Anniversaries and Reunions and Robots

Cary Anne and I have now lived in Chicago for over a year.

It's weird to think back on our life in Lexington, wondering what it would be like here and if we'd be able to survive on our own. Making the decision to come here was easily the most exhilarating and terrifying decision Cary Anne and I have ever made as a couple, and has been extremely rewarding. There were certainly low moments, including weeks of unemployment and battles with a bed bug infestation (just to name a couple), but there have also been incredible highs. God has provided us with good jobs, He has given us the opportunity to pursue our passions, and He has brought us into a church that has truly become our Chicago family. Without a doubt, moving here was risky, but it was mine and CA's first real step in becoming our own family, in leaving our parents behind and holding tight to one another. The past year has definitely been the most rewarding time in our relationship.

But that's not our only recent anniversary. Last month, Cary Anne and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary. It was a relatively low key celebration, which consisted of us having dinner at a nice restaurant in Andersonville, then grabbing a movie from Redbox. (We're clearly a very exciting couple.) That night, we also built our 1st fire in our new fireplace. We've become gatherers in that every time we walk home from somewhere, we often collect sticks we find on the ground along the way to use as firewood. We are loving our new place, and it's starting to come together nicely it terms of decorating and organizing.

Fall here in Chicago has also been great because over the past several weeks I've have the opportunity to reunite with several old friends. Last month, my friend Rose, who served as a leader with me in the Christian organization at Pace U during my time in New York, came to town for six weeks as part her medical school residency. She stayed at a swanky hotel downtown and spent time serving in a south side hospital, but luckily there was time in her schedule to occasionally grab a burger with Cary Anne and I and explore the city a bit. It was great catching up with her considering before last month I hadn't seen her in over 3 years. Before she left, we promised to get together again before we're 30.

Then, just a couple of weeks ago, I got to spend a little time with some old high school theater friends of mine. Jesse and Casey recently moved to the city, and our friend Sean decided to come up for a week to check things out since he's planning on moving here next summer. So late one night, I met them all at a bar down in Lincoln Square. Like with Rose, before this, I hadn't seen them in years, so it was great to reunite and reminisce. Hopefully, now that we're all in the same city (or soon to be, in Sean's case) there won't be years between visits anymore.

Halloween was also a fun time here in the city. Our church, Community Edgewater, decided to volunteer with the 48th Ward's annual Halloween Festival. Some people painted faces, some people led games, and then some of us wrote and performed short children's plays. It was a bit hectic and unorganized considering there seemed to be little infastructure. In fact, we didn't even see the space we would be performing in until about half an hour before the show started, and when it was time to start, we basically just hopped on stage and started talking, with no cue from any sort of official organizer. But overall, it went as well as could be expected. The kids seemed to have a good time and I even got to wear a giant cardboard robot suit.

Now we're starting to ease into the holiday season and Cary Anne is already busy making sketches of how she wants to decorate, and the girls are talking about us dressing in matching outfits and sending out a Christmas card. Maybe this whole living in community thing was a bad idea...

A Mile High Get Away

If you follow this blog with an regularity, you may remember that Cary Anne's brother got engaged to his girlfriend on a year, Makenzie, shortly after CA and I moved to Chicago, and just a couple of weeks ago, it came time for us to fly out to Denver for the actual wedding. Our friend Ben drove us to the airport, and he brought along with him a mix CD he apparently used to use to get pumped during his 45-minute drive to Six Flags when he used to work there a few years ago. Surprisingly, it was largely U2, Coldplay, and show tunes. He cringed when a Gin Blossoms came on, but CA and I just laughed and proceeded to sing along. Our flight to Denver was pretty uneventful, except that we sat next to an old woman with a dog under her seat, and I kept trying to get Cary Anne to let the things loose mid-flight. She refused. CA's parents picked us up in Denver, and took us to the hotel. It was nice to see them considering we hadn't since they visited Lexington back in May of last year. The drive was a bit bizarre, coming from a metropolis like Chicago and being transported to a place where flat land stretches for miles until the mountains rise up to meet the sky. 

Cary Anne was actually in the wedding so when she was involved in wedding activities, I was often running on the treadmill at the hotel. Therefore, I let her give you the run down on the actual rehearsal and wedding itself (since it was her brother and because she rarely contributes to “our” blog)...

"I was incredibly blessed to be asked to be Makenzie's bridesmaid, which came with additional responsibilities (unbeknownst to me at the time of acceptance) such as lip-syncing a song and dance organized by Aunt Summer at the rehearsal dinner, which naturally turned my brother the most flattering shade of red you've ever seen on a man his age/size. After we were all rehearsed and ready for the impending ceremony, I was able to sit and hang out with family and friends from Virginia and just reminisce about our time together there (I haven't been back since I got married almost 2 years ago).

