The Updike's

So with the first year of our experience at Notre Dame coming to a close, we decided to splurge a bit. I have always wanted to go on an African Safari... so I convinced Christina that we should pack our bags and head to Kenya for a week so we could check out the wildlife... OK, so we really didn't go on a safari (although we will someday when we have a lot of money!), but we did go to the Potowatomi Zoo. Now it's nothing like what you might see in San Diego or Chicago, but it's not bad for such a small zoo. It is definitely something fun to do in booming South Bend! The MBA program has a Family Life Club and for it's last activity we had a picnic lunch at the zoo. Christina and I were the only ones without kids, but it was really fun. I like to play with the tigers. This little guy and I got along really well! And can you tell how excited Christina is to play with... Well, we have no idea what that thing is, but Christina sure liked it! Monkeys make me laugh. Ap...

One of the great things about Spring is baseball. There's nothing like a day at the ballpark: the tasty hot dogs, the tantalizing smell of deep fried goodness, the crack of the bat and the occasional "Get some glasses Blue! That was a strike!" And with the start of the baseball season comes warm temperatures and sunshine.... Wait, not in South Bend. Unfortunately, it is still freezing here! Last weekend we went to a Notre Dame baseball game to enjoy the sun and the special fireworks show after the game. Well, we lasted about 4 innings - As you can see from the pictures, it was cold! Christina actually went back to the car after the 3rd inning, but if you know me, I am pretty stubborn and don't like to leave games early. But after the 4th inning, I was done too. Luckily, in three innings, we still got to see some pretty good things. Check out the picture with the little kid. You might wonder what he is doing. Well, for about 10 minutes he was digging in his ...

We had a combined Young Women/Young Men mutual night this past week which advertised the theme of "Culture Night." Each of us was required to prepare a recipe that had been in our family for a long time. The first thing that came to my mind was my Grandma Crossley's "Cake of Genoa" recipe. She had clipped this recipe out of a newspaper about 30 years ago. Her family liked it so much that it was a keeper. My dad and my brother, Michael, request if for their birthday every year. I had been talking to my dad on the phone and mentioned that I was going to make this special cake . . . He replied: "You might want to talk to your mom or grandmother about it first . . . the recipe is a little bit tricky since you have to beat the eggs for a certain amount of time." How hard could it be to follow a recipe? Even so, I decided to call grandma for her insight. After going through the directions step by step with her, I felt like I was ready to go. I followe...

As we mentioned before, we weren't abl e to go to either of our homes for Christmas, so we wanted to make it special for just the two of us. And since we both like food - alot! - we decided what better way to celebrate than to have a huge, Christmas Eve dinner together. Now you might be asking yourself - "So which restaurant did you go to since neither of you can cook?" And two months ago, you would have been right - We would have been happy to allow the Outback to provide us with a nice "home cooked" meal. But oh, how times have changed! Christina put together an unbelievable meal that left us both very satisfied. There was sooo much food! We had a 4 pound roast (yeah, I said 4 pounds), tons of mashed potatoes, corn, really big and soft rolls and even home-made gravy (we might not do home-made next time... it may have left a little to be desired), and even a candle to set the mood. And as surprising as it may seem, we ate it all by ourselves... OK, there are to...

Because we are not able to go home for Christmas this year, we decided that we needed to make our Christmas here a special one. So we ventured out into the snowy, cold weather and got ourselves a tree. Luckily, there are a few big forests near by and Garrett wanted to try out his new chainsaw. We searched high and low for hours and hours until finally... there it was! This tree was 10x's bigger and better than anything Clark Griswold ever had. It was perfect! We were soooo excited and knew that it would be the best tree in South Bend. Immediately we began to envision something like this... Unfortunately, reality soon struck - Our 7 foot high ceilings would not be able to contain this majestic wonder, and Garrett really doesn't have a chainsaw. So instead, we went down the street and paid a guy 35 bucks for our first tree. And we really do love it! There are a whopping 300 lights on this bad boy! Talk about getting the Chris tmas spirit in our home. And yes, that's popco...

South Bend Bound We arrived in South Bend, Indiana on October 25, 2007. Garrett is attending the University of Notre Dame. He just started a two year MBA program. Here's our "Love Shack" - A one bedroom apartment that we love! Please note our living room furniture. Yep, you guessed it - Camp chairs! One day our kids will appreciate how "hard we had it." But lucky for us, our heater works, which is really important in the cold and windy Midwest winters.

“Life is all about timing... the unreachable becomes reachable, the unavailable become available, the unattainable... attainable. Have the patience, wait it out - It's all about timing.” - -Stacey Charter Timing is certainly everything. We first met in the winter of 2005. We went out 3 times and for various reasons, things did not click with us. We both went our separate ways . . . Little did we know that we would end up getting married a year and a half later.