Monthly Archives: July 2015

June 2015 – Moving Time!

And summer was here before we new it! The day after my mom&Craig left (Monday) was my birthday :D… I feel so old being 26 lol. I went to work and my co-workers surprised me with some treats (they know my weaknesses lol) and then after work Ben&I met for dinner. Unfortunately it started POURING rain when we were about a block apart from each other and got holed up across the street from each other. I had an umbrella which the wind almost ruined, so the restaurant host was nice enough to give me a better umbrella from lost & found. So I ran over to Ben (gave him one of the umbrellas) and we ran another block to the dinner reservation he made at a fancy French place. It was pretty good and dessert was humongous! lol Afterwards we went home where Ben’s parents and little sister had been waiting and we opened some gifts – I got some cool books (apparently I’m meant to read Clay Christensen because Ben’s mom and my cousin both gave me a book of his lol), face products from my mom&grandma (I helped pick it out lol) and Ben gave me a waffle maker (yay for a bigger kitchen soon to store it finally!), a cool pen that audio records (for my upcoming classes), and a UMD sweatshirt!

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Then, the bday and graduation fun was done and we really had to think about moving.

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Of course I procrastinated packing a bit with making a couple more batches of jam from our garden strawberries 😉

We decided Ben would take our truck of stuff June 12 and I would work a bit more and come with our car June 24th! We signed everything for selling our house June 12, and the buyers closed June 19. Unfortunately packing is more work that we thought and we had more stuff than we thought (we have been in the same place for 5 yrs :-/ … and have way too many books! lol). After lots of work (& sweat especially from Ben) we had the truck packed by 11 pm Friday, June 12 and off Ben went. It wasn’t the best idea to drive at night but for some reason that was Ben’s plan. Somehow he made it safely to Nashville by 11am the next morning, and just in time use his 10am-12pm elevator reservation at our new place! He unloaded the big stuff (had 2 guys hired to help), and then let the next people use the elevator… and he realized they didn’t have help so helped them unload for 2 hours. Then he went to our storage unit to unload our wood from my Grandpa’s farm (and he almost passed out there… yes sleep and food is necessary even for superman Ben 😉 ) and he finally slept! The next morning he got up at 6am to unload all of our boxes before the elevator got crowded, returned the truck and walked home! Next time we will hire more people and plan better, but I can’t believe Ben did all that!

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Meanwhile at home, I spent the night on an air mattress and Saturday morning Ben’s parents and 2 sisters came to help clean up and took our leftover stuff that didn’t fit in the truck like the lawn mower. Then I went to a ladies lunch with some coworkers (happy bday Caitlin! I miss you guys) and then cried a little looking at our empty house, and drove over to a studio apartment by work I was renting for the next 12 days. They next week or so, I finished up stuff at work, hung out with my friend Becky who was back in town, said goodbye to coworkers and my RS book club, went to Ben’s sister, Lauren’s, HS graduation and had a fun dinner w 3 of his sisters and some games at their house with the fam. We loved our time here & will miss all our friends&family and our house&garden&favorite restaurants but after 2 weeks of saying goodbye I was ready to see Ben again and get to Nashville!

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I drove to Nashville Thursday, June 25 (good drive except the ac died so I almost died of heat 🙁 at least I could get Icee’s!). Friday I did wash & hung out with Ben – we were super excited about the Supreme Court ruling for Marriage Equality and the ACA that day and almost made it to Nashville Pride Festival but sadly it was raining 🙁  – but Ben did make it Saturday!. Then Saturday morning I headed off to AZ! …And that trip will have to be another post :).

Hope you are all having a great summer!

Ben’s Graduation!

After 6 long years and lots of work and more than a couple late nights, Ben Graduated!!! I’m so proud of all his hard work!!!

