sideways distractions

snow and beaches

2012-02-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

In the face of a ridiculous snowstorm that amassed us something like 20 inches, I thought I would share some Costa Rica pictures. Bring back all those memories of hot weather, cool ocean and bicycles. I think I will just show you a few photos in this post, and in the next one I will post all the animal and wild life shots. We have been so busy since getting back that it feels like our trip was months and months ago! As with every post, the pictures will look better if you click on them... blogspot photo distortion is the thorn in my craw. Enjoy!

Beaches, hammocks and biking were the essence of our vacation. As a Walsh, the whole purely relaxation thing is kind of hard for me. I constantly feel the need to be productive, not waste time, especially coming off of a hard semester/year, so this vacation we focused on just getting away from the stress of everything. JP did need to remind me a few times that it didn't matter what time it was, when we were hungry we ate, hot we swam, and when it rained we read our books on the deck.

With the next two years booked up solid in terms of relative free time, I know we will be able to look back on this trip and glean some laid back relaxation vibes. The good news is that we will be living in a city that is right on the ocean, and in a brand new state/coast to boot. Our next adventures will involve exploring Maine, checking out what the East Coast has to offer us, and learning new winter sports.

The times, they are a changin!

2012-02-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

I have been in a constant ridiculous state of ecstatic happiness since Wednesday, and am overjoyed to tell you that I now am an official member of the University of New England's PA class of 2014!!! PHHEEEEEWWWWWWW!!! What a tumultuous, and crazy ride this has been. To prepare for so long, to study so hard and to log all those hours doing a million different things to become the best possible candidate I could be...hoping and praying and screaming for it to all be worth it. AND IT WAS. Ohhh never have I felt such overwhelming relief after reading an e-mail. I think a large part of me is still in disbelief.

As you can probably tell, the interview went really well. I was again a bit reluctant to share that because as the ultimate decision day came closer and closer I was realizing how terribly embarrassing it would be to have to explain to everyone how my interview was amazing and yet I wasn't accepted. So, I hushed on up and kept it in the family for the most part. BUT now that decision time is over I can finally tell you that it was GREAT! I just loved the campus, the faculty, my interviewers, the tour...it just really, really felt like a good fit. JP and I went to the pre-interview mixer the night before and I am so glad that we did. It was a tremendous help to both of us I think, helped to allay my anxiety about the coming day and really helped to give JP a sense of what we were getting into and what I would be doing for the next two years. He too thought that even with his limited time on campus, it really felt like a good fit for me and us. The interview itself was pretty laid back and nice. I was interviewed by a faculty member and a PA in the community. The three of us sat in an office overlooking the campus as fresh fat flakes of snow fell outside. It was pretty picturesque. And before you can ask, yes I did in fact talk about Harry Potter during my interview and I STILL got in! Gotta let your inner (or not so inner) dork shine! In any case after intros and interview and essay writing and tour, Joe picked me up and we swung by the wharf to grab some fresh seafood for lunch. That is living. We had mimosas and lobster rolls to celebrate and then I promptly fell asleep on the couch due to piled on lack of sleep and an early morning wake up from last minute jitters. It was lovely. Did I mention the decadent GF bakery we stopped at that was all things GF and was absolutely delicious?! Well, there is such a place and it was so good. We had whoopie pies (apparently they are a real thing, and started us on some really lame Whoopie Goldberg jokes) and lemon bars, as well as a tasty loaf of fresh bread to go. Mmmmaine.

We are now in the process of deciding the best time and method for us to move across the country. This requires all kinds of adult decision making, and we are figuring out how to work it all. We need to find JP a job (this forever student needs someone to support her!), find an apartment, decide when all this will happen, figure out what to purge from our lives in Denver, and then heave hoe everything into a moving van and drive away! Suffice it to say, there will be lots of exciting changes coming our way soon!! We are both incredibly excited and nervous about the next few months, but I am confident that we will find a great place and settle in with relative ease. Having Joe and Emily there to welcome us to our new city will be the icing on the top!

So, thank you all for your continued support and encouragement during this entire process. It has been very uplifting to know that there were so many people pulling for me, praying for me and sending me their thoughts. I feel incredibly blessed to be able to start this journey in May, and I owe a lot of it to the people in my life. Thank you for being one of them!

yuck

2012-01-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

I've got that feeling now. I used to get sick ever single year after the winter semester, no matter what. I would pray that it would at least hold off until after finals, with varying degrees of success. When we were home for ten hours to sleep, launder and leave again, I made us pound Airborne. I was actually pretty surprised that neither of us felt any real inkling of getting sick! Now though, now is the real finished finish. I made it through everything; I miraculously didn't get sick, or too sun burnt, or accidentally eat wheat and not be able to fit into my suit, or spill anything on my crisp white shirt, or show up late, or completely botch any of my answers. Riding high, we cruised through the rest of the weekend. A glorious weekend that was packed to bursting in order to fit as many things in as possible. Now though, I am home enjoying a much needed day off before heading back to work and I have that creeping feeling. The my-head-feels-a-little-larger-than-usual and this-cough-has-turned-productive kind of feeling. But I REFUSE! Can I please refuse? Can't I just say that it isn't over yet, and there is no time to be sick?! Cause really, I work the next three days, so that's not really an over sort of thing to do. SO I have ibuprofen-ed and airborne-d and zinc-ed and I am going to swing on that little thread of hope that I can ride this on out without the exclamation point of sick to close this month. I have pictures to show and stories to tell, but first I need to scoot to the store to outfit our fridge with food, start some laundry, and work on blasting my immune system with support.

thoughts

2012-01-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

Unexpected interview worry: don't sunburn your face while in Costa Rica.

Unexpected interview good fortune: luckily I look ridiculous in a skirt suit and opted for pants instead, otherwise they might have just flat out rejected me because of the million mosquito bites on my legs that look like leprosy.

next up

2012-01-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

Phew, what a great vacation we had in Minnesota for my (27th!) birthday and Christmas! Since being back we have jumped right into what the daily grind has turned into minus school. Kinda boring, but luckily we will be heading out on two back to back vacations this coming Wednesday! Anticipating the first one since October, we are more than ready to head to Cost Rica! Our first vacation for vacation's sake, to celebrate me being done with school, JP thriving at work, both of us surviving the craziness that last year rained down and some much needed time away from reality before the next steps in our lives. This will be JP's first trip out of the country, and I've never seen him more excited! I've been trying my hand at stepping into the planner role and booked us a beautiful house right on the beach. It's is a five minute walk to town, with a full wrapping balcony, hammocks, bicycles, plenty of room and is going to be perfect. The first time I left the states I was fortunate enough to have everything planned out for me so I could really just take in everything, see everything and try everything without trying to navigate and make decisions. It was a great introduction to international traveling (even if we couldn't recline our seats the whole flight home, right Annie?). With that in mind I've tried to coordinate what I can from afar and hope that with a little luck we will get where we are supposed to be without any hitches, that way JP can relax and take it all in. That's the plan anyways!

Directly upon our return and subsequent travel induced jet lagged sleeping, we are heading out to Portland Maine for themostimportantmomentinmylifethusfar; The Interview. Eeep. Fortunately my parents have outfitted me in a dashing suit specifically for the occasion, so we will just whisk home, get a haircut, pick up our fancy clothes and fly back out. No time to be nervous at all! As luck would have it, two of my favorite siblings live in Portland, and as this will be JP's first time to Maine as well, we are going to turn on the charm in hopes that he doesn't notice how cold it can be there in the winter. I'm sure going from Costa Rica to Maine won't invite direct comparisons... Either way, it will be shrimp season at that time, and if there is anything likely to convince JP (aside from that whole getting accepted thing), it will be the delicious seafood! As for the interview itself, when I think about it too much my brain feels tight with the weight of such importance. Fortunately, I have a whole crowd of people in my corner who have been boosting my self-esteem, reassuring me, and helping me remember how far I have come. It also helps that I have had a few failures when coming so close to what I believed should have been the next step in my life, thus allowing me to be able to see why I failed. That helps a lot to remind me of why I am where I am and that it's ok to have a change in plans. Mostly I feel good about the whole thing, and why the hell not!? I will have three of my very favorite people at my side literally and many more in my thoughts. It feels good.

all grown up

2011-12-04T17:45:00.001-07:00

Oliver turned one last week! If you are in the same boat as me, you probably can't believe he is already that old! To celebrate I made him a birthday hat that he maaaybe hated a little. Then I took the pups on a super long trompy walk where we met a pup named Mogely who turned out to be our neighbor and a big fan of leading Oliver around the reservoir. All in all, it was a pretty great day.

Doesn't he look happy to be 1?!

thank you, thank you, thank you kindly..

2011-11-28T19:46:00.000-07:00

So much to be thankful for this year; this difficult, heart wrenching year that has seen its fair share of ups and downs. In the chaos of our every day stresses, finishing up projects at work, and looking towards the new year, JP and I haven't had a lot of down time to reflect on our blessings. This year we carved out some time to get out of town, and last minute car troubles not with standing, we got ourselves out of this here town in one piece! Thanksgiving has always been a holiday my family celebrated in Iowa with my grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles. So many of us packed around tables that were set up in every room on the main floor, sometimes with not enough seats for everyone so we had to eat in a kind of rotating dance. We always ate well, celebrated loudly and closed the festivities with pinochle; grandma of course always made her way to the top table and held her own there for the rest of the night. My memories of those celebrations are beautiful, and even though I would give a lot for them to not be over, I wouldn't change them a bit. Now we are moving towards creating our own traditions and discovering different ways of celebrating with both the old and the new. What better way to welcome in the new than with a vegan celebration with JP's family in Utah! This time I was feeling much better than our last visit when I was in the midst of my post-haitian stomach troubles, and I even documented a bit! The food was amazing, and I could even participate in everything except the tofurkey which had the gluten in it. They made gf cornbread stuffing, broccoli and rice, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and even a gf pumpkin pie! Yum! I could eat more at this celebration that I probably could have at others so it was definitely a win! With four whole days (minus two 11 hour driving days) before us, we packed in the family fun time with, among other things, a hula hoop competition, bowling, friendship bracelets, vegan sushi, guitar playing, tree trimming, lights hanging and homemade hot chocolates. We were busy, busy! Oliver and Yin of course barely stopped to breath the entire time, taking in the pack of seven dogs the Berry's have, running around their two acre fenced in yard, and cuddling up to the girls who couldn't help but spoil them with love and attention. O was passed out cold the entire drive home, and was so exhausted he didn't even puke while we were crossing the mountains, which is an all time first! Now I am going to throw a hodge podge of photos at you, all of which encompass the fun time we had. I can't believe we didn't get a group shot though! Guess we will just have to return soon!

Which brings me to the blessings I was talking about, and of which there are too many to try to make a comprehensive list. I'm so thankful, SO THANKFUL for my beyond amazing family. Each and every one of my siblings and parents are stronger, more dedicated, more caring, more beautiful and more amazing than I can even believe and I am so incredibly grateful to have them to lean on and to prop up. I can not express the gratitude I feel for being born into such a group of amazing individuals. I'm so thankful every day that I am living this life with my best friend at my side, who I grow closer to every day, and who has given me so much of himself. Though our paths were meandering, I am constantly surprised that we found each other not once but twice. I'm a lucky girl to be sure. I'm thankful for the Berry's for welcoming me into their home and holidays, and making me feel so loved and appreciated. It's a great gift to feel so accepted by JP's family in so many ways. I'm thankful for each of my friends, who all feel like family to me. They support my crazy academic pursuits, listen to my woes, and cheer me on every step of the way. In every way I feel blessed, and I am going to work hard to carry that feeling into all that I do. Thank you for being exactly who you are.

Perhaps you recognized the reference in the title of this post to the song from Amahl and The Night Visitors, one of my favorite Christmas stories. In my head whenever I hear that song I can't help but think of my little brother Micah. When we were younger he had a habit of belting out songs and substituting his name into the original words. It was so endearing and sweet, and in a lot of cases pretty ridiculous (do the micahrena anyone?), so when I think of this song I hear "this is all we Micah's can offer you! Thank you, thank you, thank you kindly.. Thank you thank you, thank you kindly..", and it warms my heart.

long time coming

2011-11-05T15:20:00.000-06:00

I haven't written on here anything about my dad's cancer for a number of reasons. Mostly, I think, it's because when I think about it is just makes me cry, and I'm not sure where it would all go. BUT, today I am making an exception, because he just finished his LAST round of chemo and is doing amazingly well. I am so proud of him and my whole family for staying strong through this entire experience, and allowing cancer to once again be in our lives without destroying us. It's hard to describe how we made it through both my mom's cancer and now my dad's, and I am grateful every day for the support I've felt from all of the people in my life. There are a lot of unanswered questions still out there, but for now we are taking the time to celebrate his accomplishment and to look towards the future with hope. I thought I would share a video of my dad singing, which he is always doing at some point in the day, from my cousin's wedding we went to back in October. My brother Joe is on the mandolin and my cousin Liz is on the guitar. This is one of my favorite songs, Annie and I used to listen to it on the Keepers soundtrack when we were little, and one that my dad and brother have done at more than one family gathering. Fair warning that it might induce tears! You can find it here.

on the eve of our second snow

2011-11-01T21:01:00.000-06:00

It's November! We are gearing up (read making sure we have adequate breakfast supplies on hand) for our second snow fall of the year! This one is supposed to be a foot or so starting at midnight, and JP is anticipating working from home...hence the breakfast supplies. I've got a debate tomorrow in my genetics class, but other then that I am free all day! I'm planning on taking the pups out for snow tromping, going to the gym, and coloring in my anatomy coloring book I just got! Wooot. Things have been nice lately, I only have a month and a half until I am done with school and I am dreaming of all the things I will need to review before I ever start PA school if I get in. Tonight I scooted to the store all bundled up so I could make a special dinner for JP who has been having some frustrating days at work lately. I ended up making spinach and parmesean stuffed chicken breasts wrapped in bacon and mmm were they ever delicious! I should have gotten a picture, but we scarfed them up too fast! I wanted to share some pictures from our first snowfall which was last week. It was beautiful and peaceful and everything a first lovely snowfall is. Isn't that funny how you can be so inspired at first and then a week into winter you are ready for some grass again?

In the morning when we woke up there was snow all over, and I let O outside to pee. I think he had forgotten about what snow was cause he was super cautious stepping out into it at first. Then he started licking it and was SO EXCITED that he could eat this funny white stuff. As snow was falling from the branches in clumps, he raced around the yard trying to catch all of it. It was hilarious! The above picture is our yard that is completely covered in Oliver tracks since no one else wanted to go outside.

We went out for a walk, and all the trees (which had just recently changed colors) were so gorgeous with their colors all covered in snow! The next day when the snow melted there were almost no leaves on any branches at all so I was particularily happy to have seen it!

We took them to the reservoir where they usually run around, but I was afraid Oliver would be overzealous and run into the icy water to meet his feathery friends, so we just sat up there and watched the geese for a little while.

My two Louisiana natives were freezing even though they were all bundled up. JP is wearing the hemp scarf I just knitted a few weeks ago, it's amazingly soft and comfy. I might never go back to wool.

