Happy Fruit/flower/linen/silk/appliance Anniversary!

Yup, it's been four years. I just looked up the "gift" for the fourth anniversary. Fascinating stuff, really.
Thanks to Wiki, I got this:

Traditional US: Linen/Silk
Modern US: Appliance
Traditional UK: Fruit/Flower

So I will just consider the bananas I got at Giant this week sufficient.

Last night I had every intention of writing a write a cute, long post about all my favorite things from the wedding day, but I fell asleep instead. Maybe later.

Love ya, babe!

Another semester in the books!

woohoo - only 6 more to go.

For Molly

My awesome friend Molly made me this awesome work of art oh, about six months ago. Being the awesome friend I am, I took this long to decide exactly where I wanted it. We've since painted the room and made a new office corner, so this is what I came up with:

Please ignore all the stuff I thought I hid better under the desk. Also, sorry I waited for an overcast day so you can see the flash and the reflection of the window in the first photo. Oh, and Joe chose the desktop picture, duh.

More photos of the bedroom when we finally (never) finish it. Does anyone know anything about heat-blocking curtains? This southwest-facing room gets HOT sometimes!!

p.s. MOLLY I HOPE YOU GET TO GO TO AFRICA! SILLY VOLCANO!

Cherry Blossoms

On Easter morning, Ashley, thousands of other people, and I went to look at the cherry blossoms in DC. Ashley was (and always is) the ideal sidekick...even when I got turned around and had us walk about an extra mile. It was obviously worth it because we got some awesome photos (the rest are here)

California!

(All California photos here)

I spent my Spring Break last week in California, and had a blast! I stayed with my friend Lindsey in Pleasanton for a few days, then flew to Orange County to spend the rest of the week with my parents and brother's family.

Lindsey and her boyfriend Brent (our chauffeur,) took me on a quick tour (my favorite kind,) through San Francisco. Since I've been a few times, we by-passed Pier 39 and got to the good stuff:

Crazy cool townhomes

Lombard Street

Golden Gate Bridge

We also enjoyed an over-the-top visit to In N Out...not just because the food was amazing (as always,) but because we stayed there for 4.5 hours! Lindsey and I met up with our friend Crystal; both girls came to my wedding reception in Lincoln City, and I haven't seen them since. It was so much fun to talk to the people that really know me (we all grew up together,) and obviously great to hang out at such a cool place.

Trip 1 of 2 to In N Out during Spring Break...oh, and the missionaries

Crystal, Lindsey and Britt

The rest of my time in the Northern half of the state was spent: visiting Joe's sister Carrie and her husband Benjy, shopping at the outlets in Vacaville, and asking each other "Whatever happened to..." to get the response "Well on Facebook, I saw they are..." about 100 times :) Oh, also I made BFFs with Lindsey's dog Geraldo.

Geraldo + Britt = BFF

I met up with my parents at the Oakland airport, and we flew together into Orange County to visit Jake, Carter and Asher. The main attraction was, obviously, my adorable nephew. Mom and I had a great time playing with bubbles, walking to the park, and listening to Asher talk...and talk...and talk. He had so much to say! It was really fun to set him up with things like:

Asher, are you a carnivore? "No, I'm a herbivore! I eat plants! [Something indecipherable about various dinosaurs and whether they were herbivores or carnivores...]"

Asher, what do you want to eat? "I want some water, and chocolate, and chocolate water, and carrots, and cereal, and pears, and toast...and eggs." He ended every list with "...and eggs."

I can't believe he will be 3 in a few months!

Other notable SoCal events:

Meeting up with Derrick Davis for dinner

Enjoying some HUGE French toast with my dad

Seeing my friend Holly...if only at the mall for a few minutes (she had just driven to town from Phoenix and knew that I was in the area from my Facebook status!)

A few weeks ago, Joe asked me what was on my Bucket List. I thought for awhile, then realized that I really don't have the desire to go to specific places to see certain things...I just want to spend time with the people I love. Totally cheesy, I know, but 100% the truth. We are so much looking forward to the other trips we have planned this year for family reunions and weddings! And you're all invited to the east coast for the holidays :)

“This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice.”

Here's a summary of what grad school has been like so far for those who are interested. I thought that law school would be memorizing laws and rules. But mostly we are just given questions with no answers. Like, when is someone too crazy too be responsible for their actions? What is cruel and usual punishment? etc. At the end of this summer I will be 50% done with law school, and it's been fun so far. Working full time has made it harder than I thought it would be, but it's going well. Most of my classes from here on out will be criminal law classes. Criminal law is all I'm really interested in, so hopefully I can work at a District Attorney or public defender's office when I'm done.

My classes this semester are Criminal procedure (you have the right to remain silent) Rules of Evidence (objection! badgering the witness!) and a policy class on the death penalty. The next year I will be taking Adjudicatory Criminal Procedure (Aka Bail to Jail), Forensic Science and Criminal Procedure (CSI!), Drugs and the Law (drugs!), Negotiations (10? I'll give you 5 for it), Mediation ( Can't we just work this out amongst ourselves), and Computer Crime (I'm Chris Hansen, with Dateline NBC. What are you doing here?) Also, I like parentheticals(parentheticals).

It's kind of sad that by the time I finish law school I will have been in school for 25 years! And at that point I will have to start fresh at a new job that I will know nothing about. I think the Chinese have it right, when they start training people for jobs at 13, but hey at least I know about the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and how to do calculus. I can't tell you how much I use calculus in my daily life.

But I'm really lucky to be able to study something that's interesting to me, without having to borrow piles of money to do it. Here are two articles that I read for class that do a good job of showing that our legal system doesn't provide a lot of answers, just lots of hard questions.

