Dr. Temperance (Bones) Brennan Allison

As you may remember, my Christmas present to Derek this year was a cat!  It was really important to me to let him choose our new family member though.  While we were in Knoxville, Derek, me and Dorothy hit the road to find the new Allison.  We visited a PetSmart, but ultimately struck gold at an animal shelter called Young Williams.

When we walked into the cat room, I immediately noticed several kittens.  Derek, however, immediately went to a cage in the corner with an older tabby cat in it, named Bubbles.  We looked at a kitten named Tator, and two sibling kittens named Holly and Mistletoe.  Derek kept coming back to Bubbles though.  Young Williams had rooms in the back to take the potential pets to see how they reacted to their potential new owners.  Derek immediately requested Bubbles to see if she would be a good fit with us.

 She was perfect!  We knew almost immediately that we were going to take her home!  The shelter estimated that she was about two years old.  She had the sweetest disposition in the playroom, immediately rubbing up against our legs and purring loudly.  She even sat down in my lap!  It was pretty close to love at first sight!  We played with a few other cats, but all three of us felt pretty connected to Bubbles, so we claimed her!

Derek and I discussed what her name would be for the rest of the night.  Originally, we thought of naming her after a famous female lawyer or physician.  Ultimately, we fell in love with the name Temperance Brennan, based on a character from a show that we watch.  We've even been calling Brennan by her nickname--Bones.  I think the name suits 'Bubbles' well :)

The next day, we got to bring her home to meet the rest of her Allison family!

 Once we decided to adopt her, we went to PetSmart and picked up some essentials.  Most important, I got her a santa hat and scarf because I love dressing up pets!

 Did Brennan love it?  Maybe her face in the picture is some indication!  Haha she was a good cat though for the pictures!

 Brennan has beautiful green eyes!

You may be looking at next year's Christmas card ;)

We have had Brennan in DC for almost a week now, and she's making herself at home.  She's a sweetie!
--Catherine

Georgetown v. Tennessee Basketball Game

I got food poisoning on Thursday night (BLECH!), so I was out of commission all day on Friday.  It actually ended up working out ok because Derek and I bought tickets to see Georgetown play Tennessee in a basketball game at Verizon Center on Friday night.  True, I planned on studying all Friday morning instead of lying around sick, but I'm just glad I was still able to use the tickets!

 Here's some snapshots of our evening!

They also gave out "Flair Hair" which was really fun to rock!

Tracy, Jeff, Brian, and Derek

Stephen and Charla!

Student Section!

 Ahhh I've missed that orangey-yellow color!

 The whole group of us!

Jeff, Tracy, Brian, Stephen, Charla, Cat, Derek, and me!  Excuse the scary red eyes!

Rock that Flair Hair, Jeff!

 Afterward, the group of us took the most circuitous route ever to get to a frozen yogurt place about a block away from where we started.  We did get to walk through this adorable place:

 Overall, a fantastic night!

--Catherine

Christmas at the Allisons

Christmas has come to the Allison apartment!  Since I've been mostly seeing this:

 Derek and I took a little studying hiatus!  Derek's parents sent us a little Thanksgiving gift and told us to have some fun on our break, and we used our gift to outfit my new Christmas tree!  We also did a little personal shopping--which is accountable for a new stripey shirt for me and an awesome Christmas sweater for Derek!

 This was our Christmas tree before when we only had our decorations from last year.

 And here's our tree after!  Let's just say it's awesome!

And this middle lighting show is our Christmas tree from the street!  I love plugging it in every night and morning to bring some cheer to people rushing to and fro work!

Has everyone decorated for Christmas yet?
--Catherine

Thanksgiving with the Vitts Round 3

The problem with living far away is having to stay away from family during the holidays.  Thankfully, we have friends in the area who are fun and happen to be great cooks!  There were nine of us.  We got there around 1:30 in the afternoon and we didn't leave until after 10 PM!  Much food, games, and conversation commenced!

Immediately after dinner, we walked over to the National Cathedral for a tour.  It was a lot of fun!

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.  We sure did, despite missing all our friends and family back in Tennessee!
--Catherine

Birthday Wrap-Up Slash Sandy Survival

My birthday was surprisingly awesome considering the horrible weather.  I was quarantined with Derek, and let's face it, there's no one else with whom I'd rather be quarantined!

On the 28th, we got takeout from a Chinese place near us that serves the most amazing food.  Their hot and sour tofu soup makes me shed tears from delicious-ness.

So much time on my hands... I even straightened my hair!  And tried a middle part.  Becca did not give me the nod of approval on the middle part.

Midnight on October 29th!

 Starbucks free drink? Sure, I'll brave winds going faster than DC traffic ever moves!

So much success I took a picture in the starbucks to memorialize it!

 These next five pictures are Derek being awesome and cooking me dinner:

And I never told you what I got for my birthday... a HUGE AWESOME Christmas Tree!!!  I've been talking about getting a full-size tree since we moved out of our studio apartment, but I couldn't find something that I was willing to spend the money on.  While I was at GW for the moot court competition, Derek was driving through Virginia to find me the perfect Christmas tree.  This thing is 7.5 feet tall and is nearly 5 feet wide!!!!  I love it :)  He's a good gift-giver, if you ever get the chance to receive gifts from him!

