BoBo in Bloomy

We decided to take Bo to Bloomington over Labor Day weekend. Partially, we wanted to get out of town one final time before school starts. But we also wanted to introduce Bo to my parents and their dogs. We loaded up her pink blanket bed in the car and brought her favorite toys to keep her happy. Bo does well in the car, so she spent most of the trip laying down, sleeping, or looking out the window. But I hadn't counted on how nervous she would be at the rest stops. She is very uneasy around traffic, and the noise from the semis followed us no matter where we stopped. 

We planned to get breakfast in Ann Arbor, thinking it would be fairly quiet and she could calm down enough to go to the bathroom. Instead, Zingerman's Road House, the restaurant we had mapped out in advance was on a busy street and she was pretty freaked out. But the donuts made it worth it. Holy crap, these donuts. They told us it would be a few minutes because they were making them from scratch, and they were totally worth the wait. Zingerman's is a large group of restaurants, bakeries, and delis in Ann Arbor and the Road House has a special coffee/breakfast trailer stuck on the front of the building. The breakfast burrito with cheese and green chilies I had really hit the spot, and these donuts kept us satiated for several hours. On our return trip we stopped at the Zingerman's head quarters where they have a bakery, coffee shop, and creamery. It's right off I-94 (exit 175, I think), but far enough from the interstate that Bo couldn't hear the trucks, so I think we'll stop there again.

After we made it inside the IN state line, we decided to find a place where Bo could actually have a rest stop that didn't scare her. Since we'd previously stopped at Pokagon State Park, we decided to let her walk around there and take a quick dip in the lake. Pokagon is also conveniently located just off I-69 (an exit in the 350s, I believe), and it was worth it for Bo to relax a bit and finally eat her breakfast.

Bo conked out for the rest of the trip. She and my parents' dogs never really hit it off, but they were amicable. I think she really liked the rug in the living room since it meant more room for her to stretch out. She also enjoyed the blanket my mom knitted her out of scraps from a blanket she knit for us several years ago. 

It was fun to walk her with the other two dogs in our favorite walking spots around town, especially Jackson Creek.

Dog walking is a family affair on Sunday mornings in Bloomington.

Of course, we also squeezed in a few non-Bo related activities in Bloomington. We went to the Rail with Mark and Jessica, where I had a Bandera for the first time: 

From left to right: a lime cordial (sans alcohol), VERY smooth tequila, and a Sangrita, which tasted sort of like a very light tomato juice. The server explained that it's customary to drink from left to right in small sips, but she also encouraged me to drink it however I wanted. I followed her advice and I was surprised how much I liked this drink. The lime and tequila at the beginning make it taste like a margarita. But the tequila and tomato at the end reminded me more of a Bloody Mary. I want to find the tequila they used, but I would need to be careful not to drink too fast. It was so smooth that it was like drinking white wine.

John did a few runs in Bloomington but he also accompanied me a few times to the IU Outdoor Pool. I'm still swimming a few times per week, but I wasn't sure how much I would want to swim while on vacation. But Bloomington was so hot and humid that the pool was especially inviting each day, and the facility itself is excellent. I plan on posting some of the swim workouts I've been doing, so prepare to have your minds blown.

My parents generously took us out to some of our favorite Bloomington spots, including Upland. Dad is a good sport about posing for funny photos.

And then we had to say good bye to Bloomington until October; we'll make a stop there when we're in IN for the marathon this fall. Now it's time for me to reach deep down and find some grain of enthusiasm for the semester to start. 

Bloomington, Post-Honeymoon

John and I have loved having Bloomington as our American home base, and as it was the center of all the wedding activity, we got to spend a big chunk of time there this summer. 

For me, that meant walking the dogs a lot and trying to teach them to like the water. I think I made some progress on that front with Toby, who will now walk in Jackson Creek until the water is up to his neck.

There are so many beautiful places to walk them just around the corner from my parents' house.

We saw lots of deer. Too many of them, really. This one, nicknamed Golf Ball because of a knot on her injured back leg, likes to hang out in the shrubbery in front of the neighbor's house.

One of the deer in the neighborhood has two little fauns that travel with it.

I saw wild raspberries growing in Bryan Park.

I like to take the dogs to parts of town and campus that they don't frequent with my dad, like Dunn Meadow and Kirkwood. They're much better behaved there than I would have expected. But maybe that was just because they were hot and wanted to get back to the Jordan River to cool off.

We ran lots of errands with my mom, both before and after the wedding.

We got to hang out with Mark and his girlfriend Jessica (not shown) several times. 

I learned how much they both like pre-made piña coladas.

And of course we made a couple of late night trips to Crescent Donut.

Bloomington is so liberal. It still kind of surprises me that it can exist in Indiana. For instance, this sign at the Owlery: 

My parents were/are hosting two Japanese students who were playing in the USA International Harp Competition. They were both taken with the deer on the cul-de-sac. My dad came outside to look at the deer with them and translate their conversation for me. John and Dad both felt the need to teach the girls some American slang. Dad taught them to say "Okie dokie" when they agreed with something, while John tried to teach them as much profanity as he could, starting with "Asshole." One of them cheerfully said "Okie dokie, asshole!!" while we were at Max's Place for dinner. And then we set about trying to describe what "asshole" meant by telling them about Donald Trump. John said he was a very rich business man, and they said, "Like Bill Gates?" And we said "Yes! Like a bad Bill Gates! Donald Trump is like a bad Bill Gates." We had a lot of fun with ESL. 

