First Day of School!!!!

Today Scott began graduate school at the University of Connecticut. He didn't have anything scheduled until 12:30 in the afternoon, but he was up at 7 am because he had "things to do". He did have to read an article for a class, hunt down books, and try to find out what happened to our student aid (the loan still hasn't made it's way to UCONN), but I think he was also way too excited to stay home. As soon as he was ready, I began snapping pictures like an overprotective mother sending her baby off to school for the first time. At least I know he'll be able to find the bathroom on his own. :)

Already hard at work at 8:00 am.

Having just received his lunch money. I just hope no bullies steal it!

Triumphantly leaving the house.

Here he is! All dressed in new clothes (not really) and ready to start a new school year!

Scott just got done telling me how great his classes are and how much he likes the people he'll be working with. I'll leave it to him to post as he sees fit about them. Needless to say, the rest of the day wasn't as fun for me as the morning, I was a slightly bored while Scott was gone. I have been doing a lot of reading, which takes a lot of concentration because my eyes turn to anything that moves. We saw a mouse in our apartment on Saturday and since then I've been a little on edge. Maybe that's why it was a kind of hard for me to see Scott leave today. Whatever the case may be, I'm just grateful our little boy won't be starting school for another five years!!!!

Critter Country

Greetings,

You'll please note that I remembered to put a title on this post, a feat that has thus far evaded me. In a lot of ways, our stay here in Connecticut has felt like an extended camping trip ("Camping Trip" here being understood to mean "A time when I seem to get covered in spiderwebs everywhere I walk"). Thus, for this post I wanted to introduce you to some of the friends we've made here in Connecticut.

Frank
Frank, here resting on our back door, is the second biggest daddy-long-leg I've ever seen. The biggest daddy long leg, Jim, was seen near our front door, warding off Connecticuts recent rash of doorbell ditchers (The reason for Hartfords recently established curfew). Jim spent 4 days in that position until he was "replaced" (which may or may not mean "eaten") by Ted, a freakishly large and fast spider who set up shop even closer to the door. I killed Ted.

Roger
Believe it or not, this is the best shot of Roger, the chipmunk, that I could get (he is the brownish section in the middle; you can see his eye). When he isn't spazzing out all over the back yard (such spazzing comprising 99.5% of the day), Roger likes to stand as a sentinel on our porch, surveying his kingdom (the back yard) until the moment I try to get a picture of him.

The Turkeys
The Turkeys are enigmatic figures, generally seen only in the shadows in the far off woods. This was the best shot I could get of them in a surprising sighting in our parking lot. They walk around like they own the place, but run off like chickens (get it?) at the first sign of confrontation.

Floyd, the Flying Disembodied Dragon Head
Connecticut's Flying Disembodied Dragon Heads were actually the inspiration for the Flying Disembodied Dragon Heads of The Legend of Zelda fame. Here you see a confrontation before I aquired the Master Sword and boomerang, thus my look of terror. Nowadays I just keep my heart containers full, and blast them from a distance. Err...

In addition to the above mentioned critters, we have also spotted a frog, a rabbit, numerous other freaky bugs, and remnants of a flock of tiny birds that apparently live for the sole purpose of pooping on my car.

Trip to Rhode Island

Hi everyone! As many of you have already heard, Scott and I drove to Providence, Rhode Island. We went to a park called the Roger Williams park and it was a lot of fun! It was a completely random park with nice statues and historical buildings. It even had a museum and planetarium in part of the park. Then it also had a weird boathouse, a creepy carousel, and swan paddle-boats. All in all, I'd say it was definitely an adventure and we were proud of ourselves for finding Providence without a map! We were so proud of ourselves in fact, that we told an elderly gentleman in our ward about our trip yesterday and we expected to hear words of praise for our intellect. Instead we were berated for not going all of the way to Newport. Apparently you haven't seen Rhode Island until you've seen Newport. Hopefully we'll be able to make it down there soon! We did really like Providence though, and the architecture was amazing in the city. We unfortunately had to dirve through a scary part of town to reach it, but we're both alive :).

A bridge in the park. Don't let this pretty picture fool you, it was covered in duck poo.

We, thankfully, were not!

This statue was cool, but it was for a Polish officer who served in the American Revolution, so we weren't really sure why it was in this park.

