To Prove to Dad I'm Not a Fool

Butch came to visit for the weekend and we took him down to the Hopkins Medical Campus to show him where James goes to school. The medical campus is a huge complex, but the original hospital sits right in the middle.

Right inside the front doors on the side wall is a painting of Mr. Johns Hopkins himself. Here is a picture of James and Butch with Johns (and yes, this is his real first name).

The front doors lead you right into the dome atrium where the hospital has a large Christus Statue and prayer books filled with the stories of patients that have been treated there.

James also took us on a tour of the Bloomberg Building where he takes pretty much all of his classes. The windows give you a perfect view of the surrounding neighborhoods. The medical campus is situated  in the middle of one of the worst areas of Baltimore City. As you can see from this picture, it has some decently crowded living conditions.

Since you have to be accompanied by a Hopkins students, I had actually never been in any of these buildings before. It was nice to see where James spends most of his waking hours.

Anniversary 2.0

On November 23 we had our 2nd anniversary. To celebrate I took James to Medieval Times. It was pretty awesome. Neither of us had ever been there before. During the jousting show they give you a HUGE dinner that you have to eat with your hands. Each section of the audience cheers for a different knight. Our knight was red and yellow. He didn't win the tournament but he was clearly the best. Any knight whose long hair and constant fist pumping reminds you of an 80's rock band member is clearly number one. Before we were let into the arena we took a few pictures to commemorate.

                             

James' hat was a little big. He said he felt like Prince John from Robin Hood. "Hiss! You're never around when I need you."






While I was looking at the pictures of our previous anniversary, I noticed a slight similarity in each of James' outfits. Seems that a certain green sweater must make an appearance in each of our special days.

Our 2nd Anniversary

Our 1st Anniversary

Our Wedding Day

YAY for Calm Skin!

I'm always pleasantly surprised when I try a new product that really works well. I've recently discovered a miracle product that makes me super happy! If I've been pleasantly surprised with new things before, this time I'm ecstatic! As some of you know, I've been perpetually itching all over my body for a little over two years now. Needless to say it's extremely frustrating. I was told by the doctor to use moisturizing creams like Eucerin. It did not help. The other day I was in CVS with my mom and they were having a tremendous sale. During this sale I found an itch soothing body wash by St. Ives and a new lotion by Vaseline called Sheer Infusion. AMAZING! The combination has actually almost completely cleared my itching. Every once in a while I get an itch that can’t be ignored but I can't tell you how relieving it is not to scratch my skin until I break out in hives every night. I would definitely recommend either of these products, especially the Vaseline, to anyone with dry skin.

First Interview

I had an interview this week! Shamefully I admit that in 27 years of life I had never had a job interview. In spite of this, I think it went well. It was for an internship with the CDC in Guatemala. Click here if you want more details about the program. I would be doing infectious disease surveillance and/or disease outbreak investigations in Guatemala City or Quetzaltenango. The interview was focused mostly around my stats and epidemiology skills, as well as Spanish.

Though it went well, it was only the first stage. I should have a telephone interview in the next month or so with the director of the program in Guatemala. The whole process is pretty informal, so I'm not sure when I'll find out more. We'll keep you posted.

Baltimore's Washington Monument

The other night James and I went to the lighting of Baltimore's Washington Monument. To be honest I wasn't too pleased about the idea to begin with. I got off work at 5 and the lighting began at 7, so I had to wait around for a while by myself. And of coarse we couldn't drive, which made walking our only option. I wasn't too excited about this considering on the list of things not to do in Baltimore if you don't want to be mugged or shot, walking around downtown at night is number one. However, everything was fine. I ended up having a great time on a fun little weekday date with my cute husband. They surprised us with a few fireworks. We were really close so the ashes of the fireworks were floating down to the crowd.

Thanksgiving Pictures

James and I went to Waynesboro to have Thanksgiving at my grandparents house this year. My mom, dad, and Amanda came out from Indiana for the weekend. My aunts and uncles also came to the house. It was a buunch of fun and there was so much food. My mom had my uncle Randy take a few pictures of me so she could have a recent picture to put in her living room. The ground was a little wet so James gave me a piggy back ride. This was my favorite picture from the afternoon.

And James even smiled with his teeth!