John and I took the dogs to Hoosier National Forest for a hike. Walking really helps my motion sickness calm down, so I walked them a few times a day for the last few days we were in town.

Toby gets hot and tired fairly quickly on a hot day like this, but Molly could go for hours.

 John got to help Mark with Ether Game just before we left town, and I decided to take the dogs on an evening walk around campus during the show. I felt Toby should see where we got married.

It'll be sad not to have wedding planning to do in Bloomington, since it may mean we travel there less frequently. John and I are both so glad my parents' moved there. And I think Molly and Toby are, too.

Wedding Weekend Part 1: Bachelorette, Rehearsal Dinner, and Preparations

Wedding Weekend Part 1!

Once the wedding weekend finaly began, all the planning was done and the only thing left to do was show up. John and I started by having lunch with his grandpa (with coordinated hats) and checking into the hotel.

I began wearing my contacts at the beginning of the week, which meant I could wear fun sunglasses, and that I felt like I was tripping from how different my contacts feel. Seriously, everything looks big when I have my contacts in. It's like wearing a tiny but powerful pair of magnifying glasses.

Several of my awesome lady friends threw me a fun bachelorette night that started with champagne, presents, and pizza, then involved wine and EXPRESSING OURSELVES THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF PAINT.

Though I'm sure it conflicted with policy, a nice cab driver offered to drive all five of the people who were left in the same cab back to the hotel.

Not shown: bar crawling (not shown for good reason...), then a relaxed run on Friday morning. One of my favorite parts of the weekend was Friday afternoon. The women of the Fellowship of the Ring and I got our nails done, then I got to spend some pretty relaxing time with Kira and Lauren. It was so nice to get some time with just two of my best friends during the weekend. I wish I had more solo time with each of the members of the Fellowship, not to mention many of the guests. 

Soon enough we headed to the Auditorium for our rehearsal, conducted by Kira and the awesome Auditorium staff.

                                       

Our rehearsal was very reassuring and made the whole thing seem very real. 

The rehearsal dinner was at the catering facility at Upland, my all time favorite Bloomington brewery. Here's John giving a toast. I love that Lauren looks completely bored.

Also not shown: we all went back to my parents' house for dessert after the dinner. Their house was absolutely packed with our friends and relatives, and John's mom supplied fabulous cookies, brownies, and macarons from Blu Boy desserts. John and I picked out about 24 bottles of wine from Sahara Mart which made the drinks fairly simple and relatively inexpensive because of their discount for large wine purchases. 

On Saturday morning, John and I ate breakfast alone at Feast - one of the best decisions we made. 

I should mention that by this point, I had pretty much completely lost my voice. I got a minor cold late in the week, and between congestion and a lot of talking/shouting/laughing the two nights before, I could not talk at all by Saturday morning. I brought a pad of paper and a pen wherever I went and tried not to talk much throughout the day. That added a layer of stress for me, since I was with a group of people who I love and rarely get to spend so much time with. 

So when I went to the salon after breakfast, I mostly wrote my messages and mouthed things to the bridesmaids, the both our moms.

Above: Carla persuaded Dave to go with her to get Crescent Donut, and she brought some with her to the salon. My mom and aunt prepared a few bags of light snacks for us to eat while we spent a few hours doing hair and make up. 

Eventually, all the ladies but Carla returned to the hotel to get dressed and take cabs to the Auditorium while I finished my make up. It was fun to have a lot of hang out time to catch up (if slowly and quietly via my handwritten notes) with all of my closest friends. If all the fun had ended with the first few days of the wedding weekend, it would still have been an incredibly fun time. I'm lucky to have these people as my friends and family.

Next: Ceremony and Reception.

Note: I'll do a link round up at the end, in case anyone would like to know who our vendors were. We had many good experiences and I'll be happy to recommend them.

Road Tripping in May

John and I had some more wedding business to attend to. We headed down to Bloomington in the time between finals and my area exam (which I passed! Woo! Subject for a separate post). In order to break up the drive, we decided to spend the night in Marshall, MI* and eat an enormous meal at Dark Horse Brewery. We've stopped there before and I wanted to come back when I knew we didn't have to get back on the road after eating. So we spent something like 3 hours at Dark Horse, trying various beers and pizzas.

For my first beer, I ordered the Amber, expecting it to be kind of run of the mill, like a lot of ambers. But it was so nice! Very smooth, and slightly sweet, almost like a Belgian. I ended up giving it to John because he ordered an IPA with a strong grapefruit taste that he didn't really care for. That IPA was perfect for me since it was less bitter than the average IPA. Either would be great for summer. 