And here are our sad pumpkins that were munched by the squirrels the night after we carved them.

and if you are STILL wondering

2011-10-27T17:31:00.000-06:00

then wonder no more!! I just heard from the University of New England in Maine, and they have invited me for an interview at the end of January!! I don't think I have stopped smiling, humming, dancing around since I read the e-mail yesterday morning. I am just so shocked and proud and overwhelmed to have gotten to the next step of this whole future plan of mine. It is finally starting to feel like it was all worth it, and even if I don't get in, I will know that I did everything that I could and I will take what I can from the whole experience and do it all over until I succeed. I can not wait to get on that plane and be welcomed into town by my brother and sister, to show JP what our potential future next city looks like (not that I'm getting ahead of myself at all), and to show UNE exactly what I'm made of. HOOORAYYYY!

pumpkin, pumpkin

2011-10-27T17:22:00.000-06:00

Mmmm fall is in the air here for real, the leaves are changing and blowing all over the place, the air is crisp and perfect for lighting up a fire and listening to the wind. It's my most favorite time of the year, and this weekend I didn't have to work or study or do anything in particular. It was fantastic. I went for a few bike rides (as you might have seen from my last post), shopped at some thrift stores, watched a movie, raked and of course made time for pumpkin carving. I sure love me some pumpkin carving, and this year was no different. Actually, it was a little different in that we had to contend with one extremely curious puppy who was eager to get in on all the action. It was pretty funny to watch him try to sneak off with the tops of the freshly carved pumpkins, or lick the insides experimentally. I think he might be a big fan of this time of year too! While we carved, JP had some ribs on the grill, and did they ever smell delicious while we moved around the yard. Mmmm hmmm. It's nice to get some time to yourself once in a while away from the hub bub of normal life. Here are a few pictures for you:

I think Yin was mostly just happy to have Oliver distracted and not jumping all around in her space, so she took the opportunity to sunbathe by the fence.

Our final products! The pictures are pretty bad, but without flash my camera couldn't grab them very well. We each did one and then did a collaboration on the one toothed one. Of course, you can't carve pumpkins without roasting up some delicious seeds to chomp on. So that is exactly what we did. Mmm.

In case anyone is wondering, I haven't heard from any schools yet. And if you know me, you know that I am oscillating between feelings of hopeful patience, and extreme dread of the nebulous future that may not contain what I want it to. Then I just take a deep breath and get on with it.

possibly the dorkiest thing ever, ever

2011-10-23T10:22:00.000-06:00

Soooo, we share one car right now, and since JP works in Boulder he automatically gets it for those long commutes. I scoot happily around balancing groceries precariously and moving around at a cool 30mph. This has worked out really well for us, with the exception of a few things. One of these things is that I can never take the dogs to the dog park on my scoot, and it gets dark so early here now that there just isn't any time for them to go! Then I remembered bike trailers... and then I became obsessed with getting one and amping up my dorkyness. There were a bunch on craigslist, but they were all pretty expensive and with my awesome skills at estimating, I wasn't even sure both pups would fit inside! Luckily, goodwill came through for me again. I was just browsing over piles of kids toys and underneath them I thought I saw a small tire. Low and behold it was an InStep bicycle trailer!! Whaaa? And only $35! Our biggest problem was getting it in the car, but after that it was smooth sailing. I pumped up the tires and they held air just fine (which was my only worry about buying it), I wiped it down to get rid of the cobweb-y debris, and snapped that thing on the back of my bike.

WOOOOOT. It was pretty much amazing. After settling the pups in back, which they kind of resisted a lot, they just cuddled together in a pile and were calm the entire trip, even when a dog passed us while at a stoplight. That's pretty good!

It was so much fun! I am so excited that it went so well, and now I can bring them out whenever I want!

things have been good

2011-09-28T19:53:00.000-06:00

I've got an upcoming family wedding (last one this year I promise!) and my best friend Annie is coming to visit soon!! I am so very excited to skip home for a quick weekend to see my family for another beautiful celebration, with dancing of course, and to show Annie my life in Denver. She hasn't even met Oliver yet, and I can't wait to see what she thinks of my wild child. If only she could bring her sweet pup as a carry on, they would have so much fun together... or just terrorize each other, but either way it would be amusing! In any case, this picture is mostly for my parents, so they can see I'm doing well even though the semester has been a tough one so far. I'm doing my best to keep on smiling!

Yin, Oliver and I just took a long walk and watched the sunset to end my weekend before heading back to work tomorrow.

did I forget to mention

2011-09-26T19:30:00.000-06:00

that I APPLIED TO PA SCHOOL?! Phew. Seriously, that deserved an all caps scream at you and I'm not one to enter into those lightly. This application process has been knock down and drag out, and I think I've run into just about every road bump that was in the road. I am so, so glad that that portion of my life is over for the time being. Now comes another hard part which is the wait. Ohhh the wait, because for some reason this whole process is about a year long venture and just about the time you find out if you didn't get in anywhere it's time to start applying again! But that is a long way away, and will be worried about when it comes and not a moment sooner. I've gotten confirmations from all my schools that they have everything and are reviewing my application, and I am waiting patiently to hopefully get called for interviews near the end of the year. Even though the odds are really long, and who knows what will happen, I am extremely proud of myself for getting this far, and I will continue on even if I need to go in another round next year because I have learned so much already and doing it again would just be old hat.

chai tea study time

2011-09-19T12:32:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a beautiful warm sunny day with a crisp cool fall late afternoon. JP and I drank chai and sat outside reading and studying to enjoy the perfect weather. What a lovely way to end the weekend.

family wedding time: take 1

2011-09-14T22:04:00.000-06:00

please don't eat that thing that I love

2011-09-01T20:39:00.002-06:00

The list is growing, folks. Remember when I was so blessed and my brand new pup came home with me practically potty trained? He was so sweet and never chewed on things he wasn’t supposed to, never tore things up. Well, it seems as though slowly and then all at once my puppy has realized that he is a boisterous pup and as such he should try out his pearl whites on some of my beloved things. Back when I was trying to be a gardener, I loving planted this herb garden:

and when I went inside to get water to wet their roots my dear Oliver CHOMP, CHOMP, CHOMPED my spinach into oblivion. This was followed a while later by the complete destruction of my budding raspberry plant (which is kind of impressive because those suckers are pretty pokey!)

The list is indeed growing, and at last count includes: numerous pairs of socks, new sunglasses, an entire bottle of hand sanitizer, a water bottle, a pen that turned our white comforter into one with blue splotches and drips, the christmas present I bought for my parents when I was in Haiti, and the better part of a new pair of pants.

Oh yeah, he also ate my only surviving plant jut a few days ago, which was the blueberry plant that had a magnificent two berry yield for us so far this summer. ARGH!!!

Being a people person in general and an inexperienced pet owner in specific, I’m not sure how to proceed! If Oliver was a toddler I’d have a number of tricks and techniques in my bag of discipline/re-direction that I could fire right off, but I don’t think any of those apply when it comes to small puppies. To date I’ve mostly just done a miss moshed approach which involves a combination of all of these things: bugging my eyes out, banishing him to his kennel (I know, I too read that the kennel should be a “place of happiness” where the dog feels safe and homey, but banishment to the playground of the backyard hardly seems appropriate..), dragging him to the scene of the crime to force him into confrontation of the disastrous event, and in general glaring at him while shaking my head sometimes adding a little wagging of my finger. Not surprisingly this “approach” is not entirely effective, ok it’s not effective at all. Thus, I am writing this post to ask advice on the issue of puppy discipline. My personal opinion is not that he’s being bad, or anxiously destroying things cause we are gone and he is worried, but more that he has discovered the joy of tearing things apart willy-nilly style and while I think he realizes that he’s in the dog house (wha whaa) with us, the benefits of tomfoolery and destructive revelry are far outweighing the drawbacks at this juncture! That or he likes to find the things I love and destroy them so he will be the only one left..

first day of school

2011-08-22T10:16:00.000-06:00

I think O wanted to follow me to school like Mary's lamb even though I keep trying to tell him that he's got the awesome end of this particular stick.

we finally made it to the mountains

2011-08-18T14:06:00.001-06:00

Ever since getting a tent from my parents for my birthday waaaay back in December, I have been eagerly anticipating taking it out for a spin. Then when JP's birthday came in May I surprised him with a sweet new camping grill so we could not only have cover over our heads but also a means of heating some delicious camping food. Our first attempt at camping was rained (or maybe snowed) out, and then I think GREland took over and we had no weekend time to spare. I think I've spent over 75% of my summer indoors so far, working on all my important trying to be an adult things, and SUCH a small amount of time enjoying the summer weather and all that that entails! What a shame! With school starting next Monday (yipes!), I have been doing my best to pack in as much summer as possible in these few short days. Mason (of the nerdiest study group ever) brought me out to Boulder Creek with his friend Scott to participate in an essential summer staple: tubing. Wooo...umm hooo? We maaaybe got in the freezing cold river a little too high up and rode some rough rapids through sharp pointy unforgiving rocks just as the sun was going behind the clouds and it was starting to sprinkle... but after that whole thing it was really fun! A little bit terrifying, but all together some damn good fun. I think next time I will make certain that the sun will be blazing, and I won't follow Mason without scouting the area for impending disaster. Fun though, it really was fun. Especially the surviving part. In any case, camping was obviously on the super-short-packed-in-summer-list-of-awesomeness, and since I didn't have to work this weekend we seized the opportunity! It turns out that everyone who lives in an around colorado likes to go camping on beautiful sunny weekend days too. It just so happens that those other people plan on seizing the opportunity a few weeks in advance, which just isn't our style We headed towards Estes Park with the assumption that something would work out, and we came up short. It was a bleak outlook, pay $35 to camp on gravel sandwiched between two giant RV's while still in town? Sandwich yourself between two RV's in the middle of a field? Guh, our prospects weren't looking good, and such were our desires to make it work that we almost plunked down at one of those places. We heard at the visitor's center that you could camp anywhere you wanted to on land that wasn't in Rocky Mountain National Park, so we just turned our car towards the mountains and drove with the intention of just finding a nice spot and clearing some brush. We randomly happened upon a campground just 10 miles outside of Estes, and there was also one last little spot that we snagged up right quick! We set up camp, and then took the pups walking around the area where we spotted the best site ever, and it happened to be kind of empty! I asked the family next to it if there was anyone staying there, and they told us their friends had reserved it but couldn't come, so they offered it to us!! We burritoed up the tent and moved right on over! It was great, the furthest from neighbors, and with a little hiking trail in the back that O and I explored while foraging for kindling. The tent was easy to set up and fit all four of us nice and snug, and the new grill was just perfect for our steak and corn on the cob dinner. Mmmm camping. What a great treat to get away from the hustle of real life.

Cream Cheese Wontons

2011-07-27T12:24:00.000-06:00

Wedding weekend? Resounding successful check. Gre forever? Check. Applications? Almost semi-check. Now what's a girl to do to while away these summer days!? I was talking with my sister yesterday and she said it took her about a week after the craziness had subsided in which she was a bit dazed about what to do with her time, but then she realized that she could do whatever she wants to do! For her that means artsy creations and fiddle time and crafts. For me, yesterday, it meant making something that I have been craving for far too long: GF cream cheese wontons. Ohh yum, I know they aren't remotely healthy, or anything nutritionally anything for you, but dear god are they good and in life I can't even tell you how many years it has been since I have eaten one. Years guys, years. If you scour the internet for recipes it is a seriously dire situation. I mean, they are vaguely referenced in a few places, and the one thing I found that was actually helpful was an entire page into comments on how to make regular cream cheese wontons and was posted four years ago! Yikes! I knew I would need some rice paper and rice flour, so I set off towards Denver's version of United Noodle (Minneapolis's awesome asian market..swoon!), also known as H Mart. It was quite glorious, and to be honest I can't believe I haven't been there yet! It's only six miles from my house, and it is a gigantic catch-all of asian anything you could possibly want and more. They've got a huge produce section with both exotic and indigenous fruits and vegetables, sea food, meats, two aisles of noodles, frozen dumplings, all different kinds of rice and flours. It was pretty much asian market heaven. In any case, I picked up some rice flour, rice paper, green onions, vegetable oil and of course some mochi. I stopped by the regular store to pick up cream cheese, eggs and milk and I was all set!

Gluten Free Cream Cheese Wontons

Wrapper:
Rice paper sheets
2 cups rice flour
1 cup milk
2 eggs

Filling:
Cream cheese
Green onions (chopped)

First mix the filling ingredients together and set aside. I just used cream cheese and green onions, but add whatever you like to yours! Beat the eggs. Brush the beaten egg onto the rice paper until the paper gets somewhat flexible. At that point cut the paper into 4 sections if you have large sheets, or just use one per wonton if you find the smaller ones like I did. Put a dab of the filling in the center of each paper section. Pull the 3 or 4 sides of the paper up and pinch at the top, being careful to make a good seal. Some of mine felt like they had too much wrapping so I trimmed them a little with my kitchen scissors. The egg helps to set the seal, but be careful where you put it once your finished with this step because I had one or two stick to the cutting board!

Next mix together rice flour, and milk. I made way too much batter (1 C flour and 1/2 C milk), so I think a guesstimate of less should do just fine. Next time I think I will just add a little of each until the consistency is a pretty thin batter. Heat your oil on the stovetop, dip the prepared wontons in the batter and then drop in the oil. They take about 2-3 min. to cook, or just until they are golden.

What a tasty treat we had for dinner last night! Well, that's not all we had for dinner of course. We saved room for mochi too! Mmmmm healthy..

it's wedding time already?!

2011-07-18T09:56:00.009-06:00

Oh man, I think this blog is slowly morphing itself into a dog blog, or a complain about the GRE blog. I need more things in my life! SO, in honor of my best friend Annie's wedding which is coming up so quickly, I thought I would finally post about the second bachelorette party I have ever helped throw! Did you think that maybe you would have heard about this in the month that the party occurred? Maybe, if I was really lazy, the month after? Well folks, it is indeed rounding up onto two months post party, but the wedding isn't for another FOUR WHOLE DAYS so technically I am still ahead of schedule, right?

Here is our bride-to-in-four-days-be...

(ARGH, side note to tell you that blogger deleted my whole post...I will cobble it back together)

As you can see, Annie was dressed to the nines with her pink sash, glittery cowboy hat, and a lai acquired from the taxi driver!

Aly and I put together a non-traditional party that was a combination of bridal shower, yummy snacks, games of course and the main event: a pedal pub!! Basically a giant bicycle/boat/moving bar that we pedaled ever so slowly around St. Paul. See?

It was a lot heavier than you might think..or perhaps it looks heavy enough already to you. Powered only by the strength in our legs, and not even all of our legs because some people were too short to reach, we meandered our way through the streets (two streets) of St Paul, stopping to wet our parched throats at a few bars a long the way. Let me assure you, even though it was a chilly rainy evening, we were sweating upon arrival to every bar! If it had been sunny I'm not sure if we would have made it very far! That rhymed. In any case, it was a ridiculous fun celebration, topped off with music and dancing to end the night in style.

The beautiful bride, Annie, and her two lovely bridesmaids/party planners!

evolution of a car cuddle

2011-07-13T21:13:00.000-06:00

We spent the 4th in Utah visiting JP's family, and with my little haitian stomach bug in tow I didn't have the energy to take pictures. Shocking, I know. We left the morning after I worked a night shift, and so I slept most of the morning in the front seat with my face mask and ear plugs in. Obie likes to cuddle, and he slowly worked his way up to the front seat while I was snoozing:

don't think I am forgetting

2011-07-08T16:56:00.003-06:00

all the things I have been doing, and all the pictures I have been taking of those things that I have been doing! I am going for round two of the GRE on the 19th, in hopes that I can boost my score for the last time before they change the whole darn thing! Considering I will be free of sickness that causes me to cough and threaten to be kicked out of the place, and I will have banished my gutteral companion that hopped a ride home from Haiti with me, I think I will be in top form this time around. Woot. That said, I have to go get ready for night shift, and night studying, but here are some pictures of out little bayou a few blocks from our house where Oliver is learning to love the water...

I won't bore you with details on how proud I am of my little man and how big he is getting!

Dear gre,

2011-06-28T15:25:00.004-06:00

Let's just agree to disagree on the effectiveness of standardized tests as an indication of the level of knowledge a person possesses. In life, I really need to focus on some other things. Please play fairly on Thursday.

Love,

Elise

Happy Day Papa!

