We’re pretty sure Seth’s the father. 😉

On Tuesday, my class had the honor of having the newly confirmed Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, speak to just our class. He had only been on the job since February 13th, but he really wanted to speak to a new incoming class. In case you don’t know, Negroponte has led a distinguished career as a Foreign Service officer, including helping broker an end to the Vietnam War, ambassador to Iraq, and most recently the director of national intelligence. Anyway, he spoke to us on Tuesday, and brought with him a reporter from the NY Times, who wrote an article about the “D” and his discussion with us. Check it out!

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/washington/21negroponte.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1172096867-H2ecT1sW3mvYqKLcFM3aFw

Speaking of New York, Kristen and I went to the Big Apple for an overnight on Saturday. It was a combined Valentine’s Day trip and wanting to visit NY before we left this part of the country. But after Flag Day on Thursday and hunting for warm clothing on Friday and me being sick since Tuesday, we really weren’t quite as excited about our trip as we had been only a few weeks before when we planned it. But we dutifully got up early Saturday morning and drove the 5 hours to NY. It took us a while to get into Manhattan because the Lincoln Tunnel was jam packed. Once we got there, we visited the World Trade Center and then drove to our hotel, which was right across from the U.N. Around the Brooklyn Bridge, we realized cars were backing up right in front of us, seemily unfazed by the oncoming traffic. Turns out there was an hour-long traffic jam in front of us. We decided to call it an evening and finally get some rest.

I threw a wrench in that plan as I was up all night coughing and sneezing and snoring.

The next day we went on a walking tour of midtown Manhattan, visiting Grand Central Station, the Chrysler building, Times Sqare, Rockefeller Center, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We had a great time, but did our absolute best to stay warm, as it was freezing and windy!!

On our way home I got us a little lost, and we ended up going the LONG way (meaning all the way around) around the loop of DC. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, except for it was 10:30 at night, starting to snow (we saw 4 accidents in less than a mile), and we hadn’t slept in a week! We made it home by 11:30, exhausted. Unfortunately, I was still sick and kept us up yet another night.

Overall we enjoyed our time together, and the highlights were seeing Uncle Nathan and Aunt Joyce along the way and having a slice of New York pizza at Nico’s!