Today is our Anniversary

We've been married four years today! I keep wanting to say it's longer because it feels like we've done a lot in just four years. On the other hand... that was four years ago? How did that happen? 

Life hasn't been crazy but it has been quite the adventure for us in the last four years. In a month we'll have moved four times in four years (three different states) so that's something. We've learned that despite the fact that we move around a decent amount, we aren't that adventurous. We've learned that we are both really cheap, particularly when it comes to food. We've learned that walking around the mall on a Friday night and just browsing stores and talking is one of our favorite things (especially when it's cold). 

And just like that, we sound like we're ninety years old. 

Happy fourth anniversary, Carson! I love you!

Carson's Graduation!

The week of Carson's graduation was not a pretty one. It rained Tuesday through Saturday and we felt that for sure his outdoor graduation on the Quad at John Carroll would be moved indoors to the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University. The call for what to do in case of rain was going to be made on Friday at noon, but ended up being pushed to Saturday because the seniors really, REALLY wanted to graduate on the Quad and the weather forecast said Sunday would be nice. So they ended up making the decision to have graduation at John Carroll after all, but warned everyone about the mud. 

And then Sunday turned out to be beautiful, and everyone forgot about the mud (although my chair sank into the ground on one side). Carson's parents and I went to church in the morning, and left right after the sermon in order to get to the campus for the ceremony. Carson was already there for rehearsal. 

We found seats right by the walkway where the graduates entered, which was great for seeing Carson then, although we could see NOTHING during the ceremony itself. 

Here's the processional. 635 or so undergraduate students and 212 graduate students.

Carson spotted us, all ready to get that hood around his neck.

Our friend Cherise, who wouldn't look at the camera, got her Master's in Education.

Faculty

So...this was our view. We could hear everything the speakers at the front said, but we also heard the super loud older gentleman behind us complaining about the mud... loud and clear.

Here's a picture of the ceremony that I found on John Carroll's Facebook page.

There he is! Master of Arts in Religious Studies

And here's the best picture I captured, with help from cropping in a bunch. Sometime soon, I think pictures of the graduation will be online to purchase. We clapped as he crossed the stage, but he was so far away that he couldn't hear us. There were so many people that even loud cheers and clapping sounded very far away.

 Master's Degree students got their diplomas first, so Carson was finished about five minutes after they began reading names. We convinced him via text to get up and leave, as many other students were doing. A few pictures were captured when he got up and joined us. 

The white velvet on his hood is for Arts and Humanities. The gold and blue are John Carroll's color and the sleeves have a funny bell shape on them.

I was surprised that they put a real diploma in there. With all those names they had to call, I'm not sure how they didn't get mixed up somehow. 

And I had to document the result of the muddy ground. Not too bad, and I'm thankful I wore something with a platform or I'd have been toast. 

We went to Melt to celebrate the graduation. Carson and I split "The Dude Abides", which had homemade meatballs, fried mozzarella cheese sticks, rich marinara, provolone & romano

  

Carson's parents split the "Mom's Meatloaf Dinner" which was described as homemade tender meatloaf, chipotle ketchup glaze, garlic mashed redskin potatoes, fried onion straws, muenster cheese

After Melt, we returned to the school, where the graduation was over and people were mostly taking pictures in front of the sign and other campus landmarks. We took a family picture with Carson back in his gown. 

And a picture of part of the sea of chairs. We were all thankful to not be the people who did set up and tear down. 

We came home and Carson and his parents all napped. 

I had to wake the graduate up just in time for his celebration cookout in the backyard. 

Spoiler alert: Carson won this round.

 After the party, a few friends stayed to eat ice cream bars and chat. Once they had gone home, we FaceTimed with Trent and the girls, back in Pennsylvania. 

And Carson got a picture with his diploma. 

Yay! He's finished! Two years of school felt like nothing now that we're on the other side of it. I'm so proud of Carson and his dedication to his studies. He loves what he does and more than earned this degree. On to the next! 

We Move in One Month!

