thanksgiving eve

Thanksgiving this year has been unlike any other in the past. Our plans started as a group dinner with other dental students. But, one by one everyone cancelled on us. It was down to us and one other couple when they called Tuesday night and told us they had found cheap tickets to go home. So we quickly called Corey to see if we could join him for turkey day. The plans were set for us to go to Jill’s (his new fiancée) house in Baltimore and then leave for her family’s house in Philadelphia the next morning. We left Richmond in the rain around 2 in hopes of bypassing some of the holiday traffic only to find out that every other driver was thinking the same thing. A 2 ½ hour drive ended up taking us over 6 hours. Good thing we had the new iPod loaded with great music and the laptop to watch movies on.

Wednesday night we stayed in Jill’s cute row house in Baltimore. We got to see Jill’s pretty new ring, watched some gripping episodes of Top Chef and ate pizza. That was just what we needed after that “fun” car ride.

Turkey Day

Thursday morning (Thanksgiving), we left Baltimore and headed for Philly. It was decided that we would take the back roads to try and avoid any more traffic. The roads were beautiful. We even passed a horse and buggy in old Pennsylvania Amish town. It took us a couple hours to get to Jill’s parent’s house.
We met Jill’s family and were immediately welcomed.


We played a few games of ping pong which Cami was once again reminded just how bad her hand-eye coordination really is.
Jill’s sister made an excellent Thanksgiving dinner and we ate very well. We even had some Pennsylvania Thanksgiving classics like potato stuffing and shoefly pies.

The night was spent talking and playing games. We played Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture. That’s our favorite (not!!) We stink at that game, and that night was no exception. But Jill’s siblings were fairly well, making us look even dumber.

Black Friday

Friday we went to Valley Forge and saw all sorts of plaques and memorials in tribute to the Revolutionary War. We stopped to have hot dogs at the Gift Shop (which had gifts outrageously overpriced) and headed for Philly.



Philadelphia was filled with large crowds of people. We drove past where the Liberty Bell was and quickly decided not to see it on this trip when we saw that the line’s end a couple of blocks down the road.


Jill’s dad told us that we needed to participate in a Philly holiday tradition. Every year Macy’s has their Christmas light show. They have had the same light show since the 1930’s so it wasn’t the most spectacular show we’ve ever seen. But we were glad we went.

We then went to the Reading Terminal Market which has many different vendors who sell just about everything you could ever want from seafood to books and home décor. We would have liked to eat there but the crowds were unbearable. So we met up with Jill’s sisters and waited an hour in line for Jim’s Cheese Steak sandwiches. They were good but not the best we’ve ever had and our clothes smelled very heavily of the scent of sandwiches. Mmmm…

We went back to Jill’s parent’s and quickly made some turkey sandwiches for the road. We said our goodbyes and were on our way back to Richmond. The trip only took us 4 ½ hours to drive-- much better than 8.

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving. Thanks to Corey, Jill, and Jill’s very nice family.

"Why We didn't go to Stake Conference this Morning" or "The Crappy Dell, and Zune"

I know this is a long post, but believe me it was an even longer night for us...

So, we were supposed to go to Stake Conference today. That didn't happen. Let me tell you why. For my birthday, Matt got me the new Microsoft Zune (Microsoft's mp3 player). It was very sweet. Anyway, Matt immediately wanted to get it set up. We put the CD in and started the installation of the software. The zune player set up just fine except for the zune marketplace (the online store). Matt went on all kinds of websites to see if other people have had this problem. To his dismay, he couldn't really find anything, so he decided to call technical support. An hour and a half later, Matt got off the phone frustrated and confused. They told him we probably had spyware on the computer that making the zune not able to detect any internet connection. They figured the spyware had also affected the laptop since it was on the same network and having the same problem. Because we had seen other spyware problems on the computer we decided to reinstall windows and start with a clean slate once again. But we didn't want to do it yet if that wasn't the problem so Matt tried installing it on another dental student's laptop. And guess what happened, his computer downloaded the program with no problems. bummer. We were kind of hoping it was a problem with microsoft. So we got the "bright" idea to start with the laptop. We figured it would be easier than the desktop because it had less files to try to save. We also thought it would be as easy as our desktop. Emachines has made it very easy to restore windows. We were wrong. Our "bright" idea had Matt up till 5 in the morning trying to figure out what he had just done. For awhile there, we were convinced we had ruined our new laptop and would have to send it back to Dell to have them fix our mess. With Wmachines, you have one disk that reinstall windows along with all the drivers and utilities. Let's just say Dell's system is a lot less streamline. After much frustration and a few hours of sleep, Matt found some sort of step-by-step instructions on Dell's website. He also found in the manual that he could have rolled back windows to it's original factory settings. Oops. Too late now. Guess we should have checked that before we went and wiped out the system. On te bright side, Matt has learned a lot more about his computer in the last two days than he probably would have liked to. So after all that, the software installed great, but I decided I want an IPod instead. And that is why we didn't go to Stake Conference this morning.

Birthday Fun

We got a package in the mail a few days ago and couldn't wait to open it. Aren't birthdays so fun? For Cami's birthday she got lots of great things. Here are pictures of some of them. Matt thought he needed to open his presents too. (The radio-control car and some of the movies are his) Thanks to everyone for your generous gifts, cards, and phone calls. They are greatly appreciated. It makes us miss being home. So we're very excited for Christmas to come. Oh, before you assume that we've been spending all our money...The earrings are genuine cubic zirconia from the fanciest store we can afford (Target).

My First Pot Roast

On Sunday, I made my first pot roast- complete with potatoes, carrots, and onions. Since coming to Richmond, I have had to learn a lot about cooking. Back in Utah, we ate mostly with family and I hadn't made a Sunday dinner for nearly 3 years.(The last time was on our honeymoon) But I have gotten better with my cooking and planning meals ahead of time. Even though going to the grocery store at 10 o'clock on Saturday night is cutting it close.
So I was a little scared and unsure how the roast would turn out since I had never made one before and I didn't really have a recipe to go from. I did a search online and found some recipes that sounded good. I picked one I liked and went to the cupboard only to find that I didn't have some of the ingredients. So, I did what Mom always did- I changed the recipe to use what I did have. I ended up using an onion soup mix, water, and A1 roasted garlic steak sauce for the sauce. It turned out really good and we have lots of left-overs. I guess the next thing to learn is how to cook for two people. So the week's dinner menu will include various meals involving pot roast, potatoes, and carrots.
P.S. Although I would love to claim this roast, I did not make the roast in this picture.

Fall Leaves in Virginia

On Sunday, we took a walk behind our apartment building to take some pictures of the changing leaves. They were beautiful. It's one of the amazing wonders of nature. We also noticed some lichen and moss growing right on the tree trunks.

All My Little Kids

I finally remembered to get my camera out and take a picture of my class. There are seventeen little jewels that come every day. All of them, except for one, is African American.
So needless to say, I've learned a lot about the inner-city culture. Some of which I'd rather not know. But I guess that comes with working in a school in the middle of the inner-city projects.
The class is good. They finally seem to be getting the routine down. So we are not dealing with as much behavior problems as we were in the beginning. We still have more behavior issues than I'd like to see, but they aren't as often.


The time is flying and the kids are learning tons. And that's what makes it all worth it.