November Update

Hello family & friends! It's been too long! This fall has been a crazy, busy, and life-filled season for both of us.

Brian is doing well and looking studly in his new glasses courtesy of our optometrist friend Ketan, who finally helped convince him to get new ones.

His second year of residency is going well, too. There is much more responsibility, but he's taken it in stride and is confidently taking care of the area's youngest. It really is amazing to hear all of his stories and to realize how freakin' smart he is (don't tell him I said that--can't encourage him too much, you know).

As for me, the fall has been a litany of things: wonderful, stressful, educational, tiring, and yet encouraging. Even with 5 years of teaching experience under my belt, it is always difficult to start a new school year in a new place--especially with a new-to-me content area and curriculum--but difficult doesn't equal bad. I love my school, my students, and my colleagues; I've learned a lot about myself, my teaching style, and my content; and I've been blessed with lots of invaluable support to help me along the way. I'm slowly figuring out what needs to be done to make it all work, and it's definitely been getting better/easier as I go. It's just hard sometimes to be the "new kid," ya know? Especially when you're like me and want to do it right/well the first time. But, as with many things in life, I have to learn to take it in stride since "being new" will be happening many more times in the future as we continue our military moving adventures. I find this quote to be extra relevant and motivating when thinking of these types of things:

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.  Theodore Isaac Rubin 

With all that said, I'm tired but I'm happy. And I'm continually encouraged by the hard-working, dedicated educators that I work with--today especially. We went as a staff to a study group through the San Diego Area Writing Project (SDAWP), and got to collaborate with other area educators on how to improve student writing. We put ourselves in our students' shoes, writing on six different topics,  and had to be vulnerable enough to share what we wrote others. It really makes you think about the process students go through as they are learning to write--not to mention how difficult it can still be even for grown people who have been writing their entire lives. My particular study group will be focusing on digital writing (which is what prompted this slightly disjointed post) and I'm excited to see what our readings and discussions will bring about in terms of improving students' digital writing worlds.

Ok, that's all that my brain can produce for now. Until next time, friends. :)

August is Awesome

Can you believe August is halfway over already?? Crazy how quickly the time can fly! August has been an especially good month so far for many reasons:

It's my birthday month :)
This is the first time in the past couple of years that I've been "home" for my birthday. Dinner with close friends, singing, and dancing was the recipe for the night and it turned out wondrously. 

Mom & Grandma came to explore San Diego. 

(I'm counting this as August since they were still here on the first and also because we didn't write a July post... or a May/June one for that matter....) 

We did as full of a tourist experience that we could cram into one week including the zoo, safari park, the beach, etc. Mom & Gram even got to experience a bunch of home cooked meals by yours truly, which was quite the shocker since they've never known me to cook at all back in Michigan. Good news is, they survived all of it (cooking included!).

I started my new job at SDGVA.

I'll be teaching middle school English most of the day and a class of Spanish each afternoon. I love the school I'm working at (it's where I did almost all of my subbing this spring) and I'm super excited to see what this new year & new content area will bring!

We sang karaoke to my heart's content.

If you haven't heard or seen my renditions of Hakuna Matata or Total Eclipse of the Heart then you're really missing out!

Brian is on a lighter rotation, so he actually has some time to relax & hang out.

And Brian having free time usually means taking ridiculous pictures. Never mind the fact that I often prompt the taking of said pictures. Ok, moving on now.

Dan & Sarah came to visit from Florida. 

Dan is one of our favorite people from our time in DC, so spending time with him & his awesome bride-to-be was a special treat. Brian was in perma-grin mode all weekend :) 

Went to my first pro football game.

The Chargers lost to the Seahawks, but we had a good time taking it all in. I'd go again, but I'd much rather be at a Michigan game any day!

Got to spend some quick quality time with Nate & Amy during their brief SD visit.

It's always fun to watch Brian interact with his closest friends--he and Nate could have their own variety show if they wanted to, but don't tell them that!

Game nights, happy hours, more birthdays, and beach time.