2011-06-19T19:31:00.002-06:00

Just wanted to wish my papa a happy father's day. He is a daily inspiration to me in so many ways. I'm so lucky he's my dad! Thank you for everything that you do.

not ready yet

2011-06-15T20:08:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I am just sad. Lately I've been overwhelmed with sad and frustration. Haiti was extremely heart breaking for me. It was many, many other things, that were incredible and amazing, but right now I don't feel all those other things. Right now I feel like my heart hurts a lot and it's kind of hard to breathe all the time. I'm finding it hard to talk about, and think about and I'm not sure how to bring myself back towards the experience. The night before we came back home, during our nightly review of the day and our time to talk with each other about things that were important to us that day, I asked the group how they had learned how to live with their experiences in Haiti. I wanted to know how they had found a way to process the trip, and how they dealt with all that they had seen. I got very heartfelt responses, that for the most part boiled down to this: Talk about it. Tell people about it. Tell them what you saw and how it felt. Look at your pictures, remember the good that we did and not just the horrible things that you saw. Share your experiences, and live in it. Don't let it just be a passive experience, let the changes that you underwent be okay. My co-travelers are incredible people, and I really value their opinions. I know what I am supposed to do, but for some reason I am allowing myself to be busy in the other things in my life. I'm occupying my time with studying and working and thinking about my other obligations instead of giving myself time to absorb everything. I haven't even looked at any of my pictures yet because the thought of doing that kind of scares me. But I will. And I know they will be there when I am ready to see them. I guess I just wanted to say that I'm not ready yet, but I will be soon.

and in other news

2011-05-25T10:50:00.002-06:00

I've been neglecting the blog land lately! Here are a few of the reasons why:

I started my new (now slightly less new) job at the University of Colorado Hospital on the Pulmonary unit and I am loving it! It is such a different job than the one I was doing at my old hospital, and a much better one at that. The patient population is different, much younger overall and very transient. Most patients aren't on the floor too long, except for the Cystic Fibrosis patients who can be there for weeks on end. There is

a lot of teamwork and the staff seems really friendly and upbeat. Overall, it is quite the improvement in employment! Also, my friend Maggie works seven floors below me in the medical ICU and we sometimes, almost never, get to have lunch together in the afternoon, but when we do it's nice!

I of course have been studying for the GRE which, since school has been out, has taken over any free time that I might have had. While it is a vast improvement from working on organic chemistry, it's kind of ridiculous how much I didn't retain from my career as a middle/high school scholar. Hmmm. Hopefully I will pull it out in the end, mostly I just try to tell myself that every time I sit down to study I must be getting at least a little better and that's enough for right now. Looking at a mid-July test date and then I will be done with gigantic standardized exams for a while!! Woo Hooo!

Tomorrow I am flying back to MN for a long weekend visiting friends, family and of course throwing a bachelorette party for Annie! I, as with most of the time I book trips, can't believe that it is already time to get going! It's going to be a quick one, but I

am determined to squeeze in time for everyone and go to at least one of my favorite thai restaurants while I am there! I am sure there will be lots of fun pictures to share once I get back! That will, however, be longer than one might think because I am always a little crazy and am leaving for a medical trip to Haiti right on the heels of this quick jaunt home! I am really, really excited to go there and help out in any way that I can. I think this trip will be amazing, humbling, life-changing and all that jazz. I've been itching to travel out of the country and this opportunity just kind of fell into my lap. Faced with the prospect of volunteering in Haiti, or taking a condensed version of biochemistry with a lab all summer you can obviously understand why I would be doubly excited about travel!

So, those are a few of the reasons for my prolonged silence, hopefully you understand! I will post as soon as I get back with some pictures and stories from my adventure. In the meantime, I am sure you are dying to see how big the pup has grown recently, aren't you?!

OH. MY. WORD.

2011-05-21T18:07:00.000-06:00

Guys, I got a 4.0 this semester, which means that I GOT AN A IN ORGANIC CHEMISTRY! If you can't believe it, don't feel bad, I couldn't either. All that studying, and studying, and studying that you constantly had to hear about paid off and is finally over for a small amount of time!! I just needed to share because I am extremely, extraordinarily, proud of myself. Thats all.

birthday, birthday!

2011-05-18T14:22:00.003-06:00

Lately life has been chaotic, and so it came as a bit of a surprise that it was already time to celebrate JP's birthday again! Can it really have been a whole year?! Apparently, so we made some plans to go camping and fishing with the pups for the weekend but our plans got snowed/rained out and we were forced to have a relaxing weekend at home instead! We are planning a makeup camping trip next weekend that hopefully comes to fruition. But before I get ahead of myself, here are some pictures from the weekend celebration.

As with last year, we started the day at our favorite breakfast joint. Tasty GF rice pancakes, bacon, and of course mimosas!

The sign this year is kind of hard to see in the pictures, but it's popping out of the mirror with pipecleaners...

And of course, what could be better than a super dorky card from your puppies and some fragrant flowers to light up the windowsill. Hopefully we will get to some camping this weekend!

pool party

2011-05-08T15:59:00.003-06:00

I've got many things to inform you of, and not many amounts of time in which to do the informing. Thus, I am just popping into tell you that I will pop in for real soon. Also, to show you pictures of our failed pool party for the puppies... It's been in the 80s here and we thought, for some reason, they might like a pool party, but they didn't.. instead it turned into an intermittent wading party during study breaks.

a farm dog at heart

2011-04-27T09:56:00.005-06:00

We had such a great visit in Iowa. So extremely quick (except the driving through Nebraska part which seemed to take forever) but so much fun! Oliver in particular had the time of his young life. By the time we finally arrived he was glaring at me from his seat perch next to me, ready to not be sitting anymore. All of that was forgotten in the haze of new dogs to meet, new people to lick, new species to confront and new food to munch on. What a farm dog. Mom took him out in the mornings for a few walks along the ditch and reported that he was running all over and smelling ever little thing with his tail wagging at a ridiculous speed. Life is good for that puppy I tell you what. On the human end of things life is good too. Although there was audible resistance to the idea of resurrecting the traditional night time easter egg hunt (I'm looking at you Shawn), we just insisted even louder that it would be fun and soldiered on. It WAS fun, and we even included the adults with hidden plastic eggs among the candy that had lottery tickets. Unfortunately there weren't any big, big winners but it was a nice little twist and the aforementioned candy was of course a welcome retreat if you happened to lose. Now that the shenanigans are over it's back to the grind stone and an exam this afternoon (fingers crossed!), but I will leave you with some pictures of course!

Two Easter bunny sisters hiding candy.

Mom being especially sneaky and hiding candy in the branches!

Hiding spots..

Oliver had some serious hesitations about the horses, which really reminded me of bringing my favorite kid Oscar to the farm for the first time. Aside from the barking (which O did that?) the reactions were surprisingly similar!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-21T18:41:00.002-06:00

Oliver and I are going on a little road trip for Easter weekend to Iowa for some family time! I am super excited to let him loose on the farm, introduce him to cows and horses, and to see family that I haven't seen in ages. I will, of course, document every waking moment for you. It looks like 2011 is shaping up to be a great year for seeing people that I love. I just booked my ticket to Minneapolis for the last weekend in May to throw a bachelorette party for my best friend and will be back in July as well for the actual wedding! As the semester winds down a little, well up for exams and finals and then finally, finally down, it's really nice to have some things to look forward to during my three week break from classes! So for now I am incessantly studying (always) and trying to keep the energy up for the last few weeks. I always want to throw in the towel at the very end when it's most important to work extremely hard, so I am doing my best to counteract that urge and just push it on out. I am also starting a new job at the University of Colorado Hospital in the pulmonary department the first week in May and am extremely excited about that. It will be really nice to work just a few miles from home and the new setting is in a beautiful hospital on the 8th floor with gorgeous views of the mountains. In any case, I hope you have a most excellent Easter weekend and enjoy all the things you've been abstaining from for so long! Chocolate, here I come!

you know what's pretty nice?

2011-04-09T11:25:00.001-06:00

As you probably know I am gluten-free, and have been for quite sometime. When my mom first came up with the idea that gluten was my whole health/eating problem I initially resisted. Oh did I resist. I don't even think I seriously gave it any thought for a good year. At that point in my life dairy was just not my friend. This has since changed a lot, I mean I still can't really just eat straight up ice cream or milk, but I can eat most kinds of cheeses and really that is all that I need in the dairy section of life. At the time I was pretty much off dairy, which was particularly sad for me because cheese is my favorite, favorite food ever and my family always has the most tasty wonderful choices stocked up in the cheese drawer (my sister even jokes that cheese is her favorite spice, which cracks me up while I simultaneously couldn't agree more). I just could not fathom having to give up such a massive group of other things that I loved (gluten), and so I just flat out didn't even entertain the idea. How unfair would it be if I couldn't eat both dairy AND gluten? I didn't want that to exist and so I just didn't do anything about it. Cut to the beginning of lent five years ago (?). My dear mother had been patiently learning to wade through the sea of the non-glutens for a while by then and once more put out the idea that I might get a lot of benefit from the diet as well. She somehow convinced me to give up the gluten for the entirety of that lenten season. Cue music swelling in the background because it was literally two or three days into lent that I felt so much better than I could ever remember feeling. Ohhh the glory of food digestion, eh? Something you probably haven't thought much about if you have never had food allergies, but let me tell you that it is indeed a wondrous thing. Of course, being the stubborn person that I am and that maybe you would even be if forced to give up THE GLUTEN in your life, I valiantly tried experimenting with "how much is too much" games. I would eat a little bit in the morning and see if that was something I could do, or I would eat a little bit only once a week and in the evening. The logic is something that might seem bizarre to you, but I can almost guarantee that most of us food problem people have done it in some form or another. Because seriously people, I can't eat gluten ever. Ever. The concept of which took my some time to grasp but eventually I did. Once grasped I fairly quickly realized that being a vegetarian was no longer the best option for me as I was reduced at most restaurants to plain salads with no croutons and no dressing. Blech. But this bring me to the entire reason for this post, other than making you rush into your kitchen and grasp onto your delicious crusty french bread that is probably sitting on your counter and give it a hug. Since giving up the gluten things have steadily improved on the commercial front! Every time I go into the grocery store these days, the real grocery store mind you not just when I am at the co op, there is something else on the shelf that is gluten free! I mean seriously, bisquick has a pancake mix that is gluten free and hamburger helper has a chicken stir fry mix that is gluten free too! These aren't necessarily things I would buy, but those are some big ol' brands that are finally getting on the gluten free train! It makes me really happy to walk down the aisles now and see those words popping out on many different items now. It's not just grocery stores either! To my house, to my door step I can have a gluten free pizza delivered from not one but TWO different places! Whaaaat? Yes, yes it's true. And almost every restaurant that I have been to recently has either a separate menu for me or things marked directly on their real menus! For those of you out there that don't really know much about the gluten free lifestyle, this is a really, really big deal. I sometimes, almost, for a very short moment in time forget that I can't eat like most other people around me, and to me that's pretty nice.

oh happy day!!

2011-04-07T11:36:00.004-06:00

Recently in my life I have been working really hard to make a big change. I feel so incredibly stressed out and so crazy moody and just up and down with the anxiety and the worry and bunches of feelings that kind of just pop up like the numbers in a big ol' bingo wheel and I just don't want to live my life like that. I'm just not happy when I am being controlled by all these negative feelings! UGH! So I have been working on letting things go. Just letting things be what they are and taking the time to feel the feelings that are happening and then moving forward instead of all this dwelling and mental towel wringing that I have been doing lately. One of the things that I realized I could change was my attitude towards school. I have been putting in really long hours working on mastering the intricacies of substitution/elimination/addition reactions in organic chemistry. When I say long hours I mean loooooong ones, six hour study sessions with Mason almost every day for the last two weeks long. There were still days when I would be coming home beating myself up over how frustrated I was and how hard the material was and how I would never amount to anything if I fail this class and blah blah blah. Then I just decided to STOP WHINING and just recognize that even if at the end of six hours studying I was frustrated and felt stupid that there just was no possible way that I hadn't learned anything in that time! No possible way. So I just smiled and accepted that it was hard but that I was doing everything I could to do well and that that was exactly as much as I needed to be doing. It felt pretty amazing to just breathe and be able to take time to hang out with JP and the pups and not feel guilty, to indulge in some TV shows at the end of the day and just relax without fretting about this or that. I know that this kind of mind change takes a lot of practice and time and patience, but I really want to be able to show myself that patience and give myself a little bit of credit for how hard I do work. SO, that is one of the changes I am working on making in my life. I feel lighter already and I know my boyfriend more than appreciates not having to deal with the crazier portions of my sometimes obsessive personality! All of this said, I took my exam yesterday and am not letting any worried thoughts creep into my brain about the outcome and am instead taking this gorgeous Colorado day to do a little gardening and play with the little ones out back. I hope you are finding changes in your lives too that you are proud of or working towards. So often changes for me coincide with the changing of the seasons, so spring must be almost here, right?!

When I was moving the bag of soil I found two little worms (which you probably can't see in this picture) and I popped them right into my emerging herb garden!

An herb garden for the backyard.

We even have some pink flowers that just came out yesterday amidst the gloomy cloudy weather!

plug, plug!

2011-04-04T10:55:00.006-06:00

Shameless plug here for my big brother Joe who just released his second solo album! Many of you might have heard or even have a copy of his first and now you can listen to and own another part of his musically history here! My unbiased opinion rates it as exceptionally supreme, so give it a listen eh?!

As long as I am plugging away, you should really check out my incredibly talented sister's website too. She's got links to her blog there which has some of her new stuff, and on the website you can find many of her illustrations, paintings and drawings! She is quite amazing (in many, many ways) one of which is clearly her artistic talents!

spring break '011 come and gone

2011-04-01T21:44:00.000-06:00

I am just so blessed. I just have the most amazing family, and I am so fortunate to be able to share time with them throughout the year even though we live far apart from one another. Spring Break '011 was a complete success!! Em came a few days before my parents did and we got right down to it by eating some cheap tacos that were super tasty and then indulging in some girly time with massages and pedicures! She even let me get the same color as her on my toes, aww. We packed in the activities and every night were exhausted just from hanging out and talking and shopping and dog walking. It was perfect. Next we all met up at a cabin that my dad had found in Estes Park. It was short but sweet spending time in the mountains although our day hike was a bit snowed out when we drove up the mountain but we fixed that by driving back down about halfway and having a creekside picnic instead. After Emily departed Mom and Pop still had the whole weekend to spend with us and no plans so we went to an art museum, took the denver bike share bikes out for a little cruise, browsed a book store, checked out a few thrift stores and of course scooted about (even mom! even dad!). It was a really, really great visit that came at a good time for me to help rejuvenate me and get me ready to finish up this semester with style (errr maybe determination).

It's always hard to say goodbye, especially when we live so far apart from one another these days! I love being in Colorado, and I know it is the right place for me right now, but I still wish I could live in a secret little pocket of the US where we could all be separate but very close. I'm just going to project into the future and hope that both Emily and I get accepted into schools that are closer to each other than Colorado is to Maine in our next round of schools. It would be lovely to spend even just a year or two in the same state as one of my siblings again! Fingers crossed I suppose because applications are approaching fairly quickly and acceptance rate for my program of choice is around 5%!

But enough blithering, because after many unsuccessful attempts I have finally uploaded pictures from this spring break '011 and can share them with you all!

We made it! After (maybe) locking my keys in my car and general confusion we got to Estes before sundown!

Our little hike was a bit snowier and icier that anticipated so it was a very little hike in the end!

Oliver got his first taste of adventure in the great outdoors and did really well!

Mom angles for the best picture of the gnarly trees.

Same day, down the mountain with no snow and sun....that's Colorado for you.

