Home from the Holidays

Home again, home again. Well, our apartment doesn't exactly feel like home these days considering we are almost entirely packed and ready for our January 1 move. The last week and a half have been a whirl of activity and it won't stop for another couple of days. We celebrated Christmas with the MacRaes the weekend before Christmas. We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas feast and somehow managed to fit in most of our traditions into a 30 hour period of time.

We left and came home to an empty home. For those of you who don't know, we had to put Duchess down last Friday. It's been an adjustment coming home and not having her welcome us. I know Jarrett is especially missing her. And I even found myself a bit sentimental. On Tuesday we packed up more of our house and then our car and headed to Tennessee. The weather was awful getting down there but we drove through snow, ice, and rain and ended up in Dayton and enjoyed a 70 degree Christmas. That was a first for me! It was wonderful seeing Chloe and the rest of the Knoxes.

So now we have returned to Chicago and work. The move comes Thursday. Oh, and just because we're both excited I'll tell you about some of our favorite Christmas gifts! After many years of wanting snowshoes, Jarrett got me a pair and a promise that we will go snowshoeing soon. I think we were thinking similarly because I got him some stuff for a spelunking adventure. Jarrett got a bow and arrows, shoes, and a pen. I got a steam mop :), rain boots, and fun accessories from Nepal.

I would promise pictures of our Christmas but we forgot the camera on top of the fridge. We're actually looking to buy a new one and hopefully that will encourage us to take more pictures.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We look forward to inviting you all to our new home. Hopefully it will feel like a home in no time at all.

Update from the Knoxes

I forget to post and then time passes and I don't know where to begin. But in an effort to catch people up on the happenings here, I'll try to give ya'll the highlights.

1. We're moving. Today is took 1 hour 15 minutes to get home from Highland Park. Yucko. So we're heading up to Lincoln Square- close to the trains for both of us to take to work. It's a cute little apartment right off the square. We're both excited but a bit overwhelmed at the amount of work it will take to get ready to move during the holiday season. My to-do list keeps getting longer.

2. Despite the commute, the job is going quite well. AND I have a lunch break. Perhaps the first lunch break ever in the history of my careers. So I read :) Today it was the Test Kitchen Ultimate Guide and another book I'm really enjoying... OH, and some food magazines at Borders.

3. Jarrett got to go to a Bull's game last night and had a blast.

4. Our tree is up and beautiful. Not as beautiful as last year since we had to forgo the real one for a fake, but it's nice.

That's it for now. I'm heading to get Jarrett from the train... Only 17 more days of these commutes.

Thanksgiving with the MacRae side

30 people for Thanksgiving, 2 pregnancy announcements, 5 children ages 4 and under, tons of delicious food, and meaningful times with all... we had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

back to work

I'm six days in and starting to feel a bit more settled at the new job. It's fine but it's definitely a change of pace from 30 5-year-olds! So here are my lists:

5 things I miss the most from my time off:
1. waking up at 7.30
2. breakfasts with Jarrett
3. having the day to bake, cook, clean, sew, and read
4. not having to spend my life in the car
5. friend time

5 things about this job I like better than the past three:
1. OH MY WORD, the bathroom is finally clean (school bathrooms are gross)
2. it's not stressful
3. no one screams
4.

well, I'm coming up with only 3 so I'll end it there. I'm thankful for this job. It's in the field of education and honors teachers for their hard work. I get to organize and do some event planning. But at the same time I'm still wondering if this is it. Well, it works for now and for that I'm thankful.

A New Endeavor

Recently, Cath and I have taken on a new hobby: buying old furniture and "rehabbing" it a bit. Here are a couple of our bigger projects.

BEFORE: a pretty dinged up old dresser


AFTER:



BEFORE:


AFTER:


Plus, one more we really like. We don't have a BEFORE picture, though:


Cath and I hard at work.

More Pictures... with Jarrett :)

Good News!

