Day 2 - Another Presidential Library

We are nearing the end of day 2 of our trip, and we've already knocked out another Presidential library. It turns out, the Nixon Library is just about 30 minutes away from where we are staying, so we decided to take a quick trip to Yorba Linda to check it out.

Since I realized that the purpose of a Presidential library (or, the appeal) may be unclear, I wanted to fill you in a bit on what the heck Presidential libraries are.

Presidential libraries are not libraries in the traditional sense. They are archives and museums that house the documents and artifacts of a President once that President is out of office. They are purposely designed to be non-partisan in their presentation of facts so people can discuss and form their own opinions about each administration. There are displays, interactive exhibits, papers, mementos, letters, photos, clothing, gifts, campaign materials, short videos, etc. throughout. The library typically brings visitors from a President's childhood, through his Presidency, and ends with his activities once out of office.

Every president since (and including) Herbert Hoover has his own (in fact, an act was passed in 1955 to establish a system of these libraries). The newest library (George W. Bush) opened just last week in Dallas, bringing the total number of official libraries to 13.

Of course, other Presidents besides these 13 have museums (Joe and I will probably go to Lincoln and Wilson "libraries" on the trip as well), but they are not officially managed by the National Archives so aren't official libraries.

The reason Joe and I like visiting is because we are both really interested in history. Since the POTUS is such a powerful world figure, these libraries not only help us understand the men who held the office, but the world events that occurred during their terms.

The libraries also help us see perspectives and facts we've never considered or thought important. In the US we so often get caught up in one side versus the other that we demonize half the Presidents and idolize the other half. It's rare to have an opportunity to digest a *mostly* non-partisan presentation of facts (I say mostly because I'm not sure how non-partisan anything really CAN be since everyone has his/her own agenda).

Even if you have a chance to visit a library of a President you don't like or aren't interested in, you'll probably still be happy you went. I never knew much about Nixon except for the Watergate scandal, but learned a ton of cool things today. Plus, the office really should be respected, regardless of whether or not you respect the man who fills it.

Alrighty, enough explanation.

Now, on to some photos :)

Joe was pleasantly surprised to see a display on NASA at the Nixon Library

Since I refuse to hand over my fancy camera to a stranger (#trustnoone), we aren't likely to have many shots of the two of us on this trip. Must get creative...

Joe and Winston Churchill. Churchill is holding a cigar and I wanted Joe to pretend to suck it, but he refused. No fun haha.

This was some kind of light thing on the carpet of one of the rooms. Reminds me of a reverse Bat Signal.

There was a display of letters that children wrote Nixon after he lost to Kennedy. OMG they were hilarious. Kids really do say the darndest things.

And another. Because kids make me laugh.

The actual house Nixon was born in is on the library grounds. This is the back - the front had a stupid tour group blocking my shot.

I've never been a huge fan of roses. I don't think they are THAT pretty (as far as flowers go). Today I finally got the appeal when we walked through the huge rose garden and I could smell the symphony of scents.

I cannot get enough of these bronze statues. They are everywhere, and I love taking photos of them :)

Tomorrow is Disneyland with Stacey. CAN'T WAIT!

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Road Trip Day 1 Photo Dump

The internet is finally working right, so I can finish adding pictures from our trip to the Reagan Library (where they also had a really cool Disney display).

Oh, and if you wonder why all my pictures are horizontal, it's because I can't figure out how to flip them to vertical when I import them. I am not the most technologically savvy, but I'll work on it ;)

Air Force One - We actually got to go inside, but no pics.

Berlin Wall escape attempt

Freedom!

An exact replica of Walt Disney's office

Belle's dress from the play version of Beauty and the Beast. Belle is my FAVORITE!

Enchanted dress

I miss this guy!

I can hitchhike too!

And I can also be a one-eyed pirate

Front of The Black Pearl model (They used the model for some shots in the movie)

Pirates! Argh!

Gotta love Mickey :)

And, before you go, Stacey said this outtake video from yesterday was funny (when Joe and I did the commercials). Enjoy (and remember, the camera adds 10 pounds):

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Road Trip Day 1

It's official! The road trip has begun.

We woke up at 3:45 (ugh) and were able to get on the road by about 4:30. As this was the beginning of the road trip, we weren't tired of the car yet, so we decided to take the "scenic route" to So-Cal. The non-scenic route involves too much cow smell. This route was great - the roads were practically empty and the sites were gorgeous. Definitely a nice swan song for California.

Our first stop was Mission Santa Barbara.

We figured we'd play with making little videos on the trip, so here's the first one:

The mission was really pretty, but we were disappointed in the self-guided tour. There wasn't a lot of information posted, so we pretty much just walked around, looked at things, and wondered what the heck they were / what they meant.

