Rocky Mountain Hello

A big hello, from yours truly, a second-year PT student! I can’t believe how quickly my first year flew by, yet at the same time so much learning was packed into it I wonder how it was only a year. This summer was my first summer being a full-time student (I’m talking 15 credits, yikes!), so it was definitely a little hard to be sitting in a classroom for nearly 8 hours a day, five days a week, but as you read in our last post, we still made the most of our first Colorado summer! And so far, year two here in CO has not disappointed! 

Last day of summer semester with Stacey and Hillary!

Once I wrapped up, I had three weeks off of school which was extremely welcome. Jeremiah’s brother, Nathan, visited us that first weekend in August to kick it off! His visit included a trip to Water World with the Hunts- Jeremiah’s CO Springs relatives, Little Man Ice Cream, Wynkoop brewery where we discovered they have free pool tables, Frisbee in the park, games at home, and other miscellaneous activities. It’s always a fun time to have Nathan in town and he helped make it a great start to my break! 

Jeremiah and I had a fun date night at mini golf! 

My parents were the next visitors to come in August. They were in town not only to see us, but also to see a professional bike race in Vail! We spent a few days here in Denver that included a visit to Barr Lake state park and a bike ride with my dad. Then my parents and I headed up to Frisco where they planned to stay for a couple nights to be closer to Vail for the bike race. Unfortunately Jeremiah couldn’t come with us due to work, but I brought him back a delicious treat from a cookie shop so that helped. My dad and I did a ride with some of his bike group that also came up from Phoenix. This was a tough ride for me, because I don’t usually ride quite so fast and the first half was pretty much entirely uphill! It was a great challenge though, and I had a really great time. Especially taking in the beautiful mountain scenery that surrounded us. In addition to the ride, we wandered around Frisco, had dinner with the bike group, did some shopping, and of course headed up to Vail to watch the pros. Even though in professional cycling you only see them zoom by every once in a while, there is still something really exciting about watching them bike so fast and so close together! I said goodbye to my parents and they drove home from Frisco and I headed back home to Jeremiah! 

In my time off I have also done quite a bit of reading which I always treasure since I rarely get to read for fun during school. As a matter of fact my first stop on my first day off was to the library where I just browsed around for a while! I read Me Before You, The Identicals, Unbroken, and The Glass Castle and highly recommend all of them! Especially the last two. 

Jeremiah and I successfully summited our second “14er” over my break as well! We were really hoping to “double summit” meaning hit two summits over 14,000 feet in one day because the peaks are so close together, but some serious fog rolled in as we approached the top of the first one, and we didn’t think it wise to continue to the second. And good thing too, because it started raining pretty heavily on our hike down! This just gives us a reason to go back again another time! I also did a really great hike called “Royal Arch” with my friend Stacey. It was basically a stair stepper to the top, but definitely worth the views! And I do like a good challenge. I want to take Jeremiah back another time for this hike, because it was a little smoggy that day too. In between activities and visitors, I picked up a few days of work at the bow place I worked at last summer called Wunderkin. It is pretty easy work, but it was nice to be back there working and making a little bit of money! 

Gray's Peak with literally no view from the top because of fog!

View of Flatirons from Royal Arch!

Toward the end of my break I finally left for my much-anticipated trip to Rochester! My family had a big reunion-type trip to Pineridge in Canada the week before my finals, so I of course couldn’t go, which was pretty devastating. But I knew I had to get out there to see some family once I had the time off. Jeremiah once again wasn’t able to go, but again I brought him back a treat! I will say I am so thankful to have a husband who works so hard and supports me in so many ways. Rather than just me being in school, he says that we are both in this grad program together, because it really does take a team effort and so much help and understanding from him. I really don’t think I could do this without him! Needless to say, I was very excited for my Rochester trip. I stayed with my Aunt Gail and Uncle George which I had never done before, and it was a great opportunity to spend more time with them! I also got to spend some really great quality time with my Grandma Warren which I always treasure. My trip included dinner at the lake house with some of my cousins and their kids, a bike ride with my grandma, my favorite Carmine’s for lunch, a walk through a park with my cousin, a visit to the farmer’s market, a stop at Wegman’s, Abbott’s frozen custard, dinner at my grandma’s apartment, and Upwords! I also had a day planned out by my Great Aunt Doris that included a walk at Turning Point Park, a visit to High Falls, a stop for lunch at Doris’ apartment, a boat ride on the Erie Canal, dinner in Pittsford along the canal, and a fun show called “Carole’s Kings” to end the day! It was definitely an unusual trip being there on my own, but I had a great time making new memories! I brought my GoPro along to take some video, but didn’t end up getting a whole lot. Nevertheless, if you want to watch this video, I threw some of the clips together here.

