updates from arlington!

so kayla and i are officially moved in to our new place! after a week at the beach with my family in nc and a week of unpacking and such, it feels great to start settling in. we've already started exploring the area, and we're super close to a lot of restaurants, a grocery store, the metro and...chris and katie! totally unplanned by everyone, we ended up living really near each other which has been a blessing already. i'll post some pictures of the apartment, but if you haven't seen it in person yet, get excited! The first one is my room (very reminiscent of 4054 !)This is the living room and sunporch/ guest room...
and this is the dining area/ kitchen!
also, quick funny story from the beach, hudson discovered the ocean for the first time and, without any prompting, decided it would be a great place to...poop! that's right, all week, every day when we went down the beach, hudson popped a squat right there in surf. it was hysterical, particularly because he never did it in front of our area, but always in front of someone else, haha. anyways, here's a few pictures from the beach!

lostpedia

in my internet ramblings today i stumbled across something you should all check out...lostpedia.com. it's like wikipedia, but with lost information. it includes episodes and character information, helps tie seemingly random information and events together, and most interestingly to me, it includes a theory section where various questions and cliffhangers on the show are discussed. check it out.

snapping turtles

so i forgot to share the magic of snapping turtle hunting with you all! now don't be fooled, snapping turtles are not cute little guys you want to take home and play with. they are huge, mean, prehistoric like creatures whose bite could take off a finger. anyways, a snapping turtle trap consists of a string with a hook and a piece of chicken or other raw meat on the end. when the turtle goes to eat the bait, he swallows the hook with it and you've caught yourself some snapper.

alex's cousins had set several traps all along the creek on their property. friday morning, we took the 4 wheeler out to check the traps and when all was said and done we caught three! we stored them in this huge plastic barrel thing, and then saturday morning, alex played the executioner and shot all three turtles in the head with a .22 pistol (i did not go watch). then, his brother and cousins filleted the turtle meat and used it to make snapper soup (i did not partake).

anyways, here's a picture of alex's cousin jesse wrestling a snapper into a bucket for transport back to camp.

back on the east coast

well i have officially returned from the midwest for good, which is incredibly hard to believe but also really exciting. i flew to dc thursday and alex picked me up and we drove to his family reunion of sorts in the middle of nowhere, pa. we rolled up to his aunt and uncle house around 11:30 at night in the pouring rain, donned rain jackets, and were greeted by a 4 wheeler carrying 6 people wearing ponchos and head lamps and about 10 beers deep into their evening. they were on their way to set snapping turtle traps (more on this later), and wanted to say hi.

we drove across the street, through a field, and into their own little tent city, complete with a tarp-covered eating area, a pop-up, and several tents. from that point on, all we did was eat, laugh, hang out with his cousins and their kids and enjoy the outdoors. it was totally fun and filled with lots of inside family jokes and camp fire-esque stories. all told, i met 5 cousins' families including spouses and kids, two aunts, two uncles, and a grandma.

saturday, alex and i drove back to lititz and spent time touring his home town with his parents, including his high school, the old javelin runway, his church, the local chocolate factory, and of course his house. it was so great to experience those parts of his life, and really feel like a part of his family.

i'm sure stories from the weekend will come up in conversation as there are too many to list here, so for now, i am back in dc staying at ann lefeve's apartmenet for the week, preparing for the wedding and my family's obx vacation to follow :)

puppy update

so during my time at home, i have spent several wonderful afternoons at the dog park with hudson. of course, it's a big park so there are several other dogs there, including a pugle (sp?) named mojo. a pugle is a cross between a pug and a beagle, and it's is sooooooo cute and fun and has a ton of personality. future leonidas perhaps?

in my puppy craze, i decided to stop in a pet store while i was running errands with my mom the other day. there were lots of puppies, and i played with a lasa apsa (looked like a mini-ewok, like from star wars, so funny) and a cockapoo (cocker spaniel/ poodle mix). they were very different, super fun, and incredibly expensive ($1300!)...needless to say, i think leonidas is going to be a rescue dog :)