Xmas 2005

I am spending Xmas in the UK with family and friends. Arriving Thursday, I was surprised by an invitation to the carol service at St Mary's in Kensington High Street, and then dinner at my friends Sarah and Russell. I went with Simon and Isabel, and there baby Georgia - who is my god daughter.

Friday was last minute shopping. And Saturday was an early Xmas lunch with my extended family. It was great to catch up with everyone. My sister and I had to leave a little early to head down to Froxfield in Hampshire, to the Ross household.

After early drinks, and a light supper (I was rather full from lunch), an olde friend Sarah-Kate stopped by. Xmas morning did not start as early as I had expected. Neither Matty nor Lils - nor Ivor - woke me up too early. I was very happy !!! :)

My parents, and Sarah's parents arrived ~ and the festivitities began. The kids were really well behaved, and opened their presents without going too crazy. We ate rather late, but the wait was very worthwhile - Sarah is an excellent cook. Truth be told, I can only claim to have mashed the Sweet Potatoes and Squash. I felt I contributed through imbibing though!

More later ...

Settling in ...

It has been a little while since I updated the blog. I am now settled in. The move went well, and I appear to only have lost one thing - my table mats. (Nowhere to be found!). I have had a pretty busy weekend - swimming, Xmas parties and brunch.

If you want to know where I am, the images below from Microsoft Windows Live Local will help. (It is pretty cool what you can see - click here.) The first view is an image of the neighbourhood. I used a wide angle so you can see where I am relative to the major downtown sites.




The local area around Logan Circle is pretty cool. My unit is at the back of the building, overlooking a Wholefoods supermarket. What is nice is that I have East, North and West views. East in the morning, and West in the evening.




My place takes up the top two floors. The face with the "1" is the North side of the building. Wholefoods is the flat topped building with the car park on the left. Rhode Island Avenue NW, and the front of the building, is on the right - at an angle. For anyone visiting - and to get a good relative position, the street map below should help.




Although actually I would use MapQuest .....

Check back soon for more news!

New Beginnings ...

As I hope by now all of our friends and family know, Jennifer and I have decided to separate. Although incredibly sad, we are still very close and remain good friends. The exciting news is that I have found a new place to live. It is in a building called The Zenith, on Rhode Island Avenue between 14th and 15th streets.


It is currently unoccupied, so the photos do not do it justice. The living area is a great open plan space, with stairs up to a loft-style study, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Plenty of room for visitors.


It will be quite a change from Arlington .. and even Rosslyn .. no more suburbs, and true city living. The nice thing is that there are plenty of windows - on three sides - providing not only lots of light, and also some very cool city views.



And there's parking ...... check back later for more!

Georgia's Christening

I have just returned from a very quick visit to the Christening of my Goddaughter Georgia Hunt. It was a great visit. I was a little apprehensive after the awful events of last week, but there was a good atmosphere in London. I took the day flight on Friday so was not too exhausted.

After lunch with my sister and Mother, I headed up to Isabel and Simon's for the afternoon and a BBQ. It was great ... I pigged out on burgers and sausages. I stayed in a farm house B&B, built in 1645.

Sunday was an early start with a full service at the Milton Stoney parish church. An incredible church, with a baptismal font in which Edward the Confessor was baptised. Georgia was incredibly good. In the afternoon I traveled down to Froxfield to stay with the Rosses at their new house. It is very cool. It was great to see the kids. Ivor is so much bigger, Lils and Matty were on good form. Monday was back to London, lunch with Mother and Father and then a return to the US. Nice thing was I got upgraded.

Carol & Mike's Wedding

As I mentioned in the previous entry, we recently went to my sister-in-laws wedding. Here is a photo (which is a new feature of the blog I use.)




















Jennifer looked absolutely fantastic. I thought she was the best looking person at the wedding !!!

It's been some time ....

... since I updated my blog. About 4 months actually. So here is a quick synopsis of what we have been up to. We have been to New York a couple of times. Once for a family wedding, which was a lot of fun. I was in New York for work, and spent some time with my Aunt and Uncle in Connecticutt, and Jennifer took her sister Carol for a visit.

