Conference in Austin and a Dr.?

Last week Wednesday I headed down to Austin to attend the Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium (conference). I went on a field trip all day Thursday then the conference for Friday and Saturday. The group of us met Sally for dinner at Trudy's Thursday night (good food!) and then I went out to dinner with her, Paul, and Kathleen on Friday. It was nice to catch up with her since we don't talk much (despite being directly related).

This was an international conference with lecturers from Spain, Australia, the UK, Japan, Germany, Venezuela, and South Africa. The conference consisted of a LOT of sitting and listening to PhDs stroke their egos. Some of the talks were ok, but most were rather boring (i.e. not something I was terribly interested in). I presented a poster on Friday afternoon as part of Graduate student poster competition. I didn't have a ton of confidence in my poster so I wasn't expecting anything. It turns out I was wrong! The judges couldn't decide on who had the better poster so they awarded another student and myself first place! It comes with a reward too: $200.

I guess winning a poster competition at Binghamton is rather prestigious as I was told by many of the people there that it is resume material. Some even suggested that I should apply to PhD programs. I never thought I would try for a PhD but now that I'm getting this encouragement I'm rethinking. I like doing research and don't really know what I want to do once I graduate in a year so it's possible that this is where I belong. Anyway, Atalie says she's in if I want to do it. If I did want to get a PhD I would probably try to get into U Wisc.-Madison, so I'd at least be sort of closer to home.

"Dr. Patrick Womble" sounds so weird!

Party! Party! Pause- for work.

Oh my goodness! September 9th was our last blog??? Shame on us!

Well, we've got some pictures for you! Patrick and I went to a wedding reception for two of our friends a couple of weeks ago. It was an elegant backyard party, where we all dressed up. Patrick and I looked really sharp! :) It was a lot of fun too- they had delicious Mexican food catered, a little campfire going, interesting music, cheesecake, and a margarita fountain!

Just after dinner, so my lipstick is all worn away, but we still look quite sleek.

The happy couple after the cutting of the cake!

Oh yeah....we look good! :)

Three's company! With our wonderful friend, Kat!

Patrick's birthday was the same weekend, and although he had a nice little dinner party when we were in Michigan, we thought it would be appropriate to have some friends over for German chocolate cake and ice cream, followed by bowling!

On the left is our friend Luke, and Dave is on the right.

Last weekend Patrick had to do some work at school, so I helped him. I'm there grinding soil samples that he later processed in the XRF machine to detect lead and zinc. I feel so smart and helpful! :)

Other than that, it's just been work and exercise and TV- the normal. At least for me. Patrick was gone a few days this week near St. Louis though, doing some research on a river with one of his professors and a few other students. And his traveling isn't done yet. This coming up week he's going to go to a conference in Texas and present a poster, and another week or so later, he's going back to work on the river. He's a busy fellow!

Whirlwind Week

Patrick and I are back from another week spent in Michigan, and I must say, it went way too fast. We were busy pretty much every ounce of the time- we should have made it a 2 week trip!

On top of getting to see friends and family (the week was spent mostly at my own house this time), Patrick and I tried to make wedding-oriented appointments while we were in town. We opened a new joint checking account for saving and spending wedding money, got some brochures from a travel agent, tasted some delicious dishes from our caterer, met with the decorator/florist, and I even bought my wedding dress and veil! I'd say we were fairly productive, wouldn't you?

I didn't plan on buying my dress so early, but it was 10% off the price that day, and it was a sample dress (meaning it was only being tested and might not be continued later) with only a few sizes available out on the floor. In any case, it's one thing down, I can start looking for matching jewelry, and they can always alter it for me later if need be!

Also exciting was that I got to spend more time with my best friend's adorable month-old daughter (Matilyn, if you recall from a previous blog), I was able to hang out with my friend Lucas (visiting from Brazil) for the first time in 6 years, and mine and Patrick's parents had a surprise dinner party for him as an early birthday celebration (September 21!). And of course, seeing my family was great too. (Miss you all already!) :)

Congrats!

