Jubilation!!

LOOK WHAT I WALKED PAST A FEW BLOCKS FROM MY HOUSE TODAY:

SOON MY LIFE WILL BE COMPLETE AND I WILL HAVE NO REASON TO EVER LEAVE PHILADELPHIA!

Happy Valentime's

I went to a crafting class with some friends this week, and we made Valentine's!

It was very girly, and they even had tiny pink heart-shaped cookies. But it was fun to spend an evening playing with shiny things and eating tiny cookies!

I'm still finding glitter in my belongings because of this one.

It's hard to see here, but this one is embossed - the pink parts are all raised.

String and lace - oooh!

This is the most boring one.

More glitter!

West Wing

Ben's adviser also has a job in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and a few weeks ago he emailed out his lab and asked if anyone wanted to do a special tour of the West Wing with him. So last night Ben and I found ourselves here:

It's sort of hard to see, but we are standing outside the entrance to the West Wing, and above the door is a big presidential seal:

You can't take any pictures inside, but it was quite neat - we even got to see the Oval Office, and it looks exactly like it does on TV. The presidential seal was on everything; there were even special White House M&Ms. Also, there were big photos of President Obama everywhere, many of which were formal or inspirational (like the famous one of a young black boy touching the president's hair), but many were also fun or goofy - like him making the "not impressed" face with McKayla Maroney, and one of Michelle giving a press conference with some muppets. We saw the door to the Situation Room, which I hadn't realized was an actual thing. We also got to see the door that led to the residential part of the White House, but that was the closest we came to the President himself.

We got to go to a few other places around the White House as well, like the Indian Treaty Room, which had the most beautiful floors of anywhere I've ever been:

The last place we saw was the press briefing room, which we learned was originally a swimming pool for FDR's polio therapy. The room always looks huge on the TV, but in reality it is really small - there are only 49 seats!

This is it - the whole thing.

Me and Ben taking a dorky selfie in the video monitor thing.

Me and our friend Ashley preparing for a press release.

We ended up not getting back to Philly until close to 1 am, and just in time for a fire alarm in our building, but it was worth it!

A Very Potter Christmas

I was so sad after the last Harry Potter movie came out because I thought I had no more HP to look forward to, but this year I got not one but two excellent HP themed gifts! From my aunt and uncle, the official USPS Commemorative Harry Potter booklet:

They are too pretty for me to even consider using them as stamps. Instead I have the booklet sitting on my bureau for staring-at purposes.

From Ben's aunt and uncle, we got tickets to the Philly production of Potted Potter. Tonight was the big night, but we didn't think to bring a camera so here's Ben holding the (scroll!) program once we got home:

It was very fun and goofy - probably the best part was when they called a little girl on stage to play a small part, and then offered her a choice of being squirted with a squirt gun, or receiving a chocolate frog and having the audience squirted instead. She heaved a big sigh and said "I guess you better squirt me" - I don't think they'd had a kid do that before, because the actor lost it and doubled over before collecting himself, giving her the chocolate, and sending her back to her seat.

All in all, 2014 is off to a magical start!