New Job, New Third Year, New Niece... What Else is New?

We’re back! And guess what?? I’m a third year physical therapy student!! That is really crazy to say because the past two years have flown by... yet at the same time so much hard work, time, tears, and endurance has gone into them! I have about 7 weeks left of classroom work before I am out on clinical rotations for 24 weeks before I graduate. I know that time is going to fly just as much. 

So what have we been up to since March you may be wondering? For one, Jeremiah got a new job that has been so good for him. You may know that in order to move up to Denver he turned down a job offer from a company called Stryker that he interned for. They have a small division here in Denver which he tried to get a job with when we first moved, but due to its size there was nothing available. But he kept an eye out and about a year and a half later he saw an opportunity with them that fit him SO perfectly. So he went for it and nailed it! He got the job offer and started there on April 1st as a test engineer in their Research and Development department. It has been such a great fit for him. He has great coworkers, the mission of the company is something he feels passionate about, and he finds the work more interesting. What more could you want? I am very excited for him if you couldn’t tell! He also has had a few cool travel opportunities through work including just a couple of weeks ago to Puerto Rico where he got to stay a couple extra days to explore and even try surfing! 

In early May, Jeremiah and I had a temporary goodbye as I hit the road to live in Kansas for 8 weeks! I believe I mentioned it before, but my school requires that one of our clinical experiences be completed out-of-state and in a rural setting, or you can do both at once. So I decided to complete both at once, and it was made much easier on us because Jeremiah’s grandparents live in rural Kansas, just 6 hours from us! I lived with them in Salina, KS and worked about 40 minutes away in a smaller town called McPherson, KS. I worked in an OP/IP Mixed setting in McPherson hospital, though 95% of what I was doing was Outpatient Musculoskeletal, or what you imagine of a “typical” PT office setting. I really enjoyed the experience, living with Jeremiah’s grandparents and the setting itself. Everyone at my office was very welcoming and made me feel like part of the team which helped boost my confidence for sure. Then it was nice to go home at night and have friendly faces to talk to and eat with. Jeremiah’s grandparents were very generous and took me to some meals out, made me many nice dinners, took me to a community theater performance, and a number of concerts. I’ll add in pictures to show even more of what I did because I could go on for awhile!

A very nice dinner with a lovely view at the Salina Country Club

A classic, Swedish data horse. Everyone in Jeremiah's family has one of these outside their home!

A view from one of my bike rides. 

There was frequently the delicious smell of fresh-baked bread that Mormor was making! 

Outside McPherson Hospital

Mormor and Papa! 

I finished my last day in Kansas on a Friday, drove home on a Saturday, and was back in class on Monday. Yikes! But it was a super short semester, only about 4 1/2 weeks. This rounded out my 2nd year of PT school and I am a third year!! Woohoo! Now I in the midst of my 3 weeks off before my very last semester. And then two 12 week rotations. Graduation date: May 2, 2020. Can you tell the countdown is on??

We have a new niece!! My sister and brother-in-law gave birth to Mae Olivia Lucas on July 25th at 3:06 pm. I was sitting in class not paying attention at all and just staring at the group text with my family waiting to hear boy or girl. Then my mom sent the text that just said “Girl!!” I gasped out loud and everyone at my table turned to look at me and I looked up and whispered, “It’s a girl!!” It was such a happy moment. Fortunately I had already told everyone at my table that I was waiting on a new niece or nephew so they weren’t totally confused. She is adorable and with every new niece or nephew I’m always so amazed with the miracle of birth! I originally hadn’t planned to meet her until mid-October but my mom was so nice to offer to fly me out for about 48 hours in a week so I can snuggle her as a newborn. So just last week I got to see her and barely put her down for the two days I was there. I was just starting at her and so in love already! While I was in AZ we also managed to squeeze in a family dinner at my parent's house, I got to be part of a few school drop-offs and pick-ups (we have two new kindergarteners in the family!), and really just some great time talking with family. 

The few days I had in between my last day of the semester and going to AZ I got in 4 hikes! One day hike near Vail with a couple of friends, and 3 up in Rocky Mountain NP where I spent two nights camping for a girls' weekend/bachelorette party kind of thing. It was so nice to disconnect and be in the mountains hanging out with these friends and experiencing and taking in God's creation each day! It was so beautiful!! I will post pictures to do most of the explaining for me, once again.

