Stomping around

For quite some time now Sara has been feeling our baby move around, and tried to get me to feel him move, but I couldn't. But just this last week while we were sitting on the couch watching TV (Lost I think, since we'd been watching seasons 3 and 4 on DVD to catch up to this season) our baby boy started kicking again and Sara showed me where to put my hand and I felt him kick it, as if telling me to stop intruding on his space. Since then I've felt him kick several more times, each time in response to something pressing lightly Sara's tummy. Our boy's quite the kicker, he's always kicking around in there, so when Sara mentioned that she wanted to refer to him as something other than baby I suggested Pele, after the great soccer star. I don't think she likes it, but as nicknames go, I think it fits perfectly for now.


Speaking of confined spaces, Sara and I went to see Stomp at the Providence Performing Arts Center. The theater was very ornate and beautiful, but the seats not all that comfortable, especially for Sara, she kept shifting around trying to find a comfortable spot, so that Pele would settle down and let her watch the show. The people next to us probably thought she had some kind of ADHD or restless everything syndrome. The show itself was awesome, the noises they get out of every day things, rubber hoses, brooms, dirt on the ground, and their ability to each keep their own rhythm to weave a wonderful musical experience was amazing. For the next couple hours I found myself drumming out little beats on whatever my hands were resting on, and of course when that happened to be Sara's tummy, little Pele kicked back.

Seattle

Dec. 13th, 2008

Upon landing in Seattle, we headed downtown to see the Space Needle and the famous fish market. The town was all lit up for the holidays, and the sun was just setting, but we quickly realized that neither of us had a camera, so there are no pictures to show from our Space Needle adventure, and the fish market was already closed so we don't have any fish tossing pictures either, but here's one from the Internet.
But some restaurants were open and so we had dinner at place called the Sound View cafe. We sat by the window, 3 or 4 stories above the street below (due to the hillside) with a view of, you guessed it, the Sound, and the first few flakes of their Seattle's first big snow of the year. The food was good and it was great to relax a bit together.

After the dinner and the Space Needle, we went to our hotel and used our GPS to pull up Best Buy to buy a suitable camera for our vacationing. We ended up getting a digital SLR, figuring if we'd ever buy one, we should buy it before going to Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam.

We ate the wonderful breakfast buffet the next day at the hotel and then I took Sara to the airport before driving around to take photos with the camera. I took this one from a big hill in a neighborhood along the freeway.


And this one I took a little closer to downtown (I'm a little blurry because I moved a smidgen while the shutter was open forever to take the shot):


The interviews on Monday were interesting, but very technical and I didn't spend any significant amount of time preparing for them due to school, so I didn't do too well and did not receive a job offer.

But the trip to Seattle was fun. Sara and I saw the space needle, we ate some good meals and spend some good time together. I also got to catch up with an old mission friend who works for Microsoft. And just about all of it was covered by Microsoft. So buy Windows and Office and stuff, yay!

Stopped the insanity

I don't really feel like blogging about the new stuff that's going on until I get you all caught up on the old stuff that's gone down, so rewind the calendar two months to Friday, December 12th.

Early last semester I tried to figure out the earliest date that I could be done with school, I emailed professors and checked the official calendars and deduced that the 12th of December would be the last day I had anything due, so when Sara had meetings in Juneau on Monday, the 15th and I was invited to interview for a job openning with Microsoft in Redmond, Washington, we decided to combine the two and fly to Seattle on Saturday the 13th.

Around the first week of December some of my classes were starting to move from being done on the 12th to not being done till a week later, in fact 4 of my 5 classes ended up pushing due dates till after we were already scheduled to leave and I found myself in a never-before-experienced situation of whining about having more time to complete stuff because I didn't actually have any more time because I was still leaving Saturday morning, at 8 a.m. for the airport.

My database final was on Monday, I finished the work for my group (of just me) distributed computing project Tuesday night (but didn't present it to the professor till Friday), fought with my Computer Vision project for most of Wednesday and Thursday before giving up and moving on to my Computational Molecular Biology final Thursday night. Friday night a little after 9 in time to go pick up Sara at the airport. I spent a couple minutes with her before returning to school to write a technical paper on how my non-functional Computer Vision project turned out through the night till I around 7 a.m. (I never did get it working correctly, but I thought that the write-up was pretty good, considering the project didn't work - one of my friends read it and asked me if I was being too pessimistic and said that I was pretty much saying "I suck, I suck, I suck" in the paper. I didn't think I wrote that or even intoned that, but I thought it was funny that he got that message from the paper.) Got home about 7:15, cleaned, showered, and got packed in time for our awesome landlord Bob, and his wife Sheila to pick us up and take us to the airport at 8 with 4 classes completed and 1 project left to go.

