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.