Happy Turkey Day!

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with a few good friends at our little apartment. Ellen and Dane came over as well as a little doggy named Annie that we were in charge of all weekend.

As you can see we had a PJ's all day rule. So we stayed comfy and cozy, especially with our little cuddle bug puppy on the couch. We each were in charge of 2 dishes for dinner and it was a nice little collaborative effort. I volunteered for the turkey, my second after last year's first. And of course I had to do the stuffing too... my favorite!

Dane was is charge of sweet potatoes, Swedish beans, and threw in a pumpkin/pecan pie as a bonus. Kris made a mountain of mashed potatoes and green beans. And Ellen made some tasty appetizers, baked brie cheese and a cheese and sausage platter.

Then we sat down for a nice little dinner.

It lasted about 15 minutes, then we were off to the couches to lounge around.

This little one got no turkey or pie, and she let us know she was disappointed in us by pointing this little pout right at us as we enjoyed our feast.

But soon after she recovered and let Ellen know she was not mad at us anymore.

And then she and Dane settled down for a nice little nap-a-roo.

How was your Thanksgiving? I hope it was great!

Bump in the Night

Tonight Kris finished his last final for Fall Term A. After an intense week of studying, cramming and spending a lot of quality time at his desk he finally got to press send, for all 39 pages of that final paper. He momentarily celebrated, relieved to be finished and happy to have a week off before his classes resume.

I spent the night trying to put the finishing touches on our Halloween costumes (big reveal pictures later this week). Then I tried to clean up my "creative mess." Kris met me in the kitchen smiling and just happy to be finished, when suddenly...... "Creeeeek, Craaaack, Boom!" Comes from our closet. In just a single moment Kris was no longer by my side, but across the apartment in our bedroom trying to close the curtain that substitutes as a door. Leaving me standing alone with the mysterious noises.

Awesome, my hero!

Back by Popular Demand... Not Really

The blog took a bit of a break, it was a long summer and it needed some time off. I know you all have been hanging on the edge of your seat, just waiting for a new post... well maybe not.

Anyways, the wait is over, here is just a glimpse of what we've been up to.

The shelter where I work had it's annual fundraiser last weekend, Gimme Shelter. Being the Volunteer Coordinator I was on the hunt for the best and brightest of volunteers to work at the event. Luckily I stumbled upon this guy, you know the one I share my life with?

So I put him to work at the back bar and he fell into his role quite easily. He served wine (yes it is from a box), a local blonde brew and soda. Just loook at that fantastic hair...

he tells me it runs in the family.

The night was a big success and hopefully we raised the moola we need to keep sheltering and housing homeless families. Here's a few of the lovely people I work with who are dedicated to ending family homelessness, even if it is one family at a time.

Well, that's a wrap for now. Hope to write again soon.

2 Weeks, 3 Cobblers

I spent my 2 weeks in SF at Katie & Rich's lovely home. Such a fun time and great stay. Rich and I had a lot of quality time together as he is off work for the summer and my days were free. Katie would often return home to me and Rich cooking up dinner and playing with the kitty Oliver.

Somehow Rich managed to cook up a cobbler, crisp and crumble in 2 weeks time. I like to take a little credit for providing moral support and encouragement for his creations. By the end of my stay I was no longer calling him Rich, instead it was just Chef.

Now I'm back in Ann Arbor and there is no cobbler, no crisp, nor crumble on my stove.

My question is, Chef, have you figured out how to FedEx your baked goods yet?

Napa Wedding

Kris and I finished up my visit to SF with a wedding in Napa of our best friends from UCSB, Tara & Chris. It was a gorgeous wedding full of love, laughs and fun. The bride's brother joked in his speech that we were at the wedding of Ken & Barbie... but seriously, I have to steal a line from Zoolander here, but aren't they "ridiculously good looking"?

I was a bit nervous as I had the big responsibility of reading from the Old Testament in their Catholic Ceremony. I think my knees were knocking in nervousness as I read, but thankfully I had a podium to hide behind. I also had Kris' smiling face to look to in the crowd. Despite my insecurities in public speaking it was a huge honor to be included in the ceremony.


The bride's family is from Ireland so a traditional Irish Jig was performed at the reception by her cousin and then the bride herself joined in! Amazing.

