Memorial Weekend

We had a fabulous Memorial Weekend. Travis began his week off and I was blessed to have Monday off. On Saturday we ventured out to the great city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Travis was excited because this was the first Saturday since August that he didn't have to study. The trip took about an hour, about the same time to get to downtown Chicago but without traffic. We fell in love with Milwaukee. It is clean, not overly crowded, and has plenty of attractions. Our first stop was the Milwaukee Public Museum. At the museum we began with an Imax film on sea monsters. The museum was wonderful. We really enjoyed the butterfly room, a glassed in area full of butterflies! My favorite area was created to look like an old village, and each house should a different culture. We also enjoyed the rainforest room which was created to look and feel like the real reainforest. My camera ran out of batteries while at the museum so I only have pictures of the rainforest room. After the museum we headed out to lunch. We weren't really sure where to go. I had planned where we would go to dinner, but not lunch. After driving around downtown for a little while we decided to try this italian place. It was a family owned restaurant and some of the best italian food that either of us have had. I had a fantastic lasagna dish and Travis had some dish with spicy sausage, ziti, and a special sauce, all served with hot, homemade bread. We found a park near the lake where some type of festival was happening. We stopped to check it out and found out it was a kite festival. Families were out there with their kites, as well as professional kite fliers with trick kites. Apparently kite flying is big up there. Here is a little video of the trick kite, as well as a picture of the biggest windsock I have ever seen!




We ended our trip with dinner at a place called The Brat House. We had some wonderful brats on pretzel buns. We were told later by someone at Travis's school that The Brat House is one of the best places for a good brat.





On Sunday afternoon we ventured out to south Chicago, not southside, south Chicago. We were educated on the difference. One of Travis's classmates invited us to a barbeque at her family's house. Their house was a historic house from the early 1900's. Her mother is a retired interior designer. Needless to say the inside of the house was amazing. We had a meal of smoked ribs, corn on the cob, and baked beans. It made both of us feel right at home.

Travis begins his summer work on Monday, but next weekend we head to Texas for Cody and Larissa's wedding!

First Year Finished

As of today Travis finished his first year of podiatry school! He excelled in every single one of his classes. He is so excited to be finished. He has a week off and then he will begin his summer work. The summer will consist of one class and some clinic work which will be much lighter compared to past few months. Travis has big plans for his week off, mainly sleeping, playing golf, playing computer games and just relaxing. He deserves it for all of his hard work!

I have Memorial Day off and am extremely excited about the 3 day weekend. Travis and I are planning to spend Saturday seeing the sights in Milwaukee. It's only about an hour away and is cheaper than downtown Chicago. We've been told there are some great restaurants and fun places to see. Hopefully my next blog entry will have pictures.

It finally is getting warm here. This week it has been in the 70's and 80's, although today it was back in the low 60's. On one of the days when it was 80 my co-worker was complaining about how hot it was outside. If she only knew...

I Survived (and Conquered) Cinco de Mayo

Work has been very busy lately. Kristi, you were right...I am longing for those days of boredom. At the beginning of last week 2 girls from our department were let go. So Nastasha and I took over their desks for the week which entails taking care of 3 doctors: checking in on their visits for the day, scheduling visits for the upcoming weeks, and revising lists. Last Friday the doctors were all switched up between the 5schedulers. So this week I started off with my 3 doctors.

Monday I was pretty stressed about everything I had to do to get caught up. At the end of the day we found out that 2 of the schedulers would be out tomorrow. So instead of taking care of the visits for 3 doctors, I would be taking care of 5 doctors. The extra fun came this morning when our manager informed Nastasha and I that the other scheduler called in sick. The two of us now made up the podiatry scheduling department, and each of us handled the visits for 8 doctors! Our training must have been superb because we ended up reaching an average that podiatry has not seen in quite awhile. Our manager was very, very impressed...so were we!