Guests!

This week has been full of visitors. Xavier, my Mom's cousin, was in town from Paris for an annual conference and it was great catching up with him. Then we had Anahita & Ali's visit from San Francisco. It was so nice catching up and having fun in DC.

Out for a night of dancing and catching up

Ali

With Anahita & Sohail

Learning Persian dance moves.

Walking through snowy DC

Sohail focused on his footing!

Catching up at Mienuu in Georgetown

The first time we went out the Californians were freezing so we came back to add some layers!

So great catching up in person for the first time in almost 2 years!

After dinner with Xavier

valentine's day skiing

our recent addiction to snow prompted us to go skiing for the day today in pennsylvania. it was probably my best experience skiing on the east coast (not that i'm such an expert...) because of all the snow that fell recently.

a farm on the way there

the view

today's fun

Another day off = another day to get stuff done and have fun in the snow.

First we rearranged the living room.

Then I met some friends for a game of "capture the scarf" but before it started I made my first snowman ever. He has a mustache.

Looks like I had some competition. These were about 8 and 9 feet tall!

Let the snowball throwing begin.

Here's a video of capture the scarf. It was a lot more intense than it looks here. Basically the objective is to capture the other team's scarf which is attached to a sign and to get it back to your base but if you get hit by a snowball at any point you have to tag the base before you can play again. It was exhausting - especially running through a big snowbank to get to the base - anda lot of fun.

Then we ran into a law school classmate of mine who built this igloo with some friends using a cake pan. It took them 3 hours!

It was really cool inside.

Then we went sledding.

Eric and Brad about to race.

Eric & Brad's race.

Eric back from a run down.

Meridian Hill Park. Sarita - remember this!?

dc wonderland

I feel like everywhere I turn these days I see something unexpected...

A snowmobile in Dupont Circle

Sohail - ok he was expected

Snowboarders in Dupont

Right after this we saw 3 fire trucks in front of our building but thankfully they were there for the building next door!

a walk in the snow

Good think they put up the wipers... may have been hard to drive otherwise.

Icicles

Tennis Anyone?

California Street

U Street

Funded by DHS...
At least someone in the government is working (or at least the money's hard at work)

All this time, Sohail's been hard at work.

Blizzard!

Apparently last weekend's snow was just a teaser. This morning I woke up to what I think is actually a blizzard. I can hardly see through the snow across the street!

I hope this poor guy called the airport before heading out with his rolly suitcase...
You can see how windy it is from the angle of his body.

With all this free time I've been able to get a lot of things done including trying this new recipe - a butternut squash, cabbage and tofu sweet and sour stir fry. It was delicious and a lot of fun to eat a purple and orange dinner!

But I'll have to find new pastime before too long because this is how the grocery store looks... I went last night to get eggs, milk, bread, and grapes and found that of that list there was only bread so I got two loaves to make myself feel as if I hadn't wasted the trip... There did seem to be large quantities of brownie mix left; I wonder if it was the kind of mix that requires eggs and milk...

Adventures in the snow

This weekend we got the 20-40 inches of snow they were predicting and had a blast.

On our way to a massive snowball fight with lost of other young(ish) DC residents. This is our street which leads to Dupont Circle.

My bike was not spared the snow...

At the snowball fight. The media said there were about 1,500 people there. Odd that people get more mobilized for a snowball fight than for a protest but it was so much fun!

A video of the excitement. Here there's a guy who mobilized all of us to save up our snowballs and throw them at the people in the middle at the same time.

Then we met up with Nate and little-N.

We did some sledding and at the bottom of the hill found this igloo.

Sohail going in the ingloo.

Inside! It was really beautiful and turned all blue when the light from the entry way was blocked.

Trees
Saturday night Sohail and I saw that this tree which is on our block fell. Today they came and cut it. I didn't really realize how heavy snow is but lots of trees were downed.

Fortunately the tree didn't hit any buildings but did crush two cars.

And we also pushed several cars out of the snow... Now on to the next big storm (arriving tomorrow and Wednesday - 10-20 inches).