the very beginning. . .a very good place to start

i'm not entirely sure what i've done since my last post. my calendar indicates that i have, in fact, had a number of activities that have come and gone since march 23. my memory is kind of a blur, however.

so i'll just start at the beginning (or where i remember the beginning to be) and see what i can fill in from there.

world's largest, i guess

things actually start with the "world's largest culvers." in our cars, an advertisement like that almost guarnatees you a spot as the lunch place of choice. as the picture and caption suggest, it was more than a little underwhelming. but. . .i learned that culvers got its start in wisconsin AND that they have surprisingly good salads. so, i guess that all was not lost.

look at this cutie 

at the end of matt's trip to madison, we spent the weekend in chicago. we were extremely excited, as we hadn't seen dj and laura for what seems like ages. it would be an opportunity to get caught up, see their new house, and (for me) to meet little hudson. despite being sick, he was pretty adorable. very interested in all of the things happening around him and very in love with his momma. not that we can blame him.

also adorable - combined in a weird way with kind of scary - was getting to watch matt and dj, both alumns of ohio university, watch the ohio v. north carolina game of the NCAA tournament's sweet sixteen. some hearts were slightly broken, to be sure, but bobcat pride over the general excitement of the game and the milliseconds in which cooper's last second shot seemed to be heading through the hoop won out as the general tone of the weekend regarding the tourney. thank goodness, because i like me a good pair of optimists.

adorable neighborhood in bloom

aside from friendship and basketball, another theme of the weekend definitely revolved around food. i had my first "real" chicago dog (sans mustard, in case that somehow minimizes its validity), which was delicious. we had chicago's version of thin-crust pizza (obviously delicious. . . it's not like i wouldn't like pizza. . . ), and of course laura prepped something that was authentically italian, smelled like heaven, and melted in your mouth. i don't remember what it was called, but it involved thin slices of a spicy italian meat (that i also don't remember the name of. hmmm, maybe i need to start taking notes). in the grand finale of food-related tales, i found myself all kinds of sick with what we can only assume was food poisoning after i got back to madison. this was not at all fun - lasting from sunday night well well through tuesday - but i stand by the notion that i got extremely lucky in a couple of ways. (a) it would have made life much more difficult if matt had gotten sick rather than me. he had a fairly long trip (flight + drive) back home and a very busy schedule at the week's beginning. so, if i had to have taken one for the team here, i'm happy to do it. i can't imagine being that kind of sick in an airport. (b) similarly, i made the entire drive home before things really cut loose. i was not feeling terrific when i dropped matt off at the milwaukee airport, but i didn't feel nearly as bad as i did about four hours later. (c) one could think of a number of other places that this could have happened earlier in the trip that would have made the entire weekend not only a bust, but absolutely miserable. as it happened, i just stayed in bed for the majority of monday and tuesday. and (d), i felt so much better in the afternoon on wednesday that i was able to make our wednesday night running group. i similarly made my 5:30 AM flight the following day without any problems. well. . .except for that being an obscenely early flight time.

see? so things really could have been worse. that being said, black bean burgers are still not a part of my diet.

i definitely cannot make it though the details (and photos) of the subsequent ohio trip before needing to get ready for tonight's running group, so this will have to be a two-part posting.

maybe while you wait, you should go post a comment on our wedding website :) that always makes me happy.