Potter Family Bike Trip 2015!!

A couple of years ago the Cherrys and the Pulsiphers went on a bike/camp adventure around Lake Michigan. I had just started my job at GW, so I couldn't go. I was very sad to miss out. Luckily it sounds like Pulsipher bike trips are going to be a reoccurring event and my awesome brother-in-law David planned another trip for this summer just before the 4th of July and better yet, in the DC area! David took care of all the planning and did a great job! 

So here is my photo heavy post on our bike trip! 

Here we are loading up the vans at the Cherry's house before we head up to Hagerstown MD. 

Ed, Henry and Ed's raccoon named Night Kill running to our stop at Cafe Rio :)
Ed was devastated when Night Kill got lost on the trail. 

DAY ONE: June 29th

We stayed at a motel up in Hagerstown and spent the morning assembling our bikes and getting ready.  All told there were 5 adults and 6 children. Only one of the kiddos was able to ride her own bike. So the rest of the kids were in trailers, baby bike seats or on tagalong bike attachments. 

Lane and Jim - the oldest and the youngest of the children on the trip. It was so great to spend time with both of them!

Lane and I were the only big kid bikes that didn't have children attached. Here
was my set up with a trailer and tent that David let me borrow. 

Our trail was down the old C&O Canal. It was really cool to not only ride down some
 gorgeously green trails, but to also go through some of the old ruins of the canal. It was really interesting!
This is Serena stopping along the first bridge we came across.  

Here are Serena and I with all of our gear! We had great weather and the majority
of the trail was covered with trees so we didn't get very sunburned! 

The Pulsipher family on the bridge 

In a tragic twist of events - our dear Lane's kneecap was dislocated. Luckily we weren't too far from our motel where our cars were parked. Serena took my bike, and got the van and Chris, David and Ashley carried poor Lane a mile back on the trail where there was a connecting path with the highway so that Serena could pick her up. Serena and Lane had to leave our group :(. We were so sad for Lane! While all of this happened, I stayed with all of our bike gear and watched over these three and Henry .... they got up to all sorts of shenannigans. We had a odd incident where another biker came through and literally ran over ME! He didn't even stop to see if I was ok! Luckily no damage was done and I was ok - but it was super weird.  

As Serena took my bike and Henry needed to be on a tagalong, I took over Serena's bike. Tagalongs are the BEST! The kids can still peddle - which is awesome when you are going up a hill or through the mud!
Here is Ashley and Ed and me with Henry. It was a lot of fun!  

On the trail 

Ashley, Jim and I taking a break to look at a dam. This has been a really wet spring and the river  was really high. 

Love those Pulsiphers!

DAY 2: JUNE 30th

Here we are day two at camp - George was SO happy to find a frog - all told they found at least four frogs and a turtle. The kids were in heaven! Its so nice to take these kids out to play in nature! 

Part of the trail was flooded out and we needed to take a detour. Once you leave the bike path along the banks of the river, the country roads are full of extreme UPs and DOWNs. I was not as hydrated as I thought and I started get nauseous , dizzy and got a pounding headache. We took a quick break and my bike buddy for the morning - Ed, took care of me. Sweetie. Here he is spraying and fanning me. 

DAY THREE: July1st!

Ashley with cute little Ed. I was so impressed with him! He is only three years old and he held on tight to that tandem bike  all day for three days! My nephews are so cool!!

We decided to stay in a hotel the night of the 30th and we are pretty lucky we did.
There was a SEVERE thunderstorm that night that we hadn't seen in the forecast.
We were able to sleep in beds and take showers. It was great. Henry was
my bike buddy for most of the way. It was a blast and he has some pretty powerful
legs to that would give me the "turbo boost" I'd need every once and a while.

We found roadside wild raspberries. They were SO SO SO GOOOD! 

My dear little Charlotte was such a trooper on this trip. She was on my bike tag along when we got
caught in a huge rainstorm. We both got DRENCHED. She was our positive cheerleader!

Its a lot of gear - I love that bikes are capable of carrying it all.

Nature = Heaven

Henry's turbo boost got us a bit to far ahead from the rest of the group.
So we took a break. It felt so good to be surrounded by nothing but green. 

