How to avoid getting eaten by Bears:

1) Stay in your car (Check)

2) Don't have any food in or around your camping tent. (Check)

3) Make lots of noise. (umm..didn't feel brave enough to do that, luckily we had rowdy neighbors).

So now that everyone can feel safe in their future camping endeavors, I will share our short-lived horification (yes, I made up the word). We had an amazing time away from work and school this past weekend. We went down to Moab and got to see Canyonlands, Arches national park, and the La Sal mountains (mountains of salt, it looks like there is snow on top, but really its salt apparently). Our first night we stayed by the Green River in Moab, which was super fun, yet super hot. So the next night we decided to stay up above the heat in the La Sal mountains. While driving up there, a large animal bounded out of the brush on the right side of the road about thirty feet in front of us..ran across the road, and jumped into the brush on the left side of the road. Initially thinking, "Wow, that is one large dog" i realized maybe it wasn't a dog..I said to Chris, "WHAT was THAT!?" and he said, "That was a BEAR!" And so began my terror. We decided that we should drive to the other side of the mountain where it was 'safe'. But needless to say, I was still freaked out. Even though I was safe in my car and seeing a bear while camping is 'rare' I still felt somewhat uneasy. Luckily though we had no further sightings. Phew! Here are some picts from the happier side of our vaca:

Delicate Arch...not the longest hike ever, but DEFINITELY the hottest.

Squirly squirrel! Actually I think it was a chipmunk..

At the top of Aztec Butte, Canyonlands

Warner Lake, La Sal Mountains

Canyonlands

Mesa Arch

"Why so Serious?!"

--famous quote from the Joker. We finally got to see The Dark Knight! A lot of the fighting sequences and landscape shots were filmed using imax cameras, so we were excited that we got to see it on the Imax as it was intended. I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I was sad that Scarecrow wasn't a bigger player. However, great villains were introduced. I would never have thought Heath Ledger could be so..creepy. He was very convincing as a real sadist.


Above was my fave part of the movie. A big slam to the head...and very deserved! Besides the whole radar cell phone thing (if you haven't seen it yet, that part is weird) and Batman's ridiculous garbled voice, I think the movie is a must see- for Ledger alone. But if you are sensitive to knives (this is for you Jen) I think you should definitely be cautious. So overall, I feel that this somewhat dark epic has definitely taken a classic comic book and created more complex themes and character development that are definitely worth watching.

Secondary #1

Chris got his first secondary today from Penn State.. (!) Let the essays begin...

Good news bears

The unthinkable has happened..Chris has finished applying to schools! We are thinking of making some kind of pot to guess where we end up. Whoever wants to can submit a dollar (or less..three cents is fine) to the 'guess where Chris is going' pot. The person who gets the closest (geographically speaking) will get the pot! And if more than two guess correctly we'll just divvy up the loot (all 7$ of it, comprising mostly of Kelly crazies I'm sure). 
The options so far are (in order of my favorites....): U of Washington, OHSU, Stanford, Duke, University of Colorado, UCSD, University of Utah, Penn State, Ohio State, Southwestern, Mayo, University of Michigan, UCLA, Baylor, University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University, University of Wisconsin, Casewestern. (and for anyone wondering, U of A only takes residents..I emailed them and they told us not to bother applying, sad).

And feel free to take a stab even if you don't want to join in on the pot. All comments are welcome here. We are still in the early stage of the whole process, but I am finding that it is going to be difficult to actually come to a decision. I'm not so good on major life decision making. It took me three changes to actually decide on a major in college, and I'm sure this process will be the same. Luckily Chris will be the major deciding party..he is much more decisive, thank goodness. Any suggestions on how one decides where to live for the next 8 years or how to stay sane while making big decisions? And yes, you heard me, EIGHT years. Seven if we're lucky. I've never won anything in my life, so I consider myself a somewhat un-lucky person, but we'll see :)

We are excited to move on to the next phase, and looking forward to exploring new territory. We won't be done with p-town until next summer, but time seems to be moving faster and faster..I'm sure it'll be here before we are even ready for it! 

Showdown

Chris and I are dog people. If only we had a yard, or at least a house to keep one in. But alas, our apartment complex does not allow animals, and the only alternative to satisfying our want for a pet is to get.. fish. So a couple weeks ago we decided to go ahead and get a 20 gallon tank. That's right, we jumped right in, none of this solo beta fish bowl business. We've got the filter, a heater, bubbly-er.., fake plants, and even some actual shells in there! We have been adding fish slowly (as to not kill them all due to the Nitrate/amonia levels, thanks Jay's Jungle girl). This past weekend we added four Neon Tetras to the tank. Our other two plati's weren't too happy about the fantastic four. (We're still tryin to come up with a name for the four..the fab four like the beatles perhaps.. or maybe we'll stick with our theme and go with the Freighters..) Once we put the fish (still in bag) into the aquarium Echo would immediately start ramming himself into the clear plastic bag...either to intimidate or perhaps just for fun..who really knows..but we got a kick out of it.