We love our baby Regina.

I'm sick again. It's pretty ridiculous. This is either cold number three or I have the most devious strain ever invented. Maybe I should just stop going out in public.... yeah, I'd probably like that too much. But back on topic, Regina is really awesome to hang out with when I'm sick. She love love loves to be in our bedroom (and she's hardly allowed to go in) and she immediately curls up and goes to sleep next to me while I read in bed. She will wake up every once in a while and beg for some affection but that's not to bad. My favorite part about that is the fact that she always baby burps in my face. It sounds like a weird door creek and she makes the funniest faces. We love her so much. This past year has been really awesome with her as part of our family.

Isn't she the cutest?

Two months of adventures.

So I've been particularly terrible about updating this recently. Paul harps on me a lot about it.
I don't feel like going over everything we've done right now so I'm just going to write about the last couple of days.
Today, Penelope (Paul's mom) flew back to Colorado. She'd been visiting since last Saturday. It was so much fun and went by way too quickly.
I got a job with Virginia Tech- finally!!!! I'm so excited. It's only part time but it's a great paycheck and super flexible hours, not to mention it's a real job which will look good on a resume when we leave next year.
I'm generally pretty easy going about where we are but these last few weeks have made it quite obvious to both Paul and I that we are more than ready to leave Virginia Tech and Blacksburg (mostly Blacksburg) behind. We're probably going to do Teach for America (yes, the liberal program- just because it's a liberal program doesn't mean we have to be liberals to be a part of it) and hopefully in South Dakota or northern New Mexico on the reservations. It really feels like the right thing for us to look forward to. Blacksburg is okay but it's full of boozing students and adults that haven't grown up. It's a faux-hippie paradise completely full of elitests. I was excited to move to a small town from such an affluent area in Colorado Springs, expecting money to be less of an issue because I don't care about it and never really have but I was totally wrong. Money is what it's all about here, so bizarre for a small town in the middle of nowhere, bible belt, south west Virginia.
Last night, we drove Penelope up to Roanoke to drop her off at a hotel because her flight left really early this morning but Paul found out that the newspaper needed him to cover an Obama rally in Roanoke today. Since Penelope's room had two double beds, she graciously allowed us to bunk with her last minute. It was pouring this morning when I brought him to the Civic Center. There was a small group of McCain Palin supporters standing on the corner just down from the Civic Center and since I didn't have anything to do for the next several hours, I decided I'd make a sign that said "I want to pay for my own education." and join them. I've never really been in Roanoke much before and I've definitely never driven around by myself before so I hesitantly set off to find a store to purchase some posterboard and markers. I stopped a few places but none of them had anything to offer and even less as far as presenting any comfort level so I just went to the mall to possibly get my nails done. Unlike any other mall in America there wasn't a single salon. I was astonished but there was a Barnes and Noble and I love books more than anything so I spent a good deal of time hanging out there. While Penelope was here, we decided to dye my hair a bit darker for the winter and we got a level 3 dye (level one is black, every level up is a lighter shade). Despite the box saying that the darkest my hair would get would be a dark-ish but obvious brown (and only if my hair was really dark to begin with- it's really not as dark as it looks but I'm so pale...), my hair turned out so black it's got a blue-ish hue to it. I'm very lucky that I have the coloring of a winter because it doesn't really look bad, I just look like Snow White. I'm sure it helps that that I wear decent makeup but I don't look goth or sallow like a ton of fake black-ites... Anyways. I was wsndering around in my super cute new black coat (thank you Paul!) so I looked especially pale (mind you, I combatted that with pink lips and cheeks and violet eyeshadow- not too harsh at all) and I was very aware that this girl (22ish?, particularly heavy set with faded black streaks in her unwashed hair and no makeup) was quite obviously staring at me. I'm not vain and I really don't think that people spare a second thought when they see me but when I would turn and look at her she never even looked away. It was really bizarre. She was sitting in one of those chairs they put out for people who use the store as a library (it's not, people!) and I found a different section to peruse after about ten minutes of weirdness, hoping she'd just go away. When I got back to the section I wanted in the first place, she'd switched chairs but was in the same place and sure enough, the staring began again so this time I just asked her if I could help her or something. She looked at me like I was a disappointment but didn't say anything so I asked her again and she finally said, "You just look like someone in my book and I got my hopes up." I smiled really awkwardly, said thanks, and turned away to pick out my book and leave but I did manage to sneak a peak as I was walking away to see what she was reading, I mean, no one has ever told me I look like someone before and I guess I shouldn't have been surprised or annoyed but she was reading one of the Twilight books. I read the first one out of boredom and didn't care enough to read the others but I know enough to know who she meant. I'm sure it was a compliment but I find it unnerving to be compared to a gothic (though normally dressed) character. How lovely it would be to be compared to Elizabeth Bennet? Is it too much to ask? I'd almost rather be compared to Jane Eyre (and if you know me, you know how awful I think she is). Haha. Sorry you had to read all that, reading it again makes me feel retarded but no less perturbed.
I'm tired of writing. More later.

