Where in the world are... Derek and Amanda?

Life right now is basically work. We are living in Fairfax, VA for the summer for Derek's job. Last semester at school Derek was recruited by summer sellers to move across the country to sell pest control! I was all for it because everytime I traveled to the East Coast before I totally enjoyed myself. Living out here is A LOT different then just traveling but it is an expierience definately worth having.

We came from sloooooow Idaho to light speed Virginia so it has definately been a culture shock. People are flying past cops on the highway going fifteen over and the cops don't do anything! haha what is that about? If you go even two over on the stretch from Idaho Falls to Rexburg the cop jumps the median and races after you! So, thats cool.

Derek is rocking the selling world. He is now number 19 (selling wise) in the company which is really good since he is a first year rep. I tried it for three weeks buuuuut..... we did worse in those three together than Derek ever had... so now I am working at Linens N' Things down the street from our apartments so I can walk if I need to. Ever since I stopped selling, Derek has exlpoded -sad but true :)- and now its a race to the finish line (August 30). Derek and a good friend Andrew Browning are now selling partners because his wife Shandee also stopped selling even though she was good at it. So, the go around the greater Washington DC area giving people free bug inspections and selling them pest service contracts. They find anything from black widows (lots), to angry bees, to crazy ants... anything you can think of really.

Working at LNT for me is a new experience because I have never worked retail before. It is good work and good money and I work with mostly good people. All who smoke. yummy. I was offered a promotion in a sense after just three weeks of work but then they found out that I am leaving at the end of the month and so they couldn't give it to me. I have three managers who are cool and one who is psycho! I had a really bad experience with her and now I avoid her as much as possible. I figure she is just an unhappy crazy lady who likes to make other people's lives hell in order to make her feel better. Unless you, like her, are mexican (I dont mean this disrespectively) then she treats you like her own family! But because I am not, I get treated like poop. But! enough about her! Work is good, 9 dollars an hour is a lot better than the 5.88 I was making in ID so, I'm good.

Derek knocked on a guys door while selling and one thing led to another and we are now independant business owners a part of this business team called LTD. That takes up a lot of time but we have met a lot of nice people and made a lot of friends through it so thats good.

Other than work, we are having a blast! we watch movies together a lot (in our apartment since the movie theatre here costs $11 a movie!). We make dinner together. We take walks. We work out. We swim because our apartment is right next to the pool. Because we are in an extremely historical area there is a lot to do on the tourism side. We went to DC a couple weekends ago with Andrew and Shandee and we had an awesome time! we took the metro and toured around. We went to the Arlington cemetary and walked around there. It was a very sacred and beautiful experience. We saw Smythsonian Museums, we saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution... that was awesome! Another week we went to the Nation Museum of the Marine Corps. That was incredible. Its experiences like those that we love because we cant have them anywhere else!

My birthday was this past Saturday. It was so much fun. Derek made it perfect. He brought me flowers... Breakfast at work. We went to and AMAZING mexican retaurant called Rio Grande Cafe. yummy. We were out on a covered porch and it was the perfect evening even when it started to rain. very pleasent. We walked around the mall, playing basket ball at KB toys, looking at all the cool stuff in the Apple store... Then we went to go see Hancock at the movie theatre. That was the first time we had seen a movie by ourselves in a really long time. We walked into the teatre which was empty so we picked seats and then this other guy walked in and sat right next to us. What. He was a talker too. haha.

We are leaving here the 30th to go back to ID. We are planning a trip through Minnesota to visit his mission. We are really excited about it! We are staying with my Aunt Laurie and Uncle Doug who we love very much. We are so stoked to see them and to take an awesome road trip! It'll be cool because we go through about 11 states that neither of us have ever been to before. A side note, it is one of my goals to go to all 50 states in my life which won't be too hard because I have already been to about 35 or so.

Thats about it for now. If I missed anything it will be up in no time.

Amanda