 Carmine's Steak Sub! 

A couple days after I arrived home from Rochester I started my first clinical rotation! As part of my school program, in addition to the normal classes, you have four rotations which basically are full-time working in a variety of settings in order to get hands-on experience and skills to be better equipped to enter the workforce! Essentially like an internship for healthcare careers. This first one is six weeks long (they get progressively longer at 8 wks, 12 wks, and 12 wks) and I am working in a Skilled Nursing Facility in Boulder, CO. It’s just about a 30 min drive from home which isn’t too bad, and it is a really beautiful drive into Boulder, so I can’t complain! Also, for those of you who may not know, a Skilled Nursing Facility or “Sniff” as we like to call it, is a transition for people coming from the hospital who are not quite ready to go home yet. So as a PT we are trying to get them ready to go back home, wherever that is! For many people this requires being able to get in and out of bed safely, walk around their home safely, possibly having to climb stairs to get in their home, etc. It is pretty much entirely an elderly population, and I am really enjoying it! It is definitely a totally new side of PT for me. It is really rewarding to watch the patients’ progress and I am learning a lot about performing initial evals, documentation, setting goals, and many other things. This type of setting doesn’t have a lot of manual work as many PT jobs do, so I will look forward to gaining more experience in that way in my future rotations hopefully! I have about two weeks left of this first one and then I will be back to Regis for an 8-week condensed semester. I’m really looking forward to seeing my friends and classmates again and I do enjoy learning in a school setting, but I will say I have loved the homework-free evenings for the past few weeks! A glimpse toward my future post-school!!

You probably thought I was done with trips and visitors, but alas I am not! I made a trip to AZ (solo… again. Sorry, Jeremiah!) for my friend Emily’s bachelorette party! It was so much fun!! Her fiancée helped fly me in a little earlier in the evening than Emily expected to surprise her which was so nice of him, and awesome for me because I got to go out with all of the girls that night. We had a really cute Airbnb near Downtown Phoenix that we stayed in for two nights. The first night we went out to a couple places for drinks, one of which we went to for my Bachelorette party. I hadn’t been back since, so it was especially fun to be back there! Saturday’s activities included Cat Yoga, brunch at Postino, a piñata and cute crafty things in the afternoon, horseback riding, dinner in old town Scottsdale, and movie and nail painting that night! Sunday morning, Emily’s maid of honor, her sister, put together a nice little bagel bar for breakfast. As a matter of fact, her sister did a fantastic job with all of the planning and details! I think everyone, especially Emily, had a great time. Fortunately this was over Labor Day weekend, so I had some additional time in AZ to spend with family! I stayed with my parents and everyone came over for a pool day and dinner at their house. Sunday afternoons in summer at my parents house are the best. Always family pool time with good food! What more could you want? I was also able to do a little neighborhood bike ride with my parents, have brunch with Jeremiah’s family including his mom’s delicious cinnamon rolls! Yum!! And I finished off the trip with Barro’s pizza with my parents, Emily, and B&T and kids! It felt like a really quick trip, but as always it was great to be there and see everyone!

Cat Yoga!

The following weekend Heather, Madeline, and Luke came to visit us! Woohoo! I love family time! We had a great time showing Denver off to them. While my family does come to Colorado every year, everyone always heads straight up to Beaver Creek, so no one had spent much time in Denver. So we love to show it off! We explored Pearl Street in Boulder where the kids absolutely loved the splash pad, we went to Chuck E Cheese per Madeline’s request, wandered around Downtown Denver, played games at home, went to the park right by our apartment, made dinner, visited Stanley Marketplace, and went to Little Man Ice Cream! Can you tell we like to take guests there??

 We made it to our second Red Rocks concert to see NeedtoBreathe!

My friends from school Cathy and Lexy joined us at Red Rocks!

Jeremiah and I are currently doing something called “The Contentment Project” with our small group. Each week is a different topic where you choose to challenge yourself related to that topic in order to learn how you can be more content in your life. This week has been “Entertainment” and we have chosen to limit ourselves to only 30 minutes of digital media per day (social media, podcasts, Netflix, etc) and on Saturday we had zero digital media! It has indeed been a challenge, but a nice change of pace! 

These two pictures are what life without digital media looks like for us!

