Autumn and Dallin

Oh dear, oh deer, oh dear, oh deer....

2011-12-30T13:18:00.000-05:00

This was our pretty new car a few months ago...

This is the same car last night...

after hitting a deer...

luckily it was a small deer...

So we are in the middle of northern Missourri and since the deer attacked us on a holiday weekend and everyone is closed, we will be here for a while. Any suggestions on what to do on New Years in the middle of nowhere Missourri??

On the bright side, the nice state trooper that stopped to help us said we could keep the deer if we wanted it. Unfortunately the hotel in the small town we are in didn't have a big enough freezer. If anyone wants some fresh deer meat, it's on the side of highway 36...

We are also very thankful that we were both unhurt, and for the nice couple that stopped to make sure we were alright and called the state trooper for us, also for the tow truck driver who we woke up in the middle of the night and who still took us to a hotel and helped us unload all of our junk from our car!

Occupy DC... or take back DC... or something like that

2011-12-08T07:57:00.001-05:00

This is the reason I didn't get anything done yesterday (not because I was protesting, but because the protesters were so stinkin loud). This is the biggest down side to having an office right by the white house.

Goings on

2011-11-13T20:24:00.001-05:00

So nothing super exciting has been going on lately. We've been doing school and work. I got a new, totally cool, phone. And I tried to post an entry from my new, totally awesome, phone when I was in Boston for training. But I couldn't figure it out, so no post. I've never been there before, but I didn't really get to see anything except the office, because training was super intense. It was really cold, also which would have been ok except I lost my coat. Someone in Boston now has a pretty purple coat, and I hope they enjoy it and that they needed it more than me because that was my favorite. The lack of coat also got me sick (or more sick) since I was a bit sick to begin with, which is why this post is a bit disjointed. Anyways I can't think of anything else exciting.... oh wait there is one more thing... see this boy?

yup, that one.

there he is again (no not Jaron, the cute one in the front)

And here he is again (I'm not sure I posted anything for his actual birthday so this was one birthday celebration we had for Dallin with some friends, and yes his cake is partially eaten already)

And this was at BYU... like a million years ago

So anyways, this boy of mine he did something amazing...

He.

Got.

a...

a....

a JOB!!!!!!!!

We are so excited. The job is here in "the District" and although that means we will still be far away from family and the wonderful west coast beaches, we are so excited. He'll be working at a really good law firm, with people that seem really nice (at least that's what he says, I won't get to meet them until the Christmas party). We have a good friend who is already working there and he (and his wife) really like it. AND he'll be doing work that interests him and that will use some of his knowledge from his chemical engineering degree. He is really looking forward to starting there, which isn't actually until next September. And he is so relieved, he was starting to worry that he wasn't going to get a job after three long years of school, and rather hefty tuition payments, so he's breathing a lot easier now. (I wasn't worried, I knew he would get one I mean look at him!)

Now all he has to do is finish law school and pass the bar... should be easy right?

Our friends out here are excited that we are staying and we are happy that we get to stay with them too. That was going to be one big down side if we got a job out west. We have made some really great friends out here and we would have been really sad to leave them. We are really grateful for this job, especially since the economy still isn't doing so well. We feel so blessed to both have been able to find jobs and we think that we are just meant to stay out in DC for a while.

So, if anyone wants to visit, we've got an extra room, and will be here for a while.

Edit: Dallin just read this and claims that I totally ripped off one of Stacie's blog posts. And going back and looking, I guess I kinda did (it is a bit different though, and totally unintentional). So Stacie, if you are reading this, you are just way totally cool and I guess deep down I just want to be like you.

Huh?

2011-10-28T07:37:00.002-04:00

Have you ever come across something that just made you do a double take, something so ridiculous that you thought it couldn't possibly be true? Well I came across this patent the other day that made me think just that, well actually, it made me laugh (out loud). Literally. While sitting in my office. The secretaries probably thought I was going crazy.

The title is"Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force". That's right, just in case labor wasn't uncomfortable enough already, let's swing you around in circles until the baby pops right out... There's even a net to catch the baby so that he doesn't go flying across the room. Now I'm not an expert in this, I haven't actually given birth, but I'm pretty sure there is not a snow ball's chance in a really really hot place that I would ever agree to do this. So I'm curious, for my friends who have recently, or not so recently, given birth, what do you think?

At least you'd qualify for astronaut training when you're done, it looks a lot like the g-force thing the astronauts train in. Oh wait, we don't have a space program anymore.

And just in case you were wondering, the answer is yes and no. Yes a man is one of the inventors of this! But a woman is another inventor as well...

Domination... well almost

2011-10-23T20:43:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, President Stewart approached Dallin and I after church while we were talking to some our friends and talked us into signing up to decorate our trunk for the ward trunk-or-treat. We weren't too sure, but he bribed us with promises of fame, glory, and the really good prizes for the top three trunks. And so it began... we thought, and googled, and tried to decide what we could do that would win us the totally awesome prizes. Then it hit me (I may or may not have been in a work meeting at the time) we should make our car a dragon! We have a fog machine and everything! It was perfect, we were bound to win! I was so excited, I jotted it down on my notepad, and may or may not have spent the rest of the meeting sketching out a car-dragon, trying to angle my paper so that no one could see the car-dragon on the notes I was taking, and deciding what we needed to buy. When I got back to my desk and in cell phone range I texted Dallin, and the rest is history! Well sorta. We decided to be the characters from how to train your dragon. Dallin was hiccup, I was Astrid. And we got some posterboard to make our car into a night fury. We were so excited to set up our trunk that we forgot the candy, and had to go all the way back home to get it. But we got to work real quick when we got there and by the time the kids came out to trunk-or-treat, we had this

It was pretty awesome, some kids were even afraid to reach inside because they didn't want to get bitten. And apparently the judges agreed because we won 2nd place! Woohoo. The prize was a $50 gift certificate to mccormick and schmicks!
We've started thinking of next year... we think it will involve some more posterboard...

Virginia Day of Service

2011-10-02T21:17:00.002-04:00

Last week was the state of Virginia's day of service which conveniently (and on purpose too) coincides with the anniversary of our church's welfare program. So in true Falls Church Ward fashion, our ward, young and old, got together to give service throughout the community. Dallin and I went out and helped to fix up community gardens at a senior apartment community. It was muddy (it had rained the entire week previously) and there was a ton of dirt and gravel to move and a bunch of weeds to pull, but it was fun to work with our friends and to make the area better for the people that live there. Here is a video of our ward's service projects on you tube. I think Dallin shows up in the video, he's shoveling dirt. Anyways, it was fun and we're glad we went and very grateful that the rain stopped for at least a day to be able to do this service!

iso: Ark

2011-09-09T07:09:00.000-04:00

I think we need to buy one of these...

