Christmas Tree

The day after Thanksgiving Tara and I wanted to get a christmas tree since both of our families have a tradition of getting trees from the mountain soon after Thanksgiving. We thought about getting a cheap fake tree, but we both love real trees so we finally decided to go to a tree lot or farm. We found a tree lot on the road we take to get to church and found a nice tree there. Christmas just isn't Christmas without the smell of a real tree!

Fall 08

Since we've been so bad at posting lately, here is a brief summary of October and November. Near the end of October Tara and I decided to go to a corn maze and pumpkin patch. We found a place not too far from us and made an afternoon of it. Here are a few picture from our adventure.


The week of Halloween Mom & Dad Judd came to visit for my white coat ceremony.


Luckily school was pretty easy that week so we were able to play a little. While they were here we drove to an old historic town on the Eastern Shore and down to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, and Skyline Drive in Virginia to see the fall leaves. Mom's birthday was the day before they left so we went to dinner at Cheescake Factory and had a little party.


Since we weren't able to go home to Utah for Thanksgiving we were invited to go to the home of a family in our ward. Every year they invite people from the ward who don't have family in the area to spend Thanksgiving with them. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed a great dinner with several families from our ward and the missionaries.

Camp chairs and couches

Andrew and I absolutely love our camp chairs, but we've learned over the past few months that they're made for camping every once in a while and not for sitting in everyday for two months:). Although the cup holders are very useful and can hold drinks, tv remotes, or cell phones, we decided it's time to fold up the camp chairs.

After looking at store after store for a couch, we finally found something that we both liked and that was within our price range. We rented a moving truck to pick it up, and then our friend Bryce helped Andrew move it up to our apartment. Thanks Bryce!!

We immediately had to try it out. We wish our nieces and nephews were here to jump on it and break it in a little bit:). We're sure glad we made this purchase, and we've already got some good use out of it. Andrew sat at one end studying, while I curled up on the other end and fell asleep.

Fall in Utah

Andrew, being the great husband that he is, let me go to Utah while he stayed behind for school. I was able to surprise my dad for his birthday, watch general conference with my family, and spend some time with Andrew's family as well. It was a wonderful weekend! I had a lot of fun with family, thoroughly enjoyed the conference talks, and was amazed at the beautiful fall leaves. So for those of you from Utah who didn't get a chance to see the leaves, here they are...

Coldstone ice cream

Even though yesterday was a bit chilly, windy, and rainy we couldn't pass up an offer for free Coldstone ice cream. We both love Coldstone not only for the ice cream but because it reminds us of the first date that started it all:)! For those who don't know the story....About 9 months ago, when returning to BYU from Christmas break, Andrew stopped by his sister's house and decided to stay for dinner. My sister and brother-in-law were there too, and there was mention of me somewhere in the conversation. I think it was the next day that Andrew wrote me a message on facebook and mentioned that we should do something sometime. I wrote him back and said I was free anytime. He then wrote me back asking for my phone number. I, however, got busy with stuff and never made it a priority to write him back thinking to myself that if he really wanted to do something he could get my number off facebook. Side note.....If I would have known then what I know now, I probably would have called him:)! Back to the story....he did find my phone number on facebook, sent me a text to break the ice, and then called to ask me out. We ended up going out on our first date on January 17, 2008. We went to Coldstone on a day much colder than yesterday and then went to his apartment to play darts. I love times like yesterday when we can REMEMBER, and our love for each other can continue to grow. I am so blessed to be married to someone who is so caring, understanding, patient, respectful, smart, and fun! I sure do love Andrew:)!!

We're still here...

As you all can see we're still not very good at updating our blog, but here's a quick update on what we've been up to. I started medical school last month and have had one test so far. We're currently doing our Structure and Development course which includes Anatomy, Embryology, and Histology. That course goes through October, then we start Cell & Molecular Biology. On the first day of orientation I ran into another guy from BYU, Bryce Harbertson, and as we talked we realized that Tara and his wife Cathi served in the Rome mission at the same time and knew each other...small world! Tara is currently looking for a job. Unfortunately, schools in Baltimore County don't hire assistant speech pathologists so she's been looking for other options. We haven't visited many sites yet but we have taken a few weekend drives to areas I served in. Tara and I just received new callings in the ward; Tara is a young womens adviser and I am a primary worker. Overall things are going great, but we really miss Utah and all our family and friends...that means you should all come visit soon. The leaves are just starting to change colors so you still have time to come see the beautiful fall colors ;).

Goodbye Utah, Hello Maryland

It's late and I don't have our pictures on my computer yet, but I wanted to give a short update on what we're up to. Tara and I left from Vernal on Wednesday July 30th around noon. Tara's mom and dad came along for the drive and drove our second car. We stopped Wednesday night in Goodland, Kansas after about 8 hours worth of driving Thursday we got up early and headed out with a goal to make it to Terre Haute, Indiana. After about 12 1/2 hours of driving we finally made it to Terre Haute, just barely over the Indiana border. Today was our last day of driving and took us through Indiana, Ohio, two small pieces of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and finally Maryland. Our drive time today was about 10 1/2 hours. We got here too late to get into our apartment so we're staying in a hotel in Columbia, MD just outside of Baltimore and will start moving into our place tomorrow. We'll move the majority of our stuff that went on the truck on Monday morning. Overall it's been a fun trip and went much faster than I expected. It has been very interesting to see so many different parts of the country. From start to finish we drove through Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvanio, West Virginia again, and Maryland. Most of the trip was along I-70. Later we'll put up a few pictures of the trip, including the welcome signs to most of the states we drove through. We love you all and are still sad to leave you all for so long, but we're also excited to get things going here in Baltimore. We're hoping to have lots of visitors so you should all start checking for flights now :-)



Before leaving Mom & Dad Judd's house


Our first new state: Colorado!


The sign in the opposite direction welcoming people to Utah


The Eisenhower/Johnson tunnel in Colorado


Denver


State number 2: Kansas



Wind Mills in Kansas


Kansas City


State number 3: Missouri



St. Louis


State number 5: Indiana (we missed the sign for the 4th state, Illinois)


Indianapolis



State number 6: Ohio


Columbus


State number 7: West Virginia...for the first time


State number 8: Pennsylvania


West Virginia the second time.


State number 9: Maryland...finally!!!