The past two months.

These last two months have been a bit crazy. Here's a brief summary:

- I finished grad school
- We went to Austria for 10 days
- We packed up, said goodbye to all our Colorado friends, and drove through 4 days of rain on our move to Maryland
- I started my first ever real job
- We bought a house

Austria was amazing - it is such an incredible place. Here we are at a palace in Vienna.

Becky at the Vienna opera house. Yeah, that's right I went to the opera...3.5 hours worth.

My favorite part of the trip was hiking around in these Alps. Easily one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
The hardest part of leaving Colorado was saying bye to the students we had been mentors to for many years. Before we left, one of the students parents threw us a goodbye party.

Life in Maryland has been good so far. We look forward to updating the blog more often with what's going on in our life on the east coast.

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In good company

As Becky eluded to in the previous post, I completed my requirements for my PhD last Monday. In light of this, there is a bit of information you might find amusing. Another graduate student made an incredible discovery a few months ago. There is a plaque at our research center that lists the name and year of all PhD graduates from the center. Close inspection of this plaque reveals that none other than Charles Norris received his PhD back in 1992.

I am truly honored to be in the same company as this great man.

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Dr. Loomis!!!!

Bryant is now officially Dr. Loomis - woohoo!!!!!!!!

More updates to come...

Visit to Maryland

We visited Maryland for one of Bryant's job interviews and extended the trip for a mini-vacation. We spent some time in Annapolis, and I ate my fill of crabcakes. I love crab cakes. We also got to see Bryant's friend, Mike Benko, who lives in Washington D.C. He introduced us to Ethiopian food, which we ate straight out of a hat.

On Friday night, we toured Washington D.C. It was cool to see all of the history, and be reminded of our nation's past.

We visited the Korean War Memorial, which meant a lot to me as my grandpa fought in that war. I am very grateful for his service to our country, and all those who served so selflessly.

We also got the chance to see Matt and Eli Margaron and their beautiful girls, Emma and Leah. We hung out in Baltimore then headed up to their home in Bel Air for dinner. We also went to a beautiful farm for ice cream (which was obviously the highlight of the trip for the girls)!

This was a very nice long weekend, and gave us a great feel of that area of the country. Maybe we'll be moving there soon....

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Homemade Cappuccino!!

As previously mentioned, Bryant gave me a stovetop espresso/cappuccino machine for my birthday. Since it was intimidating to try out, we invited our good friend Joseph over for the debut. Joseph is a very talented barista and taught me all the technical aspects of making a great foamy cappuccino.

We also played Settlers of Catan - our new favorite game - with Joseph and Nicole (both of whom we know from Flatirons Student Ministry). A great Sunday afternoon of fellowship and coffee!

Taylor Swift!!

In the past year, I have become a huge Taylor Swift fan. My girls also love her music, so we headed up to Cheyenne, Wyoming to experience her concert at Frontier Days in July.

We had no idea, but apparently, Frontier Days is pretty big deal, and cowboys come from the surrounding states to take part in the festivities. We're not cowboys (or girls) but we had fun.

We had a fantastic time at the concert - I'm ashamed/proud to say that I knew every single word to every song.

After the concert, we headed down to Fort Collins to stay the night in a hotel. The manager let us go swimming after midnight, which was a great ending to such a fun trip. I have been blessed to get to know these girls over the past three years, and am so excited about the girls they are, and the women they are becoming.

Becky's Birthday

Last Sunday was my birthday, and Bryant spoiled me like crazy (I have married an amazing man!). The day started with a delicious breakfast in bed:

We spent some time in the afternoon at the Louisville Community Pool. I have been wanting to go swimming for about a year now, and figured my birthday was the perfect day. We really miss Lake Michigan and the easy access to swimming that we had in Michigan, but the pool here was a nice substitute. And, since Louisville was just named the #1 small town to live in, by Money Magazine, I figure this is the best community pool in the country!

We ate at The Kitchen for dinner in Boulder, and the food was magnificent. I would strongly recommend that restaurant for a special occasion. Since both of our families live out-of-state, all of my gifts were mailed to me, so I opened up gifts at three hour intervals - what a fun way to do gifts. The last gift I opened was from Bryant, and it is a stove top cappucino maker. I had no idea what it was, but am so excited to use it. Our good friend, Joseph, is a barista, and he is going to show us how to make a stellar latte.

On Monday, my girls came over with lots of birthday cake and flowers.

I feel incredibly blessed to have such a thoughtful husband, and great family and friends. Thanks for all of the birthday love!

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