Work

I have found some great news this last week.  My company is going to let me work from home when we move to New Jersey!  This is such an amazing opportunity.  I'm so excited and grateful.  It's amazing how everything fell into place for this to happen.  You can definitely see that Heavenly Father had a hand in this. 

I had already given my two week notice and a few days later, things were set for it to happen.  It is all thanks to some tremendous "coinsidences."  First the COO of the company, just called my boss to just see how she was doing.  A day or two later, it was announced that our department will report to a differnt VP.  That VP got the ball rolling on the same day that the COO and Head IT person just happened to be in town (they both work out of state).  It's amazing to see all the blessings we receive.  I'm thrilled!

April & May Thus Far

Time is just flying by!  I can't believe it's MAY!  April flew by.  We have been super busy.  Here is a little of what we have been up to. 

The weekend after my birthday, we headed up to Detroit for Lizzie's baptism.  It was so fun to see their family and spend the day with them.  When Gabe first saw me, he ran up to me yelling "DDDIIINNNAAAA!!"  It was too cute.  I can't believe how big these kids have gotten.  We had a great day with them and are very glad we were able to be there for this very special day for Lizzie.

After the Baptism, we went to their house for a BBQ and just to hang out with them.  Then we headed back home.  On Sunday, we went to church then drove to New Jersey.  We spent all day on Monday and most of Tuesday looking at one house after another.  We found a few good options but it was a long and stressful few days.  We drove back Tuesday night and I had to go back to work on Wednesday.  Luckily, our second favorite townhouse approved our offer this week!  We should be signing a lease soon!  Once the lease is signed, I will feel much more relieved.

We are trying to do the few things in Cleveland that we haven't done since we have been here.  One of the things on our list was to go to Brasa Grill downtown.  It's a Brazilian Steakhouse.  If you have never been to one before, you must go.  It's pretty amazing but very expensive.  We went with a few friends to celebrate the accomplishment of finishing podiatry school.

At a Brazilian steakhouse, the waiters go from table to table bringing meat on skewers.  The meat has been grilled to perfection and is delicious!  It is also all you can eat :)  The night we went, they had 13 different kinds of meat.  And of course they have an all you can eat salad bar and some side dishes.  We all left several pounds heavier but it was well worth it.

Here is the group:  Karie & Trevor Haynes, Brady & Julie Mallory, Me & Josh and Keith & Julie Nebeker

We had a greta night out with friends.  It's been great getting to know these great people these last few years and I'm sure we will always keep in touch as we go our seperate ways.

Graduation is only two weeks from today!  We can't believe it's already almost here but at the same time can't wait for it to be here and for us to move on.  Here is our chain now (it may have a few extra links as it was taken a couple days ago).  But this is what it used to look like.  I love that it is getting smaller and smaller.

We have lots going on in the next month but we are super excited.  We are just trying to enjoy our last month in Cleveland.

The Big 2-5

A few weeks ago, I turned the big 2-5.  I actually feel really old now too.  Since my birthday, I have pulled out like 10-15 gray hairs!  Other than feeling old, I had a great birthday.  First off, I took the whole day off work.  That in itself made it a GREAT day.  I got to sleep in and lounge around in the morning.  Then Josh and I headed out to Hard Rock Cafe for lunch.  I've always wanted to go there for some reason.  The food wasn't great and I'm not sure that I'd go back but we still had a good time.

After lunch, Josh and I did a little shopping and then went to a movie.  It was great to spend the whole day with Josh.  I used to go out on my birthday with just my mom.  Those are some of my fondest memories and I always looked forward to it.  It made me miss my mom for sure!

After the movie, we headed home for dinner and dessert.  It was YUM-O.  Thanks, Julie :)

It was a GREAT birthday!  I can't believe I'm 25 though!

We are headed to,,,

Yep, we are headed to New Jersey!  I know that most people who are reading this already know...but we plan on turning the blog into a book, so this must be documented :)  We were both pretty shocked and even more shocked when we found out that our friends, the Huish's, were going to the same program.

We didn't find out that we were going to New Jersey how we thought we would.  The match was set for April 5 at 11am.  At that time, we could log into Josh's account and see where we were going.  This is how we thought we'd find out and then would have the rest of the day to plan and get excited about wherever we were going.  But a few days before the match we were able to find out.  It was about half passed midnight.  I was asleep.  Josh had just gotten home from playing basketball.  I heard him come in because he was talking on the phone.  Then I heard that we could find out the results of the match.  I jumped up and we went to the computer.  Josh logged in and then had to do a few hacking techniques (just had to manually change the url) and there we had it...We were going to New Jersey.  We told the Nebekers and they came up and looked to see where they were going.  Detroit!  We spent the next hour calling friends and telling them to look.  Josh feel asleep and I just laid there wide awake.  I was up til about 4am!  Needless to say, I was exhausted the next day at work.

Josh wasn't too thrilled about going to New Jersey but only because he really wanted to stay here in Cleveland.  Me?  I'm totally excited.  We will 2.5 hours away from NYC, 3 hours from DC and an hour from Philadelphia.  It will be a great place to live for a few years.  Congrats to Josh for all his hard work in getting us to this point!  We can't wait for this next little adventure.