So I guess there are some congratulations to go around to some folks out there...

Mr. A seems to have passed the State of Michigan LPN licensing exam! He does not know officially yet but apparently is listed on the State website as having a license number. Way to go Mr. A! We didn't doubt it for a second.

To Brad on being a quarter century old today... don't worry, I'm told those aches and pains are normal...

Some more congrats to Megan, a long time friend from my church camp days. Megan got married last December out in Seattle and has so far been pretty happy being married. The good news is that she's pregnant! We are really excited for them and can't wait to hear more about how it's going!

I'm sure there's more out there to be congratulating people on but I can't think of anything else. If you can think of something, let us know!

P.S. Megan- is your email still the same (at Gmail)?

More Intermediate Lake

Calum racing around on a tricycle at the orchard

Atalie and Isaac pointing at and imitating the goats at the orchard

The Scotland clan

At the KT Tunstall concert

Intermediate Lake

Atalie and Matilyn

C's first fish!

Grandpa and Isaac swinging at the cottages

Private swimming lessons for C.

A week and a half ago, Atalie and I made the long trip up to Michigan to spend some time relaxing. We stopped in Okemos Thursday night so I could go to a doctors appointment Friday morning and then got picked up by Atalie's Dad and taken up to GR in the afternoon. We had a nice evening with Atalie's parents and a great visit with Cassandra and her newborn Matilyn Marie (very cute!). We are the unofficial Godparents, so it was pretty exciting for us.

Jackie picked us up on the way up to Bellaire, MI on Saturday morning to spend the week with my family at a cottage. We learned of the cottages from our friend Kat (whose G-ma owns them) and scheduled to rent the week for the whole family, Scotland crew included. We spent most of our time lounging around, playing with the nephews, and eating. I mention eating because we went to some different orchards around the area and picked up some pretty good fruits and vegetables. Yum! To top it off, our last night there we went to see a KT Tunstall concert in Interlochen. It was a lot of fun!

What's been going on, plus some more pictures

Hey everybody! We've kind of gone back to a traditional, not as exciting lifestyle these past two weeks, but I'll let you know what we've been up to, all the same:

• First of all, my bites/poison ivy/whatever they were, are mostly all gone. There's still a bit of an outline to it and they still itch occasionally, but the medicines seemed to have worked.
  
• We saw Dark Knight last Saturday, and it was AWESOME. Heath Ledger is a scene stealer for sure, and a total creep! :) Patrick and I spent several hours with Kat on the Friday before we saw it, looking for Batman Begins (we hadn't seen it yet, but were determined to before we saw Dark Knight). It was all rented out or there were only $30 special edition sets to buy, but we finally found the rare movie for all of $5!!! Probably the only one in the city!
  
• Patrick and I resumed some jogging again this week. (Applause for us!) It was hot, muggy, and difficult, but really satisfying too. I'm very proud of us! However, I rewarded us in the not so enjoyable fashion of locking us out when we returned from our exercise one night, and we didn't have any phones either (way to go, me). Patrick knocked on a neighbors door and contacted the landlord, who had to send the maintenance man out to us. After a $25 fee and some mosquito bites from our wait outside, I learned my lesson!
  
• We're going to the fair this weekend! We'll let you know how that goes, but we're anticipating slaw dogs, elephant ears and lemonade!
  
• My best friend Cassandra informed me after this past week's doctor visit, that she is going to have her baby girl any day now! Patrick and I are going to be godparents! :)
  
• I finally can show you some pictures of me rock climbing! I was able to view some of Kat's photos, so here's some copies:

Getting ready for lift off. :)

A really good picture of Patrick, as he waits to climb.

I just got past the most difficult part!

Pausing for a photo op! (And a break- I got too worn out to make it to the top!)

Yup, that's Patrick swinging from the tree. What a goofball! :)

Taking a break on the next wall. Luckily there were some nice ledges!

Yay! I made it to the top of this one!