It was a great way to spend our last day together for a few weeks. And we had a wonderful time catching up with old friends and new. We even met some U of M alumni!

Unfortunately we had to drive separately back to SF at 10:30pm as we each had rental cars. Then I was lucky enough to leave for the airport at 4:30am to catch my flight back to Ann Arbor. I have never slept so hard on a flight, seriously, the lights were out and nobody was home!

So there's just 4 weeks left of Kris' internship and then he'll join me in Ann Arbor. It's been a pretty intense work schedule for him, often working until 11pm or even 2am and then waking up and doing it again, with no weekends off (hence the separate rental cars at the wedding). Needless to say we are both really looking forward to the Fall, for football, walks, and adventures. Just 29 days to go!

Reunited and it Feels So Good

How could it not when you have this guys around? Special, right?

So happy to be back in the City... My City... Our City!

A Fish Named Frank

A few months ago I offered to fish sit for some friends who were headed to Chicago for the summer.

Meet FrankKris and Frank took a liking to each other after spending 2 weeks of quality time together once school ended. I didn't quite have the same luck with Frank. While I was admiring him the first week that he was with us he freaked out and lodged himself between the side on the tank and his filter. This resulted in me yelling, "Frank's Stuck, Frank's Stuck!" Until Kris came running and freed his little buddy.

Then Kris left for SF, and it was just me and Frank. He did OK for the first few weeks, then last week things got bad. He spent most of his time barely floating at the top of his tank and was not interested in food. I thought he was going to the big Fish Tank in the Sky for sure and even contacted his owners. They told me not to worry, I was a good fish sitter no matter what happened.

That's when I decided to take action. I found a place called the Fish Doctor, zipped over there, told them Frank's symptoms, purchased some fish items, followed their advice (including some gross things I don't care to repeat), left for a walk, and returned an hour later to a brand new Frank. I'm not kidding, this was not the same fish that had barely moved for days.

Moral of the story? Watch it Frank... I saved your life!

Missing this

24 more days. Guess who is counting?

One of the Reasons I Love My Job

Just one of the cute little munchkins staying at Alpha House right now. She turned 6 the very next day.

My lovely friend Kate snapped this photo for me.

Summertime

Well, it's official... Kris is in CA and I am in Michigan for the summer. Kris starts his internship at UBS in just a little over a week and will be there through August. In the meantime I'll be holding down the fort in MI, working and willing the time to pass by quickly.

Whenever I feel sorry for myself I am going to just look at this photo I came across on the web, then I won't be able to do anything but smile.

I head out to SF for a 2 week visit in July in just 37 days, let the count down begin.

Umm, I think they may be related

How cute is this?

Ooh, My Tummy Hurts

Easter Sunday we decided since we had no family within a few hundred miles we would spend the day with friends who were in the same boat. We had a whole day of fun planned. A feast of a brunch, bocce ball, an amazing Easter Egg hunt with prizes & banana grams (a super fun fast version of scrabble)

We had a ton of fun and were with our friends from noon till night. Monday morning Kris woke up and said, "Ooh, my tummy hurts." I thought perhaps it was the pounds of ham & mac n cheese that he had consumed the day before. He decided to disregard his pains and headed off to his 8am team meeting.

Apparently throughout the meeting the tummy pain stayed consistent, until eventually his team convinced him to stop by the student clinic to check it out. Once at the clinic the doctors immediately sent him off to the ER because they thought he had appendicitis.

I met Kris at the ER, and after 8 hours and a lot of waiting time while listening to a drunkard coming down from getting wasted before a medical detox, at 10pm Kris was headed to the operating room for a routine appendectomy. The docs assured me that it would be a simple hour long surgery and that he would be headed home the next afternoon.

Well, 1 hour turned into 2, then 4.... and finally at 2am Kris was out of surgery. He had some complications (granulomatous appendicitis, which is very very rare) because the crazy kid was walking around for several days with a burst appendix! His body had created an abscess in order to protect his body, so the surgeons had to remove the appendix, abscess, part of the small intestine & colon! Apparently his body did a really good job of protecting itself by creating the abscess and it may have even saved his life.

He had 6 days of recovery in the hospital, and by the time he left he had been poked and pricked about a hundred times, but somehow left with all of the nursing staff smitten. Must have been his great hair!

