Snow Day 2

This has been a strange winter for us, marked by brutal cold and very little snow. That is...until yesterday. One of the few big snows we've had this winter.... Plessy loved it. Watch with the sound on....in my next life I'm going to compose soundtracks. =)

From Eastern Europe To Esquire: Our 2009 Holiday Card.

Chances are if you found this blog you are in receipt of our magical holiday card and interested in learning about the pictures on it.... or your bored, whatever, we don't discriminate. Our 2009 was an eventful year and we didn't think that one picture on a holiday card would do it justice. We may have overdone the pictures but, hey, that's just who we are. Without further ado, here is our year in pictures (let's call this a quick review):

Our Trip to Cabo
My brother and sister-in-law tied the knot in Cabo San Lucas last March and, as it fell over our spring break, Chad and I decided to turn their wedding into a great vacation.

This picture was taken in Cabo Pulmo, a great, if not waaaaay out of the way village and marine sanctuary. We spent the better part of a couple of days in those chairs drinking the best margaritas I've ever had. (And we've spent the better part of the rest of this year trying to duplicate them).

This was the view from the palapa (a thatched-roofed umbrella) that we spent 2 days under in La Paz, Mexico. Chad managed to walk across to the other side (which is really, really far and, as it turns out, home to a number of stingrays). I managed to get through two books.

Aaaahhh, El Cascada. Somehow Chad and I managed to find this gorgeous waterfall in the middle of the Baja desert despite a limited map and an even more limited grasp of the Spanish language. While we were enjoying the serenity of the area we met a young lady named Wolf, who was a fire eating hippy touring Cabo. Yeah, that was interesting.

This was the quaint town of Todos Santos. The town is famous for its Hotel California but has kind of been overrun with yuppies from SoCal. We did however find the best fish tacos of the trip at a little dive on the main street. (Main street shown above).

And the whole reason for our Baja vacation: Forrest and Misty's GORGEOUS wedding.

Plessy, the Wonder Pup.
Chad and I were determined to get a puppy as soon as law school was over (including the bar exam). We found Plessy who was slated to be sent home in mid August which was perfect for us. She keeps us smiling, yelling, and busy picking up after her.
This is a picture of Chad and Plessy on her first hike in the Wetland Preserves behind our apartment. Pretty sure that's a smile on her face.

Central Europe for the 2008-2009 Holidays
Chad and I spent Christmas Eve in the quaint Czech town of Cesky Krumlov. We spent the day drinking hot chocolate (which was literally melted chocolate), feeding the bears, and enjoying the ridiculously cheap beer in the Czech Republic (including the local favorite Budweiser, which is so much better than the Bud we all know and love, and cheaper to boot).

When we first got to this town it was in the evening and we had a long hike from the train station to our hotel. We ended up walking through the town square and catching the town's Christmas pageant. We watched for a few minutes but had to get to our hotel. The only problem was the only way to get to our hotel was a back alley off the square that was being used as the staging area for the pageant. We had to pick our way through donkeys, horses, angels and a lot of things lit on fire while walking on icy cobblestone streets with heavy backpacks. Chad was just hoping not to pull a Clark Griswald and knock a fire twirler into the nativity scene with his giant backpack.

After figuring out Christmas Day transportation in a foreign language with more accents than actual letters, we traveled to Prague where we feasted on the traditional Christmas fare of boiled carbs and meats....and washed it down with delicious cheap beer. When we first got to Prague it was late and the first thing we saw was a huge, beautifully lit Christmas Tree in the Old Town Square in the middle of a HUGE Christmas market. It was a great place to be on Christmas. The picture above was taken the day after Christmas on the banks of the Vltava river at the base of the Charles Bridge.

New Years Eve was celebrated in Krakow, Poland. Our hostel was right on the square so how could we not join in the festivities. I was shot twice by two distinct champagne corks and hugged numerous times by people who were presumably saying "Happy New Year" in Polish. But, seeing as I know NO Polish it is very likely they were telling the crazy American to get out of there way.
Chad's birthday fell in Budapest...so here he is on his birthday, on the banks of the Danube River smoking a Cohiba. I think he owes me a good birthday this year!