We've been getting so much rain here that it seems like the streets have all turned to rivers.

This is a picture of one of the metro parking lots here.. notice the cars in the back, some are sunk and a few are floating...

We Survived.... it all

2011-08-28T15:13:00.000-04:00

Well, the title pretty much sums it up. At some point I will probably get around to posting some of the highlights of our summer, but for now, I'm just gonna fill you in on the last few weeks... they were quite the doozie. So let's go back to Friday, August 19th. It was a beautiful, sunny day, the birds were singing, the wind was blowing, or so I'm told. I was in my lab, stressing out and frantically going through my thesis presentation trying to fix my animations that had decided to stop working exactly 30 min before my defense. (on a related note, i have a curse when it comes to power point presentations, they just never seem to work for me) Anyways, I got them working. and was able to give my presentation without shaking too much. This picture isn't too good, but our camera doesn't do well in dark rooms.

And I passed!! So I am now a master of science!! woo hoo! and I'm way less stressed than I was for.... um... about the last two years. So after we had that behind us we went out and partied, sorta. We finally saw the last Harry Potter movie and went shopping for some stuff we've wanted/needed for a little while.
So then the next Monday, the 22nd, Dallin started his last year of law school! (which we are way excited about) And I went to school and work. We thought we were settling in for another normal week, but oh were we wrong. Tuesday, I went to work in the morning and then ran back to campus for a few meetings that I had to wrap things up at school. I finished with one meeting just before 2 and had gone back to my lab in to wait for the next meeting when the building started shaking. Being from CA, I'm pretty used to earthquakes, and the shaking was pretty small (at first) so I looked around and thought to myself, "oh an earthquake, didn't know they had any of those around here". And continued to sign on to my e-mail.
Then, it really started shaking, I mean, walls moving, dust falling from the ceiling, shaking. I did a quick check of the room I was in.

Pre-WWII building, sort of falling apart without any help.
Large bookshelf to my left with lots of heavy books and equipment on it, not anchored to the wall.
Large filing cabinet to my right, with lots of heavy equipment and tools in it, also not anchored to the wall.
Large bookshelf by the door, same story.
And finally, big glass fish tank, right behind me, and you guessed it, not anchored to anything.

I quickly put on my shoes, slip ons or I'd of left 'em. Grabbed my bag, if the building was going down I wanted my stuff safe, forget about the $10,000 camera siting on the table next to me, I had a good apple in that bag. And I ran! Which is totally not what you are supposed to do in an earthquake, but given the circumstances, I felt justified, in fact, I was one of the last ones out of the building. By the time I got out the shaking had pretty much stopped, so we all just stood around for a few minutes and then decided the building wasn't going to fall down after all and went back to our labs.
One of the great things about having a lab in a really old, pretty small, sort of neglected building on campus is that there was no one there to tell us not to go back in. All the other buildings on campus were evacuated for 45 min - 1 hr, but no one even came to check on our building. The phone lines were all jammed so Dallin walked over to my lab because apparently his office building was evacuated and then closed for the rest of the day. And then we walked to our car which was parked at Dallin's school (about 4 miles or so) because the metro was packed and running slow, and the busses were packed and stuck in traffic that was much slower than walking. It's kind of a mad house in DC when the entire federal gov., and lots of other businesses all shut down at the same time.
It turns out the earthquake was only a 5.9, which isn't too terribly big, but they don't usually have earthquakes at all out here, so there was a decent amount of damage. Actually, the last earthquake this size was about 100 yrs ago. The Washington monument cracked, the national cathedral was damaged pretty badly, and the top of some of the spires fell off of the Washington DC temple. A bunch of stuff fell over in our house, but nothing broke.
Then as if that wasn't enough, we start getting hurricane warnings on Wednesday. Yup, a hurricane was headed straight for us, once again, doesn't normally happen. So as this weekend started, and the storm continued on it's path right for us, we decided to batten down the hatches. We cancelled Dallin's birthday party, since it was supposed to be outside. Stake conference was cancelled. We tried to move our cars away from trees (no easy feat here) and made sure our flashlights had batteries, etc. Then we waited. All of Saturday. And... nothing really happened. It rained a bunch, and was kind of windy, but by about 10:40 last night we decided to go to bed and just see the aftermath in the morning. The eye passed to the east of us at about 2 AM and while it wreaked havoc on communities closer to the beach, the most exciting thing out here was the one tree that fell down in our friend's yard. Thankfully it didn't hit the house, car, or power lines, but Dallin did get to go help cut it up and move it to the road to be picked up later. So all in all. We're doing good now and life is way less stressful, for me at least :)
But it still leaves us with one question. Why does everything that supposedly only happen once every hundred years or so happen while we are here? First there was the snowstorm that left everything shut down for a week, but it never snows like that here. Then there was the earthquake, which again, apparently never happens. Then the hurricane. My friend Nic blamed it on Obama, but I might just blame it on Marcie, she did just move in. In any case, as a public service announcement, we might be moving this summer and if we end up moving anywhere near you, you might want to stock up on emergency supplies, we seem to attract natural disasters. :)

2011-07-23T11:33:00.002-04:00

Just wanted to say we're still alive... in case anyone was wondering and I defend my thesis in exactly 26 days, 23 hours, 26 minutes, and 38 seconds from this post... not that I'm counting

The long road home

2011-02-03T10:00:00.001-05:00

So after Christmas we hung out in Yakima for about a week. We had a good visit with Dallin's friend Erin and her two boys and just enjoyed relaxing a bit. Dallin's siblings filtered out as the week went on and by New Years we were the only ones left. We spent New Year's Eve night eating lots of food, watching movies, and playing Dr. Mario with Dallin's parents.

Then on Sunday we went to church and headed down to Portland where we got to visit with one of my old roommates, Alisa, and her husband Nathan. I really enjoyed visiting with them since we haven't gotten to see them too much since they got married. Monday we made the long drive down to Provo where we stayed with Jaron and Amy (thanks guys). We had so much fun visiting with siblings, cousins and friends. Landon and Kendra live just across the street from Jaron and Amy and they invited us over for dinner one night and some other people came too. We got to see Duncy (Dallin's cousin) and Liz and meet their new little on, Mya, who is so precious! We also got to visit with Nick (who Dallin grew up with) and Emily and their kids. Issiah who has gotten so big and their new little girl Elly, who is also very cute! While in Provo we also enjoyed just dropping by and seeing people who had no idea we were going to be there. We did this to a few of our old professors and it was good to see them again and talk. Dallin decided to go sit in on one of his professors classes so I had an hour to roam the campus, it was fun. We also were able to drop in and see the Carsons, who are family friends of mine, they had no idea we were coming and were very surprised when we walked in their door. We also surprised Rob and Karina and their kids and Lisa and Blaire and their kids. After being so far away for a year and a half it was so much fun for us to be able to visit friends and family, we just couldn't stop smiling.

