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!

The Scientific Method

This weekend James and I decided to take a trip down to the Maryland Science Center for our Saturday date. This was actually James' first visit. I was really excited to show him all the cool things my museum has to play with; apparently I got a little carried away and went too fast.

Since we get in to the museum for free, we decided to make the Science Center into a series of dates. This time we dedicated our entire visit to the third floor which holds space link and body link. 

First we went to space link and saw a presentation called "Science on a Sphere." It's basically just a massive sphere screen suspended in the center of the room. The projected data sets onto the sphere about earth and other planets. That was James' favorite part.

We also played in the space link room. Here we are dressed up in some NASA flight suits. Our day ended with a planetarium show about constellations.

Next we visited the body link exhibit. James got to try out the bed of nails for the first time. This is one of my favorite parts of the exhibit halls.

We also got to be "real scientists" for the day and do any experiment in the wet lab that taught us a little about the digestive enzymes that break down the carbohydrates that we eat. We had a pretty good time at the museum. We'll add more pictures next time we go to visit the other levels of exhibits.

Calabaza!!!

At the pumpkin patch we bought a little tiny pumpkin to carve. This is what we ended up with...

The face of Dwight K. Shrute. In other words, the perfect pumpkin.

Dwight: I have hunted warewolves. I shot one once. But by the time I got to it, it had turned back into my neighbor's dog.

Pumpkin Patch

A couple of weeks ago, we went up to Pennsylvania to visit Randy and Deena (Megan's aunt and uncle). They were babysitting their grandkid, Kaiden. We all went to a pumpkin patch to play around. It was really fun! They had a little train they built out of barrels and stuff, some huge slides that went down a hill, and some goats that climbed ladders and ate food up on a platform. Most of it was too amazing to describe.

Like I said, amazing.

Date Night at the National Aquarium

In honor of our first weekend together since I started my job, James and I had a date night on the harbor. James met me when I got off work and we walked over to the National Aquarium.

We saw all kinds of cool exhibits with sharks, crocodiles, turtles, fish, frogs, lizards, birds, and jellies. My favorite animals were the monitor lizards and crocodiles. The jellies were also pretty awesome to watch. James loved the sharks.
After the aquarium we sat on some of the benches along the harbor. Before he headed home we stayed to watch the Urban Pirate ship float by with a boat full of drinking sailors screaming pirate songs. Before I leave Baltimore, I will ride that Pirate ship.

An Addition to the Fuller Family!

After almost two full years of marriage, I am pleased to announce that my name has finally been officially changed to Megan Deann FULLER.

The task proved to be a true pain, which was unfortunately one of the reasons it was put off for so long. I received a social security card but was told at the bank that I needed a picture id holding my married name in order to make a change on my bank account - hence the long and strenuous pursuit for a Maryland driver’s license. I ended up driving myself to the DMV on two separate weekends because my first proof of residence apparently wasn’t acceptable. The two drives wouldn’t have annoyed me so much if I hadn’t gone to the Hagerstown DMV, which is a little over an hour away.

On the upside, I was able to visit my grandparents for dinner who live about 20 minutes from Hagerstown. My Pappy took me to the Hess orchard to pick out some apples. I got a half-bushel (about 20 pounds of apples) for only 5 bucks!

Good Morning Baltimore!!!

A few days ago we went to the rooftop of the Maryland Science Center on the Inner Harbor. In case you didn't know, Megan works there. It was a beautiful view of the city and the water. Baltimore is a pretty interesting city with lots to offer.

The downtown area is really nice, with lots of great restaurants and attractions. However, just a few blocks away several neighborhoods with some of the highest poverty rates in the country. The Johns Hopkins Hospital sits in the heart of East Baltimore, one of the poorest areas in the city. I'm actually starting to like it there a lot. I'm studying international health, and most of my time is spent studying malnutrition, infectious diseases, and maternal/child health. Its pretty interesting that while we typically associate these issues with low-income countries, I can walk a few blocks in any direction and come face-to-face with all of them.

The Appalachian Trail

Megan had to work today, so I decided to put on my boots and hit the A.T. For those of you who don't know, the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) runs 2,178 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. For more info, visit The Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

It has always been a goal of mine to hike the trail in its entirety. Originally, I planned to hike it all in one summer after graduating college, but falling in love and getting married changed my perspective. However, I still hope to tackle the trail piece by piece as a weekend warrior.

I have hiked the entire portion in Georgia, as well as parts in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Now I can add Maryland to that list.

This morning, I hiked a short portion of the trail in western Maryland. Starting from I-70, I headed North to a lookout called Annapolis Rocks. Along the way, the scenery was beautiful. The forest was unbelievably green.

The view from the top was pretty nice as well. As you can see, the weather was pretty active.

Our New Apartment

Here are a few pictures of our new apartment. We really lucked out and got a very nice place and some very nice furniture. The furniture was actually free!!! A family in Pennsylvania is moving to China to work for the U.S. Foreign Service. They gave us a ton of really nice furniture (did I mention it was free?).  The list includes a big screen T.V., leather sofa set, queen size bed, box spring and frame, and a large decorative mirror.  Megan's cousin Ashley gave us a glass coffee table with matching side tables, and we were able to buy a used table and chairs for $45. Check out the pictures.

 

 

 

 

This is a mirror image of our floorplan

This is what the complex looks like outside