"this shall keep me safe from the hot mexican sun"

-me, referring to my SPF 50 sunscreen that I applied religiously

and also -Buster Bluth

A few weeks ago, Aaron and I took a graduation celebration vacation to Playa del Carmen in Mexico. It was the perfect opportunity to relax and do something fun before the monster that is residency began. 

Let's start with cenotes. Cenotes are giant sinkholes found throughout the Yucatan Peninsula caused by limestone dissolving in the earth. They make for awesome places to do my new favorite activity: SNORKEL. We swam in three different cenotes, two of which were underground, full of bats, and super cool (literally and figuratively). The other one was above ground and had the clearest water I have ever seen.

Underground cenote + Aaron's arm I'm too lazy to crop out. This was connected to several other cenote chambers that we snorkeled through. Not pictured, but also cool: there were a lot of long tree roots hanging in the middle of the cavern, growing toward the water from above the ground. 

Ultra clear water cenote + my blindingly white skin

So, let's talk about snorkeling. When I was younger, I was terrified of swimming in any natural body of water. I think it was mostly because I couldn't see what was under there and having some random plant or heaven-forbid fish brush up against me was horrifying. Guess what fixes that! Swimming in clear water with a snorkel mask! Having eliminated fear of the unknown, snorkeling was so much fun. We got to swim with turtles in the ocean twice. We also saw a couple of stingrays, a lion fish (!!!), lots of tropical fish whose names I no longer remember, and coral reefs. 

You know what is really hard? Taking pictures of fish. National Geographic photographers, I salute you. 

We went to two different Mayan sites, Tulum and Chichen (UGH I keep typing Chicken) Itza. Tulum is right on the ocean, and if I were a Maya, that is definitely where I'd want to have lived because it is gorgeous. 

Wouldn't you want to live in that stone hut? Iguanas could be your best friends! We saw a million of them here. 

Chichen Itza is further inland and is more restored than Tulum. It's actually a pretty big site.  I was expecting just to see the one iconic Wonder of the World pyramid, but there are a lot of other stone buildings and a huge ball court. Fun fact: the Mayans never used a keystone arch, so they had to use a ton of pillars in any large building to hold up the ceiling. 

skullz

While in Chichen Itza we overheard a tour guide throwing around the names "Nephi" "Lehi" "Lamanites" and we were like....MORMONS?! We had found the Book of Mormon Mexico tour group! Whenever I run into Mormons outside of church, it takes a lot of self-control for me to not be like "I'M A MORMON TOO! ISN'T IT CRAZY WE RAN INTO EACH OTHER IN THE WILD?!" I held back the urge this time though, and we continued on our heathen tour, learning about virgin sacrifices. 

I also wanted to record for posterity that we ate a lot of tacos and guacamole all over the place, and it was so good. Also, there was a little Venezuelan restaurant next door to our hotel, and that was also so delicious we went twice. Couldn't get enough of the kaxapas and arepas! 

Huge thank you to Wendy for loaning us the underwater camera so we could actually take pictures! If it weren't for that, all we'd have to document this trip would be a single photo of a taco on my phone (though maybe you'd prefer that after scrolling through this post). Yay vacation! Yay snorkeling! Yay tacos! 

look what aaron did!

Apparently, this is what it takes these days to break me out of my blogging absence: you have to graduate number one in your med school class at a top 5 med school in the country! I mean, it's a pretty low bar. 

Aaron's parents came in town to celebrate, and we took a quick trip to New York, since they've done most of the Philly touristy stuff already. We took a food tour of Greenwich Village (which is kind of dorky but it was my favorite part of the whole trip), saw Aladdin on Broadway, ate a delicious steak dinner, went to the Met, and got a cronut. Here is an example of why Wendy is the best mother-in-law ever: she trekked all the way down to SoHo and waited in line with me for almost two hours for a freaking croissant-donut. She is awesome! 

I am so proud of Aaron for this accomplishment. No one knows better than me how hard he worked for this, and it's really exciting to see that recognized. Soooo many nights and weekends of studying and looking up papers and preparing patient presentations. And it's finally over!* He did it! He's a doctor!!!!!! 

*Minus the three more years of residency, followed by 4 years of fellowship before he will actually be a practicing physician. SEVEN MORE YEARS. I try not to think about that too much. Remind me to let you know what I think when people complain about doctors making too much money. 

holidaze

Hello!

