I BLOG!!! (no, really, I do)

Well, I figured after a year and a half, it was high time to update the blog. Kevin keeps telling me that I need to do it, so...why not. Good luck. It's a long one. Also, it wouldn't let me upload all the pics that I wanted to, so you'll just have to deal with text for a bit until I can upload the rest of the pictures.

Much has happened in the past year and a half. We survived Snowmageddon here last February. I can't even believe it's been a year. Today it's about 50 degrees. This time last year, we were under 3 feet of snow. We missed the first dumping because we were at home in Colorado for the weekend for my nephews' baptism/blessing. We BARELY got there, and then we BARELY got home. We were supposed to leave Friday afternoon, but luckily got out Friday morning before the snow started. We were scheduled to come home Monday evening and that was the ONE DAY that the airport was open for an entire week. We got lucky. Tuesday the snow had started again, and finally quit about Thursday. Out of that entire week, I think I worked about 6 hours. It was pretty sweet. I didn't get pictures of it though. Bummer :( It's not that I'm not used to feet of snow dumping in a couple of days, it's that DC isn't used to it, so people were freaking out. It was fun.

Kevin and I went to the circus last March. It was the first time for him so it was really exciting. I always went growing up, so I knew just what to expect. We're going again this year in a couple of weeks, but even better this year than last year-we got our tickets for 50 % off. Maybe this year we'll be able to afford the $12 cotton candy. Maybe.

We went to the zoo for the first time as a married couple. The DC zoo is great because it's FREE. We really should go more often, but we don't. We were trying to do something fun every month, so April's activity was the zoo. Kevin hadn't ever been to the zoo here before, so it was high time we went. The day was perfect for it because it was April which meant fair weather, and also pre-tourist season. And that's always a plus.

Kevin started school in May!! So that's exciting stuff. He's getting his Master's of Library Science at Catholic University up in the district. He goes generally two days a week. So, it's not so bad. It's a two year program, so we're hoping that he'll be done around May 2012. Again, we're hoping. We'll just see how it goes.

In June, my little sister Katy came out to see me, and we went up to NYC for the weekend. It was her first time, and we had SO MUCH FUN. She wants to make it a yearly event, and I don't see why we can't do that. We had a blast together. She's so cute. Quentin and Georgia (the two kiddos I nanny for) always tell me that I can't call her my little sister because she's taller than me. But she'll always be my baby sister. Even if she is tall and gorgeous.

In July we went to the beach with some of our friends from the ward here. It was fun to drive down Sat. morning with them, spend all day at the beach and drive home Sunday morning. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it. Kevin had a lot of fun boogie boarding. That it until Sunday afternoon when he realized he was badly sunburned. If you ask him, it was probably the worst sunburn he's ever had. I felt so bad for him. He said it was so itchy, and nothing really was able to relieve the itching. I bought all kinds of creams to rub on his back, and by 11pm Monday night, was ready to take him to the emergency room. I was literally putting on my shoes and was probably going to drag him out to the car, when he was able to just sit and not move. It was no fun for either of us, but mostly Kevin. Needless to say, the next week, we went out and bought him a rash guard to wear whenever he goes swimming. He says his torso shall never see the sun again.

In August we went down to Williamsburg, VA for our anniversary. It was crazy that we were celebrating our first anniversary because it went by so fast. We had a lot of fun though. Williamsburg/Jamestown was where the United States was first colonized back in the 1600's so it was really cool to go and visit. We walked through Williamsburg like it was 'back in the day' and it was SO HOT. But we had a good time getting to see how they made guns, where the original capital was, getting to see their jail, and so on. We really had a good time. We also went to Busch Gardens Amusement park and spent the day riding roller coasters. Good vacation!!

Since I feel the need to update everybody on the past year, I can't very well leave out our mouse escapades. So, in about October, we heard scratching in our wall and I knew that we had a mouse. A few weeks later, Kevin and I were sitting on the couch, and I saw this dark thing dart out of our kitchen and underneath the table. I screamed and started hitting Kevin. The next day, I went out and bought some poison to stick in the corners so that it would kill the mouse. After talking with my mom a few days later, she convinced me to just go buy some traps that would kill them. I went to the store and looked around for the old school snap traps, but couldn't find any (luckily because I HATE those. And if you know my husband, you know that's no good for him either). I bought some sticky traps and laid those out in the kitchen. A few days later, we heard some rustling around in the kitchen and we went and looked, and found a mouse stuck to the trap. THANK GOODNESS we thought. We finally caught him. We could sleep easy again.

Nope. Not so lucky. To make a long story short, every time we caught a mouse, another one showed up WITHIN THE HOUR OF CATCHING ONE. I'm not even kidding. We would catch a mouse, and another one would show up within an hour. It would always take us a few days to catch one, but as soon as we did, we would always see another one running through. I wanted to die. Seriously. It was horrible. One Saturday, we caught 6. SIX!!!! It was disgusting. We have caught 10 in all. We still have another little one running around somewhere, but he's clearly the smartest one of them all seeing is how he has lasted this long. One day we stuck a sticky trap in our linen closet because several times we had seen him run in and out of there. I usually bated them with peanut butter but when I stuck this one in there, I stuck cheese on it because I happened to have some out at the time. The next day I checked on it, and the cheese was gone, but there was no mouse. So that night, we put peanut butter on it, and stuck it back in the closet. The next morning, Kevin walked into our bedroom, and stepped right on the sticky peanut buttery trap. The mouse had pushed the trap out from underneath the closet door. Upon taking a closer look at the trap, there was mouse hair ALL DOWN ONE SIDE. I can only assume that he had gotten stuck to it, and ripped himself off of it. Like I said, that is one smart mouse. To sum the story up, we are moving next month.

We went to Indiana for Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun. It was the first time I'd been there. And, I could add three states to the list of places I'd been. We drove, which meant that we passed through West Virginia and Ohio. It was a lot of fun to hang out with Kevin's family. Since we were fairly close, I made Kevin take me up to South Bend because I wanted to see the Notre Dame campus. He took me all around campus. We saw the stadium and “touch down Jesus” he took me to the various places he lived, and worked and had classes. It was fun, and the campus was really pretty despite being late November.

We stayed home for Christmas this year which was great because didn't have to hassle with holiday travelers/traffic and weather. We had a great time sleeping in and just hanging out. For New Years, we decided to head down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We had such a good time, we might make it an annual tradition. The weather was so great. It was in the 60's when we were there. We sat out on the beach and read for hours, and we went and saw the Wright brothers' museum and where they took their first flight. It was a lot of fun and so relaxing. Highly recommended!!

We're back to the same old, same old again. We don't do much around here, but we do it really well. We're getting excited for our little trip out West for Catherine and Matt's wedding. We don't what else we're doing this year, but hopefully, and when I say hopefully I mean HOPEFULLY we'll keep you all updated!!!!