We escaped some of Chicago's April showers by traveling around the country for both work and fun times with friends.

We spent one fun night with our friends Dan and Liz Winter in Milwaukee, including a Lakefront Brewery tour and checking out some of the local Milwaukee scene.



Megan got a chance to reconnect with some friends from internship at Michelle's housewarming/30th birthday party. A few weeks later, Megan spent a whirlwind 24 hours in New Orleans for a conference, also getting to see internship friends.





April is also our anniversary month! For our fourth anniversary, Ryan set up a very fun event involving wine and painting. Who knew the talents we had hidden away!

To extend the anniversary celebration we made Ryan's trip to Boston for an anesthesia conference into a long weekend, including a Sam Adams brewery tour (Cherry Wheat, yum!), and meals/drinks with med school, college, and graduate school friends. Needless to say, we are now big Boston fans!

 Ryan wowed the conference attendees with his poster presentation.

Plus we got to meet our friends Kat and Ted's newborn daughter, Maeve!

After all the traveling in April, we were glad to get home. Especially because we had our dogs waiting to welcome us back...

March! While we love family-friendly holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, St Patricks Day always holds a special place in our Fighting Irish hearts. So we lucked out by getting to share Chicago St. Patty's with our favorite ND freshman, our cousin Ali. We had a great time with Ali and her ND friends introducing them to some Notre Dame traditions.

Our second favorite thing about March is the madness that is involved. This year was especially fun with KU going to the finals. We hosted some good friends for a championship game watch at home, and luckily Ryan's (growing) fancy beer collection helped ease the loss and made for a fun time.

March was a nice month, and was preparation for a busy April...

Flurries in February

February was a pretty busy and exciting month for the Hoods. Megan submitted a long-in-preparation grant application early in the month. As part of celebrating, she went to Second City for her friend Mary Conte's 30th birthday, where she found out that Mary is pregnant (and due around Megan's birthday)! Ryan and Megan then spent nearly a week testing out their old ski/snowboard skills in Colorado (Breckenridge, Keystone, and Vail) with some Loyola friends/colleagues. All around a great time, without an injuries. We also got a chance to catch up with Megan's cousin Michelle (and her adorable daughter Lily) while they were in Denver. To wrap up the month, Megan and Ryan went to Chicago's Wingfest 2012, where they sampled various hot wings before Megan hosted an Oscar watch party with her dinner club group. Ryan has continued to enhance his beer knowledge, with the help of his good friend Dan Winter. This Chicago winter has been a good one!

Welcome 2012!

We started 2012 with a casual family night (the dogs did not make it til midnight). Much of January involved watching bowl games and enjoying the less-cold-than-usual Chicago winter weather. Megan enjoyed a much anticipated trip to Park City, Utah to surprise her friend Katelyn O'Reilly for her 30th birthday at Sundance Film Festival (!). They had an amazing time, with lots of random celebrity sightings. While she was gone, Ryan also celebrated a friend's birthday in box seats at a Chicago Blackhawks game. In addition, Ryan used a gift from his lovely wife and got to take a flying lesson. A little worried we may have an expensive hobby starting here... Work was busy for both of us, but overall a great start to the year!

Updates! (December)

Officially in holiday season, we continued to spend time with family and friends and do some traveling in December. Including...

-a holiday party with Megan's dinner club at Rachel and Elizabeth's
-a Christmas-themed anesthesiology holiday party at Kristin's









-a Three Floyd's brewery tour with the Winters









-and a wonderful week-long trip to Florida for Christmas with the Hoods/Buersmeyers that included a 4-day trip to Captiva (including a wild restaurant called the Bubble Room), and 3 days in Marco Island/Naples for the holiday


















To sum up, we had a stellar 2011! 2012 will bring some interesting changes, with Ryan finishing residency and moving to Houston in July. A good sign that we have a good year ahead, though, is that we have daily calendars for Ryan's two favorite things...

Updates! (November)

November, or should we say "Movember", was another wild month...

-You likely know about Ryan's support of prostate cancer and men's health via facial hair growth if you received an email asking for donations, or received a Christmas card from the Markeys this year. The month started furry (see Ryan with Dan and Rob, some of his anesthesia co-growers)...









and ended even furrier...












And in between we had lots of fun times:
-exploring dive bars with the Contes









-traveling to DC for the ND-Maryland game to hang out with ND friends, family, and generally having Claire show us around one of our new favorite cities

















-and who could forget our amazing Thanksgiving with the Markeys, who kindly came all the way to Chicago to celebrate the holiday and check out the city with us? During their trip, we also attended the 3rd annual Hood/Beach-Schaefer Thanksgiving! Which involved some active games...

















-We also had multiple fun celebrations of Brooke's 30th birthday, including making brunch at our house and getting 2nd place (of 7 teams) in a chili cookoff

Updates! (October)

This is a very belated series of posts, but our excuse is that we were busy doing exciting things over the past few months! So here is a brief update on what those exciting things were...

October:
-Bucktown 5K with Brooke and Mike









-On the field for the Notre Dame game with Pribaz and Flynn!









-Foote wedding in KC, a trip that let us get to see both sets of parents :)









-Notre Dame vs USC night game with lots of Buersmeyers/Hoods and many of our ND favs












-John and Lauren's wedding, leading to a SLU Psychology reunion