Birthday Week

Monday was Ben's 25th birthday, and it was the culmination of a packed week. We celebrated by playing catch and frisbee on Lake Michigan after being on campus all day, and then explored a path we see from the road when driving to UWM several times a week. We then visited our first shopping mall in Milwaukee-Bayshore-and are pleased that we are finally close to some great stores. OK maybe I am more pleased, but we had fun popping into a few before heading to dinner. Ben loves Hu Hot, a do-it-yourself-stir-fry place we went to a lot in IA, so we went to Bd's Mongolian Grill to see how it measured up. Though the food wasn't as good, we were in for a treat. A local church was having a fundraiser that night and brought in some high school kids to do some interpretive mime dancing. It was hilarious and a perfect way to finish our meal. Here he is with the dancers, wearing the Tim Tebow jersey I gave him.


Since our anniversary is the 25th and we are going out for dinner and dessert that night, we broke out our wedding cake for dessert. It was still pretty good! Other birthday festivities included going to the historical Pfister Hotel, downtown with Ben's parents. Here are a few more photos


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We Moved!

Now that 99% of our friends are long distance I'm going to take writing a blog a little more seriously. There is already so much to share! We have been in Milwaukee since Thursday, and are getting a good feel of the city. We have to drive by Miller Park to get downtown, which is really fun. Today was opening day so we enjoyed seeing fans cross the bridge on their way there. It reminded us a little of Melrose Ave. in Iowa City before a Hawks game. Since dropping off our moving truck and filling our storage unit (we are temporarily living with friends until the fall) we have enjoyedexploring our new city. The first thing I fell in love with is Jackson Park, which is a huge park right across the street! I went on a run half expecting there to be little else than a bunch of trees and a path to run on. I was surprised to see a large pond, numerous shelters, bridges, and a public swimming pool. Later Ben and I discovered tennis courts, too. We anticipate spending many sunny days here.
We are living with Neil and Bri, a couple our age who works for our company and has graciously allowed us to live with them until we leave for Jersey this summer. It's been fun having roommates. Bri is a great cook, and Ben and Neil are enjoying living with someone who is excited to watch basketball with them! They hid Easter eggs for us and gave us free passes to the Milwaukee Public Museum. We used those today and saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was really incredible. We dyed Easter eggs together, which Ben and I used in his family's annual Easter egg tournament...Wednesday we start working on campus full time. We will shadow other staff working at UWM (near the lake) and UW-Parkside (35 miles south of Milwaukee). We're excited to get on campus and start doing what we have been preparing for all year! I'll let you know how it goes!