Recent happenings! (aka... February!)

Dear readers... I'm sorry for disappearing so long again! Life has been amazingly busy... I'm going to try and stay on top of this once again!

To give you a glimpse as to what happened in Late January and the month of Febrary... here are a few highlights:

Chinese New Year: Chinatown, Washington DC

My friends and I (plus I made new friends in the process!) went to Chinatown to enjoy the lion and dragon dances and just spend good time together. I love the friends I have and continue to make... everyone has great ideas for activities and broadening our horizons and understanding of current events and world history (this was no exception, one of my friends proposed the excursion, and it worked out wonderfully... excepting my cold feet!). Here is a bit of the scenery!

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 The New Year's Wishes of the Consul General of France 

I was pleasantly surprised with a lovely invite to attend the Consul General's New Year's best wishes reception at the French Embassy. I have to say that the staff at the embassy, many of whom are new, appear to be very nice people! I've had good luck working through paperwork with them and can honestly say they are polite and helpful! :) That said, the event itself was lovely and the Consul General made a statement that was very fitting, genuine, and had a proper part of humor. The Consul General is actually new to this embassy and I am quite pleased with what I've seen of him so far.

Here is a quick photo of me with Consul General Alméras.

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Latin Dance Lesson:

Yet another ICDC event! I'm still perfecting my latin dance skills, which are somewhat lacking but improving. Excepting the small size of the room, it was a good lesson for most of the basics. I'll probably have to repeat this a couple more times to get it right! Special thanks to my friend Sarah for being very patient and learning with me! :)

Me with Sarah, my dance partner who has been lovely and a good friend

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Skiing in Pennsylvania

That's me! 

Doing some sort of a move down the hill... I look really stupid in this shot, but there weren't any better ones!

 This ski trip is an annual (almost) tradition going back to when I was a teenager in youth group. We still go nowadays and get the band back together along with new recruits to spend a weekend skiing and spending time together. Always good memories, even if the hill is rather small!

Ski Sawmill