The Week of Firsts

Last Sunday was the first time we got blue cupcakes at church. While quite delicious, consumers should beware that they turn your mouth blue. Clayton is always disappointed when cupcakes are not chocolate. We also finished putting the house together.

Monday was Clayton's first day of law school. Torts is Clayton's favorite class. 'Tort' comes from the french word 'torquere' meaning to twist. Torture also derived from 'torquere'. Fittingly, the first day of class was rough.

Professor Turley, walked moodily to the front of the class room. "Alright everyone!" he boomed. "Let's get started!" The class was nervous because no first day reading assignment had been posted and no one was sure if there was an assignment. "I think the best way to begin" continued Turley, "is to jump right into it." He looked at the podium. "Ms. Merriweather, will you relate for the class the facts in the Dougherty case?" The entire class started flipping through their case books looking for the case. Ms. Merriweather stood up. "Ummm" she said. "You did read the case" interrupted Turley. "Yeah" she replied flipping pages of her book while she did so. "So this guy Dougherty, he uh well he went on to this other guy's property and uh." "Ms. Merriweather!" Turley interrupted again. "It seems you did not read this case closely, lets see if someone one can help you out." The rest of the class was frantically reading trying to glean anything that might be helpful from the case. "Ms. Wright, will you please relate the facts in Dougherty." Ms. Wright slowly stood up. "Well, Dougherty went onto Stepp's property and started surveying it. He did so without Stepp's permission." "Good" interrupted Turley. "Now, Ms. Merriweather. It is clear that you did not properly prepare for this class. As such it will do you little good to stay in here. If you are not dedicated to this class, you are clearly not dedicated to the study of law and consequently not serious about being an attorney. Will you please leave my classroom and contemplate whether or not you made the right career decision." "What?" stammered Ms. Merriweather. "Was I not clear?" Turley continued, "I want you to collect your things and LEAVE NOW. You may come back next class, if you are serious but I suggest you go to the registrars office and drop out. This will save you a lot of money and me a headache." The girl collected her things. "The rest of the class will please turn to the next case. I will write the citation on the board." Turley walked to the whiteboard and in large blue letters wrote 'JUST KIDDING'. Everyone started laughing. "Lets hear it for my assistants. This is a right of passage I put all my first years through" said Turley.

So the whole thing was a big prank! we all got a good laugh and then Turley told us all about his experience at law school and we really started class.

On Tuesday, we had our first earthquake. We wanted to let you know what it was like for each of us. We also reenacted it so you could see some pictures.


Clayton was at School, in a study room with about 8 other students. Suddenly, it sounded like there were a bunch of people running and jumping on the floor above. Slowly the desks and chairs started shaking a bit. All the students kept reading. The shaking got worse. All the students kept reading. The walls started shaking and the tables were rocking back and forth. All the students kept reading. The shaking continued. Clayton finally glanced out the window and noticed that the surrounding buildings were swaying back and forth. He promptly went back to reading. Then as quickly as it began the shaking stopped. One of the students said "anyone else here from California?" no answer. Well that was an earthquake. everyone looked up. Nothing seemed to be damaged so they all went back to studying. Later we found out the building was evacuated. About an hour later, while Clayton was in class the Dean popped his head in the door and told the Professor that someone had decided to close the campus until the engineers could check out the structural integrity of the buildings. When we finished class we would have to leave the building. So Clayton had to leave campus at 4:00. Unfortunately due to the earthquake the metro was a disaster and it took him 3 hours to get home.

Nicole's version is slightly less exciting. She was in the bathroom fixing her hair, when some crazy loud noises started to come from up stairs. It sounded like they were dragging furniture around. Then commenced the shaking. As Nicole can be unsteady on her feet anyway, she wondered if she could make it to a table. Apparently, under tables are the safest place to be in an earthquake. Not wanting to risk it, she tried to brace herself between the bathroom counter and the closet doors. After the shaking was over, Nicole ran upstairs to see if the land lady was ok. She was babysitting her grand chrildren. The little girl kept grabbing Nicole's hand saying "Come on, lets hide," attempting to pull her under the table. Nicole told her to go ahead with out her as Nicole was trying to watch the news. Then the little girl, in a final attempt to save Nicole, started to rock back and forth. "The house was going like this! (rock, rock, rock) hurry, we have to hide!" Nothing was damaged. Even all the picture frames were still in place. The only thing that did fall was a pagan statue Nicole had gotten from Cancun, Mexico. Maybe God was trying to send a message here.

On Wednesday, Nicole had her first job interview. She was the only person to mail her portfolio in and they were very impressed by this. It seemed like a fun place to work. Keep your fingers crossed. Clayton also got finally got a locker at the Law School. He was super excited about this because he was using a backpacking backpack to get all the books he needed to and from school.

