Fall 2017

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. We hadn't done much and then school started up again and I was so focused on my thesis novel and other schoolwork that I didn't give any thought to the blog. August passed by in somewhat of a blur, and since we had no more money after our busy summer, we didn't do much other than watch anything we could think of on Netflix and AmazonPrime. We did, however, go check out the Chicago Air and Water show and got a little sunburned.

After so many years of living here and skating up to the lagoons, we finally went canoeing there over Labor Day weekend. I haven't been in years, but I ended up being the one giving Lawrence a lesson on how to paddle. I also discovered how weak I am in the arms. We were out there for less than an hour and my arms were exhausted.

We went apple picking again, because we can and we like apples. We had lunch at the homestyle restaurant at the orchard before we picked apples, and then it poured rain on us through the entirety of our apple picking, but it was kind of fun. We ate as many as we could before they started to turn and then I turned them into bourbon applesauce in our slow cooker.

I did end up getting a pretty bad head cold on the way home from the orchard, but when it finally cleared up like 2 weeks later, some friends of ours had a tiny baby that we got to meet and snuggle for a bit. She is honestly the smallest baby I've ever seen, not quite 7lbs when she was born. I guess everyone I know just makes big babies.

I got promoted to Branch Manager at my office because my coworker (and former manager) moved to Paris, France. So I got to transition to being the boss and experience hiring someone. I did find someone and she's working out well. Also, the uptick in funds is big plus--it's given us the freedom to finally buy a new mattress. We had been on a crappy IKEA full-size mattress, and upgraded to a much nicer queen-size (it's actually kind of amazing what an extra six inches of space can do for you.)

I managed to finish my thesis novel--all 325 pages of it--before the submission due date, which was the day after Halloween. So we didn't do anything really for Halloween other than attend a church party for an hour or so. But it was like a huge weight lifted off me to get the thesis done and turned in. It's not all that helpful that I still have a few weeks of classes and other assignments though, because now I have no motivation to do them, but Graduation is coming, just around the corner now, another month or so and I will officially have a Master's degree.

In celebration, I bought myself a fancy new camera, one that I've been wanting for a decade--a Canon Rebel EOS. It's pretty nifty, and we've had fun playing around with it.

Thanksgiving was quiet and relaxing. It was just us two at home, I made a decent spread complete with a turkey breast, candied yams, stuffing and green bean casserole. I didn't cook the whole rest of the 4 day weekend and it took us over a week to eat all the Turkey Day leftovers. We had to go on several walks over the weekend to dislodge all the food sitting in our guts.


We went out that Saturday with some friends and their toddler to a neighborhood tree lighting and we picked up another little tree. So now Autumn is heading behind us and we are barreling into winter, from the end of one chapter and into another!

P.S!!!! I have decided to change our Blog website, as I prefer the interface of a different website as opposed to this one, so be on the lookout for that!

July 2017

July was a pretty explosive month for us--pun well and full intended. We finished up our summer travels by heading out to Wyoming to see the Galloways. We left at the end of June, actually, two days after the Calverts flew back to England. So it was sort of one family straight to another.

We landed in Utah kind of late and still had to get our rental. It was a budget rental place so it is off the Airport property and we had to get a shuttle, first we got on the wrong shuttle so then we had to get back to the airport and get the right shuttle to our rental place before it closed at midnight. We managed it; we got a Chevy Cruze; the first time we've been given a sedan even thought that's what I always book.

We still had to drive down to stay with our friend Jess from camp at her house just west of Salt Lake and didn't get there until about 1:30am, so grateful she waited up for us and had her guest room already for us. She gave Lawrence a trim the next morning and we were on our way after stopping by Barnes and Noble to pick up my youngest brother a birthday gift. After a relaxing 4-hour drive, we rolled into Star Valley and to my grandparents' house, where Lawrence met a few new (to him) members of the Galloway clan.

My teen sisters and brother were taking some of our cousins to go jump off a bridge--it's a thing Star Valley kids do (small town life), into an incredibly cold winter. So Lawrence and I suited up and took my youngest brother and joined them. I couldn't bring myself to get in the water. It was really very cold, still being fed by snow on the mountains. But Lawrence did it, two or three times.

