Life in Milwaukee

Fall has been going great! The weather has been pretty amazing and we have been loving it. We were able to go to MI for a weekend in the beginning of October, it was a great chance to see our friends Aaron and Catherine. We went and saw Artprize downtown Grand Rapids, and then got to see Alec's family as well!

School is still going well, keeping me more busy than I ever knew possible. But I am learning a lot. Alec is busy with work, he has had a little bit of traveling over the last month. He has been busy around the house getting this and that ready for cold weather.

It is absolutely awesome having a photographer in the family, Alec's mom is very talented and she took a few pictures of us and our puppy while we were there. We got so many great pictures, this is one of them:

This is our friend's dog, Cooper. He and Josie LOVE to play together.

So it was time Josie got a fur-cut, I wanted to get our money's worth at the groomer so I told them to go pretty short.

BEFORE

AFTER

She looks a little funny and tiny, but she is still cute :)

The start of fall

Well as you can tell by the lack of posts, I am back in school. And it is NUTS! This semester is a lot different than last semester, we have a lot more clinical time and prep required for clinicals. So between that and a normal course load, phew. But I just keep telling myself I am the one that signed up for this, I am choosing to do this, so no major complaints. I am really enjoying this semester though, it is a lot more intense than last semester with harder classes and more hospital time, but I am learning so much! I even had a dream last night about being a real nurse!!! Someday......haha.

Alec has been staying busy as well with some house projects and yard projects. We had a garden this summer and grew pumpkins. The pumpkins have taken over the yard, so has been working on those recently. But we have a great little collection of them which grew in the garden, so cool! He always finds some little project or something to do to keep himself busy.

We are part of the 20-something group at our church, and on saturday had our kick off event. It was a lot of fun! We played kickball, then had burgers for dinner, played some volleyball, then played ultimate frisbee in the dark with glowsticks around our necks!

Josie is getting bigger all the time. I think she is about 12lbs now! She is doing really well though. She loves to sit on the love seat and look out the window.

Overall we are staying very busy but it is all stuff we choose to do. We constantly remind ourselves that we are so blessed to have all these opportunities and try not complain or to take advantage of any of them. The semester sure is going to fly by though at this rate!

Ready or not...

These last three weeks I have not been working. The people I babysit for decided to send the kids to a day camp for the last few weeks of summer, so I have just been enjoying a LOT of down time. Lots of relaxing, some organizing, visitors, scrapbooking and card making, and just simply enjoying my time with no school or homework to stress about.

These last few days I have NOT been looking forward to school. All the little facts about school I have not put any thought into the entire summer have been starting to surface and I feel that familiar dread about starting school. I always get a lot of anxiety before starting a new semester; so many unknowns.... Being a student does not always come easy to me, I typically have to study a little harder than the next person. Then I find myself asking: "Why am I back in school, do I really want to be a nurse?" I've felt pretty negative these last couple days about going back to school, but the fact of the matter I have realized is, I am BLESSED to be able to go back to school. I am blessed to have a husband that can provide for us making it possible, I am so blessed to have this opportunity. So no more negative I have decided! One assignment at a time, one test at a time, and one semester at a time....in just 16mon I will graduate!

Hopefully Josie adjusts to me not being home all the time. My schedule is different everyday during the semester, some days I am home more than others. Thankfully Alec often has the option to come home for lunch and let her out for a little while. She does seem totally fine though when we leave her, pretty sure she just sleeps the entire time! She is developing such a little personality (funny, sounds like I am talking about a kid!). She is a funny little puppy though, we love her :)

Here is a little bit of my work from the last couple weeks, I think I have made about 20 cards. I will be set for the entire year, which is good because I will have no time to make cards once school starts!

My table and the scrapbook I am currently working on.

These are just a few of the cards I have made:

More and more visitors!

We have been so honored that so many of our family and friends are willing to travel all the way to Milwaukee to see us! Here is a bit of a recap of some more guests we have had over the past few weeks.

My Grandma and Grandpa DeKruyter came to visit us for a few days. They arrived sunday afternoon, and Alec and I were able to show them around downtown Milwaukee a little bit. We had a great afternoon and evening of visiting the art museum and then eating dinner at the Cheesecake Factory! On monday, Alec had to go to work, but I was able to go around town with them some more. We went to Greendale, WI (15min from our house) and checked out the little town there, and then we did the Pabst Mansion tour. They then left tuesday morning in their motor home to head to northern WI.

