Thanksgiving '09

The highlights:

Some of us started off the day with a Turkey Trot (5K) in downtown Detroit, and we all finished the race in about 34 minutes!
Alexa, Jim, Greg the speed demon, Chad, Bukah

The others slaved away in the kitchen to prepare the meal - Zach and Mike (What is Zachary doing, by the way?) =)

Here is the master chefista (the one actually doing the "slaving") doing what she does best - She does lots of things really well, but she's a reaaaalllly good cook

Chad and Zach cheesin' for the camera


The pretty table decor

We polished off all of our hard work with 4 pies

Overall - I think the day was a success!

Lucky

***Warning: This post contains extreme mushiness. Proceed with caution.***

I don't like to write mushy posts on my blog. I'm not the kind of blogger who sees my blog as a journal. A journal to me is a private and personal place to share your innermost thoughts and feelings, and I don't particularly like the whole world to have access to those (sorry, friends). I look at my blog as a way to show friends and family near and far what we're up to, in a lots-of-pictures, few-words kind of way.

With that being said, there are sometimes in life where I want to tell the world how lucky I am. And today is one of those days. The reason for today's general feeling of luckiness? Chad.

I love Chad for many reasons. He's funny, hard-working, easy to talk to, kind, and he just understands me. But I think I sometimes take all of that for granted. That's how I expect him to be, and he fulfills those expectations for me. Then there are days like today. See today was the day where I had to accompany the ward choir in the Christmas program. This means that I basically sat on the stand for 2/3 of the meeting. Right before I had to go up for the first number, Chad leaned over to me and asked who was going to watch the choir director's baby (her husband is also in the choir). I asked her if she needed Chad to watch him, and she looked relieved as she handed the baby over. After the first number, I just sat on the stand. A few minutes into the talk, I peeked to the back row to see how Chad was doing. He was playing a little game with him, and the baby was giggling. It made me smile. Several minutes later, I looked again and the baby was getting fussy and starting to whimper. I watched as the girl sitting next to Chad offered to take the baby from him, but he simply took the baby out to the hall. One choir number later, I looked back again and Chad had reappeared with a sleeping baby in his arms.

This moment may seem insignificant to some. And I can't really explain it--but I just loved Chad so much at that very moment. I've spent the rest of the day pondering how lucky I am to be married to a man like Chad. A man who recognizes when someone needs help with their child, a man who is quick to offer help, and a man who is so naturally good with kids. I look forward to the day when I can watch him with his own children. I know he'll be a wonderful father.

I never forget why I married Chad. But it's days like today that make me so grateful I did.

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So proud...

...of this guy:

On November 7th Chad ran the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon.

Here he is at the start

The half took the runners around downtown Indy. Above is the capitol building.

While Chad was running, I went and checked out the finish line. Pretty, isn't it?

I had a few hours on my hands, so I decided to check out the canal.

My campus is actually really close to where Chad was running, so I took some pictures over there as well. Above is the library.




This is my building

Downtown Indy


As I was waiting for Chad to finish, I saw the first Marathon runner come in. He was averaging about a 5 minute mile.

Chad is in the red--in the middle of the picture

Here he is!



Great job, Chad!

Halloween '09

A few days before Halloween, I received a phone call from my nephew Zachary asking if Chad or I could help him carve a Thomas the Tank Engine pumpkin. So when Saturday rolled around, Zach was pretty excited to carve pumpkins.

Look at that smile!

Here we are carving. I was helping Zach.

About five minutes into carving, I was still carving Zach's pumpkin while he played with someone's iPod Touch under the kitchen table. =)

My pumpkin

We helped the kids get ready for Trick-or-Treating. Mike and Greg were clowns.

Chad's pumpkin

Alexa the Vampire

We went to Jen and Jim's neighbor's Halloween party. They had a candy corn guessing game, where you had to guess how many corns were in the container. Zach won! (Or should I say Jen won?)

Mike's puking pumpkin

Thomas - Mine and Zach's pumpkin

Greg's pumpkin

The clowns, the vampire, and Thomas

Tuckered out after a long day of Halloween fun!

