I love enjoying life again!

YAY! Got to pick up my Regalia for graduation Monday afternoon. I tried everything on and for the most part it fits. I am just trying to figure out how to get these darn wrinkles out! Any suggestions are welcomed. I have tried the hot shower thing, but it seams to still be pretty wrinkly.

Additionally, I have had so much extra time during finals weak that I was able to run 6.5 miles today! Only stopping when cars tried to kill me while I was crossing the street. I ran from my place, down to Cal State Fullerton, up and around Craig Park, and back in. Lots of hills and LOTS of sun! Good thing I used SPF 100 today :D.

So far Dom and I are still on track this month with our New Years Resolutions! If you didn't know, in an attempt to not only work out on a regular basis, but also to improve our overall health, we decided to multiply the number that corresponds with each month (1-12) by 10. This total is then the number of miles that we will run each month. Because I have learned so much from PT school, I have made sure to periodize our running plans, and include some other good strengthening, power, resistance, endurance and agility work-outs.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Back To Blogging!

Instead of trying to re-cap all of the wonderful things that have happened since my last post like 2 x-mas' ago, I am going to try to pick up from the here and now.

I am finally SOO close to being done with my formal education! April 23rd I will officially finish all of my didactic course work for my Doctorates in Physical Therapy! I will then need to complete 2 more clinical rotations, 1 in acute care at St. Jude's Hospital, and 1 at an out-pt orthopedic clinic in Placentia. This time the clinicals are back to back, only 8 weeks apiece, to total the remaining 16 weeks of my education. So by August 10th, I will be completely done, Wheew! Now, don't be confused... I graduate before August. Commencement and the Degree Conferral Ceremony is on May 19th, at Chapman University. Stay tuned for more details regarding times, parking, and when/where to meet up for a bite to eat and to celebrate with me and the family!

Right now, I am working on a research project regarding pediatric physical therapy with some other students and faculty (don't want to spoil the topic focus for you just yet). If interested, check out my abstract at my graduation ceremony. Keep in mind, should I be given a spot to present my poster at the College of Schmidt Research Fair, you are invited to come and ask me more questions or just support me and my fellow students' hard work. I will keep you posted on this too.

On another note, Dom and I BOTH have new cars!! He got his beautiful new Mazda 2 last week. Of course, it's black like the night, and pretty sporty with a cute little hatchback. I thought I would share this cute little story with you, about why he wanted 4 doors, and how my series of love affairs with coupe's is unwarranted.

Dom is describing his new car to Gen, and we get to talking about cars with 4 doors. I feel they look funny, because I have only ever driven coupes, but he sets me straight pretty quick. In pure genuineness and without laughing the slightest, he says "We need a car with 4 doors. We will probably have our cars [the fiat and the mazda] for the next 5-6 years or so... It's [4 doors] for when we have babies."- Dominic

So cute Dommi :D

Silly Fun

Zaphora and Jaguar got little sardine plush toys that are filled with catnip for x-mas. They act like it is filled with crack or something. They flip it around in the air and roll all over the ground. So fun to watch!

Dom has been making sushi with the mat that I got him for his birthday. He also got two new cook books all about Japanese cuisine. Stay tuned for more of his yummy creations!

When we go to the grocery store we always try to pick of some unique fruit. Last time it was dragon fruit which actually doesn't taste like anything but looks really cool. This time, we found a huge green citrus looking fruit. When we cut it open it looked like this!.. tastes very similar to a grapefruit.

Silly Dominic!

Target had all different candies but in jumbo size. We got these Reese's Peanut butter cups which are each 0.5 lbs!! I tried to eat my share in one sitting which made me pretty sick to my stomach haha. The Playstation remote is just there for reference of the sheer size of these things.

We were hanging out over at the Coulombe's house and for some reason there was this blue gun that shot out bubbles. I thought this picture looked pretty cool because of the blue light and how intent she looks at shooting us with it!

As you can see, Addie thought this gun was awesome! She was shooting bubbles all over the place. The funniest parts were when she was trying to figure out how to shoot the gun, but instead of holding down the trigger, she kept tapping it. The gun, being quite loud with all kinds of lazer noises, the fan blowing, and stuff blowing up, sounded so funny. Everytime I look at this picture it makes me laugh now.

Here are some colorful drinks we had at dinner with the Kluver's. They were so tasty!

I didn't know that this kind of stuff was sold in vending machines these days. They had everything from diapers to food, as well was pacifiers and kaleidoscopes. My favorite was this "my little pony" doll, because it reminded me of when I was a kid. Realistically though...what will they come up with next?? My dad told me that in china you could get pirated movies. I don't know what else we could do with a vending machine. I just thought this was so weird and silly to see!!

X-MAS

This was our x-mas tree this year. I used a white bow on top and a lot of the same ornaments from last year with the addition of a small lion Dom picked out and a purple glass owl that I got. I love our tree this year, it is much fuller and smells wonderful. It is still in our house today at the end of Jan! Jaguar sleeps under it every night. I just can't bring myself to take it away from him lol.

Good ol' Cougie! It was so fun watching Dom pull our tree out of the back of my car. My car smelled like a forest for like 2 weeks!

This year, we invited the family down to our place to open presents and eat dinner. We made brussel sprouts, pork chops, mashed potatoes, and had steamed green beans. MMM mm MM!

Dom got two head lamps so that he would be extra prepared for roughing it with us out in the woods!

He also got a really nice hat from Mom.

I finally got a GPS! I have used it almost everyday since X-mas. I love it!!

We got Dad one of those metal things that massages your head. He thought it tickled more than it felt good! haha

Thanksgivng

We had Thanksgiving dinner in SB the night of the marathon with some of my old co-workers from the athletic training room at UCSB. It was a wonderful meal! Here is the alumni board that one of the younger girls made. I thought it was so sweet of them to keep us in mind when decorating the training room!On Thanksgiving day we drove up to Mom and Dads to visit them and the puppies. Dad taught Dom how to deep fry the turkey the Wallace way. They made a great team :)

Dom loves to make us laugh. Here he is just being goofy after we got the turkey all ready to go into the cooker! Gotta love my Canadian!

The Long Awaited Update!

I have had quite a few requests about an update on my blog. I have fallen pretty far behind! So as a quick update, here are a few pictures from the recent holiday season.

Here I am at the finish of my first Marathon! WOW! It was sOOO long I thought I would never be done. I ran the first 13 mi, and then I alternated walking and running every .5 mi until the finish. I will deff need to train more for the next one! I had a blister on mi 7 but that has finally healed up. Dominic is now considering training with me for the next race, date TBA.

That Evening we walked down to the pier from our hotel to find things to entertain us. This cannon and the crazy chicken were among the most interesting of the adventures that evening.

Catching the sunset after a very long day. This was a great weekend!

A lil' SB Love

I needed to go to SB a couple weekends ago for an event with my old co-workers. I went on a walk along the bluff and got a few pretty pictures :D Enjoy!