The front of the museum.

There was a beautiful building just inside the gates of the park. We learned it was a casino. Naturally, we had to take a picture!

Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island. The Puritans kicked him out for wanting religious tolerance and Rhode Island was born.

This park was built as part of the New Deal. Cool huh?

Random boathouse

The Seven Dwarf's Cottage. Actually an anex of the boathouse.

Greetings once again.

The previous days saw an interesting experiment in biking. As you may or may not know, I recently purchased a bike and spent the last month or so riding to work and around Provo. It turned out Provo had a lot more elevation changes than I had previously thought, but nothing I couldn't handle. Well, said elevation changes were little match to what Connecticut had in store for me. We couldn't manage to get a picture to show what it's like, so how about some contour maps?

Below you find a section of my planned path to UConn from our apartment. Each line represents a 40 foot increase in elevation:

160+ Foot increase

For comparison, here is the hill up 400 N in Springville, or as we called it as kids, "The Beast".

80+ Feet (Rhode Island has speed bumps bigger than this)

You may also note that the pictured hill runs through Gurleyville. When I discovered that the other possible route runs through Manleyville, I began reconsidering my plans to bike to school everyday. If anybody has a moped they could mail to us, we would be eternally indebted to you.

In other news, we took a trip to Rhode Island today. I'll leave the details to Megan, but would like to say that it's nice to see a state that takes their mustaches seriously.

Roger William's Alter Ego: The Mustacheod Buglar

Rhode Islanders refer to rain clouds as "God's Mustache"

Home Sweet Home

Hi everyone! Just to let you know, there is going to be a huge difference between how Scott writes and how I write. He'll probably be more entertaining, while I will be more informative. A pretty good mix I think. We are finally in Connecticut and we finally have the internet! It's a day we've been waiting for for a while. We like CT, it's a lot different than Utah, and as you will see from the pictures, we did have a little bit of a shock when we saw our apartment for the first time.

The Kitchen

It was a tiring weekend!

This is the view from our back door.

Me, taking a picture of our back door

The front of our apartment. It's the one right in the center.

Random shack in the front. Kind of creepy.

View from our front door.

Our bedroom window. It took us days to figure it out and the moths poured in in the meantime.

The pretty yellow bathroom. At least it looks clean in this picture.

So this is our apartment. We hopefully will have more pictures uploaded tomorrow. Other than our apartment, we also know how to get to Wal-Mart and the post office. Our world is a little small right now, but we're hoping to get to Boston and Salem later this week or next. The ward is really nice and has been extremely welcoming, although it's going to be difficult to socialize with them, outside of church activities, since our ward boundaries are about 60 miles around. For some reason, I thought there would be more LDS people around, but no such luck. We also haven't figured out a way to meet our neighbors yet. Maybe cookies are in order. Oh yeah, as one final thought for today, Scott and I saw two wild turkeys wandering through our backyard last night. It was totally crazy!!! We wanted to get pictures, but it was raining so hard it was impossible. They eventually wandered off into the brush behind our house, but it was pretty silly watching them!!!! That's all for today. We miss everyone and love you all!!

Greetings all from Connecticut,

For my inaugural post, how about a brief travelogue? Complete with slides and everything!

Wyoming: Evanston ...................Rawlins ............... Laramie ................

Wyoming or Nebraska? The world may never know.

Nebraska: Not unlike Wyoming, but with fewer cowboy boots, more farms, and a giant concrete Jesus

Iowa: Home of the greatest highway rest stops in America and the first time I accessed the internet in 48 hours. No one sent me an email.

Rockin rest stops.

Illinois: Not so good rest stops. The humidity makes me question the meaning of life.

A picture for Becca.

They make ethanol here to ruin your gas mileage.

Indiana: A land of darkness and tolls. The rest stops had some sweet arcade games, but lacked internet access and affordable bottled water.

Darkness and tolls

A picture for Jarom

Ohio: Less darkness, more tolls. Did not see Tyler.

Tyler is not in this picture.

Pennsylvania: Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. The Susquehanna River. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. Trees. For some reason, Pennsylvania was very close to how I picture the Amazon.

The Amazon

The Sesquahanna

New York: On this trip, a state only being 75 miles long was like not existing at all.

Connecticut: Home Sweet Foggy Dark Congested Home.