That last project was a group project and it hung around for an entire week as I tried to make time to work on it in Seattle and Juneau, while one group member worked from Massachusetts and the other one worked in Ankara, Turkey. The distance and the time difference definitely didn't make it any easier, but after a couple very, very, very late nights by the imitation fireplace of our bed-and-breakfast in Juneau, Alaska while Sara watched over me (read slept snorring-ly nearby) I finished my second write-up of a project that didn't fully function and my first semester at Brown was done.

Everything turned out even better than I expected, and so I'm now 5/8ths of the way through my Master's program, and it's really hard to get going this semester. Luckily, I get to spend lots of time with Sara and so far I've put in short days, but I'm sure that'll end soon.

In the end it was definately worth the extra work to be a little farther done with the baby on the way, even if several late nights at my computer had me feeling like this poor guy:

Getting rid of that spam...

So, I just told my wife that her little, comment and I'll make you something was terrible spam that offered no insight at all into who we are or what we've been doing. She responded by saying that it's better than all my posts the past month or so, and she's right, like she always is, that spam at least proves that she's alive, my zero posts do not.

So this post is to push that stupid post down the page a little bit.

Thought I'd post more? Well, ha ha, fooled you!

Mystery Gift...From Me to You!

A friend of mine posted this on her blog, and I made one of the 5, so now it's my turn. It's always fun to give and receive! :)

The first 5 people to comment on this post will receive something made by me for you....my choice...made especially for you.

Of course there are some restrictions and limitations:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done sometime this year.
4. You have no clue what it will be... it may be a story; it may be poetry or an article on organizing your closet or home office. I may draw or paint something; I may bake something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure.
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on their blog (only if you really want to - I will still make you something if you don't). The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

As Promised - Baby's First Pictures

Like I said in my last post, he really wanted to moon the camera, so that's what we got the most of...

(I like the label with the arrow - otherwise we might not have found it.)

And, last, but definitely not least, the profile picture that they were able to get when we went back fora second round. He was still in a "jack-knife" position and wanted his hands on his ears, but he was much more cooperative than the week before.

It's a Boy

Our ultrasound last week was really neat - it was fun to see the baby and see him move around while I was feeling it. He is definitely a boy and wanted to show us his "boy parts" as much as he could. Even if we had asked the technician not to tell us the gender, I think we would have known. It was as if he was attempting to moon the camera the first half of it (we may have our hands full). He was very cute and at first was hiding his face and basically holding on to his nose, then he decided to grab his ears instead.

Then, he began to take after his mom and be a little impatient. When the technician pushed down on him to try to get him to move around, he pushed back with his head, hard enough that she and I both saw the pushing on the outside and I definitely felt it on the inside. After that, he was not very cooperative at all so she couldn't get all the shots she needed. So, we are going back tomorrow and hopefully he'll be in a better position and a little more cooperative. The only things we have clear pictures of right now are his boy parts and I didn't really want to post those without at least a profile shot or something that shows that he does have other parts, so we'll see what we get tomorrow morning!

Welcome Brynley Belle

We have a niece (our first)! Brynley Belle was born on January 15th in Denver. Taylor and Marisha are having fun being parents and we can't wait to meet her!

Excuses, Excuses

So, it's been three months since I last blogged. I've been taken on numerous guilt trips by friends and family, been put on notice, and composed many a blog in my head. But, this is the first I'm getting around to it. Here are a few reasons why:

• On October 2, the last time I posted, I was on the first of many business trips. Let's just say that between September 29, 2008 and January 19, 2009, I was only home for two complete weeks. During the month of December I think I spent three nights in my own bed. Sure, it's been fun to go to so many places (especially the last five weeks when I had Will along), but logging almost 70,000 flying miles in less than four months was a little time-consuming and exhausting.

• If it wouldn't have been exhausting on its own, I became a little disenchanted with flying when, starting mid-October, I started utilizing air-sickness bags or (when lucky) the airport lavatory on every flight. Prior to that, I had only thrown up once on an airplane. Don't worry, this lasted well into December. However, of my last five flights (in the last three weeks) I only tossed my cookies on one!!

• Oh yeah, the nausea wasn't limited to in-flight. On October 4th, two days after the last time I posted, I flew home from Eugene, OR, Will picked me up at the airport, we stopped at CVS, and came home and took a home pregnancy test. I took a couple more in the next couple of days to make sure it was real and it was. We are expecting a baby, due on June 12th. You can be expecting many more blog posts on that and my take on "morning" sickness.

• On that same week, two days after my last post, my camera died, unintentional homicide. I was cramming my very full carry-on into a very small overhead compartment and didn't realize until I took it out to take the above picture that I had somehow cracked the screen. I loved that camera. It's been all over with me and then us - Poland, Russia, Will and I's first outings, our wedding, our honeymoon, the White House, numerous road trips with friends... Basically it's lived in my purse for almost five years and it's taken some fabulous photos (it especially loved candid shots of friends). I was planned to pay a lot of money to get it fixed, but turns out Sony no longer makes that model and won't fix it. No photos = boring blog, right? So, that became a good excuse not to blog.

