlier this week, Nick told me that he had a surprise for me for Mother's Day...

a getaway to Georgetown!

But he knows that surprises like that can't truly be a surprise with all the planning for babysitters that's involved, so once I found out, I got all the details squared away for us to go!

Thank you SO MUCH, Justin and Rachel for feeding the kids dinner, 

staying over night and for coming back Saturday afternoon during rest time.  

And thank you to Tim and Rachel for their fun Saturday morning!

I think the highlights were drinking "coffee" with Justin and 

riding in 'Truck Norris' with Tim, squirting water guns out the window. 

 I don't think they missed us one bit.

So Nick found a deal on one of those Groupon/Living Social sites for The Georgetown Inn

so we headed in that direction Friday after he got home from work.

We hopped on the Metro to Foggy Bottom.

(all pics are from my phone)

And when you do a "trip" in the city like this, you have to carry your bags on you.

Funny story:  a couple came up to us this morning at CHBC and said,

"We saw y'all walking down East Capitol yesterday and thought, oh cool that's the Roarks!

But then we got really concerned.

Because Nick was carrying a Vera Bradley pink bag like a backpack.

Is everything ok?"

Hee.  

And yes, sometimes he wore it as a backback.

He's a good husband.

Next time we'll opt to pack in his black Eddie Bauer bag instead.

(And thanks for sharing your bag, KM!)

We got off and walked some more to the hotel and checked in...and dropped the bag off.

We headed to a place called Thunder Burger on M Street.

We got the recommendation from a pastor at our church,

but we joked that we weren't going to tell anyone we went there because the name just sounded awful.

I mean, Thunder Burger?!  So romantic.

Well...it turned out to be awesome.

So we are gonna say that we went and even recommend it!

The inside was crazy looking; there was fake shrubbery covering the walls,

the seats were couches/cushions and chairs that looked like thrones.

The burgers were definitely awesome, and their sweet potato fries were were YUM.

After dinner, we walked around and looked for a dessert spot.

We waltzed through Dean & Deluca.

And settled on Pizzeria Paradisio and I enjoyed a perfect-sized tiramisu.  

Our hotel was on Wisconsin right off of M Street, and we could see the "Big Pencil."

We slept in until 9 am!

We didn't want a big breakfast since we knew we'd have a big lunch,

so we headed to La Madeline where I had the strawberry crepe 

and Nick had oatmeal and Strawberries Romanoff.  Delish.

We wanted to get the kids some cupcakes, and there are 3 different shops on M Street...

we have had Georgetown Cupcake before, so I got some from Sprinkles and Baked and Wired.

It was fun to have a taste test when we got home...

and I actually think Sweet Lobby is the best of all.

We walked by our friend, George.

And had lunch at Founding Farmers.

That place is just so good.

After lunch, we walked back to the Metro ...

and yes, Nick was still carrying the big pink bag.

We got home around 3 or 4 and enjoyed a relaxing night with the kiddos.

It was such a refreshing, restful getaway full of laughing, talking eating, and sleeping.

The best Mother's Day present is sometimes being away from mothering for a little while!

Furnished Photography Family Pictures

We took our annual family pictures a few weeks ago at Fletcher Park 

with Katherine Fallis of Furnished Photography.

We know her from her PCM days, and she has served so faithfully at Providence.

She was Hudson's Sunday School teacher last year and she's Emmaline's this year.

She did an amazing job.

I highly recommend her 30 minute mini-sessions for families with young children. 

 It was the perfect amount of time, and she's wonderful with kids.

I actually have a little over 100 pictures,

but I tried to narrow it down to a few favorites...

Thank you, Katherine.

The Roarks love you!

Quiet

If the blog is quiet, you know it has to be one of two things.

Either Nick is out of town,

or I am working on a larger cookie order.

This past week, both happened.

I mailed off 300 grey elephants for MED-EL this morning,

and it's my last "large" order that I have scheduled right now.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the smaller, fun orders.

Right now, the next few are:  barns, summer cookies, brides and grooms, and a nautical-themed party.

I'm already booked solid through August.  Crazy, huh!?

On Friday, Carson and Caitlin came over to hang out with the kids while 

we got to go to dinner when Nick got back in town.  Thank you!

We went to Bella Mia for pizza, and it was delish!

Thanks for the suggestion, Armstrongs!

DC Trip

I took my camera to DC but it never seemed like it worked out to take it around with us.

So these are all from our phones.

As I mentioned earlier, I go to a conference every summer for MED-EL, and this year it was in DC.

Nick got to go with me, and he had a reading retreat, which was perfect for him!

We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together (or with my co-workers) and got to sleep in a few days.

I would love for him to come with me again!

Anyway, the cookies were a hit.

They were all eaten!

They were made to go with coffee that we have in our exhibit booth.

The booth is actually like a big room and we had about 20 people there to talk to people who came to the conference to learn more about hearing aids/cochlear implants.

We stayed at a fun hotel that was brand new; the Renaissance in Crystal City.

They were so kind to monogram everything for us!

I mean, even the hairdryer bag was monogrammed just for us!  ;)

 

We had some really yummy breakfasts with amazing fruit bowls.

And Nick discovered that he loves oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast!

If you know Nick, you'll know that's a huge milestone in his life.

And yes, we were taking pics of each other. 

Don't lie, you know you've done it too.

 

The best part of the trip was seeing Wicked at the Kennedy Center.

The conference had a night there, and the tickets were free for us, which was a nice little perk.

And it was even captioned!  

Since there were so many deaf/hard of hearing people there, they provided captioning.

It was an AMAZING show!

On the Metro going to the show.