Florida :(

Today I went to the DMV to get registered in Virginia which meant I finally said goodbye to my awesome Florida plates. SAD DAY. I may be smiling in the picture but inside it hurts!

We went grocery shopping at Sam's Club and found the perfect chair
for the guys in the Brockbank family. Notice how my feet don't touch the
ground and I am not even sitting all the way back in the chair.

*****I finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Great story but there were some parts that needed to be skipped over because I did not feel comfortable reading them. I saw many people reading it on our plane rides this summer so I thought I would give it a try. The author kept me hooked which is why I skipped over parts rather than putting the book down.*****

Quality Time

After a ridiculously long week where Ben studied all the time and I was bored out of my mind we were able to enjoy a great weekend! Friday evening we had a BBQ with some couples from the ward to celebrate some of the boys being able to relax a little. After the BBQ we had root beer floats (ick root beer....I had a Dr. Pepper float instead) and played games. Saturday we went to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts with the Badgers and the Andersons. It was a great museum. Before this I told Ben I wanted to do something new every Saturday so we could 1. Spend time together 2. See all the cool stuff around and 3. Know what there is to do when we have people visit. I definitely think the museum was worthy of a visit :)

By the way, Ben started The Mockingjay on Friday night and finished it Saturday night! I haven't read it yet but I am very excited to.

The whole group at the VMFA. The Badgers are in the
middle and the Andersons are on the right.

Ben has surprised me here. I've never been around him when babies are in the room. That is definitely not the case here because EVERYONE has babies. We hang out with the Badgers a lot and as soon as Ben sees Noah he goes right for him. He wanted to hold him the whole time we were at the museum. I don't blame him. Noah is a cutie and a really good kid :)

When looking at this piece of art Evan said,"That's what the chair
looks like after I sit in it." Made me laugh because Ben is always
worried about breaking chairs...

We were walking around for a while and Ben was holding Noah so
Cindy decided to take advantage of the empty seat.

He did it!

Ben survived his first 2 tests of Med school! He's a smarty and did very well on both. Good job Ben!!! Love you. Now we can have a fun weekend :)

In need of more distractions...

Ben has been in school for just over 2 weeks now. The first week was orientation so he got home pretty early from class plus I had decorating the apartment and Ben's parents to distract me for awhile. This was not the case for the last week so I have been looking for distractions! I have gone to the pool a couple times with the girls in our ward. Two nights last week we had get togethers with the girls so that helped. I applied for subbing jobs and an after school program for middle school students. I won't find out if I can sub until the middle of September but I should be hearing back from the after school program soon. I am really excited about the job and am hoping I can get it. I'll give more details if they hire me!

I've been spending a good amount of time reading. I finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. It was great. If you are looking for a good read I would recommend it. It is about the lives of black women serving white women in the 1960's.

This weekend and Monday Ben and I were able to enjoy some time with each other and friends. We went out to eat on Friday night after Ben had class and when we were done we had people over to play games. We played Ticket to Ride and Ben didn't win. Seems like he is getting used to not winning which is a good thing for everyone!

Saturday we then went to see the Karate Kid at The Byrd Theatre with Kurt (friend from BYU) and the Andersons (couple from the ward). You should check it out! http://byrdtheatre.com/restoration/overview/ It was built in 1928 when going to movies was huge. There was a huge chandelier above us and balcony seating. The girls at the popcorn counter were in cocktail dresses. Before the movie started a man came up from the ground playing the organ. He played a ton of songs one of which was Take Me Out to the Ball Game. Everyone sang along. It was quite the experience and it was only $2.00.

Sunday was nice and relaxing. We went to church and had Kurt over for dinner. In the evening the Badgers (they've been the couple helping us get situated since we got here) had us over to play games. On Monday we had FHE with the Andersons. Sarah and Evan are in our ward. They came over and we made crepes. Ben used the crepe maker we got for our wedding and Sarah used a pan. Both made great crepes. Evan and I took turns cutting up fruit and making more crepe batter. We made dinner crepes and dessert crepes. They were DELICIOUS...especially the dinner ones which had chicken, brie cheese, and granny smith apple slices.

Poor Guy

Is it time for bed? NOPE but Ben fell asleep anyway. We've been on a funny summer schedule where we get tons of sleep some nights and not very much others. Now that Ben has started school our bad habit of staying up late is hard to ditch. Ben has been going to bed late and waking up early and I think it has finally caught up to him. He came home today and was asleep at 7:00 pm. Maybe we should start a better schedule!

Other news...I still don't have a job but I have some good leads. I think I've figured things out but I don't want to plan on anything that might not happen so we're still praying hard for something set in stone.