After a few days, our time in Utah ran out and we headed out. We stopped in Denver the next afternoon and visited with Liesel, one of my other bestest friends, and her two daughters. As with most of my other friends from high school or college, I haven't seen her in forever so it was really good to spend some time catching up and to meet her newest addition to her family. Then we got to go out to dinner with Jon and Alicia, other bestests friends of mine, and they let us crash at their house for the night. While there Jon made us brownies, and we ate them with ice cream, it's kind of a thing me and Alicia have... and they were sooooo good.

From there on out the plan was to drive to about St. Louis the next day, stopping at the visitors center in Independence along the way, and then finish up the trip on Saturday. However, we got bored of traveling by about 10 AM Friday morning and decided to try and drive straight through. (There was also supposed to be a storm moving in and we wanted to beat that) We traded off driving and sleeping and 27 hours later made it home! Our car has about 7,000 more miles on it than it did, we lost a lug nut (not really sure how that one happened), one of our tail lights burned out as well as our trunk light, we had to add more power steering fluid, and we had to get our oil changed, but we made it in one piece and had a really good time. Although next time we decide to drive across the country... it'll be in the summer!

Our trip (notice the long stretch from K to L!!)

Christmas Day

2011-02-01T12:32:00.001-05:00

I was a little worried about Christmas morning this year. I am sort of a morning person and I really like Christmas so I usually get up pretty early on Christmas morning. Add this to the fact that we live in a time zone that is three hours ahead of Washington and I was afraid I would wake up at about 3 AM Christmas morning.... it would have been torture waiting like 4 hours for everyone else to wake up and it's pretty safe to say I would have been murdered had I woken anyone up before 6. Dallin's siblings like sleep apparently. Luckily I slept until like 6 or 6:30 (I would have slept longer but we were in the same room with Andrew and Hilarie, and Andrew made a weird noise). Dallin and I went out and opened our stockings and talked for a bit. Then we got bored so we decided to wake up Hilarie and Andrew and went and jumped on them (pay back!). Hilarie was very reluctant to get up though and tried to kick Dallin off the bed... I'm not really sure what happened after that but Hilarie ended up screaming and woke up the whole house for us! I thought it worked out well, others were not so enthusiastic.

Christmas morning was a lot of fun, once everyone was up we distributed and opened presents. It took a few hours I think because there were 11 of us there. Then we went upstairs to have probably the biggest Christmas breakfast ever! (I know I took some pictures, but I can't find them)

Christmas night we went to Sue and Lonnie's house for Dinner. This is the second Glenn family Christmas dinner I have been to and it was a lot of fun again. We had a really good dinner and enjoyed visiting with Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins. After dinner we had a pass around game. We ended up getting a dehydrater (thank you Grandma and Grandpa) and then we all went upstairs and listened to some of the boys play guitar/sing Christmas songs for us. We even convinced Grandpa to break out his harmonica and play for us! It was a really good Christmas.

Grandpa's Train song!!

Christmas (continued)

2011-01-30T21:39:00.000-05:00

Well, good thing I didn't say when I would update.... I'm going to try and not make this a super long boring post about what we did for Christmas, the problem is we did so much... anyways, I will try and shorten it... a bunch.

so the last post had us leaving Illinois... from there we went to Iowa where we got to spend a whole day with one of my bestest friends, Taryne (T), and her parents. We had such a good time there, mostly just hanging out and chatting. Our schedule worked out just right so that we were able to be there for T's birthday! And I even got to give her boyfriend a hard time, over the phone because he was still up in Chicago where she goes to school (T, please tell Chad that I was mostly kidding, I just had to tease him, it's my job, and your dad was encouraging me). The next day we left Iowa and drove through Nebraska, which was unseasonably warm, and Wyoming which was kind of snowy, and stayed the night in Ogden. This was farther than we had planned on going that day but we were trying to beat a storm. It was okay though because the Ogden hotel had an amazing and free breakfast. Then the next day we drove up through Idaho and Oregon and made it home a day early where we surprised Dallin's parents and Aubrie! We also got to stop in Parma and visit family there. We've missed our regular stops there and really enjoyed seeing some of our cousins and Aunt Shari.

We were really relieved to finally make it to Washington, our car was super dirty, inside and out and our bums were incredibly sore! Dallin was so excited to see his puppy Joe and they spent some time running around and playing. Jaron and Amy showed up a little bit after us with their own puppy Bianca and Hilarie and Andrew (or rather mostly Hilarie and a little bit Andrew) drove all night and woke us up the next morning by jumping on our bed at like 7 AM. Apparently this was payback for the last family reunion, a year and half ago, when we did this to them... and I think there was another time as well... in any case it was well deserved. Landon and Kendra came a few days later with Sophie (sp?) to complete the group, and it was a very full house!

On Christmas Eve we went up to Leavenworth and had fun looking at the shops and eating. Aubrie especially liked all the walking as she was still on crutches from her ACL surgery about a week before that.

Christmas (part 1)

2011-01-13T21:51:00.000-05:00

Well it took a few days longer than I had said, but here is a bit about our Christmas trip. But first a bit of a disclaimer... if we were near/passing through your home town, and we didn't stop and see you, particularly if you live in Utah we are very sorry but there were SO many people that we wanted to see and unfortunately we had a bit of a schedule to keep, there were lots of people we wish we had the time to visit but it just didn't work out.
So now, on with the story!

