Small Living

Living in a 700 sq. ft. apartment has taken some getting used to. I grew up in a sprawling suburban home where each child had their own room, where there was always a three car garage, and plenty of storage space. We had a big yard, lots of tall windows, and oversized appliances. I have none of those things now, but I don't mind. Living simply definitely has its advantages. Even if our apartment is a complete disaster, it never takes more than 45 minutes to tidy the living room, fill our 1 1/2 foot wide dishwasher, and vacuum our little rug.

I haven't always been able to say this, but I am beginning to appreciate simplicity. Adam has had a strong hand in this. He is always trying to make me get rid of "stuff" that he claims we don't need. I am proud to say that we recently raked through our apartment and filled a huge garbage bag full of the "stuff" that really isn't necessary and took it to the D.I. It feels nice to have less.

Our apartment isn't much, but it's fun to have a place that feels like home. My favorite part of the day is always coming home to Adam, popping a frozen pizza in the oven, and cuddling on the couch.

I hope I can continue to appreciate simplicity, especially because it's going to be quite awhile before we get anything bigger. We'll be renting for another 3, 4, maybe even 5 years! Wish us luck! :)

George Washington or Cornell or University of Virginia?

To clarify a previous post, we are no longer decided on attending law school at George Washington. Cornell and University of Virginia are now in the mix! There are many complicated factors going into the decision, of which I won't go into detail here, but naturally, it's been very difficult on us. We are waiting to hear if we get any financial aid from Cornell and if Adam gets off the waitlist at University of Virginia, so we will see.... Hopefully we will be out of this mess soon!


George Washington University, Washington, D.C.


Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.


University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia.

Camera Tricks

Adam and are learning some tricks with our camera. We finally have an outlet for all of our pent up creativity! :)

Here I am experimenting with depth of field:





Adam took some pictures of water falling while experimenting with shutter speed:

Our New Camera!

We bought a new camera today! It's an 8 mpx Canon Digital Rebel XT. We've been saving up for quite awhile now and we finally got it today. To celebrate, we went all around town taking pictures and experimenting with it. There will be many more to come, but here are some of the good ones for now:
(Click on the image to see a larger version)

Baby Adam

While helping Adam's grandma move this morning, we came across a box of really old pictures. We had a lot of fun looking through them and laughing at everyone. When we found these baby pictures of Adam, and I loved them so much that she let me keep them. Look how fat he was!!! Apparently, his doctor put him on a diet when he was about 6 months old because he was getting a little too pudgy. The first two are from age 4 months, and the third is from 11 months.



You can see he slimmed down a little, but I don't think it helped too much! :)
I can't wait to have little fat babies of my own!

Study Abroad Reunion

One of our favorite things to do on our study abroad was to take “surprise face” pictures. What you do is more your facial expressions and hands around as fast as you can, and the photographer will just take the picture whenever they want. They always turn out very interesting!

J-E-L-L-O!

I'm sure you're wondering what in heaven's name this is and what it's doing in my drawer at work. Let me tell you the story- it's pretty funny! My boss and co-workers love to play pranks on me, I guess because they get a reaction from me. They're like high school boys all over again.

The other day, I came to work all stressed out because I couldn't find my keys. It's a pretty big deal to lose your bank keys because I have a key to the front door, the vault, etc. I was telling my boss how stressed out I was and how I had spent the previous night turning our apartment upside down to find them. He asked me if I was positive that I had checked all of my drawers. I told him yes, but went to check them again. As I pulled the first drawer open, I jumped back and shrieked. Inside was a giant blob of bright yellow Jello with my keys inside. It was jiggling all over! It scared me! It was definitely the last thing I was expecting to see inside my drawer full of papers and documents.

Everyone was laughing their heads off- I guess everyone was in on it. Apparently they had taken my keys out of my purse while I had my back turned. They made me fish them out while everyone stood around laughing. It was pretty funny, but I’m definitely going to get them back somehow- and soon! J

West Yellowstone

Look at the cute cabin we stayed in last weekend! We went with the whole Alba family- Hiram, Jane, Clint, Michelle, Andrew, Trisha, Patrick, Zach, and Nick. We rode 4 wheelers, played frisbee, went for walks, ate lots of food, soaked in the hot tub, watched movies, decorated sugar cookies, and even went to an I-Max movie. We had a great time!