• Then, I bought a new camera on a whim, at Wal-Mart, on the way to Delaware in October. Nothing fancy, but it worked. We took a few photos with that - NYC with Curtis, Becca and Sam, some scout pictures (scouting deserves its own bullet here as well), etc. But, by the time I thought to use them to blog it was December and time was getting short... We were packing for our marathon December/January trip and we couldn't find the camera. We hope it's still at the church somewhere, but after six weeks, are starting to doubt it. Hopefully we'll find it.

• (Maybe this story should have been its own post, it is using far too may bullets.) Since we arrived in Seattle in December without a camera, we went to Best Buy and bought one. Okay, we bought two. A point-and-shoot and a DSLR, which I have (not-so-secretly) been lusting after for a while now. I guess the point of this story is that you can look forward to some good pictures being posted soon. Will took some great ones on our trip.

• (Back to the excuses.) After we found out we were pregnant, that was really thought-consuming. And, I'm really bad at keeping secrets. I had a hard time thinking of anything to blog about other than being pregnant, hearing the baby's heartbeat the first time (amazing), seeing the baby, etc. I'm glad we're through that phase and it's no longer a secret. (I wasn't nearly as good at keeping it secret as I thought I could be.)
  

• I thought about blogging over the holidays, when I did take some free time (even though I should have been working during a lot of it). But, the magnitude of starting blogging again when I haven't for so long was a little overwhelming. I thought about a New Years blogging resolution but couldn't do it. I'm sure in about five months the pressure will be on even more to post cute pictures of and stories about our child for family and friends who live far away so I can't pressure myself now.

All said, I am back and I am planning on posting more often. No promises because work is still busy for now (but I am cutting way back after the last few months of non-stop travel), but we do have a lot of fun things to write about that are going on in our lives and have been lately, so I'll do my best.

Better to be heard than to be seen

I'm in the middle of the most insane school week I've ever witnessed or even heard of, but I wanted to take a moment to thank my Mom and Dad who equipped Sara and me with several gifts to be opened before Christmas, all wrapped nice and pretty while we were at their house for Thanksgiving.

Thanks Mom and Dad!

The best thing about being able to open them now, is that we won't have to truck them along with us on our 5 state and 1 territory Winter vacation jaunt that starts this Saturday and contributes to this week being so insane for me. For those of you who don't know the details yet, we're off to Seattle, Washington where I have a job interview with Microsoft, while Sara visits Juneau, Alaska for work. I meet her up there and then we'll fly to Utah for Christmas, then to Los Angeles for a friends wedding, then back to Utah, then to Hawaii for another of Sara's business trips and then on to the U.S. territory of Guam on the other side of the date line before coming back for hopefully a more relaxing semester at Brown.

Some of the fun presents included some candy treats and cookies, a cute little pillow, and a magazine for Sara to read on her business flights, really fun and thoughtful gifts. But one of the presents we opened yesterday was a DVD of the forgotten carols. Since we were cleaning up our house, we popped it into the DVD player and started playing it while we were in other rooms cleaning up.

Now, I like listening to the forgotten carols, well, some of them I love, others I don't mind and still others make me want to torture kittens (more than normal) - if you "cry every time you take the tree down" then maybe you should leave the darn thing up all year round, or buy another house to live in during the non Christmas months or something. I would rather listen to this dog bark out an endless stream of Jingle Bells than hear that song every again.

Like I said, I like listening to the forgotten carols CD, but I'm fairly certain that my parents have never watched this DVD. It is ridiculous, the silly costumes, the sappy looking audience shots, and worst of all the inability to skip through every Afterglow song and the aforementioned tree mourning song. So, I recommend that you stick with the CD, because sometimes seeing people trying to perform a song distracts from the beauty of just hearing it.

Now, back to trying not to have 3 months of work flushed down the toilet by not getting final projects done in the next 4 days.

Choose Your Own Adventure, Pennsylvania Edition

I am a fan of detours. I'm a fan of short-cuts and long-cuts. I am an explorer. From the time I met Will to now, I think we've probably made the almost-200-mile trip from DC to New Hope, PA (home of our favorite bed and breakfast, the Bill and Marie Doutre Home) about fifteen times. And, all told (or tolled), I don't think we've taken the exact same route twice. Our most adventurous routes were this past summer when we decided to explore Pennsylvania.

