Last days of summer

The Fall semester started yesterday, which means that summer officially ended for us on Sunday. We had a wonderful, busy summer. We are not too sad to see it go because we have a lot of exciting new things going on this semester. For one, Jonathan is starting a new PhD program that he is very passionate about, and he is surrounded by interesting and kind people in his new Department. He will be co-teaching two classes and taking 12 hours (9 is full-time in Grad School). He's also co-teaching a class in September for a scholars program on taking the GRE. So many awesome opportunities!
I am starting my final year of coursework in the PhD program. Hurray - only two semesters of coursework to go! Things I'm looking forward to: working on and submitting my dissertation proposal by the end of the semester, taking a Nursing class on childbearing women and newborns, and getting halfway through my Public Health graduate certificate.
To conclude the summer, I thought I would post a few pictures from the last few weeks of our summer. We visited and hosted lots of friends and family, read a lot of books (I'm on book 6 of Harry Potter!), experimented with new recipes, went for bike rides, took yoga classes at a studio, and lots of other things that I am probably forgetting. I don't have pictures from every fantastic meal and visit with friends and family, but here are a few. Cousin Gathering - playing telepictionary J.J. really belongs in water Visits from family and friends A lovely bike ride on the trail

5 Year Anniversary

On Tuesday, we celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. It is such a strange feeling - it feels sometimes like we've always been married, but at others, feels like it was just last week that we were standing on the beach in Mexico exchanging vows. I can only imagine how much weirder that feeling gets by the 40th wedding anniversary!
To celebrate, we went to St. Louis to do some cheap and/or free nerdy activities.
We started the day at the Cahokia Mounds, the largest prehistoric man-made earthen structure north of Mexico. I've always wanted to go, but never had the opportunity. We had a picnic lunch near the tallest mound. We had a great 360 degree view of the area, including St. Louis, from the top of Monk's Mound. The weather was lovely - pretty hot with the sun beating down on us, but breezy and not as hot as a few weeks ago.
After the Cahokia Mounds, we drove back into STL to visit the Science Museum. Free admission and lots of fun stuff to do. Our favorite part was the planetarium, where we enjoyed a live show of 'tonight's sky.' It was perfect except for the old lady who laid down right next to Jonathan and provided an annoyingly constant commentary about what she was seeing. We kept laughing, though, so it was okay. After the planetarium, we went to dinner on The Hill at a Spanish/Italian place. Very tasty and affordable.
After dinner, we went home and had dessert and decaf mochacinno's.
Thank you so much for being the best husband I could ever dream of, Jonathan. Each day is a new adventure together.