Happy Birthday Pup!

The title says it all. Our dog may be little but she's a big 7 years old today. Mid life! This pic was taken while she patiently waited for her homecooked *chicken* dinner to be prepared. She perks up and cocks her head whenever the c-word is mentioned... Happy Birthday Pup!

By the way don't worry, there's nothing wrong with her eye. It's not a tear, just a weird shadow from her massive jaw muscles. :)

Practical Exam, Round II

Today I retook the practical exam on electrical stimulation that I didn't do so well on (in Dr. Chan's opinion) about six months ago. It went well and I feel good about it, but you never know when it comes to Chan so I won't be able to truly relax until I see my passing score. The written exam is this Thursday and the grades will be posted probably sometime over the weekend as Chan is never in much of a hurry to post them. His practicals are always tough on the nerves so I'm just glad it's over.

We have some news about our "successful" trip to Ikea. Not so successful as it turns out. We opened the box (which we didn't notice had scuffs all over it when we bought it) containing our second bookcase and found that one of the side pieces had a big hole in it! Ugh! Now I get to lug the broken board back to Ikea on public transportation in the morning. On the good side, the inefficiency of the G train and B61 bus will give me over an hour to study for my midterm. After our original trip home from Ikea we said, "Wow, that was too easy," and laughed... Funny.

NYC got a few inches of snow here on Saturday morning. It wasn't enough to play in but was pretty to watch from inside. It rained today and will be in the fifties tomorrow (wahoo!) which will probably melt what's left.

York, PA Roadtrip




Matt, Jen, Chelsea, and Matt

  

Pup and Stella

Jen and I had Saturday through Monday off together and wanted to do something outside the city. We decided to use our weekend to visit our good friends, the Schoff’s, who recently moved to Pennsylvania for her school and work.



So this week I made a reservation at our usual (and usually wonderful) Enterprise Rent-A-Car location close to the apartment. They said “no problem,” and the price for a holiday weekend wasn’t bad either. But, when I arrived on Saturday morning to pick up our ride, there were no cars… not one car. I tried to stay calm as the guys told me that a truck of ten rentals was on its way from the service location but was lost and unreachable. Huh? Plus, people were just not returning the rentals on time. Luckily, the wait was less than an hour before a Nissan Versa hatchback pulled into the lot when it was my turn. They gave me the free upgrade of course but I was hoping to get the Toyota Prius that was supposedly on its way in too.  

Getting out of the city was the usual clutter; the ramps we needed to take onto the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) were randomly closed and the traffic was chaotic. Once we finally found our way to the Williamsburg Bridge and out of the city, though, the drive was really beautiful. In PA, we drove through Dutch Country with lots of antiques and craft shops, farms, and really old, stone homes. Did you know that Lancaster (not far from York) was the first inland town in the nation? You do now. I was hoping to see some horse-drawn buggies and covered bridges but the weather was too cold to do much of anything.




Lightning fast Bella

 

While visiting the Schoff’s we got to see Matt’s six-year-old son Gavan who’s such a good kid. We (and by we, I mean just Jen) did crafts and played lots of games with him over the weekend. Our big night out (top pic) was to the Melting Pot. Oh how we missed you, Melting Pot. Chelsea is in beauty school and was thrilled when Jen asked her to do her makeup. Always sassy, she kept saying things like, “Matt! Can we please talk about your wife’s bone structure!?” Ha. She looks good right? The girls also had to take a trip into town to the giant beauty supplier, Ulta, which we actually do not have in NYC.

Pup giving Sophie the stink-eye

Pup was a good girl on our trip. Not only did she travel well, but when we arrived she had three other dogs of all shapes and sizes to tolerate. Ha. We were a little apprehensive at first; their smallest dog, Bella, looks like a squirrel and their big boxer was supposedly hyper and not very well behaved. We were pretty sure when we let them all loose together that something was going down but they survived.  At one point, Pup was actually PLAYING with the dogs, wagging tail and all! A rare sight to behold. By the end of our visit she was pretty much socialized, although still in control of the pack. We had breakfast with them Monday and said our goodbyes before heading back to NYC that afternoon.



We made it back to the city in decent time and decided, while we had the rental car, to take a trip through the ghetto to the Brooklyn Ikea. We’ve had had a list of furniture we want going for a while so we had a lot to buy. Plus, those meatballs… We got everything we wanted and more and by the time we made it to checkout, we were doubting whether it would all fit in the car.  Jen was pretty sure it wouldn’t but after some seat adjusting and finagling, all four of our large boxes of flat-packed furniture fit so perfectly in the car that we had to laugh. Things like this never workout that easily for us and we’re usually laughing to fend off the crying. There was also no traffic home so we were back in about twenty minutes. Too easy! Needless to say, we are now big fans of the Nissan Versa. 

Prospect Park and Park Slope, Brooklyn

My first video production!