I guess I should start with the reasons we drove instead of flying in the first place. There were a few reasons, the first and biggest being the fact that Dallin didn't want to fly because of all of the new security regulations, and I wasn't too thrilled about them either, so in true law school student fashion, we decided to protest!! sounds dramatic doesn't it, well it kinda was, I mean driving all the way across the country and back in December! We had several people question our sanity but we survived, more or less, so no harm done! Now I wasn't totally sold on the whole stick-it-to-the-man reasons for not flying I mean going through security = not fun, but driving the 46 hours it takes to get to Yakima=not so fun either. The up side, and deciding factor for me, was the flexibility driving gave us. If we flew we wouldn't be able to leave until the 23rd because that was the last day of my make up finals and I didn't want to risk missing a final, we didn't get any bad weather this semester so I was really done with finals on the 17th. Also, we got to stop and visit so many people along the way. We have missed our friends and family so much this past year and a half. Last but definitely not least, I got to bring lots of clothes, at no extra charge, two pea coats (I thought about bringing three but thought it might be a bit excessive), and a whole duffel bag of shoes (no that was not excessive at all, it was necessary! plus Dallin's shoes were in there too). So anyways on the 17th I went to my office Christmas party where we ate pizza, cookies, and played wii, and Dallin went to get snow tires and then we took off at about 3:00 in the afternoon.

Unfortunately, we live in DC which is the land of never ending and so unpredictable traffic, and true to form, we hit traffic as we left the city. I swear someone watches every time we try and go more than a few miles outside of DC and diverts all traffic in our direction. Anyways after about an hour we were probably 20 miles outside the city, and we got rid of most of the other disgruntled drivers and really started our trip. We got through Maryland with no further incident, took a quick stop in Pennsylvania for a much needed bathroom break, snuck across the tip of West Virginia and then headed into Ohio. It was dark through most of this trip so there really is nothing exciting to report. We stayed just outside Dayton for the night and then got up early to get on our way again.

Dallin and I in front of the window where
Joseph Smith was killed

The next day (Saturday) was a little more exciting. After leaving Ohio we went through Indiana, and on into Illinois. We stopped at Carthage to see the jail where the Prophet Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith were martyred. It was freezing cold, but it was a neat experience. It was really cool to see the old jail, the hole from the bullet that probably killed Hyrum is still in the door. It was interesting to learn that a family actually lived in the jail as the keepers and that they trusted the prophet and other men so much that they let them have their bedroom instead of staying in the actual cell.

The bullet hole in the door

Carthage Jail

After leaving Carthage we drove up to Nauvoo. We got there at about 3 in the afternoon and everything closes at 5, but we decided to try and get as much in as we could anyways. We got to see the temple. It really isn't very big, but it is so beautiful. And the view from the hill that it sits on is amazing. We were hoping to be able to go in to do some work, but we didn't really have as much time there as we had hoped, so we'll have to go back and do it another time. We also toured Brigham Young's house, where we got to see the room where the apostles met after Joseph Smith was killed to decide what to do. We toured Heber C Kimball's house, the bakery, the drug store, and another house, but we can't remember which one it was. We tried to stop at the brickyard, but no one was there. It was so cold and windy! It made us so grateful for our warm heated cars and for those pioneers who braved all of this before heaters and cars so that we could have the truth of the gospel!

Ok well I'm pooped, more later. I would say tomorrow but we all know that would probably be a lie.

Home Sweet Home

2011-01-09T18:18:00.001-05:00

So we made it home from our crazy Christmas traveling in one piece! For those of you who don't know, we decided to drive home to Washington for Christmas... it was a lot of driving! We were really lucky though and hit very little bad weather, and didn't even have to use our chains once. I was going to post some stuff on here over the break but I didn't want to post the fact that we would be away for three weeks on the internet... it's like hanging up a sign that says, we're gone, please rob us, and since I couldn't fit all my shoes into the car, I wanted to make sure they'd still be waiting here when I got back... our T.V. is kinda nice too. But anyhow, since I really haven't posted anything this entire semester, I'm gonna catch you up on our lives before Christmas break in this post and then I'll write about our Christmas adventures over the next few days.

We survived this last semester, but just barely. Dallin took 17 credits, was working 20 hours a week (for free...) and is in the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Presidency so he was super busy. I was trying to wrap up my research and do all my classes. I also had a conference to go to, but more on that later. So we had a really hard time finding time to do anything fun, like eat and sleep. And since blogging definitely comes after eating and maybe after sleeping, I have had to put this on the back burner. We are really sick of eating out of Tupperware and of not seeing each other so this semester Dallin is taking only 10 credits and will not be working at the ITC anymore after he finishes up this last case he is helping with. I unfortunately can't make my schedule any lighter as it is (hopefully) my last semester, but since Dallin will be able to do things like grocery shopping (our usual Friday night or Saturday afternoon date) we might be able to go do some fun stuff again. Hooray!!

As I type, Dallin is putting finishing touches on his JLEP article. We are so happy to have that done. He has been working really hard on it since August, so hopefully he gets it published. He is also going to be in a moot court competition in a week or so that should be pretty fun. His grades haven't been published yet (it takes forever at law school) so we're not sure how he did, but he is happy to have one more semester done. He is now officially half way through law school.

I had a pretty good, but extremely busy semester. Both of my classes were project based and they took up a lot of time, but for the most part I enjoyed them. I also made some good progress on my research. I was hoping to have all of my data taken by now, but I still have a few more experiments to run. Hopefully in a week or so I will be all done taking data and I can finish analyzing it. Yay! In November I was able to go present at the American Physical Society's Department of Fluid Dynamics conference. It was my first time presenting alone at a conference and it was kind of stressful, especially when my computer didn't work during my presentation! But, I survived and since it was in Long Beach right before Thanksgiving, I was able to spend the holiday with my mom. It was lots of fun, I ate way too much and shopped way too much. I've also been accepted to present at another conference which will be in Canada this summer so I'm now busy working on the paper for that and a few others. I'm also hoping to graduate in May which means I need to finish my thesis... ahh!! I'm a little bit scared about all of that but I'm really excited to graduate.

Other than that we are just looking for jobs. If anyone knows of an engineering job or a patent attorney job that is available this summer let us know.

Christmas news tomorrow... probably.

We're still alive!

