Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!!(

(The cutest Mary and Joseph I've ever seen)

heading home

funny how the P is backwards...
he hated taking this picture (ask Mindy, she was on the phone)

We're in the airport! On our way home!

We left our house early because you never know about NYC commuting and we wanted a "cushion" in case of disaster.
We've already drank some Orange Dream Machine, watched some Office episodes, tried watching Raising Hope, and now Paul is MIA looking for the finest in airport dining. (just came back with some delicious food!)

But the good news is we will be back in the homeland soon! yay!

Bug Lover.

Sorry for the poor quality- I was took lazy to find the camera, so I webcamed it.

My project for the weekend: helping PB label his insect collection. You see- we're flying to the homeland on Tuesday night, and so Paul's finals/projects have to be turned in a week early. Poor guy has been working his heart out on a Population Genetics paper, so I volunteered to get my craft on and label those bugs. Aren't they pretty? Oh yeah- bad pic. (Okay! Okay! I'll grab the real camera!)

(Paul... taking this picture said "so you are making me stop working so I can take a picture of you pretending to work?")... pretty much.

Anyways, bugs are cool.

If you can name any of these bugs (butterfly doesn't count!) i'll think you're cool.

Bonus points if you get the scientific names!

Bike Lover.

Everyone keeps writing such great blog posts, that I don't feel the need to.

Check out Paul's blog to see his early Christmas surprise. Also- he didn't mention this- but he won his race, so he's really the Pennsylvania State Champion... in case you haven't heard.
Also- isn't the towpath awesome!?

That amazing mom.

It's not secret that I'm very excited to head home for the holidays. Yesterday I was talking with my mom, and she mentioned a new project she's been working on. Today, I noticed our Carruth family blog was updated for the first time in a year, and found that my mom had revealed her big project.
This lady should start some kind of blog. Do you remember her gingerbread house? She does this sort of stuff all the time, it's amazing!
This year her project was our REAL house, not gingerbread- and she revamped our chimney. My dad was a big help too of course. Good job mom and dad! I wanted to show off your great work on my blog too!

Here is how my mom worked her magic (in her words):

For a long time, I've wanted to change the way our chimney looked. I considered a few options: stucco over all the brick (messy, and not quit the look I wanted); or stripping the paint off the brick (very difficult, plus not knowing if the bricks even look good. In the end, we decided to make it look like we uncovered the brick by painting them on.

We were going to try to tape off all the mortar lines, and sponge paint in between, but we couldn't find the right size tape, and/or it wouldn't stick. So Dave cut me some stencils out of a handy pizza box, and we were in business.We began by stenciling on some base colors, grey, black, brown and tan. Then, we used a brick red and sponged over the base colors, some heavy, some light, making it as random as possible.

 

We left the middle section unfinished because we are covering it with a mirror, anyway. Here's the kitchen side.

I was really pleased when my mom asked how we knew the brick beneath the paint would look so good. (Yeah, I fooled her).
Now, I just have to find something really cool to hang on it.

This finished product:


(She didn't mention this- but years ago, my parents added the mantel and the dark brick. The new mirror looks really great too!)

Good job mom and dad! I can't wait to see it in person!

Big Fan of Free.

Nov 26- Let the Christmas season begin! 
P and I haven't done a Christmas card... this may just convince me to do one. 
You can't get better than freebie, right?


Shutterfly is doing a 50 free card promo for bloggy blog bloggers. (Like me! Like you!)


All you have to do is click on the link at the end of this post. 
Write a blog post about it...
Post it on FB/Twitter...

Show off some of your favs:

(I'm digging green + joy. The hard part for me would be the picture choosing... )

Lots of options people: 

I'm also considering this for a Christmas present... my sister-in-law Camie does every year and it's awesome. Plus, since I'm across the country- I could at least be w/ my fam in pictures on a calendar. 

 If you would ALSO like 50 free cards this year , check out this link: and the referral is Clever girls 1000.

(Hooray for freebie!)

Since I couldn't video chat with you.

Since our internet is being sketchy tonight- here are some things I would've talked about with my family about had our video chat worked.

This is how I feel about the end of the Colts/Pats game. We were SO CLOSE! I can't take off my jersey yet, because I'm trying to be supportive even when I'm real sad about it.

And this is how the bald spot is doing.
(Is this my bald spots first blog debut? I should probably add some pictures of this beauty. This little incident was the cause). The point of this picture is to show you all the little fuzzies that are growing in. Hooray! I'm not totally a baldy, just kind of a baldy!