Back in Denver everyone tried out the scoot. Mom threw her scarf over her shoulder in the Red Baron's signature style and even managed to drive one handed while waving to her fans!

vegas, vegas

2011-03-20T20:41:00.000-06:00

I would show you some pictures from our trip to Vegas, but my dear phone on which I document most everything took a two hour swim in a fake Italian river while we were there so I am left with nothing to document our trip. Which, surprisingly, is ok besides the phone dying part, that part was not ok. I realized what I already knew, Vegas is not for me. You might be thinking but Elise! There are millions of drunken stumbling people there! They will probably be yelling in your face and/or telling you of all the fantastic deals you can get on strippers! And people of all ages gambling at all hours of the day and night! And incredibly expensive drinks and food! And every single person you see will be littering! Aren't those all things that you love?! Well, you've got me there...oh wait. I would HATE Vegas! Now I can fully realize my distaste for the entire state of Nevada. Remember how awful it was for you to live vicariously through me while I was biking there? Shudder. I can't believe I even went back! Fortunately the main reason I returned was for a wedding, and it was a great time. We were proud to be there for our friends Jeremy and Karyn as they got married. The setting was gorgeous, and food delicious and the dancing was the best. If any of you are thinking of getting married in Vegas, I will gladly come, but I will only enjoy the part where you tie the knot, and not a minute more.

looking pretty good from here

2011-03-15T13:01:00.004-06:00

Oh guys, I made it!! I made it to the end of my exams (for the moment, and yes you can ask me how I did on the hardest organic chemistry exam in the world ((I GOT A B! In your face extremely hard class that makes me question my choice of future career!)), to the end of work for a while and almost, almost to spring break! This year for spring break we dabbled a bit thinking maybe a road trip to Utah, or some time in Minneapolis (I haven't seen Kathy's new kitchen OR Annie's new house!), my parents were thinking a trip to P-town to visit Joe and Em would be nice, but in the end it is ME that gets to be the proud host to my family!! In less than ONE WEEK my favorite sister in the world is coming here and just over a week until my parents arrive too! I can not tell you how excited I am for this, I've got a whole bunch of fun things planned and since this is one of Emily's first times to Colorado I can't wait to show off the state that I call home now! Holy exclamation points, eh? In all the excitement I wanted to show you some pictures of us so you can get a little taste of how much fun we have together, and why I can barely contain myself with the glee of it all! (Can people still use that word now that there's a whole t.v. show taking over the connotation?) But then I remembered that I only have pictures dating back to 2009 on this beast of a computer, most of which you have probably seen. So instead I'll just have to post some after she comes here, and if I find any on the meantime I will slap them right up here for your viewing pleasure.

In other news for the giddy exciting department, also in the dorky department but isn't most everything I write about here classified there? You might know that I am a sucker for Pyrex. Seriously a sucker, and the goodwill by my house (just a scoot away!) always has at least one piece if not multiple pieces. It takes a lot of self control to not buy every single piece I find there, but today I walked away with three and even left three sitting on the shelf for some other pyrex-loving girl to happen upon. Here they are in all their just cleaned glory:

And lastly, I got a letter from my dear sister yesterday expressing how excited she was for her visit that is oh so soon. Secretly I got a sneak peek of the card from here, but I waited patiently for her to slap a stamp on it and it came yesterday! This is how people in Vietnam would greet us, mixing up the words, but accidentally delivering an even more charming hello:

nerdiest study group ever?

2011-03-08T11:37:00.003-07:00

I started an organic chemistry study group, which on paper consists of seven people, but in reality no one has ever shown up except Mason and I. Anyone remember my disastrously failed book group? Well if you don't, then just recall your own memories of working in groups while in college, with a bunch of different schedules to work around and no one ever wanting to motivate, and I am sure the feelings will match right up. In any case, my study group is super nerdy. Last Sunday Mason thought maybe some other people would show up for once, since our exam (tomorrow) is a particularly hard one, but no dice. He baked a pie for all of us (read: me and him), and if you look closely at the decorations you can see that it is in fact a tetrahedral chiral carbon molecule with an R group attached.

We ate the R group first to make the molecule a carbocation...

aprons, aprons, everywhere!

2011-03-01T09:24:00.001-07:00

For some reason I have become obsessed with sewing aprons. Yes, I realize how weird that sounds especially for someone who never wears one unless I'm back at my parents home and can tie on the little kid one I used to use that hangs in the kitchen. I made my first one from the scraps of my owl costume for my mom for christmas. I even had the forethought to snap some pictures of it (JP graciously modeled it around the kitchen while swaying his hips for me) but then that horrible thing happened for the very first time to me, in which my camera and computer mis-communicated and instead of actual pictures I ended up with tiny little thumbnails that won't do anything but look like real pictures until you try to actually look at them. Sad day! I have only one picture of the whole process, and it's kinda crappy quality cause I took it on my cell phone at night before switching to a camera, so don't judge too harshly!

It's a really cute apron, my first ever and I made the pattern up myself! Which might not seem all that impressive, but since I don't sew very often and when I do it's usually for comical reasons (octopus or owl anyone?) I am taking it for a win. In any case, I was at Goodwill the other day and I found a really great comforter cover that would have looked awfully girly and weird in our bedroom, but looks awesome and not too, too girly when re-purposed into aprons. Who would have known!

If you can believe it, this isn't even all of them because I forgot to get a picture of the one I sent to Nora for her birthday present! I told you I've become obsessed!

100!

2011-02-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

While it might seem a little underachiever-y of me to have taken almost three years to reach this milestone, I have nonetheless reached it. THIS is my 100th post. Here's hoping it takes me less time to reach my 200th post, and that you all are still reading when I do. Thank you for all of your support both voiced and unvoiced. I just feel so blessed with the people in my life.

spring, spring, spring!

2011-02-18T16:19:00.004-07:00

Signs of spring are in the air here in Denver!! I am going to ignore the fact that on the news this morning they were talking about snow, mostly because there is no way that I want to deal with anymore of this pesky, winter-y, grossness, especially when it involves me scooting around with a million layers on. In any case, last year I saw spring coming in plants just popping out of the soil. This year I haven't spotted any plants just yet, so spring is showing itself in different ways. And so, I present to you some signs of spring:

Towels hanging dry on the line.

An empty (hopefully soon to be filled) strawberry planter!

And a puppy who has been taking two baths a day; one in the muddy backyard and one in the bathtub.

and a happy anti-valentine's to you too!

2011-02-15T09:16:00.001-07:00

As you might already know, I'm not a valentine's day kind of girl. I think it's kind of silly, it annoys me that stores start packing themselves to the gills with cheap little red and pink trinkets starting in December, and I just hate that people feel so much pressure to conform to society....blah blah, this sounds like the rambling of a girl who never had a good experience on 2/14. But that's not true! I always get a very sweet package from my parents, this year featured not only two tasty organic fair-trade chocolate bars (mmm sea salt and almonds in dark chocolate!), but also some pine nuts from their co-op and some honey goat cheese. YUM. I've never had a "bad" valentine's experience that would account for my distaste of the day, it just seems like so much more fun to celebrate an anti-valentines day! By that I mean that I love to make anti cards which have ranged in various degrees of ridiculousness throughout the years, but are so much fun to create! Here is an example of one that Nora made for me back in 2007:

Isn't it great? You probably can't tell, but the skull actually pops out and is barfing hearts.

See what I mean about more fun? I like to make a real girly valentine and then have a giant dinosaur take a bite out of it, or an octopus wrap itself up in it. Some of them are pretty morbidly hilarious, but with quick digging through my desk the above valentine is the only one I could find. I made a few this year that were kind of uninspired in terms of wit, but I wanted to relax after my exams so I scheduled myself a little time to cut and paste some cards for my sister and Nora, as well as a real valentine for my mom and pop.

As you can see, lack of table space is a common occurrence in my life. What can I say, I just like to spread out!

While perhaps not my most inspired cards ever, I did at least excel in delivery and all three arrived the morning of the 14th so I think I get points for timing at the very least!

in which we will fell in love with a little monster

2011-02-09T16:05:00.001-07:00

Yep, he's a tricky one. Pretending to be all sweet and lovey and potty trained....not so much folks, not so much. When we brought Oliver home he was seriously cuddly and sweet and tuckered out. From the first time I brought him outside to do his business he knew exactly what was expected of him, squatting down like a pro and then trotting back inside to get his treat. Hooray day one he is potty trained! Hooray it wasn't a fluke, he's potty trained still on days two and three! What a smart puppy, eh? Well, as it turns out he is smarter than I had originally thought. Now when we take him out he cocks his head and stares uncomprehendingly at me while I repeat "GO POTTY" over and over. After letting me get really annoyed he will scamper past me, under the railing, under the scooter, around the chairs, to the corner, along the fence passing under every single bush or tree until he is in the farthest corner possible from where I wanted him to go and squats down between the privacy of two trees. Does he ever want to scamper back from the farthest corner at three in the morning? Of course not! By the time he has followed his specific route he is freezing and hops around trying to balance on three legs to get one of them away from the snow until he gets really sad and just sits up on his hind legs with his nose covered in snow and makes his eyes all big and wimper-y until I go get him and bring him back inside. Which is not to say that he only goes outside and here I am complaining about walking across the yard...he has in fact become sneaky pup who when I won't let him run his little track race outback will, after staring at me uncomprehendingly, come back inside with me and promptly pee on the rug. What a sweetheart, eh? His other newest trick is to escape from the backyard because he is small enough to just walk through the fence with minimal squirming. Yesterday I was running with him in the backyard and when I looked back he was in the neighbors yard looking confused as to how he got there! That said, we love him a lot. For how much he frustrates us, he definitely makes up for it in a million other ways. I figure he will only be little for a very short while, so I have to appreciate the things I love about him when he's small and accept the puppy behaviors that he has too. Who's idea was it again to adopt a puppy during one of my hardest semesters? Pictures for your enjoyment:

I think Oliver's love for Yin (read terrorizing her constantly) is much greater than her love for Oliver.. but to her credit she is pretty patient with the little bugger. Do you know how he gets down from the couch? Lately he has been standing on the edge psyching himself up and when Yin walks by he launches himself onto her and then slides off her back to the ground. It's seriously hilarious...

Trying to get in some sleep before going to work.

Doesn't he look like he wouldn't cause a bit of trouble?

His favorite part of the snow? Licking it..

Annnnnd, one of my biggest dog dreams will come true I think because he seems to have an affinity for playing fetch already! Monster or not, I think we'll keep him.

let's talk about stress

2011-02-09T11:16:00.004-07:00

Alternate title: Organic chemistry is for the birds..

I am stressed. STRESSED. Pull your hair out (if I had any), do nothing but study, cry and study kind of stressed. Ugh, how much do I not want to be doing prerequisites anymore? I'm not sure if my increased stress is just something that always happens to me and is a pattern that those closest to me will just recognize as something that I do relatively often throughout the semester, if it's the content of my horrid organic chemistry class that I just don't understand, if night shifts are finally getting to me, or if it is some crazy combination of all of the above. Whatever the cause, I have been trying to seek ways to reduce my stress so that I can actually function like a relatively normal person. These steps have included trying to remember to exercise (isn't that always the first thing to go when you get really busy?), organizing an organic chem study group that has actually been quite helpful, watching youtube videos of a organic chem professors lectures at UC Irvine who is really great at explaining things, getting library books on organic chemistry, taking baths with notecards on hand, and breathing, or at least trying to remember to sometimes breathe. Unfortunately none of these seem to be helping. They are helping me learn my chemistry, to some extent, but they aren't having much of an affect on my stress levels. Perhaps this is because they all involve continuing to study rather than things to do while taking a break from studying. I told you I'm going crazy! All I can talk and think about is studying! I even dream about it, which incidentally stresses me out more because I can't be sure if I am dreaming about the correct things or if I am somehow mixing up equations and functional groups and making things worse..which makes me have to check my notes first thing in the morning. Don't worry, I have in fact thought of every possible way to include more stress in my life. PHEW people, PHEW. I just thought I would get that out there. Because now I have to go back to....yep, well I'm not even going to say the word again. But you know what I am going to go do, and tonight after my back-to-back o chem and microbiology exams I am going out for a drink with my new friend who is also a full-time-night-shift-hospital-CNA-stressed-out-studying-student-fool just like me.

We no longer have table space because it has been turned over to my ever growing pile of school crapola. See the youtube lecturer on my computer? It's kind of saving my sanity. Can you tell?

Zooming in for a close up on all the things I am using to get through this class. I borrowed five books from the library to consult, and when I have to bring my materials with me I need a wheelbarrow to get it all there without breaking my back.

meet Oliver!

2011-01-31T10:56:00.005-07:00

Puppy time! After months of wanting to adopt a dog I finally have, and I am so pleased with my little Oliver! I thought I wanted a boxer. I looked at pictures of boxers, read all about them, and even went to see them at the shelter. I thought I wanted a girl too. So what do I end up with? A rowdy little boy who they think is a shephard/heeler mix (although I think they throw "heeler" into just about every dog description around here for some reason.) Everything just kind of lined up, and after working the night shift I stayed up and had breakfast with JP and dragged him to the pet store where they were having puppy adoptions from A Puppy's Voice shelter. We were the second ones in the store, and we both fixed our eyes on Oliver. I picked him up and he nuzzled his little head under my chin and I was of course instantly sold. One of my initial worries about finding a dog was how I would know which one was my one, but it was obvious right from the start. I mean, look at him! How could I resist?!

Now this might come as no surprise to some of you, but I am totally going to be one of those dog owners. When I have kids it will probably be even worse...just warning you! Remember all those kids I have nannied? You probably do, in fact you probably remember little stories that I told you about them that have really nothing to do with your own life because I LOVED to brag about them. My poor boyfriend got to hear about every little squeak, cry and laugh that A. uttered last fall whether he wanted to know about them or not. This is why I know I will be one of those dog owners who talk about their puppy like it hung the moon. I dote. I dote a lot. Remember how I doted on Pigeon? I think this will be even worse. So there is your warning. I am sure I will post too many pictures of Oliver, and write on here to tell you about some inane little thing he did that I thought was so charming but is really just normal puppy behavior, so bear with me! Can you really blame me though? He really is the cutest, smartest little pup that was ever born ever. Lucky me!

..and then I went to Portland too!

2011-01-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

As already mentioned, I did in fact get stranded on the East coast, but a quick thinking sister brainstorm got us on a bus to Maine by 2:00 that afternoon before it had even begun snowing. We thought a few steps further ahead when we went to a little deli on the outskirts of Chinatown and bought a wedge of gruyere cheese (mmm my favorite!), and shortie bottles of wine to bring on the bus to go along with the crackers that Erica thoughtfully sent with us. It was a tasty, decidedly unclassy kind of bus picnic.

The ride wasn't bad, and when we got to p-town around 9:00 Joe picked us up and we went straight to whole foods to get taco making supplies. Mmmm again. It was so nice to get in before the crazy blizzard that we woke up to the next morning! No planes were moving out for a few days for sure so we made the most of it and made enchiladas, desserts, ate goat cheese and of course made a Walsh staple: Arepas. Once the snow stopped falling I even made it to the University of New England to get more information about their PA program and to check out the campus, which is quite lovely with its New England charm. It was a little stressful to be away from home for so long right before the semester started, but if I had to be snowed in it was a great place to be stuck!

A snowy trek to the store to get baking supplies.

Famous Walsh rubber faces!

Sibling time!

