Say Cheese!

I got my hands on the only picture of both Luke and I from the wedding weekend in Seattle, so I thought I'd share!

Thank you to the Papes for being better than us at documenting special occasions :)

Shooting for the Moon

So in my health & science reporting class I've been covering a lot of breaking news about NASA's recent retirement of the space shuttle program. Much to my surprise - I find space "stuff" really interesting.

Chicago was in the running to receive one of four retired space shuttles, but unfortunately, were beat out by some other prominent air and space museums. But Chicago's Adler Planetarium ended up receiving a flight simulator (oooh... ahhh...), which was used to train all of the astronauts that traveled to space. Still a pretty cool piece of space history, if you ask me.

If you're interested in my articles - or space in general - check out the links below.

Planetarium shoots for a shuttle

No shuttle, but Adler Planetarium gets constellation prize

Future space shuttle in the hands of Boeing

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