At Long Last!

I have been so remiss in my blogging! Weeks and weeks without any posts is terrible - I know I should try to be more consistent. My beautiful sister-in-law has given me the nudge I needed to write again :) Thanks, Kristen!

So much has happened in the recent weeks so I'll give a brief synopsis:

1) I finished classes and clinics at CU! Originally, I was planning on taking incompletes in my classes because I thought I would be having a brain biopsy. But, when the biopsy was cancelled at the last minute, I got the opportunity to finish classes after all! It was dizzying getting back up to speed but I'm glad that it's over.

2) I moved to California! My mom and I left for California the day after my last final exam. I would like to have taken some extra time in Boulder to get things settled but we were rushing to California to make it to the last doctor's appointment we could get before January. There was an awful snowstorm in Utah that created a blizzard, we got a flat tire in the middle of the desert (luckily, we found a place that could repair the tire without much of a problem - I guess there's not much demand for tire repair work at 9:00pm in these places), and we had a three hour traffic jam from Las Vegas to the California border but, overall, it was fine. We stayed at a little hotel in Beaver, Utah that had a darn good breakfast spot attached and we had a great lunch in Las Vegas before heading out on the final leg of our journey to Pasadena.

3) My mom, Jeff, and I celebrated Christmas together! Jeff did an excellent job preparing the house for Christmas so, when my mom and I arrived after our very long drive, we found that stockings and a tree were waiting for us! We had so much fun exploring various sites in Pasadena. These included the Pasadena farmer's market, the Santa Monica farmer's market, and the LA farmer's market (for the record, I LOVE farmer's markets!). We saw several movies together (thanks to my mom who got us a blu-ray player for Christmas) and, generally, had a great time. Jeff had the excellent idea to make rice krispie treats for the holidays, which was fun. These were no ordinary rice krispie treats - some had Andes mints and green food coloring, some had red food coloring and were decorated with Red Hots, some had butterscotch chips and almonds, some were 'plain' with M&Ms. So delicious! My personal favorite were the ones with Andes mints but they were all really, really good.

4) Jeff and I celebrated New Year's Eve by backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park! We were both sad that my mom had to leave to go back to Colorado but we decided to take advantage of Jeff's five-days off and go backpacking in Joshua Tree National Park for New Years. We did car camping on the first day and then did two days of backpacking. It was so nice. The weather was beautiful - it was cold for a day or so but that was it - and we really got to reconnect after having been apart for so long. The scenery was beautiful and it was well worth it!

5) I started my internships! Originally, the coordinator at the LA School District had told me that I wouldn't start my internships until early February but my supervisors decided that I could start two weeks earlier if I wanted. So, I decided to go for it! I've been there for 7 work days so far and I LOVE it!!! There will certainly be many more postings on this topic but, for now, I'll say that I have three different schools where I work with two different supervisors. The kids are in Pre-K to 5th grade. I have about 70 kids total, with a variety of disorders like cleft palate, stuttering, learning disabilities, and autism. My two supervisors are very different from one another but they're each teaching me lots.

Overall, we're still in the process of getting settled here. Our stuff comes this weekend so we'll be busy unpacking and organizing things. I'm working on getting into a routine that includes cooking meals for 2 now, working out, learning my way around the various cities, and seeing the sites. We have so much planned to see and do that it will be a big adventure, with many postings to come!