The next day, Harrison and my mom asked if we wanted to go on a hike up to the star on the mountain. It was early, but we went. It was cold, Lawrence had to borrow a sweater from my sister, and we had some difficulty catching our breath given the altitude, but it was a lovely view from the top. The town was putting on a little street fair so we took a stroll around and ended up in the music store playing around on the instruments before we headed to the Red Baron Drive In for lunch, where the rest of Galloways were eating lunch (my mom is a prep cook there, so she was working).

Afterward was the annual Galloway cannon shoot up a canyon in the mountains. It was the first time Lawrence has ever seen the cannon, and met most of my cousins, aunts and uncles. Lawrence got to aim and light the cannon. He thought it was great, even though he missed the target watermelon, but he's now been initiated into the Galloway family I guess. It only took about 7 years.

My uncle Dan traditionally does a Dutch oven dinner with chicken and potatoes. He also made this killer chocolate dessert that could basically be only eaten in tiny spoonfuls because it was really rich. We had our fill and that night the town did fireworks, which we watched from my parents' roof.

The next day my brother Anthony and his wife Rachel came down from Idaho to spend the day with the family. My mom made BBQ ribs and steak and we played some games and took a little family hike up to the spring, as you do when you got to Afton.

The next day, we took Harrison and Rylee to Yellowstone. Rylee and I hadn't been in years, Lawrence and Harrison had never been. (I used to get quite car sick, so when my family would go, I would opt to stay home with Harrison, who was a baby at the time). It's about a three hour drive from Afton. Harrison was very excited, because he's pretty much a David Attenborough in the making. We had a fun day, especially everyone else since I ripped my pants twenty minutes into the park and they were laughing as more and more of my bottom was exposed through the day until I remembered we had sweaters in the trunk of the car. So I went from an idiot with my bum hanging out to one wearing a sweater around her waist in 85(40c) degree weather.

It was a beautiful and successful trip--the park is so big and isolated that there's no cell-service so none of us could get connected to the outside world, a little to the chagrin of the teenager in the group. We saw Old Faithful, some bison, antelope and elk, as well as smelly blue holes of acid and bubbling mud puddles.

Lawrence had bought some fireworks so when we got back into town that night, we lit them off with my brothers.

The next day we went out in the hills to go shooting. My little sister Nicole had gone to Nevada to stay with cousins, so we took out her little Jeep wrangler without doors or roof and had a blast with the wind whipping our hair and dust in our teeth. Lawrence (and I) got to brush up on his manual-shift driving skills. Mom packed us some sandwiches, we shot at cans and bottles and obliterated a microwave, good ol' Wyoming fun in the sun.

For a few years, my parents have wanted to take the two of us out to Jackson Hole to see the Bar J Wranglers show, so we finally got it done. It's a neat little place, set up like an old-fashioned chuckwagon dinner show. They sing country-western style songs and banter with each other. They ended it a little early because it was July 4th so they wanted everyone to be able to go watch fireworks.

We left early the next morning to catch a flight back to the hustle and bustle of Chicago and already missed the relaxed rural atmosphere before we even touched down in O'Hare. But it was back to city life and basically just being poor since I've had to start paying tuition for my last semester.

But we did get in one more big summer event in July. We got to go see Paul McCartney live in concert! We heard the advertisements on the radio for the concert and joked about going to it, thinking we'd never be able to afford tickets, but they actually weren't too bad if we sat on the lawn at the Hollywood Casino Ampitheater in Tinley Park, so we got them. It was in the middle of the week, but we decided it would be worth it since it's Paul McCartney, and all in all it was great. While Mr. MrCartney is 75 and his voice is a little weak at times now, his instrumental skills are still on par.

June 2017

June is set to pretty much always be a busy month for us, given it's the month in which both our birthdays and our anniversary fall. My birthday starts out the month, I think I am now officially in my late twenties: 27. Or can that still be counted as mid-twenties? Anyway, we did so much while my friend Stephanie was in town (she only left the day before my birthday), that we just stayed in. Lawrence brought home cupcakes, and there was still quite a bit of rum cake left.


