Professor Plum, in the kitchen, with the paint

After being in the house for 4 years, and having spent more than half our marriage without cabinet doors, our kitchen project is finished.

Early this year Todd started sanding the kitchen cabinets--the house was built in early 1950, so we have great old quality cabinets that have been covered in paint. We were hoping to restore them to their intended glory. However, after Todd sanded all the upper cabinet doors when he wasn't busy (ha), we realized we'd bitten off more than we could chew and it made more sense to just repaint the cabinet doors instead of staining the entire kitchen.

We found a fantastic kitchen example at Lowe's and loved the color scheme and ideas. Thus began the transformation. Todd found out from the paint mixer this paint is their most requested color right now. And I understand that. It's perfect. "Ponytail." Mmmmm.

Here's the kitchen before--notice how the stark whiteness of everything totally accentuates the atrocious yellow and blue counter top (they even painted over the hinges).

And here's our kitchen now, with the crown moulding (yes, they camouflaged crown moulding) and door frames and old-school light and cabinet drawers and doors repainted, and new beautiful hardware. I LOVE how it turned out. Todd did a great job.

We repainted the hallway closet, too. I think that's my favorite part. I used to cover it up with my aprons because it was so blah and monochromatic; now I've found a new place for my aprons.

We're hoping these changes will make the kitchen less intimidating when we sell the house. I wish I would have done this years ago--I really enjoy the kitchen now.

(Sorry, I tried to take the pictures and make a collage, but I now officially hate Picasa.)

These boots were made for walkin'

I am writing this from my hotel in Reno. I was supposed to fly home tonight, but it's SNOWING in Las Vegas, so they closed the airport there and cancelled my flight. Apparently it's just insane down there right now; Las Vegas is not equipped for snow. I love this cool picture the Review-Journal took.

I was really anxious to go home, but not just because I've been in Reno since Monday. This morning at 3:00 a.m. (yikes!) Todd and I found out about his residency.

He got into an anesthesia residency, which is the most important part. And we learned that although I really want boots such as these, I will need boots, and scarves and tights and hats and gloves and . . . because his residency is in Washington DC! Isn't that exciting?! I know the poll, and Jen, wanted San Antonio more than DC, but really, we had great choices either way. I'm so happy.

But I can't use those boots just yet, because for the year before DC we're going somewhere that looks a lot like this.

The internship year is in Hawaii!!!!!! I am SO very excited about that. That was our #1 choice for our DC internship, but I had pretty much discounted it, so it was a fun surprise. We have to be there July 1, and I'm glad I can finally start planning where we might live, how to find housing, what to do with our cars and house full of crap, etc.

So, one year in Hawaii, then the next three years in DC. What a fantastic voyage. Ü I can't wait to get started. As soon as I make it back home.

I'm fearful this is becoming a tradition for me

I have a little bit of a wrapping paper compulsion--I love wrapping paper, especially when I can buy it on sale the day after Christmas. I have rolls and rolls and rolls of Christmas paper. It's a bit neurotic, but fun anyway.

Each year I have a favorite Christmas paper. This was last year's paper. I love how there's black on Christmas paper. So non-traditional and beautiful. Last year, because it was my favorite, I didn't wrap many presents with this paper because it is so beautiful. Again with the neurotic.

This year, this is my favorite paper. It's blue! I had forgotten I owned this paper. That's the best part about having myriad rolls of paper--I forget about the ones I have and get to rediscover them every year. Because this is my Choice Wrapping '08, I have a hard time using it to actually wrap presents (I know, I know), so next year I expect many presents will use this paper and I'll find another one I love and won't use. It's a vicious, wonderful cycle.

What Christmas things are you festively neurotic about?

Gmail is watching (and I think I like it)

I use Gmail as my primary personal e-mail account, and I love it.

They track the e-mails you send and customize their unobtrusive ads based on what your e-mails are saying (I know there's a term for this, but I don't care to remember it or look it up; in my Luddite defense, I went to college when e-mail was still a relatively new thing. Back when I walked barefoot through the snow, both ways, to school.).

