Hair

If you already didn't know about my huge white streak you can read about it HERE. Minus the cowlick, the whitestreak and widows peek I guess my hair is ok. But being on a student budget you find cheap ways to color and cut your hair. and no matter how many times I ruin my hair, I seem to always find a way to ruin it again a few months later. Has anyone noticed how I've had my bangs twisted and pinned for family pictures the last couple months? well that would be because I cut my own bangs. Now that they've grown out I'm thinking of trimming them again... we'll see how they turn out. 
Moral of the story: don't cut your own hair before family pictures (or ever)

Long Weekend

My parents made the 16 hour drive north from Atlanta with a car full of furniture. Two weeks in and we already had our first visitors- at this rate we will have some 70 visitors over the next 3 years --you better schedule your weekend now. Lucky for us they brought dressers so we were finally able to take our clothes off the floor and out of the suitcases. I can't wait to see what the next two weeks bring- we might even manage to get a couch or a television.

Even though they were here for a short time we managed to jam in a lot of things. We went to the Ithaca Farmers Market in 100% humidity. My upper lip had permasweat.  G-lo (Grandma Loraine) got right into the spirit of things walking from vendor to vendor buying fresh fruits and vegetables. We went the first week we lived here and enjoyed the light breeze off of Cayuga Lake, this time it felt like we had been swimming in the lake. We ate all the purchases on Sunday in a delicious vegetable medley.

After spending some time at the Farmers Market we went over to Wegmans to cool off and eat some lunch. Wegmans is a grocery store that has a legit cafeteria in it. It has great sushi, a huge variety of hummus, and plenty of warm entrees served buffet style. I'm starting to see why people here are obsessed with Wegmans, or affectionately referred to as "Weggies"

Just getting refreshed with some W-UP
I told you I was sweating at the Farmers Market.

After church on Sunday we explored the 800 acres of Cornell campus. Spencer showed off the beautiful historical architecture of the law school and some of his classrooms. As we were walking under stone archways the bell tower hit 6:00pm and "Hedwig's Theme" from Harry Potter rang out across campus. Who needs to visit Harry Potter World when you can just come see Ithaca?

Drew's favorite part of the day was getting his face lovingly shoved into the trees by Spencer.

After a great weekend and a lot of help sprucing up our place they left early Monday morning to make the trek home. The three of us headed the other direction to Syracuse in torrential downpour. The mall was huge (and really busy), Syracuse University was cool, and Dinosaur BBQ was amazing. We opted to get our BBQ to-go since Drew was passed out in the back seat.  We didn't exactly get to enjoy the whole atmosphere part of the restaurant, which actually is a great excuse for us to go back.

Good Decisions

Let me expand on the last post...

 After a lot of praying, thinking, waiting, more praying, we finally decided on a law school. I of course was hoping for schools more within driving distance from my parents- i.e. Duke. Spencer really wanted to attend a school that would play BYU in football- i.e. Notre Dame. So after a lot of praying, a decision was made- Cornell.

Our apartment we found on Craigslist. We didn't have any extra funds to come out to Ithaca and decide on something so we did a lot of internet searching and researching through friends and alumni. We chose our place basically because it was the cheapest place around, but now we are finding little gems associated with that. Lots of LDS families (seriously like Wymount for Ithaca) It's also pretty close to campus and parks and shopping as well. Drew has lots of "friends" that have even asked for him to come out and play. I think some of the girls in the neighborhood think I am about 16. They knocked on the door and asked me to hold their jump rope. Later when I told them I had to go start making dinner they couldn't fathom the thought that I was the mom in the apartment.

Now for the car. We left the good ol' Corolla in Provo. Probably the place it will eventually die. But as for now my younger brother Nathan is driving around P-town wooing girls and taking them out on dates. That was the best little car I've ever driven (its the only car I've ever driven actually) We did the final cleaning and reminisced on all the many miles we put on it and the places we had been.

