Virtual Christmas Card: 2019 Edition!

Happy New Year everyone! This holiday season felt a little bit different for us because we did not go home for Christmas/New Years, in fact, we were working right up to and around the holidays this year! But first, I will back up to where Jeremiah left us off in October. Right after he posted that blog post we did make a trip to AZ for a few days! I had about 5 days off before starting my clinical rotation so we took advantage of that time to spend with family. While there, Jeremiah finally met our newest niece, Mae! We got to spend a lot of time with her and all of our other nieces and nephews. We also had to see our "Best Couple friends" Tommy and Emily! We went to a place to play Archery Tag which was super fun but also a little painful if you got hit! Then we decided to do a cooking competition between the couples! We had four ingredients that we were required to use between two different dishes, along with a time limit for both the ingredients shopping, and cooking. We had done something similar with them before, but Jeremiah and I definitely did a lot better this time because we've had a lot more cooking experience!

The final presentation from our cooking competition! The ingredients we had to use were strawberries, zucchini, ricotta, and macaroni. Ours are the two on the bottom part of the picture. 

Tommy and Emily!

Then I began my 12 weeks at National Jewish Health! This was an outpatient pulmonary rehab clinic in which we saw a variety of complex patients who all had one thing in common- a pulmonary condition, meaning some sort of lung condition like COPD, ILD, etc. It was a really great learning experience. I had my best clinical instructor yet who I could tell really cared about my learning and goals, helped me improve my patient education, documentation, and some of my technical skills. During this rotation I really started to feel like my own practitioner, part of the team, who could really take care of my own patients! It was fun to really start to come into that and feel like a "real" PT!

Amidst my time working and doing patient prep, Jeremiah and I managed to do a bunch of fun things! Many of which are just pictured below all of this writing as well!

We went to Beaver Creek for our annual family trip! We had told my family that we wouldn't be able to drive up until Friday night, but were able to surprise them by getting up there on Thursday night! It was a really fun surprise and it was so great to have that extra time with everyone there. We skied, we talked, we enjoyed the grotto... Not much better than that!

We did make another quick trip to AZ for a big occasion: Nathan's graduation! Jeremiah's brother graduated from ASU this winter and we are very excited for him and excited to see what the future has in store for him! I was there for literally less than 48 hours (Booo) but managed to see all of both of our families while there thanks to my whole family being invited to Nathan's graduation party! It's pretty awesome to have your in-laws get along so well with your family. Besides that I spent the 48 hours just hanging out with the Dwights, playing games, and enjoying each other's company! Jeremiah stayed for an extra couple of days so that he could be at the actual graduation ceremony. He was able to sneak in a quick visit with Tommy and Emily, play plenty of video games with Nathan, and even hang out with some of my nieces and nephews for an afternoon!

The whole gang! 

As I mentioned our holidays looked a little different this year. We were not home or with any family for Thanksgiving so we went for a really nice walk in our very snowy/icy neighborhood, watched some of the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, and Jeremiah spent a lot of time making rolls, before heading to our friend's Tyler and Emily's for dinner with them and a few other friends. We contributed the rolls, Green Beans Almondine, and tried and succeeded making Apple Fritters for dessert! We also played a couple of games while there and squeezed in a FaceTime with my family where my cousins Sarah and DJ announced the sex of their baby that is due in June!! They haven't announced the sex to Facebook so I will keep that to myself. We are very excited for them! Onto the next holiday, we both had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off fortunately, so on Christmas Eve we slept in, went to the gym, FaceTimed Jeremiah's family, decorated gingerbread houses, watched a Christmas movie, and went to Tyler and Emily's house for a very nice Christmas Eve dinner! They are excellent cooks, so they challenge us (in a good way) to try to step up our cooking game especially when we have them over! We then did something very different and went to our church's "midnight mass" which was at 11:30 pm and went right into Christmas Day. It was really reflective, more quiet than normal, and we both really loved the experience and really welcoming Christmas Day reflecting on Christ's birth. Christmas Day we slept in before making a special breakfast of english muffin breakfast sandwiches (special for us, because usually we just have oats!) while listening to Christmas music, then opened presents from each other and some of the presents that our family had shipped to us. We got some really fun, great things! Then we FaceTimed my family for quite some time, because my sister had put together clues for my nieces and nephews to participate in a scavenger hunt to find presents that we told them the Grinch stole and hid around the house. It was really fun to watch them and see everyone opening some of their presents as well to feel like we were there for a little part of it! We then spent a good part of the afternoon making our special Christmas dinner! We were inspired by Great British Baking Show (one of our favorite shows) to make a Raised Pie. Ours was Indian inspired so curry was a predominant flavor, and also had potato and chicken as main ingredients. It turned out really great! And took us a few days to finish off. Then onto the last of the holiday season. I had to work New Years Eve but only until 3:30 so we still had all evening together and both of us also had New Years Day off. New Years Eve we went to a place called Boardgames Republic for their NYE celebration! We met our friends Chris and Amanda there where we played games all night, enjoyed food and drinks, and I even won a boardgame! It was such a fun way to ring in the new year! New Year's Day we went to the gym of course, went over to a friend's house for a little get together for a bit, and made pierogis for dinner! All in all we had a wonderful time just the two of us this holiday season! We are very thankful for technology that connects us to our families from afar because that really did make it easier to not be there in person! We also are very thankful for some wonderful friends that we have made here in CO who help make it feel like home. So our celebrations were simple, but we just did what we wanted to do and had a great time doing it!

Our self-timer iPhone photo in front of the tree!