When we decided to drive up for Memorial Day, we knew traffic would be bad. We decided to take the 250-mile-ish route and go through Leesburg, VA, up to Gettysburg, PA and East through Amish country. We figured that if we were going to spend four plus hours driving, we might as well be exploring beautiful country and not sitting in the parking lot that is I-95 in Delaware. Well, shortly before Gettysburg, Will fell asleep. I swear he told me to turn off at York. We were really supposed to turn on to a different highway to get to York. When Will woke up, we were in Harrisburg. So, while we were there, we took a detour and went to Hershey Park. We rode roller coasters and had a fabulous time. Toward the end I think we were getting a little tired. We went on a water coaster that soaked us and then I left my cell phone in a bumper car. But, we had a wonderful time and made it to New Hope in the wee hours of the morning.

Since we missed Amish country over Memorial Day, we decided to go that way again when we went to New Hope for the Fourth of July. We made the turn to York and drove through some amazing, lush farmland. I even talked Will into taking me on a carriage ride around some of the farms and then we explored the grounds of an old church. This was capped off with me spending all of the cash in my wallet buying bread, cookies, jam and cabbage from some very cute Amish kids selling it on the side of the road.

Exploring is fun. I need to remember to keep changing up my routine paths.

Homesick

Some photos I took this summer in DC (this blog was planned to be titled Best of DC). I think I'm feeling homesick today because I'm traveling and won't be going home to the place I called home for five years.

Washington Monument

The White House

Jefferson Memorial

Capitol Rotunda

Lincoln Memorial

World War II Memorial

Houseguests

One of my favorite things is having houseguests. The memory of this sight still makes me smile. Before we left Virginia, we were very blessed to have several houseguests. I don't know if it's just the extra energy, but I love having people come stay for a night or few. This summer, in addition to Ross, our houseguest for the summer, we had quite the plethora of patrons of our bed and breakfast. And, I thrived on it.

And, on to a recap of our spring/summer 2008 houeguests. The first weekend in April, my family came to stay. My mom, dad, sister Megan, a friend of hers, brother Ross, sister Becca and nephew Sambino all stayed for a long weekend. We had a fabulous time and did our electric air pump in. I blew the twin air matress up with my very strong lungs. Those marching band days continue to serve me well. They also came at peak cherry blossom time. That's another reason I like having visitors, they get me out and about seeing things that I like to see.

Will's parents also visited a few times and stayed with us this past year including during the cherry blossoms. They were actually our first houseguests, but left the love nest to the newlyweds that time. When they decided we were safe to bunk with, we let them enjoy our romantic bedroom, candles and all.

The picture above represents the biggest houseguest group we housed at our Kalmia Lee Court condo. Most of you probably know that while we didn't serve at the same time, Will and I both served missions in Moscow, Russia. We both were very blessed to serve with the Kelly family (our mission president). Well, three years ago, the Kellys came to visit DC (President and Sister Kelly actually met in DC, cool, huh?) and stayed with me and my roommates. That was an adventure and we lived in a huge house with a little more spare room. In June, their fifth child, Alison, participated in the National History Fair (meaning she won the Utah History Fair). So, they decided to try out the new guest quarters. Eight Kellys, two Doutres and one Ross Menlove made eleven, yes eleven, of us for six days and five nights. And, I must say that a wonderful time was had by all. The picture above shows the seven non-marrieds sleeping in our family room and dining room. Highlights of the trip have to include me hauling five kids to the metro in my car and hauling them home soaking wet because they got caught in a downpour, watching President and Sister Kelly play tennis on the Wii, and entertaining ourselves while waiting in a long line by overwhelming President Kelly with text messages. Good times.

Our guestbook is being filled with great memories of friends and families coming to spend a little time getting to know our world. We've already had several visitors to Rhode Island as well and look forward to many more. Seriously, have you always wanted to go to RI (um, we've got almost 400 miles of coastline)? Come, visit. Call us soon to discuss schedules because I'm traveling a bit this fall and winter for work, but we would love to see you. Next on the list - Aunt Gloria, Cousin Mandy and Cousin Meisha. I can hardly wait!

Harvard at Brown

After last week's lackluster performance against 1-2 Stonybrook, I was a little worried that we might get trounced by Harvard, who is rumored to be pretty good. They were giving out free seat cushions for the first 1500 fans, so we left earlier than last week, there was also a significant chance of heavy rain thanks to then Tropical Storm, now Hurricane Kyle, so we drove the 1.2 miles to the stadium after swinging by Rite-Aid to buy Sara a youth-sized poncho and some snacks. These two choices combined to get us there about 20 minutes before kickoff and in plenty of time for free seat cushions.

Sara makes tries to blend in with the "W" in the BROWN sign while modeling her Rite-Aid youth Poncho. Sara had to tear the neck to fit her head into it because she's not 8 years old any more.

We started the game by going 3-and-out before pinning them inside their own twenty. Only to watch get a few first downs and then score on a 53 yard bomb. They missed the extra point, but the way their offense moved the ball I wasn't sure that it would matter, and least I had seen the score after missing all of them last week.  On our 2nd drive we turned it over in the Red Zone and they drove right back and went up 13-0.  Things weren't looking too good as the rain started coming down harder.  Luckily, my wife encouraged me to buy a poncho once we got to the game, it was paying off now.

