the daily grind

So in the last month we've just been settling in to our daily routines:
5am: Alarm goes off ("Gold Digger" ringtone). Snooze. Wake-up. Shower etc. H makes T lunch.

6am: T catches bus to SLC and reads books, H goes back to sleep or starts work.
8-5pm-ish: T works, sacks (sacrifices) mice, finds out how nicotine affects the immune system and how it can affect developing babies. H works, goes to school, learns about measure theory and dynamic programming and other hard math.
6:30pm - bedtime: chill, eat, cuddle, etc. (service to the poor, putting together humanitarian aid kits, cleaning the wounds of lepers, and giving blood)
SLEEP

rinse. repeat.

Here are some things that H and T have been enjoying lately:
1. Trying to become ventriloquists, which really just involves avoiding words with letters like "m" and "b", etc.
2. Autotune the news. Seriously funny. Especially if you are familiar with T Pain, Kanye, etc. There are about 8 videos, but our favorite is found here.
3. Chocolate. This is a regular for T, actually....
4. New phone! H got a fancy phone with a whole QWERTY keyboard on it... too bad he doesn't have texting.
5. Wonderful conference!
6. Spending time with family. Kids are entertaining. Take for example, our 3-year-old niece who wants to be naked Dumbledore (time 1:18 here) for Halloween. She has a natural aversion to wearing clothes. We attribute it to the fact that she is actually Tarzan.
7. Trying to play D&D with H's old roommate (meathead, and wife). T was an elven druid named Valanthia or "Val". H was a barbarian named Grognak.
8. Indian food in all its forms. Bombay House and/or homemade. If you have any recipes you'd recommend send them our way.
9. Lots of books. Our nifty goodreads sidebars can testify to that.
10. Hayao Miyazaki films. So good. Kiki's Delivery Service and Porco Rosso are our most recent favorites.

That's it. Come say hello if you are in town.

vay-cay

So after our internships in DC finished we went on a whirlwind vacation to NYC and Boston. We also spent about 20 hours on various bus rides ... not too fun, but worth it for the price!

Here we are in Central Park. Most of our pictures are "arm shots" - ya know, where you stick out your arm and take the picture yourself (I'm pretty good at them actually) - but this one was taken by a kind stranger (you'll notice both of my arms are visible):
NYSE, baby. Doesn't Henry just look so happy?
Ground Zero. Seeing the former site of the WTC up-close made us realize how scary it must have been when the buildings came crashing down 8 years ago. Everything is so close together in Manhattan that it must have been a nightmare to be anywhere in the vicinity.

View of the Statue of Liberty, the sun, and some other tourists from the Staten Island Ferry:
I don't remember why Henry is whistling or singing or something, but he sure is cute doing it:
This is my artsy shot of my not well-manicured foot, a fence, and the fuzzy Manhattan skyline in the distance:
Enjoying sunset from Staten Island! It was cool to see the city light up as the sun went down:
This was from one of the exhibitions at the Met (I can't remember what it's called...). It's an ancient Egyptian temple, and I found it amusing that there is also not-so-ancient graffiti on it:
Tori in chocolate heaven:
We then boarded a bus to Boston and stayed with some good friends of ours, Malia and David, who graciously let us sleep in their living room and share their toothbrushes (...they don't know that...). We had a delicious calzone and then a cannoli (one each, of course). I definitely felt that for a while.
Wow! The Old North Church:
Napping in Boston Common:
Taking the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. This is my all-natural hair, by the way, a nice wavy mess:
The safety (?) sign on the ferry... still not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean. It sure didn't make us feel any safer:
We rented bikes and rode all around the island. It was a nice sunny day and we didn't wear any sunscreen (we just love skin cancer) - I paid for it that night when I got delayed sunsickness and re-experienced dinner... But anyway, MV was consistently beautiful: the houses, the ocean, the lighthouse, the flowers, EVERYTHING. We would definitely rent/buy a home there someday if we make it big with one of our movie ideas. Beautiful park and eccentric architecture:
HPT is proud to present.... THE OCEAN!!
And how could we go to Martha's Vineyard without remembering the Obama's (who were vacationing with us.... or on the island at the same time)?!? Of course chocolate and ice cream is the best way to celebrate anything, especially if the food 1) is accompanied by a nice detailed diagram of the contents, 2)is available for a reasonable price that reflects the number of the president (44th), and 3) has a name could possibly be taken as an extremely politically incorrect racist comment:

Lil' furry friend(s)

So a few weeks ago we found some presents in our kitchen! They were a total surprise and we didn't know who left them. But don't get too excited, it wasn't Christmas in July/August... they presents were of a different nature altogether. I recognized the mouse poop because I used to work in a lab with mice. If only these little guys knew what I did to their distant cousins (not to sound too morbid or anything, but hey, it was for science) then they wouldn't have been so nonchalant about masquerading around OUR kitchen.

Well, we immediately put all of our food that was out (bread, chips, cereal) in the cabinet which we ASSUMED was secure from the scurrying scoundrels. We hung up our kitchen trash (which had been on the floor and had nibble marks). Then we bought some rat/mouse poison (tasty green blocks) and put it in some dark corners so the mouse could eat and DIE.

We soon found that our cabinet was NOT the safe haven we thought it was. In fact, the mice/mouse was having a hay-day eating through our plastic bags and cardboard boxes and finding all the food it wanted! It was quite disturbing the first morning we found this out. Honestly, it made me want to vomit. The mice I am used to working with are clean and disease-free, in fact, they would die pretty quickly in the normal world because of their genetic mutations. But these mice are disgusting, dirty, deleterious and disease-ridden (there's some alliteration for you). So now all of our food is in the fridge, we wash all of our dishes before using them, and we are super careful about crumbs etc.

On Saturday, Henry's mom and sister were visiting and his mom happened to open our water heater closet which is in the kitchen. There in one of the mouse traps (left by the owner) was a little friend! I won't go into details (even though I think it's interesting), but the mouse was definitely dead. Hopefully it was just one...

Here is a haiku I've written in honor of the dead mouse:

You lil' mousey, you.
Nibbled our food and left poo.
Then your head got smashed.

Rest in peace.
(Maybe this picture is from mouse heaven.)

Tappenings

List of the latest (in no particular order):

1. CoCo Sala - Henry's work party at this swanky downtown DC lounge/restaurant. Fancy hors 'doeuvres + unlimited alcohol + chocolate = great fun. Even more fun when you are not drinking and everyone else gets hammered and then you can all dance to MJ at the end of the night! They gave us chocolates with BW | 10 (10th anniversary of the company) on them. Also, as you can see by this picture we: 1) like chocolate 2) have a gas stove and 3) recycle!
2. Hirshhorn - We both love modern art. This is one of our favorite Smithsonian's so far. Also nice because it doesn't take that long to go through the whole thing.
3. Holocaust Museum - Very memorable and well-curated. The reality of it all really hit me when the ID card I received was of a 22-year-old newly married young woman who did not survive.
4. Matchbox - Good pizza. Horrible service. We were never greeted, and spoken to rudely and glared at when we asked for a table. But good pizza. We like veggies.
   
5. Temple closed - Only to be realized after making the hour commute by metro and bus. At least they had a cool exhibit from the Hubble spacecraft at the visitor's center. And nature. The temple is surrounded by nature -- something that is hard to come by in DC.
6. Homemade chocolate chip cookies - Filled with butter and love, these goodies make a perfect breakfast any day of the week. And they disappear quickly.
   
7. Henry's interim review - Success! Henry is now CEO of Bates White. Or at least the best intern they've ever had (not an exaggeration).
   
8. Tori's poster presentation - On August 6th! Who cares how it goes, the poster looks pretty! Thank heaven for Powerpoint 2007's amazing default color scheme.
9. Family! - The Lefgren family came out to play before heading back to Utah. The kids were cute and we had lots of fun going to the zoo and just hanging out.

Here is Lucy saying "I don't want to wear shoes because I am a turtle and turtles don't wear shoes." She has a point, ya know.Emma and Tori swinging. We are girls because we wear pink shirts.

And these are boys. You can tell because they smell and wear blue.

Well, that's the latest update from the Tappens. 2.5 weeks of internships left (along with visits from more family) and then we're off to NYC for a week! And don't forget good ol' Provo, we'll be back there soon enough. Look out!