That same tuesday I went and picked up Alec's mom and sister, Lauren, at the ferry. They had a great ferry ride they said! They came to visit us until thursday evening, and we had lots planned that we wanted to do. Most of our time was spent shopping, in various forms. We went to the local mall right by our house, Goodwill, Bayshore mall (the outdoor one), and we went downtown to Brady St. where there are some small little shops that are fun to browse. Wednesday evening Alec got out of work early and we all headed to the state fair. We enjoyed some cream-puffs, seeing the animals, and checking out all the vendors. Overall we had such a good time together!!

On friday my dear friend, Julia, arrived and her boyfriend, Brad. They also came from west Michigan. Julia and I were roommates for most of college, and still often go through withdrawals of not living together! We had a fun and relaxing weekend with them. We went downtown and walked around a little bit showing them the sights, and then did the Lakefront Brewery tour again. It was soooo good for me to see Julia again, and this was her first time seeing our house.

We are done with having guests for a little while, as I am starting school again in 1 very short week! I am a little bit of a mixed bag of emotions, I am excited, nervous, and stressed about all the stress I know there is to come. It will be a challenging semester, but usually that just means it will be a fast semester! We shall see though I guess.

More weekend guests!

We had some more friends from MI visit us this weekend! Our friends Aaron and Catherine came over on the ferry for the weekend, they said they loved the ferry ride and highly recommend it! We had such a good time, as we always do with them.

Some highlights:

• The Pabst mansion tour - very cool to see how rich people lived back in the day. I just kept saying that I wished I lived during that time and could have lived in that cool house! I would have loved it. I just kept thinking of the American Girl Doll, Samantha, I know that is totally nerdy....but its true.




• Lunch at the Garage - We went out to lunch while waiting for the tour to start. It was a restaurant called The Garage, very cool place! It was really yummy, and we got a free beer from our coupon from the Lakefront brewery.....we like free stuff

• Lakefront Brewery tour - The Lakefront brewery is a small local brewery here in Milwaukee. The tour is very fun to do, the tour guides are always hilarious and make the group have a good time. And we were able to taste a few of their different types of beer.
  

• Wii Mario cart - We developed a small obsession for Mario cart this weekend, we had such a fun time racing each other. Also we discovered that we can hook up our Wii to the Internet and actually play them when they are at home at their house! So we are looking forward to a few rematches, even though we are going to be across the lake from each other.


• Shopping at Crate and Barrel and Trader Joe's - Both are places that they do not have in the Grand Rapids area, so had to be visited while they were here.
  

Overall it was an excellent weekend! We absolutely love spending time with Aaron and Catherine and really miss living so close to them, but we really take advantage of the time we do have together!

Our little Josie

Things with Josie are going pretty great! She is such a little furry bundle of joy :) She is still very puppy though! Here is a list of her, we'll call them pros and cons:

PROS

1. She loves to snuggle with us and sit on our laps

2. Has had very few accidents, potty training is going pretty smooth

3. Is adorable

4. She is so fun to just watch play with her toys, so funny

5. Barks at her own reflection (we find this funny)

6. Sleeps through the night no problem, never whines when we put her in the crate

7. Has been very easy to train, she can do: sit, down, shake, high-five, roller over, and crawl

8. Has gotten much better on the leash and I take her for walks often

9. Has no problem with other dogs, actually loves playing with them

10. Is not a big barker, thank goodness

11. Does great when we leave her for work and such, sometimes I think she actually looks forward to getting rid of us for a while so she can just sleep

CONS

1. Still does the puppy 'biting', its getting a little better but she does still use those razor teeth - OUCH!

2. Anytime she greets new people she lets out a little pee. SOOO annoying and I have absolutely no idea how to fix that. I have tried a few different things, but any guidance or help would be much appreciated.

3. Only will eat if we are standing right next to her, otherwise is way to distracted

4. Loves to lick people's feet, its kinda nasty

5. Recently we have been noticing that she sheds a little, which is a HUGE disappointment since they are supposed be almost a no shed kind. It is still just a little, but definitely noticeable. Maybe she is just getting her adult coat or something....ugh.

Overall it is going great and we love her a ton!

She looks like such a skinny little rat when she is wet!

She LOVES her stuffed monkey, definitely her favorite toy

Alyx got her bows for her hair, so cute, however she has no desire to leave them in for more than a few minutes at a time

She also received a rain coat as a gift, sooo funny. And yes we know it is ridiculous, but still think its adorable :)

Catch Up

So much has happened since the last time I have posted....probably because I don't post as often as I should. Anyways, so here is a quick catch up of what Alec and I have been up too these past few weeks.

