...And surprise! We haven’t completely forgotten about our
blog! Though it is true, there were a couple months there where I did forget
about it entirely. Either way, here we are. We apologize to anyone who checked
back repeatedly only to find the same old post week after week. Needless to say
it has been a busy few months, but a really great few months too!
Since there is a lot to catch up on, I’ll start with the
wedding. We are officially under five months away! So exciting!! I feel like we
just got engaged. There is still so much to do wedding-wise, but I can’t wait
to marry Jeremiah, so I hope the next five months goes fast too. Since my last
post, we have made many decisions, some big, some small. We have chosen a
florist, a DJ, and a photographer. Last time I mentioned that our venue is
all-inclusive, meaning they have specific vendors that they partner with that
we can choose from. That made the decisions much easier! We are still trying to
decide on our caterer, but we are very close. We have done three food tastings
with the three different caterer options, so we are deciding between our two
favorites now. One big, exciting decision is our honeymoon destination of
Cancun, Mexico! We are very excited to go to the beach and have a place to just
relax! Usually when we travel we are caught up in seeing all the sights and
doing all the popular activities, so we think Cancun will be a nice change of
pace from that. We have booked the resort, but haven’t booked the flights yet.
That is on our to-do list! We are in the middle of deciding on invitations and
also I am trying to get a better idea of some of the details that I want, like
types of flowers, favors, jewelry, etc. It is shocking the number of decisions
that have to be made. I am trying to just take it one decision at a time, but
since I am so indecisive it ends up taking quite awhile! I have so many ideas
in my head for the details, it is hard to narrow it down!
Since we have a wedding rapidly approaching, I tried to load
up this past semester of school in order to make my last one pretty easy. That
way I can still enjoy my last semester of undergrad and plan a wedding all at
once. By loading up, I mean that I had two part-time jobs, an internship and
four other classes, one of which was my Honors thesis. I was really nervous
going into the semester because I wasn’t sure I could handle it. But I really
surprised myself! My thesis, entitled “Keys to the Mind of an Elite Pole
Vaulter: An Investigation of Psychological Skills and Mental Toughness” ended
up going very well. As a quick synopsis, basically I compared “mental
toughness” scores for pole vaulters at three different levels of competition
(high school, collegiate, and post-collegiate). Mental toughness is a term used
to describe a combination of psychological skills such as focus, motivation,
and coping. One major finding was that there were differences in mental
toughness between high school and collegiate vaulters as well as between
post-collegiate and high school vaulters. But nothing significant between
collegiate and post-collegiate vaulters. I defended my thesis in front of three
professors, my parents, and Jeremiah and I felt really proud of the result.
Shout out to Jeremiah for letting me rehearse for him many times before the
defense! Also a big thanks to Jeremiah for keeping me calm during moments of
panic and frustration in regards to my thesis! It felt really great to have it
done a semester ahead of schedule! And now you know much more than you cared to
or needed to about my thesis.
The completed paper!
My internship was at the PT office that I was already
working at one day a week. As an intern, I was able to focus more on what the
PTs were doing and follow them around rather than running around doing my own
work and front office tasks. I had intended to get an internship in a hospital
setting, but it turns out that is really hard to get! So I ended up in the same
place as my job, but that was fine, because once the internship was finished, I
went back to getting paid as a tech. I also kept up my job at Gammage, which
has always been pretty sporadic, just based around when big shows are in town.
This semester I saw Mamma Mia!, Beautiful- The Carole King Musical, The Sound
of Music, and Cabaret! My other job was a new one this semester as a First-Year
Success Coach! This is a job that I have been interested in since my freshman
year and I am so glad I took the opportunity to do it. Essentially I have a
load of about 130 freshmen students who are in the College of Health Solutions
like me and I set up appointments with them to go over goals for the semester,
concerns they have about school/work/life, or helping keep them on track
academically. It is such an awesome experience for me. I love talking with all
of my students and it has been a great job to continually learn from and get
better at. Also, my boss and coworkers are awesome which always helps!
My classes also ended up being really awesome this semester.
My functional anatomy and biomechanics classes this semester were so cool, and
I really enjoyed the material we were learning. Those were definitely a
challenge too, but it was worth it! I think that was it this semester, so it
kept me very busy!
