Nearly Three Months!!!

Will here!

The Berlin Family has been on the move in more ways than one. In fact, it may even be more ways than ten. We've only said it about 30 times so far, so you should know that we keep booked up. Some days we wonder why, but then there are days like this past Saturday (when I was having some pretty surreal stomach issues) when we were hunkered down in our apartment for about 7 hours. Soon, it wasn't the stomach pain that was surreal, it was the cabin fever. We ended up running a couple of small errands and taking a late night stroll just to get some air. Maybe it's the air we like, and maybe it's the frenetic pace of things that gets us the most air.

So, I know Clare mentioned in her last post that we had some big plans for the rest of our summer, and these plans have really taken off! We are planning an epic cross-country road trip at the end of July that will spill over into August. We'll travel a total of 5,800 miles, drive for over 95 hours, see the highlights of three National Parks, and drive clear to the City by the Bay, old San Fran herself. This has been a dream of mine basically since I realized that I had the power to set events in motion, and now that Clare and I can see the impending beginning of Med School (the trip puts us back 48 hours before the start of that journey), we feel that this is an appropriate way to cap off our first summer of married life. Three months in, and we're looking forward to scratching one more life goal off the Bucket List. Excellent!

June!

Well - here we are! Marching into another month of married life. With our marriage still just under two months old, Clare and I still face a big learning curve. I've never been a husband, and Clare has never been anyone's wife (that's what she keeps telling me, at least), so we are both still working day in and day out to figure out what the heck it all means. I could write all day long about abstractions and nebulous ideas about love and commitment, but the concepts rarely touch on things like having dinner ready at  home or hair clogging the drain or running the sponge through the dishwasher every once in a while. These things, I suppose, are just the things you learn as you go. They are the finer staccato notes in an ongoing melody. Every so often, there is discord; but it usually only serves to heighten the enjoyment of the symphony's story.

Marriage. Is. Awesome.

It helps when you're married to your best friend.

It's a Wonderful Life

Goodness! Has life been busy lately or what!? Will and I have been crazy busy with work- and when we're not running camps, or doing health fairs, we try to fit in a camping trip (beginning our training for Denali!) Life is great and we are just trying to soak it all in! We do like to relax, but we definitely like to be on the move. We both feel that there is so much to do- we want to try everything. Something that we are both always striving for is to learn more, educate ourselves even more, become better, more informed citizens, become better friends, siblings, children, spouse etc. I never want to stagnate. I want to always strive to push myself. I try to live fully in the moment and not live in regrets, or always be worrying about what others are thinking. (You'd think that once you're an "adult" you wouldn't worry about those things anymore. At least I thought that.) I can't say that I always succeed in my goals, but I try to always attempt growth and keep my goals in mind. When we have children one day, I hope that we can teach them to always grow and expand their horizons. All in good timing.

So here are some pictures of what we've been up to lately!

This is the little green space outside of our apartment. It WAS really overgrown with weeds and brush. This picture was taken after I had already cut all the weeds off the fence. You couldn't even see the steps through all the weeds! After all was said and done, we had 3 garbage bags, and a trash can full of sticks, rocks, and brush!

It now looks like this! I planted morning glory along the fence, and we planted a crepe myrtle!

One Month Anniversary!

As hard as it is to believe, Will and I have been married for one month as of yesterday! It has been completely wonderful- but really the time has gone by so quickly! Time always goes by so quickly when we are together- but it's making us realize that before we know it we will have been married for 10 years! I don't want time to zoom by too quickly- so we have decided we are seriously going to start documenting more of what we do. I think one reason time has zoomed by lately is that we have been SuPeR busy with work lately- Not only are we so busy during the day, but almost every weekend since we got married we have been working also! Then when we get home at the end of the day we are so tired- we manage to make dinner, try to exercise, and then it's already bedtime. So, all of that is changing. This is such an exciting time in our lives- the honeymoon phase, as some call it- I want to look back at old pictures and remember all the changes that took place.

So, we have set a few goals for ourselves. We are always trying to find new ways to learn from our surroundings and push ourselves to become better people. We tend to have different ways to accomplish this goal, but some of the upcoming changes are.....

We Made It!

Clare here-

So it is now April 25- meaning that we have been married for just over 2 weeks, and it has been nothing short of wonderful! I still catch myself thinking sometimes, "Man, when we get married we will have to..." and then I remember! Wait- we are married! It has been a long time coming, and it feels so surreal. The wedding and reception were both fabulous. My goal for the whole day was to be stress free. I did not want to worry about anything, or get upset. I did not want to look back and only remember being angry. I am happy to say that my goal was a success! Not everything went according to plan, but everything worked out. We were surrounded by family and friends on one of the most important days of our lives, and that was our only wish for the day (apart from getting married!) Even though it was unusually warm- even for MS!- we all danced the afternoon away and snacked on BBQ chicken, tiramisu, and sweet tea. Will and I met our out of town friends and family at my sister, Rachael's, house Sunday for brunch, and then headed out after that to NOLA for our cruise! It was so much fun to get an evening to just walk around N'awlins and relax after all of the planning we had been doing. I'll post some pictures soon- but it was definitely a much needed vacation!