These Days

We have been living together in Chicago since June 2011 when Yacine received his green card and was able to join me. I arrived in 2010 to begin working on my PhD in Political Science and for the first ten months we lived apart while waiting for immigration documents. Thank goodness, that time has now passed. Since then we have been enjoying our time in the Windy City. I'm in my third year at Loyola University Chicago and have just finished and passed my comprehensive exams - Yay! (the final stage in the doctoral program before I can work exclusively on my dissertation). I am really looking forward to finally beginning work on the dissertation stage. In my free time I'verecently been enjoying baking and cooking (like my Pineapple Upside Down Cake which has become a family favorite!) Yacine is working non-stop at Bank of America and Chipotle and getting excited for the summer sun that is long overdue here in Chicago. 

  

 Here are some pictures of our time here so far - Visiting Nonie and playing a mean game of scrabble; celebrating Mikaila and Michael's wedding in August; Francyl and Jessica at the John Hancock building this Christmas; Yacine and I together with a picture of the famous Al Capone and his Chicago gang, and Yacine and our dear friend Salim in front of Al Capone's favorite jazz club (the Green Mill); and the two of us at Millenium Park last summer.