Our wedding

Phil and I are happy to announce that we (finally) got married last month.


We semi-eloped; we got married here in La Jolla, and only a few close friends came. We will be having a "big" wedding next year on the same day - something more traditional, will all the family and friends we can fit in the church.

We had a lovely dinner at Piatti's afterward, and our very, very delicious cake was from the French Gourmet in PB. We "mini-mooned" at the La Jolla Shores Hotel, which was really lovely.




I can't tell you how perfect the day was. Libby came out and we had a mini spa day, and then we went to the hotel and chilled out with the rest of the ladies before the ceremony. The weather and lighting were perfect, and I couldn't have imagined it any better. It was amazing! Our friend Brian married us, Libby stood up with me and Ian stood up with Phil. Jo and Bjoern did the photos and video (and did them very brilliantly). Barry did a beautiful reading. It really was perfect. Truly the fairy tale wedding of my dreams :)


The whole gang: Ian, Ana, Barry, Phil, me, Brian (back row), Lichun (front row), Libby, Bjoern (back row), and Jo (front row)



Who doesn't love bubbles??



It was so romantic!


Happily ever after...

An Aunt again!

Spencer Brandon Aborn made his debut on Saturday, May 10. He weight just over 8 pounds and is 21 inches long! He has red hair like his brother :) I can't wait to meet him!

The streak continues!

I thought I left all my unfortunate incidents behind when I left Texas. Not so, apparently. It turns out that the "less than successful" bike ride left me with two fractures - a hairline fracture in my second metatarsal and a stress fraction in my third metatarsal. Sigh. Apparently it takes a really long time for these types of fractures to heal, and the more I use my foot, the longer it will take. SIGH.

Settling in...

I finally got a bike and have had several successful journies on it (and one less than successful journey involving a golf cart whose driver was on his cell phone and forgot to yield right-of-way...). I have to say that I miss a lot of things from home (in no particular order):
- Texas in general
- Family
- Friends
- Jason's Deli
- the heat (yes, really)
- Jamie Rae's magic spaghetti
- going to Target
- HEB
- the central time zone (I can't seem to coordinate PST with CST)
- having a washer and dryer inside my apartment
- Culligan water
- friendly drivers
- grass
- big trees
- lots of other things I can't think of at the moment...

FINALLY! Made it to California

Put a penny on Sully, wish me some luck...



We still have a LOT of unpacking to do, and things to finish up, but I did all my HR paperwork today, so the ball is rolling for a new start in San Diego!

Phil and I are very happy to finally be together, and Macy is too, sort of. She was really freaked out by the whole move, and has yet to settle in to our new place. Once she gets used to it, I'm sure she'll love it as much as we do.

A miniature pumpkin

We had dinner at Barry and Ana's sometime near Halloween (sorry, the dates run together a bit for the last 3 months or so), and they had carved the cutest mini-jack-o-latern I'd ever seen!



I think that's the last of the major updates for now, sorry it's been so long. Hopefully there will be lots of exciting things happening that I can write about to keep y'all entertained...

Granny Virigie's 100th birthday...

Granny Virgie had a massive party for her 100th birthday. It was loads of fun! There were lots of people there that I haven't gotten to see in a long time. She got a letter from the President, a flag that had been flown over the Captiol in DC, and a bunch of other stuff. We all had a good time, and Granny Virgie seemed to enjoy herself.

Me and Granny Virgie


Dad, Me, Clay and Blake


Ava, Delbert, the grandkids and gret-grandkids

The tractor cake!

I got Sandra a tractor cake pan (okay, so it was really for Clay mostly), and Clay and I made a cake it in.







Of course, Clay had more fun eating the icing than actually icing the cake.

My defense...

It official! I passed my defense - or as my boss insisted on calling it, the "final examination". It went pretty smoothly considering all the chaos leading up to it (like last minute changes to the presentation),



and my committee seemed pleased with the talk, etc. I got a good number of questions (and I was able to answer them all), and some great feedback from the audience and from my committee.






The boss even bought champange and gave a toast.









Of course, it wouldn't have been the same without Macy to help me prepare and to give me a good-luck cuddle before I left.



Phil was there too, and that meant a lot! (So were my good friends Joel and Libby, also in the picture below, and Jamie Rae, and Stacy).



Now all that's left are corrections and getting my papers submitted...

Macy LOVES laundry day, especially the part where you get the laundry out of the dryer:








I decided it was because the clothes are so warm, and not because she likes to muss up the clean clothes. So, to test this theory, I got a heating pad, put it on the bed and turned it on low. Sure enough, in no time at all, Macy had clamied it!



Unfortunately, the heating pad is now covered in Macy hair, so I guess it officially "belongs" to her...

The answers to the three forbidden questions:

How's work going? Very, very busily. Stressul. Better than it has in a long while, though.

When are you going to graduate/defend? I defend on November 26 at 2:30 pm (that's 50 days from now! Holy crap!) I "walk" at graduation in May, either the 9th or the 10th (A&M has two days worth of graduations, and the day for my college has not been posted yet).

What are you going to do next? Move to San Diego! I have a post-doc job interivew in 2 weeks, and hopefully something will pan out. There are several labs that I would be interested in joining, but it's a matter of timing and funding as to which one.

General update

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but haven't found the time. We got a lot of rain there for a while, and we were bombarded with frogs! Big, noisy frogs and small, cute ones like this:

Macy is pretty good about not biting the big ones, she just chases them, but she can't seem to help herself with the little ones! She is getting better, though.

Macy has really adjusted well to living in an apartment again, although she will only go outside with me. For some reason, she barely even acknowledges Jamie Rae's offers to take her outside. She used to do that to Joel and Dave too, so I guess it's not that big of a deal.

