Conclusion: Winter Vacation >> School

"they will go two by two 'til the world's end: step by step and side by side." -Alfred de Musset

Perhaps California is not quite the "world's end," but it sure felt like a world away from the life of studying we had in cold DC, just before the break. Here are a few pictures to document the trip.

Christmas Eve after dinner and before church. By this point, we had both racked up lots of extra hours of sleep, gone running on the beach, played tennis, read for fun (well, sorta), and done all Christmas shopping and wrapping.


If you look closely, you'll see the corner of the puzzle we started on the coffee table. We became quite obsessed quickly. Stefanie has a long history of expert puzzeling, but Jonathan is catching up quickly. We spent several hours sitting in front of the puzzle with home made apple cider and generally feeling very relaxed.

Stefanie's father gave Jonathan tennis lessons for Christmas! We have been playing a little tennis in DC, and are hoping to make this our "life sport" that we can play together forever, or at least until we need to learn wheelchair tennis. Jonathan's lessons were with Stefanie's old coach, Suella! She's great. She still calls us both "kiddo," and has been nationally ranked (in the top 3) for her age bracket for the last 20 years! Don't let the looks of a cute 69 year old southern lady with an awesome drawl decieve you- she's fierce on the court!

Jonathan improved a great deal. Pretty soon, we were able to have more steady rallies and really enjoy the game together.

After one of Jonathan's tennis lessons, we drove to the top of Mt. Soledad to check out the awesome view of San Diego that you can get from all sides of the mountain. It was a little cloudy that day, but you can still see what a beautiful city it is!

After all the excitment of Christmas, we had the celebration of Stefanie's mom's birthday. We went out to breakfast at the La Valencia, where Stefanie's parents had their wedding reception.

And of course, there was lots of walking along the beach.

Even though we spent a lot of time relaxing, being active, and having fun, we managed to get some work done as well. Jonathan prepped to teach his 3 week intensive course for the first three weeks of January. Stefanie started to do some studying for the Step 1 exam in June.

Jonathan began teaching his class yesterday and has enjoyed it so far, feeling encouraged that the kids seem interested and engaged. Still, it is lots of work!! Stefanie started her 4th semester today, diving into the GI unit. We've gotten a lot of questions from friends and relatives about what it is like to be married and be students. While it isn't exactly the most romantic way to spend our time together, we couldn't imagine going through grad school any other way. We are learning to become good study coaches of one another, study break takers, coffee and snack makers and bringers, back massagers, accountability partners, and post-studying exhaustion nappers.

While we do spend most of our time busy with school, we've managed to knit ourselves (or become knit) into a wonderful little faith community here in our neighborhood. This Sunday, Grace Meridian Hill is officially launching its full worship service, and we couldn't be more excited to have gotten to be a part of planting of this church and to now be with this community as it transitions into this new phase.

We didn't make any concrete New Years resolutions, but we're both hoping that this year will bring some deepened frienships with folks in DC and play tennis together.

Free At Last

Perhaps that is too dramatic of a blog post title for simply ending the semester, but it accurately reflects our feelings the last few days. Man oh man has it been great to be done! Mostly, we just can't stop sleeping! We'll set the alarm for 8am, but just can't get out of bed until at least 8:45am. Then there is generally be some kind of nap later in the day, either on purpose or by accident. We have also each gone to the gym 4 or 5 times in the last week, cooked lots of good real food, had only 1 cup of coffee per day (!!), and have generally felt very healthy and alive. Hurray for winter break! Here is the start of break captured in a few photos:

Jonathan has gotten very good at making eggs and toast for breakfast. See above, perfect over-easy eggs and toast, along with fresh coffee and morning lounging in a blue fuzzy bathrobe.

After our afternoon nap a few days ago, we had some coffee and freshly made apple-raisin spice cake. YUM!

We also both managed to find time to get our hair cut. Jonathan, as usual, came back looking almost ready for the navy with his freshly shorn curls.