A blog from Paul!

I was going to write about this but Paul wrote it out last night. He's not usually one to blog so it's nice that he'll be fully represented here.

So, about a month ago I went to a sports photography workshop at the Olympic training center. I learned from the best of the best. Expert Professionals from Getty, Sports Illustrated, and the Associated Press. I learned the most about lighting and lighting techniques. I learned a ton about off camera lighting as well as dozens of things to do with Nikon Sb800s. I only bring this up to preface my little story.

From what I've read, in wedding photography the key phrase is: "Keep it simple", but that was the last thing I wanted to do. Today at the wedding I got the opportunity to shoot today I was going to push myself to use as much as I learned as possible. Things went well at the wedding except for keeping line of sight with the remote sensors, but Kelsie was there to help and even the people I was photographing had the sense to say things like, "that left one didn't go off"

At the reception, I wanted to try something really different I like to call the "Jim Sugart Technique." I have a photo gallery with examples. He didn't really give specifics, but his guidelines were enough: "Get the flash off the camera, Get a wide lens, Get really close." So with this in mind I held the flash in my left hand and used my right hand to change the focus and take the photos. If I pointed the flash correctly, then the results were really softened light on my subjects. If I didn't get close enough I got some pretty funky shadows. I wasn't really gambling with these peoples wedding photos, I knew I could use traditional techniques to capture the key moments. It was great.

So, when I'm taking photos, I'm really in the zone and I don't notice much, but this girl was being so belligerent and rude I couldn't help but notice. She obviously didn't care for what I was doing with my flash off the camera. I heard her raucous taunts intermittently, things like: "look how awkward he/that is" or "that's so ridiculous" I took a moment to recognize who she was. This was the Bride's younger sister. According to the Bride, she was a "photography student who took some of the bridesmaids photos." I took this into consideration. Kelsie reminded me later that if she was skilled enough to get hired, she would have been hired to take the wedding photos because she was family.

Well this apparently wasn't enough for her. She got her friends, took some photos of me, and then started showing them to people and laughing about it. The funny thing is that she was going it right in front of where Kelsie was sitting. This whole affair got kelsie more worked up than me, but I had a job to do and I didn't let it bother me at all.

This got me thinking. It made me think back to the "keep it simple" idea. I didn't want to make all the photos look the same. I actually felt complimented by her laughter. I was doing something really different. I guess that's what makes the difference between an ordinary photographer and an average one. It's also important to have a really think skin.

Oh, and by the way, the whole time I was wishing I had Tom's Nikon 24-70 2.8, well not his exaclty, because he's dropped his a bunch, including in a river.