Now that January is nearly over, let's jump right in and talk about Christmas in a series of paragraphs with zero well-written transitions:

We spent a couple of weeks in Utah visiting family, plus a night in Vegas seeing a Cirque du Soleil show and eating amazing steak. There was so much good food and laser tag, nerf gun wars, and little nieces. Also, catching up with old friends, "working out at the rec center", game playing, book reading, movie watching, and ukulele learning. Plus, watching my brother's rock band crush it at a battle of the bands. And! We saw the Hoover Dam, how about that? 

To elaborate on a few of those topics: 

I'm now obsessed with Brandon Sanderson books after reading The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. I'm currently working my way through the Mistborn books (currently on The Well of Ascension and I CAN'T PUT IT DOWN. It's causing some strain on my marriage. Sorry Aaron.). Can someone else please read all of these books and then come to my house so we can talk about how much we like Kaladin and Vin and wish we were surgebinders or allomancers? Also related to reading, I read Amy Poehler's book (thank you thank you Amanda!), and I liked it! Have you read it? 

Abby (my youngest sister) taught me how to play the ukulele, and although I sound very plunky, it was super fun. I want a ukulele for my birthday now so I can sing and play all the Ingrid Michaelson songs I want (which will also probably cause marital problems). 

We got to meet our newest niece Bailee and also got to go to her baby blessing, which was neat. She is so precious and tiny. Our other nieces Brook and Brielle kept us very entertained with plenty of games and Taylor Swift dance parties ("shaky off!"). 

Aaron and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by trying a new restaurant before we left on vacation, Little Nonna's. It's owned by the same people/has the same head chef as one of our other favorites (Barbuzzo), and it was excellent. But the best part was they gave us not one, not two, but THREE free desserts for enduring sitting near the door. We didn't even complain, the hostess just walked over and said, "Thanks for dealing with the cold! Dessert's on us!" That's one way to make sure we will love you forever and come back. So go to Little Nonna's if you're ever in Philly, for the best meatballs of your life and fantastic service. 

I fell asleep while watching The Hobbit #3.

We got an immersion blender for Christmas, and it is slowly changing my life. Things like homemade refried beans and pureed soups no longer seem impossibly inconvenient to make because I don't have to pull out a massive blender from the top shelf of my cabinet and deal with cleaning all the pieces afterward. Hallelujah! 

Photos:

Brielle wasn't sure this photo was something she wanted to participate in.

LASERTAG! My favorite of all active activities. 

Hoover Dam!

Thanks to our families for the gifts and making our trip wonderful! How was your break? Are you going to start reading all of Brandon Sanderson's books now? Have you already?! Are you a ukulele superstar? I want to know! 

a little party never killed nobody

Oh my poor, neglected blog. Someday I will stop doing travel itineraries and actually write something substantial, but today is not that day!

My sister Becky got married this August, and I got to fly out to Utah for it. I decided having siblings (or siblings-in-law in the case of my sister-in-law Rachel from last year) get married is kind of a weird feeling. A happy feeling, of course, but also a little bit like, hey! that is my family member and  I'm not so sure I want to share her with this other family. I imagine it's worse when it's your own kid. (Or maybe you're just really relieved they found someone to marry...okay, I don't know what I'm talking about.) Anyway, I really, really like Becky's husband and his family, but still. Family weddings seem to give me a weird mix of happiness/nostalgia/slight sense of loss.

Mostly though, this wedding was just a lot of fun.

There were gumballs in the bouquet and men in bow ties and cookies and milk at the reception and massive dance partying and striped paper straws and a giant gold sequin backdrop! AND a Tribe/Andrus family band performance complete with backup dancers! AND a twitter hastag! #beckyandstew

Despite whatever initial weirdly possessive wedding feelings I had, I couldn't be happier for these guys. They are a perfect fit and are probably the most fun couple to hang out with in the whole world. I wish they were my neighbors so we could dance party every night or maybe make some grilled cheeses.

Congratulations, Becky and Stewart!

andrus children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked...and walked

Last week my youngest sisters, Jenny and Abby, came to visit. They were wonderful guests-always enthusiastic about everything and very easy to entertain, even when we made them walk 12 miles around DC all day Saturday. They also did not complain when I made them hang out in my lab for two hours during group meeting I had to attend, so you know, they are the best.

