This is another opinions-needed post :-)

And also, this is probably one more for the ladies, because guys really just don't care about this sort of thing. Usually. That being said, guys, feel free to jump in!

After my last few experiences flying American Airlines where they've made me "valet check" my carry on bag for every flight, I've had it up to my eyeballs. After hours of calling customer service and trying to get some sort of answer about why they keep doing this, the best answer I got was along the lines of "Too bad, just get a duffel bag and not something with wheels and that'll be your best chance to take it on the plane with you."

So now, I'm looking for a good duffel bag. I didn't want to get a Vera Bradley bag just because so many people have them, but they're so much prettier than most duffel bags and sometimes I just want something girlie. Even after looking through a lot of sites for other kinds of duffels, I've narrowed it down to these three:

Large Duffel in Make Me Blush:

Large Duffel in Poppy Fields:

Both of those look better on the Vera Bradley site, but I couldn't get pictures of the bags where you can see the whole things so well. I swiped these from amazon.com.

Or there's this Vera Bradley one that I've loved since it came out last fall. It's just so classic Americana:

So what do you think??? Do you know of any cuter ones somewhere? Please share!

Household 6

Okay, I know being an Army wife doesn't make me an official member of the military. But if you think about it, in many ways (very different ways, but still...) being an Army wife is almost as hard as actually being a soldier. When a soldier deploys, he deploys with his coworkers. His wife may not know anybody at all. His wife doesn't get shot at, but she might have to juggle work, kids, a home and vehicles for two people, bills, and chores all by herself. Without a wife to support him, a soldier might have to put all his belongings in storage during a deployment and just hope that nothing goes wrong.

For all these reasons, soldiers developed an unofficial title for the Army wife - Household 6. In the Army world, a 6 is a commander of something like a platoon, company, or batallion. Since soldiers are often at work long hours or deployed, their wives by default run the household. Household 6, then, is basically the household commander.

So girls, if you ever hear your guy say something to his friends to the effect of his household 6 won't let such-and-such happen, he's talking about you! :-)

Welcome to Watertown!

I've been here nearly six whole months and I have yet to post any pictures of Watertown. I guess that might make it difficult for anybody to see what my new town is like, wouldn't it? Here are some pictures I took back in April on an unusually nice day.

These show the view from Thompson Park, an Olmsted Park built on a hill overlooking the city. Olmsted was the landscape architect who designed Central Park.

This picture is especially interesting. It's at least eight miles from Watertown to Sackets Harbor, the nearest town on Lake Ontario, but that has to be what this body of water is in the distance.

This church is on the public square. It would be more beautiful without all the street signs, but too many main roads converge at the square. For those of you who were at MSU before maybe 2005 (or even earlier???), think 5-points/malfunction junction, only bigger. If you don't know where you're going, you're in big big trouble.

This statue is at the top of a large (maybe 25' across) fountain in the center of the square. The fountain is lit up at night and is really very pretty.

There are two soldiers and a plaque on another large statue in the square.

The plaque reads "Mr. and Mrs. George Cooks Memorial - In grateful memory of the soldiers and sailors of Jefferson County who fought or fell in defense of the Union and the Freedom of Man". You don't see that in the South very much.

Stones are used to build just about everything - bridges, houses, fences, or tunnels.

The Black River is the water for which Watertown is named. The water powered factories and mills that paid to build the whole town. After industry collapsed several decades ago, the town was struggling to survive. Then in the 1980s the 10th Mountain Division of the Army was reactivated and located here at Ft. Drum, and that brought money and people here and the town started revitalization.

I'm debating going around to take pictures of houses in town. I don't want to be the creeper outside who looks like she's casing your house, but there are so many beautiful Victorian houses here I might just have to do it. I hope you enjoyed the brief tour!

~Shellaine~

Lake Placid

I know I'm waaaaaaaaaaay back-logged on my story line-type blog posts. It's just so much easier to write the one-picture short kind.