Here's Kelsie's bit: So I spent quite a bit of time fuming about that trashy girl. She was dressed in this tatty (on purpose) looking baby doll sun dress that was too short and too small and really just didn't fit her in any way. She also had that common Virginia Tech Beer Belly that most girls out here seem to have. Baby Doll+Beer Belly= looks pregnant. Now I know that she wasn't pregnant. I also know that she wasn't 21 but she kept going up to the open bar and even her dad didn't stop her- he was too busy flirting with her actual whore friend. I spent almost the whole evening coming up with things to say to her, "I heard that you were curious as to what my husband was doing with his flash. I guess I'm not surprised because most people aren't hand picked to be mentored by famous photographers, but it's the Jim Sugart technique. Paul studied extensively with him and he's one of the most sought after photographers for celebrities." The "extensively" is a bit of an exaggeration but the rest of it would have been true. The problem was that I would have been ranting= no good. So instead, I ended up running into her on the way out (not on purpose) and I said, "Oh sweetie, it's not good to drink alcohol when you're pregnant!" and left. It was a mean thing to say but some people just deserve to know how awful they dress. She deserved that and a punch in the face.

I've been slacking.

Sometimes I feel incredibly vain for writing a blog. I mean, we're not very interesting so it's kind of ridiculous to think anyone would enjoy reading about us but right now, I'm over it and so I'll try and catch up.
Last week was kind of boring but still full of things to do. For most of the week we had this killer killer heat wave and so Regina and I walked with Paul to the pool and watched him swim several times (way too cold for me, my body fat is nil). I also discovered the most delicious popsicles- the double stick kind that come in packs of 18 and only cost $1.50 which is a full dollar less than a single Slurpee, we packed them in. They are my favorite food right now even though they don't count as food and it's hard for me not to eat four or five a day.
We've continued to eat pretty healthily. Well, outside of this past weekend. We eat fruit for breakfast and snacks and not within thirty minutes of any other food. For lunch we have brown rice and fresh veggies or salad and for dinner something out of the recipe book. It works pretty well for us and since we aren't overweight, it's seems ok to eat so many popsicles.
On Thursday and Friday we went looking for the fish ladies but they were nowhere to be found. Friday afternoon, Paul went to sell some camera lenses his company doesn't need anymore to the local camera shop and we ended up in the middle of Steppin' Out which is this huge Blacksburg thing where downtown merchants and little craftsmen come and set up tents in the streets and you can buy all sorts of things. We did a full circuit of the streets and that was all we could stand- heat on top of too many people on top of overprice merchandise. There was a stand run by a small and worn out looking Amish family. Their bread looked particularly scrumptious and even though it's not on our diet at all I was willing to overlook that to buy a nice loaf but they were charging $15.75 a loaf. There wasn't anything particularly special about them, some had bizarre ingredients but they were all normal sized loaves and all cost $15.75 and I'm waaaaaaaaay too cheap for that. Needless to say, we left the fair empty-handed and I'm not sorry, I don't care to spend money anyways.
On Saturday night, Pearl and Joe came over to watch a movie and have dinner and since it was really last minute, we opted to order pizza rather than have me cook and stress out a ton. I did steam some squash though so that the whole meal wasn't rot- and I really did crave some fresh and good food (goes to show the diet is working!). Paul and I really didn't feel well on Sunday though, so we probably won't do that again. I honestly didn't know how important food was until this diet. Pearl and Joe also have mono, so here's to hoping we don't get it too.
The missionaries came to dinner last week, I think it was Tuesday. I made pot roast because it always turns out right and I know missionaries like to eat meat so I didn't care if it was cliche. I did care about the house being clean though so I recleaned everything. I clean every day and I vacuum every other day so the house is pretty much always clean but when company comes, I get really worried and wash walls and things like that. It's compulsive and wrong. One thing that we've always done, however, is split up the chores. Here's how it works, Paul cleans the kitchen (something he likes) and I clean everything else (everything he doesn't like) and it usually works out. Paul, however, had a meeting with a lady he is doing contract work for and so he didn't come home and then when I went to pick him up, we visited with the lady's daughter and then Paul took us to John's camera place and would not let us leave. I started to get really really worried because the missionaries still hadn't called and the kitchen wasn't clean and I had no idea when they'd show up. I was a huge mess by the time we got home and swore that if they were here waiting for us I'd send them away but they weren't so I relaxed a little and tried to help Paul finish the kitchen (to be fair, all he had to do was clean the countertops and sweep). Unfortunately within five minutes of getting home, they showed up. Still no phone call. I sat them down with an appetizer (Pickapeppa on cream cheese and crackers) while I got everything on the table and then they informed me that they had less than an hour to be at another appointment. SOOOOOOOO uncool. I know they can't be expected to be the epitome of etiquite but seriously, if you don't call me so I can be ready for you, please don't make me feel more embarrassed than I already am about my kitchen by making me rush everything else. The visit was nice though. Elder Bishop is nice and talkative and pretty funny and he agrees with us about how frustrating it is for us not to ever use the Joseph Smith manual during the 3rd hour of church. He's actually older than we are and was openly really shocked to find that out. He's almost three years older so I don't know why he couldn't imagine someone younger than he being married. I mean, tons of missionaries are married by the time they're twenty-two and a half and a lot of those are to 18 year old girls. Elder Soloman is also nice but he's soooooo quiet! It's actually pretty difficult for me to be comfortable around people that are quiet like that. They're coming over for dinner again on Thursday, their meal calendar is patheically empty. This time I'm making king ranch chicken because they informed me they love cheese and they're both from out west so real spicy won't really affect them. I'm excited, I love king ranch chicken.

