Happy Birthday Kelly!

Kelly turned 23 last week (I'm kind of late writing this; it was on the 6th) and we had such a fun afternoon together! I did an excellent job at keeping his presents secret, if I may say so myself. I gave him Star Wars episodes I, II, and III (and I even watched all three with him in the following week.) He thought that was all he was getting. Then I carried out a bigger box and said, "I know you think clothes don't count as birthday presents, but I don't know if shoes count..." And he believed me!

Yeah, it was a Wii.

He made his AWESOME! I'M SO SURPRISED face, and jumped up and kissed me. Well, tried to kiss me--he more like bashed his face into mine and I ended up with both lips bleeding, but I don't care. He totally loved his present!

When I was in the bathroom checking out my bleeding lips in the mirror, he came to tell me that it only came with one controller but I could play first, but there was another present--Wii remote number 2! Woohoo! I know this is bragging, but I'm pretty awesome.

We played Wii Sports for awhile and I kicked his butt in bowling and boxing, and he kicked my trash at tennis and baseball, and we tied at golf. Then we had dinner at TGIFridays. So tasty. On Saturday we celebrated a little more and had a little cake with 23 candles! And he blew them all out on the first try.

But anyway, Happy Birthday Kelly! I love you!

Baltimore, D.C., New York, and two trips to Gettysburg.

Since it's been awhile since I've updated this (sorry/your welcome, depending on how you feel about my writing) I have a few things to write about.

About three weeks ago, Kelly and I went to Gettysburg in the pouring rain. It was so much fun! We stayed overnight in a cool hotel just to get away for a couple days and then the next day was packed full of Civil War stuff. Our first stop, tragically, was a crappy tourist trap "museum". I can't remember the name of it, but if you ever go to Gettysburg, skip the little museums and stuff on the main drag. We soon found out, 10 stupid minutes and 14 wasted dollars later that the place to go was the museum run by the National Park Service. SO COOL!

The museum was huge and awesome (and, unlike the other one, relevant to Gettysburg and the Civil War). The Cylorama, a huge 360 degree painting depicting the battle, is housed in the same building as the museum and is amazing! After filling our heads to the brim with all sorts of museum stuff for hours, we realized our stomachs were quite empty, so we left and had lunch at Dobbin's Tavern, which was built in the 1700s and was really cool and had delicious food.

After lunch, we walked around the Cemetery, also known as the place where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address. We were soaked from the pouring rain by the time we got back to the car, but we decided to do the auto tour anyway. We just followed the road and signs and drove all over the battlefield. Since we were wet and cold, we didn't get out of the car, but it was cool anyway.

Pennsylvania Memorial in the rain.

Overall, our trip to Gettysburg was a lot of fun!


Last week was Spring Break. On Friday March 26th, right after school ended, we picked up my parents, younger sister, Cami, and Jimmy the stowaway puppet at the airport. It was so fun to see them! I miss my family so much; I just wish Kevin and Bryan could have come too. Over the 4 days they were here we showed them around Baltimore, went to DC, went up to Gettysburg with them, and spent a rainy day in NYC.

They found bad Jimmy stowed away in Dad's carry on!
He always came on trips with us when we were kids,
but don't let him drive! Jimmy is a scary driver.

On Saturday Washington D.C. was beautiful. The cherry trees were blossoming, the weather was beautiful, and people were flying kites all over the mall! We hoofed it all over the place and Kelly and I actually got some pictures taken together! It's hard to be in the same picture when it's just the two of you. Moms with cameras are nice to have around.

Kelly, Me, Cami, Jimmy, and Dad in one of the Smithsonian Museums

Capitol BuildingCami and the Washington Monument (Jimmy's in her pocket)

Kites!Chillin' in front of Obama's house...seriously, I was cold.

Cami enjoyed Baltimore's Inner Harbor a lot. We spent Sunday evening down there, and I think she got over her fear of scary Baltimore while we were there. We got there just before sundown and stayed until after dark and it was gorgeous.

