Friend in Town!

There have been several times this past week that I've wanted to write, but no time . . absolutely NO time. I've stayed up until 12 and 1am doing work, and on Wednesday night, my friend Shae flew into town.

The past few days with her have been a blast! As I've driven her around and shown her different parts of D.C., I've continually thought, "I live here. I love that I live here." And I do. When I think about rarely seeing my friends and family back home, it does make me sad. I'll always be cramming in visits with people on the few weekends a year I do spend in Nebraska. I now have to think about who are my closest friends and the people I want to spend time with when I go home. The people I want to keep in touch with and call on the phone. The people I want in my life for years to come. The others I will probably just hear about. The emails will become less and less. Maybe, if I'm lucky, we'll send Christmas cards. But there are few people that I will maintain strong friendships with. And I hope they stay strong. I hope they care as much as I do about holding onto them, no matter how far apart we are or where life takes us.

And if I would've known a year ago that this would be my life, I would've stomped my feet, crossed my arms, and refused to go along with this plan. But despite the changes and the distance, it's a good plan. And it's somehow been an easy plan to adjust to. For that I am very grateful. It's truly been the Lord who has opened door after door. It's been Him introducing me to people. People that love Him, too. It's been Him giving me more responsibility at work and giving me confidence that I can handle it, that I can do it well. It's all been Him.

Having had 4 visitors already in the 4 months I've lived here has been a blessing, too. So far, Shae and I have had so much fun. Thursday night, we went out to a fundraiser at the yuppie Republican bar in Georgetown. (Remember the pics of the crazy pants? It's those folks :) Vanderbilt was there with his friends, and we had an amazing time. They have the best D.J. there and an outdoor courtyard, etc. We lost track of time dancing, and before we knew it, it was 2am. We went a few shops down to a pizza place for huge pieces of pizza and weren't home until 3am. And I worked the next morning - ouch!

Friday night, we used my company's tickets to go to the Nationals game at RFK. Afterward, we headed to my favorite karaoke bar. Today, we visited the National Cathedral, which is incredible and made me so in awe of who God is. The building was beautiful, but it just gave such a picture to me of how big and beautiful and worthy God is. That amazing building was built for His glory. Afterward, we ate at a Spanish tapas bar, which was delicious! We went shopping at Zara in Georgetown, too.

My roommate, EB, got engaged tonight. It was so cute! Her boyfriend is Chilean and they had about 30 people over to celebrate Chilean Independence Day and spent hours upon hours making empanadas and a several-layer cake. He proposed in front of all their friends, and it was beautiful :)

Then, we watched NE get beat. So sad, but it could've been much worse. We didn't embarass ourselves. They only beat the spread by 1/2 a point.