As I am sure most of you heard, on Wednesday I returned home from a tutoring gig at UCR to this life-changing (or perhaps life-affirming?) email:

"Dear Ms. Cunningham: (Now I can finally get to changing that name of mine...)

It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been accepted as a student in the Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies program at Western University of Health Sciences, College of Allied Health Professions."

.....

I was on the phone with Joseph at the time, who was driving to school, and I literally gasped once I realized the news was good. "What?!" he anxiously asked, thinking for a moment that something terrible had happened. "I got in!" I squealed, which he heard instead as "He got in". After clarifying that I was accepted to Western and NOT being attacked by an intruder, we immediately began phoning family- all those wonderful people who have given us their love and support. We feel so very blessed, and I still cannot believe in two short years I will be practicing medicine. (And I see this as further evidence that March is the best month of them all.)

{One of the new buildings}

WesternU is in the heart of Pomona, and is actually a converted 'open air mall' with a few additional buildings. Due to its location in the middle of a poor neighborhood, the college devotes much of its time reaching out to the community by providing healthcare to the under-served. We will probably be moving to Upland/Claremont/Ontario, which will put us closer to much of Joseph's side of the family (and closer to both of our schools). My white coat ceremony will be on August 10th, and we will begin courses the following week. Both of us are very excited to see begin this new part of our lives and move one step closer to 'real life'. 

Creamsicle

We would like to introduce those of you who can't visit our home to our baby girl, Creamsicle the comet goldfish. We brought her home a year and a half ago from a friend's booth at a UCR fair.

 

Back then she was about 1/4 her current size, but as a comet she can get up to 22 inches and live up to 30 years! Needless to say she outgrew her 10 gallon home this year, and we bought her and her danio buddies a 29 gallon tank.

{Old, cramped tank}

{New tank}

She is the prettiest goldfish we have ever known, and gets compliments whenever she's seen. She's a little fatty, who gets ecstatic when anyone approaches her tank in the hopes they'll feed her. She can be finger fed, and is currently having fun gobbling up the tank's new (expensive) plants.  Still, we love our big girl, and hope to put her in a pond someday when we have a home. Look at that face- how can you not love her?

Happy Holidays

    Fall quarter was an interesting one. I was lucky enough to get a job working for the Health Professions Advising Center right after EMT classes ended, and was able to finish her PA application. I have been invited for an interview at WesternU in Pomona, and will be interviewing on the 28th of January, bringing us one step closer to acceptance. My employment ended in the middle of December, but I've been working on finding a job that will put that EMT training to good use. Joseph had a very difficult quarter, with courses that took up more time than he could give while working part time. Lets just say he had a few 2am and 5am nights while trying to finish projects. Despite the difficulties, we thoroughly enjoyed the fall holidays, as you can see in the barrage of pictures to follow (which will hopefully distract you from the obscene amount of time it took us to post to the blog).

{Annual Halloween Extravaganza}

{Celebrating Briley's birthday the traditional Chinese dumpling/Comedy Sportz way. And below, Rebecca making us laugh}

 

{Thanksgiving in our home again this year as I try to perfect my chef-skills}

I feel these next pictures warrant a bit more explanation. Over the summer, some friends informed us that they are annually part of a choir that participates in Disneyland's Candlelight Processional. This is a program put on by Disney for several (this year 20) nights in December, which features a celebrity host reading the biblical Christmas story accompanied by musical numbers provided by our volunteer choir. Having wanted to see the show myself, I was excited at the prospect of actually participating (the free ticket to come back to Disneyland later in the year didn't sway us either). We joined the choir and a few months later performed (only one show due to our work schedules). Needless to say it was NOT an easy experience ( I had some issues with my ears and air pressure during the show, while Joseph got a dead arm trying to hold his backpack inconspicuously), but it was a great adventure. Not sure with my school schedule if we can do it again next year, but some day we hope to return again.

 

{Every year Joseph makes sugar cookies, and every year he curses the day he decided to make sugar cookies. I was sure to get a picture before the cursing began}

{To round off our pre-Christmas fun we returned to Universal Studios to use our ticket}

As you can see we have been very much enjoying our vacation (even though we passed a cold back and forth about four times this season, leaving me sick on Christmas) and wish it wouldn't end. Until then, we will continue to play the Lego Lord of the Rings game Santa brought us and hope the new year brings all the good things we wish for.