I have an interview tomorrow with the Vet school at Virginia Tech! I'm terribly excited because it's a job I'd be really good at, it's on campus, and I'd be a salaried employee which means I'd get a good parking spot and benefits!!!!! I've been cringing about paying 7000 a year for our health insurance especially with all the caps and limits and things. I hope it goes well!

ONE decent cop in all of Virginia.

Today I picked Paul up from school, behind the school, near the Burger King, as always. When I turned left at the light though, I noticed flashing blue and reds in my rear view mirror and immediately pulled into the Taco Bell parking lot on the right. I couldn't for the life of me, figure out what I'd done wrong. The officer walked up to my front door and told me that he pulled me over for not having an inspection sticker- what?
Until today, I'd never even heard of that. The officer just looked at me for a minute after I explained that I had no idea what that was and he had me get out to see his sticker.
He then explained that it's mandatory for all vehicles to have one and replace it every year but that the DMV, which is run by the same government that requires us to have them, doesn't tell you need to have one when you register your car, or on the sheet of "new resident" things you need to do. No, they don't tell you that anywhere on any of the government websites except for the one run by the state police, because it's their jurisdiction. This means that unless a resident explains it to you or you have some inexplicable need to visit the state police website, the first time you'll get to hear about the mandatory sticker is when some cop pulls you over and slaps you with a ninety dollar ticket.
The cop stared at my license for at least two minutes and practically freaked out when he saw our registration and that we've been driving around for almost a year without anyone pulling us over but actually did something extremely nice, he didn't give me the ticket. We drove up main immediately and found a great place and got it done, I would seriously consider patroning their establishment again. It turned out to only run us 16 bucks, not bad considering it could have been 106 total.
Paul says this is the very first time he's ever been given a warning by a cop. Hooray! Hooray for blessings!

Regina has a new game!

So in addition to being ridiculously cuddly lately, Regina has found a new way to amuse herself.
Underneath our coffee table we have a bunch of different baskets to stay organized since our apartment is something like 600 square feet. One basket is for magazines, one is for computer cords one is for pens and pencils, etc. Regina has one for her brush and toys since I got tired of digging them out from under the couch (where she puts things when she's bored).
For the past week and a half or so, I've been finding a pile of six or so rawhides on the floor next to the basket on the floor. I thought it was funny that every time I put them back, she'd be over in a few minutes to take them back out and make another pile but she's much weirder than that.
Today I started putting them back while she was getting them all out. When I first did that, she stopped and looked me weird, then picked hers up and and put it back in the basket. Being the ridiculous mom that I am, I thought she was learning how to put stuff away. It turns out that she's just totally OCD and takes them out in the exact same order every time. I tried to mess them all up but she's just too bizarre. She's been taking them out and I've been putting them back in all afternoon. Talk about easily amused!

