Mid Summer

Like everywhere in the US it has been hot here lately but overall it is much cooler than last summer. The humidity can get to you from time to time but you get used to it especially with no AC. The thunderstorms here are really amazing and are larger than have ever seen anywhere else. When we get heat lightening sometimes it is so low that it makes the inside of our apartment flash which is really weird and unexpected.

We took a day trip to the Saugatuck Dunes which was a blast. The dunes aren’t really dunes like we are used to. It was mainly trees with sand and plants until we got near the beach where there was a lot of sand. To get to the lake we had to hike in. They had several different hikes to choose from, we chose the longest one because fewer people would choose to go that far to get to the beach. Total I think we hiked about 5-6 miles. We walked in Lake Michigan and watched some of the sailboats. We didn’t stay on the water very long since we ended up getting attacked by flying beetles. I killed a bunch of them and we ran away from some others but they just kept coming back at you.

Saugatuck and Lake Michigan

 

4^th of July is a lot bigger event in Ann Arbor than Spokane. Fireworks are allowed here but I think you have to purchase a license to do them. We ended up driving down to the same neighborhood that we went to last year. The locals firework display went on for 2 hours as all of the neighbors lit off the massive supply that everyone bought. Even if you are just driving around you will see fireworks going off all over the city. As many of you know mosquitos love Arielle and she got bit about 20 times. I also got bit quite a bit but only on the side where Arielle was sitting. After about twenty to thirty minutes we moved to the car to watch the rest of the fireworks.

As for an animal and plant update, we have a ton of deer and there are some fawns which are pretty cute. We have also discovered the wide variety of wasps, horse flies as long as your thumb, and crawdads. I remember I have googled if blue raspberry is a real thing and it says they aren’t. Well google lied, they have wild raspberries here which are blue and sweeter than a regular raspberry. Basically they taste like the blue raspberry flavor of candy. Arielle’s advisor Bev served them at a wedding shower for the PhD student (Do Kyeong) that Arielle works for. Bev as had a few parties for the kinesiology students and they always have really good food.

A mom deer and three fawns.

I have been working full time as usual and Arielle has been working quite a few hours in the Developmental Neuromotor Control lab. She has taken over visiting a lot of the babies for the smaller at home visits and is being trained to do the larger visits for when Do Kyeong leaves. A baby just recently graduated from the study so they are now down to 4 babies with the last one graduating in March. One of the other kinesiology PhD students is working fNIRS (functional near infrared spectroscopy) and I got to be a participant. They attached some head gear and then had me do basic movements such as grabbing toys and walking. Basically they are watching oxygen flow in the motor control portions of my brain. They are testing it on adults now and in the future will be using it on babies with disabilities.

Arielle’s cousin Jessica is getting married in August so we are going to Seattle for a few days and then we are heading over to Spokane for a few more days. It will be nice to get a small break from the usual day-to-day in Ann Arbor. I know Arielle will be glad to have some time off from work, I’ll get a few days but will be working most of the time.

Also we just bought some Donettes from the new Hostess. I am pretty excited since I love powdered Donettes. Natalya also mention that she saw "Krazy Jim's Blimpy Burger" on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives and it is in Ann Arbor. We stopped in and had a burger. The food was good and the restaurant was really small. It was an experience. Well, that’s all for now.

Arielle at Blimpy Burger

 

The Summer Begins

    Arielle finished her classes at the beginning of May and we celebrated her birthday on May 2nd which is usually the start of our summer.

Arielle's 24th B-Day (and yes there are 24 candles)

    Michigan has amazing beauty in the spring and summer as the plants gain their leaves and flowers. There are more critters here than I have ever seen in Washington. So far we have seen a river rat, geese, ducks, three types of squirrels, chipmunks, bunnies, skunks, raccoons, herons, blue jays, cardinals, woodchucks, snakes, spiders, caterpillars, possums, fire flies, deer, turkey, and many other animals which I can't think of right now.

So this squirrel lives around our apartments and
gets really close since other neighbors feed him.
He almost ran inside the apartment when I took
this photo since I wanted a photo not taken
through the screen. I had to close the screen door
really quick.

This is one of the chipmunks that have a burrow
about five feet from our back door. We had one or
two last year and now they have four babies.
Interesting fact, they only live about 3 years.

    We think the variety of plants is due to the fact that it rains in Michigan a lot and it leads to good hiding places for animals large and small. We have been hiking and I have been biking which is where some of these pictures below are from.

A hiking trail that is about a 1/4 mile from our
apartment. I took this while on a bike ride.