New Happenings

Well I will not apologize for not posting in a long time because..... well I just don't want to. So lets run through the last few months. Kristin has started her final quarter at UCR and will be graduating in June. Now she wont be starting PA school until Aug 2013 so she has enrolled in EMT classes, which will start in may, to occupy her time for now.

Lets see for me I was called as young mens president back in February so I think that can go with out saying on what it has done to my free time. But it is a fun calling and I am learning alot.

Next for me I have finally left Banking! I am so excited to finally be done with it. I am working for an IT company out here in Riverside called Simpletech-it. Simpletech is a managed it solutions company(they handle the IT needs for other companies) here in Riverside. So I am very excited for this new opportunity to gain IT experience.

Now no blog post is complete without pictures so here are a couple pictures from things we have been up to.

Disclaimer- you will see sumo wrestlers in traditional sumo clothing.

Victorious!

Every year, our good friend Paige throws a fabulous graham-cracker house building party. Over the last couple of years, this has evolved into a competition. If you know anything about us (especially Joseph), you know that our competitive nature sleeps very close to the surface, so we've been trying to win for the last two years, to no avail.

2009:

{This was our first, at home, real gingerbread attempt...needless to say we retired from that medium}

 

{Much better! We redeemed ourself here, but lost to a castle that had two days and several boxes of work on it. We won in our own hearts, but vowed to return next year with our game-faces on}

 2010:

 {Even though Joseph was sick, he bravely helped to construct our cute little Cathedral (far left). However, our scope was far too small, and we lost to the totally awesome Noah's ark to the right}

2011: 

You better believe we pulled out all the stops this year. The idea didn't hit us until early that day, but it hit like a ton of bricks- something cute, something recognizable, something ambitious: The UP house!

 

We toiled for a couple of hours, at least a half an hour after others had finished. Competition was stiff- a golden gate bridge being attacked by godzilla, a huge manger scene, Snoopy's doghouse, Zero's doghouse, the UCR belltower- but this time, we took the trophy...which in this case means Target gift card.

Now we can retire in style.

What we forgot...

This summer we enjoyed a great mini-vacation visiting San Diego. We started in Escondido visiting our other set of amazing grandparents who took us on an adventure to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. The weather was beautifully gloomy (which was great in the middle of the summer), and we had great fun getting attacked by lorikeets (Joseph had no idea what he was in for). The next day, we went into the city to hang out with the Humphreys, who kindly showed us around their favorite spots out in La Jolla with their cute little girl Cora. We were lucky to have their air conditioned car, because the rainy weather left behind the hottest, most humid day of the summer. After a day of riding about, we settled down to a super tasty dinner in old town and sealed our summer with a great trip.

{Attack of the lorikeets, Joseph's first time- bwahaha!}

{Grandparents. Daw!}

{La Jolla}

{Old Town}

I'd been putting off blogging due to our SLOW internet resisting my attempts to upload images, but after much prodding by Joseph, we upgraded. YAY! I will also blame school, busy busy school, but once again everything turned out great for us grade-wise, so no more worries there. Christmas posts to come!

Our Summer Thus Far

This summer has been quite full of activity. Its strange to think how close we are to the end. Time flies! Its even more strange to think that this is Kristin's LAST summer vacation. Next summer will be for EMT training and after that its off to PA school. Summer seems like the last tie to adolescence. Adults don't get summer vacations or spring breaks (unless you're a teacher...hmmm, career change?). It is exciting and scary all at once. Aaaanyways, here's a quick recap:

      Family Reunion

{Soccer}

     Laguna Beach, with friends
   

 

 {Joseph and Reed- Searching}

    

{Finding}

{Must have= Gelato}

Laguna Beach, Pageant of the Masters 2011

{Proposal bench}

{Our view}

Newport beach with friends

{Castle, never destroyed (at least while we were there)}

Sculpting

{Krispie llama and shark. Guess who's is who's.}

Getty Center

{Windy, sunny day}

Huntington Library & Old Town Pasadena

{Kristin's Lotus}

{Joseph's Succulent}

{Macarons- Salted Caramel, Coconut, Pistachio, Madagascar Vanilla}