Mississippi on the Mall, etc.

fun summer flowers!

Then end of this week was awesome! Work was great Wednesday and Thursday because I got to do several things that I hadn't done before. I went to some cool hearings AND made me CSPAN debut-- big deal.

Friday morning I watched the U.S. world cup game (hopefully we'll come out with a win on Wednesday!) and then spent the afternoon at the Holocaust Museum. I was really glad to have the chance to go but it was tough to see the reality of what happened.

Julie (thanks for coming to visit!), Val, and I at MS on the Mall

That evening we had a DC Area MSU Alumni Association reception at Penn Quarters. It was so fun to get to visit with alums who are here in town and to see Dr. Abraham and his wife Mrs. Patsi! We have a great group of alumns in town so it was special to all get together before MS on the Mall Saturday. Before we left, we all sang "Hail, Dear Old State"... I felt like I was back in Starkville! haha Two school friends were in town so we all went to Georgetown for dinner and hung out with them!

On Saturday, Valerye, Lauren, and I went to the National Art Gallery for a few hours... It was amazing! I can't wait to go back and spend more time there. Our whole crew met up that afternoon for Mississippi on the Mall, a huge picnic put on by the Mississippi Society! They had McAllister's sweet tea (sweet tea is hard to come by up here-- as Cat Randall will tell you!), catfish and other southern food. We stayed at the picnic all afternoon just hanging out with other Mississippi folks. It was great to get to see everybody and have a little taste of home. The best part of the afternoon was before we left, Cat went to get her 5th (yep, fifth) refill of tea and the girl working just gave her a gallon jug that was left over!!

Cat Randall loves her sweet tea!

We wrapped the weekend up with church this morning at Capitol Hill Baptist. The sermon was wonderful and, as always it was so encouraging to fellowship with other believers and be taught from the Word. I'm so thankful to have friends here who want to be in church. As always, the Lord provides!

editor's note: for another/better synopsis of MS on the Mall, visit my dear friend (and Chi Omega sister) Caroline's blog!

Office Space

After my first full week of work, I am nothing short of thankful. The girl and two guys with whom I'm working have been so fun and welcoming! They are so patient when I ask a million questions (that's barely exaggerating) and always take me along if they are going somewhere in the building I may not have been to yet. I am really excited about spending the summer getting to know them! I hope that the jobs I do will lift a little bit of the burden from them and be a help-- since we work on the minority side, the 3 of them do the same work about 8 staffers do for the majority side.

I have a very nice table where I work and throughout the week I got more and more technology. I started with just the table on Monday, got the computer on Tuesday, and got internet on Wednesday afternoon! By Thursday I was hard at work on my first project which was very exciting.

Our group of interns has started to get really close, which I'm loving! The MS Society has a softball team so we all went and hung out at the Mississippi Mudcats game and ended up all eating dinner together Thursday night. Several of us also went to a Bible Study specifically for interns at Capitol Hill Baptist this past week. I had my day off Friday so my weekend began a little early! I spent Thursday night making my contribution to my good friend Drew's birthday present... It was a lot of fun and I'll post some pictures here after he gets his present (I don't want to spoil the suprise!).