Just recently I was telling Justin that I have talked to many of my married friends who agree that men revert to childhood after marriage. I wouldn't say babies because they can walk and talk and are thankfully potty trained, but I swear they lose 87% of their self-sufficiency. It's good practice for future children I guess and good material for the next installment of Crappy Pictures. (I honestly didn't think I would make another one of these posts but this was too good not to.)
I was unable to find the book I need for my next Book Club meeting at the school library so I had the brilliant idea to try the city library. It's a really cool building as you can see and has won awards for being the best library in the country.
So after dinner Justin was kind enough to join me on my first visit to this awesome library. I don't know why it took me so long to visit, I love books! Anyway, I figured I could get a card, find the book and check it out in less than 10 minutes so I didn't need to bring my cell phone right? Wrong!! It's always those times that I think I can just leave it at home that I really, really need my phone. And every time I do bring it, it never rings. But back to the story. Here we are, skipping in the beautiful spring air to the library.
Note that Justin actually has an F on his shirt so you know that this story is completely, 100% accurate. The information desk is right inside the door so naturally, being a woman, I walk right up and tell them what I need. Note that Justin is RIGHT BEHIND ME.
They were very helpful and told me what to do. I decided to try to look up the location of the book I needed first but ironically you need a library card to log on to the library computers. Go figure. At this point Justin is still RIGHT BESIDE ME. So I decide I will just get the card first and ask the librarian to look up the book for me. Genius!
You may notice that acquiring the library card took all of 2 minutes. You may also notice that Justin is now NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! Good grief. I have no idea when I lost him. This is what it's like to have a 3 year old huh? So now I have my card in hand, the librarian has informed me that both copies of the book have been checked out and I have lost Justin. I waited around for a few minutes then asked the nice info desk people if they'd seen where he went. No dice. But they inform me that there is only one exit so within the next 15 minutes they will be closing and Justin will have no choice but to exit through the door I am currently staking out. Meanwhile, this is what Justin was doing.
I am the pink X- not moving. Justin is the blue X that has now wandered up to the second floor. When he finally came back down I have to admit I was a tad frustrated. And by tad I mean slightly ticked. Until Justin explained that he had gone upstairs looking for my book only to be trapped by the second floor librarian who gave him a lot of information that did not include the fact that both copies had already been checked out. How can you stay mad at someone who's just trying to help you out? That is a type of childlike-ness I can handle!
Maybe this should be titled "The One where Gordon and Morgan had a Wedding." They actually got married about a month after Justin and I but Gordon is in the Navy and got transferred from San Diego to North Carolina and then deployed to Afghanistan. Gotta hand it to Morgan for waiting so long to wear her wedding dress! Now that he's been back for a little while they were finally able to have a real wedding and reception. It was beautiful!
Justin and I drove (again! People need to help me out and convince Justin that air travel is much faster and will make his wife less upset with him.) to San Diego a mere 8 days after I got back from the ACS conference. Crazy! Thankfully we split it up and drove to Las Vegas first to crash at Uncle Don and Aunt Wendi's house. They weren't there because they were visiting their newest grandson in Idaho (congratulations to Christie and Spencer!!) but Evie and Rachel were home. I haven't seen Rachel's daughter Avery since before Justin and I got married so I was amazed at how tall and grown up she is. She entertained me and Justin with this poem from "Ride a Purple Pelican."
Justin Austin
skipped to Boston,
dressed in dusty jeans,
he sipped a drop
of ginger pop
and ate a pot of beans.
Soooo cute!! Wish I'd recorded it. I think she could have stayed up all night reciting poems to us but eventually we all did go to bed. Justin and I left for San Diego pretty early and met up with Jared, Gordon and Gordon's little brother, Chris. We ate some pretty tasty Mexican food (yum, I miss good Mexican food) at Lucha Libre and then Gordon showed us the way to the San Diego temple.
This is what it looks like from the freeway... (that's Gordon in his red convertible rental)
And then suddenly the trees get out of the way and BAM! Gorgeous!!