Despite being on break, Jonathan had a few days of hard laboring to grade his students' final exams. While the process started off with high hopes and energy, both quickly fell. Stefanie heard continued groans coming from Jonathan has he used up all the ink in his red grading pens. One student's response to a question stood out: he drew a comic picture of a man holding a phone with the caption, "can i phone a friend." Unfortunately, no points were given. The brutal grading task finally ended, much to both of our relief. Next up on the work docket is Jonathan's preparations for the January term class he'll be teaching, and Stefanie's epic start to an epic studying process for her Step 1 board exams. Go team Kreamer!

Last, but certainly not least, Jonathan got new glasses! After some help from Stefanie, who aided in determining which glasses were "too stylish," "too nerdy," or just right, this was the final result. Jonathan can see, and Stefanie likes what she sees. All is good!

Tomorrow we head off to San Diego for 10 days of Christmas and New Years celebration with Stefanie's family. They are currently having the biggest rain storm of the last 15 years (ie. it is heavily misting and people are contemplating maybe needing to change out of flip flops). But, we are hoping the weather turns around for us chilly east coast students.

Merry Christmas!

Are we there yet??

No. We are not. Jonathan is 1 presentation, 1 final, 2 projects, and countless papers to grade away. Stefanie is 1 quiz and 3 exams away. Only 9 more days until Winter Break!

But, we will refrain from whining too much, since the saying goes, "if you want to score points by whining, join a European soccer team."

We have both been in high study mode and are trying to keep it up for just one more week.

Still, there are a few highlights:
-a great little mini Christmas tree, perfectly sized for our apartment (see below)
-renting a Zip Car to go grocery shopping (yes, this is a highlight)
-putting up some Christmas lights to make our space feel cozy
-drinking lots of coffee with scoopes of hot cocoa mixed in
-accidentally sleeping in twice last week...opps!

With Christmas time brings Christmas music. Stefanie has learned that Jonathan has a HUGE capacity to listen to Christmas music. Literally all day. For his study breaks, Jonathan has taken up the art of "prancing." Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like. Needless to say, Jonathan's raindeer nickname is Prancer. 10 points to anyone who guesses Stefanie's raindeer nickname. Other fun holiday nicknames have included Pumpkin, Squash, and Butternut.

Next blog post to come when we are both DONE with the semester.

Quote of the day, by Jonathan Kreamer, "How come you have to say 'I baked cookies?" They're called COOKies. Don't you cook them? And if not, shouldn't they be called bakies instead of cookies?" This was after Stefanie nervously asked what Jonathan meant when he said he "cooked his bagel." Jonathan reassured her that he did in fact mean that he toasted his bagel, and that he had not put it in the oven or on the stove.

Thanks + Giving = Thanksgiving

After class on Wednesday, we hightailed it up to Philly. Though we left at 4:30pm and expected tons of traffic, it only took about 4 hours, which is not bad considering it was the day before Thanksgiving and rush hour.

Stef's sister, Olivia, got to the Kreamer house just before we arrived. We talked around the kitchen table for a while, catching up with Caroline and Catherine, and then we hit the sack, totally tired from the three day week.

We woke up Thanksgiving morning to an hour or two of beauitful snow flurries. Stef and Liv went out to buy some apple cider (Philly almost had an apple cider shortage!) and stopped for coffee on the way back. The coffee place was right next to Jenny and Chris Stanchak's apartment, so we stopped in to drink or coffee and chat a bit. Once we were back at the Kreamer house, it was non-stop kitchen hustling until it was time to eat. Heidi joined from New York, and there were even more curly haired kids in the house.

Jonathan did a great job helping Stefanie make green bean casserole, especially considering green beans are his least favorite vegetable. Olivia did a stellar job making creamy mashed potatoes. See them hard at work below.

Dinner included a big group! Stefanie, Jonathan, Olivia, Catherine, Heidi, Caroline, Tom, 2 grandparents, a great aunt, and Holman and Carolyn joined a bit later. Oh, and 1 dog + 3 cats!