After my 48 hours in AZ, I did not fly back up to CO alone. I flew back with my oldest niece, Paisley for a weekend trip! I had been asking my brother and sister-in-law for a little while now if they would be comfortable having her fly up here to visit us, and it ended up working out very well that I was at least with her for one leg of the trip, though she did the flight home by herself with no trouble at all! While she was here, she, Jeremiah, and I had a fun-filled weekend that left me rather tired! Definitely gave both Jeremiah and me new respect for how hard it must be for my siblings to raise three busy kids! We had a movie night where we set up a "concession stand" and pretended our apartment was the theater, we went on a short hike in Boulder, went on the Hammond's Candies factory tour, played at the park and splash pad, listened to lots of music, went to Chipotle for dinner (Paisley's request even though I offered restaurants unique to Denver!), made pizzas, went to Big Time Fun Center, and introduced her to Little Man Ice Cream! It was a successful weekend of fun, without any hiccups which I was happy about! Parker is already asking if it is his turn for a special trip. If we are still living in Denver when he and Madeline turn 8, I think it would be fun to make it a tradition! But who knows where we will be at that point.

My partner on my flight back to Denver!

My first day back on August 26th I have this big Comprehensive Exam for school, so I am now studying for that. Yayyyy. Next week, we are heading to Yellowstone with my parents, so Jeremiah and I are very much looking forward to that!

Before I wrap up, a couple more random things that we have done in the last several months include: A French-themed cooking class that was a late Valentine's gift from Jeremiah, that was delicious, the Dwights visited for a weekend in April, "Bagels and Beer" class where we learned how to make bagels at a small local, bakery (Jeremiah has found a new love of bread-baking), a quick Memorial Day weekend in AZ for my friend Morgan's wedding, a 4th of July hike up Torrey's peak which marked out 3rd 14er, stayed one night in Breckenridge as a belated-anniversary celebration, and miscellaneous other evenings with friends!

With Tommy and Emily at Garrett and Michelle's Wedding

My excellently plated meal from our cooking class (if I do say so myself!)

A last hike before I headed to Kansas.

Another beautiful ski day! This was at Arapahoe Basin.

We tried outdoor rock climbing for the first time with our friends Scott and Liz!

Film on the Rocks! We watched Top Gun at Red Rocks Amphitheater with Jeremiah's company!

Torrey's Peak

Our apartment has been under construction for months! This is our temporary entrance through our back door. 

Bagels and Beer Class (not all just our bagels)

The Big Apple

Happy Sunday, everyone! Lots to talk about, so I'm gonna jump straight into our trip to NYC and DC in January. It was everything we hoped for and then some! Here are some of the highlights from NYC...

Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island. We especially enjoyed the museum on Ellis Island because it helped us understand how overwhelming it must have been for immigrants in that time!

9/11 Memorial & Museum. What an incredible tribute to those who lost their lives, voluntarily and involuntarily, that day. The museum really immerses you in the chaos and tragedy of that day.

Chicago on Broadway. Really entertaining show, and phenomenal voices! Featured Cuba Gooding Jr. as the lawyer, but unfortunately he didn't impress us. Of course, everyone around his was an elite-caliber singer, so maybe it's an unfair comparison, haha.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (no photos allowed, unfortunately!) and Live with Kelly and Ryan. Both were fun because they gave us a chance to see what "show biz" is like! The Late Show was recorded in advance, and Live was, well, live, so we got to see two different sides of what it's like to put together these shows. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the main guest on The Late Show, and Chris Pine was the main guest for Live. I think The Late Show was actually our favorite experience in NYC. The band (Jon Batiste & Stay Human) was fantastic; they kept us entertained before it started and during breaks. And of course, Stephen Colbert was hilarious. Major props to Hannah for planning well enough to get those free tickets online!

Seeing all the sights: Times Square, Grand Central Terminal, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center, the Friends building... about the only thing we didn't see was Central Park, and that was because we couldn't bare the thought of being totally exposed to the frigid wind. I'd like to mention I was the one who frequently sacrificed my the warmth of my hands in order to take our photos! That's at least 1000 husband points, right?

Was it cold? Yeah, as a matter of fact, it was! Why do you ask?

