1 lawyer + 5 law students + ME!

While Dan and I were dating, we took advantage of the summer and made a few road trips. From Utah, we went to Veil, Colorado; Newport, Washington; Cape Lookout, Oregon; and then I drove with Dan when he first moved to St. Louis. In a matter of 2 months time, we counted 11 states and 4,373 miles on the road together. Anyone that can make it through 4,373 miles of travel (without a gps, mind you) and without wanting to kill each other, should definitely get married. So we did. :)

Obviously, we are fans of road trips, so when the opportunity came for a road trip to Washington DC, we were all over it. The J. Reuben Clark Law Society (basically a group for LDS lawyers) was having its national conference, so a bunch of other law people from the ward decided they should all go, and since they were staying with my aunt and uncle in Virginia, I got to come along as well. Lucky!

Somehow it didn't dawn on me until we were on the road that I was going to be stuck in the car with FIVE law students and one lawyer. That's SIX law people. In the same van. In no particular order, the conversations during the first leg of the trip were: law, politics, public eduction, law, politics, action movies, law, politics . . . I think you get the idea. Dan says the second he starts to talk law, my eyes glaze over in a look of complete stupor. He's right. I was never one for politics (poor husband). But even amidst all the intellectual talk, we had a GREAT time. Here's some pics to prove it.

Do we look crazy here? We should. It was 2 something in the morning, we were in the middle of Maryland at a complete stand-still for over 30 minutes. Some of the boys had to run to some bushes to "take care of business." (Apparently a car was on fire.)

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Oh heEy!

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Dan's most-quoted line since we got married, "You didn't marry be because I'm smooth." This was taken not too long after he killed a rabbit (poor little guy) and right after he knocked our food box on this very dirty gas station floor. Since I'm a klutz as well, our kids are in for it.

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On the metro (after only a few hours of sleep). I learned that lawyers are generally not map people. Yours truly took care of all the navigating.

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Dan and Coulter and some judge dude. This is where I left them for their conference so I could have fun!!!

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Proof that I did something patriotic. My 3rd time to D.C. and I figured it was time I went to the National Archives. Very cool.

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One of the trip highlights was hanging out with my Tina! (Does my face always look this awkward?) Yay for old roommates who live in cool places! Don't worry, her kindergarteners pay more in private school tuition than I made in my entire 1st year of teaching.

Somehow we left without getting a picture of the best hosts ever! Pretty sure the boys are still drooling over uncle Brian's man-cave (it really is that cool) and Ann wins extra bonus points for putting us up only 3 weeks after having her knee replaced. (And I must give a shout-out to cousin Shelly!) I have the best.family.ever. Amen.

And I couldn't end this post without saying HAPPY 28TH BIRTHDAY tomorrow to my Linz.
Sigh.
Sigh again.
Love you like crazy and miss you even more - thanks for taking care of Mom & Lydia. :)

The Boring One

It is a well-known fact that most families have a "fun" parent, and a boring - I mean "practical" -  parent. Tragically, I am the practical one. Someone has to be practical, right? Someone also to have the sleeping habits of an 87-year-old grandma, and I win on that one as well (no offense to the 87-year-old grandma's out there). This makes a bad combination for any sort of late-night fun.

Sometimes Dan gets to stay up late studying - I'm the practical/grandma wife who doesn't stay up with him. So the other night when husband came in at 12:30 in the am from studying and announced that it was snowing, he was lucky that I cracked open one eye in acknowledgement. Usually I just roll over and go back to sleep, but we got chatting about something and before I knew it husband was BEGGING me to go play in the snow with him. Wasn't.Even.Tempted. He did get me to take a peek out the window at the "beautiful" snow. To my dismay he was right - it was gorgeous. But still not enough of a draw to get me out into the cold - especially because we both had to be at church at 7 am for meetings. But he kept begging and his persistence paid off and before I knew it I was pulling out the snow clothes and getting bundled up.

It was beautiful and SO peaceful. I've never seen more than a dusting of snow out here, so getting 4-5 inches was a big deal. And it was so quiet - usually we can almost always hear some sort of police/fire siren going off, or some gangstah driving by with loud music playing, but not this night. It was the quietest St. Louie has ever been and I loved it! Of course we had to make a snowman. Guess what? Missouri snow is WAY better than Utah snow for snowman building. Very wet and packable, unlike the dry powder back at home. Stu the snowman was created in just a few minutes - isn't he cute?

 See . . . pretty!

 Dan and Stu

 How Embarrassing

Even though we didn't get back in bed til after 2 am, it was well worth the good times. Maybe I'm not so boring after all. :)