Lunar Eclipse, Javelinas, and Long Titles

Before I head into my last semester of grad school, I am attempting to take a restful winter break: a week of snowshoeing, two days of home repairs, a week in Tucson visiting my best friend and a week prepping for the upcoming semester.

After our snowshoeing trip, I decided to fix one of the kitchen walls (cigarette smoke from the neighbors has been seeping into our house - yuck!) and repaint the kitchen from yellow rain slicker (a little too bright) to lunar eclipse, a pale grey/silver color. It looks neat and makes everything else in the room pop; as opposed to the rest of the house, where the walls tend to pop with color and the decorations are merely a distraction. Once the kitchen is done, I will post photos.

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My week in Tucson was great. Erica and Greg were exceedingly gracious hosts and excellent tour guides. From fabulous home-cooked meals, interesting conversations, trips to museums/zoos (javelinas!), and rock climbing, it was amazing. They set up the week so selflessly to show me a good time and I really cannot thank them enough for their time and energy. I cannot wait until they visit us in Philly.
To top it off, they have the best and cutest little girl on the planet. My photos do little to capture how incredible sweet Kira is so you will have to check out Erica and Greg's website for better photos.

Lastly, Erica's older sister, Juliet, who also lives in Tucson with her husband and almost-three-year old daughter, gave birth to twin girls while I was in town. Right before I left for Philadelphia, I got to see them and hold "Baby A". So wonderful!

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Now I am prepping for my last semester. Most of my semester will be spent working on my thesis and looking for full-time employment that I can begin in May when I graduate. I'm also the teaching assistant for the digital mapping course. I was the TA for this course last semester so it will be nice to be familiar with the lab assignments I have to teach. Lastly, I am taking a spatial statistics course, which is very exciting to me.

My thesis title has become something of a joke in the family: Mapping Geographically Weighted Regression: Spatial Nonstationarity in Logistic Models of Drug-Crime Recidivating Juvenile Delinquency. If you want a translation of what that means, ask me in person. It takes a few minutes to explain. I'm still not sure if Joshua has fully grasped it yet. Luckily, I am excited about the topic, so that should count for something even if everyone else thinks it's just nutty ivory-tower babble (which it isn't!).

Shanti Turns 2 ... or 8!

Since we adopted Shanti from a shelter, we aren't sure of her birthday. Therefore, based on the vet's estimate of her age, we decided that March 2nd was her wonderfully made-up birthday. It works out well, because that is our dating anniversary. Moreover, it is so close to Valentine's Day and our 1/2 anniversary of marriage that we have an excuse to celebrate all of these almost-holidays into one real celebration.

As Shanti celebrated her 2nd fake birthday with new ball that includes "real bird noises!" when it rolls, we celebrated our 3rd dating anniversary by going to the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute of Science. It was really amazing -- we would highly recommend it! It included the spaceship models they used during filming, videos explaining how the movies were made and tons of costumes. It was neat to see Joshua's face light up when we walked into the room with all of the displays.

So happy birthday, Shanti, and happy couplehood, us!

When we first met Shanti, she had the flu and could only open one eye. Too cute!

When we first met each other, we had different ideas on how to make a monkey face. (At Monkey Face Rock, during our first climbing trip to Smith Rock, Oregon.)

Vacation Week in the Pacific Northwest

Celebrating Hayden's Birthday (#2!) at Volunteer Park in Seattle

Fourth of July at Elk Lake, Oregon

Rock climbing at Smith Rocks in Oregon
(This is a photo of one of Emily's first climbs!)


It was so fun hanging out, climbing and getting painfully dirty together. Although that isn't dirt on Joshua's upper lip ... it's the newest facial hair plan: a mustache!


The Chisholm Family Reunion (only have a photo of the West Coast contingent of the party)


Babysitting Hayden for the day -- Joshua and Hayden helped finish off the sandbox David made by transporting the sand.

Oh man, we had such a fun time last week. Now we are back in the muggy weather of Philadelphia to finish up the major work on our house, move our belongings, get back to work and daydream of our next vacation.

We aren't in Seattle any more, Toto.

We finally cashed in on all of our REI gift cards from the wedding registry and some past holidays. The almost $700 in gift cards helped us to obtain great loot including a .3, .5, 2 and a 3 cams (Moms, you don't have to understand that), a kick-ass water filter, "adrenaline" hiking socks, and a few other items. We still have some funds left which will go towards a GPS device for sailing once the systems upgrade in July.

Thank you all for the awesome gifts!

One interesting part of going to the REI in New Jersey was having the climbing department employee seek us out to ask about placement of sport gear and then have the shoe department gentleman ask Laura about sailing schools in the area. In Seattle, we became accustomed to REI employee's intensity and huge body of knowledge. It is odd to be considered the "experts" here on the East Coast. Just the mere mention of the fact that we came from Seattle seems to give us this prestigious title. Weird because we are so not the experts ... Joshua still isn't even sure how to spell "expert"!