Gelatin is Nasty!

Tonight Adam and I got into a random discussion about what gelatin actually is. We looked it up on Wikipedia, and were shocked and disgusted by the following:

"Gelatin is a translucent, colorless, brittle, nearly tasteless solid substance, extracted from the collagen inside animals' connective tissue." What is connective tissue, you may ask? "Blood, cartilage, and bone are usually considered connective tissue." Much of the commercial gelatin is a by-product of pig skin, pig and cattle bones, cartilage, and tendons.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to eat anything processed again without thinking about what I'm actually eating. Foods like ice cream, cakes, cream, biscuits, candy, Jello, cereal, custard, anything frosted, marshmallows, candied peanuts, and margarine all have gelatin! Eww!

Word to the wise:

Never, ever eat NASA astronaut food! It's disgusing!!! From the package: “As you eat the sandwich, your mouth rehydrates the ice cream, restoring it to its original state. Amazingly, the ice cream sandwich looks and tastes just like the original.” Such a lie! It literally tasted like chalk. I have a new respect for astronauts because they have to eat crap like that for weeks on end.

Random Thoughts

Just a quick little post. I absolutely love blogging, but I haven't had time to do it as often as I like lately. I don't know what it is, but our lives have been insane lately! I started my new job (which is totally crazy, but I'll get to that later), I had finals at school, we are getting ready to move and doing all the annoying things that go along with it (finding free moving boxes, canceling utilities, packing), helping Adam prepare for the fall recruitment process at GW (for his job for next summer), etc. Our schedules are pretty conflicting and we don't see each other very often. Oh well, I guess it's just part of life. I can't wait until we've moved into our new place and we're closer to the District. That will shave about 40 minutes off my commute each way every day. Yay!

Things I've learned at my new job this week:
1. Insurance adjusters are not nice or happy people
2. Wearing a skirt or dress to work is way cooler than wearing pants
3. Getting up at 5:45 each morning and working a 10 hours day with an hour commute each way sucks, especially when you have night classes too
4. Attorneys are really nice and don't even act like they're better than you even though you're a lowly paralegal
5. Dupont Circle is a really fun area to work in, but all of the delicious restaurants and cafes everywhere are a huge temptation at lunch time! They sure beat my smooshed pb&j. I have to keep reminding myself that we're poor students and that we have a negative net worth. Darn.

Miami with my family was a blast despite the incessant rain. It literally rained EVERY SINGLE DAY, most days for the entire day. We were only able to go swimming twice the whole week. If you wonder why I don't look like I got a tan, it's because I didn't. We had so much fun though playing games, eating tons of food, and just spending time together. I miss my family already! I also miss the girls I nannied for :(

Bienvenido a Miami!

Sorry about the blogging hiatus, but I'm on family vacation in Miami. Writing a post hasn't really been at the top of my to-do list. I've been too busy swimming, snorkeling, alligator watching, shopping, laying-out, golfing, eating, and exploring the Florida Keys. :) It's been such a blast spending time with my whole family. This is the first family vacation we've been on since Jessica and I got married and it's been fun having the husbands along this time. I know we can get pretty crazy when we're all together and they've been really good sports.

A huge alligator at the Everglades National Park

There was no changing room at the beach, so we used our resources and made a little makeshift one. It was pretty windy and I was scared changing into my swimsuit there!

There was a cool lighthouse

Adam doing his thang on the driving range

My sunglasses broke! Oh no's!

It started raining while we were at the pool, so we sat in a cabana and played checkers.

At the observation tower in the Everglades

We got to see our darling friend Kimberly that went on our BYU Study Abroad, who lives here with her husband and two girls. It was so fun to see her!

I'm Ariel!

I've seen this on fellow blogger's pages and was curious about who I'm most like. Interesting, because my parents almost named me Ariel and because I played Ariel in my high school musical, Footloose.

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Much better!

We love Costco's trail mix, except for one little problem... the raisins.
20 minutes later...


Ahhh, much better!

National Race for the Cure

A few weeks ago, when I told my family we were planning on running our first ever 5K, they laughed at me!
Running isn't exactly my "thing," or so they thought, but I sure proved them wrong!

Saturday morning we participated in the Susan G. Komen National Race for the Cure, a race with over 50,000 participants. It raised over $4.9 million to fund breast cancer research and community health programs for people in the National Capital Area. It was such a blast!

Our training program for the race was pretty half-hearted and pathetic. I think we went running a total of 4 times before the race, and we definitely never ran 3.1 miles, so I was a little nervous about how I would do. Our time ended up being 31 minutes and 10 seconds, not bad for such an out of shape couple, if I do say so myself. I was pretty proud of us! Adam could have done it a lot faster, but he hung back with me to be nice (or to make sure I didn't pass out and get trampled by the other 40,000 people behind us). All I know is it's a good thing the finish line came when it did because I couldn't have gone another step.

It was so much fun to feel the excitement and energy of everyone around us. The race went around the National Mall, so we had some great views of all of the monuments, the White House, reflecting pool, etc. Gratefully it was an overcast morning so even though it was about 100 degrees and extremely humid, the sun wasn't beating down on us.

We loved participating in it and are excited to do it every year while we live out here. Our goal for next year is to do it in under 30 minutes, which is totally doable if we train harder. Maybe we'll even find a few more 5K's to do before then. Adam actually just bought me a heart rate monitor, so I need to get some good use out of it!

Catching Up

On Friday night, Adam and I got to meet up with my good friend Laurel (Snow) Horchem, her sweet husband Dave, and their cuter-than-imaginable baby Lincoln for dinner. Lucky for use, they were in town visiting family and were able to make a little time to see us. I haven't gotten to see her much the past couple of years, but she is my all time favorite girl. We were friends in middle school and high school, and roommates twice at the Y. We had such a blast together! Some of my very favorite memories of college are the crazy things that we did. She seems so happy and it was so great to see her and catch up. I love you Laurel!!!

A View From the Roof

Check out the view from the roof of our new apartment building!!! Seriously, it doesn’t get any better than this! Notice the Marine Corps War Memorial in the bottom right hand corner of the picture, which is literally across the street. We are beyond excited!

We are really going to miss our ward and friends where we are now, but now that Adam and I are both going to be commuting into the District every day, we wanted to be closer. It’s a short 7 minute walk to the Rosslyn Metro, the last stop in Virginia. Adam’s metro ride to school will be a total of 2 minutes; mine to work will be 4.

We’ll be living in a small old warehouse-looking building that is in the process of being completely gutted and remodeled. We were actually really nervous when we first walked into the building because it was nothing but sawdust, but it turned out to be beautiful. We’ll be the first renters in the building, in a corner unit with lots of sunlight, which is my absolute favorite. There are also lots of parks and walking trails nearby, so we'll get outside a lot. Let’s hope it’s completed by our move-in date in mid-July!