They're baaaaaaaack!

The students are back on campus!  The semester begins. . .

A common end-of-the-semester conversation

This is a hilarious YouTube video displaying a parodied version of a student worried about his course grade.  Ben and I both laughed pretty hard.  If you've ever taught, particularly at the college level, you have probably had some version of this conversation with at least one student. 

Where a pair of sunglasses could take you. . .

Ally loves to wear her sunglasses.  If she is wearing them in public, she almost always gets noticed for the movie-star appearance.  Case in point:

This is Ally at Nana's 90th birthday party (photo taken by Uncle Jim).  She kind of looks like she could be walking the red carpet.  So work a little photoshop magic and you get this:

Look out world!

Fellow grad school friends: do you ever have those days where. . .

you feel like you can't graduate fast enough?  I am having a lot of those days.

A shout-out

I want to send a shout-out to our friend Matt who is taking the NC Bar exam today and tomorrow. Go Matt! Kick some butt! We're praying for you!

Adventures in Maryland

Last week, we went to visit Ben's brother and family in Maryland. Ally got to play with her cousin Simon who is also 2 years old, as well as Javi, the big black lab.  I think she had a lot of fun with both of them. Here are a couple pics of Ally and Simon at Adventure Playground, where they kind of look like they could be hosting a talk show.

We also took a trip to the Baltimore Aquarium.  I had heard a lot of good things about it, and Ben had gone when he was younger and growing up around the area.  Despite the crowds of people, we got to see some cool sea life.  Ally's favorites were the blue crab, the sharks, and the sea turtle. 

We did have one unanticipated adventure:  a trip to the ER.  Ally took a pretty serious tumble down a flight of stairs and got a large gash on her head and an abrasion on her back.  But a couple hours, 11 stitches, and 2 popsicles later, she seemed to be back to her old self.  Now she talks about how she fell down the stairs,  got booboos on her head and back, that she cried when she got the stitches, and that she has to be careful on Simon's stairs. 

La Fête Nationale

I will start off with a disclaimer. I am not French. The closest I come to French in my blood is my French Swiss relatives on my dad's side. I think one of my cousins might be from Belgium but I'm not 100% sure. But I did take French from 7th-12th grade and I minored in it in college, and we did learn about French history and literature. So July 14th always comes to mind because it is Bastille Day, or La Fête Nationale. I would say the celebrations are probably pretty similar to our July 4th celebrations. And of course, it's not complete without listening to La Marseillaise, the French National Anthem. If you need to get yourself pumped up for something, just listen to it a few times; it is pretty rousing. Vive la France!