    The weather here is also very different but you get used to it over time. Ann Arbor has similar temperatures to Spokane but we are delayed by about a month. For example, spring break here is still very cold compared to Spokane. Michigan also has high humidity (as I am writing it is 72% but it ranges between 58-81%) which makes it hot and sticky. The humidity makes no difference if you have AC but we don't so you get used to being sticky all day. Arielle is lucky and gets to go to work but we also go to Starbucks on really hot days to escape the heat and humidity. Also from April to October we have the tornado season. Last summer we didn't get any tornado alerts since we had a lack of rain and storms. So far we have had one tornado siren which was interesting but the wall clouds dissipated and no tornado touched down. Basically if you are outside you have to run to a building and if you are inside you head to the basements. This last storm missed us in Ann Arbor but I heard there was hail 1" in diameter. It rains a lot in Michigan and when it rains here it rains really hard with loud thunderstorms.

It is hard to tell but it is raining harder than it looks.

    As for the day-to-day Arielle has been working for the kinesiology lab and I have been working for Park and Restroom Structures as usual. Arielle really likes her research and enjoys helping with the babies. She has been working on collecting data (putting babies on treadmills) and analyzing the results. As many of you know Arielle loves to read and has already finished three books (Casual Vacancy, The Hobbit, an Sense and Sensibility). I am reading finance books and studying economics for enjoyment. So far we are off to a great summer and have made some fun plans for the remainder of the summer including a trip to Seattle for Arielle's cousin's wedding as well as some outdoor events here. Look for another post towards the end of the summer.

A hike at Nichols Arboretum

 



A hike at Olson Park

 



These are caterpillars were hatching in the webs.

2013 Detroit Auto Show

Giovanni & Dimitri with a Fiat 500

Arielle with a Maserati

So my friend invited us to attend the Detroit auto show and we got discount tickets from his friend that works at Ford. We had a lot of fun and saw a lot of new cars including some concept cars. I was most excited to the new Fiat 500s as well as some of the high end cars such as Bentley and my other favorite Porche.
 

Fiat offers my last name (i.e. White) as a color option

 

 

 

 

Bentley

Arielle and I also thought the show cars that were chopped so that you could see the insides were cool. Most of the cars were just average cars but there were a few concept cars. It was also interesting to see the auto companies, especially the high end ones had paid models to sell their cars.

Honda Concept Car

They even had the 2013 Honda CBR1000 which I was probably the only one at the show who was excited to see a motorcycle.

Honda CBR 1000R

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.

Pizza Party

Last week we ended up having some of Dimitri's classmates over for dinner. Giovanni is one of Dimitri's friends from class. He is Chinese, but was raised in Italy. Giovanni's friend Mattia cane over to visit from Italy and is staying until Sept 1 so we decided to have an Italian dinner. We also invited Rob (Dimitri's friend from Slovakia), Susan (his friend from China), and Lisa (Giovanni's GF who is from Michigan).

Before we had the dinner, we took Giovanni, Mattia, and Rob with us to Costco to get some supplies. Both of the Costco's we've been to in Michigan are about twice as big as the one in Spokane.

(Mattia, Giovanni and the giant bear)

The day of our dinner Mattia ended up getting sick, so he didn't come :( Giovanni said they were planning on making some pasta dish, but only Mattia knew how to make it so we didn't have it.

(Giovanni, Susan, and Rob. Lisa hadn't arrived yet)

 

We didn't have enough chairs for everyone so Rob sat in our pink chair and Dimitri sat on our step ladder.

Susan brought some food too. She made shrimp with corn and beef with onion and tomatoes. The dish on the top Giovanni made, it is fresh mozarella, roma tomatoes, and oregano.

Dimitri also made two pizza's.

In other news, Dimitri is FINALLY done with his summer boot camp!!!!! This week we are just relaxing and finding our classes and going to orientations. Starting on Wed UM's welcome week starts and they have free events for the students.

The Critter

     So as many of you know I have 40 hours of class a week including Saturdays. Well this last friday as I was walking through our parking lot to class I saw the University Operations parked by our dumpster. As I got closer I heard some scratching coming from the dumpster and decided to stop and watch the school workers and see what was in the dumpster. One of the workers grabbed a large branch and put it into the dumpster and out climbed a raccoon.

     Saturday morning as I was walking to class I heard the sratching again so I looked into the dumpster to see if it was the raccoon again. It was so I searched for the large branch and helped him out again. This time though he didn't run off into the forest but ran down a water drain. The picture above is a picture I took of him on Saturday. I have a feeling that this will occur again. I am thinking about naming him or her if it continues.