Guess who we ran into on our trip to Switzerland?!?!

American Idol winner Kris Allen!!!!

-Here is with with me & Joe

-Here he is with Jacqui

-Here he is with a new love interest.....ooooohhhhh!!!!

-and here he is totally drunk!

Thanks for being such a good sport, Michael!!

Switzerland!!

Sorry for the lack of posting. I attempted to upload a video a couple weeks ago and it didn't work, and then I never posted about other stuff.

Anywho, Joe and I were in Switzerland last week!! It was an awesome change from Dallas. The main purpose was to attend Stéphanie and Manu's wedding, but Joe also went to finish up some projects and papers with Melody and the old lab. Poor Joe went to work everyday while I was out and about seeing people, eating leisurly lunches, hiking, and hanging out with friends. I'll post more pictures soon, but for now, I'll post some of the pictures I took as the unofficial photographer for the wedding festivites. I got to hang out with Stéphanie the whole morning and helped her get ready that morning. So far, I've only processed pictures in Photoshop from getting ready in the morning. I posted a few of my favorites below. As I continue processing photos from thoughout the wedding day, I'll post more!

-the dress

-all ready!

-in the garden at her parent's house

-bouquet flowers

San Antonio here we come!!

Last Friday, Joe and I drove down to Austin, switched from our non-AC car into Sai's AC car, and then drove down to San Antonio, where Jen and Susan were attending a biomaterials conference. Jen and Susan snagged me a ticket to the conference dinner Friday night at the Texas Cultural Institute, ripe with cowboys and sheriffs.

-Jen getting lasso-ed on our way in

-we each danced with the sheriff...notice how excited the profs look at the table on the right....silly scientists

We then found the boys along the river walk, talking science even after 2 pitchers of margaritas, and hung out along the river walk. Saturday morning, the girls were in and out of the hotel room (we crashed in their room for the weekend...thanks ladies!) and then we all went to lunch along the river walk.

I then dragged Joe over to the Alamo again so that I could get a picture out front with a blue sky since it was raining the first time we were there.


Saturday night, Joe and I had dinner with all of the Texas Bendles. It was great seeing everybody again. Joe and I visited in the fall of 2003, and since then, there are 2 new children and the little ones from 2003 are already 7 and 10!

-Maddy, Aunt Patsy & newbie, Abigail

Joe's birthday! Sai visits!

Sai drove up from Austin to hang out with us for Joe's 30th birthday and Easter. We went out to a wine bar and then dinner on Friday night after Sai arrived. We then came home and played on our new Wii.

-eating nachos

-the monkey I bought for Joe to hold his bday balloons

Saturday we went to the 6th floor museum and walked around the grassy noll. After growing up listening to all these conspiracy theories that the shot was impossible from the window of the book depository, it was amazing to look out the window and make my own judgement, which is that anybody with some competancy at shooting would have no trouble shooting that short distance to the car. The museum was quite informative and done very well. I definitely recommend any future visitors to check it out if they're into history.

-the book depository, on the left

-close up of the window

-Sai listening to some of the conspiracy theorists

-Joe standing behind the fence on the grassy knoll

-reflection of the grassy knoll and Dealy Plaza in Joe's glasses

Jason & Rhian's wedding

Joe and I flew to Philly last weekend for Jason and Rhian's wedding. We've decided, after flying via Houston and being delayed, that it's worth paying more to fly directly to where you're going. Other than the delay, we had a great time at the wedding, well, the reception was awesome.... sitting through a sexist catholic wedding mass, wasn't so much fun. The priest totally dissed any married couple that didn't have a church based wedding!!

Anywho, here are some pictures from the wedding. Hopefully I'll get all of the pictures post-processed and up on flickr at some point in the next few months.

-Rhian coming down the aisle with her awesome Welsh dad...could her smile be any bigger!

-exchanging rings

-Jason & Rhian in the receiving line

-at the reception

-Joe & I at the reception

-Jason dancing with grandma

The Big Three-O!!!

