Happy 4th of July!!!
[I opened this window before midnight so it would post to July 4th ;-)]

There's something extra exciting about being in Philadelphia on Independence Day. And tonight I'm going to go back to reading 1776 and I'm starting the 'summer of 1776' section of the book so it's very appropriate!

Glen and I went up to the top floor of the Bluemle Life Sciences building tonight in hopes of getting a glimpse of the fireworks at the Art Museum (i.e. on the Rocky steps). When we got there we found out that there were several buildings blocking our view, including Orlowitz. Instead, we when over to the south side of the building where we could see all of south Philly -- there must have been fifteen different fireworks displays going off from all over the place! Some where just little, but it was an awesome sight to see fireworks in every which direction. Then towards the end, the lightning started up and made it even more spectacular! Mindy and Eugene met up with us, so when it ended at around 10pm the four of us just sat and talked until 11 hoping that maybe we would eventually see a little of the Art Museum show which we had found out was supposed to go from 10 to 11. Over the course of the evening we saw a dozen people from our class who had the same idea we did of using Bluemle's awesome windows, so it was kind of a little of an easing back in to the whole school thing.

Ahh school. We go back to start third year TOMORROW MORNING. ugh ugh ugh. It's actually four days of orientation before we even walk into a hospital, but it still stinks. I will be walking back into our first year lecture hall at 8:30 tomorrow morning. (They made the 4th of July a school night!!! -- don't you think you should really get the day after holidays off? Then you can actually enjoy that evening. Glen also adds that then when you go to a barbecue you can say you can't bring anything because you had to work all day!)
I am petrified of having what I do actually matter (although I know they put in as many safeguards as possible to make that only very slightly true). I've hardly spoken to any one other than Glen, let alone a real patient, over the past 6 weeks. And, almost all of our clothing is still in the laundry from our three separate vacations so I'm not even sure what I have to wear out in public tomorrow. I have a crop of pimples coming up on my chin and I really need a manicure and a haircut.

I'll talk about my vacations a little bit so I don't freak out. Florida was awesome, and I tried to write while I was there. It's so nice to be able to wake up and stumble out to the beach (after spending a half hour putting on sunblock). My only complaint is that instead of getting sunburn, this and the past summer, I just broke out in this terribly itchy ugly heat rash instead. If any one has any solution to this problem, please let me know. Covering my body in lidocaine takes care of the itch, but the blotchy redness took a week to clear up.
Here's the view from our hotel room:That's one of the lagoons that last summer held an alligator, but this summer looked too shallow from the Florida drought to help much other than a few turtles.
Here are some of the shells we collected:We threw about half of the them back on the last day and saved the best of them, including most of these tiny perfect spiral ones:Going out early the last morning didn't help us find any better shells because the tide was in and it was shaking up too much sand to have any visibility with the snorkels (spell check told me I spelled snorkels wrong, and I should have known -- I had to spell snorkels backwards in Cranium with my family, and that time I also reversed the L and the E, helping my team lose. I guess I never learn). I will have to post some of the under water pictures we took as soon as we get that camera developed.

Then the day after we got back we headed out to camp for a few days at French Creek State Park with my mom. Here's our camp site:

It absolutely poured the first night so that we had to yell to talk to each other across the table. But we only got a little water in our tent from some side screened windows that weren't adequately covered by the rainfly, and everything was dry by the time we had to pack up which is all that really matters. The site was awesome -- back about 100 yards from the loop and our car down a rocky path so that we were completely isolated. It was quiet even the second night, Friday night, when the whole campground was full of weekenders. We found another awesome double site (two sites fused) also about 50 yards back from the loop down a much smoother and flatter trail that we might try to reserve for a larger family camping trip in August. Or, we might go back to Vermont. We should decide soon before we can't book the good sites.

Then, the day after we got back from that trip, we drove 5 hours to upstate New York to join the rest of my family at a big ski house that my grandparents rented for the month of July. With 5 bedrooms all of my aunts and uncles, cousins, and my grandparents could crash there. Here's the awesome view:
There were supposed to be fireworks tonight at that ski area you can see across the valley, but my mom said that a really heavy fog had set in in the afternoon so that you could hardly see that tree right in the foreground, so I hope it cleared up for them... or that they got an interesting light show through the fog at least.
Speaking of light show, check out this incredible rainbow that appeared during dinner the first night we were there:
It was a full arc, and we could see exactly where it landed in the valley... we were tempted to drive down to find our pot of gold, but dinner was already on the table and no body likes a cold steak.
Here's Glen getting some help from my cousin Erin building a second grill for us (there were 12 at dinner the second night and we needed some more space to cook). She's going to be my junior bridesmaid.
I wish this picture had come out, but of course I always screw up the good ones. I like to play with all the manual settings on my camera, but then I always forget to change them back when I go to take my next shot.

Here's my cousin JoeJoe building a mini book/CD shelf with a "little" help from my PopPop.
Obviously some serious business. JoeJoe is going to be our ring bearer. Here he is throwing himself down a flight of 3 stairs for fun and to get some... laughs? gasps? general attention?
Clearly he did this often enough that I was able to get a picture of it. The hallway was three steps up from the living room/dining room so he treated that wooden part as a stage. I think this was after he serenaded us with "Who Let the Dogs Out?" for 20 minutes.

Well that sums up the last two weeks for me. Now that Glen and I have managed to get the PELS (patient encounter log system) program onto our Palm Pilots, it's time for bed (it's actually closer to 2:30am now).

I think I'm going to keep up my blog because I have a feeling I still won't have much time to talk to or see my friends over the next six weeks of my Pediatrics rotation, and I may have some funny stories to keep you entertained :) ...funny or completely embarrassing... whatever.