And this is the little felted Turkey I made. Mom-I was planning on making you one, but I never did, sorry about that. I will make you something for Christmas, because then I won't have to send it, I can just bring it with me! Yay!

I'm buying a new router tomorrow because this internet is annoying as can be.
:) Now the rest of you get to look at the top of my head. Lucky ducks.

2 year anniversary... 4 months late

Did you know that we've been married for more than 2 years?
Lucky us.

(Peace = 2 years).

Here are some pictures of our 2 year anniversary. We spent it in Idaho Falls.

Donna (Paul's momma) was doing some girls camp prep, and so we went up to their stake property. They have this giant metal slide. You sit on a piece of carpet, and go super fast.

Riding the slide produced some hilarious faces- caught on camera.  

 Mostly Miss Marian's funny faces.

Though her momma and sister's were also funny.  

 Then we had some yum "square" ice cream in Swan Valley, ID.  I recommend the plain-ole'-vanilla.

What? You're totally jealous? Don't worry I found you a link, apparently it's one of Idaho's top road-side attractions.

Also- this is a dragonfly I caught for PB back in Provo. Isn't it pretty? Aeshna multicolor is its name. Pretending like it's dead then flying around our kitchen scaring us to death is its game.

For more of Paul's bug photography, including our own pet- Slim Jim. Check out his blog. Seeing those creatures so up-close and personal makes me appreciate them more, and glad to be married to a smarty-pants entomologist.

Recipes for a delicious fall weekend...

Friday Night Fun
1 Seinfield DVD (thanks Donna)
1 Warm Blanket (thanks Gma Carruth)
1 Pumpkin Shake

Saturday Sweetness
2 Tickets to NYC
1 Highschool friend -Val Larsen (I know- you are jealous.)
3 Tickets to the Natural History Museum
1 Trip to the Shake Shack. Yum!

Smokin' Saturday Night
2 Tickets to a biology award ceremony
40 Floors up NYC view at 7 WTC
1 E.O. Wilson talk
1/2 hour of nice conversation with big-wig biologists
2 train tickets home

Sunday Serenity
1 Extra hour of sleep (after I got up to get ready and Paul told me I could go back to bed! Hurray!)
3 Hours of church
1 1/2 hour nap
1 Colts football game (and hoping AC17 is ok).
An undisclosed amount... (aka +12) of the best pumpkin cookies ever. Seriously- you've got to try these guys. We have extra if you want to come over. :) Please. We can't stop eating them.

It really was a great weekend. I will be posting more about the award ceremony, because the talks were very thought-provoking and made me glad to be married to a biologist.
Sorry no pictures... you can just imagine how good looking we are, and how much fun we are having. :)

And really, you've got to try those cookies!

Person of the Week: Susan "the wonderful" Williams

With a name like Susan... you have the be Susan the "something", right? Well this Susan is just wonderful.

We are PR-classmates, and she was my sanity through late night projects, group work, case studies, etc. Also, she was a great Sudoku pal. After we finished up our BYU education, she headed around the world teaching babies in Taiwan. I hadn't seen her in WAY to long. Good news is, she is a Maryland native, and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was on BOTH of our agendas. Moral of the story- in a crowd of 200,000 people, with barely any cell phone service, we found each other- reunited again!

I sure like this lady. More East coast meetings for sure.

(More pics from the Rally... credit to Valerie, who actually brought a camera:)

(Now we are spending our Halloween weekend in PA with these two and their three cute kiddos). 

Poconos Day 2

 The next day we explored the Poconos and some beautiful waterfalls in the area. 

We visited Child's Park and Bushkill Falls... and for some reason these pictures got out of order, but none-the-less, here are some beautiful places we saw. 

 If you aren't thinking Rivendale, then something is wrong with you...haha

 The backwoods were really awesome.

 Some of the boardwalks went over the falls so you could look straight down on them, it was cool.

 Ah yeah... sweatshirt-around-the waist-look, but the trees are worth posting the picture.

 So... we asked this lady to take our picture in front of the falls (pictured above...) and somehow she miss-aimed.

 So we had her try again... and things just got worse... haha.

 So Paul got a solo shot in front of the "Main Falls".

 And then we drove home. And the hills looked like they were on fire. And I couldn't stop coughing. (And that's still going on.)

To sum it up--- the best birthday ever- thanks Paul. I love you.

*I've been blogging up a storm today, so don't miss...
Birthday (day)
Birthday (morning)
Paul's JCrew modeling skills
And one of my favorite little ladies.