Fall Colors

So..... we are slacking here.  Sorry for the lack of updates, but hopefully this one will make up for that!

Fall has officially arrived in Ann Arbor!  Both of us have survived our first round of exams and passed with flying colors, but knock on wood because more are right around the corner.  We've been enjoying the football games and are legit UM students after we threw our first tailgate.  It's hard to believe it was over 70 degrees outside a few short weeks ago.  Now we grab our coats and gloves before heading to school in the morning.

This past weekend we were excited to have Dan's G-pa visit us for our lengthy weekend.  He and Dan were able to watch the Wolverines put up a fight against Iowa in our homecoming game.  Grandpa had a great time seeing the stadium and campus and the changing leaves of autumn.

We also celebrated Dan's 23rd birthday on Monday/Tuesday and enjoyed a DELICIOUS cake made by Gail!  Dan even got some Hot Wheel cars and track from his parents to re-live his childhood play time.  We also took time on our walk home from work that day to shoot some pictures in the park next to our apartments.

While school has been tough we are excited to celebrate the end of the semester in December with an extended layover in SoCal with Dan's family and a day in our favorite place.... DISNEYLAND!!!  It will be Gail's first time in the parks during Christmas time.  They always theme the Haunted Mansion and It's a Small World as well as the castle and Main Street with a great winter theme!  We can't wait!

And We're Off... to Study!

We are now two weeks into our busy schedules, so we apologize for the lack of posts.  So here is a peak at what the life of a grad student is like...

Dan finally settled on a research advisor.  He will be looking at galaxy clusters, which is very similar to the research he did as an undergrad.  He is taking 3 classes which meet Monday-Thursday, so he actually has a day to get stuff finished on Friday!  The biggest annoyance so far has to be the number of colloquium/talks/tea time/meetings that the astronomy grad students are expected to attend.  It really makes being productive hard!  Dan likes his 10th floor office window that allows him to see approaching storms and not feel like a total workaholic.  As crazy as our lives have become, we are constantly reminded by profs/older grad students that this is the easy part of grad school.  Yikes!!!  Maybe these posts will become even less frequent!

Gail was definitely not expecting grad school to be this hard right away!  She's taking 2 classes that meet Monday-Wednesday-Friday and one small discussion class that meets periodically throughout the quarter.  The biggest chunk of her time is spent in lab working with mice!  She's really enjoying it and is finally starting to be able to do some lab work after reading papers for 2 weeks.  Like Dan, there are seminars and talks everyday that take up a lot of time!  The great thing about Michigan is the diversity of research going on, and, being 1st years, we're invited to all of them!  Also, we learned that you never go hungry in grad school.  They feed you everywhere you go!  Which is good, seeing as how we have decided to stop cooking during the week because of all the work we have to get done.  It looks like we will be surviving on Trader Joe's frozen meals for the next couple of semesters!

We went to our second home football game today!  Big Blue's offense was rocking as usual, but their defense could have made the game less exciting.  We still had a great time in the student section and now have the fight song permanently stuck in our heads.  Tomorrow we are going to the Astronomy Department picnic.  While we are really busy with work, we still try to take a couple hours out of the weekend for some fun.

Look for our next post titled "Get Me Out of Here!"

Go Blue!

The first two weeks...

The first two weeks have been better than we could have hoped.  We have been able to explore Ann Arbor and feel comfortable making our way around by bus and car (especially with our newly purchased TomTom!).  We've found some great local restaurants and parks to spend our "free time".  Gail has started working in her lab and should be starting experiments next week.  She's going to be taking 2 lecture classes and researching the aging process in mice.  Dan finally went through his many orientations and moved into his 1st year office in the astronomy department.  He will be taking 3 classes and will be deciding on an advisor this coming week.  In the mean time, we are enjoying sitting by our pool with complimentary Otter Pops!

This past Saturday we went to our first Michigan football game!  We started our day tailgating on the golf course with thousands of other crazed fans.  We then made our way through the sea of Maize and Blue to the newly refurbished Big House.  As newbies, we quickly learned the many chants and had plenty of opportunities to sing our fight song in Michigan's victory over UConn!  The crowd was a NCAA record: 113,090 people in one stadium!  We can't wait for the next home game in 2 weeks!

Our new home

After much appreciated help from our parents and a LOT of shopping, we are comfortably settled into our new apartments.  Here is a quick look at both of our places and the complex!

Dan's Apartment

Front of Dan's building

Dining Room

Living Room

Bedroom

Gail's Apartment

Kitchen

Outside of Gail's building

Living Room

Bedroom

Hope you can visit soon!

Our move to Michigan - 8/14-19/10

After a few truck troubles, we began our journey in the Eastward direction!  We spent the first day traveling to Butte, MT without much to see along the way, however, we learned that life in Montana moves a bit slower after a 2-hour dinner at Denny's.  The next day we made it through the swarms of motorcyclists to Rapid City, SD where we frantically drove to Mount Rushmore to catch sunset at the monument lighting ceremony.

Mount Rushmore

The next day we were pleasantly surprised to find a second tourist attraction in South Dakota.  Welcome to Wall Drug, the supermall of the Dakotas!  With over 50 signs in 30 miles advertising the store, we couldn't help but stop for some gear, including trucker hats for the men.

Trucker dudes

Next came the land of corn and some friendly locals to help us find our way.  After a night in Joliet, IL (which we later found out was the home of the mafia) we entered the beautiful state of Michigan.

It was a great trip, but only once every 5 years!