And of course, THE FOOD! Our favorite dessert was World's Best Cookie Dough (sorry, Dō, you weren't up to the hype!). A few of our other favorite meals were Best Bagel & Coffee, Very Fresh Noodles in Chelsea Market, Prince Street Pizza, and Dutch Freds, where we enjoyed awesome cocktails courtesy of Hannah's siblings!

After 3.5 days in NYC we took a Greyhound bus to DC for Hannah's physical therapy conference (super easy and inexpensive method of transportation, by the way). We had a full day together to explore the city, so we went to the Capitol, the Holocaust Museum, and saw most of the memorials on the National Mall.

Once Hannah was in the conference for the next couple days I just kept exploring on my own. The government shutdown kept the Smithsonians closed, but I found other things to do! I went to the Museum of the Bible, the Pentagon, Arlington National Cemetery, and Georgetown. A few of our favorite meals from DC were Amsterdam Falafel Shop, The Best Sandwich Place, Good Stuff Eatery, and Baked & Wired.

So, like I said, fantastic trip. I think we both did a great job totally detaching from work/school and living in the moment, just enjoying each experience as it came! Except for nearly missing our bus to the airport on the way home. That was not fun at all :-)

Since then we've been enjoying the winter weather in Colorado. We went snow tubing for the first time and had a blast. We also skied at Loveland Ski Area last weekend and are set to ski again this coming Thursday! And a couple weeks ago we visited my Colorado Springs family and visited the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I guess visiting the zoo isn't exactly a winter weather activity, but it's a nationally acclaimed zoo, so worth mentioning!

In other news, Hannah now knows where her last two clinical rotations will be! Her second of the four will be in McPherson, KS, in May and June. Her third will be at an outpatient clinic in Boulder later this fall. And next winter, her last rotation will be at - drumroll, please - Children's Hospital of Colorado! She's most interested in pediatrics, so getting her final rotation at Children's was H-U-G-E. Not to mention she had to apply and interview for it - and it's competitive! Way to go, Hannah!!

In a similar vein, I recently accepted a job offer from Stryker, a company I interned with while I was in school! I'll be at their Sports Medicine location in the Denver Tech Center starting April 1st; this group designs surgical tools for things like rotator cuff repairs, knee and hip replacements, and other sports-related injuries. My last year and a half at Lockheed Martin has been a great experience, but the medical device industry excites me more than aerospace, so I'm excited to get back to that industry - and with a company I know I enjoyed previously. I'll be a test engineer in their R&D team, so I'm also excited to be focused more on the front end of the product development process compared to my current role at Lockheed.

Last thing I wanna touch on in this post is a shoutout to my dad. When we visited them at Christmas, my dad sent us home with a beautiful rocking chair he designed and built as a wedding gift to us. It's easily my favorite piece he's ever made - and not just because it's mine now! Here's a photo so you can admire it in all its glory.

Hopefully we'll have another podcast up on SoundCloud soon, too. Check it out here!

Virtual Christmas Card #2

Happy New Year! Since Jeremiah and I don’t send out Christmas cards (maybe we will in the future) this will continue to serve as our virtual Christmas card. This year was much less eventful than 2017, but it was great in its own, more quiet way. 2018 mostly consisted of settling into life in Colorado. I finished the first half of PT school! How crazy is that?? So much closer, yet still feels so far! We joined a small group with great friends that we love, we have filled our schedules with game nights and dinners with friends, we hiked our first two 14ers (with hopes to do 3 more in 2019), traveled to three new national parks, together we travelled to AZ, CA, KS, and UT and had many trips into the mountains here! Jeremiah travelled to MN on his own, and I traveled to NY twice and AZ once on her own. We also had many visits from family and friends! We are looking forward to even more travel and exploration in 2019! 

Since I last wrote, I finished up my first clinical rotation at the SNF in Boulder. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it and it was a great, much needed break from the classroom to get my feet wet in the field! This May/June I have been placed in my second rotation in McPherson, KS. I can’t remember if I’ve previously mentioned this on here, but my school requires that we do one of our rotations in a rural setting and one out-of-state, or you can combine them into one rural and out-of-state setting which is what I have elected to do! Fortunately, Jeremiah has family in rural Kansas, so I am able to stay with his grandparents in Salina, KS during my rotation. I have never lived anywhere rural, so even though it will only be for 8 weeks, I am interested to experience something new and of course I’m anxious to get back out into the real-world of PT! I headed back into the classroom for a condensed 10-week semester October – December and it was as crazy as ever, but really enjoyed a couple of my classes this semester. Starting Monday I will embark on a full 16-week, 18-credit semester which is the biggest credit load yet, so I am a little anxious, but I know I can just take it a week at a time and get it done! 

