Waves, MLIA, Christmas, and something else

Hi all,

Well, I have been busy the last month.  To my eternal shame, I haven't posted in forever.  So, let's get some stuff out of the way, shall we?

First, although the star thing was cool, it was time to get a different background.  I hope that you enjoy this holiday cheer background.  Overall, it is much nicer and much more inviting, I confess.

As for my news, I have reached a new level of nerdiness!  I now hold in my dirty little hands an invite to Google wave.  And, surprise of all surprises, I even have an idea of what I want to do with it!  We hope to go to Spain this next year with our good friends, and it seems that Google wave would be an excellent way to plan everything.  To be honest, other than that I haven't been able to think up anything, but I'll get back to you on that.  Feel free to throw me a wave at danielknielsen at googlewave.com.  Or, if you want an invite, let me know.  I have a few left.

In other computer nerdiness, I saw a post the other day about how to download almost all of the National Geographic wallpapers without manually going though and clicking on each of them.  So, I now have an awesome screensaver and desktop.  I think I managed to get around 400 of them - not too shabby, I say.  You can be jealous.

Speaking of awesome things, I usually don't make impulse buys.  But I saw this shirt online and I couldn't but help get it for Laura.  It still makes me laugh when I think about it.  Here, for your viewing pleasure:

The name of this work of art is "imposter."  She's a hottie when she wears it.

Let's see, as this seems to be a computer oriented post, I also want to throw in a plug for an awesome new website that I happened to stumble upon.  I would be lying if I said that I believed everything on there, but I would also be lying if I said that I don't laugh a lot everytime I read it.  Someday I will find something that will make it onto that website.  I mean, my life is pretty average, right?

Well, Merry Christmas!  I'll finish up another post in a few days.  I still need to talk about:

-generals

-Christmas

-Lab Success (R) (most important)

-Mp3 explosion

-why Laura is awesome

       -sexy lady comment

Dan

Quilting

Here's a quick update about quilting. I've completed 4 large quilt blocks so far; only 12 more large blocks and 16 more small blocks to go......

Happy Birthday, Pookie!

Pookie joined our family one year ago this weekend. Although we do not know her "real" birthday, we've decided to count from when we adopted her. She was approximately a year old when we got her, so we'll count today as her 2nd birthday.

Pookie's come a long way this past year. She had a rough childhood (bunnyhood, I guess you'd say), and began her life in a crowded shed with tons of other rabbits before being rescued. (For an article about the rescue, click here) It took her a long time to warm up to us; in the beginning she'd only let us pet her if we were feeding her, but eventually she learned that she likes affection from us.

We love having Pookie in our family. Some of our favorite things about her are:

-watching her race around the living room and do binkies

-watching her wash her ears

-the way her ears can turn independently of one another, like when she's eavesdropping

-how curious and inquisitive she is

-seeing how excited she is to get food or treats

-petting her and hearing her purr, if we're lucky

For Pookie's birthday, we let her have one of her favorite treats, a carrot! And, we're also giving her a new wicker ball to chew on. We love you, Pookie!

New Activities

So, two new exciting things that I've started/will start doing soon:

1. I've joined a quilting group. We meet each month, and learn how to make a new quilt block, and then have all month to complete that block. So far, I've only made half of one block, but I'll try to post a picture once I complete it. And, if you interested in seeing what my finished quilt may look like, check out this page. My quilt is the one named "Chloe." (I haven't decided yet whether I'll do the small size or the large size.)

2. I also joined a 12 week Healthy Habit Challenge group with some friends. Basically, we all paid $20 to join and the winner gets a $200 prize at the end. You can earn up to four points a day by doing the following things:

-get 7 hours of sleep
-eat healthy (no treats or junk food)
-35 minutes of vigorous exercise
-work on your personal goal (mine is going to be 20 minutes of scripture study per day)

I'm pretty excited for the challenge. I'm already pretty good about exercising daily and getting enough sleep. Turning down desserts and treats will be the biggest challenge, but the $200 prize is a big motivator for me. I'll keep you updated on my progress!

Kick'n it DC style

We have had a crazy few weeks, let me tell you. The most exciting thing to happen was our 3rd set of visitors to our humble New Jersey home. Lured by promises of NJ corn, homecooking, and general sightseeing wonder, my parents agreed to come out over the weekend and spend some time with us (well, mostly Laura, but since I was around...)

We did the standard touristy things that you would probably expect. For example, we got horribly lost after picking up my parents in DC. And when I say lost, I mean we would have been dead in the water except that my father brought his GPS, which gently lifted us from the quagmire of DC with patient directions and the inevitable "recalculating" after every time I missed a turn. Since this happened about every other turn, it came to be a comforting sound, reassuring me that, while the scenery of DC was changing, my refusal to trust the GPS was not. We cruised the metro, went to all the monuments, got a tour of the Capitol and White house (my great uncle-in-law is a senator from Utah, which facilitated the whole trip), etc, etc. A few pictures:

I hung out with Michelle:

Witnessed some parental love:


And did all of the other touristy-type things:


So, that was day one and two of the trip. Day three was a quick jump up to NYC for the standard sightseeing stuff again. We went up the Rockefeller tower for some awesome zero visibility views, took the ferry, ate in little Italy, bought cheap stuff in Chinatown, and saw Wicked:

The next day was rest day (thankfully). Monday we hit up the waterfalls in the Delaware water gap. As always, they were amazing, but I will only give you a taste with one picture:


Well, maybe one more, though it is hard to top the last one:


And, before you ask, no, I don't know the name of the nice man standing behind us.

The last day we pretty much just hung out and talked, and then dropped them off. Here are a few things I learned from this trip:

1. Having parents come and visit YOU and stay in your house for the first time is scary and fun.
2. Parents who play Wii tennis not only look cool (and pretty funny), but are cool
3. Families are the most important social unit in the world
4. My parents are the coolest

Thanks for coming, mom and dad! We love you!