Cloudy and gray, but life is good!

So, here's a quick update on our lives.  If anyone really cares besides us...

Devin just finished his first module of the year last Friday, and his final grade was posted this week.  He did VERY well.  I am extremely proud of him for all the hard work he put in the past two months.  We've also learned that he is really really good at pharmacology...which is supposed to be one of the harder parts of the second year of medical school.  Needless to say, we went out to eat to celebrate.

As far as things go with me, not much has changed.  I still love my job.  (I also still love my husband and my dog.)  Work has kept me busy this week, which I don't mind one bit.  I truely enjoy working with my elderly patients, and couldn't think of another job I would rather be doing right now.  I've also started making my Christmas shopping list and plan to start my purchases within the next week or so.  There is no way I want to wait until the last minute like we had to last year.

Blue is pretty much the same.  He was sick and sad a few days ago, but he is better now.  He is now lifting his leg to pee (which is a huge accomplishment as far as I'm concerned) but managed to get it all over his leg yesterday morning when he was still half asleep.  So, he got a bath and is now fluffy and soft and smells really good.

All week, the weather here has been gloomy.  While it reminds me that it really is fall, it has made me tired every day staring out my big beautiful window over my desk at work.  However, the rain here has been great for our newly planted fescue grass in the backyard!  Devin spent a lot of time putting it in a few days ago.  It just leaves me wondering, will the grass still grow without sun?  Sigh...

Drinks on us!

We ate lunch at Olive Garden today.  Apparently, we ordered drinks for the whole house...

Goofy Blue

This is Blue's favorite pose, and he loves it most of all laying under the fan...like here.  When he decides to do this, we just say he's airing himself out.  Gross, I know.

We got no troubles, Life is the bubbles, Under the sea!!!

Okay, so I wasn't actually under the sea this past weekend, but I may as well have been.  The first summer we met, Devin promised to take me to the Georgia Aquarium.  Over two years later, we finally made it there with Devin's sister, niece, and nephew.  It was even better than I could have imagined!  When we first walked inside, there was a petting pool with small sharks and sting rays!  Because I fell in love with sting rays during the Grand Cayman stop of our Honeymoon Cruise, this was a fun first exhibit.  (Ignore my funny face...this was the only picture that actually showed a sting ray in it.)

In the river exhibit, our neice asked why the alligator was white.  After trying to explain albinism, she  remarked, "Oh!  All of his color just got trapped inside and didn't come out!"  According to Devin, this is apparently somewhat accurate scientifically.

When we first arrived at the eel tank, it looked empty.  Then, one after another, the tangle of eels started to move and swim around.  They have such evil and gross looking faces...it's fascinating!



The Artic exhibit brought us to the Baluga Whale tank.  They were absolutely beautiful.  It was very calming to listen to the peaceful musical selection while watching them swim through bright blue waters.  That was, of course, until one of the whales emptied his/her bowels up against the glass.

Next, we saw the sea otter habitat.  This otter was swimming circles, so I decided to record a short video.  I wasn't expecting him to suddenly do something this cute!

The highlight of the trip was the giant 6.3 million gallon tank that housed a whole ecosystem!  We walked through a tunnel under the tank to the giant viewing room.  On the way through the tunnel, Devin made friends with a giant grouper.

I found the long nose saw shark pretty cool.  I wish this picture better showed the edges on the saw nose, though.

The manta rays were also pretty amazing.  I never knew just how big they actually were!

And, of course the stars of the aquarium were the whale sharks.  They are not only the only aquarium to have them in their exhibit but they have four!  Right now, all four are juveniles but eventually they will grow to be the size of a school bus.  That is proof of the hugeness of the tank!

All in all, this was an amazing experience.  There are plenty of things we didn't get to do (like swimming in the big tank and sleeping over) that I want to do someday.  If you haven't been, I definitely reccommend a trip!

WVU Football

One of the things I have missed most about living in the South is not being able to watch every Mountaineer football game.  For some reason, they prefer to show SEC games rather than Big East games down here...go figure.  So, when a WVU game is shown, I have to take advantage of it.  Friday night, WVU's game at Marshall was on ESPN, so Blue and I dressed up for the occasion.

He was less thrilled than I was about the clothes.

Blue even got "gold eye" instead of "red eye" for this picture because he knew who was playing, I'm sure!

WVU ended up winning 24-21 in overtime after a very intense fourth quarter.  We did not play as well as I would have liked, but when puch came to shove, we pulled it off in the end.  Let's Go Mountaineers!

College Football is Back!

Friday night, Devin and I headed down to Athens for a the first UGA game of the season.  First though, we went for sushi with Devin's sister and brother-in-law.  Devin and Paul shared a sampler plate of some of their more extreme foods, while Sarah and I shared a sampling of different rolls.  I also ate some cucumber salad (which I love love love!) and most of Devin's miso soup. 

Notice the raw quail's egg cracked over the ground up tuna...I didn't try it, but Devin loved it all!

On Saturday, we headed out to watch Georgia take on Louisiana Lafayette.  Sarah and Paul had tickets with his family, which left Devin, me, Cory, and Lindsey to try to scalp them.  We actually ended up getting good seats for a really good price by waiting to buy them until 5 minutes before kickoff.  They were around some fun people, and we enjoyed the game.  The best part was of course the 55-7 victory.  The worst part was getting completely fried.  I learned last night that it's difficult to sleep when the insides of your elbows are sunburned.  Here's a quick shot of all of us as we headed out to the game.

Go Dawgs!

On a side note, WVU's defense looked really good shutting our Coastal Carolina 31-0.  I wish I could have been at that game, too!  But, it was the first game at Mountaineer Field for my younger sister Jessa who is currently a freshman and a Maniac!