iowa wedding

We have returned from Iowa!

Nate and Andrea are married and a great time was had by all, but we were sure exhausted when we returned home this afternoon. 

Quite the trip.

Ben and I left Milwaukee on Friday morning with only a 4.5 hour drive to make down to Iowa City.

However, that trip was lengthened slightly when we noticed a progressive rumbling/shaking developing in the car...turns out it was a flat tire 12 miles from Madison (45 minutes into the trip). 

Something must have pierced the side of the tire.

Ben handily put the spare on and we made our way to a tire shop in Madison. 

Luckily, we were back on the road an hour later. 

That could have been so much worse.

We spent Friday evening and Saturday morning wandering around Iowa City, a lovely college town. 

On Saturday afternoon we drove over to Nate's farm near the Kalona, IA area for the wedding.

It was a gorgeous August day for an outside wedding. 

Great food, dancing, and company.

Looks like that's the last extended trip that we'll be taking for a little while.
Time to refocus on this semester.
I am bracing myself for the amount of work ahead.

Here's the start of my supervision piece.
We'll see where it ends up.

birthday!

27th birthday!

The day of my birthday was pretty typical...kind of boring and not that much fun at internship. 

But the evening was a winner. 

We ate some of the most amazing ethnic food I have EVER eaten: ETHIOPIAN. 

It tasted very similar to Indian food, but had its own unique twist. 

I'll be dreaming about that meal for awhile. 

And then because it FINALLY cooled off here in Milwaukee we went back to Tosa for some Colectivo coffee (decaf for this highly sensitive lady) while we sat in the squishy love seat in the "almost outside" (they have a garage door that they open when the weather is lovely). 

I just completed my first week of fall classes. 

Going to be a really interesting, really busy semester: Family Systems, Assessment/Clinical Skills, Supervision, and Multicultural Art Therapy. 

I was also just reminded that I'm in my last counseling class! 

Only art therapy department classes this spring! So happy.

It's also kind of blowing my mind that I only have one more semester to go after this one.

WOAH!

I also got my internship hours rolling again. 

Rehab group, cancer support group, and then I had some really great one-on-one sessions to finish off August. 

I'll be heading back to the 12th floor and starting at the infusion clinic next week.

Didn't want to go this week because I'm a touch under the weather. 

Weird postnasal drip/throat tickle/allergies? 

Just can never be sure, so it's best to stay off the unit. 

Our good friend Kelly from Chicago came to visit during that in-between point where I turned in my research proposal and started of fall classes. 

Perfect timing. 

And tomorrow we're headed to Iowa City!

Longtime Bethel friend Nate is getting married near Kalona on Saturday. 

Happy to see friends...

Also happy that it will be the last trip for a little while...

Sometimes it's just good to stay in one place. 

Happy Labor Day weekend!

to kansas, chicago, and back

Royals game with Justine (and more friends)

I am SOOOO happy to be home!

We have had quite the adventure, and I'm reminded why it's a good idea to do absolutely nothing sometimes. 

On Sunday I finished my 3 day research class, which we spent workshopping our research proposals.

That SAME DAY we left for Des Moines and stayed with Paula and Tom. 

On Monday we drove to Kansas City for my first taste of Oklahoma Joe's burnt end sandwich. Amazing! Then we watched the Royals move into first place over at Kauffman Stadium with a bunch of friends. (This was all part of Ben's birthday extravaganza.) We stayed in Lawrence for the evening.

On Tuesday we officially said happy birthday to Benjamin and hung out in Lawrence for most of the day. But we weren't done yet! Off to McPherson we went...and I actually kept moving down to Wichita to have a lovely supper with Kezia.

I spent most of Wednesday in the pool at Dorothy and Keith's (woooo!) walking around the shallow end while reading and highlighting journal articles (barf). That evening we drove to Reba's in Newton to have drinks and talk with some great mentors and friends within our particular fields (a fellow educator and an art therapist). 

On Thursday we met with Kim and Joel for lunch back in Newton, wandered around the freshly renovated Fine Arts Center at Bethel and found a few beloved professors. This was followed by a big Harder/Stucky family meal. 

And as you can tell, these days went by WAY to quickly...

...which left us back on the road Friday morning. We just drove back to Des Moines for the evening and watched our niece and nephew (who happen to be dogs) while Tom and Paula were vacationing in California. 

THEN DOROTHY AND EMILY CAME TO VISIT MILWAUKEE on Saturday!

We showed them around...which happens to center around all of the best food we can think of. 

Then on Monday we took the awesomely quick train down to Chicago to move Emily into her home at The Chicago Center for the semester.

We're pretty happy that she's so close.

Then Ben and I returned to MKE this afternoon (Tuesday)...

so I could quickly make edits to my paper and attend a research editing group that I've been working with BECAUSE MY RESEARCH PROPOSAL IS DUE ON FRIDAY. 

And now after writing this all down...I can better understand why I'm so tired. 

What an amazing week...but now is time for research proposal completion and 

DOING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

If you don't hear from me....you know why. 

View of Lake Michigan from Hyde Park

Dropping Emily off at her new home for the semester.

the porch

Hey all.

Here's that picture of the backyard porch at our friends' home out in rural Wisconsin. 

This is where we partially celebrated our wedding anniversary with our lovely McCabe-Juhnke friends. 

It was a treat to have a cup of coffee out there during the cool mornings.

It overlooked a huge lake/marsh that we kayaked on. 

So lovely. 

I hope I can have a big lovely porch like that someday...even if it isn't attached to a huge mansion-like farm house. 

And below is a paper coffee cup with a view. 

I made it last weekend.

My paper and annotations are coming along...but I better keep at it.

Going to be a busy week!