With one month exactly until we leave this state, I've been reflecting a lot on our time here.

In August of 2012, we moved to the Cleveland area with a pretty good idea of how long we'd be around. We moved here purely for school, so we'd stay until the summer of 2014, after Carson graduated. Our plan was to pursue more schooling for Carson after John Carroll, and either go to a PhD program afterward, move overseas for some sort of fellowship program or look for a teaching position that was hopefully in a great place. We prayed that our short time here would be meaningful and that we'd make friends and find a good church, but honestly we went into the time here blindly because it didn't matter. We were here for school.

Our time in Ohio has been great. The winters were absolutely terrible and I'm sure that's something I will never forget, but as I think of our time here, that's not what I think about. My biggest prayer for Cleveland was for the relationships we'd make here. I hoped for even just one good friend, and a church experience we could look back on and not hate. My expectations were, clearly, quite low.

We never visited a church outside of Gateway Heights Church. Our initial impression was that the church was going to be "too cool" for us. The people were young, the music was good... but we learned quickly that young people and good music doesn't indicate a church that's shallow (we sound like we're 85 years old). The preaching was solid. The people were SO friendly and welcoming. The music wasn't just good, but the lyrics were worshipful and the style of worship wasn't overdone and too showy or emotional. We joined the church as quickly as we could, and I've never regretted that decision. After attending a community group for the first semester, we were asked to branch off and start our own because the group we were in was overflowing. I hated that we were doing that at first... but as you know, I've been so blessed over and over again by the group that meets in our living room on Mondays.

Cleveland has shown us the beauty of the church. When it was time to make the decision about Florida State, the ONLY thing holding us back was that we wanted to keep Gateway Heights. This is the thing I will miss the most about Cleveland.

Cleveland also provided lots to do. I can't remember what made me do it, but fairly soon after we moved here, I made a bucket list of things to do in the city. That list has continued to grow since we've lived here, and even when people have visited, we haven't been able to get to all the things we wanted to show them because there really is a lot to do. That surprised us, and as we finish these next few weeks, we have several things left to wrap up on the "Cleveland list". We've gone to baseball games, parks, Amish country, ridden roller coasters and driven up to Niagara Falls while living here. With a slightly more disposable income, our weekend trips could have been elaborate, but even for a graduate student's salary the things we've done have been pretty great.

All in all, the twenty-one months we've spent in Cleveland have been great. Our time here has been rich, and it feels like we've lived here much longer than we have because of the relationships we have and the things we've been able to do.

A Visit to the Sunshine State

Morgan and I had so much fun when she visited, that she invited me to stay with her for the weekend in early May when Caleb was out of the country. YES. 

At the time we began planning this, we had no idea that Carson and I would be moving to Florida this summer, but that made the trip MORE exciting because as we spent time together, we kept planning more time together for when we move. We will live three hours away... score.

I flew in at midnight on Saturday morning and we stayed in a hotel in Orlando that night. 

A little waffle and apple juice at the hotel was the perfect way to start our day...

Because we were headed to DISNEY WORLD! I hadn't been since I was 12 or 13, so I remembered some things, but at the time thought I was "too cool" for the whole thing, so now that we don't care what people think of us, Morgan and I had fun!

Fun in the rain that is. It was pouring when we arrived and drizzling all day.

We wore some snazzy ponchos that Morgan had wisely saved from a previous trip to Disney.

Plus side of the rain? Short lines! We got right on Space Mountain and then headed over to ride the teacups. There were three people ahead of us in line and I made Morgan take a picture to prove it.

The Dumbo ride! No line, but it was very wet!

It's a small world after all. This song will forever be in my head...

Gaston's Tavern in Fantasyland.

We rode about six rides in the first hour, due to the short lines. On one ride, we started to get off, and the employees said "Want to go again?" we didn't, but others on the ride did.

We had someone take this and realized immediately afterward that we were standing right next to a trash can.

Thunder Mountain Railroad

Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. One of my favorite movies as a kid.

