Europe

Yes, you read right. Europe! The day following Josh's graduation we drove back to Utah, only to leave for a celebratory trip to Europe a day later. I still can't believe how blessed we were to pull off such an amazing trip.

We spent three weeks total touring four countries. First we stopped off in Iceland for 5 days. (If you ever get the chance, do it.) Iceland Air lets you extend your layover up to seven days at no extra charge so we took full advantage. The people were awesome and so was the country. After landing we rented a beater car and drove to the Blue Lagoon (a geothermal spa) to recoup from our red eye. It was a great way to introduce ourselves to the smell of Iceland. :) Also very relaxing, and supposedly good for our skin, though I'm not sure I noticed any differences after smearing the magical mud all over my face.

Then we drove out to our first home away from home. We stayed in a cute little guest house located on an awesome farm just up the road from some amazing waterfalls that we got to explore in the following days. This was the view.

And these were the sites we saw the next few days.

(The falls down the road from us.)

(The falls further south east)

(The amazing glacier lagoon even farther east. We have even more amazing pictures taken by Katherine Loveless who also took our wedding pictures. I'm pretty confident we will have a giant one of them in our house soon enough. :) These will have to do for the blog though. I'm lazy.)

I love this picture. Look at those EYES I get to gaze into. :)

(This is a second glacier we technically shouldn't have driven to because of our rental car, but we did so anyway. It was quite an exciting road, but well worth it.)

(11:00 PM on the beach. It was definitely hard getting to bed on time with the almost constant sun in Iceland.)

Yes. This actually happened. 

I told Josh one of the things I really wanted to do in Iceland was ride an Icelandic pony and he obliged, though I know he wasn't as thrilled as I was. Then it actually turned out to be one of his favorite things we did! And I loved it too of course. The ponies were SO awesome and actually had some life in them, unlike most horses you rent who are all too ready to be made into glue. They would have run the whole way if we'd let them, and when our guide finally did tell us we could let them run the rest of the way home they took off, my horse whinnying the whole way. It was a blast. :)

Ridem' cowboy.

And they were super cute.

I always have to stop and say hello to the puppies. I can't remember this puppy's name, but it meant "odd one out." Fitting, since he lived with ponies.

PS. The day on ponies was WINDY. (You may have noticed our fabulous outfits. They were totally worth it,  because had we not used them we would have been freezing.) On the way back to our guest house we passed these waterfalls...or should I say waterflies? It was so windy none of the water was actually touching the ground, and it was a lot of water!

One of our stops was to see a "cave." Directions said to walk through this sheep field and follow the path to the "cave." There was no such cave. At least we couldn't find it. I didn't mind though. Truthfully this was one of my favorite parts of the trip because we ended up just running around the field like dorks pretending to be a sheep and a pony. The scenery was amazing with huge cliffs, waterfalls, and streams running through the grassy hills, and we had a blast just being weird together.

After our adventures on the south of the island we moved camp to another guest house a little more north and got to spend two days looking out at this.

Then we did some more touristy things, like driving to Gulfoss, (which is the largest waterfall on Iceland) Geysir, (which is just that, a geyser. You can actually stand close enough that the water lands on you.) and also took part in a free walking tour of downtown Reykjavik. 

Icelanders believe in Elves. Look it up. If you look closely enough at the rock, aka elf house, next to our tour guide you can see a rectangular shape. That's the elf house door.  And the other pic is just a weird statue.

Crazy pagan church that I believe Lutherans now use? As I came to find out, most European churches are very impressive looking, but also kind of creepy inside. They're a wee bit obsessed with skulls and devil images.

And thus ends the Iceland portion of our trip. I think I'll take a break now before you're overloaded with pictures, and post about the rest of our trip later. For now, enjoy!

I Guess it's About Time

Apologies for NEVER blogging. I feel like the people who read our posts the most are our families, and since we were living in Utah we didn't really see the need. Also, I'm lazy. :)

A quick update. Josh finally joined me in Utah in October. He continued with more rotations in Utah and California, and then began the interview process during the winter months. In march we found out that he matched to Spokane, WA for his intern year and Seattle, WA for the last three years of his residency! Go Josh! I worked as a bank teller for the whole time until I quit in May so that I could go back to Richmond to attend Josh's graduation and visit old friends and places. We have some great friends, namely the Pierottis and the Flannigans who let us crash with them for the weeks that we were out East. Their kids were pretty stinkin' cute and kept us very entertained.

Keela planting a big one on Cherry.

Exhausted after a long wrestle session.

Josh finally graduated in may. So proud of Dr. Josh! :) Sadly Lisa and Tyler were told the wrong date by their son, and had already scheduled their flight by the time we realized it was a different day. They did their very best, including skipping their last flight from DC to Richmond and instead renting a car and driving as fast as they could to get there faster. It was a valiant effort, but they got there about 10 minutes after it ended. Sorry again! At least we got some pictures in!

Too Cute Not to Blog About

Truthfully, this is just too cute not to blog about.  Many of you have probably already seen these pictures on Facebook, but this is my motorcycle and where I park it at home.  

If you're extra observant, you'll see something special in the background.  

It's Giuseppe, my little just older that 1 neighbor that lives below me.  He has taken a fancy to me and my motorcycle.  He says my name, "Doss!"  And apparently drops everything when he hears me pull up on my bike.  Every time I park the bike, sure enough, I can look up and see his cute little face in the window.  Usually it goes like this....

He looks at me to make sure I see him.  

Then he give me a super cute bunch of waves.  

When I finally wave back and notice him he gets this silly grin on his face that shows he is so proud of himself.  I can't tell you how stinking cute it is that he loves the motorcycle.  He makes me feel awesome.  I got out of my car the other day and was walking in to my apartment, when I saw that Jian and Andrea where on the porch with Giuseppe coming home.  He saw me and was like, "Who is that?"  Then he looked a little closer and I waved and he got all excited.  It was almost like he was thinking, "What are you doing getting out of a car?  You ride a motorcycle."  

Someday Sydney and I will be lucky to have a kid as cute as this little guy!

Since Being Back.

I miss my wife......


The Manns came to visit from Cincinnati.  This is seriously the only picture I took of them.  Sorry Nat and Adrien.  You guys look great.  Thanks for visiting.  It was nice to not be alone in the house, not that I was home much. 

 We made some delicious pizzas for Sunday dinner.

 They brought their new dogs Mead and Nika.  They were great company!

I shaved 10x as much fuzz as in this photo off our couch.   

I got a new roommate!  Marc is a visiting student from GA doing an away rotation in Urology.  This is at Black Sheep and that is quail.  It was amazing!

 This was my photo booth for my residency application photo.  Yes, the camera is balanced on the light.  

Turned out pretty good I think.  

I got a handwritten ticket from my neighbor for parking on the street.  Our entire street has decided to get this signs that designate a handicapped spot 22 feet (!!!!) behind the sign.  I'm thinking I'm going to get one myself, because I haven't seen a single handicapped person on our street ever!

Repainted the tank!

 Putting it back together. 

 All done, and I like how it turned out!

Sydney has been enjoying her job search in Utah by:

 Hanging out with this weirdo.  

 These sleeping positions crack me up. 

 Buying cool rings...

Painting her fingernails....

Making delicious foods....

And getting a lot of love to make up for the years gone by.  I'm so sad to be here in VA while she is there in Utah.  Hopefully the time will go by quickly, because so far, it has been very slow.