The nice thing about the C&O Trail is that you go through several small towns.
Ashley saved the day and took a pizza detour while we went ahead and set up camp.
The kids loved it. This was my attempt at getting a non-goofy picture of them.

Here is the star of the show! Jim is 10 months old and was such a joy to have on the trip!
He wasn't fussy at all and loved to be in his bike chair. Jim wins the MVP of the trip!

Our campsite was right on the banks of the river. It was gorgeous. Ashley and I took a dip and it felt AMAZING!

I finally got all of the kids smiling and in one selfie! Too bad I didn't worry about my facial expression! (wamp wamp)

Sunset at camp - through the trees and over the river. It was a gorgeous evening. 

We worked to keep the fire going - luckily there was a fallen tree not too far away. 

I bought sparklers for the kids. 

We loved it :)

DAY 4: JULY 2nd 

We woke up on day four to a rain storm. We tried to wait it out in our tents, but alas it did not let up and our tents got wet. We had to pack out while everything was all wet. Not the most fun. We also decided to get on the side roads again as the trail had a lot of mud on that stretch and it was really hard to ride through. We got back onto the country roads and rode up and down for an hour or two before we decided to call it. Serena was on her way to rescue us. We had several set backs and were not as far in terms of  milage as we had originally planned. In the end, I was totally ok with that. 

It really was such a great trip! David did such a great job planning it. I was definitely pushed to some physical limits that I was not expecting, but I was glad for it. As cheesy as it sounds, a trip like this that has its highs and lows and is dependent on the group working together to meet a goal is great for a whole other level of family bonding. I had one on one time for hours with each of my nephews and niece. It helped me build relationships with them in ways that I don't think I would have gotten at your run-of-the-mill family reunion. I would totally do it again and I think it was a total SUCCESS! 

4th of July

For the 4th of July we went to Holden Beach. Sean's Dad's side of the family has a tradition of getting together every 4th of July at a centrally located spot for everyone to drive to. The house we stayed in had this amazing porch and dock out to the water. It was very nice to sit on a chair swing, read, and take in this view! We were able to spend one day at the beach and we all got scorched!

Kitchen Renovation

I adore the house that Sean bought a year before we met. It is a charming row house and it is in a fun neighborhood. I honestly don't think that I could have been happier anywhere else as a newlywed. Sean is a great handyman has has been renovating it on his own little by little. For example - he remodeled this half bathroom all on his own. 

and it turned out great!

Despite the charm of the house, there was one room that I was not in love with.... the kitchen. The last update must have been in the 70s (I am bummed that I don't have a picture of the hideous, oil stained curtains). The yellow paint, clay tiles and sandstone backsplash were not our favorites. We did like the cabinets - they were just in a need of a re-stain and they'd look great. 

We realized that we were going to need to re-do our kitchen floor before renting out the place when some of our tiles started cracking and the floor in the pantry started to feel like it was about to give in. We later discovered that before there had been no drain installed with the water heater and water was just being let out onto the subfloor. As a result the subfloor and joyces were completely rotten. 

This was what our contractors found when they had torn up the tile. The floor was COMPLETELY rotten.

After having three contractors commit to the job and then bailing, we found one that was able to give us a great deal on a total kitchen remodel. That meant a new floor, a new backsplash (yay!), new paint and new cabinets! (This contracting company had just redone a bunch of condos and had extra grey cabinets that they were essentially trying to get rid of for free - we feel very lucky to have found them!)

Goodbye ugly backsplash!

Goodbye ugly tile!

Hello new floor, backsplash, cabinets, and paint! You've done wonders! 

We really like how it is turned out! My one regret is the white grout. I was pressured into making that decision quickly and made the wrong choice. To me, it makes the floor look 80s. My mother also pointed out that white gout will not stay white in a kitchen. I went ahead and bought grey grout dye and will change the color of the grout before we leave. 

I just love the backsplash so much! I am glad that we were able to work with the granite top as well
 - we couldn't afford a new one. 

My time at George Washington University

Since I have started this blog, I have failed to talk about one of the biggest parts of my life over the last couple of years - George Washington University!

