I GOT IN!!!!!!!!!!!

I have successfully completed #59: Get into the Respiratory Therapist Program. Yay! I have been waiting for this letter in the mail for almost 2 months. And I finally got it yesterday! I couldn't be more excited and more relieved that I can finally start this. I've been on the waiting list for almost 3 years. And after everything I went through to complete my CPR course and all of my required immunizations, I better have gotten in!

Yay yay yay yay yay yay yay yay!

1 Year Later

It's our 1 year anniversary today! We made it through what is supposedly the hardest year. But I didn't think it was too hard. As long as I remember to turn on the fan in our bathroom when I shower, life is good. :-)

Here is Josh and I last year on this date:


And here is us today:

Yup, we still look happy.

And because I like pictures, here is Josh at Texas Roadhouse last night. (Also be sure to check out my delicious strawberry-banana giant margarita in the bottom right corner)


And now here is where your help can come in. On my list, one of my items it to take a mini weekend vacation for each of our anniversaries. While we decided to do this, we are not going on this mini weekend vacation until August. Does it still count?? If not, I can live with that. We were contemplating going to Houston this weekend to see the Brewers play. But we decided we weren't ready to spend the money on that yet, and opted to go to Washington, DC in August to see the Brewers there instead. We are still considering this our 'anniversary trip', however, it is not over our actual anniversary. I will let you decide if this counts or not. :-)

They say a lot of celebrities do pilates..

so I wanted to give it a try! I've always been somewhat afraid of doing the group exercies classes at my gym. I prefer to lift weights and work out on my own. But then I saw that they're now offering a 'beginning pilates' class. I always heard a lot about pilates, so I wanted to give it a try. I went last night to the class. There were maybe 10 other people in there. At least that meant that there wouldn't be a lot of people staring at me while I tried to do the 'moves' (that's my biggest fear in the group classes!). It was a 45 min. class. And I have to say that I was bored. I don't know what I expected pilates to be like, but I thought it'd be more than what it was. Maybe it's because it was a beginners class. I don't know. But I walked out of there feeling like I didn't even work out. I didn't sweat. I don't even think my heart rate went up.

Yes, it did work out my butt a good amount. And my abs somewhat, too. But I do stuff that works out those areas in my weight lifting that I do 3x a week. So, all in all, I guess I was disappointed. I like to be active in my working out, and that didn't bring it! Maybe I'll have to try Zumba...

Oh, but at least I have now completed #70: try a group excercise class at my gym. That's one positive out of it!

Sonic!

I FINALLY went to a Sonic! Josh mentioned that I should've made this #102 on my list: to go to a Sonic. It was pretty exciting. They've been playing the commericals for Sonic here for many years, yet, there was never one to go to. So, when they finally opened up the first one in our area last month or so, I was very excited to say the least. Josh and I tried to go once before, but the line was way too long and I was hungry. :-) We tried again last night. There was still a decently long line. We probably waited to get a parking spot for 20-30 minutes. We opted to have the full Sonic experience and have the roller-skating workers bring us our food, instead of going through the drive through. That was probably well worth it in itself. Now here's my review of their food: it pretty much just tastes like any other fast food restaurant. HOWEVER, they have TOTS! As far as I know, you can't get those as a side dish at McDonald's or Burger King. Nope. Only Sonic. I definitely enjoyed the tots. And my cherry slush. :-) I hear they're opening more Sonics in our area in the near future!

Now back to my real list. I forgot to mention last weekend that we now completed #56: Caulk our bathtub. This was a job I wanted to accomplish a while ago. But like most things in life--one thing in the bathroom just lead to another and another and another. And here is the sequence of events that made me not caulk the bathtub last month:

• I removed the old caulk on our bathtub with intentions to re-caulk that same day.
• While I was down in the bathtub removing the caulk, I noticed that a lot of the grout between the tiles was cracked--a lot.
• The next weekend, we decided to remove the grout between the tiles, with intentions to re-grout that same weekend.
• While Josh was removing the grout, he noticed that it was wet and spongy behind a lot of the tiles. Decided that couldn't be good.
• We weighed our options and decided to remove ALL of the tile and drywall from the bathtub area and start over.
• We decided to go with a 'tub surround' instead of re-tiling. But after measuring our bathtub area, we realized that our bathtub is 1 inch shorter than most, making it hard to find a tub surround in the stores. We had to special order one online, and it took 2 more weeks to come in.
• We decided to replace our shower fixtures while we were replacing everything else.
• Then, what was supposed to be our weekend long project of taking down the tile and installing the new drywall and tub surround took a week and a half, as we had to re-do some of the piping behind the shower wall.
• About a month after I started the re-caulking project, we finally got everything installed and we could caulk it again.

And there you have it. #56 is complete and our bathtub is caulked. And it looks great. Feel free to look at my 2 photos below to see our new tub surround. Tis pretty exciting. And now we dont' want to do any more work on our condo for a long, long time.