Cami, me, Dad, Jimmy, and Kelly

Monday morning we got up early and headed up to Gettysburg. It was so fun to see my dad excited to see everything. He knows so much about the Civil War and he was sharing cool anecdotes with us all over the museum and battlefield. I know I'm a History teacher, but I studied modern European History. I teach U.S. History, but my class picks up at Reconstruction, so I don't cover the Civil War. I really don't know much about it, so it was really cool learning so much from my dad. We basically did the same things on this trip that Kelly and I did previously, except no crappy museums and no Dobbin's Tavern, but I enjoyed it so much more being there with my dad! We also spent a lot longer on the auto tour and got out of the car a lot. It also was not raining, which was nice. We spent a lot of time around Little Round Top and at the high water mark.

Walking into the museum with Jimmy stowing away again!

That night, Cami and I had a sleepover at my apartment. She chose a movie to watch (fittingly, Hairspray, in honor of being in B'more) and we stayed up kind of late. She fell asleep on the couch and I broke sleepover rules and went and climbed into bed with my husband.

After about four hours of sleep, Kelly woke us up and forced us to get ready for New York. Cami was so excited to go! We drove about 3 hours up to Newark, NJ and then caught the train into the city. We were hoping to catch a show on Broadway, but had no luck. Instead we nonchalantly wandered around Times Square in the rain. We soon got kind of ornery because we were wet and cold. Except Kelly. He's never crabby, and it was his first trip to Manhattan so he was excited to be there come rain, snow, sleet, or hail. Or hurricane, monsoon, transit strike, or blackout. Fortunately our Crouch luck didn't cause a catastrophe this time. The last two times the Crouches hit NY coincided with the blackout and then a transit strike. Rain wasn't so bad, looking back on it, though it was my least favorite trip there. We ate at our favorite Little Italy restaurant, De Nico, and rode the subway all over and did some 5th Avenue shopping. One of our last subway stops was in Battery Park, and we all waited by the stairs down to the subway (there was cover from the rain there) while Kelly jogged to see the Statue of Liberty through the thick fog. He was happy he managed to get a glimpse of it. We'll have to go back a warmer day so he can have a real New-York-touristy kind of trip.


It was hard saying bye to my family that night, since they were flying out early early the next morning. Hopefully we'll make it back to Utah for Christmas to see them and talk on the phone with Bryan who is on his mission in Hungary. (Well, he's still in the MTC right now, but he'll have been in Hungary for months by then.)

The last few days of Spring Break I tried hard to get things done...and failed miserably. I read a sweet book called The Guernsy Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Sounds weird; it's not. It was wonderful! My mom bought it for me, and it was perfect! I enjoyed reading and napping and generally just relaxing for a few days. I don't really do that much at all anymore. Teaching and Hopkins classes keep me way too busy. Today was the first day back after Spring Break, and I have to admit, I was dreading it, but it wasn't so bad.

Now I just have to make it through Friday.

Snowday and the Smithsonian (one of many)

I know I haven't written yet this year, and I've been meaning to for about a month, but it is only February. There was no work yesterday and today because of snow! How cool is that? That never happened in Utah. I cleaned our home yesterday, so I will use part of my free time today to update my blog!

At the beginning of January, Kelly and I decided to go to one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington D.C. I didn't know this before moving to Baltimore, but there is not "The Smithsonian Institution" there are actually a whole bunch of museums about different things! (I guess I probably would have learned that eventually from Night at the Museum 2.) We went to the National Museum of American History and saw a lot of cool stuff!

Kelly was excited from the start, because right in first room there stood C-3P0. It was the actual costume worn by Anthony Daniels in Return of the Jedi. American History at its finest!

Mostly we saw a bunch of oddsy-endsy kind of things:
A Stradivarius Quartet

Apolo Anton Ohno's skates that he wore in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City

Kermit the Frog

Dorothy's Ruby Slippers
We also went to a cool exhibit about Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln's famous stovepipe hat. Last time worn: when he went to see a show at Ford's Theatre April 14, 1865.