I used to be a bit annoyed to know I was being so closely monitored.

But then I sent an e-mail to my brother-in-law giving him the tracking number for a package I sent. I didn't tell him which delivery company I used, just gave him the tracking number. Then today, after he responded to my e-mail, I got this ad from Google.
How cool is that?! It knows I'm interested in the package and it will track it for me.

Maybe sometimes having a Big Brother isn't a bad thing. Ü

A rose by any other name . . .

My entire life I have been one of many, many, many Jennifers. This has always bothered me and is something I'll keep in mind when naming my children so they won't be a "Jennifer R." for 18 years.

I found this really fun site and discovered Jennifer was the #1 name from 1970 until 1984. That is absolutely insane. I was born in the middle of that, so no wonder I will always be one of the many Jennifers. We're like the Jennifer generation (JENeration. Ha!). 14 years. Sheesh.

(Don't) Tase me, bro!

My brother-in-law Dave got a taser for his wife Rachel. It's a really cool taser--it has a laser sight so you know where you're shooting; it shoots up to about 15 feet; and the little harpoons don't have to stick into skin, they just have to be within 2 inches of the skin. So it's perfect for stopping criminals wearing parkas. (Not as effective as what my cousin can do [she rocks!], but it'll work until I learn to shoot.)

Also, it tases for 30 seconds as soon as you shoot it, so you shoot it and then have 30 seconds to flee. I love that feature. Oh, and if you have to use the taser in public and flee, like in a Walmart parking lot at 2:00 a.m. or something, if you file a police report Taser will replace your abandoned taser for free. How cool is that?!

As you can probably deduce from my taser gushing, Todd and I got the same taser. We figure it's a really good first line of defense, and I do enjoy the fact the taser goes for 30 seconds without you needing to press the button the entire time. Fleeing time is good.

Dave and Rach tested their taser, so they had a spent cartridge with the wires already out. So, as men are wont to do, Dave tested it on himself. And then asked for volunteers. And Todd did not disappoint him.

They taped the wires to Todd's shirt and . . . well, you'll see what happened.

If you ever want to be totally entertained, look at taser videos on YouTube. I don't know why people volunteer to be tasered. Or why people irk a cop with a taser.

But I do know I'm way (probably too much) excited about our taser.

Remember in Hocus Pocus when one of the witches rode a vacuum?

This post is about witches, and also about vacuums. Maybe not in that order. Or maybe it is.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. But I realized this year that I am a crappy fan. We didn't carve a pumpkin, wear costumes, or hand out candy (not that many kids trick-or-treat in our neighborhood any more. Lame.). At least I decorated.

We spent Halloween weekend with Todd's family and had a great time. His dad is the bishop of his ward, so they got lots of trick-or-treaters.

That afternoon we went to Gardner Village with Dave and Rachel and their kids. It's this surprisingly picturesque assortment of shops that displays lots of witches during Halloween. Lots of witches. They were so cool. They had some playing baseball, a witch flying over the creek, dancing witches, etc. It was so much fun to walk around and take pictures.


A month or so ago our vacuum died. This is the vacuum I bought four years ago for $89 at a post-Christmas sale. It was a tough vacuum that got the job done well enough. But then it croaked. And by croaked, I mean it made a nasty noise and emitted a burning smell . . . and sparked. So we stopped using it. And our floors got gross (because I am too lazy to sweep. Oh well.).

We went to Fry's one weekend because they were having a sale on a refurbished Dyson vacuum. We had a great time spending an hour looking at all the different types of vacuums (you know you're an adult when you get excited about appliances), and we were especially impressed by the refurbished vacuum that started it all.

So . . . now we have an awesome bagless spiffy vacuum that looks like a robot. My sister said we should name it Kitt, and I think we shall.

We're excited about the new vacuum, and although I loved the old Kenmore vacuum, I was really excited to leave it in the alley.

For my conservative readers

I like this quote and think I will use it as my mantra for the next four years.

