Since Devon is a student and gets a reduced-cost Amazon Prime membership, and since I never feel like running errands when I get home from work, we order our fair share of packages. I’ve been known to order boring things like razors and shoe polish just because it’s easier to find it on Amazon than the wander through Walmart.

This past week I was expecting a package from MyHabit, an Amazon affiliate with daily deals, with a super sweet cast iron pan. Of course I had been tracking it (who wouldn’t track their super sweet cast iron pan) and was sad when it wasn’t there when I got home. I was still sad when it didn’t show up any time during the evening. (Sometimes we don’t get packages to our house until 7 or 8 at night.) The next day I checked the tracking and it said this:

It looks like the poor carrier couldn’t find our house, and thought it didn’t exist. Our favorite part, though, is the solution that I circled in red. I guess when they can’t find a house, they send a postcard? Really? If they thought the house didn’t exist, what good would sending a postcard do? I love that the US Postal Service is bankrupt, but UPS still trusts their greater skills in tracking me down. The annoying thing is that UPS was at the house earlier that day trying to drop off a package from Devon. That one required a signature, so they left a note on the door. I thought about taking a picture of that note and sending it to UPS on a postcard, but I don’t think they would get the humor in the situation.

Luckily, after several e-mails and phone calls between me, the sender, and UPS, they have agreed to try to re-deliver on Monday.

Hopefully they will find the house this time.

Us in Vegas in front of a restaurant where we ate. Sadly, this was the only picture we though to take of ourselves. Well, this one and the first shot I took where my head is tilted back and you can see up my nose.

Devon and I decided to take a trip to Las Vegas a couple weekends ago because it was a long weekend for both of us and everyone keeps telling us that our lives will stop once the baby comes.  What better place to do our last crazy things before we become parents than Vegas?

We stayed in a hotel off the strip and the person checking us in must have liked us (I did my best to look as pregnant as possible) because he gave us a room on the 50th floor with a great view of the strip. We didn’t get a picture of it at night, but it looked even cooler. It’s amazing how much time we spent just looking out at all the lights. We could even see when the volcano went off at the Mirage and the fountains at the Bellagio. Do we know how to have a crazy time or what?

Our crazy times continued when we went walking around the strip and wandered into a Ferrari store. We had wanted to go to the Ferrari exhibit next door but it was $10 each unless you were a Ferrari owner. Devon said clearly the most economical solution to get in would be to buy a Ferrari. We thought about trying to convince the man at the door that we owned one because Devon was wearing a Ferrari sweatshirt, but decided against it. (Do any of you remember the episode of Friends where Joey buys all the Porshe stuff to try to convince ladies he owns one?)

Anyway, as you can see by the price of this 1:4 Ferrari model, we were definitely shopping among our peers. Score that it was 20% off. We bought three.

We also checked out a must-have item for the baby - a Ferrari stroller. We figure a regular stroller just won’t be acceptable for our little one. We didn’t purchase one yet because we’re having trouble finding reviews on it online. Anyone have the Ferrari stroller and want to tell us how they like it?

All in all, it was nice to get away and enjoy some weather in the 60s. We definitely walked, I mean, partied so much on the strip that we were limping by the time we got back to our hotel. I think we’re ready for a baby to calm our crazy lifestyles now.

Though tremendous laziness is 90% of the reason we haven’t posted lately, I’m going to blame 10% of our neglect on this:

That's Baby Moss, in case you couldn't tell. I always used to laugh at people who would hang ultrasound pictures on their fridge because it always looks like a grayish blob to me, and now look at me. I'm doing the internet equivalent of posting an ultrasound picture on the fridge. And I'm not apologizing at all.

We found out a couple weeks ago that Baby Moss is Baby Girl Moss, and we’re very excited for her to come. We expect to see her in this many days:

We got the countdown clock for Christmas and it's very comforting having something that seems to know down to the second when I'll deliver. It had better be right or I'll be very disappointed in it.

