Monday, April 13, 2015

Month(s) in Review

Things have generally been too busy for blogging lately, so I'm a little behind on my updates. Since I'm home "sick" this morning (it's my birthday, and I slept in) I thought I'd do a quick recap of our life events since the beginning of 2015.

January was a slog. February and March went by so fast it took my breath away. And now here we are in April, on my 34th birthday. Whoa.

February brought Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival, if you're Chinese). Xinnian hao! That means "Happy New Year!"

Side note: Did I mention that I'm taking a conversational Chinese class? I can say things like, "My name is Mackenzie. Are you Chinese? Nice to meet you! I like to play badminton. I have one younger brother. Do you like American food? What time is it? Jintian shi wode shangri! (Today is my birthday!)"

Anyway, we had a small Spring Festival gathering for our Chinese students at school:



Holiday celebrations are an opportunity for American students to mingle with international students.

Our awesome student worker, "Garrison".
He patiently helps me with my Chinese pronunciation.

One of my favorite students, "James". He is trained as a classical singer.

In March we took two short trips - one to Columbus and one to D.C. In Columbus we caught up with my childhood best friend and had a traditional St. Patrick's Day dinner with my aunt and uncle (corned beef and cabbage!).

Eileen's familia was like my 2nd family growing up. And vice versa!

If you're ever in Columbus, you MUST visit the amazing North Market.
Just. Look.

Ted posed for me at the Germania Club in Columbus,
where my aunt and uncle took us for St. Paddy's Day.



Club members' steins

And of course it wouldn't be an Irish family gathering
without Irish coffee...

...and it wouldn't be a German gathering without dancing!


Later in March Ted and I visited family and friends in the D.C. area. Ted is very popular amongst his nieces and nephews, most likely because he rolls them into "burritos" and gives them "airplane rides" whenever he's there. He's an awesome uncle.


While in DC, Ted and I took advantage of the free museums and visited the Native American Museum for a morning. If you're ever in DC, you must visit this museum - leave yourself a full day there, too.


The museum is very interactive. Here, you could use the touch screen to learn more about the
artifacts inside the glass cases. 



Finally, back home in Ohio, we come to Easter. We were very lucky this year to be invited to a delicious brunch of ham and eggs with some new-ish friends. Then we were also invited to a potluck dinner with some creative friends who set up an Easter beer hunt to keep the adults busy while the kids hunted for eggs. They have a large, wooded property, and there were beers hidden all over! Weeee!


That is all for now! I'm hoping to get back to blogging sometime around July... maybe sooner. We'll see!

Friday, April 10, 2015

Tornado?


Driving home from work the other day I drove through what appeared to be the wreckage of a tornado touchdown. We had been having severe weather that particular day, so I was pretty excited that I was witnessing the aftermath of such an awesome weather phenomenon.

When I got home, I put Ted in the car and drove him out to the scene.


He is unconvinced that this is the work of a tornado.

So, dear blog reader, we'll let you be the judge.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
There is some perspective here that you just can't see in 2D.
It kind of looks like a path of debris, don't you think?



Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:


What you can't see in these photos are the random pieces thrown onto the other side of that house and barn, too. Or the fact that all the debris spans the length of a football field. 

Like I said, though, we'll let you be the judge.