research and life lately...

For the last four months, Matt has been on his "research" rotation.  This is a four-month block of time where he pretty much worked regular-people-hours in a basic science lab at the University.  He was doing research on the development of tumor-markers for head and neck squamous cell cancer screening.... if you were wondering. ;)  Anyway, research was AMAZING. Matt was usually still home when I left for work in the morning and then was home when I got back in the evening.  He took care of Jake. He ran errands. He made dinner. He got to do normal things like read books and watch tv.  We could meet up for lunch together. We were able to take random trips on the weekends! We both LOVED it.  But, alas, all good things must come to an end. (not sure if I really believe that... but it's true in this case.)

He went back to the real world today.  And we are both so very sad.  :(

Last wednesday, during our first snow storm of the year, I was off so we went to Chick-fil-A one last time.  in the middle of the day.  here we are enjoying the amazingness. 

{I'm sure you can ignore the fact that his mouth is full of chicken sandwich.}

Anyway, we have been enjoying the Colorado autumn.  It's been a beautiful, long, mild fall until last week when we had six inches of snow.  They're expecting another 5-10 inches tonight!

another recent highlight was that I got to see my sister this last weekend! she is very pregnant and only has about 7.5ish weeks till her due date! so exciting.  and such a cute preggo lady. :)

North Carolina!

We finally got the chance to go to North Carolina to visit our sweet friends, Josh and Melanie, over labor day weekend.

We enjoyed exploring the Blue Ridge Parkway which is a beautiful, mountainous area just a couple hours from where they live in the Chapel Hill area.  We went hiking and stayed one night in a cute mountain town.  We also got to see the UNC campus and the Duke campus - both are so pretty!

 Thankfully, Melanie was able to pull Josh from certain danger on one of our hikes.  :)

We had such a fun weekend and it flew by way to fast.  My favorite part of the trip was just being able to see the Langston's, catch up, and enjoy being our usual, silly selves with them (as illustrated in the photo below).  We certainly miss them and wish we lived closer to them!!

I'm an auntie!!

The most exciting thing going on in our family this year is that my sister and her husband, Sarah and Luke, are expecting a baby!!!  It's the first baby on either side of the family for me and Matt, so we're pretty excited.

and...

it's a boy!!!

Sarah is 23 weeks this week and the baby is due December 20th.  What a great Christmas gift!

this was baby's first gift from me :)

vail hiking & biking

Since moving to Colorado, Vail has kind-of become our second home.  Matt's parents graciously let us use their condo anytime, so we find ourselves up there quite often.  We absolutely love it and some of our favorite summer hiking trails are in the Vail valley.  Matt's parents were in town                                for our most recent trip.

{the gore range}

{gore creek}

We went for a lovely hike on Gore Creek Trail.  The wildflowers are at the peak of their season in late July and early August, so they were amazing while we were there.  Matt's dad taught me the names of almost all of the flowers we came across.  This isn't even all of them!

{mariposa lily}

{red clover}

{monk's hood}

{cow parsnip}

{hare bells}

{chiming bells}

{mountain geranium}

{carrying large sticks}

We also biked up Vail Pass while we were in town...

And we always love hanging out in Vail Village!

And here are a couple more photos I snapped of the Gore Range on our way out of town.  

I love to take pictures from this spot.  You can see how drastically the scenery can change in just a couple months by viewing this post from June (and scrolling down to the photo of the Gore Range)!

view

In the summertime, we eat dinner fairly frequently on our front porch.  

We were surprised to look up and see a beautiful double rainbow this evening.  

It joined us for the whole meal.  :)

to the lake!

Matt's family has a cabin on a lake outside Amarillo and it's one of our favorite places to escape to.   And  Jake thinks it's heaven.  We were there a couple weeks ago and had such a fun, relaxing time.

We swam, read, relaxed, went canoeing, boating & hiking.

We also got to spend some great time with Matt's grandmother.  I loved listening to her tell stories of raising her kids on this lake in the summers when they were growing up.  She is the sweetest lady and it was a blessing to get to spend time with her.

And we found this awesome towel.  I really wanted to bring it home.

We played hard.  And then we watched Seinfeld episodes until we fell asleep.  it was the perfect trip!

the pioneer lady

I'm at work on a Saturday.  It's a new thing my clinic is trying out.  But I've only seen two patients.  I should be organizing my office but I'm not.  I've been perusing the web all morning. 

I also received a text from my friend, Bobbie, (Hi Bobbie!) who reminded me that it was on her blog that I first learned about the Pioneer Woman.  And the Pioneer Woman's "pork butt" which I blogged about in the previous post.

I used to think the Pioneer Woman was some kind of corny, country version of martha stewart ...  but I'm smarter now.  and I'm officially obsessed.  Her recipes are amazing.  Her photography blog is super informative. (even though I never win her photography contests.) And I think she's one of the funniest people on the planet.  I just finished reading her book:

{source}

Hilarious. every time I opened it up I was laughing out loud. You should read it. 

She recently had a photo contest for the best phone photos.  The winner got a $350 gift card to the apple store.  I thought this photo should have won. 

it didn't even make the top 100.  obviously, the competition was fierce.  ;)

okay, better go take care of people now.

adios second year!

Second year is officially over!! What better excuse to have a party?!  We invited all of the residents over for a FIESTA to celebrate the end of another year of residency.  This is a huge milestone for the residents in Matt's year because there's quite a difference between the work hours, call schedule, and responsibilities of first/second year compared to third/fourth/fifth year.  We've been anticipating this day for a while, to say the least.  Henry, Scott, Matt, and Sarah have accomplished so much over the last two years and it was fun to get to celebrate with them!  

We had a fajita-style meal with the Pioneer Woman's Spicy Shredded Pork Shoulder ...

Since I forgot to take a photo of the finished product before it was all eaten, you'll have settle for this photo from her blog {of course, mine looked identical}

{recipe found here}

We had a pinata that was a hit with the kiddos,

{pun unintentional}

margaritas in mason jars,

and mary jackson's delicious margarita cupcakes.

Jake wasn't sure what to think of the festive lights,

 & Matt had a chance to try to convince sweet jane that he's not as dangerous as he appears (she's okay as long as the sophie doll is blocking her view)...  it's slow, but I think we're making progress :)

here we come, third year!