Me modelling my Brown University adult-sized poncho.

On our third drive we again were moving the ball well, as we marched down the field and this time punched it into the endzone with a 25 yard TD pass. Yay! I had seen Brown score a touchdown. It had taken 4 quarters, but I'd seen us score. Sara asked me if I thought Brown could win this game, I said, "yeah if they fumble this kickoff return."

They did. But on our first play after the fumble recovery they blitzed and drilled our QB just as he released the ball that was picked off around the 10 yard line. But on Harvard's first play after the interception, they fumbled again and we recovered it. 3 plays, 3 turnovers, I know it's raining pretty hard, but I'm sure Harvard's coach is livid. We score and make the PAT to go up 14-13. The half ends that way.

At halftime, Harvard's non-marching band takes the field as their PA announcer pithily insults Brown. Then Brown's band takes the field and our PA announcer makes fun of Harvard. At this point, I remember that Brown's PA announcer did the same thing last week, making fun of the Stonybrook. Apparently, this is some kind of Ivy League tradition. Whether for the whole league or just Harvard and Brown remains to be seen, but it's kind of funny to hear the PA Announcer at a football game ripping on the opposing school because their newspaper made up a word, or their students were complaining about the new lunch policies.

In the second half we exchanged scores and we were up 24-16 until Harvard scored a TD with 1:03 making it, 24-22. How big is that missed extra point now? 

After starting out docile, the Brunonian fans got a little more into it as we started to score.  Now they're going absolutely crazy, the stadium is loud, though that could be from the sound of heavy rain drops beating on tons of umbrellas more than the cheers of the fans themselves.  Either way, it's loud as Harvard goes for two and fails.  We recovered the onside kick, downed the ball several times and everybody was cheering and happy as we exitted the rain.  Final score Brown 24, Harvard 22.

 

The teams shake hands as we file out of the stadium.

As we walked to the car I thanked my wife for being brilliant enough to insist that we drive to the stadium.  Our clothes that weren't quite covered by our ponchos are still drying out from the deluge 12 hours later.

Stonybrook 7 - Brown 17

Last Saturday, I took a little break from my studies to accompany my wife to see Brown's 2008 season opening football game against the Stonybrook Seawolves.

We were running late and so we missed the first 18 minutes of the first half. When we got there Brown was already up 17 - 0. So we thought maybe we'd see a blow-out. The stadium itself is tiny when compared to BYU or even Utah State's fields, (It seats 20,000) and I was disappointed to see that there really weren't many people there either (I'd guess around 6,000). The stadium kind of reminded me of Jefferson County Stadium where my high school team played their games, although it was quite a bit bigger than that.

The nice thing about there being few fans was that we could sit wherever we wanted. We decided to sit at the 50 yard line, about half-way up the bleachers for a better view for the first half. When halftime started we moved up to the top row so we'd have back support and the view was even better from up there. The stadium is surrounded by tall pine trees so that even from the top of the bleachers where we were, you can't really see any of the neighborhood around you. It makes it feel like you're playing in the middle of the woods, sort of a lumberjack's field of dreams. There is no jumbo-tron, nor any-kind-o-tron, and if it weren't for the fact that you can watch Brown Football on the Internet I'd question whether there were any cameras aside from those used for football film reviews. The scoreboard does actually display the name of the visiting school instead of just "Visitor" though, so I we're not totally technologically starved. And without the technology you get to enjoy the little things more, like the bell behind the end zone that gets rung every time we score, the Ivy League flag blowing in the wind, the little bits of Ivy intertwined with the big "B" at midfield, and of course the beautiful forest setting.

But back to the game. With just minute left in the first half, Stonybrook had a First and goal from Brown's 2 yard line. Brown stuffed them on 1st and 2nd down run attempts, and then on 3rd down Stonybrook's Quarterback rolled out and tried to dive into the end zone, leaping into the air with the ball held out, only to be smacked right in the chest by a Brown defender. The hit led to a fumble and the end of Stonybrook's scoring chances, and end the half at 17-0.

At halftime we watched Stonybrook's marching band perform while Sara told me how USU's marching band moved around so much more. She also told me that Stonybrook's flag team was tamer than her sister's winter guard routines when they were in elementary school. I always thought of the colorguard as something to be ignored so I hadn't even noticed that they did almost nothing during the performance. (The fact that I think this way of colorguard probably dooms me to have kids in the colorguard some day, so perhaps I'll pay more attention so as to avoid that experience later.) But Brown's band wasn't even a marching band, they ran out onto the field and played their songs without marching, but they were pretty good.

The Brown non-marching band acts silly on the B.