Kinley's birthday was a blast too. I love August birthdays ;)

And we're only halfway through! Whew! It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The reality of going back into the classroom paired with doing/writing my action research project to complete my Masters is going to kick my butt soon enough, so I'm happy to enjoy this time of fun, sun, and friends. There's much more to catch up on since we last posted in April, like the infamous Comic-Con, but I'll leave that to Brian to do later as I'm sure I wouldn't do it justice. Stay happy, friends!

Old Friends & New Adventures

This past week or so has been filled with both meeting up with old friends and experiencing new things, which has been awesome for the living-life-to-the-fullest experiences but not so good for my studying. However, I have no regrets about this. Life is meant to be lived and people are an important priority. It just means that I'll have to be on work lock down this weekend, and I'm ok with that.

First I got to have dinner with my rival college pole vaulting friend Brian and his wife Lucy. They've been out here for a little over two years and he is also in the Navy as a pilot. It was really wonderful to be able to meet up, catch up, and share stories. I'm hoping that we'll be able to get together & hang out more in the future :)

Next was a meal with Adrian friend Michael and his wife and daughter. I hadn't seen Michael since we graduated high school so it was really nice to reminisce, talk about family, and what we've been up to since. He and his wife are/were both Navy out here as well, but are getting out soon and heading back to Michigan in the near future. It's a small world and the Navy makes it even smaller sometimes.

Finally Kristin got to come visit for a few days tagged onto a friend's wedding. Seeing a familiar face and catching up like old times is definitely a treasured time. I'm so glad she was able to get a couple of extra days off to hang out for while!

Me & Kristin at Dining Out

Some of the new things I/we were able to do recently were a day trip to Tijuana, an exploration of Legoland, our first attempts at paddleboarding, and my first Navy dining out experience. Tijuana is going to have a be a post by itself--lots learned & experienced there. But here's a pic in the meanwhile.

Planting trees at the Valle del Campo school yard & giving them some water 

Legoland was a fun day! It was great to be a big kid, to ride some (small) rides, and to run around oooh-ing and ahhh-ing at the lego structures. There are a ton of complex, detailed creations there--I can't even imagine how one would go about trying to put those together! Blew my mind!

A Mini-Washington DC, all made out of Legos--so cool!

Hanging out with a giant Lego man named Max

Paddleboarding was something that I would definitely do again. We went with the USD Grad & Law students out to Mission Point, thinking it would be nice, sunny weather when we signed up a couple of weeks ago. No such luck. It was cold, windy, rainy, and very atypical San Diego weather. We stayed anyway, bundled up in our layers, and made it out on the water. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be--balancing on the board wasn't much of a problem and steering around was just like a kayak in many ways. I could see it being a lot more difficult out on open ocean waters with waves, etc, but being in an inlet made for a very positive first time experience.

Bundled up & ready to try it out

So far, so good. Staying upright!

And finally Dining Out with the Intern class. I was told that it wasn't a "real" dining out experience since they weren't in their uniforms and didn't go through some of the traditional things, but we had a great time nonetheless. It was held out on Coronado and included dinner, drinks, and dancing--so authentic or not we had a great time. It's always good for Brian and the other interns to get a chance to relax. They've been working their butts off and deserve a break like this for sure.

All dressed up for dining out

The Peds boys

Lovely ladies

Overall, it's been a great week or so! But now time to get back to the grind and hopefully get some of this work done. The end of the semester is creeping up and will be here before I know it! (So if there's no new posts for a while, you now know why ;) )

A Night at the Opera

New posts in the same week? Just don't expect it regularly :P

On Friday we went to see the San Diego Opera performance of "Murder in the Cathedral". Being a full-time student I was able to get a handful of discounted tickets (only $10 a piece!), so we made a friends outing of it. With the student pricing we weren't able to pick our seats and were expecting to be back in a nosebleed section--boy were we wrong! We had great orchestra seats, just off center, and were able to see quite well. 

