My goodness, where has the time gone! I can't believe it's September! As you have probably noticed, we have been a little preoccupied and have not been very attentive to our blog. But no fear, nothing too terribly exciting has happened in our lives! Probably the most exciting thing was that Peter was able to travel to South America for his International Business course back in May, and as I was unable to tag along, I will continue to bother him about writing a little something about his travels and post some pictures for all to see! Anyway, I thought it was about time to update our blog and share a little about what we've been doing.

In addition to his trip to South America, Peter also began his 6 month corporate residency at Raytheon back in July. He is working as a financial analyst for the company and is unfortunately learning more about working with difficult people rather than finance, but this will hopefully change as he continues to accumulate more responsibilities, hopefully. He will return for his final 2 semesters in January and graduate in August, a full 2 years before me! Aside from work and classes, Peter discovered a soccer league through a friend and is now playing again! I attended the first game of the season and had such a good time watching him play!

As for me, I have been on my little summer vacation since August 12th and will return to classes after Labor Day. After a long and challenging 1st year of PT school, I decided I needed to do some fun and relaxing stuff for my 3 week break! The first Saturday after finals, we rented a 2 person kayak and spent a couple hours kayaking along the Charles River. It was so nice to get out and do something fun without thinking about school! Then I took a trip down to Atlanta and spent some time with mom. We just relaxed, saw some movies and exercised. I took her to see Bodies the Exhibition that was in the area and we spent hours in there! I had a great time reviewing my anatomy and sharing my newly acquired knowledge of neuroscience with mom. Then after I came back, Peter and I spent last weekend camping in New Hampshire with some friends that recently moved to Boston. We camped outside of the town of Lincoln and went on a hike in the Franconia Notch State Park. It was cool and rainy, but we had a great time relaxing in the mountains and escaping from city life for a few days. Now I am enjoying my last week of vacation before heading back to a challenging semester. My classes with be pharmacology, cardiopulmonary management and musculoskeletal management 1, so even though hard, this semester should be getting into more clinically relevant skills which is exciting!

Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment. Please check out our new photo album titled Summer Adventures 2009 on the left, and hope all is well with everybody!!!

Spring Break

So, I have finally found some time to sit down and update our blog! Peter and I spent our Spring Break this year in Utah. We decided to go home, stay with family, see friends and who can forget, go skiing!!!  We packed up 1 bag and flew 5 hours west, and finally made it!  Our weekend began by doing some errands in Salt Lake, shopping in Park City, having a family dinner and seeing some friends at a friends bar in Park City! It was a blast. Our week could only get better as we skied at Deer Valley on Monday and Friday and skied at Snowbird on Thursday.  Monday was warm so the snow was not that great and we did not go skiing on Wednesday as it was even warmer and windier. Not good skiing conditions. So our snow prayers were answered as a storm came through Wednesday night and we were greeted with some classic Utah powder at Snowbird on Thursday! Fantastic!!  Tuesday was our day to get things done in Salt Lake. We started off at the dentist, fun, then Peter did some errands and past the time with his parents while I went up to the U of U campus and saw some old teachers and friends! It was so great to see everybody up there! Then Peter and I met up with my old coworkers from the PT clinic I used to work at in SLC  for dinner.  I had a great time sharing my new knowledge of PT with some professionals!  Then Wednesday night we traveled back to SLC to see some friends for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant!  It was great to spend time with the people we miss and catch up on all our lives. Sporadically throughout our visit we shopped at the Park City outlets and tripled our luggage home! We couldn't help it as shopping for clothes is generally pretty expensive out here in beantown!  All in all we had a great time seeing family and friends and of course we loved getting out on the mountains.  So that was our Spring Break! For those of you on Facebook, I posted pictures on there as well, but hopefully the album on here will have some different ones, so please take a look!!

