on wisconsin

on lake mendota

i am loving this spring - no wait, SUMMER weather that we are having in madison. matt's been here since last friday and each day has seen temperatures in the upper seventies and lower eighties. luckily for matt, who has spent the majority of each day working in my apartment, there has also been a nice, cool breeze winding through town. we are both working on grants, among other things, right now. yet, we have tried to take advantage of this summer-spring as much as possible. this has meant a lot of windows open, walks, and requests for visiting places with outdoor seating.

the most summery of all of the days was probably wednesday, when i had a meeting that ran so late, it was clear that i was not going to make it to the wednesday night run with my 5k training group. instead, matt and i whipped up steak salads a la the schlegel-hicks family. they were absolutely delicious. i might have repeatedly insisted to matt that they tasted like summer. this was followed up by a walk over to one of the lakes (added bonus of living on an isthmus: quick walks to multiple lakes, parks, and gorgeous sunsets). we've been trying to walk if we're going somewhere relatively close - although i've found that my belief that "things are totally walkable if they are within a mile" is not necessarily universal. this means trips to state street, not only for the gorgeous views of the city parks and extra time spent in the beautiful weather, but also because parking really sucks downtown. i can't wait to share it with other visitors (*aHEM*).

sunset on the lake

today we are tying up some loose work ends, tidying up around the apartment, and heading to chicago. i am super excited to finally be meeting hudson. just as was true before we finally met little cole, i was starting to be concerned that hudson would be walking and talking before i finally met him.

drastic change of topic: did everyone see the madness that happened in athens yesterday? we were actually oblivious until my dad texted asking if we had heard about the boulder that crushed a car and house somewhere in athens. luckily, this is not matt's neighborhood.

the first (and almost second) week of 5k training is over and i've been sure to make up any of the runs that i've been missed. each week, there is a monday run that each runner completes on his/her own, a wednesday evening and saturday morning run with the group, and a sunday walk one one's own. my allergies haven't been too terrible yet, most likely because the runs start off with more walking time than running time. it really is my allergies that are main concern: i'm quite certain that my body can run, but not as far as you might think if i can't breathe. weird how that works. the facebook page for the group is here, if you're interested. we are supposed to send in pictures of us running in other places if we miss a practice because we are out of town (NoBo on the go, if you will). i'm not entirely sure that i'll be able to convince matt to get up early tomorrow morning and take a pic of me running in chicago, but we shall see!

ring and wing sauces in savannah

final note: yesterday was an anniversary of sorts for us. we've officially been engaged for a year at this point. i know a lot of people aren't big fans of long engagements, but i think it has been working well for our planning styles. things are coming right along and nobody has had any meltdowns yet :) not only that, we've made huge strides - thanks in large part to our groom - on a few of the things that i thought were going to be the most terrible (blocking hotel rooms and creating gift registries). our knot site says that we have 197 days to go. seems close enough to feel very exciting, but not so close that one needs to start to panic. in any case, it's been quite a year for us and promises to continue to be an adventurous 2012.