"We've had awful leaders before. New York's atrocious affirmative action mayor, David Dinkins, gave way to Rudy Giuliani. Jimmy Carter gave way to the only great president of our lifetimes, Ronald Reagan. America will turn toward greatness again, once it realizes it has been tricked into temporarily embracing disgrace and decline."

-Van Helsing at www.rightwingnews.com/

Maybe this will be the reality check that returns conservative politicians to their roots.

You know it's sad but true

Some of you may have seen this already, but I think it's great, appropriate, and fairly insightful.

Remember to vote tomorrow.

In all seriousness, when voting you should evaluate which candidates will take from the haves and give to those who won't work hard enough to be haves. I enjoy having a reason to work hard, benefit from that work, and spread my "wealth" as I see fit.

A movie to actually get excited about (finally)

Not to offend the many many Twilight fans out there, but the movie isn't going to be good. Entertaining, yes, but I am not getting my hopes up that it will be worth the hype or worthy of the book. The trailers (except the newest one) are hokey, and as was pointed out at dinner last night, a movie just can't do justice to a book that has cult following. Having said that, I'm still going to see the movie as soon as possible because it's the most interesting movie to come out in months and I loved that book and I enjoy getting supremely dorky about this kind of thing.

I've heard people compare Stephenie Meyer to J.K. Rowling. The fact these two authors make kids and teenagers read books is excellent. But Meyer is no Rowling (again, Twilight nuts, I know this smacks of blasphemy, but it's true). Twilight was a wonderful book with an excellently told story. But the other three books were very poorly written. Their stories were good, but the plot progression was nearly non-existent. I've heard she's a good storyteller but not a good writer, and it's true. She does tell an excellent story, and the Cullens are some of the best characters ever.

Conversely, J.K. Rowling is a phenomenal storyteller and an equally impressive writer. The Harry Potter books are great literature. So good, in fact, that I am reading them again, again, because I need books I know are guaranteed good reads.

I also think the movies have been pretty good representations of the books (long books can never become stellar two hour movies, so there's always that caveat).

Therefore, I am quite excited about the sixth movie. This trailer shows why. The stories have gotten so mature by this book and are even more interesting to read. The things that happen in this book . . ..

(I realize I just totally vented about Twilight and gushed about Harry Potter. Apparently this has been stewing in me for a while. And I am a total nerd.)

Little victories

There doesn't seem much in the world to be excited about or to feel we have control over--the economy is sinking, the housing market is sad sad sad, in three weeks we have to choose between the lesser of two evils as the most powerful person in the United States, Fox doesn't post a show online until eight days after it was shown on TV, etc.

Recently I've made myself happy by becoming victorious over one annoyance: Blogger word verification. Some sites use actual words to help our brains decipher the verification, and although some use random letters they do so in a nice non-fuzzy Arial font. Not our Blogger. They use many different colors and random serif(!) fonts whose letters blend together and create a string of letters that's far longer than it needs to be. Like this.

This drives me nuts! All I want to do is comment, not strain my eyes trying to figure out if that's two Vs or a W. Bah.

So I'm bucking the system. Instead of playing their game, if I get a long string of letters or a weird fuzzy font I merely input a random letter and press enter. Blogger then gives me an easier, shorter, sans-serif string of letters. Like this.

I feel so powerful.

It's the little things that make my days bright, people.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me--a jumper for my car battery

Women are hard to shop for, and sometimes we don't even know what we want (well, we do, but we're reasonable enough to know you can't have 100 pairs of shoes). I have an excellent gift idea, but it's not romantic or soft or peep-toey--it's functional, but awesome.

Last Christmas my brother- and sister-in-law got me this car battery jumper. It charges by being plugged into a regular outlet in your house. It has a meter on it so you can tell how much charge it has. And it's lightweight; the two times I've used it I had no problem lifting it from my trunk.

It has actual paddle thingies (see, it's obviously easy to use if someone who knows nothing about cars or car terms can use it effectively) that attach onto your car battery, just like if you used cables attached to another car. Except all you have to do is attach the paddles and then turn the charger on. Then start your car and viola! You have power again. It is honestly the coolest thing.