We have also been to Chicago for Carol and Mike's wedding, which was a lot of fun. Jennifer's New Mexico / California family were there, which was a great treat. I met a lot of my in-laws friends, which was a pleasure.

I am off to the UK in a couple of weeks for the christening of Georgia Hunt, my friend's Isabel and Simon's daughter, and my God daughter. I am really excited. It is going to be quite a hectic trip, as I want to visit a bunch of friends and family.

We are looking to buy a small boat. A twenty-eight to thirty foot day cruiser, something like a Hunter or Pearson. The plan is to keep her in Annapolis so that we are close to the good restaurants and bars. Last weekend we toured the various marinas and found a couple that we liked. Hopefully they have space!

My work is going well. It has been pretty busy. In the last few months I have had trips to LA, New York and Louisville. LA was a lot of fun. I visited Roger in Newport Beach. We went dingy sailing, and managed to turn it turtle. We did stay dry, however.

We have been to see a bunch of movies. I recommend Mr and Mrs Smith and Star Wars. Bewitched was fun, but stay clear of Monster-in-Law.

The Graduate with Morgan Fairchild

We went to see "The Graduate" at the Warner Theatre, starring Morgan Fairchild on Tuesday. It was really rather disappointing. In fact, Jennifer left half way through the second Act. The problem was that the actors had little stage-presence, and as the set was sparse it seemed more like a high school play, rather than professional actors. All round - rather disappointing.

Visiting Philadelphia

We visited Philadelphia for the President's Day holiday weekend. This weekend mark's four years since we met in DC. It was great to get away. Philly was fun, we didn't go to the usual places - Liberty Bell and Independence Hall as we had both seen these on previous visits.

We did go to the new Constituition Museum, which was really well done, and the Rodin Museum. We also saw the Lewis and Clark exhibition at the Natural History Museum - which is a really fascinating story. We had wanted to see the Dali exhibit at the Museum of Art, unfortunately it was sold out for all of the days we were there.

We stayed in Society Hill, in the historic district and ate very well at local restaurants. I strongly recommend Fork and Sfizzio, as well as the Continental Martini Bar.

All in all a great trip. You can photos here.

Great dinner ...

Last night we had a really nice 'family style' Sunday dinner with good friends. Jennifer cooked a wicked vegitarian chile. Joining us were Simon & Ruth, Tris and my cousin Adam. The only downside was that we had lit the fire earlier in the day and I closed the flue before all of the embers had fully extinguished. The house was just a tad smoky!!!

New site

I have replaced Lees Consulting with a new resume site. So far, there is only the home page, but I plan to populate the rest of the site over the next few days.

Updating Links

I have been working each of the sites on LeesOrg correcting broken links (mainly on the photo navigation arrows). If anyone notices bad links, please let me know.

Jennifer & Mark Reloaded

The Jennifer & Mark site has been updated with photos of our wedding, trips, and other news. Check it out .....

New friends ...

Having heard from an old friend during the week, this weekend we met some new arrivals to DC. Jonathan and Amanada are friends of friends from the UK, and working at the British Embassy. We had a great dinner at their home, Amanda is an amazing cook. On Sunday, we went to see 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou'. It was not great, and I would not recommend it.

Old friends ...

LinkedIn is a great business networking service that enables virtual communities. It also lets you find old friends. I was excited to receive an email from a friend from college a couple of days ago. He is also living in the US. It was great to catch up. I recommend checking LinkedIn out.

Miami Photos

Photo's of our new year's eve trip to Miami have been posted. I have split these into New Year's Eve, South Beach and the Biltmore. It was a great trip.

New Year 2005

We arrived back at about 1:30pm last night, having spent New Year's Eve in Miami. Photos will be posted soon. It was a great trip with friends from DC. Although only there for 4 days, it felt like longer. New Year's Eve itself was spent at Nobu Miami. It was absolutely fantastic. I am not sure that I can eat Sushi again ... not sure it can live up to Nobu's. We visited Coral Gables, where we were staying, and South Beach. The highlight was the Delano, very cool. Apparently there were celebs at the hotel, but I missed them all. Jennifer had a great massage. Our hotel was a little disappointing and I would not recommend it. We did get upgraded a suite, though, which was very nice. Now back to work .....