"Murder in the Cathedral" is about the assassination of Thomas Beckett and is an Italian opera written by Pizzetti. The set was simple, but beautiful, and it was a fun experience! The only think I think I'd do differently next time is to be sure to thoroughly read the storyline synopsis beforehand so I could focus more on the singing and stage movements and less putting together the plot. 

Opera night with fun friends

View from our seats

The playbill/program

My cute date :)

Traveling Adventures and Other Happenings

Hmm....two months between posts..... In our defense we've been working hard and having a blast, so that counts for something, right?

Grad school is going well but is definitely keeping me busy. I'm currently working on my action research project proposal and man, I am glad I did not go into the research field for a living! I'm really interested in my topic (using positive psychology-based methods to improve student happiness and overall success) but there's so much information that it gets frustrating to sort through it all sometimes. What keeps me going though is knowing that the reading and research I do will directly impact my students and my teaching--so that makes it all worth it in the long run :) On top of classes, I'm going through the job search process to hopefully find a teaching position for the fall. Although I'm really enjoying my classes, I can't wait to get back in the classroom full-time again. So fingers crossed that I can find somewhere as awesome as MEH and ACLA were/are!

Brian has, not surprisingly, been working his butt off. Intern year is much like people warned us it would be with him working long hours and sometimes crazy shift schedules. He still loves pediatrics, but we were both excited when he finally had a couple of rotations where he could take leave. We took advantage of his vacation days and were blessed to be able to do a fair amount of traveling during that time. 

First there was San Antonio for Nate the Great's wedding, 

then we went up to Seattle to visit Mama & Papa Taylor, 

and down to Portland to see sister Katy, Matt, & the kids,

and most recently we went out to Hawaii to spend some time with our friends Drew & Sara. 

Blessed really is the only word for it. As much as it stinks to be far away from family and many of our friends, I love that we live in a time where we can 1.) visit them so easily, 2.) keep connected via texts/calls/facebook, and 3.) pick up right where we left off. We love to travel and hope to do a lot more of it in the future to continue visiting family & friends. 

But it hasn't all been happy fun times. Brian's Aunt Joyce passed away in February. Death is never easy to deal with, so being able to visit his family was timely and healing. Aunt Joyce loved life, so toasting to her, sharing fond memories, and enjoying the trip with her on our minds seemed like things she would have wanted us to do. 

Living life to the fullest and loving those around us--that's really what it's all about, and what we hope to do. 

Folksvacation

I know you've all been thirsty for another post by Brian The Procrastinant, well prepare to be quenched!  Cuz here's a post comin at ya!  Warning, this will be fairly self indulgent and rambly.  You've been forewarned (the best kind of warned).

My folks came to visit over my birthday weekend.  This is the first time they've been out since we moved to San Diego, so I was eager to show them our new place and all of the great spots we've discovered in the city.  I was on an Orthopedics cast-room rotation, which is a relatively light rotation as far as intern year goes.  Unfortunately they still make you work.  So my Lovely Wife hung out with and entertained them during most of Thursday and Friday.  She's pretty amazing (I don't even know if she reads this blog so this is unsolicited praise).

