If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear

Early this afternoon, our power went out. It didn't come back on for 5 hours. I was pretty nervous the whole time that all of the food in our fridge and freezer would go bad. The would have been an expensive mess- ground beef, pork chops, chicken breasts, cheese filled ravioli, fruit and veggies, ice cream, juice, butter, eggs, sour cream, cheese, roasts; all to waste.

Being without power made us realize how much we rely on it. It was so funny because we kept walking into rooms and flipping the light switch out of habit, forgetting that it wouldn't turn on without electricity, and were annoyed for a split second before we remembered why. We imagined spending the night in an apartment without air conditioning while it is in the 80's outside with 95% humidity, and decided to go to the store to buy a fan to keep us cool. We had already started driving there before we remembered that fans plug into walls, and walls can't power fans without electricity. We're seriously retarded.

To kill time before the power came back on, we went to the store and stocked up on an emergency supply of water. We have plenty of food storage, 72 hour kits, and flashlights, but we need a stash of cash to keep in our apartment. What happens if there is some sort of disaster and we need to get out of town? We can't rely on our credit cards when gas pumps are down and there is no electricity to power card machines at stores. Cash would be the only way to pay.

Occasionally I get a little scared about living in a big city. We have the perception that the chance of a terrorist attack is higher in Washington D.C. I'm sure nothing will happen, but we especially need to be prepared because we live here. Today's events were a good wake up call to help us be prepared.

P.S. I felt really bad for the couple that was moving into the building today. Their moving company was carrying huge loads of boxes and furniture through the pitch black hallways and up three flights of stairs. I hope they were tipped well.

Earthquake in Iceland

The 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck at 3:46 p.m. yesterday. Its epicenter was about 31 miles east-southeast of the capital, Reykjavik, and was about 6.2 miles below the Earth's surface. Luckily, everyone Adam knows is okay (he served his mission there). Pretty scary though.

I bet not many of you have ever heard Icelandic spoken, have you? My husband speaks it, which is so cool, but so utterly unuseful. Watch this video if you're interested in hearing it.

The language is unlike anything you've ever heard. The language is so different because there hasn't been much outside influence, Iceland being an island in the middle of the North Atlantic and all. All of the old people get really mad at the young people for wanting to speak English. They don't want their beautiful language corrupted, and I don't blame them. It really is unique. We visited in August, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to all of the Icelanders speak. I especially loved church in Icelandic. We had headsets and receivers, and one of the missionaries translated. Relief Society was neat because the teacher would say a few sentences in Icelandic and immediately say them over in English to accommodate for the guests.

It's neat to see Iceland in the news because it is so rare, but sad that it had to be under such circumstances.

My New Job

The time I have left with the girls I nanny for is drawing to a close. I'm going to be done two weeks from today. I am so sad! I seriously love those girls to death. How could I not after spending over 40 hours a week with them for the past 10 months? They have become like my family, almost like my own kids. I wish I could have blogged about them more, but because of confidentiality reasons, I couldn't. I wish I could have written about all of the funny things they said and did. At least I have the memories. Gratefully, we are still going to be living in the area for the next few years so I'll still get to see them. I'm going to go to all of their school plays, dance recitals, birthday parties, etc.

I've been searching for a new job for the past few weeks, and I finally found one, one that I am actually really excited about. I'm going to be a Litigation Paralegal for a small boutique law firm in D.C. The firm is called Cohen & Cohen, owned by a young husband and wife. There are six attorneys that I will be helping with interviewing clients, preparing court documents, retrieving medical records, and things like that. The stuff I'm learning in my paralegal studies program at George Washington is exactly what I'll be doing in real life. I'll get to use my education in the real world for once! Yay!

I actually feel really lucky to have gotten this position. At my interview, they told me that they received about 500 applications, called about 50 candidates for phone interviews, invited about 20 for a first interview, and only 3 for a second interview. I really can't believe I got the job! I sure fooled them! Just kidding, I'm really excited and think it's going to be a perfect fit for me. It pays well, has great benefits (including free medical insurance and 4 weeks paid vacation!), and all of the attorneys seem awesome. It's going to be a great job. I start June 23, the day after we get home from our family vacation in Miami. I'm excited to start my career. This is what I want to do. This is what I'm going to school for. All of my other jobs in the past have just been a way to make money, but not what I actually wanted to do with my life. I'm excited to be doing what I really want for once!

Our Utah Trip in a Nutshell

I wanted to share some photo highlights from our quick Utah trip:

My little sister Lauren's Dixie High School graduation. The last Doxey girl to finish! I can't believe my parents don't have any more kids in high school!

Me & Adam at family pictures

A Saturday hike. The weather was gorgeous.

We took Mattie to the park. She loved playing in the stream. I've never seen her so well behaved!

The beautiful couple

The bridesmaids- me, my sister-in-law, Michelle, and Trisha's sisters and friends.

The wedding kiss that made me cry

We danced the night away. I realize we look ridiculous in this picture, but it was a blast!

Mattie waking Adam up from his nap with cuddles. He was not happy with her.

Family Pictures

The day we arrived in at the Alba's house, our cousin Allison, who is an amazing photographer, took some family pictures that turned out really cute. It must have been quite a challenge for her to get all 10 people to look at the camera at the same time. We had hoped that Mattie, the family dog, would behave well enough to pose in the group portraits with us, but that turned out to just be wishful thinking. She wouldn't turn towards the camera and kept running in and out of shots. It was fun though, and I wanted to share a few of the best. Thanks Allison!

