Chad's Graduation in NYC--Day 1

For the past 4 years my brother Chad has been attending Columbia University's Dental program and this past Thursday he graduated!

Lance and I got to go up and support him in New York along with the rest of my family while Jude and George stayed in Ashburn together. I figured Jude would be way too bored and George needed to study, so it worked out well.

You who know me know I LOVE pictures, so I'm going to recount our trip mostly in photos (and probably too many, as usual). Here we go!

Wednesday morning (May 18th) around 9:30 Mom, Glenn, me and Lance, Grandma and Grandpa Allred, Jason, Laura, Tyler, and Mason all piled into my mom's 12-passenger van and started the 3.5 hour drive north to New York.

Grandma and Grandpa Allred flew all the way from Utah to spend the week with my family and attend Chad's graduation. We haven't ween them in more than a year, so this was a big treat!

 Laura and Tyler came.

Mason was so good!

Lance specifically requested Uncle Jason to sit next to him on the drive. There were 10 of us in the van. A little tight, but doable.

We stayed at a hotel in New Jersey about 30 minutes outside the City.

Lance getting a free ride, compliments of Great-Grandpa Allred.

After we unloaded at the hotel, most of us hopped back into the van and drove to Columbia's Medical campus in Manhattan to attend a special awards ceremony for Chad and others of his classmates.

Before the ceremony.

Thank goodness for Jason! He kept Lance busy and happy during the long, boring talks.

Chad receiving his award.

There was a reception afterwards with yummy food.

Mom, Chad, and Chad's favorite professor that helped me out a lot and spent several hours of her own time writing letters and helping him study for his boards.

We found a quiet corner where Lance could be himself and enjoy his chicken fingers. 

We said good-bye to Chad and got back into the van and drove back to the hotel. It had been a busy day, but so great to see Chad. 

Around 1:30 a.m. that night, Stephen finally made it to the hotel from the airport. He flew in from BYU. Amy also arrived that night, but took a train and traveled by subway to Chad's apartment where she stayed the weekend.

Boys making breakfast

We made waffles for breakfast the other day and both boys wanted to help. :)

Looks precarious, doesn't it?

And yes, that beater is indeed wedged inside Lance's cast.

He must belong to me. This is exactly what Lance does every time we make waffles. By the time we actually cooked the batter, neither boy was very hungry. :) Crazy kids.

Jude

So, I have a new camera! Lance's dad bought one for me for Mother's Day with half of his tax return. (It was my year to file with Lance as a dependent, but because we didn't pay any taxes...student... we wouldn't have gotten a return, so we let Scott file instead and he offered to split the increase in his return.) Nice, huh? He was just going to give us the money, but knew I was still broken-hearted about my camera disappearing last year, so he decided to get the camera instead.

I love it! It's a Nikon D3100 and while I'm still learning all the ins and outs, it's serving me pretty well. 

Here are a few pictures I took of Jude the other morning:

Love it!

Fish Tank!

Lance has been after me for I-don't-know-how-long to get a fish or two for him. I've been really reluctant because even though they're pretty low maintenance, they are still maintenance and the last thing I wanted to do was to get a tank and a fishy and have the fish die. I still remember my goldfish I won at a fair when I was probably 3 or 4 years old. Wait. I think I have a picture:

No, no. That was a fish I caught when I was 3.

Nope. I'm too old and I didn't win that fish. (The fish didn't win, either, by the looks of it.)

Okay, that's not even a fish!

Anyway, I know I have a picture of that fish--it's probably buried somewhere at my mom's house. 

Long backstory short, I had that fish for probably a week or two and it died. As did Chad's. It might have had something to do with the fact that we kept the fish bowls on top of our microwave. Who knows.

Anyway, I was reluctant. George however, was fairly excited and on our "week off", we went to a couple stores to price out fish tanks and filters.

We finally found a stand and 20 gallon tank on craigslist for what George considered a good deal. (I have no idea whatsoever, so just went along with it). We ended up with a wooden stand, a tank, a filter, rocks, lava rocks, a heater, and a light. After making a few more purchases, we were ready!

First, we needed to refinish the stand.

You would, too, I'm sure. 

We had never refinished anything before and naively thought it would be easy enough with a little elbow grease.

We were wrong. So, so wrong.

First we stripped the old varnish away. Haha. After two coats of stripper, we finally broke out the sander. And by "sander" I mean a manual hold-in-your-hand sanding block. 

We started this project at 7 p.m. Around 2 a.m. we had sanded it down to the bare wood (well, as close as we could get without having a mental and physical meltdown) and applied the first coat of varnish. Yay.

The next day, we sanded it lightly and George applied another coat of varnish.

Jude helped:

It was looking pretty nice!

Next we tackled the tank that had all kinds of fun green stuff growing inside it.

Lance and Jude were more than happy to help get rid of the sand and pebbles.