I've got a problem

2011-01-27T16:11:00.003-07:00

Well folks, as so often happens in my life I am going to document something I am not proud of in hopes that it will soon become something that I can take pride in..like when I was trying to exercise more. Good news in that department is that I actually do exercise now, in fact I workout 5-6 times a week and am finally starting to feel great again! Woot endorphins! But, in all seriousness I do have another problem, one that my brilliant plant-loving/plant-information-knowing friends Nora and Rudy are helping me solve as we speak. Remember my dear baby tree that I loved so much? (pictured in this post) Well, it died a slow dehydrated death while I was gone this summer. Not that I, ahem, blame anyone, ahem...But the fact of the matter is that when I returned to Denver it was brittle-y pile of needles that needed only slight encouragement before it became a naked brittle pile of branches on the floor. Sad day to be sure. Fast forward to Christmas this year when we found a larger version of the norfolk island pine at the grocery store being sold as a Christmas tree! Well we bought it right up and took it home. It was brilliant because it was a good size for our house and it could be decorated first and then loved forever more. Until it wasn't. While we were in MN we had a weird cold snap in Denver, and the heat went off in our house leaving it at a cold, cold, tree-killing 30 degrees. The tree was looking pretty crappy at that point, but I had high hopes. I have been tending to it, brought it into the kitchen to give it more light and have been checking the soil daily. Unfortunately, this brings me to mistake number...2? let's call it 2. The tree was in a pot obviously, but there was gold foil paper stuff around the pot. Probably to make it festive. Festively killing it. I didn't think about taking it off for some reason, probably because I am good at making plants dead, but the plant was steadily getting worse and worse. Its branches are curling in towards itself and it is really dry but still green! It was 45 degrees yesterday so I brought it outside to sit in the direct sun for a little while and took off the gold foil stuff. Lo and behold anyone reading this would probably have told me to take it off as soon as I got home and realized the plant wasn't doing well, BUT I didn't do that until about ten minutes ago. At which point there was a puddle of standing water that the plant hadn't drank that was just sitting around the bottom of the plant probably killing it. So, what can I do!? Nora set to work immediately researching on some special school database thing she has access too and gave me tons of advice on how to make my little tree vibrant again. I am going to follow her advice, and hopefully with all of those instructions and all of my attentive love and support, it will once again be alive. Here are the pictures of my sad drowning tree:

Doesn't it looks so sad! Now I am going out to my backyard to get some rocks to set on a plate so the excess water can drain out of the pot instead of sitting at the bottom. Hopefully my tree will bounce back really soon!

P2SF reunion '011

2011-01-22T17:03:00.001-07:00

Oh yes, in case you were wondering, vacations are still amazing in my book. This one was extended a bit because of a crazy blizzard that hit the East coast the day I was supposed to leave, but for me that just meant an impromptu trip to Portland, ME to hang with my brother and sister for a few days while we waited out the storm! In any case, that portion of the trip is going to be part 2 since I have to return to work tonight (in an hour) and I wanted to get the first portion up for you all to see! For some reason there wasn't much photo documentation that went on, probably because it was too cold to take off your mittens to get the picture, and because it was such a chaotic quick trip for most of the visitors! In any case we had a blast being back together again! The majority of us stayed in Erica's apartment (I think there were 20 staying there!), where lined up thermarests took over any available floor space, it was nice to be cozy, squished in together again! We got out to see some NY staples like the Rockefeller Center, (where we missed seeing the tree by less than a few hours!) and Central Park. We ate yummy food both at restaurants and at Zach's apartment where the NYC'ers made us amazing GF chili that was gone pretty quick! Mostly we just hung out together and reminisced about our crazy summer. It was pretty perfect.

A really awkwardly spaced picture of some of us while watching the zambonie in Central Park.

Melon and I. We were seriously mistaken for twins TWICE while I was there.

Erica, Kristie and I after stuffing our faces with chili!

home for the holidays

2011-01-06T17:10:00.001-07:00

Oh vacation was amazing! I bunched all my shifts at the hospital in a clump both before and after the holiday so that I could have the most amount of time home possible, but that led me to work five shifts in six days with no energy left for blogging. I just, just finished my last shift for the week, and am going back on vacation tomorrow! Life without school is a pretty good thing I think. But if I have to have a life with school, at least it doesn't have to start until the 18th of January and from where I am sitting that's still a pretty good distance from today. Joy! In any case, now that I have re-introduced myself as a scattered brain, I have some pictures from Christmas to show you all! We had such a great (although it's always too short isn't it?) time together in Duluth. Christmas day started out a bit rough with me coming off a night shift and then staying up until our flight which was supposed to be at 2:00 but was broken, delayed, waitlisted and then delayed again until around 9:00. At which point, after nabbing a coma-esque nap on the airport floor for a whole 30 minutes, I was basically a ridiculous tear-stained mess of an Elise. We got to Chicago and the airline booked us a room at a Hilton that was attached to the airport. We decided against having a drink at the hotel bar when the menu listed a coors light at a whooping $12. Seriously. BUT we had a great room with a bed, which was all we needed:

Although we missed having Christmas with my family, they waited to start the celebrating, eating and tree decorating and dad even claimed that they wouldn't have any fun at all until we got there. Although there was tell of Micah giving the family an impromptu solo on the panda flute, but I suppose they couldn't abstain from all fun things! In any case, we eventually made it, and were probably in better moods (heh, at least I was) for having gotten a full ten hours of sleep before arriving. Everything went by so quickly, but we made the most of the snow and got out for sledding, and JP skated for the first time even holding his own in a hockey game in which two of his opponents were Joe and Emily who are pretty fierce competitors especially when they are charging at you full speed on skates while you teeter and try not to fall... It was great fun. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Now it's off to NYC for a Bike & Build P2SF reunion extravaganza!

but first, about my birthday

2011-01-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

To celebrate my birthday I slept all day and then went to the hospital for a twelve hour shift. Fortunately I am dating a very sweet, well-intentioned boy who wasn't going to let my 26th year on this earth go by so unnoticed. My parents arranged for a gluten free cake with my name on it (literally) to be made at a bakery here in Denver. JP picked it up and brought it to the hospital to celebrate the day, complete with candles. Yes, he brought candles, because what is a birthday cake without candles? Unfortunately, and he was pretty excited about this part, he seized this first opportunity in his life to buy trick candles that relight and relight and relight. When they relight they also emit a lot of smoke. The sweet gesture ended in a panicked frenzy of magazine waving, door opening, and squashing candles between wet fingers in an effort to avoid setting off the fire alarm in the hospital at midnight. Luckily we did not in fact set off the alarm, but more than one person commented on how it smelled like something was burning and we quickly redirected their fear by shoving (delicious) cake in their faces.

All in all, it was a great birthday.

i'm not convinced that it's december

2010-12-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

I feel like I have put myself back together again, just like humpty dumpty, and I didn't even know I had fallen apart! After this summer the "Elise that loves to bike" died slightly and the "Elise that loves any form of transportation that doesn't involve exercise" came to be. It was a good few months being that Elise, and as you know the whole no transportation as exercise also evolved into just no exercise period. BUT, that has all changed. The feeble attempt to shame myself back to the gym actually worked, that and not really fitting comfortably into my clothes anymore helped too! I've been dutifully going to the gym and doing pilates at home, but today was SIXTY-TWO DEGREES and while we were driving around finishing up our christmas shopping I saw so many people in their attractive spandex and I just could not resist the temptation to jump right back into my own outfit that is a constant hug. And seriously I haven't been on a "real" ride since crossing the Golden Gate bridge back in August. It was so, so great. I am finally re-embracing the bike and I can not tell you how much I missed it and didn't even know it! I dug out my gear and pumped up my tires with the stupid little hard to actually fill my tires with pump. I tucked a clif bar into my jersey pocket, a water bottle in my holster and didn't even glance twice at the camelbak in the front closet. Another joy of riding now is that I don't have to carry squat on my back. NADA. That one factor makes such a huge difference. I took streets for about 5 miles until I hit my old training path and turned on towards the reservoir. It was so weird being back on the old bike path, I knew it so well from riding all spring on it and remembered places I stopped to picnic and how excited I was with San Francisco in my minds eye. I think back then it was a kind of unbelievable thing that I was training for, and to be honest the routes I trained on are pretty laughable when I compare them to the Appalachians and the Rockies, and Nevada... but you know what? It was the perfect route for today and a great one for me to get back on the (literal) saddle. Speaking of saddles, can someone please explain to me why I didn't invest in a decent saddle?! Ever at all during the trip?! I know I had my excuses and I know people thought I was crazy and should have spared no expense for the limited padding my bum would be perched upon, but I was nervous to get one because of the expense and the fact that they are so different on different people. I wasn't confident that I would pick the right one and as a result I just resorted to tilting the stock seat at an absolutely ridiculous angle and literally perch perching on the rear seam of the seat in order to assure that the least amount of contact between my rear and the seat could be achieved. Incidentally I kept it that way during a recent ride to school and for the next two days could feel my bones ever single time I sat down. In any case, the reason for all this explanation and rumination is because I recently came across this beauty for only $2.99 at Goodwill:

Handmade in Italy, this saddle usually costs over $100! It was pretty much a steal, but for some reason (probably similar to the reasons that I didn't ever buy a saddle the whole 4,200 miles across the US) after I bought it almost two months ago I didn't put it on my bike until today! Luckily I did because it is worlds more comfortable than my old saddle. WORLDS I say. But(t) in addition to my now comfortable derriere, my body felt pretty good too. It was just a perfect ride, I stopped when I wanted to take pictures because I didn't have to worry about cramming in some training miles, and even chatted with a guy about routes around Denver while dodging wayward pedestrians and their un-leashed dogs. Pretty fun, and picturesque, especially when you consider that it's the last week of December and it looks like this:

In addition to finding a new trail that runs really close to our house, I found our old, dear friend Dry Creek (pictured above, and no that's not the actual name). I don't know if I ever mentioned that old, dear friend, but Dry Creek was a constant companion on the trip this summer. I think we found a version of it in almost every state, some of them were even literally named Dry Creek, so I had to include this picture for Robby. Now I have to go to work, and in just a few more days it will be my birthday and a few days after that I will be home! I can't wait! I have some posts lined up from the crafting I have been doing for presents, but I can't post them until after Christmas. I've been busy though and am particularly proud of one project that I sewed with only a pattern that I made in my head with a few tips for attaching the final piece found on the internet. Hope you are enjoying the season, and getting more snow than us!

DONE!

2010-12-13T10:51:00.005-07:00

Oh I am done, done, done with this semester! What started out as a fairly manageable schedule somehow turned into a crumbling, falling apart semester in the last few weeks of the term. BUT none of that matters now because I can't change any outcomes and for better or worse (oh chemistry final that I probably bombed with flying colors) it is FINISHED. I am so excited to finally take a breath without feeling like I should be studying or making note cards. I have today and tomorrow off from work and I am going to fill the days with making decorations, finishing shopping, sewing, crafting, cleaning and hanging out. I have been so close to the end for a while now, and now I am just going to enjoy the season. Incidentally we aren't even having many of the symptoms of the season, and although Minnesota got a dumping blizzard of a weekend, we are basking in a high of 62 today. I've been a little happy that the cold weather has been holding off because it makes my commute to school that much better, but now that the 16 mile round trip by bike or scoot has been eliminated I am hoping for some snow before I leave for home!

Our first and only "snow" of the season...

In other news, I feel like I am finally settling into a routine at work. I am confident now, and am making friends with my co workers! It's a really hard job, but I do feel like I am making a difference in these people's lives, and that makes me feel good. One of my favorite patients is such a delightful hilarious old man who makes me laugh all the time. He reminds me so much of what I imagine my dad would be like if he were in that situation, commenting on everything, making jokes, getting dressed up in ironic t-shirts (my favorite says "cow pi" with a picture of the pi symbol in cow print) truly enjoying every one's presence and making the best of the situation. But, I could ramble on about work for a while and I won't bore you with that any more than I already have. Outside of work I am very much looking forward to celebrating my birthday (how on earth am I already 26?!), going home for christmas on the 25th with JP in tow and going to NYC in January for a bike & build reunion! I am just feeling very content and blessed at this moment for a lot of reasons. Things seem to be going well for many people that I love, and I am so excited for them too! I am happy to bid good riddance to the fall semester of 2010 and am looking forward to being almost, ALMOST done with undergrad requirements altogether!

brocah comes to denver

2010-12-05T01:51:00.004-07:00

I know this was a little bit ago, but I promised pictures and I finally have the ten minutes that it takes to upload them...so here is my brother while he was visiting me!

Some of you might recognize the rusty trusty walsh-mobile behind him, which in true walsh-mobile form blew a tire about fifty miles outside of Denver on a cold windy night. Luckily my dad is a member of every roadside assistance club that will take him, and one of them was able to tow the van to our house. After conversing with our crazy neighbor while the tow truck banged around in the street for a while, we warmed up with beer and bbq fresh off the grill.

Here are Micah and Danny stretching together before heading to the skate park. I think Micah is far less amused by my documentation..

I took like fifty pictures of them at the park. JP took two. Guess who shot this one?! grrr....

There is always time for scooter time.

and also always time for a walsh fam photo op.

my wednesdays start on tuesday

2010-12-01T20:27:00.003-07:00

I was trying to think how best to describe how busy things are in my life, and how ridiculously much I am looking forward to being DONE with this semester, when I thought of my horrible Wednesdays and this post was born. Wednesday is my craziest day of the week, and these are the many reasons why:

On Tuesday, I try to sleep until about 2:30 in the afternoon. I get up and study a bit and try to eat a bunch of food before leaving for work at 6:00. (Insert props to my boyfriend ((yes I just said that, and used a double parenthesis in the middle of a sentence that is already in a parenthesis to confirm that for you)) for making me amazing breakfast sandwiches for my breakfast at 5:30pm that help fuel me!) I work at the hospital from 6:30pm until 7:00am. After my shift, I rush home to get in the shower at 7:30 and let all the infectious everything wash down the drain and off of my skin. I make a sandwich, snacks and a big ol' cup of coffee to bring with me to school. I scoot over to school for my biology class from 9:00-1:00, after which I try to grab a few hours of sleep in the library until my night class starts at 5:00. Chemistry goes from 5:00-7:00 and then I am free, free, free to get home and eat everything in sight as fast as possible before crashing into bed. The only redeeming part of the whole day is that afterward I get to sleep from whenever my little head hits the pillow until 3:00 the following day. Every step listed above includes a lot of caffeine consumption and as little conversation as possible, both because I get weirdly emotional between work and being so tired, and because I get seriously dumb when I haven't slept.

So, that's how I spend the middle of my week. The good news is that I only have two more weeks of school left...wait, I just finished one of the weeks tonight with a big chemistry exam, so I suppose the REALLY good news is that I only have ONE WEEK left until this semester is kaput and I can go back to a normal person's schedule of working 40 hours a week between the hours of 6:30pm and 7:00am. And in answer to your unasked questions, yes I am still awake and writing this post at 9:27pm, and no I have no idea where my energy is coming from, at this point, I think I'm just running on fumes..

my awful secret

2010-11-28T17:35:00.004-07:00

Okay, here is the truth of it. After this summer I was in amazing shape, the best shape of my life and most probably the best shape I will ever be in. I was tired of exercising, but I kept telling myself that I had a great baseline and all I would have to do is maintain so that my body would still be feeling fit and healthy. I biked the sixteen miles to and from school, and with the best of intentions I researched gyms near my new place and found one that would give me a super sweet unemployed-student discount. I paid for three months up front and happily trotted into the weight room and on to the treadmill. I actually did feel great, my lungs weren't as crappy as they usually are, and my legs were feeling strong. I was psyched that they even had a pool which the Y I used to belong to didn't! Hello only-two-miles-from-my-house-exercise-time!! Now here is the confession part: I have literally not stepped into that building a single time since then. NOT EVEN ONCE. After that run I basically haven't even moved. Oh my. Which is probably why, after dragging myself outside for a run this evening, I practically died from lack of being in shape. I can barely even stretch and touch my toes! Damn you b&b, I blame you for my complacency! I had to tell everyone so that I could shame myself back to the gym, so now you know my awful secret of neverexercisingatallever.

busy busy busy

2010-11-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

This whole working thing is quite tiring! Yet another feeling that this summer got me good at functioning with? exhaustion. I sort of feel like my head is a giant balloon lately, and the words that come out of my mouth would do better to just stay in there for all the sense that they do not make. Outside of the tired adjusting period, work is actually going pretty well! It is A LOT of work, a lot to do and a lot of running around with eleven to twelve patients all needing different things, but I seem to be handling it relatively well I think. Now to just find a routine for the days in my life. I keep telling myself that I am young and it's only for a while and that it will all be worth it when I get accepted to a school and yadda yadda, but in truth working nights is quite a huge adjustment. I was recently trying to write a letter to Robby and it would only come out in list form, so in the interest of actually updating the world of how I am adjusting to my new life I am going to make a list for you too:

1. School is going really well! During this holiday break I am busy trying out figure out what classes will be the most beneficial for my applications next fall, and busy trying not to panic when the important ones are starting to look like microbiology, organic chemistry and genetics all at 5 credits a piece. Yikes! At least I will be settled into my job by then so that should help a bit. That and the fact that it will (hopefully) be my last semester of prereqs! That's been a long time in coming and I am more than ready.

