The Many Faces of Anne

merry christmas everybody!!

Strike...well kind of...

I don't think this photo needs any explanation.

Tis the season to be tacky!

I've been meaning to write about this for a while but I haven't quite found the time to do so until now. Let me preface this entry with a few statements. First of all I love my roommates. We are all so very different, which I believe is the reason we get along so well. Secondly, all of you who know me know that I LOVE Christmas. I have two storage bins full of Christmas gear, a million Christmas books, every Christmas CD imaginable (which I frequently listen to much earlier than the universally acceptable day to start listening to Christmas music, the day after Thanksgiving) and most importantly (well that's debatable, I love it all) I LOVE Christmas trees. The pine scent, the beautiful ornaments and the icing on the tree if you will, the lights. Specifically white lights. You see, I have grown up in a house saturated in white lights. Not once did I see a strand of colored lights in my house. As a result, and I do realize that this is a personal opinion and that many of you may disagree, but I'm morally opposed to colored lights. That's right...I said that I'm morally opposed to colored lights. Imagine my dismay to walk up to my house after a weekend in New York City to see our Christmas tree covered in the horrible things. I literally thought I was going to throw up. While I have accepted the fact that there will be colored lights in my home this season, I am still not quite comfortable with the hellish red glow that engulfs the house when the only lights on in the house are of the Christmas variety. I am in my own personal holiday hell.

Baby Will!!

I have to post this new picture of Will. He looks less "right from the womb" in this one. Not that the other pic isn't cute...it is. He is the cutest thing alive. I must say, those Clawsons have great genes. Oh...the Harris gene's aren't too bad either :)

Baby Update

The baby is no longer nameless! Everybody welcome William Harris Clawson to the world!

Aunt Annie

I became an aunt for the 7th time last night!

Baby Boy Clawson was born November 29, 2005 at 3:30 pm to proud parents Natalie and Andrew. He weighs 6 lbs 1 oz and is 19 1/2 inches long. Isn't he cute?? I am looking forward to brainwashing yet another nephew into believing that I am the greatest Aunt ever.

There's No Place Like NYC for the Holidays

I went to New York with my friend Abbie and cousin Betsy to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my uncle. We had a relatively smooth bus ride out which took 6 hours as opposed to the 9 hours it took us last year and went directly to Betsy's friend Clara's house to catch the end of America's Next Top Model and grab some food. We had all expressed interest in seeing the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons so we went over to Central Park West to see them. I think we were the last ones to see before they turned off the lights. Lucky us! You may recognize this arm...this actually could double as a crime scene photo. This is the arm of the

yellow M & M that knocked the light off the post that hit two girls on the parade route. Thanksgiving day, Abbie and I walked over to Central Park to catch the parade. Me being the photo-obsessed girl that I am, took too much time taking pictures in the park that we missed the parade (my uncle lives near the beginning of the parade.)

Oh I realize that the third picture is sideways, I'm using an old browser and I don't have any editing capablities. Maybe someday I'll fix it. Isn't Central Park gorgeous? There are so many neat things there. After Abbie indulged my photography obsession, we went to see Pride and Prejudice. Don't ask me how it is because I slept through it. This shouldn't really come as a surprise to those who know me. We came home and had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner which Uncle Denny prepared for us. He has the magic touch with turkey, it was delightful and moist, and I don't even like turkey. Way to go Denny! Doesn't this Thanksgiving dinner look lovely??


After dinner we settled in for the What Not To Wear Thanksgiving Day marathon, where we overdosed on TV. The rest of the week was spent shopping, eating and watching TV/movies. This trip has given me the desire to move to NYC. It's highly unlikely that anything will happen, but if I was given the opportunity I would be there in a heartbeat.

CAMPING!