Thanks, guys!

The night George was able to get everything up and running!

Our tank. I think it's pretty, although a little dark, but we're hoping to put in some brightly colored fish that will be spotlighted against the black.

We have to let the tank cycle for a couple weeks before we put fish in it, just to make sure the water is safe and has the necessary bacteria and such. So for now it's just a bubbly tank. Stay posted for updates on our fish!

Wildlife

So usually the only wildlife we get to see around our house is composed of birds and tons of these:

We even occasionally smell skunks, although the other day we saw one close to our house. George was the only one who saw it up close when it walked up to our open glass door and sniffed around the (thankfully) closed screen door. I ran over after I heard "Oh my goodness!" and saw a really pretty skunk walking around our neighbor's backyard. I ran to get my camera, but by the time I had it in hand, our stinky visitor had trundled off into the distance. This was the best shot I could get:

Yes, he's that grey blob by the smaller tree. Luckily, he was in a good mood and we escaped unscathed.

So, beside the ubiquitous squirrels and birds, we don't see too many other animals.

However, the other day I did get to see this:

Yep. It's a baby raccoon. Well, there were two baby raccoons.

I was helping a friend of mine move and her husband was unloading boxes from the storage area of their building when he saw these two little guys crawling around inside the building! We were a little worried because we could see their nest in another person's storage area and could hear other babies, but saw no signs of the mama (thank goodness!).

We called the wildlife rescue people on the other side of the mountain who suggested we put the two babies in a box and leave them inside the building where their nest was and see if the mama would come and move them. If they were still there tomorrow, someone would come and pick them up along with the other babies we couldn't see, but could hear. 

I thought they were so cute! This is me holding one while waiting around for word on what to do with them. They were so young they didn't really have teeth yet and while they weren't able to walk very well, they were already excellent climbers and as soon as they heard the sound of their siblings' voices scampered up the sides of the smaller box we had originally put them in.

Look at those fingers! 

I'm honestly not sure what happened to them because after we finished helping my friend move, I went home. The resident manager for that building agreed to call the animal rescue people in the morning if they were still around. I'm sure, wherever they are, that they're fine.

Our week off!

This past week was unusual for sure. Lance was up in DC with his Dad, so that left the rest of us here in Charlottesville. George has a few weeks off from school to prepare for his Step 2, so he was home all day every day. 

I have to admit, I don't have too many pictures (or really any)--probably because we really didn't do much. And it was awesome! I read a book, watched tons of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, played with Jude, spent time with George, and just relaxed. The dishes rarely got done and we ate out a lot. I even got a couple naps! Unheard of, if you're a mom. 

We did have occasional visitors in child form, although it was usually just Jabrien. He's a buddy of Lance's that loves to hang out at our house. Apparently, he loves it so much he'll spend hours a day here even when Lance isn't around. Multiple times during the week, he would wander over after school and ask to play our Wii or Playstation. And he would play for hours. I think the poor kid is lonely (no siblings, single mom), so we let him come and play. 

It was a great week! Lots of relaxing, lots of being with George, lots of just hanging out, cooking, watching movies, and playing with Jude. The only thing we were missing was Lance.

Okay, I can't end a post without a picture so here is one I took a little over a week ago. We have a hammock that we hung up on our back porch and it was instantly a kid magnet. Don't believe me?

Kendall, Henry (upstairs neighbor and nice kid), Killian, Lance, and Jabrien

Crazy kids!

Lance's Week in DC

Last week, Lance spent the week with his dad, Uncle Pete (Scott's brother who's attending Law School at University of Michigan), Aunt Jessica, and cousin Parker touring parts of DC. It sounds like he had a great time! I stole some pictures from Jessica's blog to give you an idea of what they did. From what Scott and Lance have told me, and from Jessica's blog, they visited the National Zoo, the National Mall, the Air and Space Museum, went to a National's baseball game, and even ate at the new Cafe Rio in Maryland! Sounds like they crammed tons into a short 6 days.

Lance and Parker at Lance's dad's house

Costco trip!

At the National Zoo

Parker, Aunt Jessica, and Lance on the National Mall

Lance and Parker relaxing at the Lincoln Memorial

In front of the White House (Jessica, Parker, Lance, and Pete)

On their way to the National's Baseball game!

Off the Metro

Dinner before the game

Two brothers (Pete and Scott), and the cousins Parker and Lance

Lance, Dad, Parker, and Uncle Pete

National's game! Pete, Parker, Scott, and Lance

At the Air and Space Museum

Cafe Rio with Uncle Pete, Parker, and Aunt Jessica

Lance and Parker killing time in the car.

Lance had a great time with his family! It's always exciting for him to spend time with his Dahlquist cousin, especially since they are all pretty far away--Michigan and California. I am glad he's home, though! I miss my little guy when he's away.