He's home now and little by little things are getting back to normal. His follow-up appointment was today and his docs were happily surprised at how well he is healing. Just 4 more weeks until he can head back to the gym, and believe me, he is counting the days.

Although it was a little scary to have all of this happen when we are so far from home we received a ton of support from school, work & friends. One of Kris' professors even called the hospital room the morning after his surgery! It's nice to know that in the short time we've been here that we've developed our own little network of support.

Thanks for all of the well wishes & check-ins.

His & Hers

When we moved into our new apartment in Ann Arbor we were lucky enough to have lots of natural light. Two of the sources are window box sky lights that are located directly above two small closets. In these closets we have his and hers alpha storage systems where we keep some of our clothes.

On one fateful trip to IKEA we decided to each pick out a plant to put into our respective sky light shelves. We went with succulents, each a little different from the other... just like us.

Now, 7 months later, our His & Hers plants have had some time to grow and get comfortable, each in their own way.

His is very direct in his search for sunlight & sustenance.

Hers is a little all over the place, with a need to check out everything.

I think this says a lot about us.

How do we get to Canadialand?

A few weeks back ago on a Sunday Kris, Dane and I had nothing to do, so we thought, with Windsor, Canada less than an hour away, why not hop in the car to what what we could see.

We headed north on the freeway, passed Detroit, paid a toll and got to cross a bridge. Not quite the Golden Gate, huh?

We stopped at the travel center on the way in to pick up some maps

Kris & Dane were very excited to receive these information booklets. (Don't adjust your computer screens folks... they really are that pale)

We grabbed some Chinese food, headed to Caesar's Palace and watched the US lose to Canada in hockey... what else was there to do on a Sunday.

And we passed this on our way out of Canada, it must be where babies go to get their drink on, no?

Boulderific

This past weekend Kris headed to Boulder, Colorado to compete in the regional portion of a MBA Venture Capital Competition. He went with a team of his fellow students which included one of his closest friends in Ann Arbor, Mr. Dane Johnson. Dane's fiance Ellen and I decided to take Friday off to join them in Boulder for the remainder of the weekend.

We had a blast exploring the town and surrounding area. It was actually kind of warm compared to the chilly temps we've been having in Ann Arbor. The downtown area was in walking distance from our hotel and was filled with restaurants, shops and sights to see. The town had a very laid back vibe and the locals were incredibly nice. Here are some photos of the fun.

Here's a nice picture of the three of us at the top of a mountain just outside of Boulder (that's Dane in the background:))

Kris' team ended up winning the Entrepreneurs Choice in the competition, but unfortunately won't get to continue onto nationals. They did a great job, but the other teams had some questionable advantages. They did get to walk away with a HUGE check for $500 which they get to split 5 ways! Of course the check went everywhere we did for the rest of the weekend.

The boys celebrated their big win,

Again

And again!

Then the check had to go home with us and was carried on. It had to go though security several times, while many by standers gave annoyed faces and asked, "What's that for anyways?"

But it made it back with us in one piece... with a few bumps, scratches and dents.

Before we headed back to the airport we stopped through Denver and walked around downtown and near the art museum. This giant cow statue was just begging for this photo opp!

This little horsey did not want to be left out.

Ellen and I wrapped up the trip with a final pose.

Finally, photos from the holidays

About a month late, but better late than never, right? Here are some photos from the holidays that I finally managed to get from my camera to the computer. Such a great time filled with so many of our loved ones!

Kris, Jeremy (an old colleague from KPMG) and I on the roof top of Peggy & Ed's in SF on NYE.

10 years prior to this date Peggy's friend Tania Kiani (pictured on left) dragged her to SF for a NYE party. It was at this party that Ed and his friend Laura (pictured on right) met the lovely Peggy. 4 years later on this date Laura married them in their lovely home in SF.

Grammy and Anne posing together on NYE

Kris and I helped Oliver find his toys. Quite the stash!

The Walls hosted the family holiday celebration on Christmas evening in Santa Barbara

Kris & Grammy

Rich & Katie

Guess what Grandma made for us for Christmas?

Kris & I were part of the new tradition of going out to Chinese on Christmas Eve with my Dad and brother Cliff. The restaurant was packed and it was delicious, I think we'll keep up this tradition.