A few months ago, Lawrence's coworker was selling a solid-wood desk for
cheap, so Lawrence picked it up and brought it home. It wasn't the most attractive piece of furniture, but I saw its potential. It's been in our place for months, and I finally had the time to re-finish it. It took about two days, and Lawrence kept trying to help and getting in the way, but ended up having a weekend out with "the boys" so I could finish it unencumbered. It turned out quite nice and I'm pretty proud of it. I hope this means I'll be more productive on my writing.

The Calverts arrived on the 13th, and they came to see our apartment before we all took a walk along the lake down to the neighborhood Giordano's for deep dish pizza. The next day was our anniversary and we just ordered delivery from a seafood restaurant in the neighborhood, we were intending to go out and have tapas, but it was raining so we were lazy and stayed in. Lawrence took the next day off from work and met up with his family. I met them after work and we all took a riverboat tour of Chicago before I took them to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Fed and watered, we strolled down to Millennium Park and sat on the lawn for a free concert.

Lawrence and i both took the next Friday and Monday off to go up near the Dells with the rest of the family. It was quite an enjoyable, quiet weekend away from the city, surrounded by woods. We had a big thunder storm the first night there. The next day we took some time to go around the area and see what there was. Lawrence I brought back some fireworks, and then we took Matthew and Tatiana  to a firework stand down the road and picked up even more. We built a fire and roasted marshmallows, and I introduced them all to good ol' American s'mores. They were a win that ended with fireflies and fireworks.

We took the next couple of days to explore the town of the Dells, took yet another riverboat tour and explored the Witches Gultch and the leaping German shepherd. We saw the upside-down white house and had giant burgers. We enjoyed sun and rain and fresh air before the two of us had to return back to the city to finish out the work week until we could meet up again in Appleton to visit the Seidls as well.  It was a short weekend in Appleton, but we got in a trip to the mall and a visit to the races.

All of us Calverts were back in Chicago on Sunday night and Lawrence and I back at work on Monday before having dinner downtown at a Brazilian restaurant all together and a nightcap at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was then farewell to the England Calverts.

Lawrence's birthday followed immediately after, and we had a lemon cake and another night in, since we were due to head out West within the next few days. So Farewell to June!

May 2017

We're already halfway through 2017 now!
May has finally brought with it some spring-like temperatures. I wrapped up the semester in the first couple of weeks with a reading at a book store with my classmates and a night out with them after. We've been enjoying more time together each night as I don't have classes for the next four months. We've taken more time to rollerblade, and catch up on TV shows we've been wanting to watch. Also we've just generally been taking it a bit easier since it's going to be a pretty busy first half of the summer.

If you hadn't seen on Facebook yet, Lawrence got his hair cut. We went to a little
barbershop in Evanston on a rainy day. Lawrence was fed up with the hassle of having long hair and it met the minimum length requirement for donation. (We have yet to send it off, so it's just sitting in a bag looking like a toupee at the moment). So it's almost all been taken off. It was kind of a shocking, drastic change, and now Lawrence can feel the air around his ears and takes about five minutes less in the bathroom in the morning now.

We debuted the new 'do at a cheese party hosted by our friends the Busbys later that night. We met a few other couples from our neighborhood and enjoyed fancy cheese and fruit and social time--we don't get out much. I guess it happens with couples and adults, we all just get comfortable just sitting at home in pajamas and forget about enjoying the company of others.

The next week my good friend and former roommate (also one of my bridesmaids) came out to Chicago for a few days to visit. We went and saw the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and made a rum cake. We went out to a BBQ festival in one of the suburbs and enjoyed ribs and a funnel cake (Lawrence's first one!)

We took her downtown to see the sights, including a river boat tour. It was Memorial Day the day we all went downtown together, so a lot of stuff was closed, unfortunately, but she and I went back down the next day since I got an extra day off. She and I went to the aquarium. It's kind of an expensive place, but it's cool.(I have learned that Chicago is not really all that budget-tourist friendly if you want to do the touristy things like take any bus/boat tours. Even the museums are over $30 a person, and that's with a student discount!)

We also took her up to Kenosha, Wisconsin to visit the Mars Cheese Castle because what else do you do in Wisconsin? All in all, it was a good trip. It's always refreshing to see your residential city from the eyes of a tourist. Also we love Stephanie, because she's great!

The end of May came quickly and now we say hello to the second half of the year!