A couple of weeks ago I took her to work and while we were waiting on a gel to run we went for a long, long walk. It didn't seem that hot outside to me, but apparently Macy didn't agree:


When Phil came to visit recently, we went to the Co-op to get Macy some shampoo, and decided to get her some of their "home-made" goodies. Unfortunately, she was allergic to them!

It was very tramautic to me, but Macy seemed quite unbothered for the most part.

Sandra and Clay came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was great! On Saturday, we took Clay to campus and walked around the pre-game festivities. He seemed to enjoy himself a lot, but when we finally got back to the pick-up, he tuckered out pretty quickly:

He sure doesn't miss anything when he's awake, though. When they came to pick me up at work on Friday, I showed him the big blue 37 degree incubator and a few other things. On Saturday we popped back in so that I could pull some plates out of the 30 degree incubator and when he saw me get them out, his face lit up and he said "It's a little incubator!" (The 30 degree is only about 1/3 the size of the 37 degree incubator). Friday night Sandra showed him my Aggie Ring and said "Aunt BB's got one just like Mom's". He took both our right hands and stared and stared. Then he took my left hand and said "Where's that ring?" We told him to ask Uncle Phil. Later when we talked to Phil, Clay asked him about it, and Phil told him that it was still in the shop. Clay got very frustrated and said "Just go pay for it! OH MY GOSH!" and threw himself on the couch in disgust. Apparently he thought Phil hadn't figured that part out yet and should have.

Things are busy as usual. My defense date is November 26th, so things are actually a little bit busier than normal, but then again, they're always busier than they seem! I am going to San Diego in a few weeks - Gill and Jimmy are coming over to visit, and I will do some more experiments at UCSD - and I am very excited about that, but also very stressed. Still it will be good to see Gill and Jimmy and Phil (especially Phil).

The end of an era...

My lease ended last week and I had to turn my Jetta in. It was a very sad day. Joel went with me to the dealership, and then, when it was over, he took me to lunch at Olive Garden. I had to stop and take a picture as we left:



The Jetta and I have many good times. Trips to Austin, the Panhandle, Dallas, Houston, the Hill Country, camping...Too many to name. She was a great car. I hope her new owner treats her well.

I just took at PersonalDNA personality test, and my results show that I am a

Three questions I never want to hear again:

How's work going?

When are you going to graduate/defend?

What are you going to do next?

None of the answers to these questions has changed in the last 3+ years, so please STOP ASKING

At last!

Today I decided to take a day for myself (in between trips to work) to sort a few things out that I had been putting off. The number one thing on the list was to find some jeans, since I am down to two pair, one of which will not be appropriate to wear for very much longer since the holes in it are getting quite big. After much searching at every place I could think of, I finally gave up and went to Target to get some face cream. As I was walking to my car, I realized that Old Navy is right next door, and that Phil always has pretty good luck with his shopping there, so I went in.

I spent most of the visit shopping through the clearance racks and not finding much. I did find a bralette-minus tank top to try on, which fit okay, even though it was a size too big. While trying it on, I noticed the advertisement for the new styles of Old Navy jeans. One in particular, "the Sweetheart" fit, looked promising, so I decided to try a pair on. (Normally the problem with jeans is that, although the tag says they are my size, they are always too big). I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did the jeans fit, but they fit really well, and for an extra bonus, there was a pair in my size that was missing the button so they were 50% off! Woohoo! I made my purchase and headed to Wal-Mart, where I got 5 dungaree buttons for $1.26, then went home and reinforced the area where the button is supposed to go with a patch and put the new button on. I am so excited that I can find jeans to fit right off the rack! Amazing! And they aren't too expenise, either.

Now, if I could just find some shorts that I like...

Rain, rain go away!

You have probably all heard about the huge amounts of rain Texas and Oklahoma are getting, but you may have no idea how hard it is raining. It comes down in massive side-ways sheets as if someone were emptying giants buckets from the sky. Yesterday, it rained so hard that if you were out in it, you couldn't even see in front of you! From the safety of my lab, this is what you could see:



The picture was taken with the camera on my phone, so I don't know if you can really make out the sheets very well, but they are there. Half an hour later, when it stopped for a short bit, this was the view:



It's crazy! And there's more rain predicted...

New home...

I started moving to a new place on Friday and have FINALLY managed to finish today. It rained so much these past few days that I wasn't able to get it all in one go. Not to mention the fact that my little Jetta only holds so much! Still, it is nice to be done. Most everything fit, but I will have to take the few things from the attic to the Panhandle to store until I have a house again.

Hopefully this will be the last place that I live here in CS!

Macy is really enjoying apartment life. Lots of things to see and smell, and she loves our roommate Jamie Rae a lot. She spends a lot of her time sleeping in Jamie Rae's reading chair.



I was really worried about how she would take the move, since she was so upset over my trip to San Diego. She did seem traumatized a bit by the actual moving of stuff from one place to another, but now that we are all settled in, she is very happy!

One good thing about living with Jamie Rae so far (and I'm sure there will be many) - I have eaten breakfast every day! I don't know why the change has occurred, but I'm sure that Phil and Mam-maw are applauding.

Oh, I almost forgot - as a bonus, I get my very own bathroom! I can finally put out the decorative towels...

I recently got sucked into Facebook, and am now addicted to it....Like I needed anything else to help me procrastinate!

Why is it that it is so easy to put off doing things? You know you are going to regret it later, but inexplicably, you procrastinate anyway. Sigh. I have so much to do, so much writing and other work, and yet here I am on blogger...

Pressure...

Christos defends on July 25, so that means I'm next!!!