Thank you to everybody who sent me birthday wishes, cards and presents!! It was so good to hear from everybody. I had a fun day. Spent the morning relaxing after Joe made me breakfast in bed.

Then I went shopping at Banana Republic for a dress to wear to Jason & Rhian's wedding. I swear I tried on 40 dresses and the last dress I put on was perfect.

Then Joe took me to dinner at a french/italian restaurant. it was really good and I can't wait to go back soon!!

-my cards and delphiniums

-on the phone with Linda after dinner

St Patrick's Day, Dallas style

We decided to watch the St. Patrick's Day parade over the weekend so we could check out a different area of the city since we've been complaining about how much Dallas sucks. The parade was a bit weak, but the various floats were entertaining. This was my favorite float because it has nothing to do with St. Patrick's Day:


We then walked a couple blocks down to the block party where the streets are blocked off and had a good time drinking beer on the street. On the way there, we saw this guy and his green Swiss Mountain Dog.



At the block party, the only place selling Guinness was a bar, and they wouldn't let you leave the premises with beers purchased there.... only cheap beer was being sold on the streets of Greenville Ave.... it seemed wrong that Joe was drink Dos XX at a St. Patrick's Day bash. At least he wasn't one of the many drinking margarita's!!

The people, at least, were all dressed up and it was fun to be around people our age. Here's a shot of the crowd listening to the band.

and us!:

visiting with Sai in Austin!

Joe and I made a relatively impromptu decision to drive the 3 hours down to Austin over the weekend to get out of Dallas and visit Sai. Austin, with it's walkability and rolling hills, was a welcome change to the concrete wasteland of Dallas. On Saturday afternoon we drove around UT's campus and then out to a restaurant/bar called Oasis. It was a really awesome location outside of Austin overlooking Lake Travis, but it gave me the feeling that I was on a cruise ship.


Sai then made us an Indian dinner and then we went out for the night with a guy (who's studying at UT) we met in Switzerland while he was working in Melody's lab for a study-abroad-like summer intership.

-Brandon, Sai & Joe

On our drive back to Dallas, we passed this awesome truck. If you can't read what the back of the truck says, click on the picture for a larger view.


Who knew there are racing pigs?!

Some apartment updates!

We've been slowly making improvements to the apartment decor over the last few weeks as the necessity arises.

First, we bought curtains for our bedroom:
Then we finally got a coupon to Bed Bath & Beyond in the Sunday paper and so we could finally buy a cover for our sofa. It's hard to spend money on temporary things, but the apartment looks much homier with the new couch cover and pillows:

And lastly, we found a coat rack to hang by the front door. I also finally got around to hanging up the Welcome sign my mom bought for me to hang in our new apartment:
That's all for now!

goings on....

so, life in Dallas continues. We've been slowly exploring areas of Dallas farther and farther from where we live. So far, Central Markets is the coolest store, especially because I can buy all of my favorite European cheeses. Last week while leaving Target, I noticed that the Texas Rangers plane was parked at Love Field... don't worry, I was waiting for the left turn light when I took the picture. And this lovely store is on the corner across from Central Markets.

Unfortunately, we missed Bushy's big trip to the hardware store down the street from us.

Our new apartment

Finally, after a week, we are nearly unpacked so I finally feel comfortable enough to take pictures of how things are arranged in the new apartment.

-Bedroom

-Bathroom

-Kitchen


- Living room and balcony


-Dining room

For now we're improvising with some of our non-essential furniture, but we'll get around to it in a couple weeks/months once we start getting paid regularly again.

And I must say that I absolutely love sleeping in my queen-size bed again.... no head-butt wake up calls in my future!

We're in Dallas!!

After a heart pounding Superbowl.... Go Steelers!!.....we moved into our apartment on Monday morning. The movers showed up around 12:30 with all of our stuff.

-View of the truck arriving from our balcony with a view of the Dallas skyline in the background

Slowly we're clearing out the boxes.....

-dinner day 1 between the boxes

-dinner day 2.... fewer boxes

We've unpacked a lot more today and I'll try and post more pictures tomorrow of the apartment as long as most of the remaining boxes are emptied!