Flutterby

Yesterday was our 3rd anniversary, so John took the day off work to hang out. We went to the Roger Williams Park Zoo, mostly because I was really interested in going to their new butterfly exhibit called "Flutterby." The majority of the zoo was kind of a disappointment, as it seemed like many of the animals were not available or something...a lot of empty spaces. Plus they are doing massive construction on the zebra/elephant/wildebeest area, so we couldn't see the zebras or elephants either.

BUT, the Flutterby exhibit was awesome. It was a small greenhouse filled with flowers and swarming with various types of butterflies. I had way too much fun with my new camera taking butterfly pictures. Of the 700 or so pictures we managed to take at the zoo, well over half were of the butterflies. I tried to get pics of each of the different types of butterflies they had in the exhibit, but I think I missed a couple. There was one butterfly, a Buckeye, that made a home on John's finger for the majority of our time there. He named it Cleveland. Here are a few of the butterfly pics...it was hard to choose.

"Cleveland" the Buckeye

SwallowtailMonarchs

Zebra Long WingPainted LadyGreat Southern White

Memorial Day Weekend

The kick-off to summer...

We had a great weekend, although four day weekends seem to fly by way too fast. This is the first year that our anniversary hasn't fallen on Memorial Day weekend, so we decided we would put off the anniversary festivities until next weekend. Instead we spent time with our friends, Brian & Sarah on Saturday. Brian did smoked BBQ ribs, which were awesome.

On Sunday and Monday we busted our behinds in the yard trying to plant more flowers and get rid of dead grass. We had a huge dead patch which we thought was from over-fertilizing. We were going to pull the grass out and reseed in that area, but when we pealed the grass back it we saw the real culprit - grubs. They have infested part of our yard. So we ripped out the infested grass and spread grub killer everywhere. My mom gave me a trick to keep the grubs away from my flower beds. She told me to poor beer in a lid and put it in the flower bed level with the ground. Apparently the grubs are attracted to the smell, but will die when they crawl in the beer. Hopefully, because I really don't want them to kill all my plants.

Anyway, we also went to dinner with John's Uncle Pete & Aunt Dawn yesterday. They are in Rhody for a week or so, but will be doing some traveling in Europe before they head back to Kazakhstan where Pete is currently working. Such world travelers...

Seriously...seriously...

So, I got my diploma in the mail today, and before I had opened it, my friend Carin called me to alert me to the errors on hers. Not only did they mess up her honors as they did mine, but the word Bachelor was misspelled. So I opened my diploma to see if the same mistakes had been made on mine, and sure enough... I have been awarded a "Bacheor" of Science in Nursing with magna cum laude honors instead of summa. I have tried calling the records office like 6 times today, and I guess their solution to deal with this mistake is to simply not answer the phone. I did leave a message, but I'm not holding my breath.

The Cake That Keeps on Giving...

My friend Laura and I worked in the office at the Donovan Dining Center during our time at Rhode Island College. Since we were both graduating this year, Debbie and Marsha invited us for lunch and cake. Debbie made the cake and decorated it herself, which we were all pretty impressed by, not only because it was super cute, but also because it was delicious. It's still yummy and moist four days later. We've still got leftovers in the fridge...did I mention it was huge? Anyway, thanks again to Debbie, Marsha, Vinny and all our friends in the office. It was really nice. Unlike Laura I have not loaded my picture frame yet. I am still working on choosing pictures for it. I have too many, I can't decide which ones make the cut.

A Busy Week

Well, the past week and a half has been very busy, but great. The weekend of May 10th, we were treated to an amazing time in New York City by John's parents. We went to The Cloisters, which is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was very cool, mostly because I got to take my new camera, a Nikon D60 (a graduation gift from Bill & Cissy), for a spin. It is amazing! I am having so much fun with it. We also had a wonderful dinner at Chez Josephine before we saw Wicked on Broadway. Wicked was by far the best musical/play I've ever seen. I highly recommend it. The actress who plays Glinda the Good Witch really steals the show. On Sunday, we walked through Central Park and went to see The Frick Collection.

I took hundreds of pics with my new camera, so it was hard to choose just a few to post here. Here are a couple faves from the weekend that were taken at The Cloisters. There are a bunch more posted on my flickr account (link at right).
After the great NYC weekend, I had my last final on Monday!!! My family came out to RI over the course of the week for my graduation. They rented two cottages in East Matunuck, RI, and I got to play tour guide. We spent some time at Roger Williams Park, visited the mansions in Newport, and took the ferry over to Block Island. A few of them took a day for a trip down to NYC, while others headed north to Cape Cod.

Here are a few pics from the week of sight seeing:

A Venus Fly Trap at the Botanical Center (RWP)
It's still got part of the bug in its trap...

Orchids at the Botanical Center (RWP)

Chinese Tea House at Marble House (Newport, RI)Marble House (Newport, RI)
Jeff & Lisa on the Cliffwalk (Newport, RI)Carey Mansion (Newport, RI) - now part of Salve Regina UniversityOn the ferry to Block Island, RILobster pots (Block Island, RI)Block Island, RIBlock Island, RI

It ended up being a really great week that culminated with graduation on Saturday. The ceremony was long and really kind of boring. Rhode Island College's president is retiring this year, so the ceremony ended up being 3 hours worth of praise to John Nazarian. I guess that's okay, but there seem to be plenty of other occasions for that, like his press conference, the Commencement Gala, the Alumni Awards Dinner...and on and on. It would have been more appropriate to let graduation be about the graduates...call me crazy.

Anyway, this was probably not as big of deal as I felt like it was (as is the case with most things, I'm sure), but I was kind of perturbed at graduation because the program said I graduated with magna cum laude honors, when in fact, I earned summa cum laude honors. I know, not a huge deal, but it was to me because I felt like I worked really hard to achieve that. Oh well, let it go, right?

Here are a couple pics from graduation:

The Contest

Last night John and I went to Tazza Caffe to watch the 5th round of The Contest at Tazza. Apparently, there were over 100 bands that started in the contest, and they were down to the top 5 last night. We went because Mike & Sharon Mancuso, who lead our Bible Study, have a son, Brent, in one of the top 5 bands. I wasn't really expecting great music, but I was definitely blown away. All 5 acts were great. Two were solo artists, one late 20's-ish guy (Nicky P), and one girl who was only a junior in high school (Sara Barillo...not to be confused with the actual pop star Sara Bareilles). The other three were groups. Roz Razkin and the Rice Cakes , The Low Anthem and Brent's band, The Red Attire. His band wasn't so much a band as it was two guys, one with a guitar and one with an electric bass, which was pretty cool. The rules for the contest were that acts could play any style, any genre, as long as it was original music. The prize for the winner is $2000 and a song in an upcoming movie. They were all great, and we are hoping we can make it next week to see the top 2, especially if Brent's group makes it. Here are a couple pics from Tazza.

Me & John

Brian & Sara Bhuta
Jason & Julie McFarland
The Red AttireBrent Mancuso of The Red Attire