Phew, I think we are caught up! We had a lot going on, but the past couple weeks have been pretty quiet and should continue to be until mid-October. We will be in AZ in October celebrating Tommy and Emily’s wedding and we can’t wait!! Until next time… Thanks for reading! 

Above the Timber Line

Since we last posted, Hannah and I have reached a couple big milestones: our first anniversary (as our brother-in-law George told us, we "made it!" - haha) and the one-year mark since we moved to Colorado. In both instances we were shocked at how quickly the last year has passed! Thankfully blog posts are convenient ways to reflect on all we've fit into that time, so let's get started.

To celebrate our anniversary, Hannah and I spent two nights at a bed & breakfast in Breckenridge, a cute and peaceful mountain town (in the summer, at least - it's a busy ski destination in the winter). We had a really great time, and the mountains are one of our favorite things about Colorado, so it was a nice reminder of how happy we are to be here!

The B&B, called Abbett Placer Inn, was awesome. Delicious breakfasts, iced tea and cookies every afternoon, comfy amenities, and owners who were helpful and attentive without being intrusive. We were just a 3-minute walk from Main St, which is full of fun shops and great restaurants. We loved all the food we tried, which included a pizza joint, a crepe stand, burgers and garlic parmesan truffle fries at a bar, and massive treats from a cookie shop.

One evening we went to Ready, Paint, Fire, an art studio where you can sip wine (or Coke Zero, if you're like someone I know...) while you paint. It was a fun, lighthearted atmosphere, and the owner was very helpful and enthusiastic. Ultimately we ended up with a new serving plate and spoon holder!

We spent most of the next day on an 8-mile hike to Lower Mohawk Lake. It was difficult to find the trail at times due to lingering snow, and we actually almost turned around literally feet from our destination because we thought we were lost! Thank goodness we didn't, because the final destination was beautiful. The lake water was crystal clear. Despite the trail issues, it definitely goes down as one of my favorite hikes we've done here.

Hannah made a great video of our trip, if you haven't already seen it you can check it out here! (We were Geocaching toward the end of the video, in case you wonder why we're seemingly loitering around the weeds of a parking lot.)

Some of our other summer highlights thus far have also centered around the outdoors. One morning in May, we visited Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, a beautiful park with lots of neat rock formations. I'd been once before during one of our family reunions at a cabin near Woodland Park, but that was about 13 years ago, so it felt like my first visit!

On the 4th of July we biked all the way to Boulder and back - 40 miles round trip! We have been saying ever since we got here we'd bike to Boulder and back some time, and we finally did it. Our turnaround point was Organic Sandwich Company on Pearl Street, which was delicious!

Just last weekend we did our first ever 14er with a couple from our church group. It was an exhausting but amazing experience! We hiked Huron Peak (14,009 feet at the summit), which was 10 miles round-trip and 4000 feet elevation gain. We took a less-common route up, and at times it felt like we were trailblazing, but it was worth it because of the quietness: we literally encountered nobody else until we merged with the common trail just 500 feet from the peak. Our other Colorado hikes have had great views, but this one took the cake because we had a 360-degree view of the vast, majestic mountains - something you can only get on a mountaintop! We also camped out at the trailhead the night before, where we were transfixed by the myriad stars we could never see from our apartment in the city. Definitely gonna be doing more of this while we're living here! (Hannah made a video of this trip, too - check it out here.)

Guess Emma was ravenous after reaching the summit. Except her parents did all the hiking. Hmm...

In June we flew out to Los Angeles for another quick, weekend Disneyland trip with my family. It was, at is always is, a ton of fun! Amazing food, fun rides, and great traditions that remind us of all the fun trips we've made for the last 12-or-so years. One of this year's highlights was experiencing the all-new Pixar Pier, an area of California Adventure that opened the same day we arrived! I'm already excited for our next visit - whenever that ends up being!

Mac & cheese in a sourdough bread bowl. Yes please!!

Other highlights from the last couple months were a Dbacks-Rockies game with our church group, a visit from our friends Kyle & Stephanie, and a visit from Hannah's parents that included a day in Fort Collins, a hike in Golden, and the Coors Brewery Tour.

Hannah and I proudly sported our Dbacks gear! #represent

 Another nice hike with a great view of the Flatirons near Boulder

Always a great time with these two. Wish we could see them more often!

And now Hannah's just two weeks away from being a second-year physical therapy student! The time has flown, but we've filled it with great experiences. Can't wait to see what our second year in Colorado brings!

