Driving through Indiana

Since I am writing this while driving through Indiana, and it's become a regular part of our weekend, I thought it was a fitting title. Poor Beatrice has over 17000 miles on her and there are plenty more to go between now and the wedding. Which is only 48 days away, for those who are counting, and we sure are!

Today was the second of my two bridal showers hosted by amazing women.

Shower one was in Middletown, OH hosted by my mother's friends and my first grade teacher Rita and Beth. We played games, ate really good food, and I opened a ton of gifts. Most of which do not fit in our current apartment and are living in my parents basement until we get a bigger place.

The second shower was in Mason and was hosted by my Aunt LeeAnn and cousin Nicole. It was also amazing and we played different games, ate equally as good food, and I opened even more gifts! They don't fit in the apartment either.

How lucky am I to have people who not only love me enough to buy me a gift, but host a shower for my wedding? It was great to have two showers so I could invite different people to each one and actually spend time talking with everyone. That is definitely my favorite part of this wedding buisness so far. I love that it is bringing two completely different families together with my friends to have a good time, catch up, and celebrate how awesome our lives are.

Next weekend we get to take a hiatus from the driving and are flying (at least it is a different mode of transportation) to MN to celebrate my cousin Jason and his wife to be, Jamie. Their wedding is at a historic house in downtown St. Paul and will involve cupcakes! Who wouldn't be excited for that celebration?!? It's going to be wonderful to see our family.

Also in exciting wedding news, Emily Trumbo (soon to be Bertram) who is one of my bridesmaids, is getting married on December 1st and I cannot wait to don my beautiful blue gown to help her marry a wonderful man, and friend, Ben. The other exciting wedding news is Jessica Pike is also engaged to an amazing Ben! I am so happy for them and am pumped for August.

Life is wonderful, and weddings are a great reminder of the wonderful things in this crazy world.

Thanks to my family and friends for continuing to celebrate with us for the weeks past and the weeks to come.

Love from Chicago (or the middle of Indiana somewhere)!

Jess

October in Chicago

Dan and I are now going through the normal separation anxiety from the suburban life we used to lead. It takes forever (i mean forever) to get anywhere, including the grocery!  This means less done in more time, but besides this weekend, I have been handling it well.  Hopefully I can continue to handle it well :)

Life is busy here in Chicago.  Dan is working on finishing his thesis and racking up overtime so we can take our honeymoon.  I am going to school and working at the Chicago Opera Theater as their Education Intern.  School is ok, its school, but COT I love!  I get to go into the schools with their outreach programs and meet the coolest people.  Check out their blog here (cotoperaforall.blogspot.com) and I have even written a couple posts!

Last weekend we got tons of stuff done for the wedding (including picking out our wedding bands, yay!) and did fun things too.  Dan took me to stand outside for 2 hours to wait for hot dogs at a place called Hot Doug's.

The hot dogs and fries were good, but man was I cold!  We then went to Target, which made everything ok!

Sunday we cheered on the Chicago Marathoners for 2 hours!  It was just so much fun watching them go by and our neighborhood is so great and had music and dancers to entertain the runners as they went by.  I just didnt understand the magnitude of the Marathon here.  45ooo runners!  That is just a lot.

Of course the entire weekend wasnt fun, I did loose my hard drive on my iMac, so when I beg you for picture files I lost, be patient with me :)

We are looking forward to celebrating Dan's birthday this weekend with homework, thesis, apple picking, and bbq!  Should be a great weekend.

Maybe we will blog about it :)

Jess

Bad at Blogging?

So, the entire point of the blog was to share our experience of moving to Chicago.  We have been here for weeks, and have not made one blog post!  I believe that just shows everyone how much fun we have been having :)  I will work on getting a post up about our move and the tramatic week of getting used to the city (traumatic for me because change is hard, traumatic for Dan because change is hard for me).  We made it and are happy.  Dan's job is starting to get more exciting and I start school on Thursday and started an intership with the Chicago Opera Theater today. 

Stay tuned for the rest of the excitement (Red Bull's Flugtag is this weekend so that should be a blast!) and in the mean time, check out our updated wedding information.  Its so close!

-Jess

The Engagement Story

Jess got off of work early, around 4, on a Tuesday while Dan was home on spring break.  He suggested they go down to dinner at the Hofbrauhaus, which Jess immediately said yes to because she loves beer and food.  After work, Jess fell asleep for a while, Dan patiently waited.  They drove down to Newport and parked at the Hofbrauhaus.  Dan suggested they go for a walk across the Purple People Bridge because he wasn't hungry.  Again, Jess said yes immediately because she loves the Purple People Bridge.  Then Jess started thinking something was up, but Dan was acting so normal that she shrugged it off.  Jess talked and talked and walked and talked some more, until Dan grabbed her arm.  He told her he loved her and that he tried to think of something to get her on Tuesday that would be cooler than the things she got Sunday or Monday.  See, on Sunday, she got the new iPhone and Monday she got their new car.  Dan told Jess that he knew an engagement ring wouldn't top a car, so instead he decided to give her him, for the rest of her life.  Jess stared in amazement as Dan got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.  She said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,"  and pulled him up, put the ring on her finger and kissed him.  It was the perfect engagement, right in the middle of the Ohio river, in between the two states each of them call home. 