It took a lot of time, manual studying, and watching tutorials on YouTube to figure out how to use my new video director before finally puting something together. Above is a compilation of footage, pics, and Deadmau5 music from the Everafter New Year's Eve party in NYC. I linked the video from my new YouTube page where you'll be able to view all my (future) videos in one convenient place. Enjoy!

Jen, Pup and I went to Prospect Park and Park Slope, Brooklyn on Saturday. We used a couple cards from the City Walks New York: 50 Adventures on Foot I got in my stocking this year. Thanks Santa! It was unusually warm for January and we took advantage of the beautiful weather. We were even able to find a nice juice bar for Jen to have a snack/energy boost. I'm going to try to put a video together of our day sometime soon so be looking for that...

Last night we went to Astoria, Queens for my coworker, Brooke's, birthday. We happened to get into the same subway car as some friends going to the same place and all headed over together; what a coincidence! Another coincidence: On the ride over, Jen and I were talking about how many people probably think I'm an a-hole and when we got to the party, one of my co-workers called me one. Ha! Although Brooke found her apartment on Craigslist and took a risk with random roommates, it really worked out for her. It's a updated three bedroom, her rent is disgustingly cheap, and it's huge by NYC standards. We felt like were at a house party in Florida! It got us debating all over again whether we want to live in Manhattan or move out a little farther where we can afford space...Our lease is up in June. Many of my coworkers were there, past and present, so it was good to catch up with everyone. Since we didn't get to bed until the wee hours of the morning we decided to go to The Journey Church today because of its later start at 11:30. It's on the Upper West Side and because of the limited subway service on Sundays it's quite the journey to get there, but we like it so it's worth it.

We're spending the rest of the day just chill'n at home. Jen's on day seven of her ten day juice-only cleanse. She's feeling and looking great. She's lost some weight, her face looks clear, here teeth are whiter (so she says), and she even claims to be able to see better. She's also experiencing a drop in body temperature so she's cold instead of sweating like a man everywhere we go. She claims the hardest part of the whole thing is having to clean the juicer after every use. She's juiceing right now actually, ha. Go Boo!

I'm Bring'n Blog'n Back

I can’t really explain my break from writing; I guess work and all the planning and traveling this holiday season kept me pretty busy.  A lot of the past month is a blur but I’ll attempt to catch you up on things.

Before we headed to Florida we took advantage of some coupons and sales and bought a juicer. A Breville if you juice, ha. It’s pretty amazing and we’ve been having fun making all kinds of mixtures of fruits and veggies. Jen’s actually on her third day of her juice-only detox. Sounds like a blast, I know!

This was our year to spend Christmas in Clearwater with Jen’s folks. We took Pup along because it’s no cheaper to have her boarded here and she loves being in Florida and seeing the family (especially my father, but not because he feeds her from the table… never). Though the Benedryl might have had something to do with it, she was such a perfect little flyer. She just slept. I don’t know any little kids that’ll do that. Maybe try forcing drowsy meds down their throats, parents. Anyway, we made it to the beach twice while there and the weather was perfect. We ate at Chik-fil-A and Moe’s (there’s only one of each of those in NY so we don’t get to eat it) and walked around the mall like true Floridians. Jen’s brother John just bought a Jeep which was, although not the safest form of transportation, quite fun to cruise around in with the doors and roof off.  We also went Putt-Putt golfing with John and Alisa which was fun.  Even more fun was the late night trip to Yogurt Mountain afterwards.  I may or may not have eaten there the day before too… But one of my truly favorite parts of our holiday was when Jen, John, and I visited our old church, Calvary Baptist. We attended a special Christmas service and, as usual, it was awesome and really put us in the Christmas spirit. New York City has just about the best of everything but churches.

It was a full house on Christmas day including all of Jen’s Clearwater family, her aunts, cousin, and grandmother from New York, and then my parents, brother, and grandparents driving down from Orlando. Jen keeps lists all year long of things people mention they want or ideas she has for gifts. Smart, I know. I joked on Christmas that this year I got everything I forgot I wanted. One of my many great gifts was a video editing program which I could potentially make little films with. Imagine this being a video blog or full of picture slideshows, not just a few pics in each post. It would be cool. It’s kind of complicated so it’s going to take some time but, someday. I also got tickets to the epic Deadmou5 New Years Eve party from my and Jen’s mother and plan on making something of the footage with my new editor. You like how I just married those two gifts together so nicely? Oh, and the food! My mother-in-law was in the kitchen the entire few days we were there before Christmas and the food was amazing.  And the cookies were just as delicious as they are every year.  Nana said the nut cups were the “best thing she’s ever had in her life.” The day after Christmas my family, Jen, and I spent the day strolling around Dunedin and had lunch at the famous Kelly’s. Good times.

I decided not to do a resolution this year, just attain goals. I want to stay motivated to continue pursuing modeling. I also graduate this year if things go as planned (you never know when it comes to me and school) and should be practicing by 2013.  Jen and I would like to buy our first home and hope that this is our last year renting.

A News Years/ Deadmou5 concert video, or slideshow, or something using my new video editor will be coming soon…