All women should have one of these, charged, in their cars at all times. Because batteries never die when men are around. They die after your husband leaves for work, they die when you're at the gym and no one will help you, or they die when you're stranded in a huge parking lot and it's getting dark. It's a huge safety issue as well as one of convenience. It's so nice to be able to restart your dead car battery all by yourself.

So there ya go. It's not pretty, but it's still one of my best gifts.

A very merry unBirthday to me

After making a stocking for Todd last Christmas, I remembered I actually enjoy sewing some things and being crafty with fabric. Since then I have been thinking of sewing projects I want to start. I am going to make this quilt some day, because I love the stark black and white, and because, hello! penguins. I also am going to make place mats and matching runners (based on these) for three holidays, and then another set for fun and my happiness.

The place mat project is actually going to happen soon, because on Saturday my mom and I went to Home Fabrics and Joann and found the most awesome and adorable fabric for the Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Halloween sets. We also found the most eclectic color combination ever for my happiness set. As we were getting our fabric cut, my mom asked if I had thread, and I responded, "Do I have a sewing machine for the thread?" (the answer is no; luckily my mom has several sewing machines).

After I got home and had totally dorked out showing Todd all my fabric, he handed me a present and said he couldn't wait any longer to give me my birthday gift. My birthday is still a month and a half away, but the present was burning a hole in Todd's pocket (as it were) so he couldn't resist. I love that about him.

So I opened it, and it was . . . a sewing machine! My very own sewing machine! I'm so excited. And officially an adult.

Let the projects begin.

And I can see Russia from my house

Before we started our Alaska cruise we spent the weekend in the Seattle area, and we got to see this adorable face as well as my brother and sister-in-law.

We stayed in Sammamish with my parents' very good friends the Fowlers. They were great hosts and it was nice to spend so much time with them. We also got to spend an evening with Todd's very good friend Phil and his wife Jasmine. I had only met them at our wedding, so I really enjoyed getting to know them better. It's too bad they live far away.



We had a wonderful time in Alaska. We knew we were taking a risk with the last cruise of the year, but we got so lucky--every port day was sunny. That meant about five days of sunshine. In Alaska. It was unheard of, and we really appreciated it. It would've been mighty cold without the sun. And because we were the last or second-to-the-last boat, every souvenir shop was having 50-75% off sales. We bought lots of things just because we could.

Our first "port" was Glacier Bay National Park, where we stayed on the ship all day and looked at two glaciers. They were phenomenally beautiful, with the true blue colors and the surprising amount of dirt. As glaciers move they rub against the rocks and collect rock dust. I also loved all the ice floating in the bay.

Our second port was Juneau, and we took a float plane (I got to sit co-pilot!) to this lodge near a glacier, where they served us grilled salmon. It was beautiful there, too; so peaceful. When they grill the salmon the bears know what's coming, and the bears like to lick the grill and oil drops after the salmon is cooked. This guy had a head start and came around before the salmon were done grilling, so an employee used a stick to keep it in the tree until the tourists were inside. Black bears are amazingly agile in trees.

Next we went to Sitka, a city with early Russian influence. We rented bikes and drove around for a few hours. We saw a ton of salmon, although most of them were dead. We also went to a national park that had about 15 totem poles. And the closest we got to seeing a bald eagle was this one at a rehabilitation center.

Ketchikan was our last Alaska stop, and probably my favorite city adventure. They had this beautiful area of town called Creek Street, which was on an inlet surrounded by cool colorful buildings and a wooden sidewalk. In the inlet we saw lots of salmon again, including salmon jumping up waterfalls, and sea lions gearing up for their salmon buffet. It was so cool. We also got to watch a lumberjack show, where they competed in five events. I was amazed at the things those men could do.

That night we had terrible weather--hurricane-force winds and 18-foot waves (or 80-foot. Todd thought they said 80, I heard 18, but we all know about my iffy hearing). So the ship was moving a ton. Luckily my seasickness medicine works wonderfully well. But because of the weather, we were an hour late getting to Victoria, Canada. We didn't have much sunlight planned there to begin with, but we got there when it was dark so there wasn't too much to see. We had a fun walk into town from the ship, and one plus of being there at night was we got to see their legislative buildings lit up like Christmas.

