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It's been quite a busy spring, but especially the last couple of weeks. Let's see if I can cover the highlights of the last 4ish months.
Katie's birthday gift in January was tickets to see Phantom of the Opera during it's tour stop in Chicago. While she was approaching a second hand on number of times seeing it, this was my first experience. It certainly lived up to its billing! In February, we attended the Chicago Auto Show which was a lot of fun. Every dealer you can think of is there and you can sit in most of the cars. The Bugattis and McClarens were only viewable from a distance unfortunately. A trip to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Field Museum, and a Blackhawks (NHL) game rounded out the rest of winter. In a quick list it sounds like we did a lot but that was spread over 10 weeks or so. The rest of the time we were huddling in our apartment with the heat on high!
This winter has been one of the worst in decades. We set top 5 marks for average temperature and most snow. There were multiple days where the high was below zero and multiple days where the snowfall totals were in double digits. It felt like every weekend usually had a snowstorm that beat estimates by at least 3 inches. Our gas bill was quite expensive, especially when you consider we only heat 900 square feet or so. It's become the city's pastime to dodge potholes deeper than wheels.
Fortunately, we've had moments of spring! Even though snow accumulated as recently as two weeks ago. We traveled with Katie's family to Milwaukee in March to see the comedian Mike Birbiglia do a show. He's an excellent comedian than doesn't rely on crude humor or language to get you laughing. He genuinely has a funny outlook on life and can make most stories seem hilarious. He's also had sleep issues that led to him producing a whole comedy sketch about it, including the movie "Sleepwalk with Me." Spring break came early for me with Mom and Dad's arrival for a conference in Chicago. We did the standard tour, seeing the building formerly known as the Sears Tower, Chicago History Museum, Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and the Lincoln Park Zoo. We were also able to do dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, which Dad went back to with his students later in the week. Mom and Dad upgraded from the inflatable mattress on our floor to a two room suite at the Marriott on Michigan Avenue thanks to NASM, which was especially nice when Dad came down with the flu for a couple days.
Since then, the Cubs have started their season and we are the first option for disposing of unused tickets in the family. Katie's father is a season ticket-holder but a combination of April weather and the Cubs lack of talent makes games difficult to sell when they're not intending to go. So I went to 3 of the first 13 home games of the season. We also went to Cincinnati for Easter. Katie's brother John lives there and works for Tesla Motors, which has the nice side-benefit of allowing us to ride around in a Tesla all weekend! We visited their favorite restaurants (which meant we missed Skyline) and went to the Zoo as well. We hadn't seen him and his girlfriend since the Wedding so it was great to catch up.
Of course we do have jobs/school as well. Katie is in the middle of her travel cycle this month because it's the slow season in risk modeling. She went to Tennessee in early April for 3 days of business. Then she went to Washington D.C. last week for her orientation trip to the American Farm Bureau Federation that she was supposed to do a year ago. Now next week, she's at a conference downtown again! So 4 weeks of April and 3 of them had multiple nights away from home. I'm finishing up school in two weeks. The big highlight of this semester has been my Master's Project which looked at bus delay caused by large weather events. It was submitted and accepted a couple weeks ago so I can move forward from that. I only have a paper, a presentation, and two finals left! However, then I become unemployed. The job search is starting but unfruitful so far!
We keep thinking that the next month will be quieter, but are realizing that's always an illusion. Our summer is already filling in with weddings vacations and hopefully employment!
I'll leave you with a couple pictures I found on our phones in between the chronicles of Scout's daily adventures.
This was the usual state of our weather in January and February.
The PVC pipe drip water out at a very slow rate. This is 4 months of build-up behind the apartment building. It was tangible proof of spring as it melted!
The Chicago Symphony Concert from the nosebleeds. If I had known how many stairs we were going to have to climb I would have had us arrive an extra 20 minutes before hand.
We rode the old carousel at the Lincoln Park Zoo!
A view of the capital from the top of the Farm Bureau Building in D.C.
The interior of our Tesla ride for the day. The picture doesn't do the car justice. Space and technology abound!
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