We're not in Kansas anymore... again.

Between Purse Day and our trip back to Kansas, the biggest exciting event was that I got my WiiFit age down to 27. I won't say what I started out as... hah!

Wednesday afternoon we took a cab to the airport. We decided we don't really like Philadelphia's airport, and the security there stressed me out more than usual. While we waited for our plane, Ian worked on finishing up the presentation he was going to give for a high school class — one of his old teachers asked him if he'd come talk about landscape architecture. Ian also worked on some thank-you notes on the plane ride. A very funny flight attendant (male, 40s, in pre-flight instructions referred to the oxygen masks as "designer butter dishes" and dryly told us what to do in the event of a water landing "between Chicago and Denver") asked if I was making him write them and then said preprinted with a short handwritten note was the way to go. He was quite the entertainer! And for the record, I didn't make Ian write them, I only asked for his help...

We arrived in Denver fairly late, which was aggravated by the time change from Eastern to Mountain time. While we waited for his Aunt Susan to pick us up (thanks Susan!), I managed to get some funny photos of Ian!

Here he looks very grumpy and important and busy...

... like those people who hurry out of buildings and avoid reporters.

But I properly apply a kiss...

... and voila, he's happy!

Anyway, halfway home, Susan needed a nap, so Ian took over driving, and I fell asleep too (again, I was running 2 hours later than the clock showed at that point). We got to the house, and no one was home! Ian was mildly offended — "they didn't say they were going to be gone!" but Dane and Ren got home soon after. Apparently it was the project graduation party. Oh, and you should ask Ren about smoke bombs. I'll say no more here, except that it's rather humorous.

Thursday was another jam-packed day. I worked on the bulletin while Ian went to school to give his presentation, twice. Then Ian took me to help Dane dress a body. My first time, even though Ian has been saying I need to go with them for the past 3 years. It was an interesting experience. Then it was guest night! The whole thing went off pretty good. Josef was the guest, so it was really good to get to see him again. There were some great performances, and Ren did amazing with "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" by Jack Johnson. I didn't manage to get a good photo of it, because the lighting for his solo (with band accompanying) didn't get along with my camera.

However, I did get some decent photos of another performance. X-Pressos pulled "Men in Tights" out of the vault, and Ian and Josef joined them.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to talk to my good friend Jessica, from back home. It was great catching up with her!!

Friday, we went to see my family, which was absolutely wonderful. Nathan wasn't home yet though. He had a final that afternoon, and my family left that evening to help him move out of the dorms Saturday morning (so they could make it back to Ren's post-graduation family dinner to celebrate, and also so Nathan, Ian, and I could actually see each other). Mom made some great meals, and she and I made biko and talked while Ian took a nap. Apparently, the sushi rice we found isn't the right kind of rice. We needed the long-grained glutenous rice. They are so white, they look like little plastic bits. Fortunately, mom had some, and now I know what to look for the next time we make it!

Before my family took off, mom and I took some photos together, of me with my "short" hair and her with her "long" hair. Her hair is growing out really nice, by the way! She just has Herceptin until September, then she's completely done! The first photo is mom trying to look like she has long hair by using mine. I think maybe it would have worked better before I chopped it...

Karen came over and we had a wonderful chat with her out at the park (after getting a drink at One Stop. Which is closing/closed. It's sad. My high school hang out. Gone. *sniff*). Then we went to see Britni, ahhh!, and Joe (exciting too, but I don't think he'd appreciate the scream as much). I got to see her in her dress, gorgeous, and Karen and I practiced our bridesmaidly duties and helped her into it. We'll need some practice. I can't divulge details because the dress is a surprise, but let's just say it's a little tricky. We also did a birthday present exchange, since Brit's was coming up, and she brought early birthday presents for me from her and Meg.

Ian didn't actually capture the present, or my excited face, but Meg, I really love the mug, and can't wait for a coffee date when we get back in August!

Britni opens her present — relaxing bath stuff, since I can't be there during stressful wedding planning.