The third quarter was evenly played with neither offense really able to move the ball too well. Brown drove down the field a couple times only to stall inside the 30 and give up the ball after going for it on 4th down or turning it over. At the end of the third I went in search of food but only found ice-cream as everything had already shut down. But being the dutiful husband that I am, I brought that ice-cream, an Awful-Awful (milkshake) and a Super-Chipper (ice cream sandwich made out of cookies) to my wife at the top of the stadium. After I sat down I realized that it was now 17-7. Sara informed me that Stonybrook intercepted a pass and ran it back for the TD. The rest of the quarter resulted in zero points and so I saw my new team win their first game without seeing any scoring in a 17-7 game.

We didn't look too good in that game, and Stonybrook (a State Univerisity of New York school located on Long Island) had just moved up to Division 1-AA last year, so I'm a little worried about our homecoming game Sept 27th against rival Harvard.

Albuquerque and Auntie K

This past Spring, my sisters began talking about a road trip to visit our Auntie K in Albuquerque (this makes me want to play that alphabet game where you say... my name is Auntie K, I am from Albuquerque and I sell asthma inhalers... my name is Bertha, I am from Bermuda and I sell brains... ... ...). I invited myself along and then, we invited our Grandma Rudd to join us. It may not have been what Megan and Becca originally had in mind, but we had a wonderful trip and hopefully it will be the beginning of many girls' trips to come. (Coming to the beach next summer ladies?)

I arrived first in Albuquerque (from DC) and picked up the rental car. Then, I talked the Delta reps to let me go back through security to help my sister who was traveling (from SLC) with her baby and our grandmother. I met Becca, Sam and Grandma at the gate and we successfully found all of the luggage and made it to the car. Megan should have arrived right about then as well (from SLC) as well, but her flight was delayed. We found Auntie K's beautiful house and unloaded, then went back for Megan a little later. From the second we arrived, the hostessing was amazing. Almost as amazing as the food. I was introduced quickly to two of my new favorite treats - apples with hummus and Hansen all natural sodas.

As I was writing this post, I realized that Becca had the nicer camera and got the better pictures of this trip. But, enjoy my highlights and the pictures that I do have. The greatest highlight, for me (probably no suprise) was the amazing food. DC lacks excellent Mexican food and the New Mexican cuisine treated me very well. Another great was playing the Wii with Grandma Rudd. She is quite the bowler.

Yet another greatest highlight was definitely spending time corrupting my nephew, Sam. I taught him how to go in and out of Sheba's dog door (much to her chagrin). I gave him a sucker, ice cream, and all types of other bad things for him against Becca's will. I also helped him learn how to go down stairs, effectively erasing his fear of stairs, creating a new fear for his mommy. Thanks Becca!

And, some highlights with pictures:

Friday morning we took the tram (longest in the world) up to the top of Sandia Peak. It was amazing other than the fact that Grandma was both scared and dizzy. Who knew there were such mountains in the desert that is Albuquerque?


Saturday, Auntie K took us on quite the tour. We went to Bandelier National Park where we hiked all over Native American cliff dwellings, to Los Alamos (home of the National Lab) and to Santa Fe jewelry shopping. It was amazing and by the end, we were worn out!

Bandelier National Monument

Sunday, we went to church, stopped by the temple, and then went on a drive to Madrid, NM. Madrid is the city where the movie Wild Hogs was filmed and it was one of the most eclectic places I've been. We got in touch with our inner hippies there. And (of course, back to the food), Sunday evening Sandy and Auntie K put on an amazing barbecue for us.

I know this picture at the temple doesn't look like me, but it does show how long my hair is (even longer since then).

On the way to Madrid, we saw a Mormon Battalion Monument. I had to include this picture because I have very few with Auntie K. I need to steal some from Becca.

And, on Monday morning before we flew out, we visited the Albuquerque zoo which was exceptional. I highly recommend it if you're visiting Albuquerque. One fabulous thing about it is the amount of shade. It was planned very well. My favorites had to be the bears, the apes, and, of course, the hippos.

Here I am with Sambino and the hippo! (thanks Becs for the photo)

CTR 5A

When we moved into the Falls Church, Virginia Ward shortly following our marriage, we were told that because of the large ward numbers (780+ prior to some boundary changes last month) and the transient nature of our ward (a lot of student and foreign service families) we probably would not get a calling for a while. With everything going on in our lives at that time, we probably sighed our sigh of relief a little too loudly because two weeks later we received a calling.

(For readers that don't attend the LDS church, I apologize for the LDS-lingo-heavy post.)

We were called to teach CTR 5A which is sunday school for four-year-old kiddos turning five during the calendar year. I was very excited to work with children and Will was, to put it lightly, nervous about teaching little ones. We started teaching in January and by the time we left, the children we taught were some of our best friends. We didn't know many adults in the ward, but couldn't have had better friends.