Thursday was not unusual so we thought we would let you know the usual. Clayton's weekday schedule. He leaves the house about 6:30 am. He gets to school around 7:45 am. He studies and has class until about 7:00 pm. He takes the metro home and gets back to Nicole around 8:00 pm. It turns out the one of the best ways of preparing to attend law school is to work several years for Keith. The hours are about the same, meals are about as frequent, and it's a lot of fun; that is if you have a funny sense of fun.

Thursday was also the first day Nicole had a "phone work out" session with her sister, Amanda. For this session, Nicole took a walk around her neighborhood with weights and Amanda took a walk around HER neighborhood (location Cincinnati) and they talked on the phone with their bluetooth (s). Yay for technology! Nicole had fun and Amanda got lost so Nicole stayed on the phone with her till she found her way back home.

On Friday, we got a letter from Clayton's family. We love the new pictures. Also Clayton had his last orientation meeting. Dean Berman told everyone that in our first week, we had already had an earthquake, and we should brace for the upcoming hurricane. He then told us we should all be careful because if things kept going this way lice and boils would probably be next.

Saturday, we had our first hurricane. It was really windy and a lot of rain. Clayton got an email that a big tree crashed down in front of some GW buildings and they will be closed until further notice. None of the buildings are law related.

That was our week.

Peace and Blessing

The Balancing Act

This week we tried to get settled in before Clayton starts law school. On Monday we had a small freak out session when we received a letter informing us that Clayton was missing one of the mandatory immunizations required by GW. Without it he could not register for classes or get his schedule or be assigned to a section. By the time we received the letter on Monday all the Doctor's offices we closed. (We get our mail from our landlords who were out of town and had the mail on hold.) So we planned an emergency trip downtown for Tuesday morning. We figured that if we were downtown we might as well do some sight seeing.

On Tuesday morning we decided to walk from our house to the metro to see what the commute would be like. After a long but uneventful walk we made it to the metro and headed down to Foggy Bottom. The conductor on the train sounded ridiculous over the PA system. One of the things he kept saying was "Blue Line to Largo." all the vowels elongated.

We went to student health services and found out that because Clayton is married and not living in a dorm he did not have to get the immunization and could just sign a waiver. We were relieved because the immunization was really expensive. From student services we walked to the national mall and started touring. We decided to go the American History Museum at the Smithsonian first because it was closest air conditioning. While there we saw Julia Child's kitchen, Dorthy's Ruby Slippers, Michael Jackson's Hat, Cat Woman's Costume, and a whole selection of pop up books. We concluded that just about anything counts has an American Artifact. Clayton was really excited to find a portrait of Stephen Colbert. If you have seen Colbert's Show he sells one of the prints as a fundraiser for charity that benefits children. At the auction he drives the price up by saying "If you do not bid on this you are saying that you hate children." We went to the National Art Gallery and walked through the sculpture garden. This helped Nicole realize that she is not that bad of a sculptor. There were others that made her feel tiny, unskilled and insignificant. We had lunch by the fountains and Nicole opted to take a nap. While she was napping on the park bench Clayton covered her in newspaper and moved to a different bench, completing the homeless motif. Just kidding about the newspaper part but we did get a great picture of Nicole asleep on the bench. We went to the National Art gallery and found out that the Smithsonian keeps a large quantity of portraits and sculptures of nearly, partially and completely nude figures. Nicole thought about smashing some stuff in there to rid the world of ugliness and/or sin. They did have some really cool paintings we saw a few Van Gogh's, Monet's, Cezzane's that was pretty cool. Then we went into the natural history museum just so we could see the Hope Diamond, a huge blue diamond. While there Nicole wanted to see the live butterfly exhibit but they were out of tickets. For those of you planning a trip out here tickets are free on Tuesdays. They also had a nice collection of rocks. We finished off the day by going by the Capitol Building and as Nicole likes to call it the "Supreme Court WHATEVER building". After that we jumped on the metro and then walked back home. We were both really tired when we got home. We did a some rough calculations and discovered that by the end of the day we had hiked over eight miles.
It was like hiking to havasupai, but with better facilities and AC some of the time. It turns out that the Metro station is about 2 miles away from our house, a bit farther than we thought.

On Wednesday, we heard about a job opening for a graphic design job. Nicole spent the rest of the week gathering her portfolio. It looked fantastic in the end. She finished it up on Saturday and we promptly mailed it. Keep your finger's crossed or pray for her which ever is your custom.

