Isn't it about... Time?

Guess what? 

I SUBMITTED my thesis last week!!!!!!!  I have one more paper and a portfolio to put together, and then I am home free.  That means there are only 25 pages still standing between me and my degree!  It almost feels like this day was never going to come, and it's still a little surreal.  But it's here!  And when I actually graduate, you will hear all about that too. :)

In the meantime, I have a decision timeline.  If it's on the June list, you might as well give up asking me about it until then, because I'm not even thinking about it and will have no updates. ;)  Believe me, I will be shouting it from the rooftops when I am even 70% certain of what I'm doing after August 31st.

May:

• Wedding arrangements (dresses, tickets, ideas for B's reception)
• Parents' visit!  Where to go, what to do
• Singles' ward vs. family ward for the summer
• Getting a gym membership since I'll no longer be a student with free access :(

June:

• Adopt a tomato plant
• Hopefully extend my lease (since it ends at the end of the month and I don't want to move)
• Becca's wedding
• PhD vs. 2nd Bachelor's vs. Move somewhere random (i.e., What in the world am I doing with my life?)
• Start freelance writing

July:

• Finish bridesmaid dress (sleeves on a dang strapless dress... grr.)
• Final decision on the PhD/Career/next steps  (Does anyone have a dartboard I could use?)
• Ashley's wedding

August:

• Hopefully pack up for the next chapter of Rachel Voss: A True Story
• Publish a couple of articles I will have finished at work (I hope!)
• Move to...??????

I'm also hoping these months will include lots of adventuring-- Red Sox (or Paw Sox) games, hiking, and general running-amok of the Rhode Island variety.  Come join me if you can!  :)   

Blessed vacation

Well hello! I am back.

I know that most of the people that read this are the ones I just visited. So thanks for indulging me as I recap some of my fun from being in Colorado and Utah with family and friends (and the mountains, which count as both). :) Feel free to skip ahead, but I want to capture some of the things I love about the holidays-- I want to remember the core ingredients that make up the good times so I can help re-concoct them again, even when the rest of the ingredients change (as they most certainly will). :)

And that's kind of what traditions are, right?

With the extended family, I love the Christmas Eve nativity puppet show and the piñata we have every year. The puppet show is staffed by the grandkids on my mom's side (the ones who can be there), and the story comes from both Matthew and Luke so we can get the wise men in there. (I plan to make my own set of puppets eventually.) Then we break open the piñata!

This particular Christmas was momentous because we decided to shake things up a little with these traditions. For example, we always let the youngest choose their puppet first, and there's always a fight for Mary. This means that I have not been Mary since I was five. Or may seven. But guess who got to be Mary this year...

(James was doing the reading, so he's not in the pic.)

Yup, exactly. I think it was because none of the "little kids" are really little enough anymore to cry if they aren't Mary. Anyway, the fact that everyone always wants to be Mary makes me smile. It also took all 9 of us to break the piñata, which is also rare since those "kids" are also much stronger and usually break it before it gets to any of my siblings. (We're the oldest.)

Other things I love: Opening stockings and reading Tú Eres Especial with my siblings (which did not happen this year since none of us actually woke up in the middle of the night), omelettes for Christmas breakfast, and everyone getting at least one book (usually from "Santa").

So basically, I love all the things we do that give us a chance to spend stress-free time together, to be festive and remember what Christmas is about, and to build memories together. And I think we do a good job of splitting extended-family time with immediate family time. We don't always succeed at the stress-free part, but overall, pretty good.

Thanks, fam.

And then I got to do round two in Utah with some friends from college. It was such a blast to actually see people again-- not that I don't appreciate the phone time, but it's different. :) Being there in person pretty much made it a slumber party every night (which meant not so much sleeping but lots of talking, especially about boys and life plans).

I really loved being in an apartment with close girlfriends and having people around so frequently! One night, Ashley and I randomly invited 15 people from her apartment complex over for dinner. I ♥ random "dinner parties." Other nights involved smaller dinner groups, game nights, and various excursions. I love everyone I have here in Rhode Island too, but there's a different vibe with large groups of people that you just can't get in groups of 2-4, which is mostly how it goes here. More energy, I guess, which is fun sometimes no matter how much you love your heart-to-hearts. And I do love my heart-to-hearts.

I'm not sure I was quite ready to come back... but it was great. And I am glad to start catching up with the friends here that I missed while I was away!

I hope they call me...

I'm very grateful that I got to spend Christmas with my whole family, because it will be the last one with all of us together for awhile! Tomorrow, my little (though taller) brother is going to the Missionary Training Center where he'll spend all day every day studying the Bible and Book of Mormon (among other things) and becoming fluent in Spanish-- in 6-9 weeks. Then he's off to Honduras to love, serve, and teach the people about the Savior for two years.

So, needless to say, this is probably the last blog post he's going to see for awhile. We can write letters, and he'll probably get to email immediate family, but I'm going to miss him! I'm proud of him and love him MUCHO!

Me and James-- Matching unintentional.


Most of the fam-- Becca was already in Chicago


And the grandparents

Te quiero, Jaime. ¡Estoy muy orgullosa de lo que has escogido hacer, y de los sacrificios que has hecho para servir al señor por 2 años! Espero que siempre sepas cuanto te aman tu familia y tus amigos. Voy a echarte de menos muchísimo y oraré para ti frecuentemente.

Y si no me escribes, voy a cazarte también hasta que te encuentro y resolvemos el problema. ;) Suerte y abrazos.

Chi Town Part I

I never posted about my trip to Chicago to see Becca, so here you go! It was a fun trip, and I always love seeing my sister. :)

First of all, the buildings in Chicago are tall-- but there's so much space in between them!


Much to Becca's chagrin, I couldn't get over how many parks there were and how much of the sky you could see between buildings. We did a cool boat tour of the city's architecture, in which I found out why there's so much space between buildings: Because that's how their zoning laws are written! I guess Chicagoans don't like to be cramped.

I also managed to be there for the one week of nice weather they had had all "summer" long, so it was almost like being outside of the city. (Kind of.) We did lots of picnics in the park.

Just in case the picnics and parks weren't enough to ease my city fatigue, we went to the botanical gardens, the Shedd Aquarium, a museum that was really like an indoor botanical garden, and the zoo. It was pretty cool. We even got to see a butterfly being born! The butterfly house had a whole bunch of chrysalises (?), and one butterfly finished breaking out as we watched. Sweet.


On top of all that, we had a lot of excellent eating adventures... Which I will detail in my next post. Becca, you're so good to me. :)

I have the coolest brother ever

I love my siblings.





(I know this one is blurry, but I like it-- "By our powers combined..." lol!)

They are super awesome and we still keep crazy traditions like reading a (specific) book in the middle of the night Christmas Eve when one of us wakes up (usually Becca), even though we are becoming "grown-ups." And because I love them so much, I am sometimes super sappy when it comes to things concerning them.

Which is why I totally shed a few tears when my little brother opened his MISSION CALL and said he was going to Honduras!!!! In December, he'll go off to teach the people there about God and to serve them for two years.

I am so proud of you, kiddo!

(And I knew you would love it if I posted your pic all over my blog, lol.)