new pictures of the apartment!!

The rest of our furniture finally arrive on Friday afternoon... the first of the 3 rainiest days we've had in Dallas since February. It's been awesome to hear rain falling constantly since Friday afternoon, when the temperature plummeted from 89F to 73F!! Unfortunately, with the rain, came a water damaged table. Long story short, Crate and Barrel said that we can keep this table as a loaner until the new one arrives in 2 weeks, hopefully on a dry day so that it's not covered in water spots.

We also got some of our posters framed. We'll get a couple framed every month. This month, we got 3 of our Swiss posters framed...Pilatus, Gruyere & Lac Leman... you can see them in the pics. We're finally down to only a few boxes left to unpack know that the hutch has arrived. It has so much storage space... I love it!!

-Dining room table, buffet & hutch top

-Plus couch

-The media console and TV, side chair and ottoman, and our awesome trunk/coffee table

-View of the kitchen/entryway/desk from the TV

-The desk and door to our bedroom from the view of the kitchen

-Our bedroom, which is in desperate need of wall art

-Our bedroom from the closet

-Bedroom: door to the living room, bathroom and closet

-The closet, now all organized!

without further adieu....

hahaha... I have no idea how to spell that, or what the actual words are, but when I started typing, it came out half in french....

so without further adieu.... a few pictures of the apartment!!! (disclaimer: these pictures were taken the week after we moved in... I'll put more up this weekend when the remainder of our furniture arrives and I've finished unpacking the rest of the boxes)

-Our new couches and media console in the living room/dining room

-Our first dinner in the apartment

-The overly large bedroom

-Our massive walk-in closet (12 ft X 5 ft...it's way more organized now)

-Bathroom

-View of the pool from our balcony

-Sunset view from our apartment

I just realized that I have no pictures of our kitchen. I'll remember to take pictures of the kitchen/desk entry way this weekend (if I remember/have time... Stéphanie-I remembered to post them tonight!!)

Memphis! Country Fair! Pigs! Ostriches!

If I didn't sell you with the title, how about some of the ridiculous pictures I took.... well, the pictures aren't ridiculous, some of the events are.

-The mighty Mississippi

-Pig races

-Men racing ostriches

-Demolition Derby (sadly, this car is all we got to see)

-The Freakshow (sword swallower & lady with snake)

-Beale Street

And as usual, no pictures of me because I didn't take any self-portraits.

Long time no blog!

I can't believe it's been 2 months since I uploaded the rest of the pictures from Stéphanie and Manu's wedding, but it really has been that long! Lots of things have been going on, but I've been super busy keeping up with my new job. I went from being super bored and unemployed to super busy and learning lots of new things. My official job title in Senior Research Associate, but I'm working as a Clinical Research Coordinator in a laboratory that does fMRI on patients with schizophrenia. Joe and I were also busy planning our move to our new, bigger apartment. We finally got to pick out all new furniture and I'm so excited to finally have adult furniture! We moved over the course of a week in early/mid August and had lots of 'fun' dealing with our old and new leasing offices, but it's finally all passed us and we're nearly all settled into the new place. We're still waiting on our new dining table, bench and hutch top. Once all of that arrives in the next few weeks, we can finalize the furniture arrangement and feel all settled.

We also got a new computer. I haven't had a chance yet to upload the photos I've taken the past few months, but I'll do that (I'll optimistically say) this week as long as I don't go too insane at work... lots of patients this week!

I also had the pleasure of getting a root canal last week.... spent 4 hours in the dentist's chair. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I won't have any complications. So far, so good!

Sorry for neglecting emailing everyone, but it's been nuts trying to set up the apartment while having a full time job. It was so much easier when when first arrived in Dallas because Joe and I made sure that we had a week to get settled before he started his job.

Anywho, hopefully I'll be able to post photos soon of our trip to Austin for the 4th of July and of the new apartment and sunset views.

Hope everybody's doing well!!

More pictures from Stéphanie & Manu's Wedding

Finally, I got my ass in gear and posted a bunch more pictures of the wedding....it only took a month, exactly.....silly me!

-Here comes the bride.
-At the altar.

The rest of these pictures, I have unfortunately not yet processed in Lightroom and Photoshop, so the color and brightness are as they were coming out of the camera. The light got really funny when we were out by the lake, so when we get our new computer in August I'll be able to fix up more of those pictures.