I did get a few pics though:

Our next stop was the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Joe is a presidential history buff - he seriously cannot get enough. So I promised that we would visit every presidential library we came across on our trip. Being in Simi Valley, CA, President Reagan's came first. We had been once before, but it was totally re-done and it is AMAZING. It is literally the Disneyland of presidential libraries. Funny I should say that, because they also happened to have a sweet display of Disney stuff as part of their "National Treasure" exhibit. This made me very happy.

Some pics:

*** Now the internet is acting up, so I can't add more pics from the library. I'll post more tomorrow. Until then, enjoy these silly videos. Apparently, Ronald Reagan did a commercials for General Electric, so Joe and I did as well. The Gipper can keep the job, neither of us did very well ***

For the next week we are staying in Newport Beach, CA. My family has a beach house here, so it was really cool that we could borrow it for a week.

We arrived at the house around 7:30 p.m. (after a quick stop at the grocery store for some staples) and after lugging the ridiculous amount of stuff we have in our car into the house, are now *finally* relaxing. We plan to take it pretty easy tomorrow in anticipation for Disneyland on Sunday and Price is Right on Monday.

And here is a video re-cap of our day (after 2 drinks each):

-XO-
BizzyBrier

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Bloglovin'

Apparently this news came months ago, but I somehow missed it.

Google is retiring Google Reader on July 1, so if you follow any blogs you'll need to figure out a new way to do so. I've looked around a bit, and elected to try Bloglovin'.

So far, I like what I see! One of the things that has always frustrated me about Google Reader is that I couldn't easily find blogs that are similar to my own, or on topics I am interested in. With Bloglovin' you can.

Importing the blogs you follow into Bloglovin' is super easy - except I am a terrible teacher, because I did it and didn't pay attention how and now can't instruct YOU how. But if I can figure it out so easily, so can you.

Guaranteed :)

I've added Diary of a Dental School Wife to Bloglovin', so you can easily follow me even if you don't already! Just click on the link on the right or at the bottom of this post... (notice it currently says 0 followers on Bloglovin'? This depresses me - so follow! haha)

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And He's Funny Too

Joe is a laid back guy - which I think some people mistake for being boring or serious. Not true - he can actually be really funny. Case in point:

Last night we stayed at my Grandma's house one last time before we head out on our road trip. We'd often stay here when visiting my family because she loves having us and we love spending time with her. Usually, we'll watch TV at night, and about half the time that TV viewing will include a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie.

Joe, will quietly laugh and shake his head at these movies and, of course, find all the plot holes (admittedly, there are plenty). But last night we found one that even HE enjoyed. Score!

Here's a synopsis from the Hallmark website (yes, it sounds uber-cheesy, but what do you expect? It was cute):

Remember Sunday:

A lonely down-on-her-luck waitress meets a handsome, quirky jewelry store clerk and thinks that maybe, finally, she’s met “the right guy.” The more Molly (Alexis Bledel) gets to know Gus (Zachary Levi), the more she’s intrigued by him.

But she’s also mystified, and sometimes miffed. Gus seems really absent-minded, really preoccupied. Is there already a girlfriend in his life? Is he harboring some big secret? What is his problem, Molly wonders.

Well, Gus’s problem is that three years ago he suffered a brain aneurysm. He can remember everything that happened in his life pre-aneurysm, when he was a star astrophysicist; but his memory grasp on everything since then is virtually non-existent. Every day is a brand new day—literally—for Gus. From the moment his alarm clock goes off, his life is directed by sticky notes. You can imagine the complications that arise when Gus meets Molly.

As her love for him continues to grow, he discovers that he can indeed fall in love with the same woman every day. But can Molly imagine a future with a man who cannot recall their past?

Yes - it is essentially 50 First Dates.

Joe liked it because the main character (played by Zachary Levi aka Flynn Rider) was really into astronomy (which Joe LOVES and I do not). 

Every morning the character read several letters he'd written himself and post-it-notes to get re-informed about his condition and what has been going on in his life (he can remember everything prior to the aneurysm).

This morning, Joe had to take our car to the shop really early, so he left me the following note:

In case you can't read it: Today is September 26, 2015. You are at your grandma's house in (redacted) CA. I am Joe. I am your husband any you love me. I like space stuff, and you do too after your accident. You think flowers are pretty, but boring. You enjoy making me dinner, and having it and a glass of wine ready for me when I get home. I just want to fill in as many details as I can on important things since you lost your memory in 2013. I'll be back later. Don't forget to pack the shampoo & conditioner. Love, Joe

Nice try hon, I'll NEVER like space, I'll ALWAYS want flowers, and you may want to re-think that cooking dinner thing. You've tried my food ;)

But, yes, I certainly love you (and I remembered the shampoo and conditioner).

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Time For Some Reflection...

