Countdown

The week before the wedding has arrived. It is always amazing how the time goes by so quickly. Our vacation started on Friday when the East Coast received a pretty significant Snow and Ice storm. Saturday Jill and I packed and drove up to her parents house outside of Philly. When we arrived we finished clearing the driveway and sidewalk of the heavy snow and ice. Amazingly, Jill's mom, Donna and sister, Kelly had shoveled most of the driveway already. Sunday we celebrated Linda (Jill's sister) and Toby's (her husband) birthdays. Somehow I ended up at the stove cooking the fajitas on one of our new wedding gifts. It is a grill/griddle that you place over the burners. It worked fabulously on the peppers, onions, steak and chicken. Yummy! Monday I received a recorded message on my cell phone from Delta Airlines informing us that our direct flight from BWI to SLC had been canceled! We were now booked on a flight that left Tuesday morning with a layover in Atlanta. We had to make a bunch of calls to verify our status and rearrange the plans that we had had on Tuesday. We went to Linda's shop to get my haircut and Jill and Linda finalize the hair style for the wedding. Then we went to a movie (Amazing Grace) with Donna. The movie was quite good. I had no idea of the story behind the song. After the movie we headed to Baltimore and crashed at Shelly's place (Jill's recently moved-out-of place) Tuesday, Sara took us to BWI bright and early and we made our way safely to Salt Lake. We were not the only ones on the flight that had been impacted by the cancellation including about a dozen high school kids from Monticello returning from a DC trip. Jill had a shower to attend Tuesday night that my Mom and sisters were throwing. Maya was excited to be able to help Jill open her gifts. The rest of the week consists of making sure everything is ready for Saturday. Friends and family will be arriving in Salt Lake throughout the week. On Thursday we are taking our parents out to dinner then Friday we have party with lots of my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins. The days are pretty full and I'm sure it is going to go by very quickly. I can't believe it is here!

Figuring Out Frederick

Saturday we took two more car loads of stuff from my place up to the apartment. We unpacked and organized for a while then decided to get out and enjoy the great weather. We found a Golf Disc course in a neighboring town (Middletown). We took the long way to get there on accident. I didn't notice it was off of Alt 40 instead of just 40. We enjoyed the country side and finally made our way to the park via the back roads. The disc golf course was very interesting. It was laid out on open fields with a lot of walking between holes. They had amateur and pro tees which really only meant that the pro tee was an additional 20' -30' longer. One great thing about the course was that it was really hard to loose your disc (since there are no trees!). But it also really exposed your skill level (or lack there of). The wind was also not our friend. We only played 10 holes then took a few pictures of a woodpecker. We stopped by the mall that is right by our apartment. It was really quite an interesting experience. The mall is anchored with a Boscov's (which I think is a lot like a JCPenny) and a Home Depot! That's right, Home Depot. Inside the mall got even better. There are lots of empty stores, a couple of empty restaurants and another department store. We counted 3 arcades and 8 discount stores which were 8 different variations of dollar stores. There was a $4.99 store, a $1.99 store, a $.99 turned upside-down store, and even a 'as Seen on TV' store! The only standard mall stores consisted of a Radio Shack, Bath and Body Works, and a movie theater. Sunday: Church at the new ward. The people were really nice. The ward seems to be fairly old and fairly small with only a couple of young families. Jill had several comments from people expressing how glad they are that we are moving into the ward. If you have not noticed from the counter, there is less than two weeks left! You can find more Golf Disc pictures here and more woodpecker pictures here.

The New Pad

Last Friday: Jason (bro-in-law) was in Baltimore for work. He had spent a couple of days with Dan trying to get a new movie off of the ground. They met with people in NY, PA, and MD including the guys from LIVE who they are trying to get involved for the soundtrack. We went to Phillips on the Inner Harbor for some good seafood. Three of us ended up ordering salads which the waitress seemed put-out about but was quite happy when we asked to see the desert menu. Saturday found us moving all of Jill's stuff and my big stuff to our new apartment in Frederick. We had a great crew in Baltimore to help us out. Nate, Sara and Preston also drove out to help us unload. A high school friend of Jill's now living in Frederick also came over to help. Jill rode back to Baltimore with Nate, Sara, baby Evander and Preston for her Girls-Night-In party. I drove to Herndon in the moving truck to load up my big stuff. My roommates Dan and Rich were a huge help and also drove up to Frederick with me to unload. The apartment is now full of stuff. The rest of the week was spent trying to organize, turning on the cable TV, internet, and phone service, transitioning utility accounts into our names, and bringing up the small stuff one car load at a time. As of today (Friday) about 80% of my stuff has been moved.