Finally finished and feeling free

The semester is finally over, and we couldn’t be more grateful for the long-awaited break! As they always do in school, the weeks between Thanksgiving and the semester close flew by with non-stop culminating projects, research proposal deadlines, and final exams. We have spent many a recent day in our favorite local study cafe, Colectivo, and drinking too much coffee!

we enjoy study in cafes on saturdays

taking a lunch break!

Over Thanksgiving break, we stayed around in Milwaukee and hosted a small Friendsgiving gathering at our apartment. It coincidentally turned out that everyone who attended was from California and couldn’t afford to go back home for so short a time. We had a great time, and I happily succeeded in making my first spatchcocked turkey along with some sticky rice stuffing and a pumpkin magic cake for dessert!

On Black Friday, we went to see a movie in the theater for the first time since La La Land. “Wonder” was definitely a tear-jerker (x5), and I highly recommend seeing it if you haven’t already! That weekend one of my classmates also invited us over to her home in Brookfield for a delicious dinner. We met her husband and children and giant German Shepherd, and the night really felt like “real life” in contrast to all the school-oriented tasks and activities that normally occupies our time.

In early December, Jonny had a medical volunteering event at a Hmong New Year celebration in Milwaukee (apparently Hmong Americans are the largest Asian ethnic group in the state of Wisconsin), and I decided to tag along to check it out. Good decision on my part, because the organization was very generous with the food vouchers for the medical student volunteers, and we ended up taking home a plethora of Hmong food for dinner…and lunch and dinner the next day too.

egg rolls, chicken, Hmong sausage, purple sticky rice, and papaya salad!

tri-colored jelly drink

Since our last update back in early November, we’ve started attending a neighborhood community group through our church. Our group has a good mix of members in different life stages, and it’s great that one of Jonny’s classmates and his wife attend the group as well. We meet every Thursday night to discuss the previous Sunday’s sermon and bible passage, and once a month we have a potluck/fellowship night.

In other news, it’s really cold here and the snow has finally decided to stick around! It’s quite surreal seeing everything covered in snow, but so far it hasn’t been too much trouble (underground/covered parking will do that for you). It also make Christmas lights and decorations WAAY more beautiful, so that’s a plus!

While we are definitely glad to be settling in well here, we are excited for our time back in California to see all of our beloved friends and family!

 

 

 

Befores and Afters

It’s been three weeks since we arrived in Wisconsin and I can now confidently say that we are “all settled in” to our new home. It was a lot of fun (and work!) to set up our new apartment, and we are very happy with how it all turned out in the end. We have a sizable kitchen and dining room, a spacious living room, a master bedroom with two sinks (yay!), and a second bedroom that we converted into our study…and home gym!

before

after

before

after

before

after

before

after

Jonny has wanted a home gym for a long time now, and we agreed that if we found a good priced 2 bedroom apartment in Wisconsin, we would try to make his dream come true (it is also his quarter century birthday present!). We figured that it was a good investment for our health and efficiency, as we probably won’t feel up to going to our school gyms that often in the cold, snowy winter weather.

This past week was also Jonny’s first week of medical school at MCW. It was packed full of class lectures, anatomy labs, introductions, and free club lunches but he made it through alive! He’s glad to be back in the swing of things, learning material he finds interesting and relevant, but it’s definitely a stressful challenge as well. We’ve accumulated some extra reference textbooks and mounted some whiteboards in our office in efforts to make our home very comfortable for the long hours of studying to come for both of us.

Walking to school!

On Monday, we attended the first gathering of MCW’s Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) and met some new friends and fellow believers. It was a little weird for me at first, as I was the only one there who does not attend MCW, but I was welcomed warmly to the group. It’s also nice that most of the members attend Meadowbrook, the neighborhood church that we have been checking out.

This weekend we also visited the Wauwatosa Farmer’s Market, hosted a very enjoyable spaghetti and meatballs dinner party for some of Jonny’s classmates, attended Meadowbrook’s annual church picnic, and played some tennis at the local park. I’m trying to enjoy my last days of freedom before my PA program starts, but as much as I enjoy watching the many episodes of “The Great British Bake Off” (I’m currently halfway through season 2), I’m looking forward to having some structure back in my days. My orientation is on Friday and classes start next Monday!

Farmer’s Market

dinner party

tennis courts