Saint Patrick's Day

We had a FANTASTIC St. Patty's Day.  The weather here in Cleveland was amazingly warm that week.  It was in the 70s and sunny all week.  No one in Cleveland was complaining.  It was beautiful.  Because St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday this year, Josh and I were determined to go to the parade downtown.  We had a blast!  It was super crazy crowded though.  I could not believe how many people were there.  I heard on the radio that they were estimating about half a million people!  It was crazy but fun too see a huge sea of green.

We went with our friends/roommates, the Nebekers.  We had a great time.  The only thing that I didn't like was that there were so many people there that it was hard to see the parade.  We were behind probably 5-6 rows of people. 

Here are some of the pictures we were able to take that looked half way decent.

Gotta love the bagpipes!

Some awsome dancers:

More Dancers.  These kids had to be HOT!  I can't believe they were wearing sweatshirts!

 We really enjoyed the parade, but I'm not sure that we would do it again.  It was just way too crowded.  But that was the first time that I have been to a parade in years!

That afternoon, we met up with all the friends we have that are in our year (4th year podiatry students) for a BBQ and fun and games.  It was a great St. Patrick's Day.  Hope you all enjoyed yours!

4 Years Ago...

Four years ago on March 15, 2008, I married my best friend.  I can't believe how fast time has flown by!  It has been an amazing four years.  We got married in Idaho, lived in Oklahoma, got into podiatry school, moved to Ohio, worked and worked and now we are just about done with school!  It's been a great four years!  We have had so much fun together and have been able to do lots of fun things.  I can't wait to see what the next four years will bring us.  Love you Josh! 

Here are a few pictures of us throughout these last four incredible years.

One of our Engagement pictures-Feb 2008

Wedding Day-March 2008

Ohio-August 2008

1st Anniversary-March 2009

February 2010

July 2011

February 2012



Update

I think I have sat down to write this post about a dozen times.  Every time I do, I get distracted and

don't finish.  Hopefully this time I will finish :)

Where has time gone?  I can't believe that we are already a full week into March, but I'm not complaining.  Today it was in the upper 60s and sunny!  It was a beautiful day!  I wish we had days like this a little more often.

February was good too us; we can't complain.  We found out that Josh passed boards!  We were both super excited.  One step closer to graduation!  In celebration of passing, we went out to dinner at a delicious Mexican restaurant.  And I made Josh this...

He has been begging me for months to make him a chain count down to graduation.  On the day that we found out he passed, we had about 100 days to go.  We now only have about 73.  These fours years have thankfully flown by!  We are now just waiting to find out where we are going for residency or if we will end up staying in Cleveland for another 3 years.  The anticipation of where we will go is killing us.  We feel like our lives are completely on hold.  We would like to make a few plans but just can't.  We hopefully find out in 5-6 weeks.

In February, our friends, the Waters, came into town for the weekend to visit us!  It was so much fun!  We miss them like crazy.  We had a great weekend that went by too fast.  On Saturday, we went tobogganing at the metroparks here in Cleveland.  It was way fun.  We had a great time.

That night, Valerie and I made it just like old times and went to the movies to watch a chick flick.  We ended up watching "The Vow."  We both enjoyed it.  We had a great weekend!  Thank you, Waters family for coming!  We miss you guys!

Josh is pretty much done with all things school related until graduation.  He's had nothing to do for the last few weeks.  In the coming weeks, he only has to go to the school like 1-2 days a week!  So, he has found himself a temporary job cleaning out a warehouse.  He comes home covered in dust!  But he seems to enjoy working and actually getting paid.  :)  Between this job and his church calling, he is keeping himself pretty busy.

Not a whole lot is new with me.  Just working and working and working.  That seems to be the story of my life.  Overtime has started back up this week.  It will be nice to have that extra money again but it's getting tiring already.  My allergies are driving me nuts!  All this hot cold weather stuff is killing me.  I have been running some these last few weeks when it's been warm enough to do so and I've really enjoyed it.  I just love being outside for a little while and getting some fresh air.

And that's pretty much us at this time.  Hopefully these next few weeks will FLY by so we can find out where we will be living for the next 3 years.

Oklahoma Part 4: Leah's Blessing

Shawnee and James decided to have Leah blessed on New Year's Day so that I would be able to be there.  It was so nice.  I miss too many of these events, so I was so happy they waited til I could be there!

Here's a picture of Stirling.  He was just making funny faces for the camera, but I just loved this picture of him.  He's such a cutie.

And Leah.  She's so adorable.  I'm so glad I got to be there.  She's such a sweet baby! 

Here's most of the guys that were in her blessing circle.  I think we are only only missing David. 

And of course, the cute little family:

Karl and Kathy (James' parents) graciously held a little lucheon for everyone after church.  It was great to get together with everyone afterwards and celebrate.  Congrats Shawnee and James!  Leah is adorable!

I left to come back to Oklahoma the following Monday.  It was not an easy day.  My time in Oklahoma FLEW by.  It felt like I was only there for a few days.  I can't wait to go back home, whenever that will be.  Love you all!