Jeremiah is continuing his work at Lockheed Martin. They keep him busy and working hard, but he is happy to have the work to keep him moving. They have had so many new employees in his department he feels like a veteran by now even though he’s only been there about a year and a half! He is such a valuable, hard-working team member! He was even asked in early December by his former boss to speak on behalf of his department to a number of Lockheed managers about what he is doing in the department, what the department is doing, and suggestions he has for future progress and changes. It was challenging, but a really great experience for him!

In October Jeremiah and I got to travel to AZ to celebrate our best friend’s Tommy and Emily’s wedding! We had such a great time! Jeremiah was able to travel out for an entire week. He was the best man so he had planned the Bachelor party for the weekend before the wedding, so he went down for that and then stayed there for a nice week in AZ before I joined him the following Friday right before the wedding. At the Bachelor party they rented an Airbnb in downtown Gilbert, played Bubble Soccer, went to a rage room, grilled steaks, and did an escape room! He said it was a blast and I think Tommy had a great time too. If you don’t have any idea what some of those activities are, I have attached pictures so you can get an idea. Basically, great activities for a bunch of boys wanting to be boys! The rest of his week in AZ he met up with some of his friends, spent great time with his family, and visited with my family too. When I joined him on Friday, we pretty much went straight into wedding festivities because I was also in the wedding. The venue was a little bit far in Rio Verde, AZ, but it was a beautiful setting of desert surrounded by mountains. The church the ceremony was in was also gorgeous with stained glass and high ceilings. We had the rehearsal at the church and then drove into Scottsdale to a place called Classic Cooking for the rehearsal dinner. This was probably the coolest rehearsal dinner I have been to because it was a cooking class! There were a few different stations that we could choose to help make part of the meal so Jeremiah and I chose rolling out the pasta (and subsequently bought a pasta maker a few weeks after). Other stations included making Caesar dressing for the salad, making the pasta, preparing the chicken and veggies, and making Biscotti. It was really fun, interactive, and actually pretty informative! The next day I was to arrive at the place we were getting ready at 9 am, Jeremiah was closer to 11 or noon I think. We got ready at a gorgeous house overlooking at golf course, a family friend of theirs’ house. It is always so fun getting ready in anticipation of a wedding! I got my hair done and did my own makeup, and we all just hung around and talked, ate lunch, and got excited for the evening to come. The wedding itself, and Emily, were so beautiful! We both felt really lucky to be able to stand up by them and support them and their love! After the ceremony we went to the reception venue, participated in pictures, and then danced the night away! We have a lot of mutual friends with Tommy and Emily, so it was a big party/reunion for us too. The day after the wedding we fortunately didn’t fly out until late that night, so I was able to see my family and we spent the day hanging out with them.

In November we had a visit from Jeremiah’s family. We took them to Breckenridge to explore for the day, tried a new restaurant for dinner, went to Longmont to be with some extended family, and played games. It was extra fun that it was snowing that weekend too, because Jeremiah’s brother, Nathan, had actually never experienced a snowfall (at least in his memory). A little tougher for driving, but we managed. It was nice to have them for a visit in November since we weren’t going to be spending Thanksgiving with them this year. Instead on Thanksgiving we headed down to Colorado Springs to spend the day with Jeremiah’s extended family. It was a great day of family, food, and of course, giving thanks! This Thanksgiving we were especially thankful for the opportunities Jeremiah and I have at work and in school, as well as God’s beautiful creation that we get to enjoy so regularly. On our way back from CO Springs we stopped at the outlet mall right on our way for some black Friday shopping and were actually quite successful! Including some things for ourselves… 

The very next weekend was my family’s annual trip to Beaver Creek. We got so lucky with how great the weather was this year: so many runs open, fresh powder, and ski in/ski out of our resort. My family arrived on Wednesday and fortunately I had no classes on Friday so we were able to make it up Thursday night. Once again it is so nice just being able to throw things in the car and drive only two hours to get there. As always I absolutely love having my whole family together! We skied, played games, went to the Grotto, and just lounged around. My birthday fell the day after the trip this year, but I was still able to celebrate with everyone there. Also, fortunately, this was my last year where Beaver Creek will fall right before finals! It is always sort of stressful planning ahead for the trip and then having to study like crazy right once I’m back. Next year I will be right in the middle of a rotation so that won’t be the case! Woohoo, finally! 

