Happily Ever After

About a week ago we got back from a super fun trip to Seattle to see our dear friends Elise and John get married. Both Luke and I were a part of the wedding and had a great time helping our friends tie the knot.

It was great to be back and see good friends, eat some of our favorite Seattle nosh and catch a few glimpses of the mountains when it wasn't raining.

Congrats, Elise and John! We love you!

Some of the best girls I know!

The happy bride!

The wedding party

Congrats to the happy couples - the Ingrams!

Jack, Patrick & Luke at the wedding.

Becca, me and Carly at the rehearsal dinner.

Laura, Bethany and me at the rehearsal dinner.

**Photos courtesy of Victoria Carlson Photography, Ryan Peterson & Katie Brisbane :)**

One Hour, Forty-three Minutes

Luke ran his first half-marathon at the end of March. It was a brisk 35 degrees, but maybe that made him run even faster. He finished 124th out of 644 runners, with a time of 1:43. Way to go Luke! Here are some photos of Luke and his friend Sean who he ran the race with.

Welcome to the Newsroom

So I just started my second quarter of grad school last week. Instead of commuting up to Evanston for all my classes, this quarter I'm in the downtown newsroom. I have a health and science reporting class three days a week and am reporting on the health and fitness beat. Every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we turn in articles on deadline and they get published to the Medill News Service website.

And behold.... my news desk!

Each of us gets our own desk to research, make phonecalls, etc.

In other words - this is where the magic happens.

And I am strategically located right next to all the newspapers,

just in case I need some inspiration.

I'll post links to my articles once we start publishing next week!

Paddle On

I thought I would share one of my latest articles with you all from my days at Plymouth Magazine. Since we work so far ahead in the magazine business, an article that I wrote last summer is being published this month. This was a really fun article because I got to go kayaking and basically, just write about my experience. I had a lot of fun and hope to keep kayaking on Lake Michigan this summer!

Photo courtesy of Emily Davis/Tiger Oak Publications

Check it out: Kayaking in Plymouth

Vamos a la Playa!

And you thought I would never write again!

Our deepest apologies for not blogging for the last couple of months; however, school, work and blizzards have kept us quite busy. But we’ve had an eventful couple of weeks!

We just got back from Mazatlan, Mexico last Thursday after a much needed vacation. We had a fabulous time and the consensus was that we could have stayed another week.

We used my parents’ time-share and stayed at a beautiful resort right on the beach. We had a great time relaxing, drinking margaritas, eating seafood, kayaking, snorkeling, hiking and exploring. I couldn’t have asked for better weather or a better traveling buddy.

A beautiful church in downtown Mazatlan

One of many walks on the beach

Luke jumping (naturally)

View of the pool

Eating breakfast on our balcony - where we spent most of our mornings

Luke jumping (again)

Hiking to a coffee shop at a nearby beach

The fisherman would bring the seafood in fresh every morning to the restaurants

Breakfast at the coffee shop

A lizard friend at the pool

Friends are the Best

A few weeks ago, my friend Steph and I went to visit our high-school friend Meg and her family in Des Moines. Meg is an amazing mother of three (with a fourth on the way!) and her little ones definitely kept us busy all weekend long.

We enjoyed lots of playtime, going out to coffee and going to church, where her husband, Dan, is the pastor. We had a great time! It’s always so fun reminiscing and catching up with friends who still know you so well, even though you don’t live down the street anymore.

Meg and her beautiful family

So cheers to friends, old and new!

Snow Day

We can now say that we survived the 2011 Chicago blizzard. Although we now have mass amounts of snow everywhere - it did result in a snow day for both Luke and I. NO SCHOOL OR WORK! We spent our day off traipsing through the aftermath of the blizzard. At about 9:30 a.m. Luke was out the door exploring, while I was sipping coffee inside. I joined him shortly after and with a shovel in hand, we started helping the silly people who decided to try and drive down the street get their cars "unstuck."

Then we hiked over to Lakeshore Drive where hundreds of cars were left parked overnight, while tow truck drivers and loaders cleared the snow and towed all the stranded cars to city parking lots.

We didn't get mail for awhile... and there was nothing open on our street all day.

Luke helping a random guy get his car down the street.

It was windy... very windy.

Lots of cars were covered in snow - impossible to get out. Some were so covered with snow that you couldn't even see them.

Snow angel?

This is a tow truck that got stuck on Lakeshore Drive and had to be dug out with the rest of the cars. We watched them pull this one out using a loader to pull the tow truck, which pulled the car. It was amazing.

And these are the unfortunate remains of a brand new Escalade that we think tried to skirt the traffic on Lakeshore, veer through Lincoln Park and then crashed into a tree and stopped sliding mere feet from the lake. As far as we know, nobody was hurt... except the car.