The ceremony was gorgeous. I don't think you could've asked for more perfect weather or flowers or venue… We were up in the mountains on a deck that overlooked the valley. It was beautiful during the ceremony and after when the sun went down and you could see all the lights. Makenzie didn't want the bridesmaids to match (other than in color scheme) so I made the mistake of  decided to make my own dress. Needless to say, the weeks prior to the wedding were full of sewing and avoiding sewing and nervousness that the dress would look awful and wouldn't match… but it all worked out fine and I was fully clothed walking down the aisle and I have to say we bridesmaids looked pretty good together. The reception was fun and I danced my heart out, which didn't take much, the thin air up there is no joke!

  

It was a fantastic wedding and I can't believe my brother is MARRIED and I HAVE A SISTER! (can you tell I'm still super pumped about it?)"

The day after the wedding, Cary Anne and I had the chance to meet up with my friends Hunter and Ashley. I lived in a beach-side hotel with Hunter and Ashley back in the summer of 2006, when we were all part of a Campus Crusade summer project. Hunter and I were accountability partners, and we would often spend afternoons at In-N-Out, eating burgers and talking about Jesus and girls. In 2008, CA and I went to H&A's wedding in Kansas City, but we hadn't seen them since, so it was great catching up. We were actually crashing the 1st birthday of their daughter, Lily, who apparently had no interest in taking part in our photo. 

That evening we caught a flight back to Chicago with Cary Anne's parents since they had were planning on visiting for a few days and learning about our lives in the Windy City. But more on that in our next post...


Meanwhile, enjoy our 5 seconds-a-day from June...

Minor Holidays

Life has been busy here in Chicago lately, and our diligence (aka- my diligence) in updating this blog has clearly fallen to the wayside. What have we been doing? Well, let me share...

About a week and a half ago was Pi Day. For those of you who passed Algebra 2 in high school by cheating off the nearest Asian kid, Pi is 3.14, so March 14th is reserved to celebrate all thing Pi. To be honest, I don't even like math. (You know how many math classes it takes to get an English degree? One. And not even a hard one. My midterm for the class was writing a paper about examples of math in "The Simpsons." Seriously.) Also, I really don't even know that much about pi. (It has something to do with circles, right?) I just use Pi Day as an excuse to eat lots of pie. (I'm like those jerks who think Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Santa Claus.) It all started back in 2007, when I literally went door-to-door unannounced to my friend's houses, offering them free pie. Over the past couple of years, the celebration has died down a bit, so this year I decided to invite some people to our apartment for pie. Around 8pm, our tiny studio was cramped with about 8 people, half of whom were sitting on the floor because we don't have any chairs. Though it was a little uncomfortable, people are willing to endure a little discomfort for free pie.

After that, on Friday, I went on a prayer walk with our church. One of the exciting things that will be happening soon here in Chicago is the development of our community garden. Apparently, last year CCC Edgewater joined up with some people already doing some community gardening here, but this year an additional abandoned lot is being converted to vegetable plots. So we spent some time walking around the lot and the surrounding neighborhood, asking for God's guidance and blessing. Then, like the good Chicagoans we are, we all went and ate lots of pizza.

Cary Anne has been super busy lately. The show she's been volunteering with recently opened, so her life has become consumed by her 9-to-5 job then a full evening of rehearsal/shows, which means she usually doesn't get home until after 11:30pm. The night before St. Patrick's Day, she walked in after midnight and found me on the phone. Our friend Alexandria from college had recently written me a one sentence message on Facebook that simply said, "I'm in Chicago." 

Who are you talking to?" CA asked.

"Listen to this. Al's in Wrigleyville!"

"What the [expletive]?!" Cary Anne yelled, throwing her keys to the floor.

That's how we ended up at a tiny Mexican joint in Wrigleyville, eating overpriced nachos at 1am. At first, we had tried a bar, but the revelry of St. Paddy's day was already in full swing and we could barely hear each other over the screams of half drunk girls singing slurred renditions of the Backstreet Boys song streaming from the PA. The reunion with Al was great since we hadn't seen her since Christmas, and even then our time was fleeting. She told us all about her recent Spring Break trip to Portland, and we told her about our life in Chicago. Then we wandered the streets, took pictures, and said things like, "I'm gonna tweet this shit."

The next day, I had another reunion. My friend Hannah, whom I've known since middle school but hadn't seen in over a year and a half, was in town for St. Patrick's Day. Earlier, she had texted me to ask if we could grab lunch. Of course I said yes, and I went a step further and invited our friend Dan along. Hannah and I know Dan because we were all involved in theater in high school, but Hannah hadn't seen Dan in probably 7 years. I had dinner with Dan when I came apartment shopping for CA and I back in October, but before then I hadn't seen him in probably 6 years (and hadn't seen him since). I made the mistake of saying we should meet at a diner in Wrigleyville because it was a good mid-point, not realizing a street lined with bars on St. Paddy's is a recipe for disaster. The streets were swarming with every type of person I had ever met and hated during my college years, and to make matters worse Hannah got confused and got off at the wrong train stop. However, once we all arrived in the same place, we had a good time catching up and reminiscing. Hopefully it won't be years before I see those guys again.

And hopefully it won't be too long before I update this blog again.
Wish me luck.