Chicago Shooks' Update

There is much to come in the near future for the Chicago Shooks but little that has changed in the recent past.  The biggest news that has past might be that Andrew has moved to day shifts two times a week.  Those shifts run from 6:30 in the morning to just after routing finishes at 4 pm (he works 4 10-hour shifts a week).  That has allowed us to spend more time together in the evenings which is a plus.  Andrew's evening shifts plus Katie's regular shifts meant we were seeing each other for a few minutes each day for several day stretches.  He still has at least one evening shift, usually a weekend day, a week, but the improvement is a welcome change!

As far as travels, we have gone on two quick trips since visiting everyone in Kansas at Christmas.  We had a Cornell friend who was married in January.  At first a winter wedding seemed like a questionable proposition, until we were informed it was a January wedding in San Diego!  Then it became a can't miss event!  We traveled with two close friends who also live in Chicago and made a long weekend out of it.  Then in February, we traveled to North Carolina to visit Katie's grandparents in Winston-Salem.  We even made a trip one day to Raleigh for lunch with Andrew's friend Ian and his wife Elizabeth.  They are moving to Twentynine Palms, California where Ian will remain in the Marines as a trainer.  On top of that, they're expecting their first baby in June!  Katie's grandparents are have settled into a new single-family house on the campus of a retirement facility and are awaiting the sale of their house.

Back in Chicago, we survived winter's biggest punch at the beginning of February when a blizzard dropped over 1 1/2 feet of snow.  It has warmed recently and topped 70 yesterday but now we return to lower 40s/upper 30s for a while.

We're looking forward at an exciting spring.  First on our calendar is a trip to the Dominican Republic as chaperones for our youth group at Church.  We will be spending a week in Gaspar Hernandez and surrounding villages helping to construct a community center, work with children, and hopefully spend some time on a beach.  It's an annual trip that the church's high school youth group takes so some of the high schoolers go multiple times.  We're excited to have been asked to join as chaperones and it will be great to see the impact on the community up close even though we hear about it each year.

Additionally, our lease is up at our current townhouse at the end of July and we're ready to stop moving every year or two.  Therefore, we're looking to buy a house in the next few months and have started working with an agent on that process.  We're focusing on inner ring suburbs that are close to Katie's family but also close to the city.  Obviously this is a new experience for each of us but we're excited about the process!

That just about brings everyone up to date on our lives.  Hope everything is going well for everyone near and far!

A couple recent pictures:

The Blizzard!

January trip to Southern California

Dinner in Winston-Salem