2. I recently found out that part of my job includes cleaning and preparing recently deceased bodies if a patient dies during my shift. I was caught a bit off guard when they gave me the sheet of paper at 1:00am and told me that the guy from the morgue would be there within the hour.... talk about learning on the job! It was kind of crazy, absolutely strange but also weirdly commonplace. Or I guess I mean it was kind of just one thing on the long list of tasks that I had to do that night and it ended up just being something that I did in between turning people and answering call lights. At least I'll know for sure whether health care is the field for me!

3. My little brother is coming to visit!! First sibling to come to Colorado, and I am very, very excited! He will only be here for a few days while on his way to California, but I am planning some tasty meals and some photo documentation at the skatepark...that's for you mom!

4. As chaotic as my life may seem, it is going along pretty well. It's nice to be busy at work again, and I do feel like I am learning a lot. If you can't seem to get ahold of me just know that it is probably because I am working while you are sleeping and sleeping while you are working. I try to squeeze in phone calls when I am on my way to work or (if I am not 100% brain dead) when I am driving home from work in the morning. If you are a Minnesotan though, I finally have my dates for Christmas!! I am hoping to zip to Minneapolis for a quick visit, but I am flying in to Duluth on the evening of the 25th and leaving in the evening of the 30th. I hope I can see you all!! In the mean time, here is the nerdiest picture of me from the past few weeks just to make you laugh:

In chem lab we made some small explosives!

the fruit of our labor

2010-11-03T12:47:00.003-06:00

Remember when I was in Lawrence, KS this summer in the ridiculous heat building a house? Well... the house was just recently finished! They had the dedication last week and sent us a photo so we could see what we helped to create. Here's the before shot of us busy putting up the outer and inner walls:

And here's the finished product:

What better way to keep this summer in our hearts then by getting a photo like this? We did make a difference!

pumpkins!

2010-11-01T12:36:00.003-06:00

I really love Halloween. I just think it is so much fun, and people come up with such creative costumes! It's always been such a great time, and this year was no different. Although this might have been my first "adult" halloween in that I didn't really go out or do anything very special but stayed at home and greeted trick-or-treaters. For some reason kids in our neighborhood were really excited or just craving that sugar rush? I don't know why, but our first kids came to the door around 11:00am with no costumes on. It was weird. After a couple of groups came by with only a mask or a hastily put on crown I was getting pretty disappointed, grumbling about "kids these days..". BUT then a little boy waddled up to the door with a homemade Thomas the Tank Engine costume that had a train around him made out of cardboard and secured with suspenders. It was awesome. He (or his parents I suppose) redeemed my faith. After that we did get a lot of kids that were decked out, so many that we ran out of candy! Another one of my favorite things about the holiday is carving pumpkins. My parents just sent me a package and on the top of it was a picture of my mom, Micah and I carving a pumpkin together and I couldn't have been more than two or three, and I look pretty delighted! My problem is that I always have trouble squeezing in the time for carving, and this year was no different. After organizing a night where people came over for the sole purpose of carving pumpkins, I was somehow left with five untouched pumpkins and no jack-o-lanterns in sight. This was last weekend, so yesterday JP and I took them all outside and went at them full force. We each carved two and had a lot of fun doing it. JP went traditional and I kept with the animal theme of the past few years and carved an owl and an octopus that maybe looks kind of like a spider. Afterwards we roasted the seeds and (with inspiration from my brother) made some tasty enchiladas. Yum. It was a pretty great holiday. On to some pictures:

Hope you had an excellent holiday too!!

Hoooot!

2010-10-30T17:03:00.005-06:00

Owl be sure to have a good time tonight!

visitors!

2010-10-23T11:33:00.000-06:00

We had our first visitors, which after saying that I realize includes both to our new place and of the entire year! People, you have to come out to Colorado! The pictures in this post just might convince you if you were wavering at all. Our recent guests were so much fun to have and they were here for over a week so we were spoiled with homemade meals ready when we were done with work and school, dinners at our favorite restaurants, perusing the local thrift stores, grilling in the backyard, playing with the dogs and taking in the mountains. It was a busy time! JP's mom, Judy, and stepdad, Jim, drove up from Alabama to try their hand at road tripping and to help us settle in to our home. You might remember that for a while we had maybe one chair and a coffee table as our furniture, but that has all changed thanks to Judy and Jim, and we are fully furnished and ready for our next guests. So, on to some pictures of the week:

The first weekend they were here we did a trip to Estes Park as Jim had never been there. It's a great short drive from Denver and it really gets you into the mountains. From Estes, we drove into Rocky Mountain National Park and attempted to drive up Trail Ridge Road (which you might remember from such things as me biking it this summer). Unfortunately, just seven or eight miles up we were turned around because of supposed four feet drifts of snow across the road. It's too bad we couldn't take them to the top because the views there are absolutely breathtaking, but as a consolation it did snow on us just as we were getting out of the car to take some pictures. Jim and Judy were pretty much delighted to get the real Colorado mountain experience!

We also got to see some wildlife to add to the experience! Credit goes to Judy for snapping this photo even though she was freezing in the wind!

The following weekend we drove to Pike's Peak, which Jim and I had never been too, and it was quite a sight to see. At just over 14,000 feet it was pretty incredible and there was snow all around. I think the temperature dropped about 25 degrees from the bottom of the mountain to the top of it. We took lots of pictures:

JP and I of course had to have a little snowball fight, but it was short lived because it was so cold!

Yin even had some guests of her own, and they got along really well! With a big yard for them to play around in, and a neighbor dog to bark at, all three of them were pretty content. Of course the trip couldn't have been complete without a scooter ride:

I think they are hooked now!

clue two

2010-10-19T21:28:00.006-06:00

Shhh..I know I should be studying, but look how much fun I've been having! We had visitors all last week (which I will blog about next), and with school and interviews and such I haven't had any time to work on my costume. My sister left me a voicemail saying she had come up with the best costume for this year and wanted me to be the first to know what it's going to be... then, as she was leaving the message, she thought better of it and decided to hold her idea ransom until she figured out what mine was. SO, costume time it is!! Behold, clue(s) two:

I got a few more kinds of fabric at the thrift store, the one on the top is this really cute table cloth and for the costume I think it will add just the right touch.

After being jealous of Carol's craft mat I finally got my very own one last week at the fabric store. I love it so much! In fact the first time I have gotten to use it was earlier today when I was pasting together a graph for my biology lab report. I go to a real college I swear. But, also pictured are a pair of fabric scissors that I inherited from my grandma. I love that I got a pair, she used a number of different ones, and they are a real solid reminder of her for me. Every time I sew I hope she's checking out my latest project.

The pattern...

And the work station.. see my biology notes in the corner? I was studying at one point today..

Kind of a mess, but so much fun! Do you know what I'm going to be??

at long last

2010-10-14T12:56:00.004-06:00

I've been holding off on writing much about my job search, mostly I think because I didn't want to jinx it, but rest assured that in the almost two months since I've been back in the real world I hav ebeen searching every job site out there. I'm working with a resume that is so childcare and restaurant heavy, that finding a job in the health care field was frustrating and for the most part fruitless. I basically look like a new CNA graduate, especially after having only gotten my Colorado certificate last month, and most of the places I talked to had so many applicants that they simply weren't hiring anyone with less than a year of recent hospital experience. My slightly beefed up resume gives me about eleven months of experience five years ago. That's the beefed up version! Things were looking pretty grim when I found a hospital that was taking applications for open house interviews. I figured that if my resume couldn't really sell me, I would have to sell me, so I applied. Literally twenty minutes later I got a rejection email from them, indicating that I didn't have exactly what they were looking for. I was so frustrated! I was rejected in less time than it took me to put together the entire application! LAME!! I put it out of my mind and then three days before the interviews I got an email from them asking me to come. I assumed it was a fluke, that they had been meaning to email an Elizabeth Welch or Welsh or some other similar sounding name, and I almost didn't even go. I sucked up my pride and put on my one surviving interview outfit and went to the hospital. Things actually went well, and the interviewer seemed to like me a lot, but there were a ton of applicants and there were only two available positions so I chalked it up to good interview experience and tried to put it all out of my mind. Low and behold I received a phone call a few days later asking for a second interview! The second interview took place last Thursday, and was a typically intimidating experience. I hate the anxiety of those kinds of things that make my mind go blank when required to think of a specific event in which I demonstrated leadership or good communication skills or what have you. Why can't my brain and mouth ever work together during interviews? I feel like I get all stuttery and shakey..but in reality it must have gone well, or maybe that's how everyone gets during interviews. Two workers took me out on the floor to show me what they do everyday, and how things work in the facility. Everyone I talked with took care to tell me that this will be the hardest job I ever have, but if I can make it there I can make it anywhere. The interviewer also let me know that if I really want to be a PA, this is the place that I need to be. SO, as I am sure you have now deduced, I GOT THE JOB!! They called last night to offer me the position and I happily accepted. I am officially a working CNA in Long Term Acute Care (LTAC) at Vibra Hospital. The only thing I am a little worried about, aside from my complete lack of experience, is that they want to train me on days and then start me working nights. JP and I will have opposite schedules, and with school sandwiched in their somewhere we will practically never see each other! I know we will figure it all out and adjust to this new chapter in life, even though it may take a lot of time. I can't help but think that this is the start to it all. Working full time, going to school, studying, applying to PA school for now. Once I (hopefully) get accepted into a program and begin PA school, those two years will be hugely challenging and demanding of all my time and energy. Here I go!

just $8.00. seriously.

2010-10-13T11:19:00.004-06:00

Okay folks, I am sure you have heard about ordering glasses online, and how cheap that can be. My friend, and old roommate, Carol bought some from one of those websites after her expensive ones were smashed in a car accident. I don't know why I didn't jump on the band wagon then, or when a regular at a restaurant I used to work at boasted about his five new pairs that were coming in the mail. I think I just tuned it out as too good to be true or something. But no longer, no longer. My real life glasses have a prescription that is laughably outdated. Well, laughable in the sense that I couldn't see anything that was more than a few inches from my nose, and what I could see would go in and out of focus as my eyeballs strained to correct themselves. I don't wear them too much and so I didn't want to deal with finding and going to an eye doctor and paying hundreds of dollars to replace and update them. Then a small light bulb popped into my head and I started checking out glasses websites. After calling my old optometrist and getting a string of confusing numbers, JP and I started browsing the $8 section on Zenni Optical. It's hard to tell what they will look like, even with the websites zoom feature, but at only $8 a pop and shipping costs the same no matter how many pairs you buy you can't really go wrong. So I ordered a pair with red wire rims and a plastic pair that was the closest style to my current pair that I could find. A few weeks later, TAAA DAAAAA:

Don't they look nice?! A friend of mine who just got glasses for the first time said "it's like everything I see is in High Definition now!" and that is completely true for me too. I really had not realized how horrible my prescription was, and now I can see everything!! It's fun to have options too, I've never owned more than one pair of glasses at a time and now I can switch it up if I want! Plus, if they end up breaking in my bag or in an accidental sitting-on incident it doesn't matter too much cause they were so cheap! I couldn't get a good shot of the glasses actually on my face (the fact that I was wearing contacts at the same time might have had something to do with that..), but here is the best one:

it's that time of year again!

2010-10-05T15:05:00.000-06:00

Okay folks, here is the first peek at my Halloween costume. I am really, really excited about it! In fact, as soon as I post these pictures I am going to start cutting that fabric!

I've got a couple more fabrics, but I think they might be in JP's car. Clue two should be ready soon!

officially a dork on two wheels

2010-10-04T12:39:00.004-06:00

Although you might have thought that I already was a dork on two wheels, now, according to my sweet boyfriend, I officially am. Yes I spent the summer fully clad in spandex while riding a bicycle everywhere, which is pretty high on the dork-o-meter in my opinion, but now I own a scooter. A SCOOTER. That was just in case you needed a double take. Because, guys, I OWN A SCOOTER.

Who knew such good could come out of having my car stolen? With my auto nowhere to be found, the insurance company cut me a check. I lucked out because my beloved MN rust bucket, okay it was only a little rusty but in Colorado a little is a ton, was declared to be in average condition since the insurance company had never seen the car, and I got more money than I thought I would. In fact, they ended up giving me more than I paid for the car in the first place. I'll take it! I had to! All this leads up to this weekend when my dream of owning a scooter was finally realized. I wasn't excited about looking for a new car, nothing was jumping out and it seemed like it would be a long and frustrating process. The rental car my insurance is paying for is up on Wednesday, and I didn't want to rush into buying a car just to have a vehicle. Ever since Annie brought me along on her hunt for the perfect scooter, which ended in an awesome little red scoot, I was hooked. Before this whole debacle I couldn't really justify buying a scooter, but with the extra money I can (kinda of) justify it now! Besides, I LOVE IT. That's justification enough....err, maybe not, BUT I am still looking for a car while I scoot around the city in style. Now I've got more time to figure things out, and am getting 100 mpg while I do.

Plus, Annie said we could start a scooter gang together and that's about as cool/dorky as it gets.

the whilrwind that was september

2010-09-27T13:10:00.007-06:00

Well, September, you are just about gone! Real life is turning out to be just as chaotic (in a much, much different way) than my life this summer. I suppose that's just how it goes, right? In any case, lots has been happening around here. But first, I will start with the one thing that hasn't been happening lately: my car. No word from anyone, although JP did think he spotted it on his way home from work the other day and stealthily followed it for a few blocks...alas it wasn't my car, just one of the thousands that look exactly like mine minus the good old MN rust and the snarky bumpersticker. I've let it go for the most part, and the insurance company will let it go as well this Thursday if it hasn't been found by then. Finding another vehicle for me should be interesting, and I am sure picture worthy as well, so don't think for a minute that I would leave you all out of the fun when the time comes.

What else...I passed my CNA recertification exam with flying colors!

Well, since it is just a pass/fail thing, I am left only to assume that the colors were flying, but either way I am done with the anxiety that comes with preparing for a practical exam with just youtube and some hastily scratched notecards. PHEW. The elise-goes-to-PA-school planets are finally starting to align and a job at a hospital is hopefully soon to come! Passing this exam of course just means that it is time to study for the next exam(s), which seem to be never ending. Luckily I am doing alright in my classes, and with no job for the moment I can use this time to start studying for the GRE. The fun just never ends when you are a perpetual student!

In other news, although you already know that I survived Hwy 50 in Nevada, otherwise known as The Loneliest Road in America, this summer, I now have Nevada's gift to me on my refrigerator to prove it:

and on my lapel (if I had one):

As part of the tourism schtick for Hwy 50, you can get a passport when you enter the sate and get a stamp for each of the towns along the route.

Since there was nothing else to do while in that state other than bike forever, I got my passport filled up and after moving and unpacking I found it at the bottom of my camelbak and mailed it in for a present from the state of Nevada. Somehow it redeems the state just a little bit, and it reminds me how proud I was of all of us for making it through such a challenging place in one piece.

Lastly, I have gotten in a bunch of family time lately. A few weekends ago I flew to Ohio for my cousin's wedding and had a great time catching up with everyone and getting to see my parents again for a few days! Weddings are my favorite, and growing up in an Irish Catholic family we went to four or five every summer. I got to see my cousins all the time! It's slowed down a lot since then, and the last wedding on that side of the family was over two years ago. Needless to say, it was a beautiful celebration and a much needed mini reunion of sorts to boot! I also got to see some cousins this past weekend in Boulder for Sep's third birthday! Molly and Phil and their little brood were in town from Chicago and we celebrated Sep's birthday with a picnic and a hike that for some included a bear sighting!

Here we are post-hike, but somehow without catching a glimpse of the bear that we apparently hiked right past..