Exciting Happenings

So Jess and I have had an exciting couple of weeks.  Over my spring break, I was able to spend a whole week at home which was exciting, but that was only the beginning.  On Monday, we made the biggest purchase that either of us have made in our lives and bought a new car that we will take to share in Chicago.  We bought a 2012 Honda CR-V, and so far, we love it.

Here is Jess in our new car.









And here I am in the car.








The next day brought even more excitement.  I took Jessica across the Purple People Bridge and stopped halfway between Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati.  There I proposed to her, and to my great joy, she said yes!  We are very excited and have already been busy planning the wedding for December 29, 2012.

The happiness didn't end there, though, as we got to watch our Kentucky Wildcats bring home their 8th championship.  Go CATS!!!

We look forward to many more joyous occasions in the future (both in our lives and in UK basketball).

Food.

For those of you who know me, you know food has been a struggle for me all my life. About 2 years ago I lost 50 lbs and have been able to keep it off. That doesnt mean I dont still have my daily struggles with food. Recently it has been worse. I have fallen victim to snack foods, like my current obsession


Tabasco Cheez-its













and my favorite,





Mug-O-Cake. Aptly named by my mother for its ability to be microwaved in a mug at a moments notice. My moments just happen to be at 12:30am when I am not hungry in the least.






My struggle comes from balancing the desire to eat carby treats and what I really should. I have been looking around the internet for motivation, help, and advice but I find that there is really none available for 20-somethings. There is not great, balanced eating, realistic for me, advice for people my age. Lets be honest, i want to drink beer, eat cake, and enjoy food. Maybe I can find some new ideas for myself. Maybe others have ideas for me. Hopefully a little of both.

I hope everyone else is having a great night and making it through the beginning of spring with little stress.

<3
Jess

PS: 130 days!!

The next step?

It might be a new car!!

So we were going to wait to get a new car until we had, you know, at least one salary to our names, but this happened to my sister's car:


A FedEx truck's emergency brake went out and rolled down the hill from where that car is in the distance into her parked, non-crushed, car. Then it became a crushed, sad, most likely totaled car.









This incident moved up our car buying experience a little. So we spent the weekend looking for a new car! Not as fun as I had hoped, but still pretty exciting. We think we have decided on what we want, but still are waiting to find out if the car is actually totaled and therefore Emily needs a new car to drive until she leaves for school.

This weekend we also did exciting things like:



Homework on Friday night (and facebook :)) Oh the life of grad students!














We did have a little fun too. We got to sleep in, go to the last Illinois Hockey game of the season, and


eat Girl Scout Cookies!!!









It was a great weekend, but I cannot wait for the days when we are together most of the time. Anyone in a long distance relationship shares my feelings I am sure.

144 days!!

Valentines day from far away.

So I might one day get tired of coming up with rhyming titles and funny things to say, but i doubt it will be soon.

Our Valentines day was spent on Friday and Saturday because a weeknight date is never possible when you live 4 hours away from each other and have school and work to attend. The thing about being so far away from each other is that we really appriciate the times we get to spend together. Sitting down to a two hour dinner and ballet feels like we won the relationship lottery. 4 whole hours, just Dan and I, and no homework! That hasn't happened in a year.

The fun started Friday with gift opening. I got an adorable scarf from Urban Outfitters that has owls on it and Bedknobs and Broomsticks on DVD.


Dan got a Star Wars Lego Tie Fighter to build, which he wanted no help on. :)








The fun continued into Saturday when we went to McCormick and Schmicks for dinner and then walked across the very cold Fountain Square to watch the Cincinnati Ballet in Carmen. Nothing is better than sharing a good meal and a bottle of wine!



I was also surprised by 2 dozen roses at my door Saturday afternoon while I was getting ready. They still look pretty good.















All in all it was a fun, short, and great weekend. There was a lot of homework on Sunday (Dan), a lot of whining about homework (me), and a lot of snuggling with our favorite crazy cat.





May, shes a great study buddy :)













We hope everyone else had a great weekend and Valentines celebration.

Jess

Our Move!

It's true, Dan is so awesome that he got a job in Chicago before he even graduates from school. This means, we are already starting to plan our move for July/August. This is mostly because I like planning way too much, and because it is fun to look at apartments.

This is going to be an amazing experience, thanks for joining us on the journey. Stay tuned for fun things like apartment hunting, moving all of our stuff, and photos from all along the way!