SPRING

it is no secret, people--i LOVE north carolina in the spring. (and the fall. and i don't even mind it in the winter . . . but NOBODY loves north carolina in the summer.)

it's always surprising to me, every year, how happy i get when the flowers and the green leaves start popping up everywhere. because in california, you never notice when the seasons change. there's never a week where ALL OF A SUDDEN things are warmer and you realize you should pull out your shorts  and that winter is going away and everything starts to look more cheerful. it was during my freshman year in provo that i first understood the amazingness that is spring . . . and let me remind you--IT IS AMAZING.

of course, in north carolina, there is the weird problem where you have about two weeks of yellow pollen dust that coats everything. but even that is counteracted by the beautiful weather and beautiful flowers and beautiful leaves that cover the trees again after they looked dead all winter. dane and i have been going on 1-2 walks a day for the last few weeks, and we usually go outside and sit on a blanket for 45 minutes or so until tommy comes home, right at the end of the day when neither of us are feeling like we can make it any longer. it makes me so happy to have such perfect weather and wear shorts (it also makes me happy that i FIT INTO most of my shorts . . . hooray!) and it makes dane so happy to be outside, period. that boy could sit outside with no toys and no people and be happy looking around and watching a few cars drive by, and he could do it all. day. long. (if only he didn't need to nap and i didn't want to do other things every once in a while.)

we've been to several fun places with all of this nice weather. we went to the NC botanical gardens in chapel hill for the first time with my friend from NC state and her baby (who is two months older and about twice as big as dane).

and then today we walked around the duke gardens, which were in FULL BLOOM and gorgeous. i don't know if i'd ever seen the gardens in the spring before, and they were awesome!

tommy came and said hi to us because we weren't too far from his building. right after this, i fed dane some sweet potatoes and he got them all over his whole outfit. amazing.

we've got some of everything for you!

last night, we lay awake for half an hour listening to the POUNDING thunderstorm going on apparently directly over our apartment and being blinded by the extremely huge flashes of thunder that happened every 3 seconds.

this afternoon, i took my class outside because it was about 75 degrees, sunny, and springy, and we did peer review sitting in the shade next to the caldwell building.

i LOVE north carolina. and i LOVE spring. (and i even love thunderstorms.)

spring break in i-town

my parents went to london for their 25th anniversary, and they brought in two crack babysitters to keep the young'uns in line while they were gone. apparently they thought these three would be tough to handle. but seriously--it was the easiest babysitting job we've ever had, even though it DID last a week. the kids just did everything they normally did and tommy and i just worked, catching up on stuff that we needed to do and occasionally driving them to their practices and lessons. and it was FUN to hang out with them, since we rarely get to see them.

we didn't take very many pictures, though. we went to two of dallin's volleyball games--bethany and cole's favorite activity.

the champion after his game!

AND we went to DISNEYLAND! which turned out to be less fun than everyone remembered, for some reason--partly because it was crowded so the lines were long and partly because i couldn't go on half of the rides and just waited for them outside of space mountain and big thunder mountain railroad.

i did TOTALLY BEAT TOMMY in buzz lightyear though. (not--he doubled my score.)

bethany sure was proud of their silly faces they made on space mountain.

everyone enjoyed riding such classics as in fantasyland...

and i did go on splash mountain. i figured it couldn't be dangerous to any fetus.



we were at THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH!

and then tommy and i flew back to north carolina and got back to the grind. WE ARE AWESOME!

groundhog day

i just watched this. and i had no idea how much like the movie groundhog day the actual groundhog day is in punxsatawney, pennsylvania. old men with top hats, stroking the groundhog and all. i think i'm going to make it a life goal to be in punxsatawney one groundhog day, just for the experience.

thank you, phil, for an early spring. it's a lovely 63 degrees here--we'll take it.

in other news:

i'm in a social media class. my only projects for that class are a blog (about a product) and a twitter account (about the same product). i'm also doing a class presentation about how the lds church uses social media to spread its image (cool, huh? missionary work in class?). in other words--NO PAPERS ALL SEMESTER! my favorite class. hands down.

also, i'm reading robin hood right now. it's really good.

and i'm getting my first set of papers to grade on thursday. and i really like the new challenge of teaching--far more interesting than just taking classes.

and we discovered that we spent less than we made last month (!!).

and the krispy kreme challenge is on saturday. (don't worry, i'll post alllll about it, complete with vomitous pictures.)

AND we're trying to find a good weekend to go to d.c. and visit our niece and nephews (hopefully two weeks from now).

i think we just really like our lives around here. this nice weather must be having some effect on our psyches.