Explanation for the Disappearance

My husband and I are failures. We came home from our Uganda trip (3 months ago), with high hopes of blogging galore about our amazing adventures in Africa. We decided the only possibility of telling all of our experiences was to divide and conquer. I would write the blogs for Nairobi, Masai Mara, Murchison Falls, and the Babies home while Mitch would tackle the blogs for Istanbul, Jinja, Mt. Subinyo, and the Cranes Game.

3 months later I have written 3 of my blogs (not posted yet) and Mitch has done none. I guess he IS in med school and what with all the money that goes into this glorious education he should probably spend time on it. I was trying to wait until he had done Istanbul but I can wait no longer. Long story short: I am going to start posting about Africa. I may try to post other happenings in our life between these posts but we will see how that goes since we all know I am such an avid blogger. We shall start with Nairobi. Stay tuned! I should be able to post a few with Mitch being out of town for the weekend so wish me luck!

26 and Aging.

Mitchell is 26 yrs old! Hooray for Mitch! I will admit, I was stumped on what to do for his birthday this year. I feel like he always does extraordinary well on his gifts for me and mine are always a fail. We decided part of his birthday would be a mountain bike that we want to get him in a few months so I was not going to get him a tangible present.

He had to work on his birthday so I put his card and some jerky in his white coat pocket for him to have in the morning. In his top pocket I put a list of 26 reasons I love him, and in the fridge a can of mango juice (his fav) was waiting for him. While he was gone I made brownies and cinamin swirl cake with cheesecake frosting to have when our friends came over to play games. Then I attempted to make his favorite meal: feijoada.

Feijoada is a brazilian dish that consists of black beans, garlic and different meats and rice. Legit brazilian feijoada has all the unwanted parts of pigs and such because it was originally meals that slaves in brazil would make from scraps of leftover animal meat. Too much history. Sorry.
Anyways, I made it with sausage and bacon and let it cook in the crockpot while I went to church. It turned out delicious, not exactly like the brazilian restaurants but it was great! After dinner our friends came up to our apt and we played games and sang happy birthday to Mitch and Logan(he turned 26 soon after mitch!).

Mitch got somewhat of a birthWEEK because on Tuesday we went to The Lion King ( where the creativity with costumes rocked my world. I LOVE GIRAFFES!), and then Thursday we went to Chama's Steakhouse, a brazilian restaurant at Bright Leaf Square in downtown Durham. It was absolutely amazing. Their feijoada blew mine out of the water! we had fried bananas in cin-sugar and delicious steak and a free slice of Dulce de Leche cheesecale for his birthday. I had a great time celebrating Mitch's birthday! I hope he did too! ;) Happy Birthday one more time hon! I love you!

The Need of Being Versed..... in Fractions

Alright. I will admit it. I am a failure when it comes to fractions. Simple math KILLS me every time! I was the person constantly thinking how uselss it will be in REAL life. Well my friends, that just bit me in the butt.
Mitch has been doing the night shift for Labor and Delivery the past two night and his hair has been in need of a haircut for about two weeks. Whenever I cut his hair it takes at least TWO whole hours. Sad I know! Anyways, today I came home from work thinking I would let Mitch sleep until he needed to go to the hospital around 5:30. He wakes up and asks if I can cut his hair before work. The time is now 4:20. I though it would be a great way to ease me into faster haircuts. So I said yes!
The haircut was going great and I was making impecable time, when I have him look at it in the mirror to see what else he wants done. He asks if their is a shelf in the back and I reply yes a little one but I can easily fix it. I remember his mom saying something about putting the smallest cutter on the clippersto go over the shelf looking part. So I look at the fractions trying to figure out which would be perfect for fixing the shelf. I said a comment about the fractions and Mitch made fun of me so I decided to not ask again. I decided to use the 1/8 inch clipper thing (thinking that 1/8 of an inch would be what was getting cut off, not that that is how close of a shave I was giving his head). As soon as it made the first cut I shut it off and yelled "I ruined it!" I proceeded to sit on the floor and tear off the "1/8 inch" clipper from the shaver and began to cry. No worries it was just a few tears and it was because I felt bad. I cry. Welcome to my life.
Mitch just began laughing at me so then I was laughing/crying about his hair. I tried to fix it, but there was no fixing this. He left a few hours ago to go to work and we will attempt fixing it in two weeks or so when it has grown back. And this is a REAL life example of how understanding fractions and hair clippers is important. Here are some photos of Mitchells new haircut:

I thought that maybe if I took the photo at a different angle, it might not look so bad so i could show Mitch a decent shot... didn't work.

Thankfulnessssss!