2010-10-17T11:13:00.002-04:00

Just in case anyone was wondering.
School has started for both of us and it keeps us very, very busy! Dallin is still working part time at the International Trade Commission and for the most part is loving it, except when he has to read really long reports. He's also taking a very full course load and is on an economic law journal this year. He likes most of his classes and is making good progress on his law review article, but it doesn't leave him time for much else. He has been applying for internships and we are hoping one of those will pan out.
I am still working on my research. I think everything in our lab broke at least once this summer and now that it is finally fixed, I think we need to retake some data, which means another week of sitting in a dark room! yay! I am also enjoying my classes, though not the time... they are both from 6pm to 9pm. Doing math at 9pm is kind of hard. I'm going to be presenting my research at a conference in Long Beach, CA a few days before Thanksgiving which means I get to go home for Thanksgiving and don't have to pay for the plane tickets! The only down side is I have to leave Dallin behind because the school won't pay for his plane tickets, and that is definitely not in our budget :( I'm also working on submitting articles to a couple journals, hopefully I'll be published before the school year ends.
So between my late classes on Mondays and Thursdays, and Dallin's late classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we're not home very much and most of the time we are is time to sleep. Or eat, although most of that is done at school and work as well. Our Saturdays have also been full of studying, which is kind of boring but we have high hopes of taking a break next Saturday, we'll have to wait and see if we actually can.
We are still teaching the 12 and 13 year olds for Sunday School and we love it. They keep us on our toes, and we never have a dull Sunday! We are also excited that fall has finally come to the east coast. The weather is nice and the leaves have started changing! If only it would stay this way and not turn into winter!

Happy Birthday Dallin!

2010-08-25T23:26:00.000-04:00

Dallin's Birthday was today. He had to go to school but we had a nice dinner and some cake! and he's been on the phone with friends and family all night, so I think he's enjoying it. O and the presents I ordered him didn't come yet, but the pens that I ordered so that we could get free super saver shipping on amazon came... it was pretty funny.

California

2010-08-25T23:20:00.001-04:00

On Thursday, Dallin started school and I took off and went to California for a little vacation. I visited with my mom and my old roommate Jessi came up from Arizona. We went shopping and hung out at the beach. It was really fun to see her and to catch up and talk! Then on Sunday we headed down to Carlsbad where our friends were camping and stayed until Tuesday when I came home. It was so good to go to a beach with waves! I had really missed the sunsets, on the east coast there are so many trees that you can't really see the sun set, and I got to see a really pretty one while I was there. I also got to see a ton of dolphins on Tuesday morning which was pretty cool (Dallin asked if they were bottle neck dolphins, but we're pretty sure they weren't, bottle nose maybe, but not bottle neck). While I was there I got a much needed tan! and Susan and my mom say I am a normal color now and don't look sickly and pale which is good news. I am now all rested and relaxed and ready to start school on Monday.

Monuments

2010-08-25T22:15:00.000-04:00

We went to look at the monuments at night last week, it was still really hot, but there was a concert by the U.S. Army Band was playing a free concert so we listened to that for a while and then walked around, it was really pretty.

Bethany Beach

2010-08-25T22:01:00.000-04:00

So Dallin and I were finally able to get out to the beach here on the east coast! We started the 3 hour drive at about 9 am and in true Dallin and Autumn fashion we picked a busy weekend and got stuck in a ton of traffic. So five hours and one really long bathroom line later we made it down to the beach. We managed to find a meter (that still had some time on it!) and walked a few blocks down to the beach. It was the first time either of us has ever been to an east coast beach so we were pretty excited. We found out that the Atlantic Ocean is really warm which made it more fun to swim in, but the waves were really small so there wasn't much to play in. Dallin went on a mission to find me some good sea shells and did really good until the tide came up too high for him to find any. After our 2.5 hours was up on our meter, we went up the coast a bit to Rehoboth Beach where my friend said there was a really good Italian restaurant and had dinner there and then splurged and got some ice cream too. The drive back was much better since there wasn't any traffic and we made it back in under 3 hours with a little bit of a tan! hooray!

Lots of Posts

2010-07-06T21:27:00.001-04:00

I've been really bad at posting things for the last few months so I decided to do a bunch of posts today! If you want to read them all then scroll down!

A few other things though. Dallin just found out that he got on one of his school's law reviews!! I'm not sure exactly what law review is but I know he gets to write some articles and it's a really good thing for his resume! He is also finishing up his summer class, his final is this week. He is excited because it is a night class and it's not very fun being at school until 10 at night, even if it is only 2 days a week. I am going to be starting my research for my masters thesis this week!! hooray!! Hopefully I'll be able to finish it before Christmas and then start writing my thesis. The goal is to graduate by May but it's gonna be a lot of work to do it!

Happy reading!

Fourth of July

2010-07-06T21:27:00.000-04:00

For the 4th of July we decided to brave the crowds and watch the fire works show in DC. There was a free concert on the capital lawn before the fireworks but you had to get there at like 3:00 to get seats and there was no way we were going to go sit in the heat for 6 hours just to see a free concert (plus church doesn't get out until 4). So at about 6 we met up with some friends and took the metro to the national mall. It was kinda crowded but not too bad... yet. We found a good patch of grass at the base of the Washington Monument and spread out our blankets. The fireworks didn't start until 9 so we spent the rest of the evening playing games, eating snacks, listening to the live bands, and chasing down our friends son every time he tried to escape! As it started to get closer to 9 the crowds around the mall started really getting thick.

Here is a video showing where we were watching the fireworks.

By the time the sun was almost down, the whole national mall (and probably more) was packed with people, you couldn't see an empty spot anywhere. Then the fire works started. It was a pretty good fireworks show, and the setting was great! They light off the fireworks from the reflecting pool in between the Lincoln and Washington monuments and we were close enough to see them lighting the fireworks.

The Grand Finale

Once the fireworks were over it was time to try and get home. We decided that the bus was the way to go since the metro was going to be SUPER crowded. We walked down 17th street for about 8 blocks to catch the bus and the entire time we were just surrounded by a mass of people. There were people filling the street from side walk to side walk as far as I could see in front and behind us. For at least half of the walk the street was blocked off to traffic, but a few blocks from the bus/metro stop, traffic was allowed to drive. The problem was there was still a huge mass of people. A few cars tried to push their way through, but for the most part they ended up having to pull over and just wait because they couldn't get anywhere.

This was the street right next to the white house as we tried to walk home.

It was a little difficult to find the bus in the huge mass of people, but we found it just before it left! It took us about an hour and a half to get home on the bus, the metro might have been faster, but at least on the bus we got to sit! So all in all it was a really good fourth of July! (next year if we're here though, we'll watch the fireworks from across the river.)

Great Falls Park

2010-07-06T20:54:00.002-04:00

A few weekends ago, Dallin and I decided to go and enjoy the great outdoors. We had heard that Great Falls Park was a fun place to go and see so we packed a picnic and headed down there. This park is only about 20 minutes from our house and has the steepest waterfalls of any eastern river. As we drove out to the park we were surprised to see how fast we went from being right in the middle of the city to being almost in the country. We went from crowded city streets to a two lane highway in the middle of a forest in about 15 minutes. We got there and parked and then decided to take a little hike to see the falls before we ate dinner. The hike to the falls ended up being really short which was good because it was super hot and humid, but the views were pretty good. The Potomac is a big river and so it in this gorge that it goes through there are a ton of water falls! We also got to see some crazy kayakers going down the water falls. Here's a picture of the falls.