The Countdown 'Til Freedom Begins

With one semester down for the both of us, we are beginning to see the very distant and small light at the end of the tunnel.  Even though we both can't wait until that light gets closer and bigger, we are so happy to have successfully completed our first semester of graduate school!  For a while there, we weren't too sure if we were going to make it, and it didn't help that Peter came down with a cold right before finals week, but I am happy to report that we both survived on about 3 hours of sleep or less and completed all our final papers and exams! Yay! So I finished my last final exam on Wednesday, 12/17.  That night my DPT class had an "ugly sweater Christmas party" at one of the girls houses.  I did not have an ugly sweater, but my classmates came to my rescue and bought me an ugly sweater from a thrift store!  It was a Nutcracker theme with point shoes on the front and a nutcracker on the back! We did secret santa's and somehow the girl I had turned out to be my secret santa too!  What were the odds :)

So after a night full of fun, I slept in while Peter had to go to his last class of the semester.  When I rolled over and saw the time I figured I needed to jump out of bed and get ready as fast as I could because Peter's MBA class was doing a "pub crawl" right after their class got out at 12:30pm!  So after getting ready I met Peter and his class down at one of the bars across from campus.  After ordering our food, the groups said we only had about 5 minutes left until they were moving on to the next bar, so we ate faster than usual and left with the group. Six bars later, we decided we were tired, our feet hurt, and we were getting poorer by the minute, so we broke off and went home.  One of my classmates was hosting another get together last night, but after 2 days of partying, we were tired!  So now we are kicking back, sleeping in and enjoying being on break!! All I have to say is thank goodness that semester is over and we definitely celebrated well!! :)

Thanksgiving in DC!

So this year Peter and I traveled to Washington DC to spend Thanksgiving with his sister, Melissa, not only because we are now closer to her (being on the east coast and stuff) but because she just had a baby girl!! (check out the new album on the left!) Emmelline Carney was born November 12, 2008! Another November baby! We rock :) !  Anyway, Peter's mom Polly was already there helping Melissa and her husband Marc with Emmelline, and then we show up Wednesday morning before Thanksgiving.  So because I am allergic to cats :(, and Melissa has 3, Marc's parents were kind enough to invite all of us to stay with them for the holiday.  So it was a full house of family and it was very fun! Peter and I got to spend some quality time with our new niece, and when it was time to go, it was hard to say goodbye to her!  All in all, it was a fun holiday and we are so excited to be Aunt Sam and Uncle Peter!  I was also fortunate to have lunch with very good friends from Utah, Geri and Seth.  I lived with Geri for 2 years in college and Seth walked my mom down the isle at my wedding, so these 2 are very special friends and I am so happy that we were able to have lunch with them in Baltimore before we flew home! 

Thank you David and Linda Carney for inviting us into your home and for the wonderful food! Thanks Polly, Melissa, Marc and Emmelline for a wonderful visit and a great holiday, and thank you Geri and Seth for lunch and the drive to the airport! We had a great time and I can't wait until our next trip to DC!

Beer Irony

I don't think the irony found in this beer needs any further explanation. 

And by the way, it' s pretty good.

Check out our photo albums

If you haven't already, you should check out our photo albums listed on the left side of the page. Sometimes we find the time to add pictures, but neglect to comment on them. The most recent album, titled Boston Autumn, is just a few pictures from a couple of weeks ago. They were taken right after a rain storm. I originally grabbed the camera because there was an amazing double rainbow at the end of our street, but by the time I made it back outside it was gone. So I wandered over to the reflecting pool and found the water was like glass. It was a very serene and relaxing moment as I was able to snap a few photos before the wind kicked up again.

I have to explain the last picture in this album... Boston wildlife seems to be limited to pigeons, finches, seagulls, and the occasional squirrel (unless you consider the less desirable animals as well - mice, rats, etc.). I am also neglecting the Harvard turkey, as he seems to be an unusual phenomenon. One day we found this random cockatiel, and I couldn't help but take a picture. Some random guy came up and said he finds them every now and then, and that he tries to catch them and take them home. So we're not sure where the cockatiel came from, but apparently he's not the only one flying around Boston.