So that's the compacted update for the past few weeks of settling back in. I am ready for fall to be here, and am getting in the mood for baking pumpkin bread and knitting some christmas presents. I'm plotting out my Halloween costume already, and am really excited about it! Oh, it is going to be great. I'll put up some pictures of the preliminary supplies and crafting soon so you can get in on the excitement as well.

surprise!

2010-09-16T13:12:00.002-06:00

Well, I like surprises. I like gifts that I am not expecting, seeing people randomly that I haven't seen in a while, or class getting canceled out of the blue. Unfortunately, my most recent surprise was a bad surprise, and one that I have experienced once already. After wheeling my bike out the front door yesterday morning I looked up to an empty street. Well, it wasn't quite empty, empty. In fact it was quite full except for an elise's-car-shaped spot right at the end of the curb. My car was stolen! Yanked! Snatched! Borrowed indefinitely! Sad day. Some of you might remember back in 2003 when the same thing happened to my trusty old Buick Century that I inherited from my grandmother. This was back in the days of my culinary career and among the more frustrating things to be stolen with the car were my knives and some irreplaceable photos and letters. It was an irritating ordeal, and even though the car was finally recovered everything in it was wrecked when the thief decided to christen the by then ripped up upholstery with urine and beer and who knows what else. In the middle of a hot August. With all the windows shut for days. It was pretty gross. This time around I knew what to do and after a brief moment of brow furrowing and disappointment in humanity, I called the police to file a report, my insurance to file a claim and my sister for some indignant outrage. I'm not really sure why I haven't been more upset about the whole thing. Maybe it's because this summer I had so few possessions, and even those I did have weren't too relevant when I was reduced to the basic needs of simply eating and sleeping through ridiculous exhaustion. Maybe it's because I didn't have many things in my car that aren't replaceable, and I am so glad that was the case. I mostly just feel weirded out picturing other people in my car, probably drinking in it, hopefully not peeing in it, and generally being in my space. It's a disconcerting feeling. I suppose I will just have to wait and see how it all pans out.

home again, home again

2010-09-07T12:49:00.005-06:00

I am back in Denver, back to the ol' real life again! It's been chaotic learning how to transition out of b&b mode and back into other things, odd to be able to get so much sleep and pick out what clothes I am going to wear that aren't the same clothes I wore the day before! Everything kind of happened at once when I got back. I missed the first week of school while I was in San Francisco, so I jumped into that pretty behind and confused. I forgot how much ground can be covered in a few lectures! I took some time this weekend to slowly catch back up and am starting to feel confident that I won't entirely bomb my exam tomorrow. I'm working on finding work again, trying to get my foot in the door at one of the hospitals in the area. In the meantime I've been babysitting for a few of the families I used to help out, and it's been nice to be back in the baby section of life again. All the kids grew so much while I was gone!

School stresses aside, things have been really busy but great! JP and I moved in together, which is a big step for both of us, and it's been fun! Well, the packing/moving/cleaning/scouring/driving all over portion wasn't fun, but that is all over and we now have so much space we can barely fill it up! I don't have many belongings with me in Colorado, as you might remember I moved here with just a car load of things last fall, and both JP and I were living in studios that didn't exactly leave much room for extraneous possessions. We are now in a 2 bedroom house and are gradually finding chairs to sit on (previous count = 1 computer chair from JP's desk), a table to eat at, and other necessities at the many thrift stores in the metro area. We've even got a yard now, which Yin is beyond excited about. She spends most of the day moving from sun patch to sun patch, just lounging about taking in the scenery. It's a pretty hard life.

One of the first things to unpack was my Grandma's owl that always hung in her kitchen and now hangs in mine.

My bike arrived shortly after I did, a little worse for the wear, but mostly fine.

Transition-wise, I think I am doing alright. I miss everyone, and am constantly reminded of the trip everyday, but I think it was the exact right amount of time and I was ready for the end when it came. We e-mail each other multiple times a day, are busy uploading pictures to facebook and are planning the reunions to come. It should be good.

San Francisco

2010-08-31T15:50:00.000-06:00

After having San Francisco in the back of my mind for months on end, one would think that I would have been better prepared for the actual city upon arrival. While it is true to my nature to have planned things out way in advance, I left this one up to everyone else. I had no time or energy to really think about what I would do in San Francisco, but luckily my family had a lot of things they were looking forward to doing and so I got to tag along without having to put out much energy at all. This was also a fortunate plan of attack, as I was exhausted the whole time I was there! Guess that's what biking over 4,000 miles will do to you. We got out to the science museum and to a They Might Be Giants concert in the park, we ate lots of great food, strolled around a few different neighborhoods and drank copious amounts of coffee. It was a great vacation, with great people. It's pretty rare that we can all get together more then once a year, so it was extra nice that our schedules all lined up to be able to hang out for a few days!

VIP seating on a tree stump at the concert!

Packing her up definitely brought home the reality of the end of the summer..

After so much time picturing their faces to help me keep going, it was really odd to have them leave already!

WE DID IT!

2010-08-27T15:33:00.005-06:00

We crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and dipped our tires in the ocean! 4,200 some odd miles later our trip is finally completed! I don't really know how to describe what it felt like to see the bridge for the first time, and cross it all together. So many friends and family members were waiting on the other side to celebrate with us...it was absolutely amazing! What an overwhelming feeling, on so many levels, to have biked across the country and to end that trip in such a beautiful place. I was so lucky to have my whole family waiting for me on the beach, along with JP, the entire Altman family and an aunt and uncle! The thought of them being there really helped me push through the last week of riding, and I am so grateful they could all be there to help celebrate! I feel like anything I could write would just be inadequate so I will leave you with a couple pictures of the big day. Hopefully that will suffice!

That sign says "Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco"!

We almost never got to ride together in a big group, but on the last day we all waited for each other, and it was such a great feeling to see everyone all lined up together.

The bridge! We waited for everyone to arrive before crossing all together.

After our triumphant entrance, we dipped our tires, jumped in the freezing cold ocean, drank some champagne and promptly fell asleep on the grass.

So glad to see everyone and so happy to have finished such a challenging journey!

just rolling on through

2010-08-20T11:56:00.000-06:00

I can't tell you how great it feels to be riding in California after slogging across Nevada. Yes the drivers are horrible, and the shoulders are still quite decorated with broken glass, but the energy is different, and the scenery is beautiful! We've been passing through wine country, seeing lots of vineyards and rolling hills. Climbing still, and taking some amazing descents, one of them was even a 13% grade! It's nice to not feel intimidated by whatever is ahead of us. We've got strength and endurance and resolve, even when it's really hard, we know we can do it and that's a really empowering feeling.

It's hot here! We took a break just outside a vineyard to catch some shade and eat a snack under a palm tree.

We have had some incredible lunch spots recently. The day we rode into Auburn we had two lunches, both at beautiful swimming spots. That almost never happens!

Spring Mountain, coming into Santa Rosa, was arguably the hardest climb we had all trip. It just kept going, with maybe an 11% grade sprinkled with turns that hit around 13%...it was insane, but getting to the top felt amazing. We waited in groups to cheer people up the last little bit.

Most of us drink a lot of coffee, but in CA we stopped often and lingered more then usual. Here's Robby and I outside a french cafe about 15 miles into the day.

californ-i-a!

2010-08-17T17:44:00.001-06:00

We made it to CALIFORNIA!! We were welcomed to the state with the most anticlimactic sign that could ever be, but even that did little to take away from such a momentous occasion. California! The last state line! We made it all the way to California!! I think it was a little bit of a shock for all of us to see that sign. When you are on the road, it's really hard to think more then a few hours ahead and have those thoughts be very concrete. You just do it, and then do it, and then all of a sudden you're crossing into your last state. South Lake Tahoe is a beautiful place, and not only are we in California, we are also on the heels of our third and final day off. Spirits are definitely high. Here are a few pictures:

Nevada gave us one more long, hot climb as a going away present, but we handled it just fine.

Melon, Joel and I at the state line. If you squint a little you can see it!

Our day off was spent lazing about. We went to the beach, ate good food, watched the sunset and rocked some karaoke. I also got my bike fixed, and after crossing almost all of Nevada in granny gears it's amazing to be able to shift again! Only four days left until the trip is over, and I still can't believe how fast it's all gone! San Francisco, here we come!

b&b does prom

2010-08-13T17:19:00.000-06:00

One of the ways we broke up the monotony that is Nevada was by having prom in an elementary school gymnasium in the small town of Eureka. The build up to the big event was arguably as much fun as prom itself. We held a competition to determine who would be elected to prom committee, which was more just people competing for the sake of competing and less because they actually wanted to do anything with the committee. Nonetheless, people partnered up as potential presidents and running mates. The competition was a three-parter: First came the granny gear race, which is exactly what it sounds like. Participants raced each other in their smallest gear, spinning wildly and not moving very fast, in short a ridiculous amount of hilarity to watch. Here's a shot of the finish line, and some of the spectators:

The second phase of the competition was cut short because of an accident, in which Drew was a bit overzealous in his attempt to secure the position of president of prom committee and managed to shove his leg directly into his spokes, causing him to flip over the front of his bike. The video clip of this fall is absolutely amazing, which I can say now because Drew was relatively fine except for some bumps and bruises and the need for a new wheel. After a day in the van he was back on the bike using a temporary wheel that was mysteriously in the trailer with no one claiming ownership. In any case, the second phase in the competition was a trackstand-off, in which participants were timed doing track stands, and the third phase was a no pedal race in which participants competed to go the furthest from a slight incline without pedaling. This is how we entertain ourselves, and even though I'd like to blame Nevada, it's really something we would have done anywhere...

Another great part about prom was the creative ways people asked each other. People used chalk, wrote poems, took pictures and made prank phone calls. It was so much fun to hear people scheming and devising ways to ask each other, everyday at lunch there was a new story to hear! We voted on a theme which turned out to be ABC, Anything But Clothes, and that provided entertainment as well while we all plotted our outfits. I wish I could post more pictures to show you the creative costumes that people came up with, but I've only got this one for right now:

Some people went as the lunch tarp, cutting up and duct taping dresses together, people wore old tubes, bike parts, flip flops, ect. Robby and I went as the Med Kit and wore ace bandages and plastic bags. It was so ridiculous and amazing. We had the coolers as decorations and made an aisle out of our bike shoes. It was so much fun, dancing in a gymnasium in the middle of Nevada after really tiring days of non stop mountain passes and endless valleys.

Nevada, Nevada

2010-08-11T09:05:00.000-06:00

We got caught in a crazy lightening storm about 17 miles into a 101 miles day. Luckily we were all pretty close together and there happend to be a cafe just before the climb started. We all piled in and occupied every seat and table. We got to eat real breafast and play cards while we waited out the storm. It was Zach's birthday too so we sang to him and hung out for more then an hour. Once the sky started to clear up we tried to head out, but were quickly sent back to the cafe because of another storm rolling in. We passed the next few hours dancing on the sidewalk and taking dumb pictures. It was such a fun morning!

Lunch was only at mile 35, but the headwind was so intense that we were all crabby from exertion and hunger by the time we made it there. A nap was in order before finishing the last 6 miles of the mountain we were climbing.

We were also climbing a mountain with a road that was freshly tarred, and a some of us were lucky enough to catch a ride past one mile of oiled road with a friendly construction worker.

The Loneliest Road in America

2010-08-09T16:45:00.001-06:00

Oh Nevada, no thank you. This whole trip we were all waiting for Colorado. It was the promised land, it was going to be so beautiful after all the rows and rows of corn, and so many people on our trip had never been there. After Colorado we knew that Nevada would be hard, it would be chalk full of head winds, really hot and flat as far as the eye could see. How could we have ever been so wrong about that last part!? Did you know that Nevada holds the title for most mountains per square mile then any other state? Well, it does, and it most certainly does. Holy mountain climbing! At one stretch we did 13 passes in 4 days. Isn't that insane? In between the passes are these long stretching valleys, some of them go for ten miles or more before the next mountain. What a strange feeling to come over a mountain and see the next mountain right in front of you, but know that it will take hours to get there. Depth perception in Nevada is such a weird thing, you can see so far that it seems simultaneously as though you are right next to your destination and as though you have been biking in place for hours because it sure isn't getting any closer. It was so frustrating, and at times the wind nearly blew me over. Slogging through Nevada was such a hard thing to do, and so discouraging. We took Hwy 50 the whole way, and it sure is a lonely road. We went the whole day without passing through a town, just going and going in the middle of nowhere. We camped a few times, and didn't see much civilization anywhere. It was just plain tough, and we had ten straight ride days in a row. Nevada is also a state that doesn't have many bike shops, and my bike chose this time to rebel. I haven't had many big problems with my bike on the trip, but of course I did when we had no way to fix it. On maybe day one of the ten day stint, a cable snapped on my bike and I lost the ability to use any of my gears except my granny gears. I quickly learned that there are few things more annoying then having to pedal, pedal, pedal, coooooaaaast, pedal, pedal, pedal, coooooaaaast for days on end. Drew helped me get a few more gears, which came and went with no real pattern. Luckily (?) we basically climbed all day long, and that meant I was sitting in my low gears any way. We did it though, and though some of us are a little worse for the wear, we made it across the loneliest road in america.

Moustache Monday helped get us through the day..

Our camp site, the morning after. We used the rocks to hold down our tents, the wind was absurdly strong during the night.

1 mile down, 95 to go..

2010-08-06T16:20:00.000-06:00

In the first mile leaving Green River, the road was flooded and we got to cross it as we saw fit. Lindsey had a momentary brain lapse and crossed it shoes and all, some people biked through, Robby and I stripped our shoes and socks and carried our bike over the water..you never know what you'll get on this trip!

Moab!

2010-08-05T16:03:00.001-06:00

The ride into Moab was gorgeous, but a bit lost on me as I was battling a migraine for the majority of the day. We were out of cell phone service for most of the day, and through a mix up with the van I missed being picked up twice. It was kinda horrible, but I booked the last twenty miles at about 27mph, showered in a daze and promptly passed out on my thermarest in a back room of the church at about 8:00. I woke up feeling back to normal, in fact probably better then normal because of the large amount of sleep I lucked into! Moab was our first break after a nine day stint of riding through colorado. We were fortunate enough to have back to back days in town, with our first being a build day and our second being a real day off. It was nice to feel so normal, sleeping in a little, grabbing coffee, poking around the bookstore...in short, a much needed break! First I'll tell you about the build day. We were all excited to get to work on/see our first straw bale home. Hands down the coolest site we've been on this whole trip. We met with a family who are building their own home along with Rebuilding Together, an affordable housing program in Moab. We learned all about the architecture planning that goes into all the different stages of this kind of house; orientation to the sun, maintaining constant temperature in the walls, overhangs, maintenance. It was amazing, and the house itself was gorgeous. The family took so much pride in their work and it really showed. We toured their house and then shuttled to another site to help lay parts of the foundation down. We had a radio, also a first for a build site, and worked on tamping dirt into the floors.

Here are two pictures of the straw bale house we toured.

These two are from the actual build site, the tamps and Rudy and Robby working hard on the flooring.

Our second day a bunch of us got to go rafting, and of course the sun that had been blazing chose that time to go behind the clouds. We had so much fun though, the rapids were class one and two, so we mostly just hopped out of the rafts and swam around while knocking each other out of the kayaks and splashing about. It was a perfect way to let loose and relax off the bikes.

photos

2010-08-02T19:23:00.000-06:00

Late to the Colorado sign party, due to vanning, but here it is!

Makeshift rain jackets..remember how Colorado changes weather every ten min? We forgot..

As you might have expected, in Colorado we climbed and climbed. I was surprised at how okay my body was with it. I have even gotten to a point where I can enjoy the climb for the climb and not just for the descent. I've gotten a lot stronger and am much more confident that I can handle whatever gets thrown at us next, but I still can't believe I crossed the Rocky Mountains!