Justin and I took a prom picture in front. Too funny!
And then Jared posed as well. (Andrea, I'm adding all the pictures I have of Jared for you :)
Afterward we went to pick up the boys' tuxes. Thankfully the tux store was right by our hotel so we checked in and then all piled into Gordon's convertible (I had to sit on the hump in the backseat) to go on a tour of SD. He showed us Balboa park which is the largest square area park in the country. Seriously, it is huge, but not just grass. I really liked the architecture of this museum.
By the way, I took that picture as we drove by. Turned out pretty nice :) The San Diego Zoo is also in this park but we really didn't have much time to go in. Next time for sure!
Next, Gordon took us to the Naval base. We got to see some aircraft carriers and navy fighter jets and helicopters. I have to admit it was pretty cool. We got out for a little bit to check out the beach.
Chris, Jared, Justin & Gordon.
It was a little chilly and we were getting hungry so we went back downtown to eat at Spaghetteria! I was so excited to eat there again. Mmmm.
The next morning the boys abducted Gordon for his "bachelor party." They hiked up Cowles Mountain where they encountered a rattlesnake. Gordon thought it would be funny to text Morgan a very close up picture of it and tell her that he had been bitten but was ok. How do men come up with these ideas? Good thing she's a sweetheart and forgave him. Justin might have been in a little more trouble if he pulled that the day before our wedding!
San Di-ah-go. If you don't get the quote from that, you wouldn't get it anyway.
Ah, Justin's favorite pose. We need to learn some new ones. I love that Jared's head is poking out between Gordon's legs. You guys are so weird!!!
So glad Justin had our camera :)
With the boys gone I took the opportunity to go to the temple. That is such a beautiful temple!! And the women inside were so fun. I know that's a funny thing to say but it was pretty slow at 11am on a Friday so I got to talk to them more than usual.
The next day was the ceremony. It was held on a different naval base than the one we toured with Gordon because this one had a view of the city across the bay. What a beautiful backdrop! The only problem was the birds. These adorable ducks tried to crash the party and walked down the aisle before the bride and groom could.
I caught this picture of Gordon as soon as Morgan stepped out. So cute! Hmm maybe I should have edited a little- don't mind the photographer!
Handsome men! Gordon, Chris, Justin, Reggie, Jared & Mike.
That's Gordon's mom (Mama Gordo! center) with his aunt and cousin.
Bridesmaids: Megan, Emily, Apryl & Ashley
Something happened with the music and Morgan had to wait a few minutes to make her dramatic entrance but it had a happy ending :)
There were only 4 bridesmaids and 5 groomsmen so Megan had 2 escorts walking down the aisle. Lucky lady!
I mentioned the crazy birds. These seagulls kept trying to steal the appetizers. At one point this guy actually tried to divebomb the tray from the air! Pretty sure I looked hilarious trying to stop this in heels. Reggie's girlfriend Kara (who is also a grad student) helped me protect the food. I was glad there was someone else to talk to during pictures as Jared's wife Andrea wasn't able to make it :( Missed you!!
He's getting closer...
Darn it.
Gordon bought the groomsmen "pimp canes" for their gifts. At least it made for a good photo opp :)
Justin makes me laugh!
This photo is possibly even better!
Silly boys!
Of course the groom's cake is Albert!
A few weeks ago Morgan posted a picture on Facebook of a 6 ft. chicken pinata. I didn't really get it until the Chicken Dance song started. This was hilarious!!
The chicken was a nice addition to the photo booth. We had a lot of fun with the props :)
After the sun set we took some really nice pictures of the skyline.
The next day Justin and I had to make the whole drive in one day. We stopped at Tia Auri and Tio Pompo's house on our way through LA. They are Justin's great aunt and uncle who helped take care of him until his family moved to Florida when he was 5. They took us out for an Easter lunch and then we drove around looking at Justin's old apartment and school. Apparently when Justin was little he memorized his address, "Tres tres tres San Marcos." We found it!