As far as Sandy goes, we escaped without any damage.  The windows rattled and shook, the lights flickered a couple of times, but no trees came into our living room or on our car, and the electricity stayed on the whole time!  Thanks to everyone who asked about us!
--Catherine

Travel Town

I come from a really small town.  Like... it's so small that Google Maps doesn't have images of it yet. No joke.  There are some perks to living in a small town, for sure, but I love living in a big city for lots of reasons:

1. Book/Movie Popularity

Admit it... everyone gets excited when they're neighborhood shows up in a movie or book as the setting!  It's a little more special when you're from a small town.  My [original] hometown was the setting for the movie October Sky back when I was in 4th grade, and I'm pretty sure we're all still chattering about it!  (And to prove it, I shall tell you a story... about how my dad is a movie star and totally was cast as an extra in the movie!  In the scene where Jake Gyllenhaal and Chris Cooper go set off the rocket, look for the tall blonde in the blue cardigan!  That's my dad!!!!).  

Living in DC has been really fun because of the number of books and movies set near us.  I love reading "they turned right up Wisconsin Avenue to avoid M Street at night" because I DO THAT TOO! So cool.  And the show "Bones" is set in DC and they're always showing pictures of the Capitol or the FBI building, and I used to work right nearby!

2. Job Opportunities

Throughout law school, I have had the opportunity to work for a public interest legal services organization, for the government, and for a private sector law firm.  {Now soliciting offers for full-time employment -- feel free to hire me if you're reading this}

Blake has had quite the variety of experiences as well.  In fact, he's been working at hospitals in three different states (I am aware that the District of Columbia isn't a state, but you know what I mean!)

3. Travel Town

I love living in a town that people visit independently.  I've had so much fun hanging out with friends from Tennessee who were on vacation or working in the area.  Speaking of which...

...My dad {le movie star} was in town the other day!

 We ate from food trucks at Farragut Square--a popular little park near where I work--on my lunch break and topped off our meal with some frozen yogurt!

View from his hotel window.  Pretttty.

So that's what I'm enjoying about living in DC for the moment.  There are other things that I love and other things that I hate, but that comes with the territory [no pun intended].

--Catherine

The Perks of Apartment Living

This refrigerator is currently residing in our living room.

Yesterday, we got home from work and noticed that the ice cubes in our freezer were lukewarm puddles of water, and the smell emanating from our fridge was not pleasant -- yup, our refrigerator died and went to appliance heaven!

What a bummer!  We didn't lose too much food-wise: a couple frozen bertolli meals, some ice cream (TRAGIC), some vegetables, coffee creamer, and a few dressings.  Still.. I do most of the grocery shopping for the apartment, so Blake gallantly stepped up to do the actual throwing away of the food since he could tell it was giving me a mild panic attack!

On the bright side, we told the apartment front desk around 8 PM that our fridge was not working, and within an hour and a half, a wonderful guy named Gil was hauling in the fridge in the picture!  On balance, we lost a few bucks worth of groceries, but we have a working fridge now and did--literally--nothing to get it there!

Blake and I congratulated ourselves on our non-ownage of a house last night.  Appliances stop working sometimes, but luckily for us, we didn't have to make the effort to get it repaired or replaced.  Congratulations all around!

Aside from our cute interior decorating imposition, we've got big studying plans for this weekend.  Hope everyone's appliances refrain from dying this weekend!

Which reminds me of this hilarious comedy sketch from Demitri Martin, posted below [warning, some slight language]:

--Catie

Reports Show that DC Drivers Suck

Allstate Insurance came out with their "America's Best Drivers Report," analyzing which cities have the best and worst drivers in the country based on average number of years between car accidents.  As you may have guessed, big cities had a much lower average number of years between car accidents.  What you might not have known... Washington, DC is the worst!

I have always said the drivers here are horrible (if you don't believe I've always said it, I even allude to it in our Blogger Profile About Me section!), and now I feel justified in my complaints.  Incredibly, DC drivers average only 4.7 average years between accidents!

Blake and I have just entered our third year of residing in the District, but I'd have to know more about their selection criteria to tell you where we are in that range.

On a related note, our car--parked, unoccupied, and not hurting anybody!--was involved in an accident back in April:

Thankfully, a witness saw the whole thing and we called and reported it to the police.  Last Wednesday, the lady who (allegedly, but come on we all know she did it) hit our car had to go to a police hearing.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the hearing, but I'm hoping she finally 'fessed up!

Check out the report if you have a few minutes... it's really interesting!  It looks like the most dangerous city from mine and Blake's home state still maintains 9.4 years between accidents.
--Catie

Catie's DC Sport Recap

Metro Train Catching

Based on Catie's metro-hopping performance today, it appears that she has broken the just-barely-missing-the-train saga that we witnessed last week.  We can only hope that this streak continues into next week.

Some Phone Pictures for Your Tuesday Morning

 Here are some random things that happened, captured thanks to my phone:

I found this picture on Blake's phone, and I had to share it...  Blake's parents after helping us move in to the new apartment in June!!

Blake made me dinner the other day.  Yummmmm

Flock of dudes spotted near the university all dressed the exact same with the exact same hairstyle.

Delicious asian food. 

A little Frasier on the TV

My first 5-hour energy experience.

My mom's home grown okra!  So delicious.

And finally... the fluffiest dog I've ever seen:

Martha Stewart has the same kind of dog.  Also, don't ask me how I know that ;)
--Catie