The Decision

While we were living in Illinois I needed to work to pay off some debt and to compensate the small amount that we were receiving on student loans. Luckily we were able to pay off all of our debt so I was only needing to work 1 day a week here to compensate our funds.
Well, I searched for a job and finally found one possibility. I applied and never heard back (when I applied at Carle hospital in Illinois they called me the next day!). I talked with a nurse in our ward and she highly recommended working for an agency. Basically it would entail going to different hospitals with a small orientation first and working a shift and probably never going back.
I have been dreading the idea of working for an agency, but I decided to give it a try. I went in and was offered a job on the spot with my first scheduled day this Saturday.
I found out that there would be a good chance that I would be going to work in inner-city Philadelphia, which pretty much means a really scary area. The type of area where you hope and pray to never get stopped at a red light. For everyone who knows me, they know how paranoid I am anyway about scary areas. To make matters worse David then told me about a case he recently read for class about someone being raped in a hospital. AHH!
On top of all of that it makes me really nervous to be thrown into a different situation with different people each day. I worry that I would be given the worst patients with the smallest amount of help, which means more danger for infectious diseases being spread to the baby and risk of lifting very heavy patients by myself, which could lead to pre-term labor.
Also another large concern is that David is completely swamped with school. He gets up every morning at 6am and gets home usually around 9pm. Despite this rigorous schedule he still sometimes doesn't get all of his readings done. (I'm so glad that I have no desire to be a lawyer :) ) So with me working it puts a lot of extra strain on him.
Anyway those have been my concerns. David has always hated the fact that I have to work. So after much thought, close financial calculations and many prayers we have decided that I will not be going to work. I am really happy about this, but it is still pretty weird. I can't believe that I will be able to do normal mom stuff now. However, that being said, we now have pretty much no money. For any grad students reading this I know you can relate, but it is a bit scary. I guess that is why we need to rely on the lord right? For now I will try not to think about the negative and just enjoy spending a lot of quality time with my sweet girl!

Eventful Week

My mom has been in town since Monday evening and it has been quite fun. On Tuesday we went shopping at an outlet mall and on Wednesday we went to a small town where one of my ancestors was born in the 1700's. My mom came out to go to a genealogy conference with my sister, but they played hooky for a day so I could see her :) It was perfect timing since David just started school and I have been worried about getting lonely.


Last night was a very special night. My mom took my family and my sister's family out to dinner at a place called the William Penn Inn. William Penn was the founder of Pennsylvania and apparently in 1740 something he stayed at the place that we ate dinner and so they named the Inn and restaurant after him. I am still in awe at the old buildings that they have here. It is really cool!



They had a wonderful buffet and it was so much fun to be there. Angelique was the only kid in the place and had the everyone wrapped around her finger. She was able to pick out what she wanted to eat and so of course my meat eater picked ribs, chicken wings and bread. After a while she decided to branch out and try some croutons. After she had eaten an entire plate full of croutons the waiter immediately rushed over and asked if he could get her some more. It was really cute to see her treated like royalty, but trust me she does not get that kind of treatment at home.


In other news- Gigi has now peed on the potty twice by herself! This is BIG news at our house and hopefully Gigi will be fully potty trained in a couple of months :)
Oh yeah and you probably noticed, but I got my hair cut off! I hadn't had a hair cut in over a year and my hair was desperately needing a trim. Amy, my sister in law, cut it to about shoulder length and then when I came out here my sister had me go with her to her hairdresser's just to meet her and after beginning by evening out the edges ended with what you see in the pictures. I actually really like it! I was nervous about David's reaction since he really likes me with long hair, but he really likes it too. Hopefully it will continue to look good as it grows, but for now I'm just enjoying the easiness of this cut :)

Orientation

Orientation began on Wednesday evening with a dinner at the National Constitution Center. I had been inside before, so I pictured myself going into the busy center, needing to ask where I should go, and then being told where our conference room was located. I was surprised to find out we had the entire place to ourselves. I was greeted at the door by a sign welcoming our law school class, and they had all of the exhibits open for us to browse before the evening officially began. This was a surprise.

