Thanksgiving 2009

My sister Sara and her husband Cody came out to visit us for Thanksgiving. We had a blast, we went to Pier 39 and Fisherman's wharf, Union Square and rode a Trolley all over San Francisco and looked at the lights. We watched the lighting of the big Macey's Christmas Tree at Union Square. We went shopping on Black Friday from 11:00 AM until 10:00 PM. We went to a beautiful Italian restaurant. Overall a great break, with wonderful family!

Halloween 2009

Halloween 2009 Party with my PA class!!!

YOSEMITE

Jake and I went to Yosemite last weekend, It was the end of my 10 day break and we thought we would run away for a couple days. Yosemite is beautiful. I absolutely love camping, I love the fresh air and the trees, I love cooking food in the fire and just forgetting about other life's stress (except I did study homework fireside- very intimate). I love the fact that there aren't any electronics while camping. Yosemite has so many beautiful rock formations and big red wood trees. Definitely one of my favorite places.

Deep Sea Fishing!

Jake's work took him and his team out deep sea fishing today. They went out to the ocean underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, and this is what Jake came home with!

This is Fisherman's wharf with all the seals saying goodbye at their departure!Jake came home with a Leopard Shark!!!! Pretty cool, now I have to figure out how to cook it, any ideas????

The Lungs!!!!

So since not a whole lot goes on in my life except school I thought I would share some of my favorite things with you all.

I metioned in my earlier post that my favorite organ in the body are the lungs. They actually are fairly large adn extend from the bottom of your rib cage all the way up under your clavicle (in a way when you put your hand on the top of your shoulders close to your neck your lungs extend that far up. They are very smooth and slimy and begin with a single esophagus that branches into two branches (L & R) then branches another 23 times in order to reach the most basic level where air exchange takes place into the blood stream.

So I'm sure you're wondering why they're my favorite. Does anyone love to pop the air-bubble-packaging that comes with vases etc... and you can pop them one by one. Well.... I love that stuff and the lungs kind of feel like hundreds of little tiny air-poppies, but of course they don't pop, all at the same time being extremely slimy and cold (love it). They are actually only 10% hard tissue and are 90% air when filled, but when you touch them they feel like a soft solid.

When I was at USU we actually blew up some pig lungs with an air pump, and they are actually quite large and blow up like balloons! AMAZING! I hope you love the lungs as much as I do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3pfeXULyv0&feature=related#watch-main-area

The above link is to watch an inflation of Pig lungs, enjoy!

Some Fun Facts About the Lungs

• The right lung is slightly larger than the left.
• Hairs in your nose help to clean the air we breathe as well as warm it.
• The highest recorded "sneeze speed" is 99 miles per hour!
• The surface area of the lungs is roughly the same size as a tennis court.
• If placed end to end, capillaries would extend 960 miles.
• We lose half a liter of water every day through breathing.
• A person at rest breathes between 12-15 times a minute.
• The breathing rate is faster in children and women than it is in men.

The "Small" Intestines

So my cadaver lab is about as exciting as it gets around here and I thought I would tell you a little about what I am doing there. So for those of you who don't know a cadaver is a dead person and I have a group of 4 for my cadaver and we are doing a complete dissection of the human body. Let me just tell you that the human body is the most amazing creation on this earth. It is phenomenal how intricate it is and how something that looks like a little string can be a nerve that is completely responsible for all of your gastric functioning and more.

So far my group and I have dissected the back and all of the musculature (this involves skinning and removing each muscle layer by layer). The Chest's musculature and the thoracic cage (this involves cutting open the chest with a bone saw), the lungs (which are my favorite organ - like the way they feel), the heart, the entire abdominal cavity including the liver, stomach, etc... and one of the most fascinating and smelly organs of the body - THE INTESTINES. I'm sure you all know that the small intestine is actually 22 ft long (not small) and my classmates removed theirs and stretched it out along the room and you better believe that there was 22 ft in that little body. It is really funny because my teacher had to warn us NOT TO USE THE INTESTINES TO PLAY JUMP-ROPE. Of course we weren't doing that, but some previous class had and I guess that's just not cool, I was tempted though.

Bear Creek Half Marathon!

Now that Kim has started school, she's not really going to have any time to do anything fun. So she's been training for the last 6 weeks for the Bear Creek Half Marathon at Briones Regional Park near Walnut Creek, CA.

It was a warm day for a race, especially one where the trail climbs over 3,000 feet. It got up to about 100 degrees half-way through the race, but Kim kept it going and finished with a great time!

She is so amazing to have done so well on her first half marathon; all while starting medical school. I know this will be the first of many, now let's see if she can get me out for one! Great job sweetheart!

All smiles! (this is before it got up to 100 degrees)

Kim and her friend Joy from school.
Ready to go, about 50 people in the race.

On your mark, get set....
Go! Notice Kim in the back pushing people early on for some spacing....

Crossing the finish line!

The price paid!

My First Day of PA School

So many of you know I had my first day of Physician Assistant School on Monday (yesterday) Aug. 24, 2009.

I can't describe how nervous, scared, complete and excited I feel all at the same time. This is a huge undertaking and I have been working toward this day for the last 5 years +. So much time, effort, sweat, tears, self-examination, self-actualization has happened to get me to this point. I know I have a long road ahead. I feel like I am accomplishing one of my life's greatest missions (I feel there will be many different ones).

