OKAY OKAY, here is a bit of our trip

For the OVERWHELMING requests, here are a few pictures of our road trip.

No, this is not trick photography, there really is NOTHING in Minnesota.

Once we hit South Dakota things picked up pretty fast. We saw the world's largest bull head. I am not sure how tall it was, but it was pretty massive. Sorry about the blurry picture, going 80 mph is not great for taking pictures.

The one and only corn palace. I think that Nick wants to move to Mitchell, SD solely for the ability to go to the corn palace whenever he wants.

The real reason we took the northern route, despite the awesomeness of the corn palace, was to go and see Mount Rushmore. I could not believe how big it is. All pictures, including these ones minimalize its size, but it is huge.

Just one of the little one in front of the big ones.

This is the only picture that shows how truly large these things are.

Once we were done with ALL the cool things in South Dakota we headed south to the four corners area. As my undergrad degree was in Anthropology I could have stayed there forever. This is Mesa Verde. It is an entire city set in cliffs.

We took a guided tour through the ruins; some spaces were tight.

And some were below ground.

And just because, this is a picture of our new swimming pool! In case anyone was wondering why she is standing so funny, she is dog paddling/swimming. Maybe we ought to get her some lessons.

New project

I was telling one of my friends in Boston about the amazing avocados we had growing up in California, so when we were leaving she suggested that I plant an organic avocado tree. This is the beginning of that adventure. I bought the biggest one in the basket. Plus, it was delicious. I plan on documenting the growth of my "tree" on this blog, so every month I will post a picture of its progress.

One more olive

PLEASE DON"T SCROLL DOWN UNTIL YOU ARE DONE WITH THE STORY


WARNING: This is a "Nick-Post," so it might be a little bit inappropriate, proceed at your own risk.

I haven't started residency yet, so I have spent a great deal of time with my 2 girls. I don't think I ever realized how extreme these girls can be. They are either extremely hilarious or extremely, well, let's just use the word tired. Let me share a hilarious moment that happened last night.

Since Ali was about 1 year old, she has loved olives. We can often bribe her into doing things with the temptation of olives. She has even been known to turn down candy or ice cream for olives. She especially enjoys black, pitted olives. She carefully places them one by one on her fingers, until she runs out of fingers or olives. Last night, she was especially good and was rewarded by a bowl full of olives. Steph and I turned to our night chores while Ali proceeded to make her olive glove. A couple of minutes later, I heard "Daddy look I only have one olive left." I turned around and this is what I saw:










I'm thinking of making this our Christmas card. I'm gonna miss these moments.

-Nick

Short story and a bit of thought

The short story of these long 3 weeks is that we made it here safely. It was a long road trip and a long time setting up our apartment but we are done. Our new address is:
861 Manhattan Beach Blvd #1
Manhattan Beach, CA 90266

I also want to say a goodbye to Boston, which really has treated us well. Most people do a pros and cons sort of deal where they elaborate on the good and bad of their experience, but the one thing, and the big thing that I will miss in Boston is the good people. The world has lots of good people in it, but I think that Boston in particular has an unproportionally large quantity of such people. To all those good friends, we miss you all already.