Bianco's in NYC

NYC and Jersey have been a fast blur of events. We visited the Olenslager's (saw my niece Emmeline for the first time) and Giovanni in Boston for Thanksgiving and had a good time. We saw most of the historic sites, got to visit MIT and Harvard, and finally got to eat Raising Cane's again (we have them in Dallas but not Jersey).

Boston Tea Party

John Harvard (we learned not to touch the shoe, thanks Giovanni)

MIT

We stayed in Jersey for Christmas. We had a few feet of snow but only for a day or two. I took Arielle into the city and we saw Rockefeller Center (the tree and ice rink), the Central Park ice rink, some of the windows down at Saks, and some other holiday decor around NYC.

Snow in Weehawken

Dimitri down by his work in Midtown

Rockefeller

Saks window

Central Park ice rink

Rockefeller Christmas Tree

We also had a list of other events and activities which include visiting Hershey in Hershey, PA (stopped by to visit the Knocke's and see some Amish farms as well), went to a Michigan basketball game at Madison Square Garden, have been hiking a little bit in Jersey, and trying to enjoy as much of the tri-state area as possible.

Hershey

Madison Square Garden

Michigan beat Penn

Norvin Green State Forest

Norvin Green State Forest

A lot of 20 exotic cars by our apartment

Nintendo World at Rockefeller

Dimitri's 27th Birthday

Living The Dream (the view out front our apartment)

December

Dimitri and I finished our first semester of grad school in December and were glad it was over. Since I only took three classes my finals weren't too bad (2 fifteen page papers, a take home exam, and a volunteer journal). Dimitri ended up having 5 finals in two weeks. His exams were evenly spaced so he had a little time to study for each exam, but not a lot. After Dimitri received his final grades he had to email them to the Master in Applied Economics program so they could decide if they wanted to admit him to the program. Usually the teachers only have 3 days to grade the final exams and post the final grades, but one of his teachers took 2 weeks so we didn't hear from the econ department for a while.

After school finished we flew back to Spokane to visit everyone for Christmas. We were home from the 22nd to the 3rd. Unfortunately on Christmas I came down with the stomach flu and ended up getting sick that night and the next day (our anniversary). On the 27th Dimitri ended up getting sick, but WAY worse than I did. We ended up having to go to the ER where they gave him 3 liters of fluid and Zofran to prevent him from throwing up. We left the ER at midnight and then had to drive up north to go to a 24 hr pharmacy to get his prescription, so we didn't get back to his parents house until 1 am. Getting sick definitely put a damper on our plans, Dimitri didn't feel very good for a few days after he got sick so we just relaxed.

On New Years day we decided to go snowshoeing, which we were planning on doing on our anniversary. We had a lot more fun than we thought we would. We hiked up a trail at Mt Spokane and were surprised at how many people we saw. We hiked uphill for 2 hours but it started to get foggy so we decided to head back to the car, which only took an hour. After our hike we planned on going to the Flying Goat or Perry's Pizza for dinner, but they were closed for the holiday so we settled on Olive Garden. I can't believe we've already been married for 4 years! It doesn't feel like that long!

Dimitri had asked his grandma for a tree skirt for our christmas tree as our gift. She did a great job! Dimitri put it under our tree when we got back to Ann Arbor to take some pictures before we took down the decorations.

The day after we got back I had a data collection and the family brought us poptarts with the Michigan logo! I brought a pack back for Dimitri.

A few days after we got back Dimitri had an email from the MAE program and he got in! He is officially a dual Master's student in Financial Engineering and Applied Economics. Our classes so far this semester have been good. We are both taking 4 classes and so far Dimitri's homework load is at a reasonable level unlike last semester.

Next weekend we are going to the Detroit Auto Show with our friend Giovanni.

Halloween/Thanksgiving/Fall Semester

We've been pretty busy the past few months. The semester has been easier for me than it has for Dimitri. I am only taking 3 classes and they are all on Monday and Wednesday so I am free the rest of the week. I spend Friday mornings volunteering at an elementary school helping out in three Adapted P.E. classes and on Thursdays I am often doing data collections or in the lab working on data reduction. The rest of the semester will be pretty easy for me, I just have a couple of papers to write and one exam and then I'm done! Next semester I'm going to take 4 classes and so far they are all on Tuesday/Thursday so I will have long weekends again which is really nice, and it is really convenient for data collection since they are in the mornings and are at least a few hours.

One of the babies on a treadmill (they are usually naked).

The research project I am working on is called Myelomeningocele Intervention or MMC study. MMC is one type of spina bifida. For the study we have families do treadmill training 5 days a week for 10 minutes a day with their baby with MMC. The parents hold their baby on the treadmill and try to get them to take weight on their legs.  Every 6 months they do a bone scan to see if their bones are becoming more dense (which is a good thing) among other tests we run. Babies with MMC generally have very low bone density in their legs making them more likely to break their bones and depending on the level in the spinal cord where the lesion is people with MMC may only walk for a few years. We're hoping to increase their bone density and possibly help them to walk longer and avoid assistive devices. So far things are looking promising, but many of the babies haven't graduated from the study yet so we will see!

Dimitri is taking 6 classes this semester and can't wait to be on Christmas break. He spends at least 40 hours a week doing homework. He is currently waiting on the Master in Applied Economics program to see if they will let him do a dual masters (right now he is in Master in Financial Engineering). It's university policy that they have to see one semesters worth of grades before they can grant you a dual masters so he won't find out until December some time.

Ann Arbor by our apartment.

For Halloween this year we were really excited because there are a lot of kids in our apartment complex which meant that there would be lots of trick or treaters, BUT then we realized we're both in class until 8 pm on Halloween which meant we wouldn't be home until almost 9 pm. By the time we got home no one was out so we got stuck with all the candy. Oh well! : ) We carved pumpkins the weekend before Halloween. My pumpkin said 'Trick or Treat' and Dimitri's pumpkin was of Jack Skellington from A Nightmare Before Christmas. They turned out pretty good I think!

Our 2012 pumpkins.

For Thanksgiving my advisor invited us to her house with the other grad students, but we decided to do our own Thanksgiving since it was our first chance to do one with just us. We ended up finding a 10 pound turkey and ate around 3 pm. We made cheesy potatoes, stuffing, rolls, cranberries, gravey, and pumpkin pie to go along with the turkey and we have A LOT of left over. Everything ended up being done around the same time which worked out really good. (Dimitri's Note: Arielle hasn't liked stuffing but this year said it has grown on her lol.)

Dimitri wearing his chef jacket from Natalya.

The finished meal before we ate.

We went on a walk after we ate dinner and heard a scratching coming from the dumpsters. We walked over and looked in the recycling bin because raccoons often get themselves stuck in them when the trash isn't full enough. He wasn't in the recycling so I lifted the lid of the garbage and couldn't see it until I looked down and he was looking right at me and hissed. After a few attempts Dimitri was able to get the lid to open all the way and we put a vacuum cleaner (someone left it by the dumpster) in the corner of the dumpster so the raccoon could climb out. We thought the vacuum fell over so we went to go get a big stick from the other dumpster, but when we were walking back we saw the raccoon go down the sewer drain in the parking lot.

Today we decorated our apartment for Christmas. Our tree is up and we put lights around our back slider door. We listened to Christmas music for a good 6 hours and watched Frosty the Snowman. We also got most of our Christmas shopping done online today so we won't have to travel with everything when we go back to Spokane for Christmas.