You Are My Heroine. And By Heroine I Mean Lady Hero...I Don't Want to Inject You and Listen to Jazz

Well, it seems we have some catching up to do...Just to try something a little different, I think we'll start with today and work our way backwards so you can find out about all of the glorious things that have been going on in our lives.

Nicholas recently found out that he passed the first part of his dental boards. This milestone in his dental school education brings him one step closer to this

 

And it brings me one step closer to this

Once we've paid off our hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt, of course...

In the meantime I've been raking in the big bucks (HA!) working as a therapist for adolescents with diagnoses of chemical dependence.  My first day official day of work was January 7th and the experience thus far breaks down as follows:

What I think I do

What my patients think I do

Ah, just thinking of the Ken Kesey classic makes me nostalgic for the days when you could still lobotomize unruly patients. 

Before that, we were back in Philadelphia babysitting for Becky's son, Jake, celebrating the holidays and Chloe's 3rd birthday.  Chloe made a beautiful birthday girl.

She loved all of her presents

Cousin Jake was wildly unimpressed

Before that, we were back in Cleveland, where we always have so much fun and do so many fun things.

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Actually, my dad came to visit us and we celebrated his birthday and Christmas.  On Christmas Eve, Nicholas' mother and grandmother came out here and celebrated with us as well.

Karen and Gram

Dad over-selling his "Oh my gosh, I love this tie!" face

Nicholas and I were a little short on cash because we're both students and we already own most of the cats in Cleveland, so this year we just re-gifted with each other

Everyone was polite enough to at least pretend they liked their gifts and I food-poisoned absolutely no one, so we're gonna call it a win.

Let's see now, before that our yard played host to another sickly raccoon--apparently it's becoming an annual thing--who had clearly mistaken death's doorstep for our doorstep.

The ex-raccoon

Mercifully, after having been here for a year and a half, we knew how to deal with the problem...Cleveland-Style

Nicholas with his patented prod-n-scoop manuever

Proof that we have finally become white trash

In his final resting place on our tree lawn

And as far as everyone knows that raccoon was not, I repeat NOT what I actually made the roast out of when I hosted Christmas Eve.

Before that we were home for Thanksgiving and celebrated Molly's 35th birthday by dressing up like Harry Potter characters and listening to Mom mispronounce Hermione.

And before that  I was in the Cleve writing this blog entry
Consider yourselves caught up.  AND fin.

It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

Well, a lot has happened since we last wrote. Nicholas and I both finished our first semester of graduate school.  And then we got all of our grades.  That's right, Molly, ALL OF THEM!

Sad Molly.  Cry, cry.

After classes were over Dad came to visit us here in the Cleve.  We wanted to show him all of the exciting things that Cleveland has to offer.

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When it turned out that there was nothing exciting to see in Cleveland, we took Dad to see the house from A Christmas Story.  Dad clearly enjoyed it and at no point tried to threaten us with a prop razor from the bathroom in order to make an escape.

Dad not threatening us.  Maniacal laugh! Maniacal laugh!

 While we were at the house we got to meet the man who played Randy in the movie!

Child Star

Adult nobody

Can you still call it a "star-sighting" if the person is skulking around and begging you to take a picture with them?  It's sounds corny, but it was actually a fun way to kick off the holiday season...with joy, good cheer, and family.  And not once did we lose sight of what the holiday season is really about:

       PRESENTS!!!!










As you can see, I got the Hunger Games trilogy from Santa.  I read them all over break, much to the chagrin of anyone who was planning on actually talking to me during break.  I'm so glad that I finally got to read them.  Since Nicholas hasn't finished reading the last book, I won't say anything else about it...just that in the end it's all really just a dream that the protagonist is having. 
Let's see, let's see...we got to spend some time with everyone in New Brighton and finally go home to Philadelphia. 
But I think that's really everything important that happened over break.  Nicholas is telling me that I'm forgetting the most important thing...but I mentioned the Hunger Games!

Oh yeah, we also got engaged.