We ate a lot of delicious things: we tried every fancy donut from Federal Donuts, ate halal chicken on rice from a food truck near campus, got gelato at Capogiro, ate at Honey's, had ice cream at Franklin Fountain, did a rooftop barbecue with burgers, grilled vegetables/pineapple and homemade mac n cheese, ate funfetti chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, had cheesesteaks at Jim's, made carnitas with cilantro lime rice, got pizza from Wise Guy in DC.

The worst thing we ate was the cafe in the Natural History Smithsonian. It was annoying, not only because it was ridiculously overpriced, but also because just down the street were a million food trucks that smelled incredible, were half the price and probably twice as good. I have sworn off museum food for now, unless it's the American Indian Smithsonian cafeteria.

Also, basically my beach diet is shot. It was worth it.

We got to see a lot of neat things in our whirlwind tour of DC. The highlights for me were the chocolate tasting, Julia Child's kitchen, and the star-spangled banner in the American History Smithsonian, and the Dom Pedro aquamarine in the Natural History Smithsonian. The chocolate tasting was part of the Flag Day celebration (have no idea why those two connect, but I'm not complaining), and I learned a lot about how chocolate is made, which was fascinating. It was also really cool to see Julia Child's kitchen, since cooking is my only hobby these days (unless you count mindless Pinterest browsing I suppose). The Star-Spangled Banner exhibit is really well done. They have the [massive] flag all layed out, and the whole room is dark to help preserve it. Above the flag are the lyrics to the national anthem, and it was really moving. I'm usually not overly patriotic, but man, if you don't come out of that room loving America there's probably something wrong with you.

I've been waiting over a year now to see the Dom Pedro after reading an NPR article about it (oh man, I'm a nerd), and it surpassed my expectations. It's the world's largest aquamarine, which also happens to be my birthstone and my favorite color, and it was gorrrrrrgeous. Yay pretty rocks! Yay inorganic chemistry!

While in Philly, we hit up the historical stuff: Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Betsy Ross's house, Ben Franklin's grave. We also went to Eastern State Penitentiary, the Chemical Heritage Museum (look what fun you can have when I'm your tour guide), and got stuck in major rainstorms and sought refuge in CVS twice. We love CVS! Also featured on this trip: H&M $5 flower leggings. Guys, I kind of think leggings actually are pants. #sendhelp

I loved having my sisters here. Come back soon! We have more things to eat! :)

baby LOVE statue on Penn campus

Dom Pedro + Abby's reflection

ice cream truck!

kellie and laura take over philly

A couple of weekends ago my former roommates and wonderful friends came to visit Philly. We hit all the highlights- the historic, the artsy, the creepy, and the delicious (which is not pictured: gelato + Reading Terminal Market). 

 Historic Independence Hall!

 Historic Ben Franklin's Grave!

 Creepy Eastern State Penitentiary!

 Artsy Rodin Museum!

Roof deck view of the city partially obscured by our neighbor's stupid umbrella that I hope he takes down for the winter!

It was so nice to hang out with old friends for the weekend and play tourist. Thanks for visiting, ladies! Come back soon!

sasha in philly 3.0

A few weekends ago my cousin Sasha came and visited me again. We had a lovely time getting brunch at Ants Pants cafe (raspberry dark chocolate French toast oh my), doing a bit of shopping, getting cheesesteaks at John's Roast Pork (new favorite cheesesteak!), making snickerdoodles and pesto chicken pizza, nail painting, and lots of watching old "New Girl" episodes. 

None of our immediate family live anywhere near the East Coast, so it's nice to have Sasha only a one hour plane ride away. Thanks for visiting Sash! 

dole pineapple whip for the first time was as wonderful as pinterest led me to believe it would be

After Rachel's wedding, we went with my family on our merry way to the happiest place on earth: Grandma's house in SoCal! Also, Disneyland.

Abby's head is down or hidden in every single rollercoaster picture we got (she's behind me). And I can't get over Jenny's face (behind sleeping Aaron). 

Our niece Brooklyn is beyond obsessed with Disney princesses, so Aaron decided to make her believe that we got the princesses to call her while at Disneyland. I pretended to be Rapunzel while talking to Brook, and then I handed the phone to Jenny to belt out a beautiful rendition of "At last I see the light, it's like the fog is lifting!" (Jenny is a phenomenal singer.) Later, we actually found Rapunzel, and Aaron thought it would be great if we could get a picture with her holding Aaron's phone to prove to Brook she had been talking to her. Too bad Rapunzel was a little sassy and too good at staying in character because she acted like she didn't know what a cell phone was, and the result was the photo below. 