Being from a long line of shoe lovers on both sides, I knew she was definitely our daughter when she held up her foot during the ultrasound in a clear appeal for us to buy her shoes. Not that we really need any encouragement.

And, because we have them, here are some more grayish blurry shots of her. I won’t label them so you can have the fun of trying to decipher the blurry shots on your own.

Except for photographing food, I really don’t know how to use our SLR but I brought it with me to New York anyway. I love looking at buildings, and New York has wonderful architecture.

The Flatiron Building is one of my favorites:

Empire State Building:

Random building with numbers on it. (Does anyone know what this is? The numbers that were lit up would change periodically.)

Subway with Chrysler building in background:

We took a little boat tour, which I highly recommend. It was such a great way to see the city.

The Freedom Tower, going up on the World Trade Center Site:

Some random dock that I thought looked cool:

The skyline looking down Manhattan:

The Statue of Liberty:

I just like this picture because of the girl waving goodbye:

The Brooklyn Bridge:

I’m a big fan of the Art Deco style, so when I found out our hotel was one of the best examples of Art Deco in New York, I got pretty excited. I wish I had brought a tripod to get good pictures of our hotel, but I still got a few.

 Other assorted New York pics:

Central Park

Businessman on Wall Street

Atlas on Rockefeller Plaza

I could probably have taken pictures of everything I saw there. I can’t wait to go back.

I went to New York last weekend and I have so many pictures to post, but I thought I’d post about a little vacation that Devon and I took yesterday. Here’s how it went:

I woke up a little early and called in to work. Then I woke up Devon to come join me. I knew the perfect spot for us to spend the day. It wasn’t far from our house and had a water feature.

We spent most of the morning in the water, but spent some time shopping for new things for the house, too, like new glassware . . .

. . .  and a new faucet on the sprinklers outside.

We also put some new shades on one of the windows and got inside right before it rained and hailed.

All in all, it was a very full day.

I think I need a vacation to recover from this vacation.

A few weekends ago, Devon and I went to Yellowstone with Ryan, Aubrey and the kids. It was a last hurrah before they packed up and moved to the land of green mountains, no stores, and all-you-can-eat Ben and Jerry’s. (aka, Vermont.) If you are looking for some awesome pictures of the trip, please bug Ryan to get you the pictures. Why do I think Ryan would have some great pics? I’m not sure . . .

Isn't Tate the cutest baby in the world?

For those of you who haven’t been to Yellowstone, it’s an amazingly cool place. I was expecting to see lots of pretty trees and some waterfalls, but the geothermal features were my favorite part. Most of Yellowstone is over a volcano, which means there are places were mud boils and hots springs are all over the place. There’s a good reason that no one believed the first explorerers who came back and described it.

Boiling mud. We told Elle it was chocolate milk, and afterward we saw white mud pit and she asked what that one tasted like.

There are also wild animals all over. We saw lots of these things. We didn’t even know what they were, but we took a million pictures of them. Someone later told us they were elk.

Our trip was cut a little bit short by this:

That’s poor Rhett being sick by the side of the road. I’ll spare you the details of the first time he got sick, but let’s just say the poor guy had just eaten a big lunch and we all got to witness a geyser of our very own in the van. Considering that he was terribly sick far away from home and still happy he had come to see Old Faithful should say something about how cool Yellowstone is.

Devon’s pictures from Brian’s photo contest a few years ago was used for the cover of this month’s Cancer Cell journal. Go here to see the original (Jun 14) and his name credited.

Devon: Ever since I’ve been taking this algorithms class, I’ve started to think in terms of algorithms all the time – even to solve problems in everyday life.

Nicole: Really? Do you think algorithms can help you mow the lawn? Or vacuum?

silence

Devon: Sure. Mowing the lawn is just a convex hull problem . . .

Nicole: I married a super nerd.

silence

Devon: Actually, no. It’s a traveling salesman problem. Convex hull is how the Roomba works.

Nicole: I stand corrected.

Guess who doesn’t have to do yard work today?

Yep, us.