Why I was hesitant to go back to school
I had always thought about going back to school to get my masters, but I never really knew if I was willing to go through the torture of having to do homework. I was working a 9 to 5 job at Federated IT and it was SO nice to come home and to have discretionary time! The other factor was the cost. I have never been interested or good at business, science or any of the skills that would lead me to get a masters in something that would make me a lot of money. So I was VERY hesitant to take on a lifetime of debt when I knew I wouldn't be in the most lucrative industry - International Development.

Why I did decide to go back to school 
To be honest, I feel like everything just seemed to fall in place! First, a friend showed me the International Development Program at GW and it really called to me. They have a focus on practical education and skills courses in order to prepare us to be capable development practitioners. In perfect timing, I met a girl that was working full time at GW and she told me about their tuition benefit. If I worked full time at GW, I could get 96% off tuition! At that moment I had a feeling that it was all going to work out and that I would end up at GW.

How I prepared to get into GW 
I am not a good test taker - so I put everything I had into studying for the GRE. I bought the online kaplan services which is a several month study course. It was great - you take a practice test every other Saturday. Kaplan then analyzes your answers and tells you what you to study that week in order to most improve your score. Though - the practice tests are four hours each - that was not so great. I will admit - I did have a little miracle. The week before taking the GRE, I decided to do a few extra essay questions for practice. I was very thorough and compared each of me practice essay question answers to what their grading rubric is. The day I went to take the test, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough time because I am a VERY slow test taker. When I got to the essay section I was completely shocked when I got the same exact question that I had done for practice the week before. I was able to write the essay fairly quickly and got a decent score on it. It was too serendipitous to be a coincidence. GW was the only grad program I applied to. I put all of my eggs in that basket and luckily it worked!

My job at GW

I didn't apply for any jobs at GW until after I had been accepted to the IDS program. I wasn't having much luck until I got called in for an interview for a part time secretary position with the Physics Department. At the interview the department chair looked at my resume and my three years of office management experience and let me know that I would be a perfect fit for their Operations Manager position. The position had just been posted that day. She pretty much offered me the job on the spot. It was more than I could have asked for! Working on a university campus has been amazing. I have especially enjoyed working with the faculty of the Physics Department. They are quirky scientists, but they are also hilarious and so kind. We had some good times.

Attending my program
I remember attending my first cornerstone class and immediately feeling like I had found my tribe. Grad school is great because you have the chance to surround yourself with people that are passionate about the same things you are. My cohort had about 60 people in it. The small group that I got to know a small group pretty well. I hung out with them when I could. But I was a bit busier than most as I was working full time and planning a wedding.  The courses were all great. A neat aspect of the program is that a lot of the teachers were adjuncts that had full-time jobs in the development sector. The program was great in the sense that it had the prefect balance of theory and practical, real world education.

How did I balance it all?
I have been asked by several prospective students on how I balanced  my school work, job and personal life. I was honest with them - while I will be able to graduate with a decent GPA and leave on good terms at my job, I will always feel like I never really did balance it all. I always felt that I wasn't the best employee I could be because I was stressed and preoccupied with school and I felt that I couldn't be the best student because my job was eating up all of my social time. Once I started dating Sean, I had no other free time. This did take a toll on my other relationships. I also was never able to get an internship. Which might hurt my chances of getting a job after I graduate. However, I will say that leaving graduate school with no student debt will make it all seem worth it! (At least that is what I keep telling myself).

Support 
I also feel like I have to give a huge shout out to Sean for all of the support he gave me during this hectic time. The day I got my official job offer with the Physics was the day of my 2nd date with him.  It is crazy to think that Sean only knows me as a GW student and employee. He has picked me up from class, he has cooked a lot of our meals, he has done the dishes and he has been understanding when my entire weekends would have to go to writing a paper. I'm so glad that I had him around!

What am I going to do with my degree?
That is the big question - when I applied for the program I was single and without attachments to keep me grounded. Now I am married to a foreign service officer - which will have a large effect on my career. I have moments where I worry about it. But at this point, I have a feeling it will all work out and that I will be able to put my degree to use.