I love milestones (heck, I love any reason to celebrate), and I hit a big one with this blog a couple days ago: I have officially written over 50 posts!

**Side Note** That's about 48 more than I honestly thought I would write, which is why I am so excited to be over halfway to a three digit number **End of Side Note**

Since hitting a milestone naturally causes one to reflect, I've been pondering my blog's purpose(s) for the past few days. Obviously, the main purpose is to have a place to share/reflect/etc. on the experience of being the wife of a dental school student. While I am sure other blogs exist on the subject (and a few months ago was found by Ariel, the author of a great one), at the time I started Diary of a Dental School Wife I couldn't find any.

At that point, I was becoming very anxious about the unknown and (as I always do when anxiety hits) started focusing on the negatives that are coming over the next 4 years (ie: Joe's busy schedule, the expense, the delay in our baby-making plans, moving away from my family, etc.). I thought that reading the experiences of someone else would help me, and if I personally didn't have anyone else to learn from, then it might be worth starting a blog to help some other poor, lost dental-school-wife-to-be out there going through similar worries down the road.

A secondary purpose was to have a place for our family and friends to come and see what is going on in our lives. Most of Joe's family is in Missouri, and I knew that once we moved for dental school I'd be far from my family as well. Since I absolutely SUCK at keeping in touch with people (it doesn't help that I hate talking on the phone), I thought a blog would be a great solution to help keep people in the loop.

My final purpose was a bit more personal, and one that I haven't yet succeeded in doing with this blog. After finding and being inspired by a great weight loss blog (Mama Laughlin) I wanted to keep a blog as a way of keeping myself accountable in my own journey to lose weight. Although I've always fluctuated in weight and have never been "skinny" - I am now about 50 pounds heavier than I was at my lowest adult weight (junior year of college after 5 months of diet and exercise led to a 20 pound drop). While it could certainly be worse, the thought of seeing people I haven't seen in years on our road trip is humiliating. I feel like I am going to walk in, give them a squishy hug, and they'll step back and think, "Poor girl. Why is she letting herself go?"

Those of you who read some of my earlier posts may remember that I dieted for a month around Christmastime (stupid timing, what was I thinking?) and chronicled a lot of that process. As I do with most diets, I abandoned it and probably gained back what I lost and more (I've been too scared to weigh myself since early January).

This month home with my family hasn't helped my waistline (despite my dad's daily encouragement to do P90X with him), and I know that a 6 week road trip is probably going to do quite a bit of damage. To be honest, this is the last vacation Joe and I are going to get for a VERY long time, and maybe the last one pre-children (any time off we have in dental school will probably be spent visiting family). I'm not willing to diet on this trip. You'll probably see many photos of food posted on my Instagram and this blog and think to yourself, "Poor girl, digging a deeper hole." Yes. Yes I will be. But I am not going to set myself up for failure like I did by trying to diet during Christmastime and one of the biggest emotional roller coasters in my life (choosing a dental school, wrapping up work, moving, leaving my family, etc.).

Instead, I'm going to make myself a promise right now.

(And I'm not going to like it.)

Penn Dental School hosts an event every year (around April) called the Philly Oral Cancer Walk and 5k. I vow here and now that next year I will be running it. I may be the last one to that finish line, I may be crying big ugly tears, I may be cursing this stupid post where I made a promise I never should have made, but I'll be there.

Running a 5k has been a goal of mine for a couple years. Over the last year I've attempted Couch to 5k twice and abandoned it each time I had to run more than 5 minutes in a row because I physically couldn't do it (and because I absolutely flat out LOATHE running). That said, I can't stand the idea of something beating me. To run a 5k (or, God willing, something even longer some day?) would be like giving a giant middle finger to running and saying, "See?! You can't beat me!"

So, while I don't intend to make this entirely a weight loss blog (how boring would that be?), it will be something that I start to integrate once we get to Philly. Because if I don't, this 5k is not going to be pretty.

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Walking Dead Season 3 Finished! ***SPOILERS***

It's been a day of resolution.

First I finished my road trip binder and now I just finished season 3 of The Walking Dead.

So, as I do every time I am fully caught up on a show that I was late to the party to, I've been searching the interwebs for info about the actors, the show, etc. Here's some fun stuff I found on Pinterest:

***Spoilers if you haven't seen Season 3***

And my favorite is too long to post here, but click here to go to BuzzFeed and see how the Walking Dead copied the plot of the Toy Story movies!

Alright - must go to bed :)

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Road Trip Binder Complete!

I'm a planner, so it's probably not too shocking that I've been working on mapping out our road trip to Philadelphia for quite a while. During the stress of my last couple of months at work, moving, etc. it was a bright light that kept me excited about what was ahead.

And now, after hours and hours, my road trip binder is officially finished!

