Since Thanksgiving

What have we been up to, well a lot I guess

Making Beer!!!! We made this amazing winter warmer which we enjoyed all holiday season.

Backpacking right before Thanksgiving and we carried up a whole Thanksgiving meal which was amazing, sadly though David couldn't join us.

Visiting Ian and Brooke (David's cousin and his wife) in New Orleans after Thanksgiving which was amazing!!!

The levees that broke at the ninth ward have now been fixed however only a 1/5 of the houses have been replaced, sadly

COCKTAIL TOUR!!!

Ian at work, he's the director of operations for the Saints.

At the Saints vs Patriots game

Brooke and her friends and myself

Olive, the best Christmas present ever!!!

Colleen, Pat and I on Christmas morning

Olive recovering from a fun filled weekend

Lier Christmas

Mary and Jesse visit the states

New York, New York

The Advertising at night, bigger than life

This post should have been written weeks ago but I've been so busy with so many other things in life that posting has not been on the top of my list but I'm sitting in the airport right now and thought I'd place some photos up. Back at the beginning of November David and I had the opportunity to spend an evening and day in NYC and it being my first time in the city it was quite an adventure. David went on Friday early with his classmates and enjoyed the day at a couple different galleries and speaking with professional photographers in the city and I joined up Friday evening, spending the night at a local hostile and then wandering around the city the next day. It rained off and on but we enjoyed the MET, Central Park, stopped by a gallery that represents one of David's professors and were able to visit some friends of mine from college that I hadn't seen in a couple years. Overall it was a wonderful time.

The city at night, it was amazing

Our bunks in our hostle

We enjoyed breakfast at this delicious French Bakery, right on 79th next to the park

Central Park

The M.E.T.

David and I in the MET 

A wedding to remember...

Jeff & Jess the morning of the wedding

I know many of you have been asking to see pictures from Jess & Jeff Hipp's wedding but before I posted them I wanted to make sure they had seen the photographs before sharing with the world. We have handed off the photographs so I am excited to be able to post a couple from a very fun wedding.

Jess and Jeff got married at a quaker meeting house in the traditional quaker way for the most part, in silent worship. It was an absolutely incredibly beautiful day and the service was amazing, filled with family and friends who have been moved by these two people in so many ways, we were all celebrating with words, prayers, tears and laughter. 

Bride and groom morning of the wedding

Jeff and his grandmother

Jess and her father before the ceremony 

The happy couple after the ceremony - no pictures were taken during the ceremony, it's quaker tradition which was upheld. 

Parading from the ceremony to the reception in Harvard Sq.

Father-Daughter Dance

First dance

Table settings with Jessica's incredible homemade pear butter - a gift for each guest

The cake

40+hrs per week

www.radiushospital.com

As having just graduated this past May and passing my boards in June I spent July and August doing research and applying to jobs in Boston for my first full time position as a licensed physical therapist. This past summer I chose to work at two previous clinical locations as a per diem PT to provide them with help over the summer when others are taking vacation and giving myself the freedom to not work a definite 40hrs every week if I didn't want to. However I am now buckled down and getting into a routine.

I have decided to work at a local LTAC (long term acute chronic) hospital, Radius Specialty Hospital. Now this title may seem a little confusing but a quick explanation is that our patient population consists of people who were recently in an acute hospital and are unsafe to go home, still needing a lot of medical care. We usually see patients for 4-6 wks; however at my particular setting there are a few cases that have been at the hospital for months because honestly there is no where else for them to go, they are too sick for a nursing home and unable to care for themselves at home so we keep them and provide their home away from home.  

As a full time PT at Radius, I oversee the two medically complex floors, we also have a vent unit, and two dementia units. I personally have a caseload of 16-18 patients, I see anywhere from 2x-5x/wk. It's a lot as a new grad because we also have a very difficult population, with many co-morbidities (diabetes, hypertension, heart conditions, kidney failure, lung conditions, morbid obesity and the list goes on), often with polysubstance abuse history and coming from unstable home situations. I am constantly in challenging situations that I rack my brain to find a solution for. But so far I feel that I have been a positive, stable person for these patients and am proud of the work I do. It's been incredible the amount I am learning as well, working with diagnoses ranging from stroke, amputation, morbid obesity, balance impairments, and general de-conditioning from bed-rest, along with a wide range of ages from 25 to 90 yrs old. 

I also have the pleasure of working with a great rehab team, consisting of two other PTs, two OTs (occupational therapy), two SLP (speech language pathologists), a COTA (OT assistant) and a rehab assistant. I hope to maximize my learning experience while I'm here, meet incredible people and grow as a person and a physical therapist. 

Home Sweet Home

         We now call Jamaica Plain (JP for short) our home!! We moved here about three weeks ago and are loving it already. JP has a wonderful community filled with great activities, food and drink. This past weekend there was a JP wide yard sale all afternoon, I didn't buy anything but it was wonderful to walk around and see everyone buzzing around peoples' tables with questions and excitement over other's old and used things.  Today our block is having their annual block party where everyone donate $10 for beer, wine, juice and soda and each house provides a main, side or dessert. We are all looking forward to it because the neighbors we have met so far have been wonderful. 

The outside of our new condo, the second story porch is ours

         And you wonder how we ended up withthis wonderful apartment in this wonderful neighborhood? Well we have connections ;-) David and my high school photography teacher, Jonathan lived in this very apartment for years, owning the whole house at one point he now owns the upstairs. He recently decided to move his family closer to work and wanting to have excellent tenants, and good people to live above and around close friends of he and his wife's, he asked if David and I would be interested in looking at it. 