And here is a picture of Dallin and a fuzzy little friend that he found on his water bottle after dinner.

It was a fun Saturday and we were excited to find some outdoor things to do close to home!

Texas

2010-07-06T20:54:00.001-04:00

In the beginning of June, my mom and I went to Texas to visit with her Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins. It was a really fun time. We spent a few days with family just talking and eating and stuff. I found out that my great-grandma gant's favorite color was purple, just like mine (it must be in the genes). And we got to share old pictures of our family. It was neat to see some of the old pictures, and to see the family resemblance between myself and some of my ancestors. We also spent some time sight seeing and shopping. I got a cowboy hat! And we were able to meet up with one of my friends that I grew up with and have dinner with her! It was way fun! O and I got to see a great sun set! I've been missing sunsets out here in Virginia because there are so many trees and no hills, you just can't get above the tree line to see a good sunset, or sunrise.

Memorial Day

2010-07-06T20:54:00.000-04:00

For Memorial Day Dallin and I decided to go into DC and see the parade. It's supposed to be the biggest Memorial Day parade anywhere so we thought it was worth checking out. My old room mate Steph and her husband Andy were out visiting family in Maryland so they came into DC and met us for the day. The four of us chatted and watched the parade for a while, but it was probably the hottest day of the year so far and so we left before the end of the parade to find water and air conditioning. After a bit of a break from the heat we went to Arlington to see the cemetery and watch the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. It was a fun way to spend Memorial day and it was great to see Steph and Andy again!!

Airshow

2010-07-05T15:12:00.000-04:00

On May 15th we went to the Joint Service Open House at Andrews Air Force Base. It was pretty fun. We weren't sure exactly what to expect, but we knew that there was an air show and the Blue Angels were supposed to be there so we decided to head down and see what was going on. We took the metro down to the end of the green line and then got on a school bus which took us onto the air force base while our marine tour guide told us about some of the things that we could do. When we got off the bus we walked around for a while and looked around at all the big planes and fighter jets and helicopters and things that were sitting around on the base. Then we got some kettle corn and settled in to watch the blue angels. They did a pretty impressive show and I was able to get a few pictures, but it is really hard to take pictures of things that are flying that fast!

A Matter of Perspective...

2010-05-08T17:33:00.000-04:00

So 2 or 3 weeks ago Dallin and I were both extremely busy and a bit stressed trying to finish up the semester and get ready for our finals. Dallin said that we were in a sprint to the finish but I told him I thought it was more like a death march. I guess it's a matter of perspective, but I don't think it can be called a sprint. I mean who sprints for 3 weeks straight? We'll Dallin does like to run so maybe that is the difference. In any case, we survived!! YAY!

So as I mentioned before, I was a tad bit busy this last month and the death march of the last month of school kept me from doing things like updating our blog. But now I am free, more or less, and actually have time to write, so this is might be kinda long :)

Dallin got an internship with the International Trade Commission doing "legal stuff" (that's a direct quote, he's so descriptive). We are pretty excited because it pays for part of the summer and is awesome experience! The last few people to intern here have gone on to get really good jobs. He might even be able to keep working there into the school year. This also means that we are still free agents next summer, we are hoping to be able to get internships out west next summer so we can be closer to family!

Dallin also went to the tea party rally in DC with a friend from institute to listen to Ron Paul talk (I stayed in my office and worked). He said it was pretty interesting and we had a good chat with an older couple about politics and stuff on the metro ride home, they had come all the way down from northern New York to go to the rally. He also went to listen to Ron Paul talk, again, Thursday night (again I stayed home and studied). He really liked it, and is happy that we are near DC right now and he can be involved in politics so easily.

I have been working my tail off trying to finish my research for the semester as well as do all my class assignments. I now know quite a bit about blood flow in arteries and about the design of stents. It's pretty interesting. I can also design a zero-net energy house! So if anyone wants to make their house more energy efficient, just talk to me, I have some pretty good ideas. I made a poster for our college's research and development showcase about my research I've been doing. I then stood in front of it for a whole day defending it to judges and answering questions. The showcase was a contest and I won 3rd place out of about 60 entries! It was pretty exciting.

In other news, we planted some new plants this week. We found tomato seed in target's dollar section and are hoping that by next year we will have some tomatoes growing. We also bought a sweet pepper plant and some flowers. Hopefully I'll be able to keep them alive, I have bad luck with flowers.

Oh, and we've been married for two years!! I know hard to believe but we actually have! We didn't do anything exciting because it fell right smack in the middle of finals and if you haven't figured it out yet we were both pretty busy. We are going to go down to Williamsburg some time this week though to celebrate!

I know I left somethin out so if I remember what it is I'll put it up later, I also have some pictures, but I'm not sure where they are right now so I might put those up later as well.

Ode to Cherry Blossoms

2010-03-27T22:27:00.000-04:00

This weekend we were able to go down to the national mall for the cherry blossom festival. It officially started this week! Peak bloom time isn't supposed to be until about next weekend but since general conference is next weekend we decided to go today, and it was sooo worth it! The cherry blossoms out here are incredible. After a long snowy winter it was great to see the trees in bloom. They were really beautiful, if you've never seen them you really should. We walked all around the tidal basin and mostly just looked at the flowers.

We also lucked out and it happened to be the Smithsonian's kite festival. I have never seen so many kites in one place before it was crazy! The pictures I have don't really do it justice, it was hard to get all the kites in one shot. Unfortunately we didn't know about it or we would have brought ours. We are totally going to go next year with our own kite!

Update anyone got a better title for this?

2010-03-13T21:43:00.000-05:00

I couldn't think of a name for this update because, once again, I have waited too long to update and have a bunch of things to put on here so... I'll take suggestions. Anyway, we had a great Valentines Day, we got a gift card for Chili's from our credit card rewards and used that to go out to dinner, then came home and made a heart shaped pazooki and watched a movie. By the way this was way too much dessert for two people.