A Great Day In American History

November 4, 2008.  We awoke to the most awful sound in the world, yes the alarm clock. However, instead of hitting the snooze until we leave ourselves with only 10 minutes to get to class, we got out of bed excited to do our civic duty (well to some extent) and go vote!  We walked out of our front door and halfway down our street to our polling location.  At 7am the line was very long!  To our surprise it moved fairly quickly, and within ~ 30 minutes we were holding our ballots.  For the first time I had educated myself on all the issues on our ballot instead of just making a guess or a quick judgment, so it didn't take me very long to fill out.  I did however check my presidential selection about 5 times just to make sure I filled in the little bubble nest to Obama's name!  After turning in my ballot I waited outside for Peter for another 5 or so minutes. I was beginning to wonder what was taking him so long, but when he found me he said he was double checking to make sure he selected Obama as well!  We then continued home with big smiles on our faces, went back to sleep, then finally went to class.

We both got home around 6-6:30pm and were excited to have our election party (just Peter and I, the TV, and good food)!  We were prepared to stay up as long as it took to find out the results.  But, forgetting what time zone we were in, we were wondering why at around 7pm no polls were in and the news hadn't really started their coverage.  Well, apparently we're not in Utah anymore, so the evening got started later than we were used to!  Being impatient, we decided to walk to the store and get ingredients to make tacos and guacamole.  Once we returned, the east coast had started reporting.  Massachusetts went to Obama...Yay! For the first time our votes counted!!!  How exciting!  For a moment we both had the feeling that wow, democracy can work after all!  Not only did Obama win Massachusetts, but every issue and person we voted for won, except Issue # 2: decriminalizing marijuana.  We voted no, but by close to a 70-30 split, the issue passed.  Oh well, you can't have it all!  Anyway, as the evening continues, we are getting more hopeful and it's getting more exciting.  At around 10:55pm I decide to put the food away and clean up and Peter says "they're announcing Obama as President!"  What!! It's only 11pm!!!  Having been crushed in both the 2000 and 2004 elections, I was skeptical to get to excited, but this time it was for real.  

After McCain's speech, which I was very impressed with by the way, we were waiting for Obama's speech.  At one point Peter said "mute the TV", so I did, and out our window (which is open by the way even though it's cold outside because we have a mystery smell...don't ask because we don't know!) we heard tons of people chanting "Obama".  Peter in his pj's was so curious so he ran outside to see what was going on while I stayed glued to the TV not wanting to miss the speech.  He comes back saying that there were extremely large groups of people walking down our street headed who knows where.  Well, anyway, Obama then came on and gave his speech.  I'm going to sound like an emotional nerd but I almost cried several times, but held it back!  I would encourage anyone who has not watched his speech to go online and watch it.  I have never felt so inspired by a politician in my life and I really do feel grateful to be a part of this time in American history.

The main point of blogging about this night is this section.  After Obama's speech, we saw on the local news that there were crowds of people near our apt, in the reflection pool that is in our photo album of boston!  So we changed out of "comfy clothes" and ran outside to the pool.  There were people everywhere and there was an indescribable electricity in the air.  Every person we passed was smiling, cheering, yelling Obama's name and clearly excited!  Along Massachusetts Avenue (a main through street separating our street from the reflection pool) people were honking car horns, some to mimic the slogan "yes we can" or "O-bam-a" (depending on how you interpret horn talk), people were hanging out of car windows yelling and cheering, people were singing, music students from a nearby music college were making their own little make-shift marching bands, and overall it was madness!  We made it to the reflection pool where people were wading in the pool, some people were trying to get the crowds attention and make speeches, everyone was chanting "Obama", "yes we can", "yes we did", the pledge of allegiance was said, the national anthem was sung, and again, madness!  There were cops around but they were standing back letting people have a good time, however we did smell pot, lots of it.  Apparently some people decided to take immediate advantage of the new law that passed.  We think they were having their own little celebration of sorts.

We stayed for about 15 minutes and decided to go home, along our way passing more excited people.  All I could could think about on the walk home was, wow.  This is a day that I am going to remember forever, and this is something that we will share with our children and say we were there, we were a part of this moment in history.  I think that is amazing.