Down with Detoxing!

The detox only went downhill from that last post.
Lunch was a mung bean sprout, celery, endive salad with lemon juice dressing. I think it would have been better without the juice. Paul didn't eat much and because I was really scared that he'd crash blood sugar wise we broke down and got him some sushi- it fit within the diet restrictions, just not the detox. I looked forward to the next snack juice and made it. It was carrots, cucumber, celery, cabbage, and onion. Yes, onion. I gulped mine down because it was putrid and Paul did his best to drink it while gagging but we both ended up puking. SO GROSS!
That really made me mad because food that is supposed to be that great for you shouldn't make you throw up. I burped the stuff for at least eight hours.
An hour after such nasties, Angad invited us to go to the driving range with him and so we did. When we got our bucket of balls, Paul broke down and got a Sobe and I got a PayDay- man I love those things! I super suck at golf, I think I knew that before we got the clubs but... I also think that I was over stressed from food and the fact that, while Angad is a really nice guy, he's still very much an engineer and therefore not the most compassionate and understanding person. He tried to give me pointers but I do much better with praise for what I do right than "you're not doing it right!" Paul, however, did really well! He's a natural!
Regina is in full blown heat. She's not going to be this cuddly forever and it makes me really sad. I told her that she needs to stay in heat forever. Oh well.
I found my sisters on facebook! I'm so excited! I haven't talked to them in forever and it always makes me sad so yesterday I ran another search and found one and then all the others! I've missed them so much and I'm super glad they've forgiven me for being such a skeeze.
I got a super cute dress for under eight dollars! It's completely modest and comfortable and it's making a great day dress. I just want to wear it all the time. Kudos to Paul for finding it and picking it out.
We also found those Kinoki foot pads they advertise on TV and have been using them- soooo cool!
I'm no longer in a blogging mood. Sorry!

I know it's been a week...

... but last week was super busy. I decided not to write last week so that I could stay on task and devote most of my free time to the talk I had to give on Sunday. It was on the true church and gratitude for it. It was really daunting. I feel super behind on the spiritual learning curve anyway but this made everything worse. It was a pretty non-specific talk unless I wanted to read Henry B. Eyering's talk from the April 2008 General Conference- totally not going to happen. I'm not one of those people who can just write notes and then speak, I need it written out and memorized and it took hours and hours and hours to get enough minutes (12-15). I ended up with fourteen but then on Saturday night, I felt like it wasn't right and scrapped all but 3 minutes. I was up til 1:30am (a full three hours after my bed time) and still wasn't done so I got up at 6 to finish.
When church rolled around the youth speaker they had promised would be there wasn't and I began to worry about not having a long enough talk. I spoke as slowly as I could, instead of focusing on my words, I constantly checked my speed. Unfortunately, due to the unfortunately short sacrament and 2 verse songs and lack of ward announcements, by the time I finished my 14 minute talk, there was still half an hour left in the meeting. Talk about being mortified!!! Thankfully, the guy who went after me has a different speaking method and had more of an outline that he could expound on. There was still time left at the end for Brother Pope to share his testimony. I'm definitely glad it's over for a long time.
Last week I also had an interview with a real estate agent for a job. It was really really bizarre. I don't think they knew what exactly they wanted and pretty much needed to hire a psychic instead of a realist because I don't read minds and I felt that since I didn't, things would go pretty badly. They promised to call me back but haven't yet- I'm actually not too sad.
Regina went to the vet last week. She got four shots and was terribly lethargic and cuddly for a couple days. Paul wondered if the vaccines had addled her brains but slowly and surely, she got back to normal. I did make a nasty discoverey the day after the vet though- another flea. She had a flea on her when she got groomed in June but none since then. I figured that she probably picked up one from the mangy dog she'd said hi to at the vet's and that was it. On Saturday though, things got worse. I noticed that she had lots of little black poops all over in her fur on her back and on her butt and found another flea. It was too late to do anything about it though so she had to spend most of Sunday and Monday in the bathroom. I washed and de-flead her yesterday, she only had like four on her- thank goodness! I'm glad I don't have to worry about that anymore.
On Saturday, Paul and I went on a date. The CT suggested the drive-in movie theater for a good time and so we decided to go see Wal-E. Unfortunately, the address on the site for the theater was completely wrong and we wandered around sketch Christiansburg for almost an hour until we found it and then waited in line for quite a while. We were the last people they let in and we drove around for a little while until we found a spot but we found the most amazing spot and were only 5 minutes late. All in all, it was very fun. We love spending time together.
Today we started Gillian McKeith's detox and we're going to begin eating more with her diet. It's not that we want to diet or lose weight but Paul has had food allergy issues constantly and we both have terrible digestion problems. Eating fresh, non-processed food just makes sense. So far, so good. We bought a juicer and got to have fresh pineapple juice- sooooo good! The food takes more preparation but it's not too bad. It's super exciting!
We'll keep you updated to how that's going.
In a special update, Paul got an A on his first Statistics exam! He was really worried about it, but it seems he shouldn't have been!
I'm so proud!

