Mittens

Shortly after we got back from Texas, my kitty Mittens had to be put to sleep.  We got Mittens and her sister Muffin in 2001 after my cat Misty died (I guess I have a thing for 'M' names).  We knew we wanted a female kitten, and when we saw these two sisters, I didn't want to split them up, so we came home with double the kitten love!  Mittens was a quirky cat (head-butting if I stopped petting her, licking my arm with that sandpaper tongue) but she was a sweetie.  When I left for college, my dad and Lucy continued to care for the girls, and I know Mittens had a lot of happy years with them.

We'll miss you Mitty...here's a tribute in pictures...

Sister love.

Home Sweet Texas

Last Thursday we left for our Whirlwind Texas Trip.  It was so great to see our families -- even if it was for a short time!

First meal after getting in to Mesquite was Tex-Mex, of course.  We went to Brad's favorite hometown restaurant, Tino's.  We hung out with Teri and Jared, and went to see The Dark Knight Rises that night.  Good movie...this was our first time seeing a movie in theaters since the Aurora shootings, so I have to admit I was thinking about that...

On Friday it was time to head to Waco!  We went on campus briefly to pick up my doctoral robe, love coming home to Baylor (and I'm pretty jealous of the next class of freshmen coming in for Welcome Week right now!)  That evening was the doctoral dinner, where each of the graduating doctoral candidates spoke for a bit about our Baylor experience and where we're headed now.  I got to see my advisor there and it was nice to give him a word of thanks during my speech -- I really couldn't have asked for a better advisor.

Matt got into town on Friday  night so the festivities didn't end after the dinner -- we went out for drinks with a few people once he got in.  Then I got up early Saturday morning for graduation!  The ceremony went by pretty quickly - I guess the August commencement is probably the smallest - and my colleague Hua and I were the two last people to walk the stage.

Then...party time!!  With all of our family that came in town, we knew it'd be hard to find a restaurant to seat us all together (especially with all of the competing graduates and their families!)  Brad's great-aunt Virginia was kind enough to have us out at her place in Lorena.  She and Dick have a party room where they often host friends; it was the perfect place to set up our own little shindig.  My mom brought lasagna and king ranch chicken, and Mimi's friend made an awesome cake!

It was so great to see everyone, even if for just a couple hours.  I was melting in that robe for the photo ops!

After the party, I drove back to Dallas to stay at Brother Dave's house (he had a late-night band practice, but I at least got to say hello/goodbye!)  I got Whataburger for dinner -- had to get that honey BBQ chicken strip sandwich while I was in TX -- and went to bed pretty early...had to get up at 3:30 AM to head to the airport!

Brad flew in on Thursday, so I had a few days alone at the apartment.  Tried to get everything put away and cleaned up before he got in, but I didn't get very far!  Thursday evening we went to a "GM Staff BBQ" put on by my company's Newcomer's Club.  We got to chat with the general manager for a little bit, which was cool :)

More updates to come, but it took two days to get Blogger to load these pictures (annoying) so I'm taking a break!

Thanks again to all of our family members who came out to see us at my graduation.  We're looking forward to a Christmas visit!

Play Ball

We finally made it out to Cooperstown last weekend!  Looks like there are several attractions in the little town but our mission was the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It was great!

"MVSEVM"

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but I did take this one of the costumes from A League of Their Own :)

Babe Ruth

Rangers.

Some World Championship rings

Early baseball cards

"You passed by all the greats and now you're taking a picture of this one because it says 'Ducky Wucky'."

"Yep."

It was a neat museum and I highly recommend it for baseball fans.  Even somewhat-fans like me.  

One more day of work, and then we fly to TEXAS!!  I'm so excited for this weekend.  We'll have the doctoral dinner Friday night, then I walk the stage in a funny hat and receive my diploma (the processing of my dissertation was very down-to-the-wire, but I think I've finally completed all the steps.)  We'll have a little shindig after graduation, then...on Sunday I fly back to NY.  Sad face.  But it'll be good to see our families for the first time since making the move.

So much to do before then!  And I worked a 10-hour day today (trying to conserve some PTO on Thursday/Friday) so I'm pretty exhausted.  Short blog post!

I'll end with a BUNNY.  You guys, I was pretty excited about that squirrel lounging on our balcony, but I'm WAY more excited about the bunny that seems to have its home around here.  I see it a lot when I'm walking to/from the car.  It makes me happy.

Happy Birthday, Brad!

Last weekend we took advantage of our first discounted tickets from my company.  They had family day at Six Flags: The Great Escape, so Brad and I got our tickets and headed north.  It was just $30/person for admission, parking, and hamburgers/hot dogs for lunch!  We've actually never been to a theme park together, so this was fun.

He was in the process of asking me why I'm taking a picture of us waiting in line.

Us on the roller coaster (jk, we didn't have friends to take our picture.  These are some random people.  But we did that)



The swings are my favorite!

The skyride, which I got surprisingly scared on and Brad freaked me out by shaking it.

Got up the courage to extend my arm out of the ride to take our picture

"Let's take a picture with the old man."

"Here, I'll take your picture."

Lady nearby says "do you want a picture with both of you?"

I say "Yes.  Yes we do."

I said I wanted one and Brad took me seriously.

Our handstamps to get back in the park.  "Sasquatch".



All in all, a fun day.  We went to the water park too, which was good since it was pretty hot (come on, this is New York, where's the "cool" weather??)

Then Wednesday was Brad's birthday!  Too bad I had to work all day...but I made him one of his favorite desserts, Butterfinger Blondies:

http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/08/butterfinger-blondies.html

You know it's gonna be good when just the batter looks delicious

All set with homemade buttercream icing!

Happy 26th!