I was offered the job today. YIPPEE! I will be working for a non-profit that works with early literacy and managing their annual teaching awards. I'm excited! Not so excited about the commute to Highland Park but I already borrowed a book on cd from the library in preparation for the drive. I start Monday so all my projects need to get finished in the next couple of days.

Since our last blog we've been busy...

Here we're in Rockford at the apple orchard picking raspberries and eating apple doughnuts/cider with the fam




Also, we went to an estate sale and loaded up on great stuff for the house. I'll try to update with pictures soon. I've been bad at this lately... my apologies. But for this week I have just a few more days of reading, baking, errands, sewing, crocheting, and getting ready for next week. It's been a great season not working and I feel rested and ready to go! Thanks for all the prayers!!

Home Again, Home Again

I just flew in a few hours ago from Virginia. Monday I heard that my grandfather had been in the hospital with bronchial pneumonia. He was released but needed someone to watch after him for a few days while he regained strength. I flew out Tuesday. It was a great trip and Grandpa is doing better. I busied myself in the kitchen and hopefully he has enough food to last him a few days more. I'm sure he would still appreciate your prayers. If I can get the pictures off my phone I'll post our lunch date to Chick-Fil-A and Grandpa sitting at the kitchen table (where we spent many hours just talking and enjoying one another). All in all, the trip was great. I was glad I was free and had the chance to spend a few days in the home my mom grew up in! And Fredericksburg is just beautiful right now.

Hope to see you all soon and check up via email. I am just reentering life after no internet and VERY limited news. It's good to be home!

Woo Hoo!

ILLINOIS BOARD OF ADMISSIONS TO THE BAR

625 SOUTH COLLEGE STREET

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 62704-2521

TELEPHONE 217-522-5917

FAX 217-522-3728; -6589; -9341; -9327

BEFORE THE CHARACTER AND FITNESS COMMITTEE

Dear Mr. Knox,

We are pleased to advise that you have passed the July 2008 Illinois bar examination.

Our records reflect that you have satisfied all of the requirements for admission to the bar of Illinois pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 704 and will be certified to the Illinois Supreme Court as eligible to take the oath of admission.

Very truly yours,

Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar

yummo

We ran in to old friends at church the other day. They moved from Chicago a year ago and said among other things they especially missed the food we have in Chicago. Jarrett and I have spent the last week or so enjoying Chicago dining so I'll tell you a bit about our finds. We did Argentine and Tango Sur last week and had AMAZING steaks (lousy service but the guy did look like johnny depp!). Jarrett and I went to UrbanBelly on the recommendation of Josh and Mallory. Swanky noodle place that was very reasonable for the deliciousness of the meal. The dumplings were great and the noodle dishes were better than any noodle dish I've had before. And last night we went out to Noon-O-Kabab up in Albany Park for Persian food. We went with my parents and Mallory and all ordered different kababs and passed around plates. The hummus and tabouli were amazing as well.

still no word on the job front but as I'm typing I have granola in the oven, a whole chicken boiling making some broth, two pieces of furniture we bought at SalArm we're going to paint and resell, and yarn/crochet needles for my latest hobby. I'm enjoying these days :)

job update from catherine

I had an interview this morning. I guess it went fine. I usually go to interviews hoping I get offered the job before I leave. I know it sounds ridiculous but it worked a few times during my teaching career. I got to Highland Park after over an hour car ride (I'm not sure I can handle this commute) and was greeted by Lou who asked if I was ready for my test. "Huh?" OH, he forgot to tell me I would be taking an EXCEL test. He sat me at a computer with the past 3 years worth of money from donations and then all of the expenses and told me to balance it all... total the columns and then the rows, blah, blah, blah. Oh! and I only had 12 minutes. I actually like excel and do our budget in it so it wasn't foreign to me but having never seen the document before it was a bit of a challenge. Oh well, we'll see how I did. I didn't get offered the job :( but he did ask for references and told me he'd be in touch. I'll let you all know! In the meantime I'm back to being a stay-at-home... ummm, yeah, what do I do?

