You'll always be cute to me babe

Today was our one-year anniversary here in Washington DC. It is hard to believe a year has gone by already, even though student life in Albuquerque seems terribly distant, and being a working nurse still seems shockingly new. But the calendar doesn't lie, so to celebrate we had dinner at our favorite local pub, Mr. Henry's, which we ate at not only the first night we moved in, but also the first time we came to the neighborhood looking for houses. I won't actually hit a year at the hospital until the end of July, so that is coming up fast as well.

This year has been all about just trying to find my bearings at work - the likely goal for the coming year as well. Once that happens, the world will start to open up to us again, and who knows what we will do. Three years here isn't out of the question, but of course I love nothing more than considering other options.

Speaking of options, I think we've made our decision for our summer holiday. Now, deciding something like that is never a straightforward proposition for us, there is always a train of thought that takes us around some options first. Let me take you on the journey. At first we were thinking we'd go visit David's family in Idaho, but plane tickets were pretty overpriced. Just in finding comparison tickets we realized that either Central America or the Caribbean would be half as expensive, with plenty of opportunity for awesome adventure. But the more we thought about it, we figured we should do something close by, to take advantage of our location, since it is rather unlikely that we will ever move back to the North East once we move away from here. We briefly entertained the idea of Europe, but those plane tickets were even more ridiculously priced. So then we thought, why not make a road trip? I won't be happy with my American travel until I've stepped foot into each and every state, and I still have 16 to go. (Well, some of those I actually have been in as a kid, but I decided not to count the ones I couldn't actually remember.) Anyway, we started planning routes, up to Niagara Falls, over to Mount Rushmore via Fargo, that kind of thing. At one point we thought we'd drive all the way to Seattle and fly back. But the logistics of such a trip were a bit daunting, not to mention expensive thanks to the price of gas nowadays. So in the end we decided - I think, don't blame me if we change our mind again if we get a better offer - to drive north and go hang out in Maine. I'll hit the last three New England states I haven't been to yet (VT, NH, and Maine), and we will probably push up into Canada, for sure Nova Scotia and perhaps, if we have time, run up to Prince Edward Island.

We still have the details to work out, but at this point we've bought a Lonely Planet Guide to Nova Scotia, so we are financially committed to that extent. I got permission to take two weeks off from work, and David will be on his summer break, so we will have 14-16 days to play. We're thinking we'll buy a tent and sleeping bags and camp where we can, which should be a lot of fun. It looks like there will be some pretty spectacular hiking along the way, which is always something we love to do (I'm looking at you Acadia!). It will still be a lot of miles on the car, but it isn't like gas is going to get any cheaper, so we might as well do it now.

So I have to open the floor - have any of you ever been to the area? I welcome all suggestions if you have them.

Tonight at dinner we overheard one of the waiters talking about his recent 26th birthday. David turned to me and said "When the heck did we suddenly get so old? There is still so much I want to do!" I said, "What do you mean, we still have plenty of time to do things", and he said "I know, but I want to do them while I'm still cute!"