School's Out For... Well, Three Weeks, Anyway.

The last few weeks have been crazy to say the least. For those who don't know, Jen has had some issues with vertigo. She is prone to nausea and motion sickness in general and has been for years, but the last few months have been pretty bad. Her dizzy spells have lasted days, and the last one she had was at work, and her coworkers sat with her until she was well enough to go home.

The bad news of this was, it was affecting her schoolwork. She ended up cutting out her externship prematurely, and not completing the course. This puts a small hiccup in her school plans. Although she will finish her academic courses on time, her externship schedule was pushed back until next year, and so she will be graduating December 2014 instead of in May. On the plus side, she was able to retain the hours that she has earned so far, so she will have a few less to complete when her classes start back up.

It's been a bit of a toll on us, so whenever we have a chance, we try to get out. A few weeks ago, we decided to drive up to San Francisco one Friday and make a day of it. We started out at Industrial Light and Magic, which is a cool little place if you're a Star Wars fan. We only had a few minutes there, but of course we took a ton of photos while we were there. We also got to drive around the Presidio, and the Palace of Fine Arts, before heading over to hunt down a pizza food truck.

Casey's Pizza is a food truck that is around the San Francisco area, and Jeff found when he was following different food trucks on Twitter. While we were in San Francisco, we thought we would give it a try, and it's the BEST! The pizza was super-thin and tasted great, so much that we ended up getting seconds!

We were in San Francisco to go to Union Square. Giada De Laurentiis, one of the Food Network chefs, was there doing a book signing, and Jen was dying to go. So we headed up to Union Square and did a little window shopping before heading into the huge Williams Sonoma. If you've never been to this store, it's four floors of kitchenwares, and we loved browsing in it. The line to meet Giada was huge, and we were smart to get in line an hour before the signing. She was on the top floor, and the line wound around the stairs and around each floor, out the door onto Post Street and around the corner down Stockton. We didn't stick around for too long after we got our books signed, but Jen was told there would be a limit to 400 signatures and only those that had bought her new book would be getting signatures, and there had to be over 1000 people in line.

School's winding down for us both, and we are stumbling over the finish line this term. Between sickness and everything else, we both barely got through this term. On the plus side, we have a few weeks off from school, so we will take a little time to recuperate and relax before we gear up for more school.

Here's hoping for a quiet summer!

And A Quick Catch-Up!

Hello, all of our friends!

Wow, it feels as though it's been forever! I wish we could say it's because so many great things have been happening, so many trips taken, and just living it up has gotten in the way of the blog. Sadly, it's a lot of the mundane that have kept us busy. Not that we didn't have a few surprises...

In the beginning of February, Jen came home from her externship in order to eat and check on the dogs before heading up to Stanford, but she was delayed. As she was leaving the house, she saw that there were a TON of police officers pointing guns at our neighbor's house. The short story is that these neighbors were involved in a carjacking (which later was based on a false charge, but they're still not nice people) and the police suspected something was going on and raided the house. While the neighborhood was able to evacuate, because we had the dogs, they had Jen stay in our bedroom with the dogs in the house. Originally we thought it would just be for a little bit, but she was in there for about six hours, holed up with the three dogs! It was pretty scary, considering what was going on, but all ended well. There were a few arrests, and aside from being shell-shocked, Jen and the dogs were okay.

We also just got done repairing our car. The Civic was acting up, and something went wrong with the transmission. When we took it to one of Jeff's regulars at Starbucks, and to the dealership to get an estimate, it turned out there were a LOT of things wrong with the car, including a crack in the manifold and the engine mounts were about to go out. All in all, we spent a lot of cash fixing up the car. It doesn't deter us from ever buying a Civic again; Jen got this car and was the original owner when it only had 3 miles on it. Now at around 130,000, except for this latest round of repairs, we have had to put in minimal repairs, considering we've driven it across the Continental Divide numerous times.

