all american week

Over the week of the 4th of July, Aaron's family came and stayed with us. It was a blast. We were exceptionally patriotic, visiting Independence Hall/Liberty Bell in Philly, Gettysburg, and Statue of Liberty/9-11 Memorial in New York. We also ate a ton of delicious food, including Sabrina's for breakfast twice and mine and Aaron's newfound favorite restaurant in Philly- Barbuzzo. I could go on and on and on about their salted caramel budino (= Italian pudding?), but I'll spare you. The best part of their visit was definitely the Coldplay concert, though. Coldplay was Zach's favorite band so it was especially meaningful to us. 

Notes:

That flag was really tricky to put up. A needle and thread were involved.

If you go to Sabrina's, you should get the stuffed French toast, modeled by Rachel here.

The 9/11 memorial is really beautiful, with all of this water pouring into a giant abyss, like a million tears (Aaron told me that was cheesy). 

The ferry to the Statue of Liberty is way overpriced. 

We ate all the peaches and blueberries we picked without having to freeze anything! So much delicious cobbler...

opposites

The bad news is...

someone stole our recycling bin (it has our address written on it in big letter/numbers so...),
we found out we live a block away from a methadone clinic,
the one thing I thought was successful about my research for the past 2.5 months is actually a failure.

The good news is...

I parallel parked for the 3rd time!
There is an excessive amount of cheese in my fridge!
Sara and Kyle are coming to visit on Saturday!

And thus my abuse of exclamation marks continues.

warning sign

We have been having such the best time with Aaron's parents and sister this week. I'll probably write up one of those itinerary posts sometime that everyone loves to write but hates to read, so too bad for all of you!

We just got back from seeing Coldplay and srsly guys, it's like I'm 13 years old and and fangirling. Majorly.

i <3 chris martin!!!! xoxoxox

That was really the main point of this post. The end.

!!!!!!!!!!!

one more for june

This morning Aaron and I went and picked our own blueberries and peaches. It was a blast. Got any good recipes for either fruit? I can freeze blueberries, but there are 30 peaches sitting on my counter that need to be eaten...

But I bet Aaron's family can help us finish them off since their flight gets in tonight!
PARTY!!

oh hey.

In case you're wondering, I'm still alive. Here are a few random paragraphs for proof! (Aside: I just realized I have unintentionally posted exactly every 10 days this month. Only 3 posts in a month? Record low, I think.)


Today I went over to the electron microscopy center in the med school to get trained on one of the microscopes. On my way back to the chemistry building, I ran into my husband, who'd just gotten out of observing surgery in the OR.

And I thought to myself, I just got trained on a electron microscope by a nice old guy with a ponytail, and I'm married to a [future] doctor. I feel really great about life right now!

In other news, I can't stop myself from talking about my siblings, so here's another paragraph from Jeff's latest email (which is very appropriate considering my last post):

"We have an investigator named XXXX who is a middle aged, very serious man who is really smart and kind of intense. Last week we went and taught him the plan of salvation and he had lots of questions and so we were discussing his questions and then all the sudden he confessed to us about how much he loves Avatar, the cartoon! Elder YYY and I just busted out laughing because neither one of us knew what to say or how to bring the conversation back to the lesson. We just sat there laughing like idiots in total disbelief for a couple seconds. Then we talked about avatar for a few minutes and it turned out to be a good lesson. You never know when you'll encounter a secret avatar fan. They're hidden all over the world."


See? I'm not the only one. 


That's all. 

nerdy incoherence

YOU GUYS.

Avatar: Legend of Korra. I can't even. I just...

General Iroh! Lin's bending!
CAN WE PLEASE GET KORRA INTO THE AVATAR STATE ALREADY?


Please tell me you are freaking out too.

rawr

My brother who's in France is kind of a hoot. In an email a couple weeks ago he said he was sending us a package with "some good stuff" in it. 

What was that stuff might you ask? Pictures (which he hasn't sent us in 8 months)? Chocolate?

Oh, no. Much better:

Cheetah sort of harem pants. 

From Jeff:

"I'm glad you liked my present! Now you know what every muslim girl in mulhouse feels like every day."

Basically, they're the most comfortable pants I've ever had the pleasure of wearing, and I never want to take them off. Every Muslim girl in Mulhouse must be really happy about life. 

and...she's off!

I think this photo sums up my sister's attitude about going off and serving a mission better than I could in words.

Wouldn't you want to be a Mormon if you knew it'd make you this happy?