Chicago: The first Two weeks

She didn't come out to see me, but I did get a chance to hang out with my sister Hannah in Chicago last week. Hannah was visiting Chicago with her boyfriend, and Carol and I took a break from unpacking long enough to spend some time with them downtown. Here is a picture of Hannah and I in front of Chicago's famous bean.

After a quick photo in front of the bean we headed to the Willis (Sears) tower.

Hanging out on the new Skydeck addition:


Fast forward to today, Carol and I and some friends from the seminary joined a faculty member on his sail boat for some sailing on Lake Michigan.

A Gift from the City

Well, as much as I would have liked it to be, the orange and white envelop secured to my car beneath the windshield wiper was not a gift from the City of Chicago.

Less than 24 hours since moving to Chicago, I received my first parking ticket. Supposedly the cars along W. Carmen Avenue needed to be moved in order to clean the street, but I'm not buying it. I'm choosing to see it as a shameless attempt at making up for the city's revenue shortfall.

Despite my irritation, the city does make paying your ticket a breeze by providing an option to pay online. How nice of them.

Chicago

Carol and I arrived Tuesday afternoon in Chicago. The drive out was less than exhausting, but I am still so glad that the trek is over and that we're finally here.

I feel disoriented in this new big city and at times I feel a little overwhelmed with all the little things that need to happen in the next week or so. Moving can be hard work and right now New Student Orientation just feels in the way.

There's a lot I want to write about, but this is all for now...

Surprise!

Ugh... It's been two weeks since I last posted something to this neglected blog and the last thing I wrote about had to do with a silly fire that had the potential of burning down the camp.

So much has happened in the past two weeks. The most noteworthy event of course has been my engagement to Carol. I came to camp with a ring and I've playing dumb for about the last 3 months. Surprises are hard to make happen, especially when the surprise is for the person you tell nearly everything to. In a strange sort of way, I wanted to tell her everything I was planning. She's passionate about social justice issues and the environment, and so I wanted to tell her that her the diamond was certified conflict free, that the gold was recycled and that even the silly little box these things come in was wooden and sourced from a sustainable forest. I wanted to tell her about how I was going to jump out of a box at the end of magic act at a talent show and ask her to marry me.

Now I'm just glad the secret is out. Surprises are fun, but also very hard to keep. I felt like I was organizing one big conspiracy theory: Pretend I was broke, that I didn't know what a carat was, act insecure about our future together, and then plan to maybe get engaged in the fall.

If you haven't see the video of the proposal already, it's on Facebook. Hopefully this link works.

There are so some spiffy engagement photos on Facebook as well.