Your traditional Easter meal

Josh and I had some family over for an Easter lunch today after church. And of course, I made your traditional Easter food: bbq pulled pork sandwiches, taco dip and chips, veggies and dip, and cookies. :-) It's all food I like, anyway!

These pulled pork sandwiches turned out to be a new recipe for me. So I have now completed my new recipe for the month of April. It was very simple, and very good! Sorry, no pictures this time around though. I forgot. :-)

Here's the recipe though:

2 lbs. pork (I used the shoulder cut...it was the cheapest!)

1 can root beer (any brand)

18 oz. bbq sauce

8 hamburger buns

Place the pork in a slow cooker. Pour in one 12 oz. can of root beer. Turn slow cooker on low and cook for 6-8 hours, until meat is very tender.

Drain meat and pull it apart. (If it's done, it should pull apart very easily)

Add bbq sauce and put back in slow cooker for 1-2 hours on low.

And enjoy!

This should make about 8 sandwiches.

See, I said it was very easy. We tripled all the ingredients because we had a lot of people coming over to eat. And we barely have any leftovers; so that's always a good sign!

And because I like pictures, I will put up some of our FINALLY finished bathroom project. What we thought was going to a 2 day weekend project took about 1 1/2 weeks. We finally got to use our shower this morning for the first time in about 10 days. And it was nice.

In short, what we did was take down the old tile and drywall in the bathtub area to put up new drywall and new bathtub walls. We also wanted to change the fixtures for the shower. That turned into a big project in which we had to re-do much of the piping in that area. But it's done. And it works. And it's beautiful.

Here's our new shower walls and fixtures:

We still have to finish up some painting and other little projects, but at least we can shower here again! :-)

A gummy vitamin experience

So I went to Target last night in need of vitamins. Who knew there were so many different kinds of gummy ones available now! I was in the aisle for probably a good 20 minutes checking them all out. They DO have adult gummy multi-vitamins. However, they are missing the one thing that I like about my women's multi-vitamin. And that's iron. I don't eat that much meat, so iron is essential for me in a vitamin. So, I was a little disappointed and thus, could not get the gummy multi-vitamin.

But don't worry, there was still a gummy vitamin there that was actually something I needed! And that is CALCIUM. I was so excited about this, that I opened the bottle immediately when I got into my car and ate one. And I was pleasantly surprised. I have heard mixed reviews on the gummy vitamins--some people like them, some don't--so I didn't quite know what to expect; but I didn't set my expectations too high. While they did not taste exactly like a piece of candy, they were pretty darn good for a vitamin. I even looked forward to eating another one when I woke up this morning! And my strong bones will thank me for it.

Here's what the bottle looks like, and if you look closely, you'll see that I put an actual vitamin on top of the bottle. Yesssss, these are the kids gummy vitamins, which is why they are shaped like bears. They did have the adult version, but they were not shaped like an animal--which is a selling point for me. :-)

Josh is a DDR Rockstar!

To follow up from my last blog on Sunday, I just feel compelled to mention that Josh ROCKS at DDR! (That's Dance Dance Revolution, for those of you without the Wii knowledge.) :-) After saying how hard that game was last weekend, I almost forgot that Josh was AWESOME at it. Especially for his first time playing. Here's what the screen looks like for this game:

Basically, you have to follow the arrows. When one of the colored arrows hits one of the white arrows at the top of the screen, you have to move your foot in that direction. You're standing on big pad with squares on it, so it knows where your feet are going. Let me just say it's not as easy as it looks to move your foot EXACTLY when the arrows meet. And I probably didn't explain that too well, so if you still have no clue how to play, I totally understand.

Secondly, I just wanted to say that we have completed #31: Start an online savings account. We chose to go with FNBO direct (www.fnbodirect.com), because it's offering the higest interest rate right now, of the 3 I was deciding between. It's savings interest rate is 2.15%! While ING was only offering 1.5% and HSBC was offering 1.65%. I know that 2.15% really isn't that much more, but it just looks better. :-) We're not totalllllly saving for our European vacation that we want to take in 4 years, but eventually we'll begin saving for that. But right now, we're saving for a small Washington DC trip we want to take in August. We're planning on going for 2 nights to see the Brewers play while they're there and also do a little sight-seeing. I really can't wait for it--it'll be nice to go somewhere for a weekend before I start school! And we get to see the Brewers play, so that's a plus.

And lastly, I just wanted to say that I took the very last vitamin in my pack this morning. Of course, I haven't planned ahead, and I don't have new ones yet. But I fully plan on going out and getting some today. I'm still leaning towards the gummy ones, but I'm going to compare the percentage of vitamins in the gummy ones and the Women's One-a-Day and see which one is better. If they're somewhat the same, the gummy wins!