Easter

Though my last Easter will be hard to beat (5 day weekend exploring Rome with Katie!) it was nice to spend a 3 day weekend up in Lake Geneva with my parents, Kelly, and 2 of her good friends.

My mom definitely out did herself with a fabulous Easter brunch...including hot crossed buns (an Easter tradition in our house). And my dad humored us "children" by expertly hiding eggs around in our yard and some of our neighbor's yards...so expertly hidden that some are still at large! In case you were wondering, I won the hunt!

I'd have to say that one of the highlights of the weekend was the carrot cake my mom made...delicious and so creative!

St Patrick's....Chicago style

St Patrick's Day is a really big event for Chicago - it's featured in the movie The Fugitive for those who aren't familiar. Though I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, I'd never actually attended the famous Chicago River dying. The bad joke in Chicago is "If they can dye the river green on St. Pattie's, why can't they dye it blue the rest of the year?"

After filling up on green pancakes and mimosas, Jenny, Heidi, Matt, and I headed down to the river decked out in various shades of green. We hopped up on a bridge to try and get a glimpse of the river - it was completely packed, as you can somewhat tell from the picture below.
There were several guys in mini kayaks doing tricks to entertain - which was crazy for three reasons: the river is cold and they were getting soaked....the river is dirty...and the river was green! Not sure how long these guys were leprechauns for before they were able to was off all the dye.
I couldn't get a great shot of how they dye the river, but thankfully there are plenty of sources on the Internet. Basically they've got small boats that dump the dye, then come back and circle around to mix it up.

And then it was off to more festivities around the city....Erin Go Bragh!!

Back to Blogging

Yep...I'm back! Why was I MIA for so long? Well, I wish I had a cool and exciting reason - like I was on a cruise down to Antarctica to see the penguins or I was backpacking around South America en route to Machu Picchu and didn't have internet access - but I don't.

Basically, March and April were just hard months of adjustment for me. Adjusting to life back in the US (sure, I've been back since December, but the first few months were a whirlwind), adjusting the my new job, trying to build a network of friends (and having little patience in the process), and just overall being in a "funk" because I didn't really expect this transition to be this hard.

But, it was and is, and while I've fought it a lot, I know that it has helped me to grow. And while I would like to say that I have fully adopted Paul's mantra of "I have learned to be content in all circumstances" (Phil 4:11), I can't say I'm quite there yet, though I am a little further down that road.

So here's to embracing the next chapter of my life....looking forward to seeing what is in store! But first...an update on what I've been up to the past few months.....