Trail Ridge Road

2010-08-01T19:01:00.000-06:00

From Estes Park we climbed Trail Ridge Road, the highest paved road in the US, which entailed 25 miles of straight climbing! It was a gorgeous day, and the climb was long but steady and beautiful. I can't tell you how different it is to take that road by bicycle as opposed to car. It was amazing, such great views at every turn. You can really see your progress as you climb mountains, especially because of the switchbacks. We stopped a lot just to take in the scenery and snap some pictures. Getting to the top was the most amazing feeling I have ever felt. It was windy and pretty cold, but I had so much adrenaline going and the actual realization that I had climbed that far for that long was a crazy rush. I can't even describe it really, and the descent was so great too. There weren't many cars by the time we shot down the other side, so we were able to enjoy the ride all the more. Here are a few pictures of the day:

Starting off!

Climbing, climbing, climbing...

First to the top! Kinda bad ass...

Just taking in the view..

Colorado!

2010-07-30T10:37:00.000-06:00

Riding into Loveland was an amazing feeling, the Rockies had popped in to view, I had friends waiting for me to arrive and we were about to climb mountains! We had a build day in Loveland, which gave us some well deserved time off the bike. JP came from Denver for the night and Emily and Micheal came from Minneapolis to hang out too! It was such great timing to see all of them, with everything as it was, and it really made me feel like I got a slice of my traditional summer time fun. We found an italian restaurant that had a big gluten free menu and so Rudy and I each ate an entire pizza. Mmm eating after biking 90+ miles is an incredible thing. Our first climb was into Estes Park, and we were all anticipating a tough day ahead. Our mileage was about 60, and the climb was absolutely gorgeous. I've driven in the mountains lots of times, but you can see an entirely different side of nature when you are experiencing it at about 7 miles per hour. Everyone was so happy and pumped. Robby and I made it to a sign that said Estes Park at about mile 30, and when we realized that we had made it to our host site and the day was actually over we almost cried it was so exciting! We had been climbing fairly quickly, anticipating a long afternoon and then we arrived at the church just as the 10:30 service was starting! It was perfect timing for a pretend day off. We all explored the town and my friends got to spend an extra day with us too! A great send off for our big Rockies climbs!

Building, building..

They tolerated our exhaustion with great patience!

A long, long day as sweep when we got in at 9:00 but the sunset was worth it.

Racing to the host between a storm on the left and a storm on the right..

chalking

2010-07-27T10:21:00.000-06:00

A fun thing that is pretty central to bike & build is chalk. We each carry a piece of chalk with us in our jersey pocket, or in our camelbak, and take it out to write each other messages on the road. While riding we get pretty spread out along the road, and the chalk is a way to keep us connected and informed. We chalk the turns that we have to take even though we each have a cue sheet with directions, it's nice to see that you are indeed going the right way. We chalk when we pull off the road to stop at a gas station, or a lake so that the sweep riders know where we are and don't accidentally pass us by. My favorite is chalking encouraging or random funny messages to each other. We chalk a lot while climbing, messages that keep us moving up the mountains and make us laugh. It's a great way to feel connected. An alumni from 2008 came up with the idea to chalk for Paige, and so we have been writing messages to and for her and they were included in her memorial service. I thought you might like to see a few examples, so here they are:

Sometimes on steep climbs, popping a wheelie is a real problem...

After big climbs, we like to congratulate ourselves.

Megan chalked for Paige at the top of Trail Ridge Road.

I wrote mine in Estes Park.

shock

2010-07-24T15:53:00.008-06:00

As many of you have probably heard, Bike & Build had some devastating news on Tuesday when a rider was killed while on the road in South Dakota. Paige Hicks was a leader on the Providence to Seattle route, and was stopped on the shoulder with another rider when a truck with an over-sized load hit her and she was pronounced dead when the paramedics arrived on the scene. We heard the news Wednesday morning as we were preparing for a 100 mile ride from McCook, NE to Holyoke, CO. We were all so shocked and shaken, not even beginning to realize the far reaching implications. A few riders chose to ride in the van to make sure they were mentally prepared before getting back on the bike. It was so hard heading out that morning, an overcast foggy day, to do the exact same thing that Paige had been doing when she was killed. I think many of us had been lulled into a false sense of comfort, thinking that we were invincible and not remembering just how dangerous an endeavor like biking across the country really is. The morning started out rough, nobody talked except to point out gravel and to call out cars from behind. People were jittery and afraid on their bikes, which for many people was the first time that had felt that way. Megan and I were riding sweep that day, which means we were the riders who have to stay behind everyone and carry a first aid kit and extra tire in case they are needed. We knew it was going to be a really rough day. It's hard to get out of your head when you are on the bike, something that can serve as a real distraction when you are focused on upsetting news. My mind just could not stop thinking about the girl who was stopped on the side of the road with Paige and was unharmed by the truck. Eight miles into the day Sarah was riding in front of me and slipped off the shoulder of the road when a semi truck came blaring past her. She tried to regain her balance by jerking her bike back onto the shoulder, causing her to flip over her bike three times in midair and breaking her collarbone. I was riding right behind her, and watching her fly through the air made my heart just stop, I was so incredibly helpless. The timing of such a horrible accident couldn't have been worse, and the image in my head is something that I will never forget. While calling the ambulance and the support van, Megan and I were strangely calm, but when the paramedic asked us if we were alright and we told him about Paige's death we both just lost it. The rest of the ride to lunch was just about 40 miles, and it was the worst ride I have ever had. We were so scared of every car and got pushed off the road two or three times be trucks speeding by too close. After making it to first lunch we were vanned and Robby and Rudy took over our sweep duties. It was such a horrible day, so unreal and indescribable. I can't imagine how the P2S group is dealing with their loss when it is hitting my group so hard. I'm sorry if this post is a bit disjointed, the week has been a tough one and the processing is still very much happening. Last night we had our family meeting for the week and it was centered around Paige and how we want to honor her and how we will move forward both individually and together. I invite you all to send mail to the P2S route as they are going to continue on after Paige's funeral and I know first hand just how much mail days mean to everyone on the road. Their maildrops dates are on the website, and I am sure they would appreciate any words and prayers that you could offer. I admire their courage and strength more then I can express. I can't wrap my brain around how awful it would be to lose a member of our group, we have truly become a family as we work our way across the US. Please keep us all in your thoughts, and know that we are taking every precaution to be safe on the road. Tomorrow is our first climb in the Rockies, being back within sight of the mountains have really helped to center me and soon I will be on top of them!

Always with us.

a busy, busy day

2010-07-18T15:51:00.006-06:00

Yesterday was crazy, the temperature reached 101 and we rode 98 miles. I was one of the only people who had water right up until 3 miles out as the last gas station/sign of life we saw had been 60 miles back. Kansas, as I mentioned, is really not flat. Rolling hills and long slow inclines were the name of the game, combined with heat, humidity and no shade to speak of. I had a great day though, Robby and I made up lame games and played them all afternoon. We had slow races and no brake races and in general acted ridiculous for the better part of the ride. I love so much that on bike & build everything is hilarious. I think it's a combination of exhaustion, absurdity and maybe a little insanity but I have never laughed harder then I do almost everyday on this trip. I even once fell off my bike mid climb in Pennsylvania into someones front yard because I was laughing too hard to stay upright. So much fun, and such good people. Today was a busy, busy day for us even though we only went 68 miles. The pictures below should explain it, and now I've got to go make dinner!

First up yesterday we reached over 2,000 miles and today was our official halfway point!

World's largest ball o' twine came next.

Here I am at the geographical center of the US!

Rudy and I on the flagpole at the center of the US.

Another state line, which means next up is Colorado!!

Mid-morning break to eat clif bars in a field..

Kansas and another visitor!

2010-07-13T15:26:00.004-06:00

Our ride into Lawrence, Kansas was a hell day. SO hot and So crabby was basically the theme of everything that day. It was just a long ride, that started with a bad road and drained what little patience I had in the first few miles. GUH. But, Lawrence itself was an awesome place! I was so surprised to find this hip little town in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, with so much to do! Nora came into town from Minnesota to hang with us for a few days, and that instantly lifted me from my crabby fog. It's been so nice to see so many people while on the road and Nora traveled quite a distance to see us. I feel bad cause I forget how cracked out we are while traveling, and when we interact with the real world we must seem so odd from constant exhaustion and the need to eat copious amounts of food at every sitting, but Nora handled it well. We even got to sleep with her at a hotel, which was a welcome change from the church floors we have been curling up on all summer. In Lawrence we all went out for some games of pool, thai food, bike shop sales, and even a photo booth. It was a really great break, and we spent three nights there making it our longest stay in one town since Providence! The build days were fun, our first site that was basically ground up. We put up the exterior walls and all of the interior walls too. It was sweltering hot there, 100 degrees with a heat index of 115, but we ate popsicles and took turns sitting in the shade and made it a fun time.

Crossing into Kansas! Secretly Kansas is not flat at all..but it sure is hot!

The build site in Lawrence.

Together again! Nora even let me borrow her dress and I felt kinda like a real person!

Robby and I at second lunch, dinosaur vs. shark.

donation haircuts!

2010-07-11T17:07:00.004-06:00

The rides lately have been great even though they've been really long! I feel like I am turning a corner of some sorts when I can bike 85 miles and have energy left over to explore the town that I have been heading for all day. The ride into Pittsfield, IL was one of those days, I didn't feel dead and drained when I arrived! Our first exciting thing that we did in town was get haircuts. A salon donated cuts to anyone who wanted one and about fifteen of us chopped our locks into various versions of mohawks. I got about 12 inches buzzed off and it feels GREAT when I'm biking and can feel the wind on my head!

We kept the hairdresser busy all evening, here is everyone sporting their new locks!

The second exciting thing we got to do in Pittsfield was our first homestay night. Most times we stay on church floors with our thermarests and sleeping bags, occasionally we camp out at a YMCA but in Pittsfield we were matched up with families to stay in their homes. This would have been more exciting for me if the family I was matched with had shown up, but they had something come up so Heather and I were put in a room at the local inn. It was great to have a shower and bed and jungle themed room for the evening. It was like a mini vacation for the night! Luckily though, Robby and Arthur shared their family with me and we got to go to Pig Fest with them. We drank fresh squeezed lemonade and took a tractor ride tour of the town. Spending time doing real summery things and talking with the family was really special. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the act of moving forward towards San Francisco and the small things get missed all together. The evening we spent there was such a treat for me! And now, here are a couple more pictures to end the post:

Mornings are still rough..

But sometimes we get to take our 12.7 mile stretch break next to/on top of hay bales!

the parents come for a visit to spoil us, feed us and to bike!

2010-07-08T16:37:00.002-06:00

Our ride into Effingham, IL was a long, hot one on a crappy and congested road but at the end of it my parents were waiting for me! It was so great to visit with them and give them a whirlwind tour of my summer. It's hard to convey how the trip really is when most times that I get to write anything I am exhausted and/or hungry and short on time. They got to meet everyone and document our build day in Springfield. They took me out for thai food (twice!) and to target for a supply run. It was great to see familiar faces again, it feels like it's been a long long time since I've connected with the real world. My favorite part of their visit by far was riding with them. That's right, my mom and dad rode with us and it was the highlight of my week. Dad rode the first 50 miles from Effingham to Springfield and rocked it. His longest ride prior to that day was 25 miles, so I was really proud of him for pushing through on such a hot day that was supposed to be flat but turned out kind of hilly. My mom rode the first 13 the morning we left Springfield before they headed back to Minnesota. Riding with them was so great! They got to have such a unique peek into our lives, how we interact on the road, how we spend our time and what songs we sing. Everyone was so supportive and cheered them on, it was such a nice experience for me, and it made my rides both days so much better!

My mom with Robby before taking off!

Lunch break at mile 44 with some shade!

Erica and I cross into Indiana...

...and into Indiana!

Here's Elizabeth and I being badass at the build site. Good times.

Churchill Downs and a day off!

2010-07-06T11:56:00.000-06:00

Back blogging some pictures of our first day off on July 3rd in Louisville, and our private tour of Churchill Downs! Having down time was the best thing ever, especially after a day in which the cue sheet was about eight miles off and Erica and I got confused and rode an extra fifteen... Once we arrived it was great to just hang out with no obligations. We went to the karaoke place down the street and sang until they closed. The next day Chris got us all passes to the pool/club down the street that had a 9 million gallon pool. It was gorgeous and so refreshing on such a hot day.

Doesn't it look like summer?

After dinner at Chris's parents house, with homemade ice cream, we made a massage train for our aching shoulders.

At Churchill Downs we got a private tour of the grounds, millionaires row, the VIP balcony... It was pretty cool. We even got to see the jockeys run the horses. Good times.

All of us.

I'll get some more pictures up as I can. Today I'm riding sweep on a 100+ mile day so I am currently sitting on the curb at a gas station waiting for Kristie to patch her flat. I hadn't realized how long it's been since I last posted! I got distracted by my parents visit, which was amazing, and which deserves a post of it's own in the near future.

113.83 MILES!!

2010-07-05T19:34:00.004-06:00

Woooo I did my first ever century ride! Here is Arthur and I at exactly mile 100:
Proof positive:

Luckily we were staying at a YMCA and we went straight from bicycle to pool to pavement:

crossing state lines left and right

2010-06-30T18:55:00.005-06:00

We made it to Kentucky yesterday afternoon, which seems like quite a milestone! Everything is still kind of blurred together and in my mind I remember cities by either the food we ate or the shower facilities we used instead of the town name. It's odd how long a day can be when you are sitting on your bike for 12 or 14 hours, but we have been pushing through like champs. Tomorrow is our first century, with 114 miles to Paris, KT and everyone is a little nervous. The heat shouldn't be too bad though and with such a long day ahead of us we wake up at 4am to get ahead of the mid day sun and eat two lunches throughout the day at around mile 40ish and mile 80ish. Sounds daunting, right? Today we had a build day in Flatwood, KT where we put up siding and built a deck. It's nice to have a day where so much is visibly accomplished by the end of it. It helps bring home the reason we are all here and why all of our blood sweat and tears are worth it in the end. Let's see...Ohio was my favorite state so far, but also one of the shortest. Having flat stretches of road helped break up the mountains and rolling hills we have been dealing with the past week, and for the most part the weather was cooler too. I've been having trouble with my knees (past injuries combined with extreme overuse now) but have been icing them and worked with a bike shop to adjust the cleats on my shoes so hopefully tomorrow will be more comfortable all around. We have all been getting stronger everyday, and learning to deal with the constant muscle pain and bruises that are all over our bodies. Other then that, we are all looking forward to our first day off in Louisville in just a few days. I am imagining sleeping in until noon and then not moving my body anymore then is necessary for the rest of the day....ahhhhh sounds nice. Now I must go take care of my chain so tomorrow is as easy as it can be. Picture time:

Using a chop saw at the build site today! It has a laser and was pretty fricken sweeeeet!

State lines!

The local soda that had twice as much caffeine as mountain dew...we became obsessed and poured it into our gatorade bottles. It was a fast paced day.

Tan lines are getting even better..

Checking off states on the trailer

My favorite day yet, watching the sunset with Mary Ellen while sitting on a fence overlooking a pasture... reminded me of grandma and grandpa.

Hello Ohio! It's nice to see that you're flat so far..

2010-06-28T08:40:00.006-06:00

The days have been long and hot, hot, hot. Today was a rough 85 miles simply because of the intense heat but we all survived and once we crossed into Ohio we ven got caught in a little bit of a rain storm that cooled us off. Here are some pictures of the past little while:

PA/WV? either way both were intense mountain climbing but here I am at the top of one about to ride a sweet descent!

Passing into Maryland from Pennsylvania happened at the top of a steep mountain and in the middle of a tough day, so this was all the energy I could muster for the occasion..

So glad to be done with this state, Ohio seems much better already!

My dashboard is complete now that I have my bell pepper secured in it's rightful place!

Here's Heather being ecstatic when a couple drove up to us at the top of a long steep hill and gave us water they had just bought at the gas station because they thought we looked thirsty. It was the best part of the ride!