Britni got me a Monopoly book! (Which is fascinating so far — did you know it's all based on Atlantic City?)

In summary, we had a wonderful evening with the Kelly family + Karen (Bob discusses using a typewriter in college and the transition from manual to electric. Steven: "much like that of leather to papyrus." implying Bob experienced that one too. Maybe it was just funnier in person...). We headed back to G-town, as graduation festivities started early, and fully enjoyed the music and comedy available on XM radio.

Saturday. Graduation Day. What's there to say, really? It was great to see Emily (with her beautiful new purse!) and her dad. The ceremony was long. Ren, along with others, had silly string. The giant 8-person reception was busy. I did get to see a few people I knew (Ashley, good luck with Florida!). Ren schmoozed. Tired and sore, we packed up and returned home, where Patti, Alli, and Grandma Judy had prepared a wonderful lasagna dinner for us all. My family arrived. We ate. The guys discovered how much my dad can laugh when you get him going, while we had a wonderful girl-table talk. We slowly dispersed. Before going to bed, Ren and Ian partook in some fancy cigars Ren acquired (not a habit, just an... occasional guy thing, which I'll never understand), as celebration for graduation and getting to hang out again. They even wore special attire for the event (note their shoes).

Sunday morning we woke up way too early so we could get to DIA in time (we agree, the nicest airport we've ever been to — even the security maze is nice). Dane, Micki, and Ren were wonderful to shuttle us there, and it was great to spend a little more time with them! The flight home was uneventful, spent mostly napping, and we arrived back in Philly by early afternoon. Getting home took a little more effort, and involved a crabby cab driver. It felt good to be "home" but we're reminded how much we love the Midwest, and we can't wait to be back in August!

Purse Day

We keep doing things, and I keep getting further behind. However, I ended up with today and Friday off (things have slowed down a bit at work), so I'm taking full advantage of this to do laundry, read, and catch up on the blog, of course! So I'm going to go back 3 weekends ago and tell you a little bit about my purse.

Purse Day took place 3 weeks after Emily, Micki and I designed purses at 1154 Lill. I'd been excited about a purse from here for quite some time even before that, so Ian and I made a day of picking it up.

Walking down the parkway, we saw the LOVE Park fountain was purple, in honor of Mother's Day! This worked out much better than the green did...

We walked down Market, had a cheesesteak from a street vendor, then made our way over to the shop. On the way, we saw a stereotypical south Philly man. Note his saunter, leather jacket, and feather in his hat.

When we got there, I saw my purse hanging on the wall, it was so exciting! And it's nice, Ian, with his design background, appreciated it too! Apparently people designing that weekend (Mother's Day was the next day) really liked my purse too, as an idea, so that's quite the compliment as well! After that, we went around the city more and made our way to Penn, where we spent some time at Starbucks. I read and Ian worked on his presentation he was going to give to a couple high school classes when we went home. After we got home, Ian took some pictures of me with my new purse.

Anyway, I'll stop here and make our trip back to Kansas a separate post, so these don't get unbearably long!

To conclude, I'd like to say, since this is a post-pre-Mother's Day post (being after Mother's Day but about before Mother's Day) that I love BOTH of my moms very much — the one who helped make me into the woman I am, and made it such a fun journey, and the one who raised my husband to be the incredible man he is, and adopted me as her own! They are amazing, inspiring women and a true blessing in my life!

You might be an architect's wife if...

Vanessa had a funny post a little while back entitled "You might be a geek's wife if..." I thought of this while we were wandering around Boston, and Megan and I had fun coming up with a few of our own architect's wife version. Here's that list, with some others I've thought of. Some are probably specific to landscape architecture, I must admit.

• vacation involves visiting random areas because a well-known firm or person designed the space (like the Stata Center on MIT's campus).

