A Year in Review: 2015 Highlights (Part One)

What a difference a year makes. This time last year we had no idea where we were going to be living, and here we are, nearly seven months into our year in Chicago. Even with all the stress, 2015 was a great year. 2015 was also the first full year that I blogged, which made it so much easier to look back on what we did this year than when I did last year’s year in review.

January
We kicked off the new year by going on a Caribbean cruise to Honduras, Belize, and Mexico. Although I missed celebrating New Year’s Eve Russian style, it was so fun to celebrate on the Emerald Princess. I also loved waking up on January 1 in Belize and starting the year off by going on an adventure. It was a trip Christopher and I needed after months of residency interviews.

February
We spent most of February waiting for March to arrive, but it was still a fun month. We went to see Odysseo, which was created by one of the founders of Cirque du Soleil but also includes horses. We also got our first taste of winter weather for the year with a few ice days.

March
March was the month we had been waiting for since the beginning of medical school. It started off with a massive amount of snow (for Texas) and constant thoughts about Match Day. Match Day finally arrived, and it took me a while to process God’s plan for us. All I can say now is I should have never doubted those results because we are exactly where we need to be right now.

After the stress of Match Day, we needed to get away, so Christopher and I took a seven-day road trip from San Diego to San Francisco to celebrate the end of medical school. It was definitely the right trip at the right time, and one of these days I will get around to finishing the recaps!

April 
In April, I visited Chicago for the first time ever to find a place to live. It was such a frustrating experience, but thankfully, everything worked out. It really helped me to feel better about the move after I saw the beautiful city.

May 
May was one of the hardest months of the year. We spent most of the month preparing to move, and I had a hard time coming to terms with leaving my job. That is still the hardest part of living here—I miss my wonderful job and amazing coworkers.

The best part of May was Christopher’s medical school graduation. I was so proud to see him walk that stage and officially become a doctor!

June 
We moved to Chicago on June 1, and I instantly fell in love. We had a week before Christopher started intern year, so we spent as much time as we could exploring.It was so crazy how quickly Chicago started to feel like home.

Come back on Wednesday for the second half of 2015! 

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you and your family! Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating with friends and family. Christ is born!

Currently: December 2015

I haven’t done a “Currently” post since I was waiting for Match Day, so I thought I would do one more this year.

Anticipating: 
My in-laws coming into town on Christmas Eve. I am so thankful they will be spending Christmas with us.

Thinking: 
I am so bummed Christopher has to work on Christmas Eve all of a sudden. I was prepared for him to work, but then they told us he had the day off, and we were super excited. It stinks to think you get to spend time together and then have it taken away.

Feeling: 
Excited that Christmas is on Friday, and I still get three full days with my love and his family!

Reading: 
Angels Burning by Tawni O’Dell (c/o NetGalley). It’s an interesting book about how the violent death of a teenager shook a town and brought out parallels between this killing and the police chief’s mother’s murder. It comes out in early January, so I will be writing more about it when it comes out, but I am really liking it so far.

Watching: 
Skyler eat her Nutro Moist-N-Chewy Bites she received from Chewy. The treats are all-natural, and you can smell the hickory barbecue flavor as soon as you open the bag. I love the size, and Skyler wouldn’t mind eating the whole bag.

I received these treats courtesy of Chewy, but all opinions are my own.

Loving: 
All the Christmas decorations around Chicago! It’s so easy to get into the Christmas spirit with how beautiful it is here.

Hoping: 
To clean up our place and finish wrapping all the gifts before my in-laws arrive!

A Chicago Christmas: Lunch at The Walnut Room

Several friends and bloggers have mentioned the Chicago tradition of having lunch at The Walnut Room, so we thought it would be fun to do while we are living here this year. The Walnut Room is located on the seventh floor of Macy’s on State Street and has one of the prettiest Christmas trees in Chicago.

Lunch starts at 11 a.m., but the line opens at 10 a.m. We ended up being a little delayed and got to The Walnut Room around 11 a.m. By the time we went through the line to get a pager, we were told our pager would go off between 2:30 and 3 p.m. We knew we would probably have to wait a long time since it was the last weekend before Christmas, but it was the only time we could go.

I’ve mentioned before there is no way that I would wait four hours for food, and I still stand by that. In this case, we didn’t care much about the food and wanted to do it for the experience. We killed time by exploring Macy’s—There are nine stories, and each floor is massive. I’m glad we were finished with our Christmas shopping because it was so tempting to buy everything, especially the Frango chocolates.

By the time 3 p.m. rolled around, our pager still hadn’t gone off, so we headed over to the pager drop off area, and they let us get into another line to wait for a table. We were finally seated around 3:30 p.m.

Even though we had to wait forever, we still had fun. Our seats were right by the tree, and we enjoyed our late lunch and holiday cocktails. Christopher loved trying the chicken pot pie, and I had a peach nest chicken salad.

Would I come back and make this a tradition if we lived here? Only if we could go during a weekday and have a much shorter wait. Even so, I don’t regret the time we spent waiting because we got to spend the whole day together laughing and enjoying each other's company.

Linking up with Biana for Weekending. 

Friday Favorites: Blogger Christmas Cheer Exchange Reveal + Linkup

Happy Friday and one week until Christmas, friends! I was just going to do the Blogger Christmas Cheer Exchange reveal today, but I had a few more fun things I wanted to share with y’all today before I shared my fantastic gift!

/ / One
Christopher has a golden weekend this weekend (what people in the medical field call having both Saturday and Sunday off), and I am so excited to go on a few Christmas dates and celebrate him being done with the Step 3! He has had to study for several months after coming home, so it is a relief to have that out of the way.

/ / Two
I have been trying to mix up Skyler’s diet a bit, so I was excited to receive Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Boost Mixers from Chewy. I put about 1/8 of a cup into Skyler’s food every day, and she gobbles it up. I love that it is natural, grain-free, and pure animal protein. She loves that it provides variety to her dry food.

I received the Nature’s Variety Instinct Raw Boost Mixers from Chewy, but all opinions are my own. 

/ / Three
Christopher and I finally got to decorate the tree on Monday because he got home early from one of his test days. It was so nice to spend time together decorating and listening to Christmas music.

/ / Four
This week, I finished my 100th book of the year! One of my latest reads was The Tsar of Love and Techno, which I picked up because it was short stories about life in Siberia when during the Soviet Union period. I don’t usually read short stories, so it took me a while to get into them, and I thought the first half of the book was pretty boring. That being said, once the back story was established, I loved the second half of the book. Everything came together and kept me engaged.

I received this book through Blogging for Books, but all opinions are my own.

/ / Five
Last but not least, I had so much fun putting together the Blogger Christmas Cheer Exchange with Mattie! My Secret Santa was Katie from Running with Wine, and she got me a beautiful blanket scarf! I have been wanting a blanket scarf in those colors forever, and it is so warm and soft. It finally got cold enough here to wear it when Christopher and I went on a Christmas date to ZooLights last night. I love it so much with my red peacoat, and it will be on heavy rotation this winter. Thank you so much, Katie!

Ladies part of the exchange, link up with us below! I can’t wait to see what y’all got. If you haven’t received your gift yet, the link up is open until December 31.

An InLinkz Link-up

Linking up with Amanda, Karli, and the High Five for Friday girls.

I hope y’all have a wonderful weekend!