holiday?

Well, Tom has been on spring break and I have had to work until today because today is apparently a holiday even though I don't know anyone else who had the day off that doesn't work at UCLA. It is Caesar Chavez Day and thank goodness. It was a very long week and it was only four days long.

Despite the fact that I had to work while Tom stayed home, we had a rather enjoyable week. We got invited to dinner twice this week with two wonderfully nice couples in our ward. Both of these couples live in the University owned apartments (The Village) and after seeing the apartments, I think we've decided to move. The apartments are bigger and nicer than ours and they are closer to the other ward members, so I think we're going to give in.

We celebrated Caesar Chavez Day by doing a little apartment cleaning and making snickerdoodles. We don't make cookies very often since our oven is only big enough for a half-cookie sheet, but we are trying to avoid a certain frozen yogurt place in Westwood so we made cookies to satisfy our craving for something sweet. Pinkberry (the frozen yogurt place) is a ridiculously trendy place a few blocks from our apartment. We had avoided it until recently because it usually has a very long line full of teenagers, but the other day as we were walking by the line was pretty short so we decided to try it out. It is really, really good. And overpriced.
Here's Tom with some snickerdoodles (don't worry, he didn't eat ALL of them):













I would also just like to say that it's a good thing we don't have to drive our car very often because I don't think we could afford it. I took this picture on Wednesday and yesterday it was a little higher ($3.39). The national average is $2.64.

Happy Anniversary To Us :)

Well, tomorrow is technically our anniversary, but since tomorrow is Sunday we decided to celebrate it today. It does not seem like we have been married for a year, but it has been a wonderful year.

We woke up early (well, early for a Saturday) and went to the temple and then went to lunch in Santa Monica. The temple was VERY crowded since each stake in the temple district is having a temple day to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LA temple (our stake's day is in a couple months). We went to this fantastic, trendy little burger place in Santa Monica (The Counter) and had some wonderful burgers and sweet potato fries.

In other news . . . well, there's not a lot of other news. Tom has spring break this week which he is looking forward to, and I have officially ended my probation at work so I can finally use my vacation days. Here are a few we've-been-married-for-one-year pictures from the temple this morning:

A word from Tom

I'll add some words of my own here by saying that this was a huge blessing for both of us. Most large firms only hire 1-3 1st year law students (1Ls) a year (hundreds apply and dozens are interviewed from the top schools in the country). When I interviewed with Irell they told me that the main reason they hired a couple 1Ls was because they acted as advertisers for the class which will interview for summer jobs at the beginning of their 2nd year. The emphasis is definitely on 2nd year law students, with most large firms having programs with around 20-40 2Ls. I had already been rejected from nearly every other firm I had applied to, in part because I waited too long to apply. I was initially going to go for an internship with a judge, which is very prestigious (although it doesn't pay anything), but the time to apply was right during finals and I decided I was too lazy to try and deal with it in the middle of that crazy time. I ended up getting a lucky interview with Irell only after someone else fell through for them. If this hadn't worked out I was going to interview for a research assistant job at the UCLA library this summer, which would have been fine too, although the pay would have been substantially less.
The reason why I like Irell so much, apart from their great location, is in large part their very interesting client list, which includes many people and organizations I and most of you have probably heard of. A list of recent notable activity at their firm is very impressive: Recent Matters
They are one of the top IP firms in the country with a large emphasis on entertainment law as well.
Most of the lawyers I interviewed with (I had to interview with 6) were fairly young "married with children" types who genuinely seemed to like their job. It was encouraging for someone like me who is still somewhat convinced it is impossible to strike a decent work/family balance a a large firm like Irell. They assured me that such was not the case. Erica and I are looking forward to this summer and we will keep you posted on how things go down in the coming months.

more exciting news

After months of stress and several hours of interviews, Tom has a wonderful job for the summer.

www.irell.com

The firm is called Irell & Manella and, well, Tom should be writing this because he knows a lot more about it than I do, but it is a really great firm and Tom was REALLY excited after interviewing there earlier this week. One of the best parts about the firm is that it is really close to our apartment:

MAP

(the LA temple is on Santa Monica just to the left of Manning Ave. Tom said you can see it from some of the offices at the firm.)

We are very excited (especially since this means we won't have to take out as many loans next year) and a weight has definitely been lifted off of Tom's shoulders :)


p.s. Tom has asked me to mention that we have both been working toward establishing a more healthy lifestyle and since we have moved to LA we have both quit drinking caffeine, Tom has lost about 10 pounds, and I have lost about 7.