a chicago preview...

david and i had the good fortune of spending our last pre-costa rica weekend with a stellar group of friends in chicago, which became even more awesome by virtue of the fact that in just two months, the city will become our new home.  they literally flew and drove in from all corners of the country (nyc, cleveland, bloomington, la, san diego...) to join us in celebrating our upcoming wedding, and just generally for some good times.  and good times they were...

my wonderful sister emily and her awesome boyfriend eric (see picture below, with me and our cousin marissa)

were generous (crazy?) enough to offer up their new and beautiful home to all of us for a big three day slumber party.  while the gentlemen immersed themselves in march madness, the ladies had a very packed and entertaining itinerary.  

we all arrived late friday night to find the house quite festively decorated, and had a great evening hanging out on em and eric's enormous couch (here is a glimpse of it, though you cannot appreciate the true majesty from this shot alone):

getting to know each other and appreciating some legit chicago deep dish pizza.  many folks were meeting for the first time, and david and i have truly been looking forward to meshing some of our buddies together.  nothing like a weekend of intimate bonding to do just that.  it was so cool to see this group of people in the same room together!  how fantastically nuts is it, for example, to see my two oldest friends, marissa and hilary, hanging out with david's fraternity brother james?

and yes, marissa is fortunate to reside in the tiny minority of people who can make a great kiss face in pictures rather than looking like a complete moron.  i don't even try.

anyhow, saturday brought yet more basketball for the guys, while the girls had a day out on the town.  emily, despite having a terrible cold, totally stepped up to the plate as best-hostess-ever, taking us to a spectacular brunch at "feast," a restaurant in the bucktown neighborhood that you should make a point to visit if ever in chicago for any meal (and showering me with gifts!):

www.feastrestaurant.com

followed by manicures:

which worked up our appetites, so we next continued on to get cupcakes at an extraordinarily mouthwatering bakery called sweet mandy b's (in the lincoln park neighborhood):

in my sophisticated palate's opinion, this place could definitely take nyc's famous magnolia bakery in a cupcake-off, and believe me when i say i know from cupcakes.

after stuffing ourselves with these remarkable confections (oh my god, the thought of the banana chocolate chip one just popped into my head and my mouth actually filled with saliva like a pavlov dog...), we worked off some of the guilt and calories in a...unique dance class which left us bruised and sore in muscles we didn't realize we had:

followed by a night on the town that included a very entertaining live show (sorry, no photos were allowed in there--which is perhaps for the better on this family friendly blog) and then meeting up with the guys, who, out of hoops to watch, actually went somewhere without a tv...and look at all the great mingling that resulted:

marissa and mike making peace regarding some snoring issues the previous night:

hil trying out some of her new dance skills on david, and her brother jeremy (who's like another brother to me) was kind enough to join us for the evening as well:

more coed bonding:

and a wonderful (albeit hazy) group photo (unfortunately, em and eric had to call it a night shortly before this was taken):

this was such a phenomenal weekend in so many ways.  david and i really enjoyed having such a fun preview of our new hometown, and if this weekend was any indication of the next 5 or so years, seriously, look out chicago.  

but more importantly, we were so moved by the time and effort put forth by these friends and family to join us and make this experience all that it could be.  we can't imagine this weekend being any more perfect or any more fun...with the exception of every flight out of chicago on sunday getting delayed or canceled...that was a bit of a downer (and a bit of a mystery).  

if it makes the fliers feel any better, david and i pulled into frigid ann arbor at 12:30 am to find that our landlord locked our deadbolt (for which we have no key) after showing our apartment this weekend.  somehow, despite his sleepy stupor and my sorest of limbs, we managed to throw me up onto our second story balcony, only to discover our landlord *also* locked that door.  this was followed by 30 minutes of me hop-slipping up and down on the ice covered balcony for warmth, calling every number listed for my landlord  on my quickly dying phone until he finally rescued me/us.  clearly, we all should have stayed an extra night in chicago...

anyhow, time and time again we are left speechless with how to express our gratitude for all of the wonderful people who love us so much and have great ways of showing it.  i'll say it again--weddings provide ample opportunity to be reminded of how lucky we are for the people who care about us, and we are blessed to have many such people in our lives.

thanks to all of you for making this weekend so special, especially to em and marissa for putting so much planning into the girl stuff (don't we look like blood relatives?!  we sure feel like it...)!

this was such a great group, and we are so excited to have gotten the ball rolling full speed in terms of making the wedding as personable and intimate as possible--that's absolutely our primary objective (wedlock is merely secondary).  we much look forward to reuniting in just a few weeks, and adding many more to the fun!

we can't wait to see everyone again!

good friends are hard to find...(a tribute)

without a doubt, one of the most enjoyable parts about wedding planning is how eager family and friends are to pitch in.  everybody seems to love a wedding, and we have had a great time getting to know each other's friends and family through the process, as well as reconnecting with some oldies but goodies.  