Brook still bought it.

Besides Disneyland, we also went to the science museum at USC. Seeing the space shuttle Endeavour was actually really cool. It's pretty incredible that they were ever to get something that huge to fly, let alone make it to outer space for 25 missions. USA! USA!

Other highlights included La Brea tar pits, where I learned that direwolves are not something George R. R. Martin made up in Game of Thrones, but that he probably embellished a bit on their size and psychic abilities, Rocket Fizz candy shop, shopping at the Grove (Abby got not one, but two dolls at the American Girls store! My 11 year-old self is appalled at the injustice of that), swimming in the Burbank pool, watching Monsters University, eating taquitos with the green avocado sauce at Olvera Street, and the obligatory In-N-Out experience. 

All in all, an excellent West Coast trip.

let them eat wedding cake

Aaron's little sister Rachel got married last Saturday, and we got to come party at the wedding. It was so beautiful- wonderful people, great food, eternal marriage, what more do you want? 

My sisters-in-law are the best 

 We did some classy car decorating work. 

Diet coke cans were the obvious choice.

We also enjoyed playing with our nieces. We feel bad that we only get to see them a couple of times a year, and it seems like every time we see them they've grown up waaaay too much. Brielle's walking and talking now and Brook's cannonballing into the deep end of my in-laws' pool, that crazy girl. Also, can you believe that hair? I die. Jeff and Chelsea have set the bar high for cute kids.

the butterflies fly away

After listening to "Party in the USA" three times to get myself pumped up Tuesday morning, I went and did my oral candidacy exam, and now I'm an official PhD candidate! Yay!

We celebrated by eating lasagna for the third night in a row and watching an episode of The West Wing. We know how to party.

march madness commercials are pretty great

Aaron finished his shelf exams yesterday, and we are so happy. It's been an absolutely lovely Saturday with those out of the way. Today we cleaned the church, cleaned our shower (East Coast mold is the worst), went grocery shopping, bought shoes for Aaron, got bagels at Spread (so good-you should have one), and watched a lot of basketball.

Tonight we will keep "watching" basketball and also make risotto. I have watching in quotes because I will actually be working on preparing for my candidacy exam/getting distracted by pinterest. Speaking of basketball, though, I'm really proud of the fact that I'm currently winning the Elder's Quorum bracket. Especially because it's the first time I remember filling one out. YEAH TAKE THAT BOYS.

Also...go Duke!

The end.

you've had a birthday shout hurray

I turned 24 on Sunday, and it was lovely:

dan dan noodles from Han Dynasty

puff paint note and glow stick bracelet from Sister Andrus

presents from Mom (the fabric of those Everlane shirts is unbelievably soft)

homemade funfetti cupcakes

chocolate cake with salted caramel frosting (complete with candle holes)

Aaron and I went out for crepes at Beau Monde on Saturday night, and then on Sunday we had friends over for games and cake and cupcakes. I had a wonderful time! Thank you for all of the well-wishing! Lucky for me, there is still chocolate in my cupboard, so the joy and gladness continues. 

(Also, I learned that doing a crumb coat when frosting a cake actually works. For some reason, I am dumbfounded by this revelation.)

i also love birthdays and mine is on sunday!

I wasn't sure how to write a list of things I love without being semi-boring. Obviously I love Aaron, and I love my family, and I love my friends, and usually I love chemistry. So here's a list of things that maybe you didn't know I love instead?

sparkly nail polish (used sparingly because removing sparkly nail polish is horrible, unless you use pure acetone...which I've never taken enough advantage of in my lab...hmmm)

wandering around Center City by myself on Saturdays (weird?)

Avatar: The Last Airbender cartoon

tiny stirbars in lab that are the size of grains of rice (I hoard them in my drawer)

bright bright pink Cy3 dye and bright bright blue Cy5 dye (used to fluorescently label my protein)

taking care of my cast iron skillet (also probably weird. but no babies or puppies around here, so I have to take care of something. It might as well be a skillet.)

Tell me what you love! It will make me happy.

Cy3 dye. I love you and your fabulous pinkness.