We had fun celebrating with lots of family in May! My Mom & Craig got into MD late Monday, May 18. Tuesday, I had lunch w them at work and showed them around the Fed and then we went to dinner at my favorite restaurant – Rasika – amazing Indian food! Wednesday my dad flew in and went up to my G&Gs and Ben flew in Wednesday evening and mom&Craig and Ben&I went and got dinner (Indian food again lol at our other favorite, Spice 6). Thursday was graduation! …. And of course it rained… like crazy… all day long. So instead of our backyard BBQ we squished all of us into our basement for a late lunch, went to graduation, and then came back for cake and a light dinner :). It was great to have Ben’s parents and 6 of his siblings, his Uncle&Aunt from Richmond, my G&G from MD, my dad, and mom&Craig!

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He got lots of fun gifts – shirts, mugs, socks, and a clock from his great-grandpa Munyan. The pics below are from a UMD Business School PhD dinner. Danmo is the other PhD student Ben started out with 6 years ago – we will miss you!

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Thursday night my dad spent the night and Friday we went for a hike at Great Falls and then we drove up with Ben to my Grandparents where we had another BBQ at my grandparents on Saturday. Ben’s family was good to drive all the way out there and lots of my Schollian relatives came and my mom&Craig!

Then Sunday-Wednesday, Ben&I went up to a condo with my mom&Craig in Shenandoah Virginia. It was nice and relaxing, hiked, played mini-golf, played lots of board games, and saw lots of deer!

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Then Ben&I went to work Th/F while my mom&Craig stayed at their condo. By this time our tenants (we’ve been renting our main floor out to 3 female students for the last 5 yrs) had all moved out and we were starting to work on cleaning up our house and starting to think about packing lol. My mom&Craig had dinner w us Saturday and spent the night at our now big empty house and went home to AZ Sunday!

Thanks for all the family people who celebrated and thanks for all the family & friends who made it a great 6 years!

Spring 2015

In March, we went to Puerto Rico for a week to celebrate Ben’s new job & graduation, which was really fun! We stayed 3 nights at an AirBnb in San Juan and then 3 nights at a hotel on the East side near the rain forest. We went on a 7+ mile hike in the rain forest (saw a couple lizards and great views), went to the beach, walked around San Juan and saw the old Fort San Cristobal, did some little hikes to a couple caves (and saw some bats), went on a boat trip and snorkeled, went on a night kayak trip and saw the luminescent bay, tried mufongo and Puerto Rican food, and ate lots and lots of crepes lol! We had lots of fun and were sad to go! Sadly on the way home we missed our connecting flight in Florida :(. It was a really sad story/reason to miss a flight and we spent the night in Florida but hopefully its my first and last time missing a flight :-/.

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In April, Ben did some April Fool’s jokes on me 😉 (the guard & I didn’t catch my ID till the next day) and we had Easter dinner with my grandparents and uncle&aunt. My Grandmom had just got a heart pace maker the day before and popped back better than ever!  So to wish her well and for fun I made my G&G and aunt&uncle Easter baskets :).

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Also in April, Ben’s sister, Andrea, got engaged and we got to meet her fiance, see her try on gorgeous wedding dresses, go to Red Lobster, and have a family BBQ! We also had a friend BBQ that same weekend and managed to get 17 people in our basement plus a puppy when it rained :D.

The first weekend in May my sister, Chelsey, came to visit. We had fun going on a hike, hanging out, and seeing our Schollian family in Maryland. As my co-worker would say, it was a great Scho-down ;).

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We put our house on the market the day before Chelsey got here – Wednesday, April 29 and by the next Tuesday we had more than 70 visits and 8 offers (all at or above list price)! Definitely faster than we expected. We were originally set to close June 8 but it got pushed back a bit to June 19, but everything worked out great!

Anything else fun? Ben went to North Carolina for a conference in April, we did laser tag with Ben’s siblings, my friend Zina visited from NYC, and Ben & I saw the Avengers movie (kind of our anniversary tradition now ;). We also went to Nashville for our anniversary weekend – we checked out the condo we were planning on renting, Ben attended Vanderbilt’s one-day finance conference (and I got to meet some of the other professors at dinner), we went on a little hike, went out to dinner, and walked around downtown. I was just there Friday-Sunday; Ben got there Thursday and left Sunday for a finance conference in Georgia and then came home Wednesday, May 20 – the day before his graduation! And that (graduation) will be the next blog :)!

And if you made it to the end, enjoy some of DC’s spring flowers :).

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