Plot: Locked out

There is nothing quite like the feeling of complete helplessness. Over the course of the past ten months, Nathan and I have been able to lock ourselves out of our apartment at least three times and I have locked my keys in my car once or twice and it leaves you feeling quite helpless.  I bring this up because just this past weekend it happened again..

I had been drinking a lot of water on Friday, when we got back from dinner with our friends who were in town (Dan and Jenna) and Scott, I rushed upstairs to unlock the door to use the bathroom leaving the keys in the lock. Nathan was following behind and took them out and set them on the table, he also, for some reason took his keys from his pocket and set them on the table as well. He grabbed some spices for cider and we headed out again locking the door from the inside, neither noticing that the keys still lay on the table. Once in the hallway however, we both realized neither of us had a key to get back in..

Knocking on our apartment managers door was fruitless. He was out, or ignoring us. So our only other option was to find the guy who cleans the apartment building since he also has a set of keys. What is somewhat tricky is that he lives on the other side of our building. Going out side would mean we would get locked out since the entrance doors to the building lock. Thankfully there is another way to get there. Nathan ventured down to the basement through the laundry room and back up the other side and found the door. For the second time with in a couple of months, we were graciously let back into our apartment to retrieve our keys.

Hopefully we get better at this before we start having babies.

Plot: Home is where the heart is

"Home is not where you live but where they understand you." Christian Morgenstern

I was reading back over some of our old post to see what I blogged about over the past few months. One post that stuck out in particular was about traveling to Michigan for Easter. I was super excited to go back to Michigan and I am sure at the time, had no cares about the trip itself. Since then I have come to dread the six hour trip through Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan. (Maybe dread it too harsh a word..have become jaded toward, do not look fondly upon, get tired just thinking about.. those all work too.) Little did I know then that in the following months we would be making similar trips eight times in four months. These six hour trips usually start sometime after I get off of work, which is at 5, but I don't get home til 5:30, by the time we eat and get all our stuff in the car its well past 6 which means we don't get in til after midnight. We have become pretty good at the trip though, we know it takes about one tank of gas, we know to bring snacks and drinks, and we know that I will usually be driving first which means Nathan always does the hard, tired driving. Usually the only thing that gets me through those long tired drives is thinking about what we are driving to.

Even though the trip is hard, every time we have traveled, we chose to do so because it was for something we found important and close to our hearts, and since we had the ability and the means, there was really nothing to hold us back. We have been blessed to witness multiple friends join in marriage, be around for family functions and birthday parties, to watch Meg graduate and go off to college, to hang out with friends that we don't get to see very often, and most of all to be a part of the lives of the people we care about the most and who understand us the best.

Though I may complain about the drive, I still find myself very excited to get to go "home".

Plot: August Video Synopsis

Plot: July Video Synopsis

This is that thing that everyone hates: a nine minute Youtube clip. Our apologies, but remember, this is more for us than it is for you...anyone who is not us.

Plot: July Video Synopsis

Plot: May Video Synopsis

This quick series of videos is in lieu of the blogs we should have been writing or recording over this summer. We're like a television series, the one you look forward to all summer as you wait for new episodes. The season is starting, here's what's been occupying our time.

Plot: Time Lapse Montage - Part three

April Showers brings...flooding

I think it rained for half the month. Mass amounts of rain paired with a major river in a valley equals lots of floods. This plays into the story a little later..

I spent most of the month of April excited to go up to Michigan for easter. I have a desk calender at work and I had marked the day we were to leave on it with a picture of Michigan and was marking the days until we left.

Finally, Thursday April 21 came and we started north after I got home from work. We got into Lansing around midnight and went to see Kelly and Mike, who waited up for us (everyone else had to work in the morning). We hung out at Mikes for awhile then Kelly and I headed back to her place. We stayed up for maybe another hour talking about wedding plans and the like, since this was the first time I saw her since she got engaged! The following morning I heard that the boys did not go to bed until about 4 in the morning. Crazy kids. This was also the first night that Nathan and I spent apart since we have been married, kinda weird.

After we got ready, Nathan, Kelly our friend Eric and I went out, dispite the cold and rain, to our favorite breakfast place ever, the Golden Harvest. There is always a line waiting to get in this little hole in the wall diner that seats about 40ish people at a time, but the wait is well worth it. I don't know what they do to make their food so good, but everything they make is wonderful. This time I had a waffle smothered in fresh blueberries. Delicious :)

Not long after brunch we headed north again to my parents house. My mom was anxious to see us, so we said our goodbyes and were on our way again. My mom had planned for my whole family to come over for dinner that night since everyone had been asking about us. I think there were about 20 of us altogether. Around midnight both Nathan I and were dragging from the night before. We went to bed, though there was still family around. We found out the next morning that there was family around until 4 in the morning...

The next day we slept in, which felt great. We hung out with the fam for awhile, then it was time to head off again, this time to Nathan's parents. Before we left we loaded the car with my bike.

We got to the Harris' late that afternoon. We had dinner, caught up with the family and played some wii. Then we went to visit Sanj and Mandy after Sanj got off of work. It was great to catch up with them, as they are in a very similar season of life, we were able to share stories of our newly married lives.

Easter Sunday we went to Church, then back to the Harris' for lunch/dinner and time spent chatting.

By the end of the weekend, the top three most commonly asked questions were:

How are you?

How is work?

How is marriage?

Good questions, I just was tired of answering them by the end.

We headed for home around 4 which put us in Louisville around 10. We had to drive through some nasty rain, which is exhausting. When we got off on our exit we found out just how much rain we had been getting. The road that we usually take to get home was completely underwater. There was a road closed sign at the start of the street, that we thought was there from one of the events that happened recently, so we drove around it. We soon found out that it was there for a reason as we started to drive through water that covered a high water sign up to its edge. We had to find a new way home from there which took a good 15 minutes on account of the streets around our neighborhood don't like to connect. So we headed in the general direction of where we wanted to be until we found a road that looked familiar. Not such a fun activity at 10pm after a 6 hour drive. Thankfully we live on the top of a hill so no flood damage for us.

Other April happenings included starting a new, smaller family group. We joined a CSA group to get fresh produce from local farms. We took a couple bike rides.

That was mainly a montage of easter weekend, but good times nonetheless :)