*Woo Hoo*

 

Now, let's take a tour, shall we?

My first section, attractions, is definitely the largest. I did a ton of research in AAA guidebooks and on websites like Yelp, Roadside America, and Roadtrippers. (Roadtrippers is actually how I plotted out the trip's route, and I HIGHLY recommend it.) I gathered a bunch of information I thought we might need to know. I tried to fill out the following for each attraction:

• Category
• Address
• Phone
• Hours
• Tours
• Cost
• Estimated Time
• Description
• Yelp Rating
• Hints

I also have sections for hotel reservations, tickets, coupons, a calendar, and maps:

I wanted a pretty binder, so I used scrapbook paper and rubber cement to cover plain dividers. It was super easy, and gives the binder a much cuter look :)

Joe wondered why we needed maps since we have a GPS and our iPhones, but I thought it would be helpful for us to have them for the cities where we plan to see many sites. That way we can prioritize our day(s) better by knowing which attractions are close to one another (and maybe which attractions we may decide to skip... for example, I had no idea the Collingwood Library and Museum was so far South of Alexandria...)

And now, Joe and I are going to watch the final episode from season 3 of The Walking Dead with my dad. We were behind on the show (only started watching it last month) and caught up on the season while staying with my parents this month. We blasted through about 3 or 4 episodes already today and can't bear to stop. Hopefully the The Walking Dead season 3 finale doesn't leave me as utterly depressed as the Downton Abbey season 3 finale. I need to save up my tears for leaving on Friday! 

Speaking of, it's so bittersweet to begin the final few days with my family and friends before we head off Friday morning. I'm really excited for what is ahead, but it's going to be tough to be so far from the people I love. Luckily, my family planned a trip to Philly a couple weeks after we get there in June and Stacey will be visiting us in October.

But before I get too far ahead of myself and start planning their visits, we've got this road trip to take! Stay tuned for adventures from the road!

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Krafty Kate - Scrabble Picture Project

Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I love doing arts and crafts. In fact, my Pinterest board "Crafty Like a Fox" comes in second for total number of pins (beat out by my food board - not because I cook, but because I REALLY like to eat *hangs head in shame*). 

Since the last couple months have been full of moving and road-trip planning, I haven't been able to do anything artsy craftsy in a while.

And since the next several weeks will be spent in our car, I won't be able to do anything artsy craftsy until June.

Sad.

So, since I can't actually do a craft, I'll share a craft that I made previously. Apologies in advance for the lack of step-by-step photos, but I didn't plan on posting this :)

Scrabble Picture Project - December 2012

For Christmas this year, I wanted to make something for my grandma's gift. She is OBSESSED with Scrabble, and loves to play Words With Friends on her iPad (we recently commented on how a lot of grandmas like to knit, to which she claimed that Words With Friends is her knitting. My grandma is hilarious).

On Pinterest, I had seen a few examples of people using Scrabble tiles to create a framed picture:

But I wanted to be more ambitious. (Of course I did). I didn't just want a couple words - I wanted to use the names of all 15 of her grandchildren.

The first step was to map out how the names would fit on the Scrabble board.

Joe and I made a table in Microsoft Word with the same number of squares as a Scrabble board (15 x 15). Then we experimented with how we could place the names on the board to make them fit (and, hopefully, maximize those darn K's so I didn't have to spend too much on tiles).

It took about 2 hours, but we finally got it. SCORE!

The next step was to get the tiles and a board.

My mom had an older Scrabble set she didn't want any longer (she had replaced hers with the Library edition from Target), which worked great because I could use those tiles and the older board. Her board was MUCH better than the current boards, which are really colorful and definitely not the look I was going for. If you want to actually frame a board with words on it, I recommend checking out thrift shops or garage sales to get a more classic look.

Since we still needed more tiles, I waited for Black Friday and bought a few Scrabble sets at Target for $7 each. This was the cheapest way I found, since Scrabble is usually around $19 per game and buying tiles on their own online is pricier than I expected.

The next step was finding a frame that would work with the raised tiles (I wanted the glass to cover the finished product, but frames don't usually allow for much space). We were originally going to use a shadow box, but then we found a great frame at Michaels. It was a collage frame with a raised decorative cross in the middle. Since the frame was made to accommodate the cross, it would also accommodate the tiles. We had to pry off the cross, but it was pretty, so we kept it to hang in our house (score for frugal Kate).

We affixed the Scrabble tiles to the board and the board to the frame's mat using Tacky glue.

And we were finished!

She loved it :)

"Nonno" is grandfather in Italian. We always called my grandpa Nonno because he was so proud of his heritage. I hope that my dad will also be a Nonno. The golden pin in the middle is the mascot of my family's winery. Had I not used that pin, I would have probably painted a heart on the center square.

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