During the eight months, we had between eight and ten children in our class, each with very unique personalities and a ton of energy. Our hearts were broken watching the hard life of one young girl living with struggles way beyond her age. We watched in amazement at the teaching and training done by the parents of these brilliant children. I was blown away with Will's teaching skills and the way he related to and paid individual attention to each child in the class. He was also extremely patient with my procrastination in preparing lessons. We didn't have church until 1, so Sunday morning was perfect prep time for me.

It was such a blessing to help our children learn more about our Heavenly Father's love for each of us and that choosing the right does make us happy. Will and I also learned a lot from lessons such as "I can make right choices," "We have special families," "I can share," "I can show gratitude," and "Jesus Christ loves me." The truths of the gospel are so simple. Teaching four-year-olds was a great reminder of that. We loved it when parents told us stories of the kids sharing what they had learned and when they remembered things from lessons long past. One lesson that came up over and over was the nature of the Holy Ghost. One child was riding in the car with his parents and shouted "Stop!" When his parents asked him why, he said, "The Holy Ghost is hear with us, right now!" He was very excited and I think they all learned that the Holy Ghost is one ghost that a) is not scary and b) we want to be in our room at night. Another favorite was acting out the parables of Jesus. We built boats out of the chairs in our room more than once and acted out the parable of the good Samaritan enough times for all eight children to be the good Samaritan (and so each could be the donkey that the good Samaritan used to take the sick man to the inn).

In addition to teaching them, we played with the kids. Instead of bringing treats to class as reinforcement for reverent behavior, we filled up a "reverence" chart with stickers. I was amazed that it worked as well as it did, but the kids worked hard to put a sticker on the chart. They filled up all 32 spots in mid-June (1 chart worked for six months!). The prize they chose to earn was a pizza and brownie party at our apartment. And party we did! Seven kids came and the favorite activity was definitely swimming in our hot tub. It's amazing how long they entertained themselves in so little water. But, they had fun. We also ate pizza and brownies and played a few games.


It was such a fun time that when we found out we were moving, we had another party that was also very fun. (Those pictures are on my camera which I need to pick up at the post office tomorrow from it's little jaunt west. Thank you Meg!)

And, just in case you're doubting Will's enthusiasm for CTR 5A, I give you proof:

We miss the children and our ward, but are having fun getting to know people in our new ward, which is much smaller and much more diverse. We like it!

Providence/Boston/Albany/Syracuse/Palmyra/Ithaca Weekend Trip

When Will found out that he was accepted and received a scholarship to Syracuse University, we decided that a road trip was in order so that we could check SU out. While at Will's parents' house for the Fourth of July, we discovered that one weekend that worked out for us was a weekend of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Will's dad, Bill, served his mission in the Eastern States and participated in the pageant, but neither Will nor his mom, Marie, had seen the pageant. So, we decided to plan our trip for that weekend and that Marie would come with us.

We had planned to depart on a Thursday, stay Thursday night at Bill and Marie's and then drive to Syracuse Friday morning. But, the Tuesday before we were to leave, Will received notification that he had been accepted to Brown. So, we quickly called Brown and changed our travel plans.

(A little tangent - it was a really crazy week for us because Will had lasik eye surgery on Tuesday. I think he ended up working a day and half and I worked one day that week. It was a little tricky because he hadn't told anyone at his job yet that he was thinking about leaving to go to school.)

Here is the summary of our jam-packed weekend (most of the pictures are going to have to come in subsequent posts or I'm going to have to figure out a slide show or something because there are a lot):

Wednesday

• After work, drove from Falls Church to New Hope, PA (188 miles, 3.5 hours) - went to bed late at the Bill and Marie Bed and Breakfast
  

Thursday

• Woke up at 3:45 to leave New Hope at 4:30 am to drive to Providence, RI (251 miles, 4.5 hours)
• Toured Brown University, Will met with professors and grad students in the CS Department
  

• Drove to Boston, MA, (52 miles, 1 hour) strolled through Faneuil Hall Market, ate at Legal Seafood, and looked at the boats

• Received a speeding ticket 6 miles from our hotel in...
  
• ...Albany, NY (169 miles, 3 hours)where we slept well but not nearly long enough

Friday

• Drove from Albany, NY to Syracuse, NY (146 miles, 2.5 hours)where we toured campus. Highlights included the Computer Science Department labyrinth and Carrier Dome
  

• Drove from Syracuse, NY to Palmyra, NY (69 miles, 1 hour)
• Attended the Hill Cumorah Pageant

Saturday

• Toured the Joseph Smith home and Sacred Grove
• Did a session at the Palmyra New York Temple

• Visited the Grandin Bookstore and downtown Palmyra as well as the Whitmer Farm and home
  
• Drove from Palmyra, NY to Ithaca, NY (78 miles, 2 hours) where we drove around Cornell University in the rain (Will wasn't considering going to school there, but at that point we were having university campus withdrawal)

• Drove from Ithaca, NY to New Hope, PA (219 miles, 4 hours) where we slept for a few hours

Sunday

• Drove from New Hope, PA to Falls Church, VA (188 miles, 3.5 hours) in time to teach primary

Just in case you're counting, we were in nine states (VA, MD, DE, PA, NJ, NY, CT, RI, MA) and drove 1,356 miles (25 hours) in 3 1/2 days. And, partially because Will had just had eye surgery, but mostly because I'm stubborn, I drove the entire way.