Tons of windows in all the rooms provide wonderful natural light

Our new kitchen which consists of new cabinets and stainless steel appliances

Our incredible stove with a convection oven and grill with a high powered vent so we can grill year round!!!

         I said no right from the start. It's in a beautiful neighborhood, it sounded like a beautiful apartment, it was in a great location, Jonathan would be our landlord. Too good to be true and too expensive. But he was persistent and after looking at apartments on our one day in JP and being sorely disappointed with the selection given to us we decided to give him a call. And all the things I said prior are true, we all fell inlove with it immediately. So then we worked out our budget and he worked out his and with a paint job of the apartment and some odds and ends to be fixed we decided on a price that worked for all of us. So we now live in JP with David's sister Jessica and her husband Andrew and it's awesome!!!

Our new backyard where our wonderful neighbor Joann has a beautiful garden

         Our downstairs neighbor Joann is incredible. She is also a photographer, was a nurse in NYC and is a social worker. She has amazing stories to share and is so gracious. She sometimes leaves us gifts on our doorstep from the farmers market, tells us about fun events that are going on in the neighborhood, and is always a friendly face when we run into each other in the yard. She has done incredible work on the yard, filling it with flowers, herbs and vegetables. It's awesome.

Our hallway which the two bedrooms, the porch, multiple closets, bathroom & extra "blue" room all run off of

And the weekend we moved in so many of the neighbors came up and introduced themselves and welcomed us to the neighborhood, despite missing Jonathan and Lynn greatly. It was wonderful and very unusual for most Boston or even Massachusetts neighborhoods. Or at least that is my experience from moves that I have done. We are all really happy to meet the neighborhood families. It also appears that there are tons of families with young children running around which I am very excited about. I love kids but as many of you know not quite ready to have my own.

Our living room with a beautiful working fire place

             We also have found that we all have nice easy commutes to work and school. Jessica and David are both going to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, which David can bike to on a bike path in 15min and Jessica and take the T or bus to in 20min. Andrew is working in downtown crossing and now has a commute that is 20-30min instead of an hour long and I am working at a local hospital 2mile down the road in Roxbury which I can bike to on a nice quiet street and be there in 10min without rushing. It is wonderful and has taken away so much stress in many of our commutes. 

Dining room with great light, built in china cupboard that holds all our dishes, wine glasses and serving dishes which saves a ton of space in our kitchen

Well this is our new home, it's been really wonderful so far and we hope to have you all over soon. We are slowly working through our huge list of family and friends so if you haven't been over yet you'll be invited soon hopefully. We do hope to stay here for a couple years though so we have time. 

Day 8 - 80mi to Grimsby

We woke up and could barely believe that our tour was almost over. I had mixed feelings, it was great being on the road with David, camping out and only riding all day but my butt was happy to be almost over and it would be nice to sleep in a bed. We woke up early, got on the road early and were cruising at 18mph toward Niagra falls. 

At one point we stopped after biking about 30mi to see how far from Niagra Falls we actually were and another biker stopped to help us out. We asked him about how far we were from Niagra, estimating between 10-15mi and the biker says "Well your about 8mi from Lewiston and Niagra Falls is about 20mi from Lewiston so you have about 28mi" (WHAT!!!! well that was what I was saying to myself) David and I both looked at each other kind of surprised, we new we had 35mi after Niagra falls and we had already gone 30mi and now we had another 30mi before we even got to the falls, oh my gosh this is going to be impossible!!! I was so down, discouraged and sad after feeling so great at our pace for the morning. But we got back on our bikes and starting riding.

About 100yards down the road we came to a sign, a blessing really that read: NIAGRA FALLS 11mi. Oh man I was so happy I could barely stop smiling but we both laughed and couldn't figure out what that guy was thinking.

We arrived at the Rainbow bridge around 11:30 and biked through customs. It cost 50 cents for each bike to go over the bridge and questioning went smoothly. My favorite question of the customs agent was "and what are you carrying with you to protect yourself?" We both pause and didn't really respond (later we talked and realized we both were thinking the same thing...what our helments?) but the agent then clarified...pepper spray, knives, guns? ohh right of course that makes way more sense. 

Niagra falls was fun for about 30min, we enjoyed lunch, got our picture taken and then had to get out of the crowed "number 1 honeymoon location in the world."

I must say biking on the Canadian roads was not what I thought it would be like. The shoulder was all gravel so there was about 8in of space between the edge of the road and the white line so we were basically biking in the lane which was a little hairy at times. And I received my first flat. Our hand made tires from Germany that "can withstand 4000mi" didn't impress us too much but did a pretty good job. My tire got two huge holes in it, we found one, I changed the tube and then it went flat immediately again so there I was again having not only to switch my tube a second time but to switch my tire as well. We knew we had carried that extra tire for a reason. Other than our two flats there were no incidences. Which was great. We road the rest of our 20mi at a pretty quick pace wanting to arrive early and relax. 

And we did, we arrived at 3:30, upgraded our room to have a hot tub in the bathroom, ran upstairs and enjoyed a hot bath, cheesey twists and beer!!!! It was awesome, what an incredible accomplishment. We have finished 500mi and had only 20mi to do the following day and were enjoying fun food, good drink and a hot tub. And later that night Roger (David's Dad) met us at the hotel on his way up to Canada and bought us beer and dinner. The whole evening was awesome however for the first time we really noticed how bad my sunburn was even after wearing 70+ sunscreen that we put on twice a day. That's what I get for having irish blood in me.