-The happy couple

-Stéphanie putting on Manu's ring....that I don't believe he's wearing anymore.

-Signing the witness book

-Exiting the church

-Walking to the apero along the lake

-Manu and the girls

-Getting into the Rolls Royce-The Rolls

-Out the back of the Rolls...this picture will be cool if I can get the glare and the lighting fixed

-By the lake

-Manu being Manu

-Under the Territet sign...where the reception was held

-Joe & I by the lake

-More lake pictures

-On the terrace at the reception. I hope somebody got a picture with all of our eyes open...I didn't :(

-Emily catching the bouquet

Swiss trip recap

Yes, I should have done this last week, but I was busy with hiring hangup stuff (I should be officially offered my job this week) and apartment hunting (we'll know by Friday where we'll be moving to in August).

Tuesday: We arrived in mid-afternoon and I immediately perked up from our overnight flight when I saw the Jet d'Eau in Geneva as we were landing. It was absolutely georgeous and clear out when we arrived...one of those rare crystal clear May days in Lausanne. We went directly to EPFL and then spent a couple hours hanging out at Melody's house. We then went directly to Lutry with our luggage (thanks to traffic)! I asked if we could leave our suitcases in the caveau while we went out to the lake with a couple bottles of wine...of course, it was no problem. We then hung out in the caveau until it closed and headed to GE for a late late dinner...yeah for yummy salads!!

-Melody and Jeff's awesome house, finally all finished and landscaped

-View of the Alps from the beach in front of the house

-Joe along the lake in Lutry

-The vineyards
-GE

Wednesday: We slept in a bit, I went grocery shopping, and then I went up to the DBCM to have lunch with my old lunchmates. It was great to eat at the Italian place again and take a long leisurely lunch in the park. Then I hung out with Stéphanie & Tristan all afternoon...we played a bit in the apartment, and then we went to pick up her wedding dress! Afterwards, we picked up Joe & Manu at EPFL and headed to Stéphanie and Manu's for dinner.

-The lunch gang

-Stéphanie & Tristan playing in his room

-Riding in the backseat with Tristan

-View from their apartment...I just realized this was the last time I will ever be in there!

Thursday: Was a swiss holiday, so I demanded that Adrian, Jen and Jacqui go hiking, but nothing too long or far away or too difficult...see, not too demanding ;) One of Jen's friends, Suzanna, and her boyfriend, Ben, also joined us on our medium 2.5h hike on 1h by train away from Lausanne to hike along the Gorge du Trient. Of course we went the wrong way and ended up under the Pissevache waterfall. Once we realized we were going in the complete opposite direction, we turned around, backtracked to Vernayaz and headed up a trail. It had lots of switchbacks and around switchback #18 I about died. Every part of my body hurt and I realized that I'm in terrible shape. Around this time, Jen realized that we were on the wrong path and instead of going up 500m, we were going up ~800m. We had beautiful weather, so I couldn't complain too much ;) We eventually hit a small town, Salvan, and took a break for lunch, where I nursed my poor feet and applied bandaids. We then headed from Salvan down the path we were supposed to have taken up the town. In the end, because we got lost, we were gone much longer than expected, so I ran running home to clean up after the hike to meet Dragana for a drink and then dinner with Stéphanie & the girls for a sort of bachelorette dinner.

-The Pissevache (peeing cow) waterfall in the Valais

-crap, we're on the wrong trail!

-View from one of the 37 switchbacks

-Snail on a wall

-Lunch break in Salvan

Friday: We slept in a lot, after being up super late for the 3rd night in a row. I then headed up to the DBCM to have lunch with Natalie and Jyoti again. It was so nice to have lunch with them again. I really miss hanging out with them... Martha Stewart is no substitute! I then hung out in the DBCM for the afternoon trying to straighten-out the lovely discovery that HR at UTSouthwestern was not happy with my foreign PhD and I now had to get it certified. I also spent an hour with Sandoval and Yannick, working on questions about my photos that the reviewers asked about and I couldn't answer without access to the microscope and my original files. We now have answers! I then headed to EPFL and on to Melody and Jeff's house, where they graciously invited us and the lab over for a barbeque (see Kris Allen entry for photos).

Saturday: Stéphanie & Manu's wedding day!! I already blogged a bit about it, and I'll write more soon!