If anyone wants to check out the rest of Costa Rica pics just go here but just to warn you, there's a lot.

Bar Exam

Other things have happened this summer. For one, I took the bar exam. After about two months of studying, on July 29 and 30, I sat for the bar. I took a bar prep class, Barbri, which nearly every other recent law school graduate takes to aid in studying. Barbri more or less “reteaches” law school in about ten weeks. The bar exam tests students on about 20 different areas of law, including constitutional law, criminal law, wills, secured transactions, and commercial paper. Many of those subjects, I’d never studied in school, so while some days of Barbri were review, many were my first exposure to the substantive area of law.

So, I took bar prep classes everyday from 9 until 12:30 or so (some Saturdays, some full days), then studied outside of classes for 6 hours a day for the first 6 weeks, about 8 the next two weeks, and 10 – 12 for the last two weeks building up to the bar exam. It was incredibly mentally exhausting, but I was in good company. Several thousand other students across the country were readying themselves for the same two-day (in some jurisdictions, three-day) exam.

The night before the exam, I knocked off early, and Catherine and I headed downtown to her sister’s apartment to crash for the next two days. She lived about 5 blocks west of my testing site, so instead of depending on a bus and a train to take me back and forth everyday, we decided to swap apartments for the nights of the bar exam. It worked out great, because we also got hour-long breaks for lunch, and I was able to come “home” to get away from the hordes of freaked out test takers.

I won’t comment on the actual test – we don’t find out our passage results for another 4 weeks or so now. Only, it was pretty much everything they prepare you for, both on paper and emotionally/psychologically. Hopefully, I only have to do that once.

It’s been a very, very long time since we last blogged. And it’s not because we haven’t been busy. I guess we’ve just been adjusting back to life as normal. The biggest thing that happened, for sure, was our trip to Costa Rica. These are my top 5 of the trip:

1. Venado Caverns. Hands down, the BEST thing we did in Costa Rica. At our second destination of the trip, La Fortuna, it rained torrentially for a couple of days. It wasn’t really that big of a deal, because we were mostly doing some hiking there in the national parks, and there was enough tree cover that it didn’t slow us down. But there’s only so much hiking you can do (sort of). So, one day, we planned a rainy day activity – Venado Caverns. We had to drive about 17 km to a small town outside Fortuna, and we would get a guided tour of these caves there. We started on our trip only to find the road to Venado was much more treacherous than we expected, and a 17 km trip turned into an hour and a half drive. So, we got to Venado just as the tour guides were shutting down shop. But, luckily, our guide was willing to hang around a bit longer and take us into the cave. Amazing! The cave had not a single modern amenity (like many of the cave tours in the states I’m used to). There was a river flowing through it, tons of bats, cave spiders, crabs, and even fossilized coral reefs inside. We waded, army crawled, climbed and descended for about an hour and a half. It was thrilling for me!

(Road to Venado)

(Venado Caverns)

(Petrified Coral Reef in Cave)

2. Selvatura Park. This is a close second, because this day was a blast. You see these canopy tours all around Costa Rica – basically a zip-line/walking bridge tour through the rain forest. I have to believe, though, that Selvatura was the best. Our guide books recommended it, and the park was stunning. We first did a suspension bridge tour over the rain forest, then did a 15-platform zip line tour. That was an absolute blast. It culminated in a tarzan swing, which is basically a free fall off a 30-foot platform over the rainforest valley.

3. Manuel Antonio. This was toward the end of our trip, and a much different feel than the rest of our stay in Costa Rica. Manuel Antonio is a small national park on the Pacific side of the country. It has beautiful beaches, where we spent much of the day relaxing. We also saw more wildlife in the smallest amount of time here than we did the rest of the trip: LOTS of monkeys, sloths, lizards, raccoons, and even deer!

(Sangria at Ronny's outside Manuel Antonio - mmm!)

