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.