Spencer in a majestic shot on the banks of the Mississippi River (Please note the missing hubcap)

We weren't exactly sure how far it would make it on our joinery to Ithaca so instead we did something completely crazy and bought a brand new Honda Accord. We flew to Atlanta to cut out about 20 hours of driving and made the decision there. My family headed south to the beach, and we headed north for New York. About 3 hours into the drive I decided we were glad we went we the leather interior after I spilled soda on the passenger seat.

Spencer and Drew at the dealership the morning the car got off the truck.

And finally, here is drew in his new carseat. I use to have to hand him snacks as bribery while I wrangled his arms through the straps of his old seat. Now he goes in his seat without a problem, often falling asleep on even the shortest drives.

I might never get around to explaining some of the bad decisions on the last post. Basically when U-haul says that you have up to 2000lbs in a 5x8 box, you actually have about 1300 lbs because the box it self is included in the weight. So we ended up taking out a lot of stuff and selling basically everything we own. (Still have no couch or table or dressers or tv or desk or shelves) Also, the stuff you do actually ship better not be considered fragile (which includes Tupperware bins) because everything was crushed, shattered, and broken when we received it. which was another thing, the guy that delivers the U-box was out of town for two weeks. So we could have waited for him to get back or instead pay to rent a truck move everything out of the box, into the truck, drive the truck to our apartment then unload it again. Can you tell I am working on a nice long letter to send to U-haul? Maybe after we get some sort of compensation U-haul will turn out to be a good decision.

Decisions, Decisions.

We’ve made a couple of big decisions lately.

I’ve broken them down into two categories.

GOOD

-          Spencer decided on a Law School- Cornell University

-          We chose our apartment on Craigslist, it turned out to be pretty good

-          We bought a brand new car with 7 miles on it. (Still kind of freaking out)

-          Drew got a new car seat which he loves about 100x more than his other one.

BAD

-          I ate an entire bag of Fritos one day in the car.

-          Later that same night we ate hotdogs labeled 2 for 99cents from a gas station.

-          We used a U-Box to ship our stuff. Its official we hate U-haul.

We’re in our new apartment, without internet- (Currently posting from a wi-fi café)

Hopefully we’ll be able to fill everyone in later on some other recent events.

i.e. understanding the shirts “Ithaca is Gorges”, fruit picking, the farmers market, Wegmans etc.

 

We are exploring Ithaca and enjoying the gorgeous scenery. Cornell has a beautiful campus, and a great Law school. We are excited for this new adventure and the next three years of our lives here.

July

July just flew by and we only have a short while left in Provo (more on our official decision later)

We have done a lot of fun things during the last couple of weeks that I thought I would document.

We went to Spanish Fork Canyon where Spencer's cousins live and went on their annual Slip n' Slide.

BEST DAY EVER.

I seriously could not stop smiling. Drew on the other hand tried it two times and hated it.

We were reminded of our fun every time we got out of bed in the morning for almost a week after.

Last week we spent a few days with Spencer's family down at a cabin near Beaver, Utah.
We played on a zipline, had a huge fooseball tournament, went biking, swimming, hiking, watched movies and ate like kings.

We enjoyed the cool weather and spotting the wildlife.

Our most recent event was taking some Orton family pictures before we head out of town.

These are a couple we took after the photographer left.

1st Year

We are still struggling without internet, so new blog posts have been few and far between. I'm not sure if I will get around to posting about our vacation to California, 4th of July, and other events, but I had to post about Drew's birthday.

July 12, 2010 at 9:54am Drew Draper Orton joined our family.

Weighing in at a little over 5lbs, Drew has managed to gain nearly 20lbs this year.

He is happy, curious, and a very good boy that loves eating and sleeping.

We have been celebrating Drew's birthday since Saturday complete with a party with carnival food and games in the backyard.

Drew loved staying up late, the new foods he tried, and all the attention he received.

We still have the snow cone machine and have been enjoying late night snacks.

Happy Birthday little Drew WE LOVE YOU!