We wanted (okay, I wanted) to get a picture with a character, but we didn't want to wait in a line to do so, so here's Peter Pan and Wendy as we passed by.

Being the super economical people that we've turned into, we brought along turkey sandwiches and chips. We bought drinks at a Disney restaurant and feasted on turkey sandwiches. The only downside was that Morgan smelled strongly of turkey all day long from carrying these.

Making our next plans...

Stroller parking was no joke

Resting on the Peoplemover. We tentatively took off the ponchos at this point and didn't have to go back to them. Yaaaaay!

Our final scores on the Buzz Lightyear ride

After being tempted by them all day, Morgan bought a giant turkey leg. It was too much food and we couldn't finish it.

We got on the Riverboat to ride around while we finished off the turkey as best we could.

At some point in the day, it stopped raining. The crowds reappeared, and we had to wait 20 WHOLE minutes in a line! What is the world coming to? (that's sarcasm)

As we were about to leave, we (I) realized that we hadn't gotten the picture with a character that we (I) wanted, so we waited in a little line to meet Mickey. He made us do card tricks. Most of all, we were curious about how he speaks and moves his mouth in that costume... or perhaps it wasn't a costume and we DID meet Mickey Mouse!?

Since we'd done all the rides we wanted to early in the day, and since there wasn't anything left to do, we headed back home to Ocala at around 6. We discovered that the average person walks 10-12 miles around the Magic Kingdom in a day, and so we made a more modest guess that we walked 8. Needless to say, after a late night and long day of walking in the rain, we were ready to get home. 

I met Marlin, who had fleas for some reason, and he was kind enough to snuggle and let the fleas bite us too, so that was a blast. We mostly sat on the couch and watched House Hunters, since we're exciting people. Morgan and Sydney fell asleep.

On Sunday, we went to church and then to my uncle and aunt's house for lunch. We came home and worked on a craft that I'll share soon (it's Disney related and similar to our last project together). We watched more House Hunters and on the commercials we watched the Food Network. 

On Monday, we went to the beach! We'd thought about doing the beach on Saturday and since it rained, we're glad we dodged that bullet. We went to Ormond Beach on the east coast. 

The hose for the air at the gas station had a hole, so I tried holding it together while Morgan pumped. Spoiler alert: it didn't work and we got our money back and went to another gas station.

On the way, we stopped to take pictures with this giant metal chicken. 

Cousins!

We moved our little camp back really far because the first place we had it got completely soaked. Whoops. 

After the beach, we picked Marlin up and then Morgan ran into WalMart to get supplies for ice cream that we forgot to make.

And since it was Cinco de Mayo, we were going to go to a Mexican restaurant, but they were all crowded, so we went to a steakhouse instead, but got fruity drinks anyway. 

We finished off Monday night by going to a movie with Sydney and Aunt Pam, then came home and snuggled with Marlin, who clearly missed us. 

On Tuesday, I went to IKEA for the first time! I could have bought a million things, but I purchased a piece of artwork (that Morgan is keeping until I move to Florida) and a hotdog, since it was cheap. 

After IKEA, it was airport time :( :( 

I expected to get through security with no problem, but I waited in line forever and finally got picked to be in an expedited line where they swab your hands for explosives and then just let you go without taking off your shoes or scanning your bags. Well, they swabbed my hands and they tested positive for whatever reason. I obviously spent time at IKEA that morning, not assembling weapons, but I was still nervous because everyone else was zipping through. I got sent to a little room and patted down and they went through all my things and swabbed those for explosives too... 45 minutes later, I was sprinting to my flight, since by that point it was after the boarding time. I made it and had an otherwise uneventful trip. (the guy I asked said that sometimes lotions will have something in them that set off the sensitive machines, but that they didn't know exactly what it was)

Carson picked me up that night and we went to Steak and Shake. He started a new summer job the day before and was already tan. Here he's showing off his dipping sauces because he said "surprise me" to the waitress when she asked what he wanted and she brought options. 

Now I'm really excited for more beach time and Mickey Mouse time in Florida! Can't believe we're moving in just a few weeks!!!