Just a few more weeks...

Hey ladies! It sounds like everyone's doing pretty well, if a little crazy at the moment. Amy, I hope the job thing works out the way you want it to, and Boo, I hope getting settled in Charleston isn't too hectic.

Well, since I owe updates beyond just my facebook pictures, earlier this week, Sebastian left for Washington to go visit his roommate. The past few weeks were great! We watched movies, and hung out at the pool, and went hiking a few times; went to Salt Lake City (on the only afternoon that it decided to have a severe thunderstorm! What the heck, we live in the desert!), and took a weekend trip to visit my mom's family in WV for the 4th. The whole family loved him, which I was really happy about, and he had a great time getting to meet my family. He's really excited now to have me meet his family at the end of August when I come over to go to France with them. It'll be for a week at the end of the month and we'll be in Normandy with another family that they know.

Oh, another random thing we did was to go out one night to see Public Enemies - that new Johnny Depp and Christian Bale movie about John Dillinger. I highly recommend that to anyone who wants a good movie to go out and see that isn't quite so commercially Hollywood. It has a rougher style of cinematography that I think really helps tell the story, rather than getting distracting (like Star Trek did at times). Anyway, go see it.

Really, I haven't been up to much besides the visit. We had a great time one night doing a double date with my brother Scott and his girlfriend Candace: went out for Indian food and then got another couple to join us for 3-way couples' laser tag. I was a bit sceptical about laser tag at first, but it was a lot of fun! Not to mention that it had been prefaced by some really good food. That's one thing I have to say for Provo: the Chinese food places are all crap, but there's fantastic Indian food.

The 4th of July over in West Virginia was great too. My mom's big crazy family was mostly there and they were well excited to see Gunnar (my step-dad) and Sebastian for the first time. My cousins - my mom's aunt had 5 boys who are all grown-up juvenile delinquents :-) - were responsible for the fireworks, which had an added element of surprise. Every now and then, one of the huge fireworks wouldn't make it all the way up into the air before exploding. So it'd get about 13 feet, then start coming back down and explode maybe 6 to 4 feet off the ground. Of course, when it lit up, it would illuminate all of my cousins ducking and running for cover behind their cars! Reunions with my family are quite an experience. But I'm glad that through both weekend trips (that and then one to St. George in southern Utah for some intense hiking) and all the rest of the sightseeing and vegging out that we did that Sebastian loved his trip over here. It's crazy to think that we hadn't been able to do any of that stuff for over a year until he got here.

Now, though, it's just a bunch of student loan and visa paperwork for when I go back over. I don't have a place to live yet, but the two of us still know a bunch of people back in London, and since I'll be over a month before everyone's classes at uni start, it'll be pretty easy to just get a place once I'm over there. Not to mention that Sebastian's offered to let me stay at his place indefinitely until I get some flatmates of my own. :-) So right now, our fingers are just crossed that the placement he gets with this engineering and defense company he applied with, is one that lets him stay in the city. Otherwise, my first order of business once I'm in the UK again is to look for an internship that could turn into a job once I've finished my dissertation this time next year.

I miss you girls! I hope that you all have a spectacular time getting together in less than a month now. Pictures, please, since I can't be there. Love y'all!