Thanksgiving has come and gone and I missed my family terribly! Luckily Mitch and I made with what we have and took off to Charleston South Carolina! Before I give a play by play about the trip I want to give a list of a few things I am grateful for:
    The Serious List: A husband who loves me and treats me like a I would    never have dreamt.
                              A family who I seriously consider to be my best friends.
                              Being so blessed as to have coworkers that have become a family away from my own.
                              A ward that has helped strengthen my testimony in my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
                              To be in a Relief Society that has so many strong women and mothers who I can look                                  to and learn from!
    The Extra Little Perks!: A gorgeous commute to UNC!
                                        Snow!
                                        Phone calls from my mom!
                                        CHOCOLATE
                                        Fall leaves!
                                        Mountains and the Ocean
                                        Super neighbors!
                                        Passing my classes!
                                        Hot Chocolate (my new obsession)
                                        Grey's Anatomy!
                                        Snuggles with my best friend!
                                        Fuzzy socks!!
                                        Chap stick!
                                        DR PEPPER
                                        and SO SO much more
Alright! That was fun but here is my trip! The Wednesday before thanksgiving Mitch and I left for Charleston, a 4 and a half hour drive. BEFORE the drive however, I spent four hours at an auto shop fixing the jeeps tires, and all worth it too! An hour into the drive our tire pressure was already leaking.... the good news is, that was the only bad part of our trip!

We arrived in Charleston around 9 pm to our gorgeous hotel! I am sure their are plenty of people who have seen nicer than this but I felt super spoiled in our room! Here is the bathroom, yes, the bathroom. I am in love with the mirror and I don't care who knows it!                                                                         

After checking in, we headed to the room and relaxed. yup. We didn't head out for the town or hot tub or anything. We sat. It was perfect. Mitch and I have been seeing just about nothing of each other or sleep for quite a while and sitting is exactly what we needed. We went to bed early and watched TV until we fell asleep.

The next morning (Thanksgiving!) we went on a horse drawn carriage tour through the historical city of Charleston. It was also perfect. The city was buzzing but not super busy because of the holiday. Their were three different tours that the guide could have taken us on and we got the one that included Rainbow Row, Steven Colbert's house, and the beautiful historical house in which The Notebook was filmed in.

 

These houses were incredible, most would cost around 3 million dollars. They are hundreds of years old and have so many stories. Mitch and I both are nerds when it comes to this stuff. If you don't want to hear the juicy history stop reading now, I may or may not tell some interesting little facts.

Interesting factoid #1: Fire Insurance! Back in the day Charleston had a lot of fires burning down houses and churches due to indoor kitchens and such. Some entrepreneur began the first insurance company in Charleston. It was a little different than today's though, people who paid for the insurance were the only ones who had fireman put out their fires. The rest of the people's houses would be left to burn. People that paid for it received a little plaque to be put on their house.

Interesting Factoid #2: On some girls wedding day she woke up to find an envelope from her father on her pillow. The note said something like this: On the first day of the rest of your life, you should build your dream house. Inside the envelope was $75,000 dollars. She built the house next to her fathers (the one in the notebook). Dad's house is on the left and the daughter's is on the right.

Factoid #3: This is a crooked house because of over tightening of the little rod irons they put through the houses as a defense against hurricanes.

Factoid #4: This is the dungeon where signers of the declaration of independence were held.

Factoid #5: George Washington stayed in this building while visiting Charleston.

After our adventures in Charleston Mitch was DYING to go to the beach. No it was not super hot outside but it was warm enough and Mitch is very persuasive. So I caved. We spent half of the day boogie boarding on Thanksgiving. I don't know when that is ever happening again but it was great! No one else was swimming so we had the waves to ourselves and had a warm shower afterwards.

When we were warm again and ready, we headed downstairs to the Hotel's restaurant. They were having a Thanksgiving buffet so we luckily got turkey, yams and mashed potatoes for the holiday! After that we digested in the hot tub and again went to bed early. I can't believe how much we slept, loved it!

The next morning we got up early and had a tour of the Boone Plantation, a 700 + acre old south plantation. At one point in time they had 28 slave houses, These people were crazy rich back in the day. My favorite part was the row of oak trees. They were beautiful!

Next we went on a harbor tour to see Fort Sumter and some battleships. Our trip was exactly what we needed and I am so very grateful for the time I got with Mitch. We needed a vacation and he planned the absolute perfect break for us. Next on our to-do list are finals and then CHRISTMAAAS!! We are in Utah from the 20th to the 30th for much needed family time!

Blog Fail.

WOW do I fail at blogging. I realize it has been way too long since I have blogged but my life has been super busy and it is impossible to find time even to fold clothes, let alone blog! I feel like procrastinating today so I am blogging!