We talked about going to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown this weekend as part of his birthday present, but...we've been lazy again.  I mean, we've done a lot of laundry today, but...we planned to "get things done around the house" and...it still looks the same as it did this morning.  Oh well.  Probably hall of fame next weekend though!  And we'll get the birthday boy some new clothes since his are kinda falling apart (yikes).  It's just a lazy, rainy weekend!

Happy Accident

So Brad has been needing a desk for when he starts grad school, and I found one on the employee "trading post" at work.  We went to go buy it from the guy yesterday and brought it back in Brad's truck.  I was dreading getting it up our narrow staircase, but since we don't have any big strong guy friends up here, it was going to be a necessary evil.

So we got back home, went upstairs to clear out a path for the beastly desk, and came back out to get it from the truck.  Got it to the front door (I was already struggling) and...realized I had locked us out  (didn't turn the doorknob lock out, and the keys were inside!)  So there we were, a huge desk waiting outside of our apartment, 7 pm so the front office was closed.  And I didn't have the "after-hours" number on me...that was inside, too...

I had met our downstairs-neighbor, Kim, one time in passing.  She had seemed really nice, so I hoped she would be willing to help us out!  Knocked on the door and asked if they had the paperwork with the after-hours phone number on it.  Turns out her husband, Matt, has been at this complex for 6 years.  So he didn't know where the paperwork was, but I guess he had some phone numbers saved...came back out and told us someone was on their way!  He called 4 different phone numbers for us, till he got a guy who was actually in the complex at the pool.  That guy came straightaway, I was thinking about how we would pay the $50 unlocking fee, and the guy said "technically I'm supposed to charge you 50 bucks for this, but eh, here you go."  What a relief.

Then it got more awesome because Matt offered to help Brad get the desk upstairs.  Yesss.  They got it up there with (I think) not too much difficulty, while I chatted with Kim a little more.  I will be paying them soon in baked goods!

So, a dreadful moment (locking ourselves out) turned into a happy accident...we got to meet the neighbors and talk with them a little more, and I didn't have to attempt to lift a behemoth desk!

Kim and Matt seem really nice...we're happy to have good neighbors :)

Settling In

Wow, I didn't realize I had gone two weeks of working without posting!  The schedule has taken some getting used to...I'm on a 9/80, meaning I work 80 hours in 9 days and then have every other Friday off.  Which will be awesome when I have my first Friday off (next weekend), but for now...it just makes for some long days :)  I get started at 7:00 so that I can be done by 4:30 (3:30 on the non-off Fridays, woohoo), meaning I get up at 5:00.  The drive only takes about 20 mins, but I like to not feel rushed getting ready in the morning...and I need time for a Starbucks run ;)

Anyway, so waking up at 5:00 means I'm trying hard to get to bed early.  So by the time we're finishing up dinner, I'm starting to think about bedtime!

I'm excited about my job.  The engineers come to us statisticians with their projects, and these are always varying and it seems like the statistical needs are different each time!  So I think I will always be challenged...which I like.  Of course, I'll be feeling the pressure to do well and get it right (as Dan said, "people could die if you get it wrong, so it's good to want to get it right!")

It's a really good work environment.  One thing I'm really excited about is that our little office (about 5 people) goes on a walk in the park next door during lunchtime.  It's good to get away from the desk for awhile!

And on the home front...for July 4th we thought about going to fireworks somewhere...there are a few shows in the area that are apparently good.  But again, me and my early bedtime -- we ended up just hanging out at home.  We did mean to break out the ice cream maker to celebrate the 4th (a wedding gift we hadn't used yet!) but once I opened it up I realized we needed to freeze the container bowl for a really long time.  So, it happened on the 5th!

It was delicious!  We also had a Williams Sonoma ice cream mix my mom had given us, which made it extra-good.  Tasted pretty similar to Blue Bell...ah, I miss Blue Bell.  And...this week we made some more, haha.  We may be a little addicted.  But why not make use of the ice cream maker while it's hot outside, right??

Then, onto the weekend.  We got haircuts in the morning and chatted up our hairdressers for ideas of things to do in the area.  One immediate suggestion was the farmer's market going on at the time, in the park that we always go to run.  It was kinda small (actually I'm not sure if that was normal since I hadn't been to a farmer's market before!)  We came away with some blueberries, cookies, and "apple salsa" (interesting).  We also walked to the lake in the park so I could stare at the ducks.

That evening, we made our first venture up to Saratoga Springs.  Lots to explore in that place, but for now we just ate at a Mexican restaurant (they DO exist!) before going to the drive-in at Malta.

 Crowded!

Ready for the show to start

We watched The Amazing Spiderman and Brave.  Two movies in a row is quite a bit, but it was worth it to explore this new area of ours and have a fun evening! 

On Sunday we visited a third church.  The first church was about the size of the one we'd been going to in Temple, the second was pretty small, and this one was a mega-church.  I'm leaning toward the first church we visited.

As for this weekend, not much in the plans.  We're planning to sign up at a gym tomorrow...somehow I'm going to try to fit in aerobics classes after work every day! 

In Brad News: we went to an open house for his grad school this week, they talked about the importance they place on helping their graduates get jobs.  He's getting ready to sign up for his classes and see what undergraduate stuff he needs to complete to qualify for the CPA exam.  Classes start 9/5!  So in the meantime, he gets to chill out :)  Also, his birthday is coming up!  We talked about going to NYC for his birthday; he's never seen the NYSE in action.  But it would have to be next weekend, since that's my off-Friday closest to his bday.  Probably won't do that, since 1) we're trying to save some money after being paycheck-less for awhile and with moving expenses and 2) NYC will probably be more pleasant in the fall!

So, I'm still thinking about it.  Brad doesn't like to make a big deal out of his birthday, but I think we should :)