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!

4th of July '09

I'm a little behind...

For the 4th we went to Michigan to celebrate with the Porcaro's. We had a blast (as we always do) and are so glad to have them close enough to party with on holidays! Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the weekend (none of which include Chad or myself):

Cutest. Picture. Ever.


The boys were singing us some songs they had learned from day camp.




He's saying, "Choo! Choo!"

I'm so glad I caught this moment on camera. Greg was holding a cup filled with Pop-Its. He proceeded to place one on the wrist of the hand he was using ot hold the cup. As he hit the Pop-It with the other hand, the contents of the cup flew into the air. Hilarious.

Pretty sure these kids aren't related.

Our fireworks came complete with interpretive dance. Jim should have charged money for the show he put on. Totally classic.

Thanks for letting us come up. You guys are party animals! =)

What Chad and Bekah Have Been Up To:

• We successfully relocated to northern Kentucky for the summer. For those of you who aren't up on your geography, Cincinnati is just north of Kentucky (across the river) so Chad's commute to work is about 20 minutes.
• Chad is rounding down week 6 at his internship at Procter & Gamble. He is loving it and his manager keeps him very busy. He is enjoying working on multiple projects and meeting new people. He is the only intern in his business unit and therefore has received plenty of attention; he has even lunched with some of the head honchos at P&G and feels very blessed to have been given this opportunity.
• I have been relaxing for the last 6 weeks. I dug right in to my summer reading list and have read 6 books so far and look forward to reading more as the summer continues. I have been up to Michigan quite a bit to visit my sister and her family and even had the three oldest kids come stay with me for a few days. We love those kids and always have fun with them and the time doubles as excellent birth control for Chad and I. =)
• I decided to take two classes during the second summer session which starts tomorrow. I will be driving from Cinci to Indy on Monday afternoon, staying until Wednesday night when classes have finished for the week, and then driving back to Cinci on Wednesday night. It may be a very long 6 weeks...but we'll manage.
• Our free time together is spent exploring the city! We love Cincinnati. We have found a fun biking/walking/jogging trail, multiple yummy restaurants, and the Gap Inc. clearance center (my personal favorite). We're also going to a Reds game in mid-July.

I can't believe the summer is almost half over already and that we'll be back to school full-time in just 8 1/2 weeks!

Ocho Rios, Jamaica and Grand Cayman

Our first stop was Ocho Rios, Jamaica. We hiked Dunn's River Falls and when I say we hiked the waterfall, that is exactly what I mean. We were in the water and started at the bottom. Parts were tricky, but it was so much fun.

Saying goodbye to Jamaica

Here we are in Grand Cayman, home of the bluest, clearest water I've ever seen! The ships cannot port on the island, so they have to anchor out in the ocean. On this day there were four Carnival ships but our Snuba instructor told us that on one day there could be up to 12 ships out there.


We went Snuba diving at Stingray City. This is a shallow scuba (20 ft), where the tanks float on rafts above you. I had a rough time with the whole snuba idea, so the instructor brought one of the stingrays up to me and I was able to hold her. It was incredible.

Saying goodbye to Grand Cayman.

Catching Up

We've been really busy lately, hence the delay in blog posting. Sorry, guys. Here's some pictures from the cruise:

30 minute boat drill in Miami heat = torture

Setting sail

Formal night

Towel animals (one of my favorite parts)


Our dinner buddies, Michelle and Kirk

Beautiful sunsets every night

Chad with koala bear?Bekah with frog

Last sunset aboard the ship (above and below)

We had so much fun on the cruise! It was a good mixture of relaxing days and active days. More than anything it was nice to relax and soak up the sun without having to worry about writing papers and reading textbooks. We loved it!

End of the Semester Papers, Presentation and Finals!

Well Bekah has been so busy so I thought I would provide a blog update!

In 10 days we will be halfway done with our Masters Programs! This is so exciting! Until then we will be busy at work finishing (and starting) papers, presentations, and finally studying for Final Exams. Bekah has the bulk of her work this week, and since her program doesn't believe in tests/finals she will be free of school after Thursday. She is then planning on relaxing, going to Barnes and Noble to start her summer book reading collection, and is also going to run a 5K on Saturday. Not to mention that this bekahs birthday is on Wednesday so we will be doing some major partying (on Thursday once she is done with school)!

I am so proud of her hard work this school year, she has learned a lot in school and has also really enjoyed her first practicum. She has been a real trooper commuting down to Indianapolis 2 days a week (sometimes in really bad Indiana weather). For her practicum she worked at Tippacanoe County Council on Aging. This organization runs the Local Senior Center, Meals on Wheels Program, and SHARP (Senior Housing Assistance Repair Program). She has been heavily involved in modernizing the SHARP program and has made a big difference in the program. All the staff and seniors at the center really love her and will miss her.

I will be done with classes on Thursday. For one of my classes instead of a Final we had a big presentation which was this last week so that class is done! Now I have one final paper to do this week, and then it is on to studying for Finals! I have 3 next week. One on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with an additional presentation on Tuesday for my 5th class this semester. I will then need to enter all of my students grades in and call it quits for the semester. Yay!

We are looking forward to a break from school, a change of scenery, and hopefully seeing each other more.

It will all be worth it in the end.

I promise we're still alive; we're just really ridiculously busy. I just keep telling myself that it will all be worth it in the end because as of late I'm beginning to wonder what I was thinking!! I'm barely keeping my head above water at this point and Chad is taking 18 credits this mod, so he's just as busy. What that really means is that we say goodbye to each other on Sunday night and don't really see each other until Thursday. Don't get me wrong, we love school. We both feel very blessed to have been afforded this opportunity. If we had to go back, we'd choose to do it all over again in a heartbeat. But this is probably the hardest thing we've ever done.



It will all be worth it in the end...



At least it will all be worth it when we're sailing toward the Caribbean on the Carnival Destiny, catching up on leisurely reading, and sipping fruity drinks (sin alcohol, of course) on the beaches of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.



Oh how May 9th can't come soon enough.