So I am so not an outdoorsy girl, but in the efforts of broadening my horizons, I consented to a camping trip with a bunch of friends. The weather couldn't have been more perfect, clear skies, 70 degrees, AMAZING! Fall is my absolute favorite season so it was so great to see the leaves on Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah's before they fell. We got to the campsite around 5:00, set up camp and fire, had a little dinner and thanks to the time change were ready to call it a night at 6:30. Of course we quickly put that thought aside and kicked it by the fire for several more hours. We chatted, ate food and took lots of pictures. Ben brought an awesome alternative to marshmallows so I roasted orange rolls by the fire. Wow, amazing!
Although the weather was warm during the day, it sure cooled off at night. I lasted quite a while with my short sleeved shirt but got progressively colder, as you can see in the picture. We finally got to bed around midnight but Tara, Ben and I couldn't sleep, so we sat up talking and playing blackjack. Things wound down an hour or so later and we all tried to get to sleep. Unfortunately I couldn't sleep, mostly because it was freezing cold, but also because Ben kept poking me in the side so I could help him count how many people were snoring. At 5:00ish I burrowed myself deep in my sleeping bag and got a little rest. However, not before Nick rubbed in the fact that he was boiling up and taking off layers. Not surprisingly, I was the first one up for good (at about 7:00) but the last to get out of bed. We then ate breakfast and headed out for a little hike. I lasted about ten minutes before I thought I was going to die, so Tara and I split off from the group and took some pictures and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings. When everyone rejoined us, we went back to the lodge for lunch and then Tara, Ben, Karl and I left for civilization. We stopped at several overlooks for some more picture taking and enjoyed the journey back to VA while singing like crazies. A little treat for Ben since he'd been trying to get me to sing for him all day. I must say I had a good time. I really enjoy hanging out by the fire, despite my slight phobia of the flames and I really enjoy the company, but I didn't really care for the lack of sleep caused by rocks, cold, snoring etc. It is good for one night, but I probably won't do it again for a LONG time.

HALLOWEEN!!

I think this was one of the best Halloween's ever! I had an awesome costume, lots of parties, and too much candy. It doesn't get any better than that. I dressed up this year as gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe, thanks Amanda! What resulted was lots of confused looks. Yeah, I was a little self-conscious being surrounded by strangers staring at me while whispering to their friends, but I got over it. At the second party I went to I still got the puzzled faces, but more people knew who I was or asked if they didn't. Here are a few pictures of my costume.



Me trying to blow a bubble.


Michelle and I



My roommates Katie, Bronwyn and Rachel. Jamie was at home passing out candy.


Shanna and I



I took this picture before I put my costume on on Friday. You can't really tell but I had THE coolest makeup on. My eyeshadow was fuscia. It doesn't get any better than that!

Happy Columbus Day!

I don't know if you realized this, but Columbus Day is a Federal holiday. Yay for me for working for a company that works directly with the Federal government!!!




I took full advantage of this holiday, waking up at 8:00 to go into work (but only for a few seconds). The rest of the day was dedicated to being a tourist. I visited the Native American Indian museum (that's not really what it's called), the Air and Space Museum, one of the art museums and Union Station (where the above picture was taken) to consume a rather disgusting cinnamon sugar pretzel.

The Indian museum is the coolest looking building, but I must be honest when I say I wasn't really interested in what I found inside. The visuals were cool, but in order to get anything out of the exhibits you had to read the equivalent of a 500 page novel. They did have a cool art exhibit featuring an artist named George Morrison and I took some cool pictures. Here are some that I took there.








The following two pictures come from this cool wall. On one side there are all sorts of shadows, and on the other are the artifacts that caused the shadows. This is the same picture, taken from both sides of the wall.



Ok, apparently I can't post any more pictures on this entry but I think you get the idea. It was a fun day!

FENCES: A STUDY

These photos were taken on a recent trip to Colonial Williamsburg. You would think that there would be something more exciting to record from my journey. Apparently not.

Before/After

Well I promised you pictures so here they are...here's me before the crazy event:






And here's me after...





