And now, a note from Marshall Erikson:

I never understood this little bit about the feeling guilty about return address labels(though I find myself singing Marshall's little songs in my head quite often... going down to the basement today, with my laundry and a roll of quarters....). Until today, when we got a donation request from a children's cancer fund, complete with personalized return address labels with a fall theme for Christopher Trementozzi. Ohhhhhhhh...

So there was this one time...

... that I woke up on Sunday morning to find a huge, puffy, itchy bug bite on my abdomen. It was bright red. And warm to the touch. About the width of two half dollars and the height of one.

Actually, why paint a word picture when I can just show you an iphone picture?

I do not like it. Not one bit.

We're actually only guessing it's a mosquito bite. It's the closest to pictures I've found online of "severe reactions" to that kind of bite. I guess normal mosquito bites aren't quite this bad? I wouldn't know, I've never gotten one (that I'm aware of), which is very surprising to Chris, since I've worked seven summers at a camp in the heart of Jamul. This one is far and away the worst bite I've ever had from anything, and I've been anti-histamining and cortisone creaming up the last three days. But it's still here, and still itching like crazy!

He makes us laugh.

Happy Friday, everyone! We made it through to another one!

My weekend will be consisting of a two-year-old's birthday party, taking the gigantic pile of recycling to the center (seriously, I'm not sure all the bags will fit in one car), Costco shopping for my Birthday: Family Edition coming up next weekend, photo editing pictures of the cute Cowen family, trying to make more headway with TPA 4 and the video that goes with it, and starting on my final PowerPoint presentation for my final week of class before I finally finish my credential.

Wow. I'm exhausted just thinking about it all.

I'm going to go start the weekend with a nap...

Birthday Time.

So I turned 27 a few days ago. And since I've been a terrible picture taker of my own life lately, I threw Old Faithful (a.k.a. my first Canon digital point and shoot) into my purse to document the day. (More on that first picture later.)

First up: the morning shot. This is how our mornings look. Chris or I let the cats into our room sometime after we wake up, and they run in and cuddle with us and try to get into the sink because they're weird little water babies like that. At some point of every morning, I look over and Chris is on the floor cuddling them. I know, awwwww. :)

(Please excuse our unmade bed.)

August 8 was a Monday, so we Woodmanites kicked the week off right by ditching our classroom and going to BJ's! We had the whole outside to ourselves, which was great because the outside is awesome.

This picture reminds me that I still haven't posted the photos from our rehearsal dinner last year, which was held in this same awesome outdoor area.

My co-worker friends know what I like. Alya, as she slapped this down on the table for me: "Drinks are on me this week." Love it! (And I've already used half the card.)

Phuong always likes to do flowers for special events, so I got this beautiful bouquet to bring home with me!

The kittens weren't so sure about it. Or at least, not sure why I set it on the floor to take pictures of it.

Jack says: "These flowers pain me, as they are blocking the way to my food dish."

One of my favorite presents? This awesome camera strap Melody Holz made me! I have coveted a cute patterned camera strap for so long! And look! It's in our wedding colors!

Sometime after my hot photographer husband came home from work, I said, "Hot photographer husband, how about taking some 27th birthday pictures of me out on this here porch?" And he said sure. Then he led me far away from our porch, down the street, and into a little grassy area in the Elk's Lodge parking lot. (And we left the front door unlocked while we were gone! Sorry, Paul B.!)

Sometimes it really pays to have a hot photographer husband. If you don't have one yet, I highly recommend it.

Sidenote: Why doesn't my hair always look like this?! See how both sides are flipping in? This is not what normally happens. 

This was a timer shot. Chris is giving me the "why did you just throw yourself onto the ground look?" and I'm giving the "these jeans are so tight, it's hard to sit like a lady" look.

That night, after homework and photo editing, we went down the street to Outback Steakhouse for dessert. And there we had what is going on my list of favorite desserts ever: the Sidney Sinful Sundae. I'm not even going to describe it. But it was so good (and so huge) that when I found I could only eat half of it, I was incredibly sad. So sad, in fact, that I totally boxed up ice cream, brought it home, and ate it after work the next day.

And it was just as good then.