Last Friday Dan got an offer for a summer internship! It was a long time coming and we were pretty worried that we'd be left with nothing in this crazy economy, but his last call-back interview in NYC was fruitful. It's kind of funny because we weren't interested at all in living in New York City, but with these slim pickins we take whatever we can get.

When Dan was out there for his interview he decided he'd test out the claim that the city "never sleeps," so he walked around outside at about 12:30 am. And yep, there were still plenty of people out there and most things were still open. He even got asked to take a picture for some Japanese tourists. I think if he really wanted to test the claim then he should've gone out at like 4:30 am...

I'm not super excited about living somewhere that's almost as cold, twice as crowded, twice as far from home, has even worse traffic, and where the cost of living is three times as expensive than where we are now, but I suppose NYC could have some good things about it. We'll have to wait and see.

We went down to campus yesterday and took some pictures. Chicago is definitely its loveliest in the fall.


Red ivy is my favorite....it is just so....picturesque.


Naturally, these were post-nap pictures, so the hair is a titch on the crazy side.

Violet turned two years old on the 15th.

I didn't throw a "friend" party this year for her, but we had fun opening presents and eating cupcakes with just the three of us.






I have no idea why she wanted to eat her cupcake without her hands. Totally not my idea.







Violet LOVES "My Little Ponies" and was lucky enough to get two for her birthday this year! Here is her pink one:


She likes to sleep with her ponies at night. Cute, huh? Although it doesn't seem the most comfortable...

Happy Birthday, Violet! We love you!

Yesterday Dan and Violet went to the coolest pumpkin patch ever. There was a petting zoo with camels, llamas, cows, sheep, turkeys, rabbits, and I don't know what else. Plus there were pig races, pony rides, train rides, hay rides, a haunted house, a corn maze, and, of course, pumpkins. I haven't fixed up any of the photos yet except one, so enjoy this for now:



And yes, I know, I need to post about Violet's birthday last Thursday. Hopefully I'll get with it soon :).

I haven't posted a picture for ages, so I thought I'd give you this little gem, taken last Friday. Isn't her hair getting long? It almost all stays up in those pigtails...



Please ignore the messy house (that's why I cropped it as small as possible! Unfortunately, you still see some trash on the floor...)

Did any of you ever listen to the Janice Kapp Perry CD "A Child's Prayer"? It was a Sunday standby in my family, and there was this great song on there called "At Conference Time." Every six months when General Conference rolls around this song still comes into my head, even though I haven't actually heard it for years. I sang it for Dan this morning so he could experience it. That wasn't much better than the 30 second clip on Amazon, and unfortunately I couldn't find any other versions of it online for our listening pleasure. It goes like this:

Of all the Sundays of the year the ones that I like best
Are conference Sundays twice a year, so different from the rest
We gather with our families....

(And that's where my memory fails me. Oh, actually I remember the chorus too:)

At conference time, at conference time the brethren teach me what to do
So I can live in happiness at conference time and all year through.

Anyway, Happy Conference everybody!

And the word "conference" is starting to look really weird after typing it so many times.