Not everything was such crazy news. We got tickets to go see The Hunger Games in an advanced screening in San Francisco. There was a lot of driving from Newark to Fremont to get our youngest niece, Amy, then to Sonoma to get our oldest niece, Sarah, who's in college there, then to get to the theatre. We thought we were super late, since we didn't get there until almost 7 and the film started at 8, but because we got our tickets through Barnes and Noble, not only did we get to go in first, but our section was perfect; the back third of the theatre! We sat in a row with no one behind us, and got to stretch out a little in the nice seats. The four of us loved the movie. Jen had just finished the book a day or so before, and now Jeff is working on it.

Otherwise, everything is same old, same old. We are still working hard, going to school, and trying to stay out of trouble. Easter in a week will likely be low-key, and in May Jen signed us up to go to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium for us to see the Cooking for Solutions weekend, where we will sit in on a cooking session with Alton Brown as well as see exhibitions on sustainable foods, followed by a summer of school and working to pay bills. Oh, and planning a trip. Jeff is going to Houston for a Starbucks trip, and since everything will be covered, Jen's going for the ride too! Even if it isn't until October, it's something to look forward to, right?

Until next time!!

Watch That First Month, It's A Doozy!

Hello, world!

It's been a very hectic year, and January isn't even over yet! Lots of things happening, mostly good, and a few bad. Guess we can start with the end of the year.

----------

For a Christmas present, Jen's sister, Bertha, bought her family tickets to go to Safari West in Santa Rosa on New Year's Eve. The entire family was able to go: Jen's parents, her sisters, brother in law, brother, sister in law, nieces and nephew, 13 in all. It was a lot of fun to go on "safari" at this animal refuge, and there were tons of animals throughout the site. We posted our album off to the side (hopefully it's up and running, anyway!) and you can see some of the great photos we have taken.

The whole family!

----------

Unfortunately, soon after the beginning of the year, we were hit with bad news. Jen's sisters called her early on the morning of the 4th to let her know that her cousin, Jim, had suddenly died. It sounded like he suddenly was ill, and within a day they had lost him. Jimmy was Jen's oldest cousin on her mom's side, and such a fun guy. He was always so sweet and his smile lit up a room. Jimmy was a surfer bum, and everyone was "dude" to him. Jen and I can't watch Finding Nemo without thinking of him when the turtle, Crush, comes on the screen. The family was very sad with the loss, and we attended his rosary and funeral the following week.

RIP Jimmy. We Love You!

----------

The week following Jim's death, Jen came down with a horrible cold. Jeff originally had a little cold at the beginning of the year, and a few of her coworkers were also sick, so we don't know where the source was. She started getting sick Friday evening, and had hoped to be better by the end of the weekend, but no such luck. Her fever didn't break until Wednesday, and we worried she would not be able to make the drive to Pacifica and San Francisco for the services. It's been over two weeks since she has caught the cold, and although she's feeling a lot better, her cough hasn't gone away entirely and she still isn't quite 100%.

----------

Our routine is getting back to normal. After a few weeks off from school, both of us started back this past Monday. This semester, Jeff is enrolled in five classes online through Colorado State, and is in the process of adding a statistics class at Ohlone. If he succeeds at adding the course, Jeff will be on track to graduate this year, much to everyone's delight. It will definitely be a tough semester, especially taking into account not only that he is taking 18 units, but the math class will be in person two nights a week.

Jen's workload isn't nearly as big as Jeff's but is just as exciting. This semester is her first externship, and she was lucky to be so close to home. After some difficulty, Jen was able to have her externship at Lincoln Elementary here in Newark. She is there from 8 AM until about 11:30 AM, then drives up to Stanford to finish the workday, and works longer shifts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday to make up for the extra hours. She will have very early days from now until May, and then a slight break in externships until the fall. She will have to complete 4-5 more externships before she finishes her degree, but she is on her way.

----------

Well, that's everything we can think of for the time being. The next big events coming up soon are Jen's birthday and Valentine's day. Because of the funeral, a lot of thought hasn't been put into either day, but hopefully we can have some fun for these days!

Hope all is well for everyone!