Georgetown

This is where I go to school. It's neat. I kind of like it.

Humidity

Call me a baby but this humidity + heat is just killing me. Sure I am inside most of the time but when I'm running to class because my bus is 15 minutes late I'm sticky and sweaty by the time I reach St. Mary's Hall. Sick.

My hair has also been a victim of this weather. When I first moved here in August I tried to do my hair every morning. I would blow it dry, straighten it, and even put a little hairspray in it. Then I would walk outside and the humidity would undo all of my work. I learned my lesson quickly. Just over a month later my blowdryer has become obsolete and hair elastics and bobby pins have become my NEW best friends. Here's the morning process: I let it air dry, it becomes wavy, I pin my bangs back, and if it looks too horrible [notice: too horrible, not horrible, too horrible] I pull it up. Ethan even commented about it one night...he said, "Marie your hair looks good." Me, "Really?" [E starts snickering] "It just looks like you have been walking outside in the humidity all day." It's sad when an unobservant boy starts noticing. My hair = beast that cannot be tamed.

So for all of you reading this blog - I haven't let myself go yet [I still shower regularly]. I just blame the humidity.

Apparently your skin doesn't age as quickly with the humidity though so - CHEERS to horrible hair but absolutely NO wrinkles!

Things I'm currently putting off:

-Online Hospital Training

-studying for clinical tomorrow (7-5 tomorrow)

-studying for Pathophysiology (Professor suggests 15 hrs/week)

-making dinner

-writing my talk for Church on Sunday – Topic: Importance of Living Prophets – any ideas for me?

-coordinating the cleaning of our Church House (my new calling)

-studying for my test on Monday

I'm busy in school and I love it!

Disaster Response

I got a “HoyAlert” text message 30 minutes after the earthquake. It read, “It has been confirmed that there was an earthquake about 30 minutes ago.” Love it. I felt much safer after reading that! Phew!

There are 4 of these holes in my wall now because of the earthquake

Hurricane Irene came next – Saturday afternoon to be precise. The wind howled all night. Church meetings were cancelled for precautionary purposes and the store shelves were emptied. I was lucky to snag one of the last cases of water after waiting in an hour-long grocery line. Although the hurricane ended up simply exhibiting as a tropical storm, there were some damages in the surrounding areas of D.C. Big branches and leaves plagued the streets around Alexandria, a transformer blew, and a tree in my apartment complex was ripped from the ground. Yikes. I’m glad I was tucked safely in bed. I’m also glad that I was inland. Sure it was only a “Cat 1” (Ethan was teasing me because he said “Cat 1” and I didn’t know what he was talking about – I’m from Utah, we don’t get hurricanes. How am I supposed to know that “cat” is short for category? Gimme a break ok?) but the winds were still really strong and I’m counting my lucky stars that they weren’t any stronger.

Catch Up

I'm so behind in updating this blog...the last time I posted was near the end of June. BAH! That leaves all of July and August to play catch up on! Since I'm stuck inside with the hurricane warning I figure that now is the best time to "write up a storm". Get it? I'm funny. Let's start with July.

July: Jamie, Ethan, and I went to Utah for the 4th of July weekend. It was so much fun to finally be back home with friends and family.

On our trip we went boating. We were having so much fun that I failed to get my camera out for most of the outing. It was Ethan's first time and he was seriously a rockstar on the wakeboard; by the end of his turn he was "popping" off of the wake and getting some serious air.

Later that night we went to the Stadium of Fire featuring Brad Paisley and David Archuleta. I am always so impressed with "Archie"'s humility and adorable personality. He seems like such a sweet and down to earth person. Love him. Brad Paisley was wonderful too but of course you already knew that.

The best part about he whole evening was the entrance of the American flag into the stadium. The event planners were creative this year and decided that bringing the flag in by land was too boring. Skydivers bringing the flag = way cooler. I'm sure the skydivers practiced several times to get their timing and accuracy in alignment. A few skydivers landed representing one color (red, white, and blue). The last skydiver was carrying the actual flag. As he came in for the landing he whacked a cameraman with the flag. EMTs arrived to assist this poor man photographing the event. Watch it here. I love that everyone performing around just pretended like nothing happened..."if we ignore the problem everything will be ok". Best. Jamie couldn't stop laughing about it. When I glanced at her several times throughout the event I saw her snickering to herself Admittedly she was still laughing about the crash. The cameraman was fine - not his ego but physically - fine.

Jamie infiltrating my picture of the stage. This was her smile all night. Hilarious.

After all of the fun and fireworks Jamie had to return to real life in the city that never sleeps while Ethan and I took off for his family reunion in Georgia. It was gorgeous in Georgia! We stayed in a cute cabin tucked away in the woods with Ethan's family (his parents, brother Joseph and wife Anna, their little girls Kiya, Andrea, Haley, and Callie, and Ethan's younger sister Jenica). We played on the lake in paddle boats and canoes and made our way over to a really cool rock slide. Very fun! The little girls were so entertaining because of their cute personalities and excitement towards every activity. The best part was spending every evening looking for fireflies, eating yummy food, and enjoying one another's company. His family is really great!

Right when that was over I flew back to Utah for some Lake Powell action. Amazing. This was our first year on our houseboat so we were on a pretty steep learning curve. The toilets kept clogging leaving 34 people with sometimes only 1 working toilet (the boys finally took the toilet apart and found 60+ cherry pits in the "cookie monster" grinder). I will never eat cherries again. Nasty. Also, the generators kept vapor locking so the thrusters weren't working. The kicker, as we returned from an outing we found our houseboat pulling away from the anchors. No damage was done but boy was it stressful!!

Other exciting events: Laurena's toenail was ripped off by the bathroom door at Dangling Rope Marina - now dubbed "Dangling Toenail Laurena", Grandpa and Grandma wee darling on the WaveRunner - it tipped over as Grandma got on and Grandpa just giggled. Kyle landed 7 backflips. We pulled 6 wakeboarders at one time. We hiked up "Hole in the Rock". Sammy finally confronted his fear of ducks. Kyle shot a carp with his bow and arrow. Rachel and Sammy cleared the wake.

Grandpa and Grandma on the WaveRunner :) Adorable

Rainbow Bridge

Houseboat Location. Gorgeous!

Jack and Marie

COOLEST THING EVER!!!

That is all for now!

Chocopologie

Chocopologie is a cute little dessert cafe located on historic Main Street of Norwalk, CT. The owner has competed on a Food Network program several times. Maybe Iron Chef? I'm not sure. What I am sure of is how delicious all of the desserts were. Ahh. We enjoyed chocolate lava cake, cookies & milk, and a frozen hot chocolate. So good!

Jamie's Summer

This is how Jamie is spending her summer. Thankfully technology is proving to be very useful while these two lovebirds are spending their summer apart. How adorable are they? They are so in love. I believe it's 45 more days until they reunite in Ghana! So exciting!