4. Arenal National Park. This was a beautiful National Park built around an active volcano. We went hiking here one day and stayed at a lodge where our room faced the volcano. At night, the sky around the top of the volcano glowed red because of the lava. It was a really beautiful location, and we did some of the best hiking here. Everywhere throughout the park, though, were signs warning you not to wander off the trail because of the high risk of volcanic activity.

5. Food! We had some amazing food on our trip. Most mornings, we had a big breakfast, consisting of fried plaintains, eggs, cheese, fresh fruits, banana pancakes, local coffee, and a whole lot more. We ate most of our meals at roadside "sodas," which are kind of local restaurants serving typical food. A lot of rice and beans, for sure, but they were great, and a little different tasting everywhere we went. A lot of the restaurants also had some of the most beautiful views we saw on the entire trip.

(...and very good beer)

Leaving in 3.5 hours!

Well the bar is over for Jarrett, I've been making calls regarding my job change for next year, and we are packed and set to go to Costa Rica. (That doesn't mean I have a new job, I'm just saying goodbye to the one I did have...eeks!) We were with friends and packed all day and leave the house tomorrow morning at 3:30! Thanks Bill for helping us get there!! A few things before we go:

1. We absolutely love spending meals with Nate and Kelley and are praying and hoping for the perfect job for Kelley... followed by their return to the city
2. The Runyans have been gone for TOO long! I meant to post on our fun date to a wine bar but will have to do that later... how the time slipped away! Jarrett and I both have appreciated their support through all of Jarrett's school and bar stuff.
3. We'll try to post a time or two while we're down there!! See you in 10 days!

he's off!

Jarrett and I are staying at Mallory's place for a couple of nights so we can be close to the testing center for Jarrett. He left this morning and starts the bar exam around 8.30. OH MY GOODNESS!! If you're reading this today or tomorrow I'm sure Jarrett would appreciate your prayers. We relaxed last night with a picnic in Millennium Park and watched a rhythm group. It was fun and a good distraction. So now we're at 32 hours or so and this whole thing will be behind us! YIPPEE!!!!

Mamma Mia vs. the Dark Knight

This weekend we were with the rest of the country at the movie theater seeing the summer blockbusters. Friday night we went to see The Dark Knight with Eric and Emily. If you ask anyone, it was a great movie. Heath Ledger did a great job, and he was creepy as all get out. If you ask me, I should have known better. First, I hate long movies, and this one was 152 minutes. I won't bore you with my complaints because really, I might be the only one who didn't enjoy the movie... BUT the next night I went to Mamma Mia! with Mal and Sarah and LOVED IT! I guess I'm just a song and dance kind of girl. Funny that Jarrett and I saw Sweeny Todd the other day, and I liked that one too. Even though it was bloody, it was a musical, and Johnny Depp was fantastic. Maybe that is our compromise.

SO these are our days: Jarrett wakes up at 5.30 and starts to study. I sleep for a few more hours, and then we have b'fast together for J's mid-morning break. Then Jarrett studies for the next 8 hours, and I see him later in the evening. We have 9 more days of this, and I don't know who is more excited to have this all done. He's working hard, and I'm proud of him. July 29&30!!!

this is mal and I at the zoo with the giraffes :)

ravinia...

A Man Walks Into a Bar (Exam)

I'm studying Secured Transactions. A quote from my outline:

"If the proceeds are proceeds of proceeds, all intervening proceeds must be cash proceeds, proceeds of the same type as the original collateral, or accounts relating to the collateral..."

Huh?

On to Year 2...

We celebrated our first anniversary on Monday. We brought out the cake that has been in our freezer for an entire year and toasted to starting year two. The middle of the cake was actually pretty good but the flowers and icing tasted exactly like a freezer.

We talked (and recorded) highs and lows for the year including new jobs, honeymoon, holidays with family, dates in Chicago, and fights about the dog... I think you can guess which was the low :)

Here are some pics of the evening... ALSO, Jarrett gave me an ice cream maker which is something I've wanted for over a year and had my FAVORITE ice cream waiting for me when I got back from my trip to TN. It was amazing! (I'll try to put some TN pictures up when I get them from my parents camera)