Boring kids.

Last night, Paul and I went to dinner at our friend Pearl's boyfriend's house. It was a lot of fun outside of the fact that Regina was rotten. Sometimes, she's just so bad that I want to cry. She harassed their dog mercilessly and peed twice and pooped once. The worst part was that we took her outside and she would go a lot and then we'd take her in and she'd go even more.
It was a whole lot of fun talking with Pearl though. I like to think that she and I have somewhat similar personalities and Paul really liked Joe. It's nice to hang out with people who share our disposition and tendency to prefer to spend time as a couple and not drink or be wild. I thought that that would be a whole lot more interesting to write about, darn.
Today was even more boring for all of you, less so for us. Paul spent most of the afternoon working on stats homework. I did, however, make him watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He spent half of the time laughing at me because I was quoting it even though it's been years since I'd seen it. His biggest problem with it was that it was "unrealistic." He really is a ton of fun. It's great to joke about that.
The only other thing I can think of mentioning is that Regina ate like a quarter cup of maple syrup. She's covered in it and licking herself constantly. We are bad puppy parents.

Quote of the day:
Paul: "I've got a surprise for you."
Kelsie: "You're a whore!"

Re-reading that makes it sound raunchy but really Paul just put his cold foot on my neck.

Happy Fourth!

This year Paul and I were really excited for the fourth of July. We've spent the past few days talking here and there about how neat our country is, despite all of the nay-sayers. It's been a couple years since I thought about the real reason we celebrate Independence Day and it was a nice change.
We slept in because Paul didn't have school (a fact I wasn't aware of until we got in bed on Thursday night). When we got up we received a text message from Penelope Mom asking if we were going to Paul's cousin Charisse's house (she lives in Charlottesville). We had no idea what that meant and made some frantic phone calls to find out that they had tried to call us all night on Thursday to see if we could come. After some discussion we decided not to drive up because President Bush was up there at Monticello so the roads would be packed and they'd be packed with at least some people that had been drinking (a daily driving hazard here).
Instead of going up to Charlottesville, we went to our Bishop's house for a pot-luck. They told us to bring whatever we wanted so I made this jello salad type thing my mom always made when I was little. It's one tub of cool whip and one of cottage cheese, powdered jello and fruit. I never liked it when I was little because of the texture but it was completely gone within ten minutes of us getting there and everyone asked for the recipe. It almost made me feel bad it wasn't more complicated. Paul also picked out a watermelon that was delicious. It was pretty fun to visit with all of the people that came. We had a great conversation with the bishop's oldest daughter who is going to BYU this fall.
There was supposed to be a Macy's fireworks spectacular on TV at nine and we planned on watching that but our cable is terrible. Absolutely terrible and the local channels are impossible to see through the snow so we missed out on that. About 9:45, we started hearing the fireworks the city was putting on. Because this is Blacksburg we didn't think they would last very long but got in our car and drove to where we could see most of them anyways. The fireworks lasted for at least half an hour after we parked the car. They were so awesome! We got to see several different kinds we'd never sen before. There was even a heart shaped one. We were somewhat disappointed that there weren't any cowboy hat shaped ones... HAHA but the tinkerbell ones and the planet ones were especially amazing. Even Regina liked watching the fireworks. SO cute!