Fatal Distraction - how our legal system treats people whose children die after being left in a car.

How I convinced a murderer not to die -A death row inmate tries to donate his organs.
* be warned, both articles have heavy subject matter & language.

Cracking each other up

Before Britt left for California, we had a couple of funny moments:
1) on friday night, britt woke up in the middle of the night, and thought that one of the cats was on the bed (they weren't). Half asleep, she kept patting my head and trying to figure out which cat I was ( i am niether) . The head patting woke me up, and i said "what are you doing?" Britt said "everything is ok!" and went back to sleep.

2) i went to sit on the bed and eat a piece of toast (toast!!) and drink a glass of cranberry juice. I went to move one of our giant pillows, and spilled juice all over our bedsheets, white carpet, and onto my suit and white shirt that were on the floor. the only thing I could think to say was "that was the worst possible outcome in that situation!" britt thought that was so funny that she didnt mind the juice stains.

ok these were both funnier if you were there in person.

The day that I die.

*Edit - I almost didn't post this because it's morbid. Don't read if you don't want to.
*Edit #2 - You can't vote in the poll at the end if you are reading this in RSS.

Humans have always been obsessed with death and mortality. Fear of dying led the Egyptians to spend millions of man hours building pyramids, and sent explorers across the world looking for the fountain of youth. It's probably why people at my school donate millions of dollars to have their name on a building. I don't think you can worry about it too much, or you'll never do anything. So how do you think you will go? If I had to rate the likelihood of the cause of my death it would go like this:


1) The Citibus on 23rd street. This thing comes barreling at me every day on my way to work and is always like 2 inches from hopping the curb and taking us all out. Plus the drivers are always texting.


2) A crazy student at work. Financial aid is a high pressure environment. Especially when you work at the most expensive school in America. Most days we have someone cry, swear, and yell at us. We have some truly crazy people that come in. One of these days, someone is going to take the whole office hostage.



3) Metro Crash. The negligence and incompetence that goes on at DC metro is pretty well documented. The infrastructure hasn't been updated since the Nixon administration, and I spend an hour a day on those trains. Sooner or later it's gonna catch up with me. There's even a law firm for it.

4) Eugene. Eugene went to my high school for a year, but then he was institutionalized. Somehow he found my number, and calls me every year or so. He thinks all people from California are inherently good, and that people from areas where he had childhood trauma are bad. He torched a van from Pennsylvania just for having Pennsylvania tags, and got arrested after a low speed chase. He feels like he got away with it, because he convinced the police he did it because he thought the owners of the van were vampires. I've told him I live in California (obviously) but he actually bags groceries less than a mile from my house. If I were to run into him, he might snap.



5) Law school. School is stressing me out. Not sure how many more outlines I can read.

What do you think?

It's a hijack!

With Britt out of town, I'm taking over this blog. Consider it hijacked.

The Cruise!

All cruise pictures HERE !!!

It's hard to think that last week I was lying in the sun, on a boat, sipping on a strawberry something-or-other. Sigh. Joe's very generous parents offered to send us on a cruise! We went last weekend, and had an amazing time.

We flew into Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday, then drove to Miami to stay the night (Note: never, ever rent a car from the Hertz in the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Consider yourself warned.) We were able to stop by the real-life condo that was used in a TV show we love (Dexter). Since the show is now filmed on a set in L.A., this condo is obviously now private property...but we were able to sneak in a few pictures!

We were really excited to see a Grand Lux Cafe nearby, (we've been to the restaurant in Vegas and L.A.) and enjoyed WAY too much food that night! Calories don't count on vacation, right?

Using bookit.com, we paid for a "Three Star Miami Beach Mystery Hotel with a Spectacular
Pool", and ended up at the Habana Libre. Our favorite part was the red light and mirrors in the elevator.

The pool WAS pretty spectacular, but we decided against a morning swim.

We spent Friday morning in South Beach, and enjoyed the views and weather.

Joe gawked at a few of the nice cars cruising by.

We also went to the Red Bull traveling Can of Art exhibit.

We boarded the Norwegian Sky cruise ship Friday afternoon, and were impressed with our room and view.

After a welcome BBQ, we waved goodbye to the condos lining the port. Joe yelled: "Bye! We're going to the Bahamas! Have fun in AMERICA!" and made all the drunk people laugh.

That night we had a fun time playing bingo,

and watching this lady that I kept thinking was my mom.

We disembarked (cruise term, you know?) in Nassau the next day, and were encouraged to take a tour with one of the locals. For $30 we got to see most of the island in two hours; it was great!

Some scenic shots:

This is the highest point of the island.

Final stop: The Atlantis. The open-access parts reminded me of a Vegas hotel...just in the Bahamas.

 

 

After our tour, we went exploring on our own...we got some conch fritters and fresh coconut milk at a cute stand on the beach,

and got a kick out of The Bahamas' Senate building parking spots:

Back on the boat, we enjoyed this lovely view from our room,

then laughed A LOT during the "(Not so) Newlywed Game Show" that night. The couple married for 56 years won :)

Sunday was supposed to be spent on the private cruise ship island, but the weather would not allow it. Instead, we enjoyed relaxing on the deck. You can't beat that view!

 One of our favorite meal-time treats were fresh crepes:

That night we took some photos around the boat:

After we got off in Miami the next day, we zipped down to Homestead, FL to see the Coral Castle before our flight. The Castle was built by a man as a monument to his true love. You can read more about it HERE. It was very impressive to see in person!

A huge THANKS to Barb and Lew for making all of this possible! We have a few other trips planned this year, but nothing for just the two of us. It was very neat for us to do something so special, and we would have never thought of it on our own.