Dallin just finished his spring break which was unfortunately for him, rather uneventful because I had to go school everyday, and so he did too. He was able to beat some new levels on bloons though, so the week wasn't a complete waste. My spring break is this coming week and now he has to go to school, bad planning on our school's parts, I wish they would have worked that out better. My mom is here though so we are going to go have some fun! Dallin has also started interviewing for summer internships, we are praying he can find a paying one so that we can try and keep our debt down as much as possible, he's had some really good interviews so far so we are pretty hopeful.
I have been working hard on my research and after an epic battle with MATLAB (a computer program that makes cool graphs and things), was able to write a program that does all my work for me. Unfortunately I'm not sure if it would have been quicker to just do it all by hand than to write the program to do it, it made a pretty graph though so I'm still excited about it.
In other news, we have been able to have the missionaries teach one of our neighbors in our home for the past few weeks and she even came with me to the relief society birthday thing which was a lot of fun! It has been a real blessing to have these lessons in our house. The spirit has been strong and we look forward to them.
O and I almost forgot! We moved! We now live in an apartment that is about 3 miles closer to school than our last one is. We are still in the same ward, which we really like! Our new apartment is a little smaller than the last, which is really only an issue with the closet space, but we've just about worked that out. It is a lot more quiet than our last place though and the rent is cheaper, which is a huge plus. We can also walk to the grocery store from here (if it ever stops raining), and I can finally play my wiii fit without feeling bad because there is no one below us.
And last but not least, it was my birthday today! Happy Birthday to me. Thanks to everyone who called or text me. It was a pretty good day, we went on a tour of the white house today, which actually was a little disappointing, you don't get to see much. And went out to lunch. We got to have some friends over for ice cream cake too which was really good!
Now we are going to start writing our family newsletter... maybe... so we can give it to Aunt Lisa before the day that it's due, or the day after :)

Christmas, School, Snow...

2010-02-07T21:39:00.000-05:00

   Well life has gotten pretty crazy with a new semester and stuff, so I haven't updated this in a while (this might be a long post). We went to my mom's house for Christmas! It was great, California was sunny and warm which was way better than the 20 inches of snow we left behind here. We got to spend time with friends and family and my mom is back in my old ward thanks to another ward boundary change so I actually knew most of the people there and didn't feel like a visitor. Dallin took the patent bar while we were there and passed! He can now file patents, hooray! Hopefully that will help him find a paying job for the summer. The down side to this was that Dallin had to study while we were in CA, but the upside was that my mom and I got to go shopping and not feel bad about leaving Dallin at home so he could study (he doesn't really like shopping anyways). We also went to San Francisco over Christmas. We went up there for my great aunt's funeral but we were able to spend a few days and sight see. Jessi and Natachia came over for an afternoon and had dinner with us, it was fun! We got some great Christmas presents and decided to try and put most of them in our carry on bags so that we didn't have to pay for another checked bag. This led to some interesting conversations at the security checkpoint... Needless to say when you try and walk on an airplane with several board games, some kitchen utensils (including a few whisks), and some other random things, they search your bags. It took the security guy a few minutes to get my bag closed again because it was so full, I did warn him! We also found out that the Milwaukee airport doesn't have any good food places, so if you have a layover there, pack a lunch.
   When we got back we started school again. Dallin had to wait a few weeks to get his grades from last semester and he was pretty nervous. He ended up doing really well and was in the top 17% of his class!! So now he's still working hard to try and keep it up. He is really liking his founders constitution class this semester.
I got back and started my research. I finally know how to use most of the equipment and have started taking data. It's kind of tedious but I'm doing well I think. Hopefully we will be able to find some useful things from all the images I'm taking. I have two pretty fun classes this semester, energy engineering and biomechanical engineering.
   Also, Dallin and I are moving at the end of February, YAY. We decided that we really needed to try and find a new place because our upstairs neighbors are super loud and the apartment we're in is not worth listening to them (and our rent would go up in March). So we're moving into an apartment a couple miles down the road, we'll still be in the same ward so we at least don't have to try and meet all new people. Our new apartment will be a little smaller, but it's cheaper and the floors don't squeak when you walk, we checked! I'm excited to move but not excited to pack. It should be better than the last move because it's only like 3 miles instead of 3000 miles. Hopefully all goes well with that.
   Now for the last item of business, we got a TON of snow again! Whoever told us that it didn't snow that much out here (David and Nic) were totally lying. We had a huge storm this weekend and got about 27 inches of snow! The tree behind our apartment lost a bunch of branches and is now leaning at a weird angle. We heard about the storm on Tuesday and decided to buy a snow shovel so that we didn't have to try and dig our car out with a cookie sheet again. Dallin spent yesterday afternoon digging our car out (I helped a little bit) and then finished it off this morning. Church was cancelled again, so he also spent a few hours this morning helping people dig out. We even met a few of our neighbors, apparently when you have a snow shovel everyone wants to be your friend. Some good things did come from the snow though, I got my first snow day ever! Actually two snow days! School was cancelled Friday and will be closed Monday too due to the snow!

This is Dallin shoveling off our car, yes there was so much snow on top of our car

we needed a shovel, not a snow scraper.

Our car is the one in the center

If you can't see it, it's around 26.5 inches!

We also learned the importance of food storage. While almost everyone else was storming the grocery stores on Thursday and Friday to stock up for the weekend, Dallin and I were home in our warm, dry, mob free house! This is proof that following the prophet only brings joy!! :)

O SNOW!

2009-12-20T21:42:00.003-05:00

Well we did lots of exciting things lately like finals (I got an A- in my math class!!!), went to the museum, and made cookies. But they were all eclipsed by two events, both happened yesterday.

First, we opened our presents from the Glenn family since we can't take them with us to California. We got lots of nice things and love them and had a good time opening presents while on the phone.

Second, we got a TON of snow. Like 18 - 20 inches in one day! It was crazy. We got so much snow everything shut down, schools, public transportation, stores, the government, airports, everything! Church was even cancelled today because it was too hard and dangerous to drive there. So Dallin and a few of the men from our ward spent most of the morning/afternoon helping people dig their cars out and pushing people out when they got stuck. We are glad we didn't have a flight scheduled for this weekend!! We did make some pretty awesome snow angels though, they are about a foot deep. Dallin had to help me move my arms cuz there was too much snow and it was really hard.

Here's some pictures, enjoy.

Me trying to walk through the snow... it was very hard!

Dallin making a snow angel

yes that's our car... poor dallin had to dig it out

Go Cougs!

2009-12-02T12:42:00.002-05:00

O yeah... and BYU beat Utah :)

Turkey Day!

2009-11-30T11:28:00.003-05:00

We had a great Thanksgiving. We had dinner with one of Dallin's mission companions and his wife it was lots of fun and really yummy! We also made our own turkey and pie, and stuffing. So we have a lot of leftovers! If anyone has any ideas for the 5 pounds of Turkey we have left I'm open to suggestions. I've already made turkey soup and turkey noodle soup...