April 2017

Hello! It's May, and We're here to talk about April! The semester just ended this past week so I was a little to wrapped up with school to get the monthly blog post out. And it's still pretty chilly here in the Windy City. We had a pretty mild winter (though Lawrence would probably say it got too cold, which is true, we had some sub-arctic temperatures for a couple of weeks), we didn't get too many snow storms and we had quite a bit of sun despite the frigid temperatures, and then by January and February it started warming up again. But now it's like February and March temperatures just don't want to leave.

But the trees have finally blossomed!

That aside, we've tried our best to get back outside and enjoy the fresh air. We returned to the Lincoln Park Zoo and spent a little more time wandering around looking at the animals. We went earlier in the day and many of the animals were rather active, having just been fed or about to be fed.

We also broke out the roller-blades again for the season and we managed to go out on them a couple

weeks in a row before the temperatures fell again. We--ok, mostly me--will take a bit before being able to do 10-miles like we did by the end of last year, but it's been lovely to be able to get out in the sun and sweat again, seasonal allergies aside.

The school year began to wind down in April, much to both my dismay and relief--the end of the semester usually brings the stress of large final assignments.

We had a little Easter fun, dyed some eggs and got tulips and little Easter baskets. Then we had a ham and cheesy funeral potatoes (they're just called funeral potatoes in the Rocky Mountain West), which we shared with another family who'd had a baby that week.

Lawrence completed a painting he's been working on for nigh on a year. And also, Lawrence has now been in America for a full year! Yay for arbitrary anniversaries! We celebrated by... Shanelle working on her final paper and then we watched TV.

Here's to the summer warming up, and for all the friends and family we'll be seeing in the next few months.

March 2017

Spring has finally arrived in Chicago. Kind of. We had one more big blizzard that was pretty terrific. I It was like trying to walk through ice needles. A few of the trees have started budding and allergy season is kicking in.

St. Patrick's cake

St. Patrick's day came, cut it was kind of a cold, drizzly day so we didn't go downtown to see the river this year. Maybe next year. I did, however, make a Bailey's chocolate cake complete with green frosting.


We went to the theater to see the movie Logan, taking advantage of the $5 Tuesday deal at the Cinemark in Evanston. It was a heart-moving (and rather violent) film certainly not intended for children. But it was a different kind of superhero movie.

I've been making headway on my thesis novel, and Lawrence has started a new painting. We've gotten new plants for the apartment. And of course, the clock my family made for us finally arrived. It's beautiful, and very very large. We had intended to prop it in our chair in the living room, but it's too big. It now makes our TV (which is in no way small) look small. It was a little fractured in places from the journey, so we had to do some quick DIY with wood glue and clamps and it's almost as good as new. It mostly just stayed propped up on the corner until we move to a bigger place. For now, it's on the ground and still visible enough to let us know how much time we're wasting watching TV.

Welcome 2017

Sorry for skipping January, there's no reason other than I was just being lazy and we didn't actually do that much. It was mostly just kind of cold. We had a quite New Year's since we had a pretty Christmas. We had a couple warmer days and took one to walk down to the lake to check out the lake ice. It was kind of cool, the ice creaked, and created a shelf on the beach.

We did go to a concert toward the end of January. I got Lawrence the tickets for Christmas, It was for the band Devil Makes Three. They're a kind of bluegrass/rock kind of band. We went out for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (my coworker had given me a gift card there for Christmas) downtown and then went to the Riviera Theater for the concert. The theater is cool, it's old and and has cool ceiling murals. We sat up in the balcony area (because I hate being in the pit with the drunken peasants), probably got some secondhand marijuana high, and enjoyed the music.

February wasn't much different, just school and work as usual. I went to DC for a writer's conference and stayed with my uncle there over a weekend, so Lawrence got a few days with the apartment to himself.

Valentine's day was another night in with steak and chocolate. I'm not much of a Valentine's day celebrator, and it was the middle of the week.

February got really quite enjoyable warm for a couple of days. We attempted to get to the zoo one day, but we left it kind of late and it was starting to cool down by the time we got there and the zoo closed about 45 minutes after our arrival. But we did see the baby camel Alexander Camelton. We'll go back when the weather warms up more and get there before 4 in the afternoon.

Time is moving toward spring here, and we don't have much else to say, this is a short one!