Live from Michigan!!

Well 4 days and 2000 miles later we have arrived!! We had to drive through Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana to get here!! This shot was taken from the car, but it documents our very happy arrival into Kalamazoo, where we live!!

(These are out of order, but whatever)The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri

Another shot of it...

Me and my cousin, Kat

Kat and her husband Mark are interning and living in Chicago and they were kind enough to put us up for our last night. We had a blast hanging out with them in downtown Chicago.

We spent our last leg of the trip driving north of Chicago through Lake Forest, IL where my dad used to live. Between that and seeing the sights of Chris' mission it was a heavy dose of nostalgia for both of us.

Along the Way...

We stayed in the world's crappiest motel room in Burlington, Colorado our first night because we thought we would have to with Ruby. The place was laughable. But it was part of the adventure...did I mention that as we drove through Wyoming and Colorado there were tornadoes touching down all around us? It was funny, as we were eating at a restaurant, the waiter came and told us that we had to move to a table away from the windows in case a tornado got close enough and blew the windows in. It sort of made us laugh...we thought "alright...safety first?"

Here is a nice shot of Chris studying an atlas. That was the only crap hole we stayed in. We learned that Quality Inn and Comfort Inn let you have pets if you stay in a smoking room---which turned out to be not that big of a deal

Me and Ruby at "The Plaza" in Kansas City. It was a large outdoor mall surrounded by early 20th century buildings that have all been renovated...a very hip place. This was near the area where Chris served his mission and we spent a day and a half here seeing the sights. One of my favorite things we did here was drive around and see this AMAZING neighborhood of multi-million dollar mansions. We had fun picking where we'd like to live if we ever end up with multiple millions (ha). I LOVED Kansas City!

An art museum in Kansas City...probably an important and well known one, but that's the best I can do. It had really cool statues of shuttlecocks (like what you play badminton (sp?) with)

Shortly after this shot was taken a voice from a speaker hidden in the bushes warned Chris to remove himself from the statue...or else...

"The Winstead's Challenge"

When Chris served his mission here they would take all the elders to Winstead's and challenge them to eating this all by themselves in 30 minutes!! Chris never could do it. It may be hard to tell from the photo just how big this shake is...just imagine a rather large flower vase...and I gotta tell you...the two of us nearly ate the whole thing. It was awesome!!

Hitting the Road

All packed up and read to go! Our apartment is furnished, so we only had to bring our clothes and a few other things- whatever would fit nicely in the trunk

Ruby quickly got into a routine of sleeping in the backseat of the car---ALL DAY LONG

Or else she'd just hang out back there

Some pretty serious jamming out occured along the way..{Side note: each picture I took in the car had Chris progressively more annoyed..I was loving it!}

We did a whole lot of this...Let me tell you, it was a sad, sad day when it took 60 BIG ONES to fill 'er up!! {Note Chris' annoyance of me taking yet more dumb pictures...but hey I wanted to document everything}

Our Pad...continued

The living room--we covered the furniture with sheets to keep the furballs under control--a little ugly, but that's cool

The bathroom---featuring my first ever linen closet, yep that's right

The bedroom---no I don't purposely have Ruby pose in all of these---the old ball-and-chain has been a little neurotic since the move and will not leave my sight.

The laundry room

Our swimming pup----side note: We do realize that as of late, we have become those weird, obnoxious dog people that treat their dogs like children. Yes,yes...well...

Our Pad

Our apartment complex is great. It has a 24 hour gym, an indoor and outdoor swimming pool, and is surrounded with some great running trails that Ruby and I hit every morning. It also has lots of pretty ponds. Swimming has become Ru's favorite pasttime. If we are within sight of any body of water and she is off leash,there is no keeping her out of it.

Our building, we are on the third floor.
At first we thought it would be terrible with taking Ruby out, but it's actually great. We already have a schedule of a run in the morning and a long walk at night just to keep that active thing from bounding off the furniture. She does her business then--So the only time it's a little rough is first thing in the morning-but hey it gets us up, right??

My "home office"

The Kitchen

Another view

Our Last Hurrah

The weekend before we left we had one last hurrah in Moab. It turned out to be a blast. Chris, his bro Steve, and a friend rode one of their big scary rides and Mary (his sister) and I did our own ride.

At first I was stressed about the timing of the trip with our move on the horizon, and with my needing to square away a bunch of stuff at work, but it was short and sweet and a ton of fun. It was also great for Chris to get one last chance to do what he loves before his 3 month hiatus.

We actually bought a new bike rack with the plan of bringing our bikes to Michigan, but alas he didn't want to worry about his bike being stolen or about schlepping our bikes in and out of motel rooms across the 6 or so states we had to travel, just for some mediocre biking.

Spring Skiing

Last Saturday we had a Snowbird spring ski day with our friends,the Budges.

TJ and Chris have been close friends since they served their missions together. He and Heidi live in Idaho and we have been trying to plan a group ski day (meaning the girls are invited) for at least 2 years. Well we finally did it and the snow was great!

We only wish that Chris' boots fit correctly so that we could have skied more than 4 runs. {One of his boots broke a few weeks ago and he's stuck wearing some old, ill-fitting ones until the manufacturer sends a replacement pair}
Me and Heidi. We had a blast together; not to mention a total workout trying to keep up with our husbands.