Since my last blog MUCH has happened! I will go over some highlights of the past few months! First, my favorite sister in the world visited me in August!! It was such a great week, we took her (exhausted) straight from the airport to the beach and it was perfect! We hit some traffic on the way but the weather was great, parking was horrible and the waves were perfect for boogie boarding!! I had to work a few days while she was staying with us but I got to show her my new campus at UNC and we visited Franklin Street, Duke campus and ended our week together at Bright Leaf Square with lunch. I miss her already, and anyone who wants to visit... come on over!! We LOVE company. :)

Mitch really only got to spend our beach day with us because he started his first rotation the next day in Medicine. His next rotation is surgery (he is real excited for this one) and it starts next week! I can't believe his first rotation is already over, these first two (Medicine and Surgery) should be the hardest for us, with long calls and the required schedule. Come Christmas break we should be somewhat out of the weeds, and maybe we will be able to see each other more than between the hours of 10pm to 6am. Tough times I tell you what!

Every once in a while we will get a day to spend together and we try to make the best of it! On Labor day we went to our very first Durham Bulls game! It was a day game and wow was it hot. We were dripping by the end of it but it was fun! We went with our friends Logan and Christine and after the game we had dinner at Texas Roadhouse and then had a few games of Badmitten. :) Mitch and I are not the greatest players but it was a blast!

Last week Mitch and I celebrated our 6th MONTH ANNIVERSARY!! :) We both worked all day on the actual 27th but we got to go out the next night to celebrate! Mitch came home from the hospital with a rose for me :) and I surprised him with his favorite treat and a card. Then we went and splurged at PF Changs, it was seriously amazing and it turned out perfect. I am so so lucky to be married to my best friend. We may hardly see each other right now, but it just makes me that much more grateful that I have eternity to catch up on the time we don't get together now!

Oh the Places We'll Go!!

Since my last post (which was way too long ago) we went on a lot of mini trips and one BIG one during Mitch's 3 weeks off of school. We started at Falls Lake where we ate Chipotle and Noodle's and Co. to please both of us. The lake was beautiful and we got to see a gorgeous sunset there.

Our next trip was to The Outerbanks. The Outerbanks are islands surrounding the North Carolina coast. We visited Jockey Ridge State Park, which is the largest natural sand dune on the east coast.

    

We also went on our very first Mini-Golf-Date ever together. I always complained to Mitchell that he was too creative on our dating before we got married to do the Have-to's like mini golfing and ice skating and crap. So we went in the Outer Banks and it was great, and I won.  

The Outerbanks have beautiful lighthouses. We saw two of them, Cape Hatteras and Ocracoke's. Cape Hattera's is the tallest on the East Coast and Ocracoke's is the oldest. 

                                                                                                

To get to Ocracoke Island we had to take a ferry, Ocracoke is tiny populating only 500-700 people year-round. There are ZERO gas stations (which everyone failed to tell us), and we almost ran out during our day there. While we were there a rainstorm came that made the island even more beautiful.

We had some beach days on our trip to The Outerbanks and camped while we were there. We absolutely loved it!

Our final trip was to Utah. It was sooo good to see the family and I really needed the visit. We went camping up at Pine View Dam and rented jet ski's while we were on the lake.

I had two hours to spend with my girlfriends back home and oh my how I missed them!! I need their beautiful faces in my life! My bff Heidi treated me to a my first pedicure ever, Jenessa joined and it was so good to be with them! Then we joined our other friends for dinner at Red Robin where Ness treated me to a super good sandwich. Love you guys!!

Next we drove down to Mitch's family to spend some time in the mountains I LOVE! We went canoeing at Tibble Fork in American Fork Canyon. It is gorgeous up there and the 30-year-old canoes were super fun!

I miss Utah, but it was good to get back to real life and into the rhythm of things again.

Bugs

Mitch and I live right next to Duke Forest, it is great for a view for our deck and makes a great trail for running whenever I feel the need. However.... it does make some big scary bugs get way too close to us! We have spotted two cockroaches since we have moved in. Granted that isn't a ton, but it is two more than I wanted to see ever! Next move of action is buying roach houses and getting sprayed. There are a few spiders and ants and what not, but I can handle the little guys okay. Things got out of hand last week though when I came across a massive spider on the way up to our apartment. Which i am thinking means there are more and possibly bigger IN the forest a hundred yards away! I guess bugs are to be expected with the beautiful trees and warm weather but I can only handle so much!! So... it is, the first spider sighting!

Also I'll tell you about our pet Eno the frog. He has moved out of the pickle jar I was keeping him in and now lives in a tank with a cute lil' water dish and a vine he likes to sit on. :) Here he is!