What do you think???

News!!!

I did something crazy over the weekend and I have the pictures to prove it. However, I'm going to keep you all in suspense because I forgot my camera today. Can you handle it??

NASCAR Baby!

I recall going to Las Vegas with a friend of mine several years ago and sitting in the living room hanging out while her stepdad watched Nascar. I remember thinking, or I might even said it out loud, "Why would anyone want to sit and watch cars drive around a track for 4 hours? What a waste of time." Well now I know that not only is it not a waste of time, but it is actually quite fun to watch. With the intent of trying something new and meeting new people, I agreed to a trip down to Martinsville, VA to watch a Nascar race, fully expecting to hate it.


Before the race weekend, my friend, "Nascar Nick" as he is sometimes known, took the time to teach me the finer points of the race. With the assistance of my office manager I picked a driver, Kasey Kahne, who was the Rookie of the Year the previous year and might I say pretty cute, so that I had someone to cheer for. I watched several races on TV and learned some of the terminology and rules. This all got me really excited to see it live and in color.

We had purchased tickets for both the truck race and the Cup series race. I didn't really love the truck race, but probably because it was so incredibly loud and I didn't have anything to muffle the sound and I didn't know what was going on. It was very much just watching trucks driving around in circles. The next days cup race was a million times better. The traffic was much like 495 at 5:00 pm on a weekday, bumper to bumper. You could see on each car where their allegiance lay. The majority had a sticker with the number 8 or 3 in their windshield (for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Dale Earnhardt respectively) but many had numbers for drivers that I had never heard of (but do now), like Tony Stewart, Jimmy Johnson, Greg Biffle among others.
What you may not know about going to a race is that it is an all day thing. People will get there first thing in the morning and set up their lawn chairs, open a can of Bud (or something else if you aren't a Jr. fan), fire up the barbeque and hang out until the race starts. Most of the drivers have a hauler, a big trailer full of stuff with their number and likeness on it. I bought myself a Kasey Kahne hat. I decided to rent a scanner which would allow me to listen to many of the radio stations that were covering the race as well as listen to the drivers and their pit crews. It was so awesome. It really gave me an inside look into how the race is well...raced. The drivers wear these things on their neck that allows them to crash without breaking their necks, which have a name that I can't remember, so they aren't able to check their blindspots to see if they're going to hit someone so they have a spotter (and Nick, if you're reading this, which I doubt, please forgive me if my lingo isn't up to par) who will tell them over the radio when it is safe to pass, or if someone is passing them...you'll hear outside...outside...outside...clear. Side note, they day I went back to work after the race I found myself saying outside...outside...clear while passing cars on the freeway. Anyways, before the race each driver is paraded around the track and many cheers and boos can be heard. Then someone says the national anthem while everybody is lined up in the pits...see picture below...

After the anthem they all line up and give each other high fives. It is really cool to see. I will see if I can scan some of the pictures I took.

Here is a picture of the cars before they line up to start...

We had awesome seats, right on turn one and right in front of Dale Earnhardt Jr's pit box, here they are in action.

My favorite part about the race is when they wreck. A little carnage never hurt anybody right? They're actually pretty harmless but they look awesome. Sometimes the drivers get mad and they try to retaliate. That's when things get REALLY good. About halfway through the race, Nick leans over and says to me something that I couldn't hear over the sounds of 42 big ole racecar engines. He then wrote down that Jeff Gordon was going to win the race. The same Jeff Gordon who was two laps down at the time. Well lo and behold, guess who won the race? Jeff Gordon. Nick is amazing. Coming in a close second was my boy Kasey (the birthday boy). After the race we hiked back to our car and had a good ole fashioned bbq in the parking lot of the local fire station. I can't think of a better way to spend the day. If you ever have an opportunity to attend a race, GO, but if you don't want to, send me instead. :)

Big, Bigger and Biggest

Einstein, Jake and my feet.