Graduation, Parties, and Bar (exams), Oh My.
2009 was an exciting year in many ways but for us, the most defining part of the year came in May, when we graduated from Albany Law School.
This was Chad and I at our Law Review Formal. Chad and I have been on law review for 2 years and the best part of the experience, hands down, was this formal. Nothing like open bars, generous pours, and stressed out law students.
The next party was the Well Party. The Party is one of the few real traditions at Albany Law. The night before graduation the school puts on a fancy soiree for the graduating class and their families. Here I am with my mom.
The next day we graduated!!!!!!! And in such fashionable attire!
Me with my parents.
Chad with his parents, sister, and nephew.

Us with our good friends and fellow graduates, Sarah and Dan (who were smart enough to take the jedi-garb off AND who, coincidentally will be getting married in San Antonio in May, thus necessitating a long over-due trip for us to the lonestar state).

After graduation we headed north to Montreal and Quebec City with my parents. The picture above is of Quebec City which is a little slice of Europe in North America. The trip was fabulous, if not freezing, and the food was amazing.

The remainder of the summer was spent studying for, crying over, and ultimately taking the New York State Bar Exam. (Photo not found).

Either We Passed or We Failed...
but regardless we were heading to Key West for some fun in the sun relaxation with our good friends and absolutely, positively no legal talk.
One of the five pools at our amazing condo in Key West, Parrot Key Resort.
Our good friends, Tom and Heather Kramer who flew all the way out from Nebraska to help us forget about the bar exam. As you can see, hats played a very big role in our vacation.
Our first of many beautiful sunsets in Key West.

The New York Board of Bar Examiners Would Like to Congratulate You...
That sentence, buried in the midst of a paragraph, was all we needed to read; we both passed the New York Bar Exam. The celebration began about an hour later, and continued for several weeks. Actually, we're still celebrating. Here we are hours after the good news:

Chami, Esq.

Snow Day!

Upstate New York saw its first snow of the season today. It just happened to hit while we were at the dog park and we just so happened to have a video camera on us.




After an hour and a half of that, we ended up with this . . .

Plessy Pics

http://plessy.shutterfly.com/

Back to Reality

A couple of weeks in Florida and Hers and I almost feel human again. The Crim Pro heavy CSI repeat we caught this morning barely caused any nausea at all. We had a great time spending a little more than a week in Key West and then a few days east of Marathon. It's been hot and humid, but the ocean is beautiful and we've enjoyed it. The highlight of our trip had to be our one-day trip to the Dry Tortugas and old Fort Jefferson. The Tortugas are a small group of islands west of Key West. It's about a 2 and a half hour boat ride. The centerpiece is Fort Jefferson, an old civil war brick fort. Some of the best snorkeling we've ever seen is just off the fort. Coral grows right off the fort wall that drops straight into the ocean. Schools of bait fish and larger fish hang out there as well including a couple of barracuda. Some land-based pictures follow.

Blue Skies, Nothing But Blue Skies

Hers and I finished the bar exam yesterday. It was an exhausting end to an exhausting three months. Today, however, was a much better day. We got to spend some time with our dog, Plessy. We accompanied her to the vet again and even got to play with her at the park for a bit. She's getting big in hurry. Less than a month before we get to take her home. We have some more videos posted below.

We picked Plessy up and brought her to the vet for her first vaccinations. Still healthy.



Then we dogged-napped her and took her to the park across from our apartment for some fun. She's getting big and getting a lot more lively. She was much more interested in us this time around.



Our day with Plessy was exactly what we needed to help us forget about this hellish summer.

Now what to do with all our free time.

His and I have officially finished studying for the bar exam. The exam is the day after tomorrow but we are calling it quits. We'll glance over some general outlines tomorrow but we're taking the day off to give our brains a break. If we haven't learned it in the past 2 months of studying we won't learn it now.

It's a little nerve racking thinking that I have to take the bar with the knowledge I have in my head right now. But alas, it's time to just put our faith in IRAC.

We can't wait to be done on Wednesday, play with Plessy on Thursday, massage on Friday (THANKS MOM!), and Florida on saturday!

4 Weeks And Counting

If we're still sane at the end of this thing, it'll be because of our Plessy breaks. More videos! Check out Plessy running toward us at the end of this clip.




A couple of Plessy's siblings playing.