1. Days after we got back from camping with our family we went camping for the weekend with some friends from church. So we came home, sort of unpacked some things, did a TON of laundry, then packed it all back up. We camped at Governor Dodge State park in Dodgeville, WI. It was a HUGE park, we really liked it! We camped with 4 other couples: Ben and Leah, Brad and Jessie, Preston and Jennifer, and Shane and Jody. We had an amazing time!

The whole group, minus little Josie who napped back in the tent

This is Cooper, Brad and Jessie's dog; he is from the same breeder as Josie, just a few months older though

2. The next event was our 2 year Anniversary! Yes, we have made it 2 whole years now and have not killed each other :) We were so happy to celebrate it together. We went to Bayshore mall, which is an outdoor mall that we just love going too. We had dinner at one of the restaurants there and then went and saw Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was a great night!!

3. Our good friend Dave and Alyx Arends came to visit us for the weekend. They live in Grand Rapids and made the long drive all the way here just to hang out with us! We had such a good time, we did the Miller Brewery tour and went to the beach. They brought their little dog, Foster, he and Josie had a great time together. Also while they were here, Alec decided that he wanted to shave his head....and so Dave helped him accomplish that.

4. This past Thursday (July 22) Milwaukee got hit with a HUGE storm. We received 8in of rain in the matter of a couple hours. According to the news this was the most rain we have received in this area since 1986 (where they received 11in). We get a ton of water in our backyard if we just get a little rain, so you can imagine what kind of ocean we had back there with this. On top of the rain making us have lake-front property it also gave us a few issues in the basement. The sewer lines backed up and we got raw sewage in our basement. Yes, actual poop and toilet paper in our basement. We noticed it was happening right away and Alec was able to plug up the hole it was gushing out of, which slowed it down. We began water vacuuming right away and trying to clear the mess. We were able to get a bunch of it done that night, I knew it was nasty when Alec came upstairs and said "I think I got all the big chunks taken care of". Neither of us went to work on Friday so that we could clean up (especially since we had guests coming that afternoon!). Steve Hull, a friend of ours, came over and helped Alec sanitize the basement. We went through a ton of bleach! Thankfully we do not have a finished basement and so clean up was pretty easy. We lost a few random things, but nothing major. All down our street, all across Milwaukee for that matter, people have HUGE piles of things that they need to throw away. Basements ruined, cars ruined, people had to walk home from their cars because roads were so flooded. Tons of people were stranded on the highways because of all the flooding, it was a nightmare. We are thankful we didn't have many issues at all!

We suddenly had lake-front property.....unwanted though

You can see the water pouring out of the gutter

Alec had to go rescue his lawn-mower and snow blower from the shed so they wouldn't be ruined, look how deep the water is right off our deck

Our garden did survive, had to cut back a bunch of pumpkins though

4. Lastly, we had some family members travel to stay with us for the weekend! Alec's sister, Kate, and her husband Steve, and their 3 girls (Claire-9, Sarah-9, and Jenna-20mon). We were able to go to the zoo, play some Wii, and have a great time together!

Camping

Every year for as long as I can remember we have gone camping with my grandparents and cousins in the summer. We always have so much fun with everyone and look forward to it every year. We were able to go saturday-wednesday, so tons of time to enjoy the beach and our family! We had great weather, a little hot, but we made due. We took Josie along and she really liked it. I was a little nervous at how she was going to do, but it was totally fine. She was filthy the entire time, she just laid in the dirt and chewed on sticks and pine cones the entire time. She slept through the night with no problem as well. The only issue was that she started getting a little 'sassy' (as my good friend Jessie would say!). I am sure this was just due to the fact that we were not at home and couldn't really enforce the 'rules' and such. But it was a great trip overall! The family loved her of course and she took tons of naps since she got tons of attention.

The DeLange family was also able to join us for most of the time as well. It was fun getting the two families together again, we played lots of ladder-ball, and enjoyed lots of beach time together.

The water was so warm and there were significant waves (red flag) so it was fun to play in the water! I believe the water temp averaged 74degrees, and the air temp was about 88-90 the entire time.

Some of the highlights:

• Watching the sunset at the beach
• Playing ladder-ball
• Having hotdogs on the fire (I love hotdogs so much, which is just wrong since I have my degree in exercise science and am generally pretty health conscious, oh well)
• Getting ice-cream at Wippie Dip
• Going to visit Anne at work (Bryant's girl friend, who works at Old Dogs in Spring Lake, MI)
• Having Josie meet the whole family
• Sleeping in our new tent for the first time
• Playing in Lake Michigan
  
  
  

Our home away from home

sisters!

The DeKruyter family