On Thursday she took them to some of the museums in Balboa Park.  Balboa is a big park to the Northeast of downtown.  We live right at the edge of it.  It has a bunch of running trails, museums, the Naval Hospital, (and a really cool bridge, if you're into that kinda thing, which I am, so for real, it's cool).  She took them to the Museum of Man, which is in a building that looks like some old Spanish church (I'm pretty sure it was built during the world expo in the park in the early 1900's).  They had some cool exhibits that I got to hear all about when I got out of work that day.  Intern year has a pretty good track record for keeping me from doing cool stuff.  Anyway, we went to a restaurant right across the street from our place called Chaplos which is new, good, kinda weird, and always worrying me that it's gonna go out of business.  We had some vino, good foods, and made our way back over to the Park.  There's a theater right by the museums called The Old Globe that was playing Pygmalion.  That's the play that the musical My Fair Lady is based on.  Maureen and I had bought tickets a month before and had it all planned out to take them there.  At the box office they didn't have our tickets, so I took out my iPhone to show them the records.  Unfortunately, my records showed that we had tickets for Sunday, not Thursday.  My folks didn't mind the mix up, so we took them downtown to a restaurant/bar called Neighborhood that has a speakeasy in the back called Noble Experiment.  They didn't have room for us at first and I began to despair that I wouldn't be able to entertain my folks at all. We walked around the block and my Dad bought a bottle of wine (knowing my Dad, not a cheap one) and we were just gonna head back to the place and drink and chat, but I got a text from the speakeasy that they had a spot for us at the bar.  So we decided to drink and chat there instead.  I was a little worried my folks wouldn't like it, because the place is pretty hipster trendy, but they loved it.  The bartender makes drinks based on your general booze and taste preferences.  I got some kind of scotch/ginger blend, Maureen got what ended up being a mojito/shave ice/changing bitters flavors as it melted confection, my dad got a Hunters Moon, which blended egg white and whiskey.  My Mom told the bartender she liked Brandy straight.  The bartender accepted the challenge and made a crazy good brandy with some other liqueur.  Half the fun is watching the bartender make up all of the crazy concoctions.  If anyone reading this is ever in town, we'll take you there, it's an experience.  It made for a good night, it was great seeing the folks in person, and we all went home happy.

Friday I worked again.  Maureen took the folks to the Zoo (seriously, stupid intern year keeps fun blocking like a pro).  I got home and Amazing Wife had made dark chocolate pistachio cookies and they'd opened the bottle of wine my Dad got from the night before.  I joined right in.  Then I got to open presents!  It was double presents as we'd held off on Christmas till they got out, and I got birthday stuff from them too!  I got an awesome wood and glass watch box from them aaaaand my wife (great minds!)  They were worried I wouldn't want both of them, but having two made room and an excuse for my rapidly expanding watch collection, so I loved 'em!  Then we went out to Coronado to 1500 Ocean, a really nice restaurant in Hotel Del overlooking the water, for my birthday dinner.  Great food, a really fun waiter, and a great time with the folks.  Once I got over my teenagery angst (around age 26 for me), I realized I have amazing parents, and I love hanging out with them.

Saturday we strolled the Little Italy farmers market and went to Prep Kitchen for brunch.  Then we headed out to Point Loma.  There's a museum, a monument to Cabrillo the Portugese/Spanish explorer who was the first European to land in San Diego bay, and a light house that has been returned to its early 1900 conditions as a museum.  Fun and beautiful afternoon.  Went to Lion's Share that evening, one of my favorite SD restaurants and had a great meal.

Since my folks like the Little Italy market so much, we went by the Hillcrest farmers market on Sunday and got even more stuff.  Then we headed out to Torrey Pines for a walk.  We were not the only ones with that idea though, and the parking lot at the base of the cliffs was closed because it was too full.  So we headed back to the sun deck at our place and had a picnic with all of the stuff we'd gotten at the market.  A friend of mine had given us a bottle of Pliny the Elder beer too, so we cracked that open to fully enjoy the sunny San Diego January (it was about 70 degrees out).  Nice afternoon.  As we were resting to get ready for the play in the evening I got a phone call stating that a cast member was sick, and the evening's performance was cancelled.  Pygmalion was not to be.  So we walked downtown without any time constraints and went to one of Maureen's favorite spots, Cafe 21.  We had sangria and great food.  My Mom in particular really like the place.  We had a blast with the folks and then all too soon they had to head out.  We took them to the aeropuerto on Monday morning and they headed home.  We're gonna go see them at the end of February and I'm already all excited about it.  Fortunately my wife puts up with me wanting to hang out with the folks all the time really well.  They absolutely love her too, so it makes it pretty easy on ol' Gorgeous and Humble (little nick name I came up with for misself).  Anyway, great times.  Hope you've enjoyed the ramblings.  It gives you a taste of whats in store for you if you come visit (Tailored ((pun most strongly intended)) to your preferences of course).

Brian's birthday dinner at 1500 Ocean

Holiday Happenings

Hello friends!

