Back to the Midwest! (December 16-19)

Seth missed the deadline to “walk” in Spring graduation by a couple of weeks so we used this as an excuse to make the drive west back to Ann Arbor!!  It was a mix of feelings being back in a place that felt like home but wasn’t. Seeing many people we miss and eating food we miss made for a great weekend. 

It also helped the the Bryner family was gracious enough to host us even though they are weeks away from welcoming a little boy into their family. The kids loved being back together and kept busy playing “Sleeping Queens.”

We were only there for a weekend but we made it count!!

We arrived Friday evening and were greeted Saturday morning with SNOW!  We went back to our old townhome complex to visit our neighbors the Thompsons (Shannon is on the far right).

One of our greatest losses of leaving Michigan was leaving behind our “Cousin Steven.”  He has a knack for riling our kids up and letting them hang off of him, which they love and miss. We all went to eat at the “Cottage Inn” (spicy Mediterranean pizza) and then he took us to his fancy lab where he let the kids draw on the white board in the conference room.

On Saturday night I was able to get together with some of my favorite Ann Arbor women (plus all the yummy treats people brought).

FIVE out of the SIX are going to be welcoming new babies in 2012?

Graduation was held on Sunday afternoon at Chrysler Arena. Charlie and Matthew came with me and actually loved it all (Kelly kindly watched Lucy for us). Because it was the winter commencement it’s not a huge group and everyone is together (undergrads, masters, PhDs). They “hooded” all the PhD candidates and said their names as they walked across the stage (the other degree recipients just walked up to the stage to shake hands with the president and walked back to their seats to sit down).   It was actually a great graduation and it even ended early. I got a little teary when the choir group led the audience and graduates in one last round of “Hail To The Victors.”

Unfortunately they were hooding the graduates on the opposite side of the arena so we could barely see Seth in the action and there is no picture. The blurry picture on the far right was the best I could do.

Thanks to my former visiting teacher Liz, we have these great family photos from after the event!  It was COLD!

 

On Monday morning before we left, we stopped by Seth’s old lab so he could say hi/goodbye to his old lab-mates.  Yes, he worked with all women, but they were so kind to him and loved our family!  Mariana Kaplan was Seth’s adviser/mentor/PI and is second from the right. Seth was her first PhD candidate and she is very proud of him.

We couldn’t leave town without stopping by Frita Batidos!  It’s Cuban inspired burgers that are heavenly. Kelly and Ben were able to join us (Ben had just gotten off of call but you can’t tell he had been up all night)

Our babies will only be three months apart!

We of course took advantage of having another fun couple around to play some games. “Run Wild” is a new favorite!

We jumped back on the road and were having a smooth drive home when I ran over a tire on the Pennsylvania turnpike (10pm in the middle of no-where). There was a horrible grinding sound coming from our car and I was sure we had sustained some serious damage. I was able to safely pull over and Seth went out to inspect for damage. Thankfully our car was fine!! When I ran over the tire, it pulled the plastic down from under the front of the car and that dragging on the road had made the awful sound. Thanks to a bungee cord and prayer we made it home safely.