Bright Spots in the Busy Season

Happy summer everyone! It is looking a little bit different for me this year because I am still in school! I just started up my summer semester on Monday, but fortunately it is beautiful outside so I can enjoy lunch in the beautiful weather and on the weekends too. So that makes the 15 credit load a little more bearable.

Now let’s rewind to the past couple months! Jeremiah and I were SO busy with work and school. This past semester kicked my butt. I’m talking hardest semester of school ever (at least that’s what it felt like). I felt like I was just a little behind all semester, basically right when I was about to catch up and be on top of things, more things piled up. Meanwhile at work Jeremiah’s test lab was getting way more work than they could handle and everyone was expected to work extra hours to stay on top of all of it. For the month of April he worked about 50 hours per week. No fun. In many ways though, we feel like it’s kind of nice to be in busy seasons together because then one of us isn’t just bored without the other person’s company.

Anyway, I don’t like to talk about only the busy/stressful things because that is no fun, and we both try to have a good balance despite the busyness. So we definitely managed to have some fun occasions.  

I had Good Friday off, a benefit of attending a Catholic school, so late Thursday night before Good Friday Jeremiah and I hit the road for Salina, Kansas. Jeremiah’s grandparents live there half the year, so we were visiting them! They were both in a performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion on Good Friday in the nearby small town of Lindsborg. It was a great performance in a beautiful, old church. The performance was unlike anything I’d been to before, because it was treated like worship, with a lot of singing/narrated parts depicting the events of the crucifixion, and the audience sang along in certain choruses. The orchestra was also split into two with half performing in front of us and half on a balcony behind us for a cool surround sound experience. Before the performance we also got to meet up with our friends Stephanie and Kyle, along with Stephanie’s parents and sister, for dinner in Lindsborg! They had all gotten tickets to see the performance which we were very excited about because we had not seen them in awhile and we always love spending time with them! The rest of our time in Kansas we spent just hanging out at his grandparents’ house enjoying our time together! We drove home Saturday night, so it was a quick turn around. I was supposed to have an exam the following Monday but it was postponed pretty last minute though we headed home anyway. We went to Easter Service at our church, Red Rocks. It was a great service. We both always look forward to Easter service, so it was really great. We debated for awhile whether to do Easter Brunch or Easter dinner. My family traditionally did a nice dinner, while his did brunch. I ended up winning out, but maybe we’ll switch off year to year. We made a ham, cheesy mashed potatoes, green beans, and had homemade bread courtesy of my sister, Emily! Everything was delicious! But we ate that meal for way too many nights after that… Maybe by next Easter I’ll want that meal again, but right now I’m set! We have had fun with the few holidays that we have gotten to celebrate on our own, making some new traditions for ourselves.

In mid-April our friend Ryan came and visited us for a really quick trip! He was in our small group back in AZ and we hadn’t seen him in a long time, so it was great to have him even though it was basically only 24 hours. He had never been here so we took him on a little “Tour of Denver,” visiting some of the most well-known spots like the Red Rocks Amphitheater, Platte River, Union Station, and Cherry Creek. It was a lot of driving, but it was really fun! We ended the night with dinner at Beaujo’s Pizza which was delicious and even better was the ice cream we had at a place called Cream. You make your own ice cream sandwich by choosing either two cookies, two brownies, two “cronuts,” or two Belgian waffles, then the ice cream flavor, and a topping. So yummy! I think this is going to rival our other favorite, Little Man Ice Cream, when we are wanting to go somewhere for dessert!

Jeremiah and I have this list of restaurants that we want to try here and it is getting so long and I feel like we are checking things off at a very slow rate. Good for our bellies and wallets, but we are anxious to try all of them! It’s fun to keep a list so that we don’t forget a place when we are looking to go out to eat.

Speaking of food, Jeremiah and I had a date night at the Melting Pot a couple of weeks ago! It was awesome. If you have not been there, it is a fondue restaurant, and we went for this early bird special (4:15 pm reservation) where we got four courses and a bottle of wine! Cheese fondue, a salad, the entrée portion, and of course the chocolate fondue. It’s not a place to go often because it is expensive, but the early bird special was a really good deal. But the reason we decided to go there was to celebrate my winning the Masters Draft! Every year my family does a draft of the players in the Masters, so we all end up with about four players, and we put in $5 to participate. This year, for the first time ever, I had the players who landed in both first and second place! Jeremiah and I were pretty excited so we decided to treat ourselves to that date night.

