Falling by the wayside

As my sister has reminded me on several occasions, I continue to be sub-par in my blog updates. And I am pretty sure that she is the only person who reads this... so Megan, this is for you!

Two weekends ago, Ross and I headed up to WI to visit some of my high school friends who are both very intelligent and both pursuing Ph.Ds from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Thankfully they took a weekend break from their academic and laboratory pursuits to entertain us and enjoy some winter fun. We went for a winter hike/walk on a frozen lake, enjoyed homemade tomato soup with grilled Wisconsin cheese sandwiches, went ice skating, checked out State Street (by the capitol building and central to the college scene), went to a "classic" Wisconsin bar, sampled some beer, thrift-stored, dined in a cafe... so yes, the weekend was a great success! So far our three WI adventures have been great (previously we spent a day in Milwaukee and a weekend in Sheboygan), and I think we probably have more in the future.

Last weekend we went east to Michigan to visit Ross's grandparents and to spend some time with the growing Van Huis family. The trip was a rather long day on Saturday... bookended with a church small group and a church potluck. It was a tough call to drive there and back on the same day, but there was too much good food and too many good people at the other events to be missed.

And on other fronts, I am actually in the process of making something from Pinterest (!). I will probably have to take a picture, although the original post is still bound to be much cuter. I probably should also blog about some sort of culinary adventure--since that is now the thing to do. I tried a Martha Stewart salad for a different potluck tonight, but it is no longer in a photogenic state. I will someday make something phenomenal. And the best news of all... Jesus Montero, the new catcher for the Mariners, wants to be like Dan Wilson! That pretty much made my day, although I did have to kind of chuckle when someone else commented that they agreed with that statement... aside from Wilson's abysmal playoff batting average.

The dog life, part 2

As you can see, Ollie fit into our lifestyle rather well. As you can also see, this left me without a cushiony place to sit.

The dog life

Ross and I were able to dog sit for one of my co-workers last Sunday and Monday. We learned quickly that pugs are very loud and very lazy... and rather endearing. Ollie spent 85% of her time with us on the chair and a half, and 15% on our bed. Apparently the kennel is not appealing when she knows that people are in a bed. That part got a little interesting since that was pretty much the only time she was vocal, and our building does not allow pets.

Anyway, we loved having Ollie stay with us. It's hard not to laugh when she made her noises or just looked cute. I'm having a hard time posting more than one picture on this post, so I will make one more post.

And we're going for round 2.5

I was told that I should re-start my blog that began during my third year of PT school. It had a slight resurrection after Ross and I moved to the Chicagoland, hence the .5. Ross and I don't lead the most fascinating lives, but we will do our best. This blogging thing is popular amongst our friends with kids, but we are not going to have a baby. Again, we are not having a baby.

So here goes...

Ross loves being a second year teacher. I like being married to a second year teacher. We do awesome things like watch Netflix and eat M&Ms. Sometimes we head into the city of Chicago, which is usually great for me and the source of many complaints from Ross. Lately we have been into chaperoning middle school events at church and school, which result in late nights and free pizza. So I guess we do lead a pretty good life. Now we are just waiting for the snow to accumulate enough for snowshoeing, or melt enough for running outside.