Next, I ordered the Black Ale, which I've had before. It's very chocolatey and kind of thick for a black ale, and I wished I had waited for dessert to order it. John had something called the Arctic (IPA), which he described as hoppy, bitter, and full-bodied. We also kind of shared the Sapient Trip Ale, a triple (trip-ale, get it?), and John was smitten with it. I wrote down his reaction: "Do I like this beer? I LOVE this beer!" He also said it was better than Fin du Monde. It's fun to see what Dark Horse has on tap, since it's often beer that they don't distribute. 

All of Dark Horse's beers are fairly boozy, so we wanted to stick around and have some dessert before going the mile or so back to the Comfort Inn (...woo). We ordered an elephant ear for dessert. While it wasn't exactly the funnel-cake style elephant ear of my childhood, it was delicious. They basically make a sweet version of their pizza dough and spread cinnamon-sugar icing all over it. Yes, we ate the whole thing. 

Our plan for the next day was to work off all those beer and dough calories with what we thought would be a relaxing run at Pokagon State Park. The park is about 40 miles south of Marshall, MI, and about 40 miles north of Fort Wayne, and it's famous for its toboggan run during the winter months. I told John that the trails looked fairly wide and even on the website, and that it was northeast Indiana! How hilly could it be?! 

Famous last words. You can see where this is going.

It was one of the hilliest runs I've ever done. I got tons of practice swinging my arms for momentum on the uphills, and we were both pooped by the end. Most of the trails are described as moderate and the longest one is only 2-2.5 miles. We figured we would do 2-3 of the 2 mile routes and make sure we got enough mileage in. Turns out, it took us about 51 minutes to run just over 4.5 miles. There were a few flat spots, like this one that reminded me of a cabbage patch.

In general, the park is lovely. I hear the trails nearer the lake are less hilly, and all the trails we took were well maintained and pretty wide. We were able to enter without paying a vehicle fee for some mysterious reason, and the Potawatomi Inn has plenty of bathrooms and water in the gift shop. It's also really conveniently located off I-69, so we will probably try something like this on a future trip down to Bloomington.

Somehow, even on this very overcast day, John's white chest is just blinding.

We were in Bloomington over graduation weekend at IU, and my cousin Jeff graduated from the business school. The festivities started off with sushi, where Jeff, his mom, Aunt Becky, and John all did sake bombs.

John and I helped put the graduation party together while my mom went with Becky and my cousin Halley and her husband to the graduation ceremony. Mom ordered this cake from BluBoy** but wasn't sure what sentiment to add. So she went with this very apt message:

The weather cooperated and we were able to host Jeff and his roommates out on my parents' deck.

Aside from meeting with a florist, meeting with our venue coordinator, and a dress fitting, we did a few non-wedding related things. For instance, Mom worked on her ability to read Molly's mind.

The run at Pokagon was the first in a week of very hilly runs, including some speed work in the rain at Olcott Park.

I also had my trial appointment for my wedding make up. Afterward, I tried with moderate success to persuade Toby to sit for a photo.

We have about 6 weeks to go until the wedding, and even less before we leave for Bloomington to do all the final tweaks to our plans. In the mean time, I have food from the Rick Bayless cookbook to show you, and I'd like to do a little post summarizing my dissertation progress thus far, including the area exam.

I hope the weather where you are is appropriate for May - it sleeted in Southwestern Ontario today! Happy Spring!





*If you're curious, we stayed at the Comfort Inn. It was cheap and well located, but nothing to write home about. I will say that when hot air started coming out of the air conditioner, the staff immediately moved us to a better room with no trouble at all. If you happen to be looking for a room in Marshall, MI, I would recommend staying there. Just know, it's cheaper than the Hampton for a reason - but it's nice enough for one night.
**Not shown: for me and Halley, vegan peanut butter-chocolate rice crispy treat, and vegan cupcakes (salted caramel and sugar n' spice) from The Owlery, one of my new Bloomington favorites.

Bloomy Bridal Shower

On the last Saturday of our break, my aunt Becky and my cousin Halley (shown here on the right, with me and my mom on the left) threw me beautiful bridal shower. 

I was impressed by the decorations and pretty touches before it even started. When I told Becky that she said, "Hey, when we've showered you, you'll know it."

Watching them set up and decorate was like watching one of those TLC shows where they decorate the White House for Christmas. Everything about the shower was lovely and perfect, from the table cloth to the pasta salad to the gorgeous cupcakes form Scholar's Inn.

Mimosas with raspberries, and a heavenly cheese plate. 

That's Kira's hand and mimosa, since I stole a bunch of her photos from the shower. I'm so classy. Nice manicure, though, right?

They also ordered sandwiches from Scholar's Inn, and I enjoyed several that evening/the car ride home the next day.

Everyone at the shower was extremely generous, to the point where we couldn't fit it all in the car to take home. We did, however, make this coffee grinder a priority. It was John's most-wanted item on our registry, and it came from Lauren. John swore afterward that, in return, he will no longer make fun of Purdue. 

The shower was a great chance to hang out with some of my absolute favorite people, and I feel like it was just a fraction of how fun the wedding will be. I can't wait to hang out with all of them in the same place!

And I'm only half joking when I say that you should totally hire my cousin Halley and my aunt Becky to do your next bridal shower or other event - they made everything so easy and special that day. They are both amazing and I'm so grateful!