Another surprise was the enormous diversity among the law students. If you were to ask me what the typical Penn Law student is like, I would say that there is no typical Penn Law student. When most schools say they are diverse, what they mean is that they have as many women as men and that there is a high percentage of non-Caucasian students. That is true for Penn, but there is just as much diversity in every other way. Age, background, personality, etc. I had a chance to meet a lot of people that night and every conversation was a complete surprise. There's Joe, who has been working at a high school. He is a very serious person. There's also Doha, originally from eastern Africa who just graduated from Duke. She is enthusiastic, talkative, and a big sports fan. Ari is an Orthodox Jew from New York who worked on Hilary Clinton's staff. He is kind of quiet and has a good sense of humor. Over the last few days, I could only find two things that everyone had in common. Every Penn Law student is very nice and very intelligent.

I was so caught up in talking to people that it was well into the dinner before I noticed the view we had from the upper floor overlooking Independence Hall. This is a picture I found on the internet, but it doesn't show you how it really looked. The sun had set and the moon was out, so the Hall was almost glowing. The Dean started his speech to us talking about how sacred that building is to our country, and especially to lawyers, because of what was written there. That was a moment I don't think I will ever forget.




The entire night was intended to give us a new perspective on law school, one that could replace the negative view of lawyers that so many people have. His speech centered on the idea that lawyers receive unique training that allows them to solve difficult problems. Penn Law alumni are constantly being called on to do that for every profession all over the globe. They solve the world's problems. A good law school teaches you how to think like a lawyer. A great law school teaches you how to think. It was very inspiring.

Thursday and Friday were full of more networking, more orientation speeches, and some class time to get us started. Classes don't officially start until Tuesday, but I already have an enormous load of reading and "briefing" that I need to do before then. It seems like it will be very difficult, but something very comforting is that I was not anything but impressed by the faculty who spoke to us, the staff who run the law school, and how the program is set up. I should be able to just focus on learning and let everything else take care of itself. What a luxury!

Hello again...it's been a long time!

I have decided to come back to the world of blogging. So much has happened since I posted my last entry that I really don't know where to begin. In May I found out I was pregnant, which we are really excited about, but I have been so sick since then that it is all that I could do to entertain my child and try to keep my house clean. I am now 15 weeks and starting to feel a little better so I thought that I better get my act together :)

We had to say goodbye to wonderful Illinois. I was extremely sad to go since our life there was so great, but we decided to leave and I believe in the long run it will be the right decision. Here are a few things I will miss:


I will miss so much about Illinois. We had a beautiful home where it really felt like our home, not another apartment. We had an upstairs and downstairs, which was awesome and you really couldn't beat the rent. We lived next to tons of friends and every time we went outside were greeted by friendly faces. Gigi will really miss the great playgrounds and friends. I will miss the close friends that I made there, but hopefully they will come visit us soon.

We will miss our family that was so close to us. It was great to get to know them better and especially nice for Gigi to become such great friends with them.


I actually will really miss my work. I worked with really amazing people that always were there to lend a helping hand. It is nice that I won't have to work very much here, but I don't know if it is possible to find another place so wonderful to work in.

I will miss how quickly I could get places. It wasn't all that bad living in the middle of cornfields :)
So anyway...Goodbye Illinois....it's been great!

HELLO PHILADELPHIA!!!!! Here are some great things about this place so far:

Currently David is at a dinner at the constitution center for his first night of orientation. It is pretty exciting that he going to school somewhere that he is so thrilled to be at. Truthfully we still get a little excited when we get mail from PENN, even if it is a letter saying how much money will will have to pay them.
We arrived in Philly last Thursday night and didn't get our stuff until Monday night. We spent all day yesterday unpacking and still have a lot of work to do, but when we are all moved I will post loads of pictures.

The best thing about living here is that my sister and her husband are here!!! She has been such a great help already. On Saturday she spent all day helping me shop for essentials and we have already been introduced to the wonderful world of Cheesesteaks by Tony.

Our home seems to be pretty great, we even have a dishwasher!! The only annoying things so far...we can hear our neighbors walking above us and we have to unlock 2 different doors to get into our place. At least we are safe right? Gigi keeps asking if we can go see her friends and commenting about visiting them, which is so sad, but I'm sure we will make friends here.

Our ward seems very friendly. In fact we had a ton of help moving in. A few women came as well, one with her 2 year old son, which was nice for Gigi to meet a new friend as well.