A blurry picture of one of his suits

I can't remember if this was a lifemask made of Lincoln shortly before his death, or if it's his deathmask.


We saw some other exhibits too, that I don't have pictures of. We saw Julia Child's kitchen, but there were so many people, I couldn't get a decent picture. It probably got really popular after Julie & Julia came out. We also saw the gunboat they pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay that was sunk during the Revolutionary War. It was called The Philadelphia, and was sunk in 1776. It was found in 1935 upright with the top of its mast just 10 inches below the surface of the water. They raised the whole thing and now it's sitting in the Smithsonian.

There was a presidents exhibit we went to, as well as the Bradford Dollhouse. That was hard to get close enough just to look at it properly. All I wanted to do was stand on the step and stare at the miniature rooms. It was really cool.

My favorite part was the America at War exhibit. It had an part for every war from the Revolution to the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course, I spent the most time in WW2.
Some cool things we saw:
Some of George Washington's clothes

Cornwallis' sword that he turned over to George Washington

George Washington's sword

Some nifty stuff from Okinawa


All in all, we had a really fun time, and I should have taken a lot more pictures than I did. We didn't even get to all of the exhibits in that museum because it was so big. Next time we go, we're going to see the original Star Spangled Banner-- the flag Francis Scott Key was actually seeing when he wrote the national anthem.

If the snow would ever let up, we might actually get back to D.C. before March. I don't mind driving in the snow, and it's really not that much, but it's like everyone's IQ significantly drops when they see snow around here! Oh well, I'm enjoying blogging in my pajamas at 3PM. It's supposed to snow another 10-20 inches today and into tomorrow afternoon, so hopefully we'll have another snow day tomorrow!

Snow Day

I waited for you
As snowflakes slid down the window
Colliding,
Joining,
Like diamond earrings falling slowly to the floor.

Christmastime in Baltimore

Today is my first snow day! We got about a foot of snow two days ago, it hasn't snowed since, and still no school! I like this place.

Kelly and I have been trying to get into the Christmas spirit, but it's been a little hard without snow and all the dead, brown Halloween-looking trees all over the place. Our apartment is looking good, though!

Our first Christmas tree, Dmitri. (a.k.a. DmiTREE, though maybe we should have named it Charlie Brown, because it looks kinda like his little tree.)


We built a gingerbread house together!
Of course the snow outside makes it feel much more like home and like Christmastime. When it snowed on Saturday, the power went out at our apartment for about 5 hours. It was kind of fun. We had candles and read and I took 3 naps and we did all the dishes and Kelly made us soup, and we had our wonderful "Level 6 warmth" down blanket from Ikea to keep us warm! It was a relief when the power came back on, though.

Church was canceled yesterday because of the snow, so we spent two days inside, and now today is a snow day! What a great weekend! Kelly did have work, so I drove him over and his boss was late so got to we sit together in the car for awhile this morning. And I'm meeting him for lunch!

I doubt tomorrow will be a snow day, but I also doubt that many students will show up. I'm planning a fun activity for the few that do come, and I have Wednesday off to fly home! (Looks like my World History kids get out of that test until 2010.) Kel and I are so excited to come home the day after tomorrow!!! HOORAY!!!!!!!

Thanksgiving and Nariman

The view from our balcony on Thanksgiving morning

Thanksgiving was a wonderful break off of school. We woke up to a foggy day and we spent it doing laundry and cleaning our home. (Our little apartment hasn't been that clean since we moved in!) Then Kelly made us a fine Thanksgiving feast of rotisserie chicken, mashed potatoes from a box, dressing from a box, and cranberries from a can. It was tasty and more than enough for the two of us! Unfortunately, we gobbled it up before I remembered to take a picture of it.

