We're going to Europe!

In June, to celebrate the completion of Justin's medical school boards, we are going to Europe. The trip is a reward for Justin's weeks of studying and Brianna for surviving the whole experience. We are very excited to go but do not have any specific plans yet. We are flying in and out of Geneva, Switzerland, staying with Justin's brother Jason and family in Lyon, and would like to go to northern Italy. Other than that we are open to suggestions. I would like to solicit advice from all you more experienced European travelers. Where are your favorite places to go in Paris, southeastern France, western Switzerland, and northern Italy? We would love your advice about places to stay, ways to travel, foods to try and things to see! If you have more info for us then would fit in a comment, send us an email.

Chair Improvement

Over the last week or so, the tulips have started to pop up in front of our apartment (pictured above, surrounded by a fresh blanket of the infamous Columbus mulch. I refer to it as "Barf Bark" because it smells impressively similair to vomit. The dark mulch supposedly absorbs the warmth of the sun and raises soil temperature enough to kill weeds before they can get a root system established... I digress). As you all know, tulips are nature's signal that Spring is on the way. We are looking forward to warmer weather and fewer gray skies. The coming of Spring also portends Spring cleaning and getting around to all those home maintenance items we've been procrastinating for the past 3 months due to cruddy weather. Our latest project: reupholstering our ~80 year old kitchen chairs. We think they turned out pretty well, and it gave me an excuse to use the staple gun.

Anyone else had any good home improvement moments to brag about lately? (Besides Kevin... Your bathroom puts us all to shame...)

RSBC Ironman Challenge Recap

The RSBC challenge ended last week. We unfotunately didn't finish all of the requirements for the month long IronMan Triathalon. I've decided it is somewhat embarassing that we had 28 days to get it done and failed, while there are athletes out there that do the whole race in less than 12 hours. However, we did get 3 of 4 cooking challenges completed and went above and beyond the 2.4 miles of swimming by at least a couple of laps in the pool. We came up short in the biking and running segments, but if you count all the walking Brianna does at work, we definitely would have finished. Justin is playing the "blame it on medical school" card, but he really just procrastinated starting until it was too late. And yes, I did just refer to myself in the third person. However, we had a great time learning some new cooking skeelz and working on getting into shape. As Cub's fans say, "There's always next year."