Then on Friday we got up kind of early and went shopping for Christmas gifts. We tried out Aunt Shawn's shopping formula (two for me, one for you) and it worked out wonderfully. Thank you Shawn for the advice. Unfortunately we only bought one actual gift following this strategy so we still have quite a bit of shopping to do. But on the bright side we have some cool new phones and we get to sell our GPS now because our cool new phones have GPS in them and with the cool new phone plan that Landon and Jaron helped us get we can use it!

Dallin is turning in his final paper for his writing class today and has his first final on Saturday, so he's a little nervous but I think he'll do really good! And I have 3 more classes, 1 homework assignment, and then 2 finals before I'm free for Christmas break! I can't wait.

Happy Halloween... a bit late

2009-11-10T10:37:00.002-05:00

Well I finally have a few free seconds so I decided to update our blog. Our Halloween was super exciting!! Not really. Dallin had a paper due the Monday after Halloween and I had a midterm that Tuesday plus homework to do, so we stayed home and studied. We got about 5 trick-or-treaters (I think 3 of them were in costumes). But we did share some amazing pizza with our friends Adam and Eve (not joking) that live a few buildings over. Dallin's parents sent the pizza!! and it was great. Thanks a ton :)

Dallin volunteered to bring a carved pumpkin to the ward Halloween party the week before Halloween so he made this bat-signal pumpkin. He really liked it for a few days until it started growing mold! Apparently pumpkins mold really fast in this much humidity. The ward Halloween party was fun, even though they said we were too old to do the trunk-or-treating.

I just finished with midterms... and they were kinda stressful! No one told me grad school would be hard! But I survived, I actually did ok on my math midterm and should find out about the fluids one today or next week. I'm just happy I am still alive. Dallin turned in his paper but hasn't heard anything back about it yet. We are both starting to gear up for finals, classes end in a little less than a month. So keep us in your prayers!

Pizza and the Zoo

2009-10-14T13:18:00.006-04:00

So we decided to wait to go and see the leaves until this Saturday because not very many had changed by last weekend. But since it has suddenly become cold, we have high hopes for next weekend, homework is threatening to get in the way, but hopefully we'll be able to go look at some pretty leaves next weekend. But anyways, Dallin and I have kept very busy the last few weeks with school and homework. I'm getting close to midterms now, so I'm getting a little stressed but it's not too bad... yet. We have been finding some time for fun though. A few nights ago we made pizza for dinner and it was very hard to roll the crust out into a circle, so we decided to try throwing it like the real pizza maker people do! It was pretty fun and it mostly worked too! It turned out really tastey!

Then since we had Monday off school, we decided to spend the morning at the national zoo, it's FREE!!! Thank you all for paying your taxes so we could enjoy an enternaining day!We saw flamingos, they are really weird!! I mean look at their necks!
We learned that poop saves trees. They actually have paper and journals made from elephant poop in the gift shop so let us know if you want some. Dallin smelt it and said it doesn't smell bad. And we met a really friendly sloth bear... look at his claws!

Yay for fall!!

2009-10-02T14:01:00.005-04:00

Well we made it back from Landon and Kendra's wedding. We had a lot of fun there with the family and were incredibly exhausted when we got home (we only got like 1.5 hours of sleep on Saturday night, well it was technically Sunday morning but anyways...). We went to bed as soon as we got home and then both set off to school the next morning.
Dallin is doing really well at law school. He is enjoying it, although he has to study ALL the time! It's been paying off though, he has so far been able to answer most of the questions professors have randomly shot at him during class.
I started my masters classes and they are pretty hard. I learned my applied science class is really a math class in disguise, and was a little upset about it, but it's a required class so I just have to suffer through it. I got to start learning how to use the equipment I'll be using to do my research, it involves a laser which is fun now that we have protective goggles, it was REALLY bright before that!! Apparently it can blind you, but luckily I can still see :) A few days ago there was a bomb scare at the metro stop near my school for a "suspicious package". It was pretty exciting, I had never seen a hazmat crew before! It turned out to be nothing, just a bag someone had left lying around, but it was still fun to watch.
In other exciting news, we got furniture for our apartment!! It was pretty empty up until a few weeks ago. We got desk and couch for free!! (yay craigslist) and after some paint, the desk looked nice enough to stay in the house, I was a little skeptical before. The dining room table also required a bit of love, just a little varnish. And best of all we found out that Ikea has an "as is" section! We found a bookshelf that only had a few scratches on it for half off... it was great!
We also finally caved in and got a GPS! It happened one night when we went to buy our dining room table. We got it just fine and were coming home when all of a sudden the street we were on turned into a freeway! And then the lane we were in somehow got off the freeway and there wasn't a way back on. So we wandered around for about 35 minutes somehow ending up by Dallin's school and were able to find our way back home from there. So now we have a tom tom and we love it. We don't get lost any more and it even found taco bell for us when we were really hungry!!
It is finally starting to feel like fall here which is great because that means that it is not so humid anymore. We are looking forward to the leaves changing and are planning a trip to see the leaves and pick apples and pumpkins next weekend!! Hopefully the leaves change by then!

We're Here

2009-08-27T12:02:00.003-04:00

Well, we made it to Virginia all safe and sound. It was a really long drive, made longer by all the road construction! We saw first hand where all the stimulus money is going!! I thought that I would start a blog since we are going to be so far away for a while. Our new apartment is nice and we are really enjoying the air conditioning!! (it is really hot and humid out here) We are still looking for a couch and dining room table and some other furniture to replace the stuff we left behind in Utah, so our apartment is pretty empty right now. We went to church in our new ward on Sunday and everyone there seems really nice! So hopefully we'll like it out here.
Dallin started law school last week and is really enjoying it. He comes home every day telling me about laws and different trials they learned about, I think he is going to do well.
I met my advising professor for my graduate research, Dr. Plesniak, this week and looked around my school. It's a lot different than BYU, being in the middle of the city (it's about 4 blocks from the white house), but I think I will like it. Dr. Plesniak and the other people I met were pretty nice.
We have successfully figured out the bus and metro although we still get lost every time we try to drive someplace. We are really missing the grid system in Utah!
We have started to explore DC and it's really fun. Although we decided we will save our long days of exploring until October when it starts to cool off and get less humid. The humidity is so bad out here right now!
We are heading back across the country this weekend for Landon and Kendra's wedding, but this time we are flying so it will be a little more enjoyable! :) I'll try and post some pictures as soon as I get them on my computer!