Now on to Jeremiah’s semester... This was his first semester
as a full time Masters degree-seeking student. He had a few very challenging
classes! Seriously, he tells me about the homework and exams and I just wonder
how anyone passes these classes. In his Linear Algebra class the first exam had
a class average of 54%! I will brag for him and let you know that Jeremiah got
an 84% on that exam. How talented is he? He definitely works hard for the
grades though too! His other big thing this semester is that he was working as
a TA for an intro to engineering course. His primary role was helping in the
lab portion of the class. He really enjoyed helping first-year engineering
students and having the opportunity to be in a more teaching position. Though I
know that he did not enjoy the seemingly endless load of grading! Now he also
has only one semester left at ASU.
So we have covered wedding and school… In between all of
that we have somehow managed to do many other really great things!
I travelled to Rochester in October for a family friend’s
wedding. It was a beautiful wedding and awesome weather! I was really excited
to be in Rochester too, because I didn’t get to go there over the summer. We
stayed in my aunt and uncle’s lake house on Lake Ontario and got to see most of
our extended family in just the few short days while we were there. We also
were able to have a joint bridal shower for my cousin and me! It was all family
and close friends of our family. I can’t remember if I mentioned it previously,
but my cousin is getting married just a couple months after me and we are both
bridesmaids for each other! How cool is that? We have been having fun planning
alongside each other and asking questions back and forth! So anyway, our moms
and my sisters planned a very beautiful shower!
At the bridal shower with our moms!
A group photo from the wedding! Self timer was used, hence the slightly awkward angle.
Jeremiah didn’t join us in Rochester because of his family’s
annual October Disney trip. It is a big trip for them (even though, yes, we do
go to Disney rather often) so he was really happy to be able to do that with
them. I know they had an excellent time and ate lots of delicious food too!
Speaking of Disney, right after the semester ended we took a
quick trip before our annual passes expired. We stayed in an Airbnb that was a
quick 5 min drive to the park (we used Uber for the first time to get there). A
little different to be in Disneyland just the two of us, but we had a great
time!
Our last time on the Tower of Terror!! So sad because it's my favorite ride. We are thinking "Why??" in the picture.
In early December Jeremiah and I joined my family for our
annual Beaver Creek Ski Trip! Because of school and work schedules we could
only be there for a couple of days, but it was just great to be there with
everyone! My birthday landed on the one full day we were there, so it was an
incredible birthday. Skiing, family, and the Grotto (the amazing spa area in
our hotel). Jeremiah was much-improved in his skiing abilities this year too!
Both the Rochester trip and the Colorado trip were even more
special this year because they included my sister and brother-in-law who are
now official residents of Philadelphia, PA! It has definitely been an adjustment
to not see them as often, but luckily we have seen them every couple months so
it hasn’t been too bad. I definitely miss having them and my niece and nephew
close though!
We have definitely been much better about spending time with
our friends over the past few months! We even took a trip up to my family’s
cabin with a group of friends over Thanksgiving weekend. We pretty much just
played games the whole weekend, but we had such a great time with everyone! We
have gone on quite a few double dates and had a number of game nights with our
friends Tommy and Emily. Been to many group get-togethers with a group of our
friends who call themselves “The Fellas.” We have a weekly small group with
church friends, which has been great! Lastly, we have made many friends in the
church college group, which has been a great community to be a part of.
A couple photos from our cabin trip!
I will end with some big updates:
1.
Jeremiah accepted a job offer with Stryker,
where he interned last summer. He plans to start in early July and is really
excited to be in the Research and Development department! We are feeling really
blessed that he has such a great offer with an awesome company doing something
he enjoys!
2.
I was accepted to Midwestern University’s Doctor
of Physical Therapy program in Glendale, AZ. The program would start in June! I
am feeling very fortunate to have already gotten in somewhere, but I am also
waiting to hear back from other schools and am hopeful that I will have some
options.
3.
You may be wondering, are they definitely
staying in Arizona then? Or maybe you already assumed we would be staying here.
Yes, that is likely, but I did apply to a few schools out-of-state! So if I get
into one that I really want to out-of-state, Jeremiah and I will determine then
what is best for us. But he knows that it would mean he would have to look for
a different job. We are just waiting to see what happens!
4.
We welcomed my newest nephew just yesterday! His
name is Preston Reece Warren and he is so so cute! I love him so much already! Also,
Brian and Terrisa allowed me to be in the room during the birth. It was so
amazing. I had never seen a birth before and I was so in awe! It went really
smoothly and I couldn’t help but think about how great God is throughout the
whole process. I can’t wait to watch him grow up alongside my other nieces and
nephews!
I am sure there are things that I am missing, but I think I
have typed for long enough today and my goal is to have another post in just a
couple of weeks so that I can catch up on even more!
Happy New Year everyone! We are so excited for everything
to come in 2017 and hope you are too!