Oh, and what was our opinion of Holland America?
It was thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis great. We absolutely recommend them. Roomy accomodations (each bathroom had a tub!), only 1900 people on the ship, friendly staff, etc. It was great. Especially because of the deal we got from VacationsToGo.com. Check it out.

If you're so inclined, you can see every single (random) picture we took here. There are a lot of them.

Grey's Anatomy is back, and Jimmy Kimmel is funny

I do love Grey's Anatomy, and I wouldn't be a true American if I didn't love Michael Phelps. Perfect!



I thought the actual season premiere was weird. Like it wasn't taking itself seriously most of the time. It felt off. And the new doctor is too good to be true and therefore annoying and pompous. I'll still call him McArmy, though.

Dating-woe movies

Newlywed gushy caveat--I no longer need to watch girlie movies to help me get over being sad about dating, because Todd would be at the very tippy top of this list of awesome (movie) men. This post in no way implies he's not the greatest man I know. Ü

This weekend my friend and I were talking about the movies women watch to help them get over a breakup or feel better about their dating lives (some movies make you feel better because of the male lead's sweetness, and some movies just make you wish you had a boyfriend who is like the protagonist and then you feel worse). We came up with a chart for the movies, and I've attached it below. I thought you all might enjoy it.

I placed Ryan Reynolds as #2 because my friend suggested him, not necessarily because I believe he should be on this list. What male character deserves the coveted "barely less romantic than Titanic" slot, and why?

Is it . . . Mr. Darcy, because although he's aloof and snotty and has sensitivity issues, his glances at Elizabeth just melt the hearts of women everywhere? (I cannot BELIEVE I forgot about Mr. Darcy!)

Growin' up, readin' laundry labels

Last weekend Todd and I went to H&M. My sister Whitney fell in love with that store while she was in Spain, and she raves about it. For good reason. They have great prices and really cute clothes. Very European.

And European is good in many ways, except each article of clothing had a label in many different languages (fun!), but the laundry label was only pictures. I don't know what the pictures mean! That probably makes me a bad woman and crappy 20-years-self-laundry-doer and ugly American, but I couldn't figure out what the symbols meant. Dry clean? Hand wash? Don't use detergent?

So, thanks to the wonderful power of AskJeeves (Google failed me big time--it kinda left a dent in my online universe), I found this site that lists the American version of laundry labels. Which was close enough to what's on my new clothes. And I found some interesting labels I didn't know existed and instructions I didn't know were required for clothes (who irons?!).

I'm very familiar with this one. I used to buy all kinds of dry clean-only clothes, but recently I've realized that's quite annoying.

Did you know the lines under the little washing machine bucket mean things? I don't think I've ever seen these before. Fascinating.

And some things you're not supposed to wash. Eew.

So I realize this probably tells you more about me than I'd like, mainly that I suck at following laundry instructions, but I really did enjoy looking at all the laundry rules. Maybe it's because there are so many pictures.

Join me in flagging a blog, will you?

I don't care what you think about a candidate's views--personal attacks on a candidate's children, especially a baby with down syndrome, are out of line, inappropriate, and despicable. This blog is dedicated to the youngest child of Governor Sarah Palin, and I hope enough of us can flag this blog or contact Blogger to convince them to remove it. (I realize there are probably plenty of nasty sites around, but it irks me this is a Blogger entry.)

Why do people think it's ok to attack someone's sweet baby in such a way? Horrible. It wasn't ok when the press hounded the teenage Chelsea Clinton, and it's not ok to do it now.

Cheap shots.

(I got this story from Right Wing News, but partisanship aside, that blog is indeed real and nasty.)

This blog is slowly devolving into a forum about bugs. What does that say about me?

We went to my happy place this weekend, my parents' cabin in southern Utah. I love long weekends and church in Pine Valley. It's such a beautiful building.