I want to challenge all my awesome friends out there to really look inside yourself and think of something, a goal maybe, of which you want to accomplish AND DO IT. I never thought I would feel so sure of my path in life as I do right now and it is a great feeling. My favorite quote is
"Anything in life worth having is never easy" and I like to add "or convenient."

Enough of this sappy stuff, I just wanted to thank everybody for helping me get here, being supportive and kind and at the end of 32 months I will graduate.

Our 4 year anniversary!

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So Jake and I celebrate 4 years together on August 19, 2009. I start school on August 19, so we did something this past weekend to celebrate. Jake suprised me and took me to a bed & breakfast victorian inn at half moon bay. We ate at an organic eclectic eatery (AMAZING), which I loved. The next day we walked around downtown and bought a bunch of produce from local produce stands.

I can't believe it has almost been four years. Time flies by so quickly, but I am still so in love with Jake. I have believed from the beginning that he was made for me and I for him. I used to not believe in the idea of a soul-mate but, every year that goes by only further solidifies my belief in one and that Jake is mine. We have been through so much together over the last four years, to name a few (just for reminiscing purposes):

• Lived in 5 different apartments, ranging from 400 sq ft to 1100 sq ft.
• We have lived in four different states (Utah, Arizona, Missouri, California)
• Jake graduated from USU Cum Laude with a BA in Spanish
• I graduated from USU with a BS Biology
  
• Jake graduated from Thunderbird School of Global Management with his MBA
  
• I was accepted and will be starting PA school - MSPAS/MPH program
• We have owned a motorcycle and eight different cars and sold six of them (4-runner, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Rodeo, Civic, Matrix, Saturn Vue & one right now we are trying to find)
• When we were first married we lived off of $1000/month
• We owned a cat for two weeks (I was allergic)
• We have been on many vacations (Cancun, Yellowstone, Snake River, Disneyland twice, Ensenada, Nauvoo (church sites), Moab, Bear Lake, Sonoma, Camping of sorts, Panama and who knows how many Utah trips)
• Together we have tried: Mountain Biking, Running, Yoga, Tennis (Jake taught me), Four-wheeling and Motorcycling.
• Jake converted me to Seinfeld, I converted Jake to Keeping up Appearances, and together we are AVID Arrested Development, The Office, Flight of the Conchords, LOST, SYTYCD, and yes Jake too- The Bachelorette viewers! (although he'd never admit it, JK)
• As much as I've tried I just can't get Jake to appreciate one of my favorite movies "White Chicks" but he does appreciate my other favorites "Get Smart," and both "Pink Panther 1 & 2". Jake has succeeded in getting me to love Indiana Jones and most superhero movies!
  
• Jake bought both our mountain bikes with money he earned from donating plasma (his was stolen in AZ).
• We both tried Thai and Sushi together and they are now our FAVORITE cuisines.
• Jake loves the fact that I scrapbook and thinks it's good for our family (I did not expect that)
• We have become healthy food fanatics. Jake lets me take away butter at the table, reduce the sugar in his food, remove oil from his pizza, tell him to eat slower and make him eat tonz of vegetables, all with a smile on his face!
• Our extended families have grown via one nephew, one niece, one sister-in-law, and two brother-in-laws.
• Together we have held 14 different jobs. I have held 7 different jobs (Group Home Leader, Assisted Living CNA, Dillards sales associate, Lancome make-up artist, substitute teacher, Science/Math Tutor at anorexia/bulemia clinic, med/surg CNA, med/surg Secretary), Jake has held 7 different jobs (Herald Journal classifieds, Wells Fargo- Tellar, Loan officer, Spanish tutor at anorexia/bulemia clinic, Thunderbird- Financial Aid Assistant, Carreer Center Advisor, Hilti Sales Manager)
• When we first got married we owned two chairs and purchased a bed. Now it's a bit more every year!
  

I do not intend for this to sound braggy, I am just so grateful for what we have been able to accomplish together. The best part of all of this is that after four years and all of the above, WE STILL LIKE EACHOTHER!!!(hahahha) All in all I think we are working well together and I can't wait to see what our future holds. I feel like Jake and I together can accomplish anything we set our minds to. Lucky for me it is usually what I set my mind to!

Here's to you, JAKE and US. I love you! We were meant to be forever, and I am sure looking forward to a forever with you!

I know we are slackers! Our Apartment finally!

So I know that we have completely forgotten about our blog, but I will be updating it a little bit at a time. I have to go all the way back to March when my sister SAra got married. I think Jake and I have just been running around with our heads chopped off the last few months. But, we are starting to come back to reality bit by bit. Just in time for me to start school in two days! Ahhhh! I am so excited. Hopefully I can keep you updated with my school process. But for now, I am posting some pictures of our apartment that I have taken forever to post. You can look at the previous posts for the before pictures, and here are the "after" Pictures. I am especially proud of my kitchen that I painted the walls and laid the flooring. I decided not to paint anything else after that, though.

Battle of the Bay

I have been an Oakland A's fan since I knew what baseball was. I'll never forget my first Little League team's tight green and yellow jerseys and that everyone was upset that we weren't the White Sox or some other 'cool' team. Well, I thought it was cool and have followed the A's ever since. I even caught a home-run at Oakland's stadium a few years back.

So moving to the Bay area gave me the chance to get in some awesome baseball, and Kim and I jumped at the first chance we had. The MLB is in inter-league play right now, so we went to one of the "Battle of the Bay" series, the Oakland A's vs. the San Francisco Giants. I won't comment on the outcome of the game or the series, but we took a few pictures.