It's just what we do

The weekend of Father's Day we were supposed to travel to the land of Michigan to visit with Tony's family and attend the post-baby baby shower for his sister. As it turned out, the baby was not cooperating with the developed plans (as if this wasn't expected) and decided to not come on time. In fact, after much waiting and a few complications, baby Richard was born on Sunday morning. Yay!! Congrats Heidi and Chad!!

Since the baby shower was postponed, we opted to travel to Wisconsin to visit with my family and see one of our friends. Friday night, Tony had a double header with the church softball league so we let for Wisconsin by mid-Saturday morning. On the way we picked up our friend Percy in Milwaukee and arrived by 3pm-ish. Saturday night was spent catching up with one another. Mom made fried chicken, we ate outside and just hung out. A fire was made and smores were had (I'm pretty sure I had way too many) followed by clean-up just in time for it to start thunder storming.

Getting to see my niece Payton

Sunday was spent in a similar fashion. We attended church, came home, sat outside and hung out. Weekends like this remind me how blessed I am to have such a family. It definitely brought up a series of feelings dealing with being here in Iowa.

Not much has happened here since then. We officially leave for Oregon this Friday (!!) and have been busy putting everything in order and buying the remainder of the stuff that we need (so much!). Needless to say, our budget this month has been destroyed, but more on that later.

Fin.

I feel like I should share this accomplishment, so I will. I've mentioned my qualifying exam before and ever since I got back from Philadelphia I have been writing and writing and writing. My paper was finally finished on Wednesday (the 5th) with a cumulative length of 46 pages. The longest paper I have ever written, and unfortunately, it will definitely not be the longest paper ever. Well, I finished it giving myself one week to summarize it into a 30-40 minute presentation. (Who would've thought that I was going to be able to give a 30+ minute presentation.) By Monday night, I had an understanding of what I was going to say and Tuesday it was refined. Finally, Wednesday morning came and I stood up in front of the room presenting my paper to the 5 individuals on my committee and one of my friends. Once I was done, they asked me a bunch of questions and I answered them like a pro. All in all, I'M DONE and I passed!!!!!!! I can finally have a summer break and come home with no obligation to work. It shall be glorious. Since then, I have finished one book, started on another and have been very lazy. I think I did the dishes twice though. This weekend brings a trip to Wisconsin for Father's Day and who knows what next week brings, but I don't have to worry about my paper anymore.

A taste of Chicagoland

The first weekend in June we had the chance to travel to Chicagoland to witness the wedding of one of our friends from MSOE. It was great seeing some old friends that we haven't seen in a while. Between the ceremony and the reception we went out to eat with some of the them to sit down and chat with one another. Tony had his first chance at experiencing all that is Portillos. (Those from Chicagoland know what I'm talking about.) We also had the joy in experiencing gas prices. By the time we left, Tony was adamant that we could never live there based on gas prices alone. I think I'm okay with that.

Congrats Mike and Mary!

Tony and I at the reception. It rained most of the time.

 

Some old friends.

Long Awaited Date Night

May ninth was Tony's birthday. I wanted to make it special somehow, but kinda dropped the ball on that one. I ended up spending all day at work finishing up some stuff for the end of the semester. The next week brought finals and the following Philadelphia. May has been quite a busy month. Finally, once I got back from Philly, Tony and I got the chance to go on a date to celebrate his birthday.

Friday, once I got off of work, I biked down to the mall to pick up his birthday present. He was so excited when he opened it to find a kit full of electronic components. I also got him a textbook about how to write efficient code and once we actually received it in the mail its pretty much been all he's read. I love my nerdy man.

After he opened his present, we got in the car to visit downtown Iowa City for the first time since we both came down in February of 2012 for my visit to the University. In fact, I go to school most days, which is across the street from downtown, and I can count on (now) two hands how many times I've been downtown. Yes we live a slightly sad life.

We got all dressed up and made our way down to Short's for the best burger in Iowa City. It was pretty good. We were going to go to a movie, but we would have had to rush there so we ended up walking around downtown and ran into a little concert taking place in the Ped(estrian) mall. It was a well needed date and a well-worth-it wait for the celebration.

Happy 23rd Birthday Love!!