On Thursday and Friday Clayton had orientation at GW. He found it rather boring but really enjoyed starting his homework. The most interesting part was figuring out his commute. At first we didn't know we had any other commuting options besides wading through the parking lot of traffic to get into DC, or simply taking the metro. Nicole's cousin gave us the tip to try "slugging." Slugging is a fantastic form of transportation where you walk to a parking lot and line up with the other slugs, slang for people bumming a ride, and bum a ride into the city. Drivers get to use the carpool lane which cuts off 45 minutes of their commute, and you get a free ride. At first we were apprehensive about getting into a stranger's car. The whole concept seemed to go against our childhood safety instructions. After calculating the metro rates during rush hour, which are twice the normal rate, slugging seemed worth a try. Thus on orientation day Clayton defied his natural instincts to sleep in and woke up at 6am to test out the slugging method. It was a 2.5 mile walk to the slug line. Nicole, fearing that something might happen to her husband, wanted to at least give him a ride to the slug line. He, however, didn't want to be dependent on her for a ride. No, he would rather only have to be dependent on complete strangers. He figured that at least they would be on time. It all went really smoothly and Clayton plans on "slugging in" every morning.

On Saturday, we found our new favorite grocery store. It is a Latin/oriental grocery. They have all kinds of weird and bizarre foods, as well as regular produce, and best of all it is all reasonably priced. They also have samples on Saturday, which is a lot of fun. We found some unusual produce, Sweet lemons, jack fruit and white eggplant. There were a few things that we couldn't find so we headed to Wal-Mart. This turned out to be the most entertaining thing all week.

We think that school must be starting soon because it was super crowded with people buying school supplies. The check out lines were supper long and everyone was getting impatient. After waiting in line for twenty minutes we heard a kerfuffle behind us. Turning around we saw two heavy set black ladies and an equally heavy latino couple "getting in each other's grills". The dialogue sounded something like this
Black Lady 1: "Don' you talk to my momma dat way!"
Latino Man: "I aint talkin to yo momma!"
Black Lady "Yeah you was an' you bein disruhspeckful"
LATINO LADY: "Don' you be touch'n my man!"
BLACK LADY1: "I ain't be touch'n him! He be touch'n me"
LATINO LADY: "I KNOW he not evuh wanna touch dat"
BLACK LADY 1: "Yeah he is being DISrespectful! You Don' wanna go there wit me! Owww noo you don' wanna go der wit' me!"
(pushing ensues. other shoppers and workers start staring. the manager enters the scence.)
Manger: Y'all need to calm down.
Black Lady 1: "You don't wanna go there with me!"
Latino Lady: "You don' wanna go there with me!"
Black Lady1: "I don' gotta be takin' this from no gang banger!"
Latino Lady: "I aint no gang banger you a gang banger!"
(More pushing and swearing ensues)
Crowd: Watch the language there are children!
Latino Man to Black Lady1: yeah there are kids don' be swearing around them.
(it should be noted that both the latino lady and the black lady have children sitting in their carts.)
Black Lady1: "She started swearing first!"
Black Lady 2: " Oh calm down you know how ignrant THEY are."
(Clayton and Nicole exit the scene trying not to laugh)

All in all it was a pretty great week! Peace and Blessings Y'all, peace and blessings.

We Finnally Made It

This is a picture of what our apartment looked like right after we moved in.


This was a crazy week for us. We left Utah on Monday and drove like mad across the country. Clayton is pretty jealous that because Nicole drove from California to Utah on Sunday she has now driven coast to coast. We are really grateful for all the help in getting our stuff packed. We could not have done it with out you.

Those of you who helped us pack the semi-trailer, will be impressed to know that the truck we got to transport our stuff from the semi-trailer to the new apartment was five cubic feet smaller. We had another packing miracle and it all fit. With the help of Nicole's cousin and a few friends we got it all moved in. The whole process gave us insight into the crass commercial nature of our lives and we are considering burning everything we own next time we decide to move. Clayton laments the days when all that he owned fit the back of a pick up truck.

It was great to cross paths with Nicole's family on our way out. We wish we could have spent more time with them in Kentucky. Unfortunately, we were on a tight schedule to pick up our stuff. We look forward to seeing them in the future now that we are practically neighbors.

We also had a great time at the luncheon on Monday. We are so blessed to have so much support from our family. Clayton loves his new pocket watch and played with it throughout church. Nicole loves the new zester and has been scouring the apartment in search of something to zest. Our apartment is starting to feel like home. We have one bookshelf left to set up and then just need to rearrange everything for a few months before we will be perfectly settled.

On our drive in we were both perfectly disappointed in our choice of Quizno's for dinner. We are recommending a family wide ban on that particular sandwich chain. We finished listening to The Lost World by Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle. We highly recommend it to those of you who like that sort of thing. We also listened to The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, a wholly remarkable book, and have taken no small measure of comfort in the phrase "Don't Panic." Clayton is longing to get back into his book Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia, but that will have to wait until the apartment has stabilized or until after law school, which ever comes first.

We attended our new ward today. A lady from Africa taught the lesson in Relief Society; Nicole really liked it. About half of the men in the ward are lawyers so Clayton got some fun advice about law school. There are a lot of young couples like us that have just moved into our ward.

We love and miss you all and hope you are doing well.