so it seems we've made it to a year

this week marks our one year anniversary of living in chicago. honestly i can't believe it's already been one whole year. so many thoughts run through my mind as i think about our last year in chicago. some days it feels like we just moved here yesterday. most days though i can't really imagine life not in chicago. 

this past year has been the best year and the most difficult year at the same time. i won't say worst year, it's not even close to that. but difficult yes. i won't lie. there are days when i cry myself to sleep because i'm so homesick. where i long for our days living in holladay. i didn't realize it then, but life was simpler.  we were just playing "grown up". here in chicago reality hit us. somedays harder than others. we're real lifein' it now. we are for reals "grown up". we're on our own out here. and while it's easy to say being grown up isn't all it's cracked up to be....most of the time it's pretty great. 

we're truly creating a life for ourselves out here. though we miss family and friends like crazy, and LOVE going to utah to visit, this is our home. this is where our life is. our daily doings and adventures happen here. i think i'm going to be a mess the day we have to leave this beautiful city. 

the past year we've explored just a small part of chicago. we've visited museums and tried to do a lot of touristy stuff. we've had many visitors and have loved showing off our favorite places. we've tried way too many restaurants but still have so many more to try. we've fallen in love with date nights downtown. the mr. has taken over med school and is now the big man on campus. i've mastered the whole "working from home" thing. i found a love of interior decorating. we've created little family traditions for the two of us. we've laughed. we've cried. we've had our share of heartbreak. we've had our share of hope and love. we've made the most incredible friends, lifelong friends truly. we've learned more about ourselves, our marriage and what we want out of life. we've learned to become "city" people. we mastered public transit and went carless for over 6 months. we've grown more in love with each other. we've fallen in love with chicago. 

this past year we've made chicago our home. we've made memories that will last us a life time. i'm so grateful to my sweet mr for moving us out here. for creating a good life for us and making each day a new adventure. 

so chicago.....we only have 3 years left (if the mr. doesn't decide to keep us here for residency). i thought that would be a long time but considering how fast year 1 went we are running out of time. i hope you help us create even better memories. i hope you will be the city where we have our first baby. i hope you keep the weather fairly mild like you have (pretty please this one). you are now home to a new adventure for work, more on that later. and you will be where the mr. finally graduates medical school. keep having fun things for us to see and do. we can't wait for another 3 years of incredible memories. 

thanks for being a part of our little family chicago. you will always have a place in our hearts. can't wait to see how the grows these next few years. don't get sick of us yet ;-)