• you know who Frank Gehry is.
• you can rattle off a list of projects, past and present, of a specific firm.
• traveling through a space involves close analysis and critique of materials, design theory, and technical aspects of things like green-roof installation.
• your husband was very involved in creating your wedding registry, and picked out some great and artistic dishes and silverware.
• project boards are part of your home decor.
• you look through your vacation pictures and discover a large portion of them are detail shots of things like paving and plantings.

• you know the plot room is the room with the giant printers, not the place where you scheme to take over the world.
• you are familiar with and can identify different paving materials.
• you can identify trees and plants by scientific name (genus and species).
• you have Adobe Creative Suite on your computer.
• you can read CAD documents.
• while walking home, he has to stop, borrow your camera, and take photos of trees in bloom for stock photos for future renderings.

• sometimes you use the words bushes and dirt to tease your husband, because the "correct" terms are shrubs and soil.
• you see skateboarders with cool tricks and wonder if they are damaging the granite curbs.
• the importance of going green is a big discussion topic in your house.
• the term environmentally responsible doesn't just include recycling: you know how it relates to selecting building materials (carbon output from selecting materials that have to be shipped long distances, versus native building materials) and other construction components.
• black water, grey water, and potable water are everyday terms.
• you know what LEED certified means.
• people don't draw, they sketch and render.

For the record, this isn't a complaint list! I love experiencing the world through a different viewpoint, and I love sharing Ian's passion (and I'm sure Megan feels the same way about Daniel). It's fun blending lives, and learning about new things and places. I really appreciate this new perspective Ian had given to my life. And of course, entertaining when you discover those random pictures on your camera...

Amtrak to Boston.

First off, I need to mention Ian and I watched Juno the evening of our Academy of Natural Sciences/Othello day (thanks to a free-movie-rental coupon), and we highly recommend it!

That said, I can move on to our Boston trip!

We took an Amtrak train Friday evening, traveling through five states I had not previously been in. It got dark after Jersey, unfortunately, so I didn't get to see much scenery that evening. However, we were very entertained by three guys sitting next to us on the train. They were on the way to the Jay Z concert at Madison Square Gardens. One guy was big, looked like a bodyguard, went to Colby Community College at one point in his life, and was wearing some fancy pants sunglasses, I forget which designer. And the three tried to convince Ian he should get some designer shades. Guy number 2, sitting across from us, was married, and had a super cute kid out for peewee football, and his kid's team used the Wildcat for the mascot. He also thought we had it good, experiencing small town Midwest, and also a big city, and said most people in the city miss out because they only know one place. Guy number 3, we think, was drinking a larger portion of their expensive whiskey (or something else expensive; I can't remember now). He wanted to talk politics, and was very opinionated (pro-Hilary man). Anyway, overall, they were pretty nice, and made our train experience one to talk about! We arrived in Boston pretty late, and after arriving at Daniel and Megan's, we chatted a bit, then turned in for the evening.

Saturday morning greeted us with cold temperatures and near-snow drizzles, which ended our entertaining the idea of taking a boat ride.

However, we found lots of fun stuff to do (after a quick stop at GAP for a scarf for me and a rain jacket for Daniel).

We got to visit historic places like Faneuil Hall, the Old North Church, and Copp's Hill Burying Ground, all on the Freedom Trail.

We also had coffee and desserts at an Italian shop while discussing faith, walked through the Holocaust Memorial, passed by Daniel's office, browsed at an interesting store, wandered through Boston Common and the Public Garden, and walked down their fancy pants shopping street.

This is the State Capitol Building. We didn't take photos of the protesters who want to make weed legal. They had a bunch of funny sayings, like "free the tree." Funny, because it isn't a tree.

This is a shot of Boston Common. Daniel got much cooler shots of all this (and everything else!), so I'll just reference you to their blog.

We thought it was funny... Lost Kids right next to First Aid. I think this was for the Walk for Hunger, which was the next day.

And we ate at the Union Oyster House where Fox got to take apart a big lobster for (I think?) the first time.

