August 2014

August has been a busy month! Ben is under lots of pressure to get his main paper done. He got the data from the Treasury this summer and has been working really hard and meeting with his advisers every couple of days. He is hoping to be done by mid September so he can submit his results to the Treasury for approval. Ben says NO trips or parties for him until he is done, but we did already have some things planned from long ago or things that we just couldn’t miss:

Richmond Visit! Ben’s Uncle Frank and Aunt Traci live in Richmond and had us over for a weekend, Aug 9-10. They gave us a tour of the city & the Confederate Whitehouse, treated us to some delicious restaurants, and we spent the night at their cute house! Ben recently got in touch with them at his Grandpa’s funeral, and it was great to get to know such a fun couple!

Danmo’s wedding! Danmo is the one other student in Ben’s program that started the same time as him. We have had fun getting to know Danmo the last five years and are really excited for her and Jian! On Aug 13th, they had a small wedding at a courthouse in DC, and then we got some really good Indian food at Rasika (a DC must try – their Date Toffee Pudding is AmAzing!). Their vows were really beautiful! Then a couple days later they had a big luncheon.

Jeff’s wedding! Jeff was Ben’s best friend in HS, although they have only been able to see each other occasionally since then. Jeff and Kristina had a beautiful wedding on August 23 in Lake Placid, NY. Their wedding was in a church right on the lake and was done by a Unitarian Universalist minister and was really beautiful. Then they had a dinner and reception at a golf club. It was a 10+ hour drive for us (and we accidentally went the toll way on the way there paying $35 and stopping about 8 times :-/). We got there about midnight Friday, the wedding was Saturday evening, there was a brunch Sunday morning, then we got home about 10pm Sunday. Quick trip but very nice!

AZ trip for Teyanna! Since I missed my usual June AZ trip due to going to Europe, I listened to my family’s appeals to grace them with my presence ( 😉 )and decided to do a quick trip over Labor Day weekend. I left Thursday evening and flew home Tuesday morning. It was super busy but fun getting to see everyone!