What $300,000 looks like

It's official, we FINALLY received our diplomas. Mine is on the top left, His' is on the bottom right.
The other two certificates are for our two years of indentured servitude "membership" of the Albany Law review.

Plessy goes to the vet...

And gets a clean bill of health!

Here is some video of our girl at 3.5 weeks:



His is already spoiling her.

Introducing....Plessy Veronica Ferguson.

We picked out our Plessy today. It was hard to choose but this one just cuddled up right next to us and we fell in love. Here are some pics of her at just under 4 weeks.

Our New Best Friend

We finally have a puppy. Or, well, we will eventually have a puppy. These are still a little too young to leave mama, but one of them will be our very own. Hers found an ad online today, so we called the breeder who still had two left. We went for a little visit and left her a check.

They're Soft-Coated Wheaton Terriers. Only about a few weeks old. In fact, they're just starting to open their eyes right now.

We'll be back to pick out our dog in a few weeks when they have a bit more personality. I think we're both glad we were able to find a breed we want from a breeder that we both really like. You can tell she really loves her dogs and the parents are both cute and well behaved.

Soeaking of Mom . . .

Our very succesful (non-bar related) week.

His and I haven't had much of a life this summer (or ever really). Our day consists of about 4 hours of lecture, then a lunch/gym break and then at about 6-8 hours of studying. And that's it. So really not much to blog about.

However this past week was rather productive.

We received the official "your grades are in, you've graduated" email. Now, we are just waiting on the diploma.

We've found a new apartment that we will be moving into in September.


Because we are moving to a place where we can have a puppy (or more accurately we are moving to this place because they will let us have a puppy) we've been looking at dogs. The current front runner is a soft-coated wheaten terrier. How cute is this dog?!

We've also booked our post-bar trip. We're going to the Florida Keys for 2 weeks! We're staying in Key West for a week with some friends from Nebraska who have promised that they will not say a single legal related thing.

Okay, procrastination time over....back to studying.

Looks like we made it!

Well, 3 years ago His and I set off for New York in hopes of getting our Juris Doctorate. On Friday, May 15th we received them. From now on you can address us as His and Her, J.D.

Congrats to the Happy Couple!

Hers and I are back from Cabo a bit more tan than your normal up-state New Yorker. We're in the process of uploading our pictures to Shutterfly. Our pictures of the wedding are already up and we're in the process of adding more. At no point were we taking pictures at the same time, so the number of pics are a bit more manageable than Europe.

Pictures At Last

So, as it turns out, once we decided to dump Kodak Gallery for Shutterfly, uploading our pictures became a lot easier and faster. And sharing is easier too. You can view our pictures here. Enjoy.

Some Pictures

Between the two of us, we managed to take about 2,800 pictures, so the uploads are going pretty slowly, but we have a few albums up and more are coming up. We have pictures from Munich, Linz, and Chesky Krumlov up.

Pictures

For those who would like to see the pics we uploaded so far, click here.

We'll upload more when we get home.

New Years In Eastern Europe

Hers and I are still kickin around Eastern Europe. We celebrated the New Year with a huge crowd in Krakow, then headed South to a small town in Hungary where we sat in a thermal sulfur bath and unwound. We're now in Budapest and loving this city, especially the huge city thermal bath. We'll start posting pictures again when we get back. In the meantime, we hope everyone had a Happy New Year.

a post as promised....

but no pictures yet. His is working on getting those posted. We are both typing blog posts at the same time so some of this information is probably going to overlap. Also the Z and Y are reversed on this keyboard so there might be a few typos.

We are having an amazing time. We landed in Munich and hit the christmas market first thing. Well, actuallz we had a braut and beir first and THEN hit the christmas market. The town squares all seem to have massively huge decorated xmas trees. It is kind of like Rockefeller Center but EVERYWHERE.

The next day we went to Linz, Austria, where we stayed on the Danube and enjoyed yet another xmas market.

Then it was on to Cesky Krumlov. I wish I could post pics of this right now but do yourself a favor and google it. It was the perfect place to spend Christmas.

We are now in Prague which is even more gorgeous than I could have imagined. We are about to head of to communism museum and then eat a big mac at the McDonalds located right below the museum. Solidarity.