Sunday was church, followed by a trip to MIT, because Ian wanted to see a project that Olin did on their campus. Megan and I discovered commonalities of architect's/landscape architect's wives. I'll put our thoughts on a separate post in a little while. At any rate, this excursion resulted in lots of photos, and discussions about Frank Gehry, the architect of the Stata Center, below (Seussian, I concluded).

Looking up. I don't think this could be the best use of space... there's got to be weird unusable areas in the rooms, or in between the rooms and the outer walls.

Ian wanted to see the space behind the Stata Center. It was pretty cool — he used photos of it (before we went) as inspiration for a project at Duke he was working on, so he really wanted to see it in real life.

The green roof area. There's grass around that corner. The brick corner. Not the shiny thing.

A "classical Roman amphitheater" on the green roof. Also designed by Olin, we discovered. Although we did critique some of the tree placement.

After Ian, Daniel, and Fox had their fill, we went back to Daniel and Megan's apartment to hang out and play Boggle until we left for the train station... then we slept most of the way home.

Daniel, Megan, and Fox, thanks for a great weekend!

And finally, a couple ending photos (stay tuned for "You might be an architect's wife if...", Purse Day, and our trip home!)

The eclairs I successfully made! (Kind of a recipe from mom, so this fits the concrete aspirations list!)

We are almost done with thank you notes!

A family (including Emily!) weekend!

It is a beautiful day in the apartment — cool, a little cloudy, but not pouring. It makes for the perfect temperature inside with the window open (as much as it will go).

I'm behind on blogging — it has only been a couple weeks, but so much has happened, so I'm going to break it into two posts. The first being the Ian's family plus Emily weekend up to our Boston trip. I'll post about that trip soon!

Ian's family plus Emily arrived Friday afternoon, and it was so good to see them! We ate at Caribou Cafe, which was an amazing French restaurant. Or maybe French Canadian. At any rate, I finally had steak frites — steak and fries, a very popular French dish I've read about so much in French class, and very much wanted to try. And they had this fantastic bread pudding — I think maybe the best I've ever had. We got to hang out, wander around Rittenhouse Square (which is a hopping place in the evenings, apparently), run into everyone leaving the Obama rally, play Wii, AND Micki cut Ian and I's hair! Ian just got a trim, but I finally did my Locks of Love donation. It amounted to 14 inches, unbraided.

Yay new haircut! Thanks Micki!

Saturday was a great day — we had beautiful weather all weekend! We visited Olin Partnership, the market, Penn's campus, the Italian Market, saw this amazing street full of cherry blossoms, ate dinner at a restaurant near Eastern State Penitentiary...

chalking at Penn.

Feeding the pigeon.

Sunday was church, then us girls went to 1154 Lill to make purses!!

After our outing (the boys drove around Temple's campus), the guys picked us up and we went to the Museum of Art.

Then we ate at Audrey Claire. It was fantastic! My number 2 dining experience ever (And that's only because the restaurant we ate at in Dallas was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.) I had chicken with a pomegranate molasses — it could make you cry, and everything was great! It's a very minimal restaurant. No huge sign, small dining area, no decorations. Just simple tables, plain walls, and fabulous food. What a great experience! Monday, we drove around Laurel Hill Cemetery, which was a sprawling and extremely old cemetery. It was beautiful! We all had lunch, then they had to catch their plane. All in all it was a great weekend, and we're very thankful for our time together!

The following week was fairly uneventful, but the next weekend we had lots of fun! We explored the Institute of Natural Sciences, which is the location of the bear ice sculpture Ian fake licked. Actually, that sculpture was for the Polar Bears to Penguins traveling exhibit which was in it's final weekend — the reason we went.

Ian sees how his weight compares to a polar bear (barely the same as a 9-month-old cub)

After seeing everything, we went to a little theater downtown and saw Othello, and they pulled of a fantastic production of it! All of the actors are local, and the theater puts on about four productions every season.

Well, that's about everything up to our Boston trip, so stay tuned!