During my practicals and finals weeks Jeremiah was just as crazy with work as I was with school, so we were very thankful when December 19^tharrived and we hit the road on our way to AZ! But this time instead of driving straight there we stopped at three national parks – Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Arches, and Canyonlands. We also drove through Monument Valley before arriving at my family’s cabin in Pinetop, AZ. I made a video of the trip, though it isn’t super exciting because it is mostly just scenery, but feel free to watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvopfSzTCXY&t=3s

About an hour into our drive the first day we hit a large screw in the road which caused a flat tire and subsequently two new back tires from Big O Tires. Fortunately we weren’t far from the tire shop and it wasn’t too much of an issue. And that was really our only hiccup in the trip! So in Black Canyon we tried snowshoeing for the first time, Arches we did a lot of great hiking, and Canyonlands we did some smaller hikes and sightseeing. You can see more details in the video. My parents got us a National Park Annual Pass for Christmas, so we have already made good use of that and are looking forward to more use throughout the year. Also on our road trip down we decided to start a podcast! Jeremiah bought me a podcast microphone for my birthday so we had a fun time recording that. We are going to continue recording periodically mostly for our enjoyment, but definitely check it out! We have an Instagram where we post the link called @dwightdownload or if you look up “The Dwight Download” on SoundCloud you can listen to our first two episodes there. https://soundcloud.com/user-703169463/episode-1-intro

 Changing the flat tire!

 Black Canyon of the Gunnison

Delicate Arch (on Utah license plates)

Recording our first podcast episode!

Canyonlands

Once we made it to AZ we had such a nice time! We saw both of our families the first night we were there, going to straight to a birthday dinner for my grandma at my aunt’s house where we saw my whole family, then to Jeremiah’s parents’ house to stay for the night. We spent all of Christmas eve with his family doing church, dinner, desserts, and presents. Then all of Christmas day with my family doing breakfast, presents, games, and dinner. We also got my parents a pizza oven for Christmas so they tried that out and it turned out to be delicious. The next few days we stayed at my parents’ house and went to dinner and a place called Main Event with the family, made more pizzas for dinner one night, jumped on the trampoline with Paisley and Parker, celebrated Preston’s 2^ndbirthday, went on a hike in the Superstition mountains, and saw the new Mary Poppins movie. Then we finished the trip by staying at Jeremiah’s parents’ house. We worked all week on and off on a very difficult 1000-piece puzzle, went bowling, had a few nice dinners in, kicked off New Years night with them, played games, and watched Incredibles 2. We also managed to squeeze in a brunch with my friends Morgan, Marsie, and Aaron, had dinner and a night at the symphony with Tommy and Emily (they got us symphony tickets for Christmas!), rang in the new year playing games at Tommy and Emily’s, and had dinner with our old small group. It sounds like a lot, and I guess it was, but it felt like we had a nice long time there this year so we weren’t always on the go but were still able to do many fun things.

We did the drive back to CO in one day, and were very ready to be home by the end of the day. We had the weekend to get settled back in, do some things around the house, and still had extra time for some relaxing before Jeremiah was back to work on Monday. He fell back into routine pretty quickly, I think! As for me I still have until next Monday, so I am cherishing the quiet time at home. 

Once again, happy 2019! We hope the year has started off well for you and we are looking forward to what this year will bring for us. Thanks for reading!  

We went to the ASU v CU game here in CO! We lost but had a great time cheering for our visiting team!

They put our favorite AZ restaurant, Oregano's, an hour away from us in Fort Collins, CO!! We were sooo excited. 

The pizookie is so good. I mean look at it!

I went to a CO APTA conference in Vail, CO with a few of my classmates.

A beautiful hike with my friend Stacey once we finished the semester!

A favorite ornament on our tree. We love decorating for Christmas and we love sitting in our living room with only the Christmas lights on.