life elevated

Last weekend I took a quick trip to Utah for my grandpa's wedding. It was WONDERFUL. Here's why:

corn dogs and waffles bought from trucks, and also winning a water bottle and socks from a raffle while in line at said trucks

free hipster zebra Provo City-promoting t-shirts at the Rooftop Concert

hanging with Kellie and my mustache-waxed brother at aforementioned concert (not wonderful: SAMMY'S. Ugh, Provo, why do you like this place?)

seeing my aunt kill it at Women's Conference with an awesome talk that made everyone laugh and cry and laugh some more. I'm still pondering what she taught a week later.

eating good Mexican food

playing games at the park with the whole fam + bonus Tribe boys!

fantastic sandwich with delicious barbecue sauce at Cubby's

going on morning walks with my mom

reading Divergent and Insurgent (I like, mostly. We should talk about this.)

Nickelcade with my in-laws and seeing my little nieces. Brielle can say my name! I will be forever known as "Cakies" now.

chatting with some of my oldest and dearest friends, Kim and Jody

final night Rummikub-a-thon and sleepover with all my sisters

and of course, the main event, my reason for going to Utah: my grandpa's wedding. He played the piano (which he happens to be unbelievably good at) while serenading his new bride (I'm not sure that I have ever heard him sing before in my life and it was fantastic).

Oh, did you want to see some photos? OF COURSE YOU DO!

Brielle! We had a good time playing some skeeball.

 Bubbles at the park: fun for two year olds and twenty-three year olds

 Nice form, Jen. That's some quality boules playing.

 Rummikub's not fair.

 Eat at Cubby's, not at Sammy's.

 Keeping it classy by matchy matching.

Grandpa is married!

so this is christmas

Aaron and I get a long Christmas break this year, and we took full advantage of that. My sister got home from her mission, so we got to Utah early enough to be there when she got to the airport.

Some of us were more excited than others that she's home.

 We ice skated.

 I cut off a lot of hair.

 We lasertagged. (I got 2nd place both games. YEAH.)

We took a snowy family photo and printed it out with the Andrus family motto and gave it to my dad for Christmas. Want to know the irreverent family motto?

"The Andrus Family: None better, damn few equal." 

Merry Christmas!

how many treats can we eat in one day?

My cousin Sasha was in town for the weekend, so we had another go at being tourists in Philly! I think we had quite the lovely itinerary, actually, if you're ever debating about what to do in the city:
Roast beef sandwiches for lunch at DiNic's at Reading Terminal Market, plus chocolate truffles from some Amish people for dessert
Capogiro gelato for second dessert
Shopping on Walnut (buying Sasha a new iPod charger and some things for Sash at H&M. I coveted but did not buy some mint green skinny jeans.)
People/dog watching at Rittenhouse Square
Cupcakes at Pamcakes for third dessert
Dinner at home, nail painting and SNL skit watching.

All in all a wonderful Saturday! Thanks Sash!

(sidenote: look how long my hair is getting! Too bad at least the last six inches are pure split ends! Also, I'm thinking about growing out my bangs. Good idea or no?)

I would like to be called Lady Katherine now please.

I did it.

I survived my first year* of graduate school!

This weekend I also:

planted a garden consisting of three tomato plants and one packet of carrot seeds (baby steps)
bought two rugs at IKEA
ate with chopsticks and was really bad at it
randomly ended up at Independence Hall after the chopstick experience
watched 5 episodes of "Downton Abbey."

Speaking of which, OMG. I can't get enough of that show. I finished season 2 (Matthew and Mary! You're killing me!!!! Sybil!!! Branson!!! BATES!!!) and now have nothing to watch, which is probably good since I should be reading papers or attempting to understand surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy or something. Now that I'm done with classes, I get to work in the lab full time, which is what I'll be doing for the rest of my grad school time, plus TAing here and there. I'm quite excited about it!

I suppose I should go to bed since now I'm a responsible lab worker and go to campus at 8:30 AM instead of noon...I think I'll miss those no class until 12:00 days...

*Academic year I guess? Things get murky after the first year since I'm not in class anymore, and there's no real mark of "now I'm a second/third/fourth/fifth/sixth year!" except for new students coming in.
>EDIT: this was written at 9:45 PM Mountain Time = almost midnight Eastern Time...I don't go to bed at 9:45.

sprinkles!!

This is what my first week of grad school looked like:

Diet Coke, gummy bears, too much o chem

This is what my surviving-first-week-of-grad-school and way-to-go-on-getting-that-cake-stand-today-at-Pier-1-with-wedding-gift-cards cake looks like: 

wilton skills = totally out the window

Aaron's first set of tests are next week, so we haven't been too exciting this weekend. But last weekend, what a thrill! We blew half of our budgeted fun money on a great Italian restaurant (Giorgio on Pine, if you're ever in the area) and going to lunch with Aaron's med school learning team at a delicious Indian restaurant (the name of which I sadly can't remember). We also watched the BYU game with some fellow alumni and then decided we need to get cable so that people can come over to our house and watch games and be our friends.

What's your weekend been like?