Ani's first blog entry

I went to the nutcracker. There were Dancing Jelly Fish and the Rat King and little mices too.




I went to see Santa and I asked for Snow White stuff.





I made a counting video.

CG Ball and Trans Siberia

On Friday night, Jay & Kelly, Jon & Ashley, Brandon & Jess, Keith & Brigid, and Tiffany & I attended the Coast Guard Ball at the Renaissance Hotel in NW DC. It was a fun evening filled with good food, dancing, and friends. The dinner was very formal with speeches by the Commandant, Admiral Allen and the Commodore of the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Steven Budar. The main ballroom had a brass band playing a variety of music and in a different hall, there was a Jimmy Buffett impersonation band playing. Everyone seemed to have a great time and Brandon seemed to have the most fun. Unfortunately his fun led to the loss of his camera which had a lot of great pictures on it. Hopefully it turns up in the near future. You may notice that Jay and I have only one stripe on our wrists indicating the rank of Ensign. This was NOT my fault. I took the jackets into the tailor to be striped at the beginning of the week and returned the night before the dance. She had the jackets out and said that she was just finishing them up. When I went back the next day, she hadn't done a thing. There wasn't anytime left of course to do anything so we just wore them as-is. Nobody really noticed except for people that Jon and Brandon pointed it out to see.

On Sunday night, Jon & Ashley and Tiffany & I went to see the Trans Siberian Orchestra perform at the Verizon Center. It was quite the production. They must have had hundreds of lights, lasers, and fog machines to put on that show. The most incredible thing is that it was completely setup the night before in Long Island for a show there. We had dinner at this tapas style Mexican restaurant called Oyamel's near the center. It was the worst dinner experience we have had in DC. Slow service, forgotten orders, bad management, just all around lousy. Needless to say, we tried and won't be going back.

New Ride

Hey y'all. I just wanted to share with you my new ride. I went everywhere looking for an economy car and with it being the end of the year I thought there was going to be some blowouts. Well, the only blowouts on car prices were my expectations. I went to the biggest Ford, Crysler, GM, Toyata, Honda and Nissan dealers in the state and I walked away without a car and a long bike ride home. Finally, I found a deal and a great ride to. After talking to the Fleet Manager of Tempe Hyundai and checking car reviews I decided to test drive the Sonata. It is great and consumer reports rates it as excellent dependability across the board. This is the first brand new car I have ever purchased and it is such a treat. I walked into the dealership with a number and I was given a better price than I had bargained for!


Let me tell you. I am driving on a cloud. I had such a buzz I couldn't feel my toes while I was signing the documents. Thank you to everyone for all of the encouragement.

Sooooooo close!

Thanks to Sean's condo remodeling we are going to get our companion pass. One more credit card statement will hit our account before the 17th. Now I know how this works. You just charge up a storm on your credit card, and then fly for free the following year! Yeah!!!!