Jeremiah has continued to enjoy his work at Stryker over the past few months. He loves his coworkers and the working environment, and has even gotten into a nice routine of fitting in the gym before work. But the exciting update for him is that in the month of October he was awarded employee of the month (after only having been there since April!) and then in November found out that he got a promotion to Senior Test Engineer! How cool and official does that sound?? I frequently say this on here, but he is an incredible hard worker who I think any company would be lucky to have so I am very grateful to Stryker for acknowledging that and rewarding him for it. He definitely earned both of those achievements!

Highlights of the year include:

• Trip to NYC and DC! So many sights, so much good food! 
• Making it through a really crazy Spring semester. Possibly my hardest ever!
• Jeremiah got an offer from and started a job at Stryker!! A really great fit for him.
• I spent 8 weeks in Kansas on my second clinical rotation.
• Finished didactic work and moved on to my full time clinical rotations
• Participated in a beautiful Blessing of the Hands ceremony at school
• Roadtrip to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone with my parents
• Jeremiah was promoted to Senior Test Engineer!
• A few more trips to AZ
• A few more 14ers climbed

Things to look forward to in 2020:

• Rochester trip! My grandma Warren turned 90!
• Starting and completing my last clinical rotation at Children's Hospital of CO on the Neuro Rehab floor
• Graduation baby!! I am going to be Dr. Dwight come May 2, 2020!
• Family cruise over Memorial Day weekend. Sooo excited to take this family trip. 
• Hopefully getting a job and starting to work with my own patients! 
• A couple other fun trips are on the agenda, but not officially booked yet so you will have to check back to see what is to come in 2020...

Lexy and Me

Photos from our "Blessing of the Hands" ceremony at school before sending us off on clinical rotations to bless our patients with the use of our hands! 

Stacey and Me

Me presenting with my research group during my final week of didactic work. 

Most of the DPT class of 2020 after the Blessing of the Hands! 

Jeremiah and I having boba together for the first time. My second time ever but I think I am hooked now! 

Celebrating my friend Jess at her Bridal Shower in Erie, CO! Wasn't able to get down to Tucson for the wedding itself so I was very grateful to celebrate her this way!

Pumpkin carving! Can you guess whose is whose?

I decided to chop a lot of hair off and am loving the change! 

A ski weekend with my parents right after my third clinical rotation ended! Two days at Copper Mountain. 

Chasing Yellow

Fall is upon us! S'pose you might say it "fell" right into our laps... Yeah, okay, I'm trying too hard. Point is, fall has arrived and brought with it some gorgeous scenery to Colorful Colorado!

If there's one theme to this post, it's the outdoors. Lately, we've had some incredible opportunities to venture into our mountainous backyard and grow our already large appreciation for God's creation. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking!

First off, here's a few highlights from a trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons we made with Hannah's parents in August.

The Grand Tetons - such sharp, rugged peaks!

Gorgeously clear water in Leigh Lake.

Old Faithful doing what it does best!

Grand Prismatic Spring. It's about 300 feet across, and the colors come from different types of bacteria that thrive in different temperatures - so the temperature gradient results in a rainbow!

Took a far-out tour on this bus from the 70's.

An iconic shot of Lower Yellowstone Falls.

One of the best things about Yellowstone is the wildlife. We saw hundreds of bison, including an experience of them stopping traffic as they wander across the road. This one clearly new he was being photographed!

A black bear and her cubs - just 20 yards from our car! We totally lucked out with wildlife sightings. We also saw a grizzly at dawn about 30 yards from our car, and a different grizzly and some wolves chowing down on a bison carcass in the middle of a field in Lamar Valley.

That trip was everything we hoped it would be and then some! A couple weeks later, over Labor Day weekend, Hannah and I tackled the Decalibron - a hiking trail that covers four 14ers (Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross) in the span of about 7.5 miles. It was as rewarding as it was exhausting!

This annotated photo sums it up pretty well.

At the top of Mount Democrat - 14,154 feet above sea level!

As always, you can't beat the views from the top of a 14er. Unreal.

A couple weeks after that, we went on a nice hike near Brainard Lake with a couple of our friends we met through church. These guys introduced us to 14ers last year when we hiked Huron Peak - possibly still our favorite 14er.

Their daughter is quite the trooper. We have no doubt she'll grow up just as outdoorsy as her parents!

Quick detour from the outdoors to mention a fun, very "Colorado-y" date night Hannah and I had recently. We went to a vegan restaurant for dinner, a kombucha tap room for drinks, and a vegan bakery for dessert! No, don't worry - we're not vegan now. Vegan cooking/baking has definitely surprised and impressed me, but it still doesn't beat the real thing!

Hannah with her kombucha flight. She likes it almost as much as Chai tea, which she likes almost as much as Coke Zero. Yes, it's a very complex hierarchy of beverages; sounds almost like a Matrix Logic problem! #tbt

Kombucha, by the way, is just fermented tea. Usually it's very aromatic, with most flavors coming from fruits and/or flowers.

Then, just last weekend, Hannah and I drove out to Aspen to catch the changing colors. It was one of the most visually stunning trips I've ever been on. We camped a few miles outside of town, which was a lot of fun; we saw soooo many stars at night! And we saw the Maroon Bells - possibly the most photographed peaks in Colorado, and for good reason. They were framed beautifully by all the yellow aspen trees. See below!

So, yeah. We're still loving Colorado.

To end, I wanna give a quick shoutout to Hannah for completing her last week of classes - EVER - yesterday! Just two more 12-week clinicals stand between her and graduation next May. She's learned so much, and now it's time to apply it in the field! Not that the learning will stop, of course :-)

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)