Settling in

We've had a great week. Ben started school on Monday. The whole week was orientation and he had some really fun things to do. I think the part he liked most was a lecture they gave the students about personality types. Ben came home talking about it and he said he wished I had been there. He said it would have helped me to understand him better which I often could use some help with :P Monday, Tuesday, and part of Wednesday I got to go shopping!! I used the gift cards we received for our wedding. I visited Target and Bed Bath so much and for many hours each visit that I started recognizing the workers there and wanted to duck so that they didn't see me in the store again! Seriously I think I went to Bed Bath 3 times one of the days...I realized that if they caught me ducking I would look more foolish than if I just let them see me so I decided against it. I finally feel like the apartment is how I want it and there will probably only be one or two more trips back to the store.

Ben's parents came for a visit starting Wednesday evening and lasted until this morning. While they were here we went to see many sites in and around the Richmond area. Some of the things we did included the Hollywood Cemetery, The Civil War Visitor Center at Tredagar Iron Works, a canal ride, a walk to Belle Isle, and eating out at lots of delicious restaurants. In between those things Ben's parents helped us settle into our apartment. Anything they saw we needed they helped us with. They even bought us a fly swatter. You will see why that is relevant down below. The most important thing we did while Harold and Lori were here was to attend Ben's White Coat Ceremony. In the med program here Ben will be working with patients in the next few months so the school presents the students with their white coats and has them take the Hippocratic Oath. It was a very good ceremony and the thing I was most impressed with is how much the school cares about their students. We are so excited to be here and to be a part of the Medical College of Virginia.

We started a puzzle while Brandon was here. Brandon and Ben worked on it a ton. I got bored quickly and took A LOT of breaks. We didn't touch it after Brandon left and I think he knew that would happen so he gave his mom the assignment to make sure it got done while she was here. We, yes I do mean we Brandon, finished it at 1 am Thursday night. Here is the before and after...

This was halfway through our walk to Belle Isle. Ben was kind of done

with pictures for the day after this.

Our apartment has these absolutely horrifying bugs that I still have not been able to get used to. I did some research and I think they are called camel crickets. They are known around here as spider crickets. They are big, look like spiders, and they JUMP! Seriously, I am too afraid to get close to them to kill them because they will attack me!!!! (Please note the extra exclamations. I am not joking. They jump right at you and they are pretty accurate and good at landing on you.) Lori knew to come running with a shoe and tissue when she heard me scream so before Harold and Lori left they made sure I had a box of tissues and a fly swatter :)

BUSY BUSY BUSY!

We got to Henrico last Friday and wondered why we hurried to leave Utah. We ran into some problems with our apartment and also didn't have our things so we had a completely empty, smelly apartment. We went to Walmart and got a puzzle which was our main entertainment for I think about 3 days. I got frustrated easily and definitely didn't work on it as much as Ben and Brandon. I enjoyed a couple naps, playing on the computer, and reading a little more than trying to put together the tough puzzle we had chosen.

On Tuesday our apartment complex put an ozone machine in our apartment to get the smoke smell out which means we had to leave the our empty apartment for 2 full days and nights. We decided that this meant it was time for a visit to D.C. We started the trip on Tuesday morning but heading to the D.C. temple in Maryland. After that we headed to the hotel (thanks Lori for the hotel!!!) we would be staying in for the night to change out of our church clothes. The remainder of the day included our first ride on the metro, several Smithsonian museums, the capital building, and the Washington Monument.

The next day we were up early for another day of D.C. We went to some more Smithsonian Museums, Arlington Cemetery, The World War 2 Memorial, and a walk past the White House (too tired to walk up to it). I have to admit I was a definite party pooper on a lot of this trip. I had no idea that we would be walking so much and that I would be so hot! Ben and Brandon definitely had to drag me around! Brandon surprised me a lot. He didn't seem tired AT ALL!! After a full day we drove back to Henrico and that night a nice family in our new ward that has been a lot of help to us let us stay at their place.

On Thursday we finally went to get our things from the semi that brought our things from Utah. Brandon and and Ben lifted all of the heavy things and I helped with anything that didn't weigh too much. We were allowed back into our apartment at 12 and unpacked the rest of the day. Friday was a lot of unpacking also. Brandon went home and I started to miss his work ethic. He really worked so hard the entire time he was with us. I think he unpacked more of my things than I did!

Friday Ben and I went to dinner and then had new friends over for a movie. Saturday we woke up early and went with a large group of couples from our new ward to the beach. The beach was very breezy and felt good. The water was a little cold for me. Ben decided to throw me in so I wasn't very happy with him for a bit :P Saturday night we went with some friends to a cool outdoor amphitheatre where we saw a free play. The play was called Pippin and was surprisingly entertaining. It was a little crude which definitely reminded us that we are not in Utah anymore!

We are having a ton of fun. We have made a ton of friends so far. There are at least 5 first year med students in our ward so it looks like there will be a lot of support for Ben. Ben starts school tomorrow and I plan to start the job search. We have a very busy week ahead with Ben at school all day long and every night his school has dinners planned for us. Lori and Harold get here Wednesday and will be our first guests...minus Brandon who arrived with us :)

These boys/men got our things into 6 ft of space!!

The D.C. Temple was beautiful

We went to the World War 2 Memorial and officially claimed Virginia...
We loved the beach...I sat in the sun...Ben looked for the shade.