Dessert included Pecan, Pumpkin, and Apple pies, complete with ice cream. After all the food had been eaten, dishes cleaned, and guests seen off, the kiddos played Parcheeze late into the night. Well, Stefanie studied near by while the rest of the gang played.

The next morning consisted of delicious left overs for brunch. Stefanie and Jonathan spent some time studying on Friday, and there was more Parcheeze playing as well. We left Friday evening to get back to DC to do some intense studying. Only 17 days left in the semester and lots to do!

Happy Thanksgiving, blog readers. Let your life be a thanksgiving.

Views from Stefanie's Desk

People say Spring is the best season in DC, but we think late Fall is pretty nice as well. Check out this picture from the late afternoon a week ago. Isn't that red brick color great? This is what Stefanie sees when she looks out the window from her desk.

Despite the beautiful weather, we have not gotten to spend much time outside enjoying it. Good thing we have a great view! A few weeks ago we had a nice chili-cook off with some folks from church in a near by park. It was nippy out, but the chili gave us a great warm feeling.


Stefanie "surprised" Jonathan with some file folders to organize his desk last Friday. Who knew file folders could be such an exciting present? After an hour of desk organizing, Jonathan was beaming at his newly arranged study space and was ready to settle into a work weekend. This picture isn't great, but this is what Stefanie sees when she looks over at her wonderfully productive husband. (notice the coffee cup in hand- it was not planned when taking the picture)


All in all, Stefanie thinks the two views she sees from her desk are pretty nice. And it's a good thing, too, since she seems to spend ALL her time there.

Now it is time to power hard through the next few days, enjoy a little bit of time off for Thanksgiving, and then finish the semester strong. 23 days. But who's counting?

Fall has Fallen

Fall has fallen like a stack of books. Some day in the last 5 weeks summer officially ended and it became cool enough for bath robes in the morning, jackets while walking to school, and house shoes and tea at the end of the day. Going on 5+ months of marriage now and we think it's pretty great.

Halloween came and went and, alas, we did not dress up; though we did exchange ideas about interesting costume options. Here are some throw-back pictures.

Despite a very busy past few weeks, we managed to fit in a few non-study related things. Stefanie has attempted several new cooking recepies with medium to high success rate. This past week has featured a great deal of sweet potatoes in a variety of consistencies. Jonathan found amusement in reading this.

We finally tried out the new tennis court near us. Not exactly pro-court quality, but we both still had fun, and are looking forward to making this a sport we play together forever.

Jonathan has been busy with his course work, which includes lots of projects and partner work, as well as grading papers for his "young scholars." His students should blame the Phillies if they did not do as well in this Economics course as they had thought.

Stefanie is still counting down days until Winter break (5 weeks exactly). For Thanksgiving, we'll be joining the rest of the Kreamer clan in Philly, along with Stefanie's little sister Olivia, for some delicious feasting. Unfortunately, the trip will be cut short as Stefanie has exams that next Monday, and Jonathan as assignments due Tuesday. But, we hope to be back in lovely Philly before Christmas.

Interestingly, both Stefanie and Jonathan have had urges to return to their personal blogs. What to do, what to do? Shall we keep this blog, oh faithful reader(s)? Or shall we keep to our respective blogs of economic prose and introspective musings?

Haircuts and Sleep

Friday was "haircut" day for us. Stefanie got a few inches chopped off and unintentionally was given bangs along the way. Jonathan got his curls sheared and is looking studly as usual.

In addition to hair cuts, we spent this glorious three day weekend (well, really only Stefanie had the full 3 days off) catching up on lots of sleep, reading, walking around outside, going to the gym, and generally relaxing! We both took Saturday off of work completely, and had a very enjoyable day. Stefanie made chili in honor of October being "national chili month," and we got to watch an episode or two of the "West Wing," which we just started watching from the beginning. Stefanie things Jonathan might look a bit like Josh Lyman in the future.

It also was a pretty good weekend to be a Philadelphia sports team fan. If only Jonathan had had exams to grade, his students would be very happy this week with their results.