It's official!!

We're engaged!!  Photos to follow :D

Ups and Downs

It's been a weird week.  Some ups and some downs.

A week ago, Andrew and I drove to Boston to see some friends for dinner and bowling. We had a blast - delicious food, great people, fun all around.

We both had a three day weekend, so we enjoyed the long weekend and finally became official Rhode Island residents!  Our drivers licenses are on their way to us and we're registered to vote here!

Thursday was our first anniversary.  It's been a year since I started dating Andrew!  

I love this guy. He's smart and funny and kind and knows a lot about politics and cares about my rights as a WOC.  Here's to many more years :)

Yesterday I got some horrible news - a friend of mine in Salt Lake City passed away. Tiffany was an incredible person who made my time in Utah so much better.  She was sweet and caring, passionate and driven, intelligent and giving.  Recently she had made some powerful efforts to make important changes in her life, and was succeeding.  I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that's she's just gone now.

We had some plans for the weekend (another 3 day one), but I really didn't feel like doing anything too social when I woke up this morning.  I'm having a hard time talking about how I feel about Tiff, and I didn't feel like being social. Instead, Andrew and I drove over to the island where I work to spend the day.  We got some good food, ran some errands, and went to a walked around Newport.  We also stopped at Green Animals Topiary Garden, which I've been curious about for a while.  

The topiary was pretty cool - overpriced, but cool:

A lot of the sculptures were intricate and well done, like this horse and rider

But most were pretty non-descript, like whatever this guy is

 Andrew and the bears :)

There were hundreds of butterflies around - really beautiful

Scarecrows.  Andrew thought these guys were creepy, but I think they're cute

When we got home I felt really drained so I went to sleep.  So now it's past 1am and I'm wide awake and thinking about Tiff.  I called all of our friends and left messages and texts about love.  I don't know what else to do.  But I know Tiffany would want us to move forward positively and I hope we're all able to do that. 

State Park

Last week I was sick, so I didn't work on Friday and then we spent Saturday laying around the house and watching movies. By Sunday I was going a little stir crazy, so we decided to get out of the house. Andrew's mom mentioned that there are a lot of seals out near the coast this time of year, so we headed over to Demarest Lloyd State Park in Massachusetts.

The whole park is so beautiful - we collected shells and watched birds and bugs (sadly we didn't see any seals) and on the way out, we watched some guys catching crabs! It was so nice to be out for a few hours.

On the way home, we stopped at Eskimo King where they boast "over 300 flavors" of soft serve. Hardly. I don't think you can count mixing two flavors together as a new flavor. Still, I enjoyed my white rasberry truffle and Andrew liked his eggnog cheesecake.

All in all a pretty great day and a nice break from sitting around! This weekend we're trying to finish up our apartment - unpacking everything that's left and getting everything into place! I'll be posting once everything is ready, but here's a little preview:

oops...

Okay so I'm bad at blogging.  :(  This is a quick update to get me back into the swing of things!

So Andrew and I drove across the country and I spent a month going back and forth between Pennsylvania, where my parents live, and Massachusetts, where Andrew was.

 (right before heading out of town) 

 
(with my friend Mary, who we stopped to have dinner with in Chicago)


 

(me with Peter, who belongs to my parents)

I applied for a few jobs and got hired right away at a company in Rhode Island, doing speech therapy for an Early Intervention program. I'm working with all children under the age of 3, and loving every minute of it!

Unfortunately, my office was also about an hour away from Andrew's apartment, so in the middle of August, we found a beautiful apartment in a suburb of Providence, and started to move in! We are mostly unpacked at this point, so keep your eyes open for photos of our place! This is the first time when I've really been in a position to make my living space really look the way I want it to, so I've been going all out to make it perfect.

We also happened to move a block away from my friend Taylor, who I've known for a few years, so it was really nice to have people to socialize with right away.

(Taylor and I)


 
(our friend Mark came into town!)

I really miss my SLC friends, but I'm starting to meet some really nice people here too. I am enjoying working with younger kids, and it's nice to be in the same place as Andrew after being across the country from him for 9 months.

I'll post more soon!

PRIDE

My last full weekend in Utah also happened to be Salt Lake City PRIDE weekend!  My BFF Greg and I went to a bunch of parties, the parade, and the festival.  It was nice to get to spend my last weekend with people I love, and I'm so so proud of everyone who celebrates diversity and stands up against discrimination and violence toward LGBT people.

At the parade with our friend Kate's sweet puppy, Karma.

Greg, me, and Tyler at the parade.  (c) Nick Ushio