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. =)

Jam

We made freezer jam. 5 batches (raspberry, strawbery, raspberry-strawberry, strawberry-peach, and raspberry-peach) and 41 half-pints later, we officially have jam to last us through winter...

P.S. - The wallpaper behind the sink in the first picture is classy.

Success!

I just found out this morning that I will be doing my second practicum placement at the St. Elizabeth Hospice: http://www.ste.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=182. I am thrilled! I met with my field instructor this morning and she is absolutely wonderful and is excited to have another student. I will be mostly shadowing for the next few weeks and learning the ropes, but she wants me to have a caseload by next semester. She hopes that I will be operating independently by January.

For those of you who aren't familiar with what a social worker does at a Hospice, here's the run-down. When a physician recommends Hospice to an individual, the social worker is the first person on the scene at their home. The social worker does a home visit and initial assessment of what the individual and family needs to live comfortably in their home. Then the social worker will visit the family once a week for four-six weeks, or as the family requests. Social workers also provide grief and bereavement counseling for the individual and/or family members. Social workers coordinate any other services that need to be provided for the individual and family member.

It's so exciting to think that by next semester I'll be able to work independently and have my own clients! It makes all the schooling worthwhile. =)

Also--most of you probably know this already, but Chad got an offer from Procter and Gamble to work full time after he finishes his degree. We're thrilled with the offer, and feel totally blessed to have one considering the economic situation of our country. We haven't committed yet and Chad still wants to explore a few other options, but we'll have a decision made by November. Way to go, Chad!

3rd Anniversary in Chicago

After we moved back from Kentucky to Indiana we decided to take advantage of the few days we had before school started to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. We went to Chicago for 4 days and it was such a fun vacation together. A vacation we'll remember forever.

We drove 1 1/2 hours north to a little town called Dyer, Indiana. We took a train into Chicago so we didn't have to worry about paying for parking and then took the subway and bus or walked everywhere we needed to go.

This is the view from outside our hotel. That tall building in the background is the Trump building.



We walked around Navy Pier--

--and admired the pretty flowers.


Since Chicago is known for it's architecture, we took an architectural boat tour. This hour long boat ride allowed us to see all of the beautiful buildings.


The Willis Tower (formerly known as the Sears Tower)
Check out the clear boxes up on the sky deck. These boxes jutted out a few feet from the building, enabling people to step into the boxes and look directly below them. Our boat tour guide told us they had only been in place a few weeks--and that he was going to wait a few more months before trying it out. We though that was sound advice.


Pretty buildings downtown


Willis Tower from farther away

We ate dinner at Giordano's--the famous Chicago pizzeria known for it's stuffed crust pizza.

Neither of us had ever tasted anything so delicious!


The following day we went to the Museum of Science and Industry for the Harry Potter Exhibit. The exhibit holds many of the original items from the Harry Potter movies. (Sorry but they wouldn't let us take pictures inside). It was way fun, though!

Here's the Anglia driven by Ron and Harry to Hogwarts!

We wandered through the rest of the exhibits at the museum.
The above picture is for the Nishida family =)

A replica of downtown Chicago


The actual German U-505 submarine captured by the US

It was massive.

"It's a woman's war too!"

We ate dinner that evening in Greektown at a place called "The Parthenon." The gyros were incredible.

This is for all of my social work buddies. Jane Addams was the founding mother of social work.

She created the first ever settlement houses. The University of Chicago has since turned them into a museum.

We saw the Blue Man Group that night. These guys were crazy! I am not quite sure how to describe their show, but it is definitely worth seeing.

The lobby at the theater.

A Blue Man

The next day we rode a tandem bike for a few hours. We rode along the beach--

--to the Bean--

(that's us in the Bean)

and to the Lincoln Park Zoo. We were pretty sore by the end of the day, but it was a great way to see the city.

We followed up our four hour long bike ride in Chinatown.

And enjoyed the most delicious Chinese food! (Apparently this restaurant is on some list of the top 100 Chinese restaurants in the US -- and it definitely measured up.)

I love living in the Midwest for many reasons, one of them being our close proximity to so many fun places! Chicago is such a beautiful city, with so much to offer to anyone and everyone. I'm not gonna lie, we spent hours daydreaming about what it would be like to live there and how we could make it work. Maybe one day.

Happy anniversary to us!