Also in April we went to another Symphony concert, this time for Copland’s Rodeo. It was excellent and it is really fun music. If you listen to it, you will likely recognize it. I also randomly saw this ad on Facebook that the Noodles and Co. headquarters near us wanted participants to taste some of their new dishes that they are considering putting on the menu. I thought it was a long shot that I would get selected but I did and I told Jeremiah to sign up too, which he did. So we went to the tasting together which made for a nice free date night! They were testing out vegetable “noodles” which I actually hope they do put on the menu because they were a great healthier - and delicious - alternative! Bonus, for participating we each got two additional free meals to use in the future!

Finally, just last week, the day after my finals were finished we headed to AZ! We were both very excited for this vacation and to get away from school/work for a little bit. The trip was a surprise to both of our moms sort of just for fun but also to celebrate the fact that they are both retiring this month! We arrived really early on Saturday and Jeremiah’s dad picked us up at the airport and drove us back to their house. His mom was on a phone call so we just sat down in the kitchen and when she walked out of the office into the kitchen, there we were! She was very shocked to see us just sitting there! We stayed and chatted with them for a little while until it was time to meet up at my brother’s house to surprise my mom. My sister, Heather, flew in from Philadelphia and my other sister, Emily, had picked her up from the airport so we all met up at their house. I already loved spending time with both of our families before we moved, but now that it is more rare I just am so happy any time everyone is together. We have the best families. Anyway we were planning to surprise my mom just at home as well but she was taking a really long time with her grocery shopping and we were getting a little impatient! Fortunately my dad has the “find your phone” capability so we decided to surprise her at Fry’s (her third grocery store of the morning by the way). Nine of us met up at the front of Fry’s and started scouting the store for my mom. We probably looked really strange and suspicious but it was really fun. We caught up to her right as she was getting milk and she was so shocked when she turned around. If you know my mom you know that of course she cried when she saw all of us; she was very excited. We all went back to my parents’ house, had Raising Cane’s for lunch and swam in the pool. It was 106 degrees already, so it definitely qualified as pool weather! After spending the afternoon with my family we went back over to the Dwights’ and we all headed out to dinner for Nathan’s 21^st birthday! Since it was his 21^st we went to a brewery in Scottsdale and his mom had made a Brownie Caramel Cheesecake that was insane. Four layers, alternating brownie and caramel cheesecake and topped with a caramel frosting. You should have seen the piece Nathan managed to eat. I had as thin as she could get a slice, which was tricky with how tall the cake was! We finished the night with board games and Nathan and Jeremiah playing video games together, a favorite tradition of theirs. Sunday we went to church back at RMCC and saw a few friends there, then headed to Crackers and Company with my whole family to celebrate my mom! It is one of her favorite places. Then we then went back over to the Dwights’ because they had just picked up their new puppy! Her name is Syl and she is an adorable yellow lab. So literally we spent the whole afternoon watching the puppy and playing around with her since next time we see her she will probably be just about fully grown! Sunday night we had hung out at my parents’ house and stayed the night there. Monday Jeremiah got his suit fitted for a wedding we are both in in October, we had lunch at Nando’s with my mom, Heather, and Nathan, hung around at my parents’ house, had Barro’s Pizza for dinner (yes we ate out way too much), and went to Tommy and Emily’s for a game night! Tuesday morning both Heather and Jeremiah left, but I had one more day. I dropped by my mom’s classroom in the morning, which was actually a little sad. It was the last time I would be in her room and likely the last time I will swing by Mountain View! I loved being a Toro with my mom! After that I stopped in at Parker’s preschool during his lunch time and brought him a treat (Gushers), and then picked up Chipotle for Paisley and brought that to her school! It was so fun visiting them both at lunch! I got to meet some of their friends and even went to recess with Paisley. It reminded me of how fun and exciting elementary school was most of the time. After lunch with Paisley I stopped by my old roommate Kim’s apartment to see her and her new baby, Caleb! He is so cute and it is always so fun to hold such a little baby. It was also great to catch up with Kim! Finally I had a nice time hanging out with my parents and grandma Monday night, cherishing my last little bit of AZ for awhile.

The rest of my one week of summer I had our small group, which we go to every Wednesday night, I observed in a Pelvic PT office to learn more about that setting, went on a hike with my friend Stacey, went on the Celestial Seasonings Tea tour in Boulder, and just relaxed! Now like I said I am back at it and Jeremiah is a little less busy at work. We are looking forward to our first full summer in Colorado. We have so many things we would love to do, so I think it will be a great season for us!