Robb + Jessie Married & in the Badger State
Happy Birthday to me
Yesterday was my birthday. I just thought the internet should know how amazing my wife is.
Exhibit 1.
I was woken up by Jessie and handed a box. Inside the box was a bottle from my favorite whisky distillery, Laphroaig.
What a way to start the morning!
Exhibit 2.
After work, Jessie invited me to meet her down at the lakefront. Surprise! A crowd of friends from work and church were there to enjoy rhubarb pie, ice cream, and fine Wisconsin beverages as the sun set on my special day.
(Note: The above picture is not the actual pie consumed on my birthday. However, this pie was made by Jessie about a week prior.)
Welcome home!
Ah. It is great to be home.
I posted photos on Flickr from our trip and the wedding
Rachael and Jonathan’s beautiful wedding cake:
Celebrating my 24th birthday in rainy Duluth:
And now for the Stankey Road Trip Recap …
- I felt like my mom, in a good way, when we left. Packing a tasty lunch and bringing a roll of paper towels and extra water bottles. All of which were needed.
- We listened to half of John Hodgman’s The Areas of My Expertise. At one point, I was laughing so hard (while drinking water) and I ended up spitting it out…quite a wet pants situation. (This is where the paper towels came in handy.)
- We watched the gas prices increase from $3.80 to $4.05 as we drove north and spent $175 in gas over 900 miles.
- We were adopted into the Cushing family as Rachael’s long lost Cottey College sister and were invited to the yummy rehearsal dinner.
- We took advantage of our hotel (Polynesian Water Park theme) and acted like kids, sliding down the huge water slides and screaming during each turn.
- We took around 300 photographs during our trip, only the good ones made it onto Flickr.
- We, once again, were adopted into the Cushing family as they invited us over after the wedding for pizza and beer with the whole family.
- We helped set up and tear down for the wedding. We liked this much better than actually being in the wedding.
- We celebrated my 24th birthday in Duluth and then driving home to Madison.
- We bought some tasty dark roasted coffee beans from the Whole Foods Co-Op, as recommended by Jonathan and Rachael.
- Robb majorly stubbed his big toe when we were packing up the car to go home. Tore off about a million layers of skin. Emergency trip to the grocery store where I stocked up on Band-Aids, ibuprofen, and cookies.
- Enjoyed 9 hours of thunder and lightening and rain storms (apparently most of Wisconsin was on Tornado Watch when we were driving home).
- We found a quaint indoor mall near the water in Duluth and spent a while walking around, enjoying being warm and dry.
- Treated ourselves to some coffee after being severly under-caffeinated (Jessie, mainly).
- Robb provided breakfast in bed at the hotel (via the contential breakfast in the hotel) consisting of cereal, homemade waffles and hot chocolate. Yum! And we watched My Super Ex-Girlfriend and decided it was better than the reviews claimed.
- And we went to Robb’s favourite for lunch: Famous Daves. Not half bad. And my birthday cake was a big serving of Bread Pudding.
I hope you have enjoyed our little recap. Quite an eventful road trip, especially for our first one.
end of school
So, it’s true. I am completely done with school (with the exception of four finals next week). I couldn’t be happier! This morning I slept in until 8:30 and then woke up and had a big bowl of extremely sugary cereal just because I can!
Then I watched some of the Matrix. That is one of my favourite movies and quite revolutionary when it first came out. However the others went downhill from there, right about the same time that the Wachowski brothers became the Wachowski brother and sister.
I also talked to Jessie this morning. She is superb and making bread at this very moment! She is almost done with school. Only one more quarter left.
After I take a few days off work, I will start up again full-time 40 hours a week. I will keep working in the lab for the next year plus. Then, Lord willing, I will be heading off to graduate school.
For the rest of June I will commute from Redmond, but starting July 1st I will be living with a bunch of guys in an amazing furnished house! It is in the Roosevelt neighborhood on 56th and Brooklyn. I’m very excited for it since it is my first rental home. I already bought a bunch of stuff at IKEA for the house!
Ah, so many cool things happening right now.
P.S. Do you like my new bracelet? Jessie made it for me out of Icelandic wool. She is very nice and sends me a lot of letters and gifts. Swoon.
real life
I find it really hard to believe that I am graduating in a few weeks. It seems so foreign to me to be without:
- copious amounts of textbooks
- homework that leaves me with no free time
- stress
- and more stress
I’m thinking really hard about what it will be like to work every day in the fall, winter, and spring, and to have nothing with which to fill up my evenings. I really can’t picture it.
(This is a cool picture of Robb + Jessie in high school. So long ago!)