My Amazing Husband

Not long after Will and I met, he started talking about wanting to go back to school. As I am a strong advocate of education, I encouraged such talk. As our relationship progressed and we began to plan for a future together, he started to talk a little more about going back to school sooner rather than later... Not long after we were married he started looking at schools. I of course encouraged him but tried not to be too pushy. Honestly, I thought it would happen, but not this year. And, that opinion was reinforced when we moved into late Spring and Will still hadn't applied to any graduate schools.

Then, Memorial Day weekend happened. We spent the weekend at Will's parents house in Pennsylvania. The night before we left, I decided to buy (literally) into the trend and purchased the three Stephanie Myer novels in the Twilight series. While I read away the weekend (three books in three days), Will, out of frustration for my lack of attention or otherwise, applied to eight graduate schools. Yup, you read that right, my amazing husband completed applications to eight graduate schools in one weekend. The next week was a flurry of requesting transcripts and recommendations and then we waited... and waited... and waited. While exciting, it seemed a little unreal because it happened so fast.

By July we started to hear back from schools. My amazing husband got into seven of the eight he applied to and the eighth didn't even wait for the complete application, so it appears that there were no spots left. He also received scholarships at at least three of the schools.

In mid-July, we visited two schools, Syracuse and Brown Universities (more details of the packed weekend road trip coming in the Providence/Boston/Albany/Syracuse/Palmyra/Ithaca Weekend Trip post). After visiting the programs, the right choice was pretty clear to us (even though I still pushed for USU). With less than a month to get ready and move, Will decided to attend Brown University.


Brown University, an Ivy League school, was founded in 1764. At the time, it was the only one that welcomed students of all religious persuasions (following the example of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island in 1636 on the same principle). Brown remains dedicated to diversity and intellectual freedom. The unique curriculum harks back to a philosophy shaped by Brown President Francis Wayland. In 1850, he wrote: “The various courses should be so arranged that, insofar as practicable, every student might study what he chose, all that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.” That means that Will doesn't have a set program of study and gets to choose his coursework, along with every other student at Brown.

Attending Brown University is an amazing experience for an amazing man. I will let him post about the excitement of returning to school after five years in the working world and how "shopping" for classes is going.

Race Like There's Nobody Watching

On June 7th, a group of friends and colleagues of Lois Taylor, my "DC mom" and former boss, gathered on one of the hottest and most humid days of the summer to walk 5K in the National Race for the Cure. We walked as Team Lois' Legacy. Our team was 41 strong and we raised $6,308.00. A special thanks to my family and friends that helped me raise my piece of that. The race was a neat experience and it was wonderful to do it with Will. It's amazing to see how Lois continues to bring people together and create a spirit of unity among her friends and colleagues even from beyond this earthly life. I miss her.

Here are some pictures from the fun (and humid) morning:

Hrach, Judy, Patty, Bobbi and I

Bobbi and I showing off our Lois' Legacy tshirts (that I designed on zazzle.com)

This picture is to show two things - the massive numbers of people (10,000+) and the humidity (so bad there was limited visibility)

Jim, Ruth, Meredith and Dre

Sheryl with Frank, trying to keep everyone together (before we gave up)

Sheila and Susan

Larry and Kristen

And, last but definitely not least, Will and I.

Posting these pictures tugged a little on my heart as I probably won't be seeing these wonderful friends and colleagues for a while. It's starting to sink in that we've moved and while I'm excited for our new adventures, I will miss the people that were my DC family for five years. I'm grateful to be able to keep their friendships with me.

Blogging

While my mom and Megan were here this past week they pointed out multiple times what a horrible blogger I've been. I had to agree with them. In an effort to motivate myself to be a better blogger (or maybe just to spend time blogging without really blogging), I worked on the layout tonight and even started a few (non tag/survey) posts. My big excuse for this weekend is that I accidentally sent my camera to Utah (in Megan's purse) so I don't have pictures of the move. But, the truth is that I have a lot of pictures on my computer that I haven't posted yet. So, posts to come in the next few days include:

Race for the Cure
My Amazing Husband
Providence/Boston/Albany/Syracuse/Palmyra/Ithaca Weekend Trip
CTR 5A
Albuquerque
Houseguests
Best of DC
Lancaster PA
New Hope w/Brett
Farewell to DC
Welcome to Providence, RI

Okay, maybe I'm over committing myself for the next few days, but I really do have a lot to blog about, so check back often.