Visit with the Korpi's

Last weekend my sister Kate and brother in law Jim and our two nieces drove down to Disneyland from Oregon. We got to spend some time with them Saturday evening....we had dinner and hung out a bit in Anaheim. It was over 100 degrees here for 3 days straight last week so they had a very hot visit to the magic kingdom! Other than that we didn't do anything too exciting over the weekend...Jason has been doing a bit of architecture studying and I've been doing a ton of physics studying (hence the very irregular blogging)! T-2 weeks from today until my physics and vascular physics mock board exam. I've heard from previous students that the mock boards are harder than the real boards - There are 4 mock exams in all, so we'll see how it goes!

On a very fun happy note...our friends Anna and Cody are 20 weeks pregnant and they just found out they are having a boy! Can't wait for that baby to be here already! We're so excited for them.

New Clinical Site Day

I started a new clinical rotation today. It is the 14th time since I've been a Loma Linda student that I've had to change clinical rotations...every 6 weeks we start a new rotation. Just imagine, it's just as fun as starting a new job: first of all how do you get to the dang place (thank you mapquest), where do I park, why am I having to go through a metal detector to enter the hospital (apparently it's a "really great area of town"), where is the radiology dept even located, there is a whole new staff to get to know, where are their ultrasound rooms, what machines do they have and how do they work, what are their protocols, where is the cafeteria, where is the bathroom, who's in charge, how do I get a badge to get from place to place, and for heaven sakes what time do I get to go home!?!?!? Oh how I long for the day when I can get to know one hospital or clinic for more than 6 weeks at a time!!!! Only 2 more clinical changes after this and then I'm DONE!!!

Don't forget to give thanks for your steady, consistent jobs - believe me it's hell starting at a new place all the time!

Planning a Trip!

Jason and I decided that we needed to plan a trip as our last hoorah, before leaving CA and going back home, and before we have to act like real adults and both have jobs and maybe even a real house and maybe even a dog (one can dream can't they!?)...anyway, so we are going to Maui. We've never been to Hawaii before but we are going on October 3rd! We are SO excited. Don't have a place to stay yet, or any plans laid in stone, but we "bought" our plane tickets with frequent flier miles so at least that portion is set. So if anyone has been and has ideas about where to go and what to see please let us know - we'd love to hear about it!

Laguna Beach

We headed to Laguna Beach this weekend. The goal was to get out of the city for a bit and get a taste of nature. We stayed at a place that was just 1/2 a block and a flight of stairs off the beach. It had limited access so not everyone and their dog (literally) were there. The weather was beautiful, bright and sunny and warm. We went for a hike at a nearby wilderness park - right before we started hiking we stopped by the park's visitors center only to hear the rangers talking about the 4ft long rattle snake that someone just found under their car!!!! AWESOME! I HATE snakes and there are lots of parks and trails that Jason always wants to go to that I won't go because of the chance of rattle snakes. "Wonderful for us, if they are flocking from the wilderness to the parking lot then how many more are waiting for me on the trail," I wondered! Thankfully no snake sightings but we did see lots of lizards (which made me jump every time one scurried away because I was certain it was a snake). It was a long hot hike but well worth it to get some "fresh" ocean air. We spent the rest of Saturday on the beach watching the surfers and searching through tide pools. We've been to the beach many times since we've lived here and although no beach here could touch our hearts like the Oregon Coast, Laguna was BY FAR our favorite SoCal beach so far.

Time Flies!

How is it that time flies by so fast? I really told myself that I was going to be really good about keeping our blog up to date and now look at me....it's been a loooonngggg time since I last blogged. Anyway, it's been a busy last few weeks. Our wonderful friends Anna and Cody live in Pasadena (and the lucky bums get to move back to Oregon in June) so we got together with them and played a little mini golf tournament of sorts 2 weekends ago....SO Fun! It was really stinkin hot here...like 95 degrees hot so it was a gorgeous night to be outside.

Last weekend we were boring, I worked all weekend but one happy note...we got a new desk/office chair! We'd had our old chair since we started college at UO back in 2001 and it started leaving lovely little black dots of hydrolic stuff on our quite new white carpet (why a landlord puts white carpet in a rental I'm not quite certain, but that's beside the point) anyway, our new chair is wonderful and I am sitting in it as I type.

Alright, I am in the middle of trying to get my physics notes organized and I am really procrastinating so I should get back to work! Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get better at this blogging bit!

Flashback to the 80's

My ultrasound class had an 80's/pinata party last night. Any excuse to be crazy. We all had such a fun time dressing up and my outfit was smokin' hot! I was so retro 80's Jason said, "You look so bad someone is going to see you and get in an accident", precisely what I was going for. The night was complete with a game of drunken' pin the tail on the donkey and pinata fun!

Phantom of the Opera

We went to see the Phantom of the Opera on Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. It was SO good!!! There were amazing special effects, which we didn't expect...the chandelier flew through the air and the phantom showed up in lots of random places on stage. There was a scene on the stair case of the Paris Opera House and it was so neat to see because we saw it in person and I even have my photo taken on the staircase. The last show we saw was Rent while it was in Eugene and we were less than thrilled with it so it was wonderful to see the phantom!