It's been a crazy month or so, which means much less posting than the intended 1+ post per week, but these things do happen. I feel like we've lived a lot of life and emotions over the past few short weeks and to sum them up may not do them justice, but I will do my best:

• Residency Matching: Probably the biggest life-affecting event from the past month has been finding out our future via the Military Match (where all interns are told whether they get to go straight through to a residency program or are going to be out in the fleet for two years or so as general medical officers, etc). At first we were told that Brian was an alternate, which was rough news to hear. We had really been hoping to go straight through in order to stay in one place for a little while and to make it easier for me to finish up grad school. We accepted the news and were mentally preparing to travel to some far off place when Brian was told that a spot opened up and that we would be staying in San Diego for his residency. Whew! What a relief! Even though it would have been an adventure, I don't think I was fully ready to pack up and move again so soon. It's a huge blessing to be able to be in San Diego for another 2+ years and we're excited to continue cultivating our relationships out here. Also, now that I know that we're staying I can start looking for a teaching job for the fall. I really miss being in the classroom so it will be wonderful to return to teaching if, God willing, I can find a job in the area.
  
  
• Maureen's 10 year high school reunion: I can't believe that high school was already ten years ago... and yet I can. We've lived so much life since then and people have definitely evolved and changed, but in good ways from what I can tell. It was really nice to see everyone and to catch up, especially with those who aren't on Facebook. Social media has surely changed the 'need' for high school reunions to keep up with classmates' lives, but I think it also allows for more real conversation to happen rather than purely giving superficial facts over and over again. For example, I knew a classmate is currently active duty because of Facebook so we had a really great conversation about our experiences so far. Granted this conversation might have happened anyway, but it felt natural and was nice to have a little bit of background information to supplement people's stories as we talked. Overall, I had a great time (more fun than I had initially expected) and I'm looking forward to seeing what the next one will bring.
  
  
• End of USD grad semester #1: Going back to school full-time has been an adventure in itself. Time management, mass production of work, and not having students of my own have all been challenging to adjust to but I've really enjoyed the chance to really focus on my studies and have learned so much already. The end of the semester was a little rough with large final projects due for multiple classes, but I got through it--and thankfully did well in the process. USD is a great school and I feel very blessed that I have this opportunity to focus on learning and hopefully become a better educator in the process.
  
  
• Home to Michigan for the holidays: Since Brian had to work nights over Christmas and New Year's I took the opportunity to go home to see my family. It was great to celebrate Christmas the way we always have: Christmas Eve candlelight service, presents with family Christmas morning, Orange Ruffy dinner at Grandma Max's, a rowdy cribbage tournament, and a nice Christmas nap :) The rest of the visit was filled with family adventures and seeing local friends (but unfortunately no trips to Holland). I love that there are people in my life that have known me since my middle school years or before and still want to hang out! :) Even if it's been years since we've seen each other last, the friendship is still there and still strong. Definitely left feeling very blessed for having all of these wonderful people in my life!
  
  
• New Year's Eve in the hospital: After many years of elaborate NYE plans it was time for a more mellow one. Bri was still working nights on the pediatric wards so I went in to ring in the new year with him there. As to be expected in a pediatric unit, things were pretty quiet and calm since all of the children were already sleeping, but we still had a countdown and a sparkling cider toast at midnight. To encourage the lighthearted fun we brought a handfull of party favors (hats, glasses/masks, leis, etc) and I baked up some desserts for those that had to work overnight with him. I thought there was sure to be leftovers but Bri came home with empty containers so I guess it all turned out alright :) Even though I wasn't there long and they all had to go right back to work, it was nice to be able to start the new year off with my better half especially since we didn't get to celebrate Christmas together.

2012 was a pretty awesome year and 2013 is sure to be one of growth, change, and excitement. I can't wait to see what new adventures lie ahead and hope that you all will continue to be a part of the experience with us.  We love your guys and wish you the Happiest of New Years! 

AHS 10-year High School Reunion
(Photo credit: Jenny Sanderson)

Tigre helping me finish out the semester

Family time over Christmas

Ringing in the New Year