We did many happy things this weekend. We went on a happy hike up a volcano, and it was a tougher climb than I imagined, but the view at the top was totally worth it. I love these white and red mountains. And you can't tell from these pictures (even though I do have an awesome Gollum thing going on with my bangs) but I got my hair cut a few weeks ago. It's a really cute bob, shorter than my hair has been for years. I love it, and some day I'll get around to posting a picture of it.

Sisters are happy.

We had a Foosball tournament, and it was happy. Lindsay and my dad, whose team name I won't repeat because most people don't work in the medical field and therefore don't appreciate its humor, won the tournament. They were amazing. I was impressed because we all are actually pretty dang good Foosball players.

We also played this crazy (but happy!) game that we called Around the World Ping Pong (I think that's what we called it) where you run around the ping pong table trying to hit the ball. It was fun but totally dizzying.

So overall, my happy place was happy. But the following story is not happy.

My favorite bathroom in the cabin is in the basement. It's bigger and has better water pressure and no one uses it because it's in the basement. Where the mice die in the toilet and the daddy long legs retire in the corners.

I got out of the shower the first morning, after I had done what I thought was a complete sweep of the bathroom. There, staring right across from me, was this bug. If it hadn't been on its back, things would have been really sad. And naked.

(You'll notice I again used my forensic skills to show the size of this thing.) I still used the bathroom the whole weekend, but it was a bit disconcerting to see it laying there, staring at me with its alien eyes. And no, those black things under its face aren't outlining its chin--those are its pinchers. Which it was waving at me the first time I saw it.

I was going to ask you guys if you know what bug it is (those of you from Idaho are probably shaking your heads at me, wondering why Nevadans don't know these bugs). Yesterday I contacted What's That Bug to try to figure out what this is and on their site I discovered--it's a potato bug. What?! And as my sister Lindsay so eloquently said, "Could you imagine one of those things just waving from a russet?"

Pandering, or a good political move?

I just heard about McCain's choice for VP. At first I was dismayed, because it seemed like he was just trying to pander to women voters. But the more I've heard about Sarah Palin, the more she seems like a good choice (considering that she is the choice; I won't argue about who should or shouldn't be his pick now that the decision has been made). I read this article, and she seems very conservative. Which is good, because McCain is not conservative enough to be the GOP's candidate.

Also, she has five kids. I'm always impressed by women, especially political women, who will have more than one or two children. Any amount of mothering is good, but in this day and age I am impressed by women who are busy mothers and don't apologize about a large household. It speaks volumes about her values and commitment, and I do believe a person's personal life is reflective of the type of civil servant she will be.

So, I'll still vote against Obama instead of for McCain, but at least I won't cringe when I do it.

The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to accessorize!

Sometimes I am crafty. Currently my only major crafty successes involve paint. For ceramics. Not paint to actually paint a picture.

I enjoy accessories, specifically earrings. Earrings rock and make me happy and I have a lot of them, but it's hard to pick the pairs out of my cute but small jewelry box. Especially because I have to find plastic backs so my earrings don't slide out (I wasn't smart enough to save the plastic backs when I bought most of the earrings, so I have like four roving plastic backs).

I needed a better way to find my earrings.

With inspiration from MSN Lifestyle and Anisha, I created an accessory board. I used a cork board I've had since high school (you know, the ones on which you tacked pictures of friends and Leonardo DiCaprio, funny comics, etc) and put the accessories on the board using quilting tacks. But the board looked trashy, like all my earrings were on a cork board I've had for 10+ years.

So, using my only creative talent, I painted the cork board in my current favorite color scheme (purple, green, and gold. Totally our wedding colors, totally an obsession, and totally dorky. But awesome nonetheless.). And I'm pretty excited with how it turned out. It's like a functional work of art. And it's SO easy to find my roving plastic backs now.

. . . and frightened Miss Muffet away

This post has a picture of a spider. So if that freaks you out, don't scroll to the bottom. Because spiders are gross, but I took and posted a picture of one anyway.

