"Well it's been a long day" (or couple of weeks)

It seems like it's been forever since I did a post. Since the last time I wrote...Joe went to Dallas and back, did finals, we've spent quite a bit of time looking at houses, Karen turned one and got shots, and I survived it all. So, I guess I'll write a bit about all of those (I'll be brief so you don't have to spend hours reading this).

After NYC, Joe came home for a week and a half. During that time he did his finals. This semester was unique for one reason: he didn't have straight A's going into the final. He actually ended up with 2 grades that weren't A's (for more details call and ask Joe, he loves to gripe about it, and I can't say that I blame him). However, the semester finished, just like it always does. I wanted to celebrate and do something fun, but the next day he left for Dallas instead. This trip was 'really exciting'. He collected data at a convention of Humane Society people for three days. Sometimes it can be fun to collect data (count how often people raise their hands in class or some other wierd thing), but this was walking around saying "Do ya wanna take a survey?" It wasn't the most exciting thing that he'd ever done. On the bright side the food for the conference was provided-it was Vegan, and somewhat "interesting" I understand-but it was provided. He brought me back a T-shirt with a kitty that says "Love is a four-legged word", which was kinda cute.

The past few months we've been thinking about buying a house or townhome or something. We don't have a lot of money at this point but we're just sick of renting and don't want to do it for another 3 or 4 years. So, we've been looking around at what we hoped would be 'cute little houses', but our luck hasn't been good. There are lots of places in our price range, but most of them are in areas that I wouldn't want to be in after dark. So then we thought maybe we'd just stay where we're at anyway, or get a 3 bedroom apartment.... we just aren't quite sure. Then I went with the realtor today and saw this really cute little house with a great yard in a decent neighborhood...so we'll just have to see what happens. Maybe we'll move, maybe we won't. It's not very fun to be up in the air like this, so hopefully it gets resolved soon.

And now, at last, my cute Karen-poo has turned 1. It seems like she was just born a month ago, but she's a whole year old. It was really wierd to watch the American Idol finale and thinking about how I missed it last year because I was in labor. Anyway, we had a nice get together with some of our friends to celebrate her birthday. I made a cute bear-shaped birthday cake, we had ice cream, watched Idol, and had a good time. We gave Karen a Noah's Ark (Little People, Fisher Price), and she loves to put the animals in and out and in and out. We took her to get her checkup/shots yesterday, and in a year she has tripled her weight (coming in at 21lbs 10 oz.) and grown 9 inches in length. It's just amazing to see how much she's grown.

On a last note, we bought our plane tickets for Utah. We'll be in town from July 2 to 10. We're going to be busy a couple days with my grandparents 50th anniversary (it's so exciting!) but we'd love to see all of our friends and family while we're there. Hopefully there will also be some good movies at the dollar theater by then as well, but that's farther down on the priority list. Anyway, hope you're all having a good time being where you are, and have a great Memorial Day.

Mr. Allen goes to NY and Back...

Well, we have finally made it...almost. Classes are over, one trip is finished, and now there are only two finals and one more trip for Joe before 'summer vacation'. For Joe, a full load of classes is 12 (or 13) credit hours, so he basically has 3 real classes and 3 hours of research credit. This is nice at finals because he really only has 3 classes to study for. So, one week from now I will be 'free'. It's funny how I have this feeling, even though I'm not the one who's actually sitting in the classes or meetings. Maybe it's because I get calls at random times during the day with Joe saying "honey, what do you think about _____?" and then not taking an "I don't know" for an answer. Whatever it is, it'll be nice to have him only working 20 hours a week for a couple months.

So, in the past two weeks Karen hasdone some really cute things. I don't have pictures of most of them because they all seemed to happen when Joe had the camera in NYC, but there are a couple of cute pics at the bottom. She has also learned how to sit up. Whereas previously if Karen wanted to sit up instead of lay down she would yell and make a fuss until Joe or I did something about it; now however she just sits up on her own. She's also started 'scooting' a little bit, though she still mostly rolls. She's getting really good at following me everywhere I go. One evening I left her with Joe while I went into the little girl's room. Upon exiting, I tripped over Karen who had followed me, preferring to sit by a closed door than to play with daddy. Some kids are just crazy huh?

Joe had a good time in NYC last weekend. He flew in Thursday afternoon/evening and stayed until Sunday night. He got to go to many of those 'cool' places that you see in tv and movies, like Central Park, Radio City Music Hall (where the NFL Draft was going on), and Ground Zero, just to name a few. He wanted to go to a broadway musical, but neglected to reserve tickets several months ago; the shortest waiting list was almost 200 people long. While he was gone Karen and I hung out. I did a lot on my cleaning list, and our apartment is starting to look clean. I think the worst of what I did was clean the blinds from all our windows (okay, so there are only 4 windows, but it felt like way more than that as I cleaned them all). I put 'em in the bathtub to soak, and they left a terrible ring. But now the light comes in the windows so much better! It's great! Also while Joe was gone I read a bunch of Harry Potter. We've preordered #7, and as part of my birthday present Joe says I get to read it first. I'm also excited for the movie of #5 that comes out just before the next book (July 13, just after we get back from Utah). Maybe we'll see the movie for our anniversary. Can any of you believe that it'll be our 4th anniversary this year? It's really gone by fast. Karen turns 1 in 19 more days. She's so cute and active now.

Well, I hope y'all did well on your finals, or at least did them ;) Let me know where you'll be in the summer. We'll be here for most of the time, but we're heading to Utah the first week or so of July, and then to Philadelphia for a few days in August.