This was the alley behind Justin's apartment where he would look out as a little boy and watch the garbage man. When he was little, this was his career aspiration. I find it extremely funny! And I'm glad he changed his mind :)
If this picture looks familiar that's because it was in our wedding video. It's Justin learning to swim in Tia Auri's pool.
It was surreal seeing the pool in real life. Justin said it's smaller than he remembered- more like he's just bigger.
One of the coolest things about being a grad student is the opportunity to travel for free (tangent- London in 22 days!!). My project is part of a collaboration with other research groups at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and most importantly, the University of California- Irvine. I say most importantly because UCI is the center (or headquarters) of the collaboration and consequently where I get to fly to a few times a year now. If you're not familiar with California, Irvine is south of LA in Orange County. That's right, the OC. Which means that the salaries are huge and the houses are bigger. I don't know how any of the grad students afford to live there but it is a beautiful area. And now that I've been a few times I have some friends that I look forward to seeing every time.
A few weeks ago I flew to Irvine for a workshop and then had to get down to San Diego for the spring ACS meeting. How should I get from Irvine to SD? A train!! Justin was soooo jealous. He loves trains and talks about taking a trip on one all the time. Sometimes he randomly blurts out "I like trains." Seriously. I have to admit it was more exciting than I thought it would be. The scenery outside the window was beautiful. At one point we were just a few hundred yards from the ocean. It was awesome! I did try to take a few pictures but I was on the wrong side of the train and looked like an idiot taking pictures that didn't turn out. Oh well. I took some of the actual train and station for my hubby.
This is actually the train and bus station which is why it's so big but I think it looks really neat. Speaking of buses I had to take 2 to get to the station itself. Ask Justin how much I like public transportation. He was trying to help me figure out the best route to take the night before and I started crying. For real. Afterward I felt really stupid though because it wasn't that bad. Ok, it sucked a little. I had luggage!
Train tracks!
I got to the station over an hour early so I just hang out in this little courtyard until my train came. Isn't it pretty? It was a really nice day and gave me an opportunity to catch up with Mom on the phone.
Here it comes!
This is the station in San Diego. A little bigger and more like what I expected to see. It's apparently the original (i.e. really old) station because inside there was a separate room labeled "Women's Waiting Room." I couldn't help thinking of "The Chase" by Clive Cussler. It's a really good book involving, you guessed it, trains.
Because I had luggage I was really excited my hotel was only 2 blocks from the station and I could just walk there. The bad thing was my hotel was only 2 blocks from the station and I heard trains all night. After the conference started I was usually so tired by the time I got to bed that I could sleep through it. Not only was our hotel close to train tracks but it was really close to Little Italy. Mamma mia, that was some good Italian food! If you're ever in SD check out the Spaghetteria. I thought the name was a little cheesy but the food more than made up for it. Our last day there we also found a little Thai food restaurant called Mint. I recommend that one as well. So much delicious food for $7!!
The conference itself was really good. I was the first presenter of the first session (for my division) on the first day so I wasn't expecting a very big crowd but the room was almost completely full and the audience had a number of questions. That sounds bad but when presenting at a science conference, getting questions afterward is a really good thing. It means people were listening and interested. The more the merrier in this case so I felt really good about my presentation. And it was nice to get my talk over with early so I could focus on the other talks I attended.
I also got to meet some of the bigger names in my field. Some unintentionally and probably not how I would have envisioned an introduction going. During a talk that I was really interested in there were 2 women talking just outside the room. I wasn't the only one who could hear them better than the speaker and since I'm working on being more assertive in situations like this I took it upon myself to ask them to be quieter. I should have kept my mouth shut. Right after I informed them we could all hear their conversation I realized one of the ladies was Naomi Halas! The only way to describe it is like shushing an A list chemist. Oh. My. Gosh. I couldn't listen to the rest of the talk now anyway, I was so embarrassed! But after both women came back in, she came over, touched my shoulder and apologized. So maybe it wasn't a big deal and she's grateful someone informed her they were being disruptive. Yeah, at least that's how it happened in my mind.