Utah

We are in Utah visiting family for the long weekend. The main reason we came is for Adam's brother's wedding (which was last night). It's been so nice to relax and be with everyone we love. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and it's made us even more determined to move back to Utah when law school is over. We miss it here!

We've taken a ton of pictures but can't post any yet because we forgot our cord for the computer. I'll post a bunch when we get home.

What celebrities would look like if they moved to East Texas

Nicole Richie

Nicole Kidman

Ashlee Simpson

Johnny Depp

Jessica Simpson

Jennifer Aniston

Britney Spears


David & Victoria Beckham

I'm Going Vegan

Adam and I see this ad on the DC Metro (subway) frequently. If this doesn't make you want to go vegan, then I don't know what would! Just imagine, you too can be sitting in a dirty chicken coop surrounded by chicken crap, petting a flea-infested chicken that appears to have a severe (and possibly infectious?) skin condition, and enjoying your "beautiful" meat-free life!
Doesn't it also look like that guy's about 3 seconds away from kissing that chicken? Just look at the clever little smirk on his face. "I'm not going to eat you, but I am going to cuddle you to death!"

But seriously, who looked at this photo and thought, "This is perfect for our national advertising campaign! This man and chicken scream beautiful life. This will convert thousands of people to our cause!" All I know is I'm sold. Are you?

135,000 miles

Our car, The Mexican Princess II, reached an important milestone this week. While we were sitting at a stop-light yesterday, Adam looked at the dashboard and noticed this:


135,000 miles. We could have driven around the earth five and a half times by now. She's a 97 Jetta that's seen some hard days. We've been debating whether to get a new car, but after much discussion and calculating, we think we're going to drive her to the ground and wait until after law school to get The Mexican Princess III. She's paid off, and it's really nice not to have a car payment every month. I don't know if we could afford to have one on top of all of our other bills.

We're just hoping that we can make it a few more years without needing any major repairs. Wish her luck.

Planes and Soup

While Adam and I were at the store yesterday, he came across some little glider airplanes and insisted that we get them. He used to play with them all the time when he was little and has fun memories of them. We built them and took them behind our apartment building to fly them. They were pretty fun, but Adam was a little disappointed in how they flew. Of course, they didn't measure up to his childhood standard, but we had a great time anyway!

Has anyone had the Creamy Tomato Basil Soup from the Nordstrom Cafe? It is so incredibly delicious! I like to get a bowl of it almost every time I go shopping at Nordstrom. Because it's been pretty cold and rainy here the past few days, I decided that soup would be yummy for dinner, and I tried making it for the first time. It was SO GOOD! I tried to make it just like they do at Nordstrom. It has a lumpy, bumpy texture and a bright orange color (because of the massive amounts of heavy whipping cream in it) and is accompanied by a cheese crisp- crispy, crunchy, almost hard, thinly sliced bread covered with hardened, dried salty cheese.



I know it's not really soup season, but if any of you want to make it anyway, here's the recipe.

Metro Adventures

While I was riding the metro the other day, a big black girl walked up to me and started talking to me. She pointed her friend out to me, who was sitting a few seats away. She told me that he was too shy to do it himself, but that he wanted to give me his phone number. She then handed me a little scrap of paper with "John" written on it, followed by his number. She told me that John wanted me to know that he thought I was beautiful and wanted me to call him. I laughed, showed her my wedding ring and told her that I was married, but to tell him I was flattered anyway.

She started laughing pretty hard and told me how sorry she was, and that John now owes her money for doing the favor. She walked back to their seat and although I couldn’t hear their conversation, I could tell that she thought it was hilarious and was giving him a pretty hard time about hitting on a married woman. John sank down in his seat a little lower and didn't glance my way for the rest of the ride.

Apparently, this old married hag’s still got it! :)

Homemade Jam

Because strawberries are in season and ridiculously cheap, I made a huge batch of my mom's homemade strawberry jam. I helped her make it countless times when growing up, but this was the first time I did it all by myself. It was actually totally doable and pretty quick. A small amount of strawberries goes a long way when making her jam because there is twice as much sugar as fruit! YUMMY! I wasn't quite sure how many strawberries to buy, but after I got home and started, I realized that I had bought way too many. Oops! I could have made like 15 big jars of it, but unfortunately I couldn't because it would have been impossible to fit it all in our teeny-tiny freezer. I made as much as I could, gave half of it away to our friends, and ended up with this for us.

I dipped the rest of the berries in chocolate, sliced them to top ice cream, made strawberry shortcake, and served them with dinners. The next flavor I make is going to be raspberry-peach.

Adiós 1L!

My sweet little husband is finally done with his 1st year of law school! HALLELUJAH!!! I think I might be more excited than he is. I finally have him back! I have hardly seen these past few weeks. Let me tell you, the past nine months have been the most stressful school year ever. I never knew how high strung and stressed out Adam could be until this year. Not that I blame him. I would be the exact same way. He did great though and now just has to wait another 3 months or so for his grades.

We are going to party like it’s 1999 this weekend. We’re going to forget that there is even such a thing in this world called law school. Yippee!!!