All in all the day was wonderful. We hope all of our families had as good of time as we did.

Adventures in Vacuming.

When Paul went to his photography workshop in Colorado, he met a guy who is on the Engineering Board at Virginia Tech. I talked to Pat (the guy) a lot at the end of the workshop banquet and he offered to give my resume to people he knew and I invited him to dinner. He's going to come to dinner tomorrow so I started deep cleaning yesterday.
While we were gone, the apartment started smelling a bit musty so I moved all of the living room furniture and sprinkled carpet freshener and waited for a while to start vacuuming. When I started to vacuum, I noticed that there was no suction and figured that the bag was just full. We didn't have any more bags here and needed to go to Walmart anyway because we had no food so we locked Regina in the bathroom and went shopping.
When we finally got home (after some extra errands added by our neighbor), I changed the bag and it still didn't work. The belt was broken. It was extremely frustrating. We called Kroger to avoid driving back to Christiansburg but they didn't have belts so we called Walmart- no reason to make a 20 mile trip for no reason.
The phone desk patched Paul's call in to housewares and he put it on speaker phone. The guy that picked up was really helpful and said he'd be right back after he checked if they had the certain number belt (five) and less than thirty seconds later another man picked up the phone.
To give you the best recount of the conversation I'll put it in transcript form:
Hillbilly: "Housewares."
Paul: "Oh, I've already been helped. Thanks though."
HB: "What do you need?"
Paul: "Well, I called about vacuum cleaner belts but there's already someone going to go look to find it for me."
HB: "We have vacuum cleaner belts."
Paul: "I know, he's just checking to see if you have the right one."
HB: "Who's he?"
Paul: "When I called, someone else picked up the phone and he's going to go get check for us."
HB: "This is the first time I've picked up the phone."
************ yes, that's right, this man believed that he was the only person in the store and that we were trying to trick him by telling him that we had talked to him before we talked to him************************
Paul: "Yes, but there's someone else helping us already."
HB: "I told you this is the first time I picked up the phone."
Paul: "Well can you look for it?"
HB: Heavy sigh.
Paul: It's a number five.
HB: "Fine. I'll put you on hold."

He hung up. Actually hung up. I called back twice and was put on hold for twenty minutes and then told that I had not been put on hold but she'd do the same thing for me again (this time there was ringing) but no one picked up and we ended up driving out there anyway and picking up the belt and leaving within five minutes. Totally ridiculous but nothing could compare to that absolutely bizarre conversation with that hillbilly guy from housewares.
Maybe you don't find that as weird as I did but whatever.
I'm going to go clean some more. I've been getting distracted easily, especially with Regina laying on the back of the couch staring out the window growling at the other puppies outside as if it were all her territory (she didn't like the walk much this morning, it was chilly- 55 degrees and refused to walk at all most of the way back).

There's no place like home.

