Sad and happy

As the commentor to my last post noted, Matt's father passed away early Wednesday morning. I flew out on Thursday morning to be with him and his family, and to attend the wake and the funeral. The flowers, friends and family were a testament to how much Matt's dad (Al) and Matt's family are a part of their community. The ceremonies were beautiful, and people said so many nice things. Though it was sad to lose Al, it's a blessing that his family got to spend time with him before he died, and say their goodbyes.

I'm back home, now, and anxiously awaiting bar exam results, while getting the house in order and planning Matt's birthday celebrations for this weekend. We'll try and move away from the sad and focus on the happy.

Life

Things here have been busy; at times, a little too busy. Last week was my second week of work, which at times went very well and was at times incredibly stressful. I guess that's what expected in a new, hard job, eh?

Matt's dad, who has been ill for more than a year, is now gravely ill and Matt is out in Boston with him and the rest of their family. I wish I were there, but as I just started work two and a half weeks ago, I'm not really able to take an indefinite amount of time off to go be with them. I hope to visit this weekend. In the meantime, I'm trying to do as much as I can around here to help out. I feel a bit impotent.

Fun stuff has happened, too: Bethany and Eric visiting from Iowa, a housewarming at Heather's, an afternoon watching football with Adrienne and more football at Erin's, drinks with girlfriends, and Sangria at Matisse with many.

So that's what's happening here. What's happening out there?

Week 1

My first week of work is nearly done, and I'm slowly adjusting. It's quite a change from my last month of travelling and just hanging out. It's good to be back, though, to see my old co-workers and my class again, and to start working on interesting projects.

This weekend my friend Bethany and her husband Eric are coming to town, Michigan and Notre Dame are playing, and Matt and I have big plans to paint portions of our apartment. If anyone wants to join us for painting, let me know :)

Aww...

We insist on eating from the same bowl even though we clearly each have our own bowls, and the bowls are too small for sharing.

Kittens

Matt and I are now the proud owners of two kittens: Dr. Tobias Funke (of Arrested Development fame; also goes by Dr. T, Toby and Tobias) and Proposition Joe (of the Wire fame; also goes by Joey, Prop Joe and PJ). Matt's a little worried because Dr. T is quite meowy. We're hoping he will calm down a bit after he gets used to his home. We adopted both cats from Cats-Are-Purrsons-Too (okay, that's fundamentally not true). The no-kill adoption organization is run by an older nun who lives in a home with more than 70 kitties. Dr. T left a brother there, so we think he might be a little sad. But he and PJ are getting along quite well, napping and wrestling together.

They aren't the most photogenic, but here are a few pictures:

Dr. T is on the left, PJ is on the right. They are both about four months old.

Both enjoy the string.

They always travel together!

Extreme delay

Sorry for the extreme delay for awhile. When we got home from our honeymoon, I immediately (within four hours) got on a plane to Ann Arbor so that I could help the firm recruit University of Michigan law students. I came back the next night, and Matt and I hurriedly did work around the apartment and made trips to the DMV before we left to visit my mom in Iowa. We arrived in Cedar Falls late on Thursday night, and enjoyed my mom's delicious BBQ dinner before retiring to bed. The next morning Matt and I spent awhile picking up my dad's old dining room table and chairs and stuffing them in our rented van. When we finally managed that, we went to the social security administration office so I could get a new card. We visited my grandma in the afternoon, hung out with my neighbors and had dinner in the evening, and then went to bed early so that our 5:30 a.m. leaving time wouldn't be so harsh.

Our road trip back was a bit harried, but we made it back to watch the end of the depressing Michigan/Appalachia State game and for the whole depressing ND/Georgia Tech game. Matt and I decided we needed a new team to cheer for this year, and we've chosen the University of Iowa. Go Hawks! (At least they won on Saturday.) We spent Sunday working around the house, and yesterday went to the Cubs/Dodgers game with Meg and Chuck. We planned a delicious dinner and I set our new table for the first time... unfortunately, we came home to a broken air conditioner. It was so hot we had to eat outside on our porch with the mosquitos. Hopefully that will get fixed asap.

More updates soon!