Anyway this entry is really just me rambling on and on about our situation, but things are going better than I thought they would, I have even stopped crying about leaving Illinois and I believe that we will enjoy our next 3 years here :)
More pictures and posts to come soon...

The Shoes

One night this week we went to an outlet mall, because most of my clothes are so worn out that I only have one pair of jeans that does not have huge rips in the knees. Bethany claims that all of my shirts I have had since she has known me.

We stopped in the Bass shoe outlet to find a replacement for a $10 pair of Payless shoes I have made last for years. Angelique had a lot of fun in there, because she LOVES shoes. She happened to be wearing her "fleep-flops", a pair of pink toddler sandals that might have been her favorite.

When we were leaving the store, I noticed she was now barefoot. As we started to look for her shoes, I remembered that she had been playing with the shoe boxes while I was trying on shoes. I ran over to where we had been. There was one pair of shoes still out but the boxes had all been cleaned up.

I had a moment similar to the last scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the camera pulls back to reveal that their crate is identical to the others in the warehouse. All of the shoeboxes looked exactly the same, stacked five or six high in aisle after aisle of this huge store.

The store was closing in ten minutes, and Gigi had no clues to offer about where she had put the box with her shoes. We had to carry her out crying and run to the Gap before they closed. Angelique understood that she wasn't supposed to take her shoes off when we are at the store, so this was going to be one of those hard but necessary consequence-facing times.

At the Gap, right before leaving, Bethany thought to check the kids section to see if they sold toddler shoes. They did, and they were only a few dollars. She found a pair of transparent, hot pink, soft plastic flip-flops that fit Gigi better than the old ones.

Of course Angelique's sorrow turned to excitement. Since this was only minutes after the tragedy, we missed an opportunity for a memorable lesson on justice. At least she had an experience, though, with how the Atonement works.

Philadelphia

It was a long drive out there. We stopped at a Wendy's for lunch, and Angelique discovered that after so many hours, even a paper bag is more fun than being in the car.


Our only goal for the trip was to find a good place to live when we move, so we looked at many different apartments. We narrowed it down to a few that seemed like options, and we were leaning towards one of them. I decided to look up reviews about it on apartmentratings.com. It had a 70% satisfaction rating, which I thought was pretty good. Usually the only people who take the time to post a review online are the ones who had a bad experience. Bethany was nervous that it was only 70%, so we looked up the other places we were considering. 25% was the highest rating and most of the comments on all of them were complaining about roaches, rats, and skyhigh utility bills. The only complaint on the 70%'er that had not been resolved was that people did not clean up after their dogs in the lawn areas. I think we can live with that.

Once we found our place, we were officially on vacation, so we hit the historic sights.


I loved seeing the Liberty Bell. It is probably the most boring and least important of the monuments in Philadelphia, but I felt electricity go up my spine when I was in the Liberty Bell Center. It was one of those times that you feel the importance of freedom and how incredible it is whenever a people gain it.

Angelique loved the Betsy Ross house. The impersonator knew how to entertain a two year old girl. The little piece of paper in Gigi's hand was from Betsy's demonstration of how she convinced George Washington that a five pointed star is better than a six pointed star: you can make a five pointed star with only one snip. It sounded impossible, but she did it. I think I was as impressed with the trick as Gigi was.


Another really great part was the original Supreme Court and Congress Hall. We were too late to get into Independence Hall (good thing we are moving there), so we went on a tour of the building where the original House of Representatives and Senate held their meetings. It was during that tour I realized that in law school I will be studying the Constitution less than 3 miles from where it was written and signed. Pretty cool, huh?


Probably the best thing about our trip (besides the fact that Bethany was made out of money :)

was the chance to spend time with Candy and Tony Rombola (they sound like mobsters, don't they?). Candy is Bethany's only sister and she is the real reason we are going to Philadelphia. They were fantastic hosts, and Tony makes great Italian food. (Grazie tante, Antonio!)

Big Bite!

Once when David ate a big bite of food Gigi thought it was really funny and she said "big bite" in awe. This started the game of "big bite" and it helped her to eat better. Now every time someone takes a big bite, we celebrate by yelling out BIG BITE!!!
This is David bribing Gigi with a third piece of chocolate cream pie so he could capture her saying "big bite" on camera. Enjoy!