this entry focuses on one of david's oldest friends (think, in utero--their moms met in lamaze class...beat that), joanna (or joey, as i have taken to calling her, in my not-so-discreet efforts to hijack as opposed to just befriend all david's awesome buddies).  pictured above in the bathtub with baby david (in my not-so-discreet effort to force her to comment on this blog, even if just out of embarrassment) has grown into a remarkably talented graphic designer by day, and our personal stationary designer by evening and weekend.  lucky for me and her wonderful new husband jason, she and david quit bathing together (as far as we know), but remain good friends--we are more than fortunate to have this chick in our arsenal for many reasons.

having just planned and executed a wedding herself, joey has become not just my stationary designer, but my personal wedding planner, consultant, and confidant.  "above and beyond the call" doesn't begin to summarize how much work she has put into creating the perfect package for us, from brainstorming design to shopping around for supplies (a LOT of supplies), keeping us on schedule, spending *hours* discussing and debriefing, seeing to it that everybody comes through with their obligations, and making sure everything is totally seamless and entirely stress-free for us.  not to mention that she's incredibly generous, funny, and pretty darn cute...sorry everyone, she's officially off the market.

she literally put all of the tools, supplies and instructions into our hands (cardstock, digital files, hole punchers, stamp, ink, detailed instructions and examples, etc), and after months of discussion and planning, followed by a few days of setting up shop at the local kinkos' paper cutter, all of her hard work has finally come to fruition in the form of our *beautiful* invitations (if i do say so).  david gets an honorable mention here as well for sacking up and doing more than his share of trimming, mounting, binding, and other such joys of invitation assembly.  he's very right-brained.  he also, for the record, promises that this blog will soon become the team effort i've claimed it is (largely to lure more readers...).

if ever you are looking for beautiful, affordable, personal stationary, i would immediately direct you to joanna (whether she likes it or not, i have big plans for her to start her own stationary design company.  i also want her to come and decorate my next apartment).  you couldn't be in more adept or more wonderful hands!  i'm serious.  call her.

without revealing *too* much (it's always nice to leave something to the imagination), here is a sneak peak of the stationary shenanigans going down here in the past few days:

cutting.  when i walk into kinkos now, the staff says, "hey ash!"

punching and stamping.  i find this photo to be *particularly* artistic.

a cryptic look at the almost-finished product.

and most importantly, a VERY big thank you to joey!!

an addendum:  

speaking of friends pitching in and blessing us with their aid, my mom's best friend cristy offered to hand-pen the addresses on all of our envelopes.  she received the envelopes (via fedex of course, to whom i'm now very loyal) yesterday afternoon, and emailed me at 9 this morning to let me know she finished them.  FINISHED them in less than 24 hours, hand inking a number of addresses i hesitate to even put into writing for fear that she just violated a labor law.  whether this woman sleeps or will ever again have the use of her hand remains to be seen.

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!!!

and the winner is...

chicago!!!!!  sorry to have kept people waiting...we just arrived back from match day activities moments ago.  after telling everyone to visit the blog for the big news, we just didn't want to leave you all hanging too long!

we will provide a better blog when we have a little bit more time, but to make a long story very short, we couldn't be more thrilled with this outcome.  after many interviews, david felt the university of chicago emergency medicine residency was as close to a perfect fit as possible for him, and ashley will begin [another] masters program (in nursing this time) at rush university that she too is very much anticipating.  if you're interested, links to both programs are given below.

we are so excited about moving to this new, wonderful city together--both programs begin in mid-june, so it's just around the corner!  we already bought tickets to a june cubs game to celebrate :)

check out the video of david discovering our geographical fate for the next three years at least:

http://em.uchicago.edu

www.rushu.rush.edu/nursing

the envelope, please.

calm before the storm.

the idea for this blog initially came up under the premise of chronicling our upcoming trip to costa rica (april 3-may 18, more on that as the trip approaches).  however, when we began to think more about it, we realized that so many exciting life events are piling up for us in the next couple of months, it may be wise to give the blog a broader scope.  

this way, interested parties can keep up with all the ado in case we neglect our personal correspondence, and we can reel people in under the guise of an enviable tropical adventure so that you remain hooked when life gets a little more mundane (which it shouldn't for awhile...).  and if nobody wants to read our blog regardless, we'll tell ourselves and everyone else it's purely for posterity.  so there.

tomorrow the week-long countdown begins until "match day," one of the most significant days in a doctor's career.  this is the day where, if all has gone according to plan, most medical students across the country (and some outside of it) will learn their fate...where they will continue on for residency (hopefully in the specialty and program they most desire and have busted their a**es for the past four-odd years).   

after months of travel, interviews, checking out different cities and health systems, david meticulously crafted his rank list of programs based on many factors that we'll spare you here...mostly, we're hoping that david is placed at a program in a city where ashley has been accepted to nursing school or yet more restructuring of plans will be in order...

thus, we're enjoying our last week of calm before things really begin to pick up speed...playing with some of our early wedding gifts and battling gastroenteritis (awesome, especially when done simultaneously).  unfortunately, once we learn officially where we're headed next year, we'll have to actually confront some logistics we've conveniently been able to put off until now, like...packing/finding a new apartment/moving, etc.  other shenanigans on the agenda for the next 3 months include our six week adventure to costa rica, getting married, and starting our respective new programs.

so stay tuned...