This post is the story of Nathan's and my trip to Lake Placid in March, about three days before he deployed. We had originally planned to take a four-day weekend and go on a real trip somewhere, but then on Friday before he ended up leaving on Thursday, he came home from work and told me he just found out he had only six days instead of three weeks before D-day. (I think of his deployment date as D-day. Weird?) We had time to take one overnight trip at that point.

Now about Lake Placid...it's this world-famous skiing town from the 198*mumblemumble* Olympic games. Yeah, I'm a big history buff. Get over it. This was the Miracle on Ice Olympics. Does that help?... So Lake Placid is this skiing town, or in warm months it's great for water sports. When we went, it was about 35 degrees and raining. Bad for skiing, very bad for water sports. We pretty much just walked around the town. Here's the story in pictures.

This should have been my first clue that Nathan's GPS *might* have taken us a bit off track...

It's a little hard to see, but this section of roads is riddled with pot holes and is covered in dirt from water running over it. I couldn't have been happier to finally get back on a real highway. Also, notice the 90-degree curve in the road.

We stayed at a Courtyard Marriott. Not the cushiest of hotels, but when they heard why we were coming, they gave us the nicest room in the hotel. Our room had both a fireplace...

AND a jacuzzi. It was nice :-)

We ate at this little restaurant called Jimmy's 21 overlooking the lake. Since we went a little early and it was something like a Tuesday night, we got the best table closest to the lake.

This is the view looking out over the frozen lake into bad bad weather rolling in. Only, the entire town (including that cute little strip of shops) isn't actually built on Lake Placid. It's built on Mirror Lake.

THIS is Lake Placid...

There wasn't much actually ON Lake Placid except houses and this public boat launch. Well, there was this cute little couple, too. They didn't seem afraid of us at all.

I can't even imagine swimming in that water. My fingers were going numb just taking pictures.

That's pretty much the end. We spent a lot of time in shops and in restaurants, but there wasn't a lot to take pictures of there. We couldn't take pictures of the Olympic village, because it has been turned into a prison since the Olympics. It was too cold to walk around the area where hockey was played, too. Maybe we should go back when the weather is better :-)

Back to the Daily Grind! Or the Three-Days-a-Week Grind...

I started my new job on Thursday. I work part time, so Thursday, Friday, and a half day on Saturday. It's at this awesome place -

Look them up on facebook.

They don't have any pictures of the outside of the building on their website, but it looks like a giant log cabin. If you look at the virtual tour, you'll see how much space there is inside and how clean it is. It doesn't smell like "vet clinic". You probably all know the smell. This is the cleanest clinic I've ever been in. The maintenance man even told me that if I ever do smell the "vet clinic" smell, tell him because it means he missed a spot and he's not doing his job as well as he should.

Including me, they now have seven vets. They're all really good, and they all seem glad to have new grads around (I count as a new grad because I've never done general practice before, and they hired another vet that graduated last month).

They see lots of exotics and wildlife. The practice takes care of the local zoo's animals, and they're one of the only practices in the area that will take in wildlife. In the two and a half days I've been there, they've seen a macaw parrot, a falcon, a gosling, three bunnies (smaller than your hand), and an owl. They did surgery on a fox earlier in the week.

They also have AAHA certification. If you've never heard of this, it's a certification given to hospitals that meet standards of excellence.

I think I'll really like working there :-)

My Littlest Nephew

During my trip home last month (Last month? Already? Guess so...) I got to see my littlest nephew playing with my dad quite a bit. He's definitely a grandpa's boy. He loves cars, playing outside, and getting dirty. My nephew Luke, that is. Well I guess my dad, too... Aaaaaaaanyway. It was super bright outside and I'm OBVIOUSLY still learning to use my camera, but these turned out okay. It helps when your subject is just stinkin' cute. It makes you look better.

I really want to pinch his cheeks, but I don't ever want to be the cheek-pinching aunt. That's not a good reputation to have amongst the children in your family. It makes them avoid you. Then before you know it, they'll start to think you're old and that you smell funny. And they'll worry about getting lipstick prints on their faces from you. And all because you just had to start pinching cheeks. Glad I'm still holding out on that one. Whew! :-)