Covered Bridge Festival

Parke County, Indiana is the covered bridge capital of the world, with a grand total of 30 bridges. We decided to take a drive one Sunday afternoon and visited some of them during the Covered Bridge Festival.

We love Indiana in the Fall with all the pretty trees and colors

The Feast of the Hunter's Moon '09

Each year around early October, Lafayette hosts the Feast of the Hunter's Moon. It is a re-creation of the annual Fall gathering of the French and Native Americans, which took place at Fort Ouiatenon (a fur trading post in the mid 1700's). Jen and Jim started going when they were here while Jim was working on his Master's and we've gone on and off since then. When we decided to come to Purdue, this was one of the things I was most excited about. We go mostly for the food =)

Arriving bright and early, headed to get some hot cider

Alexa


Zachary with his croquinole, a delicious cinnamon donut



Mike and Greg


Jen

The most amazing corn on the cob


The clan down by the river

Fort Ouiatenon is such a pretty place during the Fall!

It's Official!

Chad has accepted his job offer from Procter & Gamble. We will be moving to the Cincinnati area most likely sometime in May. We are very excited for this new adventure and are looking forward to grown up life without school! The countdown to graduation begins!



Sorry I haven't been updating lately. I will be uploading some pictures from The Feast and the Covered Bridge Festival sometime in the near future. For those of you who are too impatient, feel free to wander over to our smugmug site: chadandbekah.smugmug.com.

And another funny clip...

This is mostly for my own enjoyment. I can't stop laughing at this little gal.

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/09/28/baby-has-something-on-her-mind/?icid=mainhp-laptopdl7link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parentdish.com%2F2009%2F09%2F28%2Fbaby-has-something-on-her-mind%2F


Michelle--I thought of you when I saw this.

Enjoy.

Because I have nothing better to blog about...

To commemorate our 50th blog post, I thought I'd leave you all with this little gem:

http://melodymaker.posterous.com/the-reason-some-girls-stay-single-very-funny

NYC '09

Chad's bestie, Jacob, is a deal nerd. Sometimes he shares deals with us that we must take advantage of. So when he told us about an incredible deal through Expedia, we decided to take a quick Labor Day weekend vacay to New York City. It had been years since the last time I'd been, and Chad had never been before. The one thing we learned coming away from this trip was that we were born to be city-dwellers. Maybe some day. Here are the highlights from the trip:

Times Square at night. This place never sleeps.

We saw it and We. Loved. It.

Enjoying our delicious Crumbs cupcake in Central Park

Back stage at Wicked. We know someone who knows someone (the guy in the above picture) who dances in the show so we got treated to a behind-the-scenes tour. Here we are with Elphaba's $15,000 dress.

Dorothy's house

Elphaba's broom

Dinner and dessert at Junior's

The 9/11 Preview Site

St. Paul's Chapel, across the street from Ground Zero. A place of refuge for many.

Where the Twin Towers used to be

The beautiful church

New York Stock Exchange

Wall Street

Trinity Church

Brooklyn Bridge

Lady Liberty

Times Square in the daytime

TKTS - a theater development project that sells Broadway and off-Broadway tickets for 30%-80% off list price

Central Park

and again.

Dinner at Lombardi's which Zagat rated as "best pizza place on the planet"

We concur.

We had to keep ourselves occupied during the 1.5 hour wait (at 9 pm, mind you)

The largest Kitchen Aid mixer I have ever seen

Bekah in Times Square

Radio City Music Hall

We are at the top of the Rockefeller Center Observation Deck (Top of the Rock)

The big green space is Central Park.

Chad and the Empire State Building

A Swarovski crystal chandelier (Just playing around with my sweet lens)

The Rockefeller

Junior's Cheesecake

My mouth is watering just looking at this picture--delectable.

We're already planning our next trip back, considering we didn't even get halfway through everything we wanted to see/do. Thanks Scott and Elly for all the tips!!! Next time you should come with and be our official tour guides. =)