Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas!

Our winter break was short, but good. We celebrated our own little "Aaron-and-Lauren Christmas" on Tuesday, Aaron's birthday on Wednesday, and, of course, Christmas on Friday. We flew out to Virginia to spend a couple of days with my family. It was great to be home again and to see family and friends.

One of our favorite Christmas memories this year was when we got the beautiful table lamp Aaron's mom sent us. Crate & Barrel shipped it to us in a box that was about my height. (It could have made a great fort.) Below are pictures of the boxes and of the lamp.

Needless to say, the lamp was in excellent condition upon arrival. We're excited to get it set up once we remove our fire-hazard of a Christmas tree from the living room corner.

Sorry for the horrible picture quality

Aaron and I are officially moving to the Bay Area next summer-- specifically, to Palo Alto, CA. Aaron will be working at Citigroup (investment banking division) in Palo Alto, and I'll be working for Deloitte (tax divison) in San Jose. We are very excited (especially for the warmer winter weather). We're hoping that some of the techniness of the area will rub off on us. This is clearly an area that needs some improvement (evidence: low resolution image above and very infrequent blogging).

Probably the most exciting part is that I am leaving my current job at the beginning of June and not starting my other one until the end of October. Result? Five months of being a bum. Aaron starts work at the end of June-- so at least half of the Purcell family will be contributing to society. I, on the other hand, will be making a life-time supply of felt Christmas ornaments. Let me know if you think of any cheap ways to entertain myself (I'm easily amused, so this shouldn't be too hard).

Looking forward to seeing all of our northern California* people--Matt, the Yamashitas, the Manos, Lisa, and Paige to follow!

*Do people really say NorCal? How long do you have to live there before you've earned the right to say it?

CPA Blues

This is the cover of my Regulation CPA book. I have to say, I was creeped out by their choice of stock photography. He looks gaunt. Focused almost to the point of derangement. Worked to the bone, deprived of sleep, and only kept going by the coffee in the mug he has in a vice-like grip. I can just imagine the person delegating the cover picture choice to his underling: "choose something that represents accounting!" I'm hoping this wasn't the case.

Toasty-O Man

We had just gotten married two days earlier, and living conditions were a little Spartan. I was eating cereal out of a paper bowl with a plastic fork because we had run out of spoons. They weren't even name brand cheerios. But that didn't stop a small miracle from taking place. 

I put in my fork to get the last "Toasty-O's" out of the bowl, and this is what came up. Seriously.

The Case of the Somali Pirate

Dear World: My name is Aaron and I have been given the "opportunity" to write the first post of our "hey look, we're newly married" blog. Not only is it our first post on the blog, but I can gratefully say it's my first posting ever on any blog. You may be wondering- how can this be!? How has he never written on a blog before? Is this a digital coming of age? A spiritual awakening? What has taken him so long to finally see the light and embrace this gift from the Internet gods? He's been born again and has caught the vision!

In reality, none of those assumptions are true. I'm actually writing this post under duress. Lauren, my lovely wife turned wannabe Somali pirate, has taken my phone and hid it in our extra room. The ransom: this blog post. She's clever- the phone is on silent, making it impossible for me to call it and discover its hiding place. The fact that the extra room is a jungle of sorts also rules out any possibility of ever finding it on my own. As it stands, unless I post to the blog tonight this injustice will continue into the foreseeable future.

So, world, there you have it. Thank you for reading and I hope you've enjoyed my first, and likely last, blog post.