Paul and I made it home last Thursday night around 12:30. It was a really really long drive. All in all we drove fourteen hours on Thursday. There was so much construction! I know it's better weather wise to work on the roads during summer but seriously, that's when the roads are most traveled and it is definitely more dangerous all the way around.
We ran out of water in our water bottles Thursday evening (and Paul refuses to purchase bottled water) so we shared the camel back. Up until then I had been really careful about steering clear of Paul's mouth because I got really sick last Friday. I figured that I was beginning to feel better (I could somewhat talk, although Paul said I sounded like Hannah Montana) so we could share without any big deal. Yeah, I was wrong. On Friday, Paul woke up sick and I woke up worse than I had been at all during the trip. Because of this, we spent the entire weekend holed up in our apartment eating soup and popsicles and watching movies. We didn't even unpack the car.
By yesterday, Regina was going crazy (she literally slept the ENTIRE time we drove). She wanted to play so much but we weren't up to it.
Today, we woke up still sick but a little better. Paul went to his first class at eight, only to discover it doesn't exist. He figured everything out eventually but ended up late for us to pick him up. Regina and I walked to campus to get him. She had so much fun. Her favorite things are bicycles and crossing roads because she gets to sprint across them. I swear, the only word she came hard wired with is "run". She pulled at her leash almost the whole way there. The walk back was less successful. By then she was tired and hot. She kept laying down in the middle of the side walk so we had to carry her half the way. As soon as we got home she jumped up to the back of the couch and zonked. For fun I rustled a plastic bag (her favorite noise) and she didn't even move.
Virginia is much prettier in the summer than any other time of the year. The trees are gigantic! Because of our trip to New Orleans I could pick out a lot of different flowers and tress I didn't know anything about before. There are three huge magnolia trees and the most magnificent mimosa tree I've ever seen (it's just a little bigger than the one I had in Albuquerque).
Paul's next class is at 3. He's taking a nap. As soon as he gets better, that won't happen anymore.
Last night, we met the guy who lives underneath us. We thought he was gay because he was wearing women's chandelier earrings but he's got a tiny little girlfriend. He's getting a pomeranian puppy next week so maybe Regina will have a little friend in the building. He also offered to puppy sit for us if we ever have to go somewhere Regina can't come.
Church was pretty nice yesterday. It was pretty rainy all day though. Paul and I were both running high fevers so we only stayed for the Sacrament meeting but Paul got to meet lots of new people. Next week should be even better!
Last night we also watched the movie Harvey with Jimmy Stewart. Oh my goodness! We absolutely loved it! It was such a sweet comedy of errors but Jimmy Stewart was divine. He was such a great actor and a great, quiet, lovable guy. A testament to the fact that I'm sick was the fact that I cried at the end when Harvey (the imaginary 6'3 1/2" tall rabbit) told Jimmy that he preferred him to the others. Wonderful!

Lucky Number Three.

So this is the third blog for us that I've started. I'm really really terrible about keeping up with them but this time I'm trying for real.
We've been in Colorado for just over a month. It's been a great vacation, something we definitely needed. The last semester was somewhat stressful for both of us but next semester is looking better and better!
We remain, as always, the whitest and most boring people ever but I'll try and make our misadventures sound somewhat interesting.
At the end of May, we visited New Orleans and Paul's great-uncle Stanley. It was my first time to LA (Paul had only been there when he was 18 mos. old so he counts it as his first visit as well). It was nice to see all of the amazingly old architecture and eat some of the finest food man ever came up with, but mostly, we loved being with Paul's parents. They are so much fun and told us lots of stories that we'd never heard before.
One of the coolest things we got to do was visit with Paul's oldest sister, Suzette and her husband, Carl. I adored them! They're coming out to Colorado next May just so that they can be out here when we are.
I've been trying for about half an hour to get a picture of her to upload but it's just not working. Maybe next time.
Last week, Paul and Victor went to Aaron's camp (it's like a spiritually high scout camp) and the both had a great time. There were some ups- testimony meetings etc. and downs- a kid almost died but Victor, being the amazing ER doctor he was did all the work before the MedEvac Paramedics even got there.
This week, Paul is at a Sports Photography workshop. He started yesterday and it seems as if the days are all going to be as long as today will be (8am-10pm). I, for one, hope not but that's because I missed him so much last week and am frustrated I don't get to see him much now that he's back.
Regina got her fur cut on Saturday. She really needed it because Casey licks and gnaws on her 24-7 but her fur is now shorter than it ever was even when she was two months old. She's still only 4 pounds, we're guessing that since she's six months old and only four pounds with tiny paws, she's not getting much bigger. Not that we mind...