The next day, Nariman flew in! We met him at the airport and then we wandered around the Inner Harbor and took him to dinner at a swanky seafood restaurant right on the water. We had so much fun just hanging out with him!

The next day we headed out early and went to the Edgar Allen Poe house here in Baltimore. (Nariman is a big fan of E.A. Poe.) Then we hit the road for Philly. We went to another Poe house up there and that was pretty cool. We made it just in time to see everything before it closed. After that we wandered around downtown Philadelphia and got hot chocolate (coffee in Nariman's case) and had a great time. We didn't get to see the Liberty Bell or anything like that because it was late. We were just killing time before our concert started.

I can't remember what this building is called! It's in Philadelphia, though.

Me, Kelly, and Nariman chillin' in Philly.

We got pizza for dinner (not as good as the pizza place by Temple University that kept me alive during TFA summer institute, but still good) and we went to the Mountain Goats concert! We only had about 4 or 5 layers of people between us and the stage and the Mountain Goats were great! I even mostly enjoyed the opening band, Final Fantasy. It was a guy with a violin hooked up to a synthesizer, then he'd play a little bit and then the synthesizer would loop it so it played over and over, so he'd keep layering the pieces. It was really interesting, but literally a little too repetitive. But really, the concert was so awesome! (Despite the annoying girl who wedged herself in front of me who smelled like cat litter.) It was so crazy, the lead singer looked and acted so much like my Uncle Kevin, and what didn't look like Uncle Kevin looked like my dad. I'm kind of wondering if they have a lost brother. It was a good show, especially since they sang my theme song of the year, "This Year" which contains the all-too-fitting line "I am gonna make it through this year, if it kills me." Yep, sounds about like my life at Baltimore Liberation High School.

We drove home late that night and were stuck in traffic at 2AM because of the stupid toll road. We got home past 3 and immediately went to bed. The next day we hung out around the apartment and went to Edgar Allen Poe's grave site. It was in the churchyard of an old church. That was the coolest cemetery I've ever seen. It was so old (you can't get old like that in Utah) and there were above-ground tombs and mausoleums and sepulchers. It was really interesting.

Kelly and me at E.A.P.'s grave

It must have been a good refrigerator to deserve such a fine burial

This marble slab in the cemetery has bent! Apparently it is quite a phenomenon and was on Ripply's Believe it or Not.

On Monday, Nariman was flying out in the afternoon, so Kelly and I both took work off and we spent the morning in D.C. We went to the National Archives and saw the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States. We saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln memorial from afar, and the White House. Then we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Since it was free, we didn't have a problem just seeing a few exhibits. Mainly, stuffed animals---not like F.A.O. Schwartz, but like taxidermy. We also saw a whole bunch of animal skeletons and went into a live butterfly room. One landed on my leg and wouldn't get off. We were told not to touch them because it could damage their wings or antennae or legs, so it just sat there and sat there and a bunch of people took pictures of it. Kelly tried, but it was blurry, but Nariman got a good one. Finally a lady with a brush got it off and I was able to walk normally again.

The National Archives

Kelly and Nariman looking at the Constitution (it was really dark, so sorry for the quality of the picture)

The Declaration of Independence. I had to take it in two pictures. In the bottom one you can barely make out John Hancock's big signature.

The Washington Monument
Kelly and Nariman looking at the Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Monument
It looks just like a penny!
I don't think Obama was home.
Giant Squid!!!
Nariman and some fishes
Kelly and the Walrus (it sounds like the title of a children's book)

Me and a seal
Kelly and Nariman and a GIANT TURTLE!
Flying Squirrels!
For cute! Too bad they're dead.
Fish skeleton
Dead butterflies.
Live butterflies!
Live butterfly who I started wishing was dead so I could get it off of my leg and walk normally again.

After that we hurried and got some lunch and ran Nariman to the airport where we said bye until Christmas break. It was so fun having him here! We're so glad he came and invite him back anytime!

Thanks for such a fun Thanksgiving break, Nariman!