I have had our house bug-sprayed every month, like clockwork, since I bought it 3 1/2 years ago. So there is a pretty nice perimeter built up. Which is great, especially because this summer has been an infestation summer (see my tomato caterpillar story below) but we have been blissfully free of spiders. The first year I owned the house and started fixing my front yard, I made the perfect environment for black widows and had a major black widow issue outside (although I do hunt black widows, which Todd thinks is weird but I find highly enjoyable).

So, back to my bug-spray perimeter (I just realized this post is only about bugs, and I'm a total freak. Thanks for reading it anyway, despite the fact it might be giving you heebie-jeebies). There is a fairly large spider in our garage. It's nasty and large, but I found it dead. Which makes me really happy because that means my perimeter takes care of these types of freaky pests so I don't have to waste half a can of Raid on them (previous experience with this kind of spider, though, shows Raid has NO effect, and only the potent stuff from my bug man can affect it, which is uber nasty). This large thing was trying to live in our garage. Eew.

Caveat before spider picture: using the forensic skills I learned from The Bone Collector, I tried to show you how big this spider is, even dead. I realize some of you may live places where there are bigger spiders. And that is nasty. But if you do, please feel free to share. We'll try to make this the nastiest blog post ever. (Jess, your stories of hobo spiders in Spokane still haunt my dreams.)

How I spent my summer vacation

Aka: Using all my free Southwest flights to do fun things with Todd instead of sitting at home waiting for Todd while HE does fun things

Thanks to Southwest's awesome rewards program and my job that makes me travel a lot, I had a really fun past couple of weeks.

On August 2 Todd and I drove home from San Antonio. We (i.e. Todd) drove nine hours both days, but it actually didn't feel as long as it was. Road trips are fun. Especially with Dramamine. I had never been to non-San Antonio Texas, or New Mexico, or that area of Arizona, and I actually really enjoyed the sights. I thought it was pretty, especially the Texas part.

In New Mexico we saw the prettiest flowers blooming along the side of the road. I loved it. I took all our pictures through the window of the car, so they're not perfect. But if we had stopped for every picture I wanted to take, the trip would've been twice as long.

Arizona had tons of saguaro cacti. Like, a forest of them (we in the desert get our forests however we can). We also got to pass "nothing" in Arizona. Which some would say sums up a trip through the high desert. But it didn't. It was just hilarious.

And I was, of course, happy to pass back into Nevada via Hoover Dam. I love the Dam. It's also been fun to watch the progression of the bridge that will bypass the Dam.

When we got home I saw my tomato plants, which looked like this when I left, looked like this merely two days later, because of about eight of these guys. They're tomato caterpillars (with nasty horns) and were each about the size of my pinky. Maybe my ring finger. Stupid caterpillars eating my tomato plants that have struggled all summer. I got too much pleasure out of putting the bugs and my now-only-sticks plants into a bag and out in the sun.

This last weekend Todd and I flew to Baltimore so he could interview at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. That's our other choice for his residency, and his interview went well. Now we just wait until December to find out where we'll go.

We also got to spend time in Maryland with Todd's brother's family. I had only met them once, the week of our wedding, so we were so lucky to spend an entire extended weekend with them. We had a blast. Greg and Nicole were great hosts, and we had a great time with them and their kids. The entire weekend we had great weather. It wasn't too muggy, and the temperature was very pleasant. We got so lucky. I'd heard Maryland has really good crab and crab cakes, and Saturday I learned it was true--I had the yummiest crab cake ever. That alone wins me over for that residency.

We went to DC on Saturday and spent a few hours at the mall, which was fun. I love being a cheesy photo-taking tourist. We cooled off in this neat fountain by the National Archives, we saw the Washington Monument, and we took pictures of the Capitol Building, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House. I've been to DC before so I was ok not going to every building, I just wanted to spend a little bit of time in DC while we were so close.

I let Sadie and Micah take a few pictures, and they did a great job. Before we left for DC I let Sadie take a picture of whatever she wanted, so she gathered her new cute shoes and took this picture. I love it. Yea for shoes.