Sunday, Jan 10, 2010

2009 Recap

It's that time of year again when we repent for being bad bloggers and give a quick rundown of the last year.

Last March (2009), we decided on Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, TX) for med school and started making plans and preparations for our move. But before leaving D.C., we had a few adventures that haven't made it on our blog.

Spring in D.C.

In March-April, we were visited by Rachel, Hyrum, Caleb, Adam, and Lucas; Camas (and Bethany); Spencer and Emeline; Andrea and Dave (apologies if we missed someone, but it was awhile ago and these are all the pictures we could find!).

The Great Outdoors

Another April highlight was the Cherry Blossom Festival. Growing up, I'd heard my parents talk about the cherry blossoms in D.C. and I kinda thought, eh, what's the big deal? Turns out they're really that lovely.

Also in April: Virginia Beach with danje. You can't help but have ridiculous fun with those guys.

In May, we went rock climbing on Sugarloaf Mountain with Chris and Leigh. We were trying to get some practice...

...for our camping and rock climbing trip with them and others in Pennsylvania in June. On our way back home, we visited Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water, which was fascinating.

Cooler Than Being a White House Crasher

A couple weeks later, we went to World Refugee Day (after some internet sleuthing to find tickets), where we attended a presentation and afterwards had lunch with and met Khaled Hosseini and Greg Mortensen (and a few surprises, like Anne Curry and Angelina Jolie, who were both very pleasant in person). We were definitely outclassed at the event, but it was inspiring to meet so many good people doing so much good. We left ready to change the world.

Goodbye D.C, Hello Paris!

Later in June, I ran my first race ever (except for the Hot Dog Run in Valdez when I was a kid, but I don't think that counts). It was a 5K, and Elliott was a fantastic cheerleader.

The last day of June was the last day of work for both Elliott and me. The next day, we finished loading up all of our belongings into a single Relocube and got on a flight to Europe, where we spent a good chunk of our savings on a glorious two week trip to France and Greece.

Someday we'll get an account of our trip written up for all the Internets to see, but for now we'll say this: Paris, Athens, and Santorini were fantastic. (Both good food and skinny dipping may have been involved.)

Roadtrip to Texas

When we got home from Europe, we got in the car and drove to Houston. En route, we stopped in North Carolina for a couple days to see the nephews.

Down the road, we stopped at my Grandpa's in Georgia. Elliott and Grandpa had never met each other, so I was glad we got to spend a couple days with him.

Medical school begins, life ends

We only had a couple days between arriving in Houston and Elliott starting med school orientation, so we tried to make quick work of our move-in. For purposes of quiet and security, our choice of a third floor condo was a good one. But as we hauled everything we owned up three flights of stairs in Houston in July, we were seriously reconsidering our decision. (Especially when it came to lifting our crazy-heavy-retrotastic-Craigslist-acquisition treadmill.)

Elliott started school at the beginning of August, and his parents came down for his White Coat Ceremony two weeks later. It was great to have them as our first houseguests in Houston!

School is organized into blocks for Elliott, each around six weeks long, with an exam at the end of each block. Between one block ending and the next beginning, there's usually the better part of a week of no school, which is perfect for having adventures!

After Block 1, we spent a day in Galveston, then went to Austin for the weekend and saw its awesome weirdness, bats, capitol, hiking trails, and a geeky computer museum.

After Block 2, we went camping/rock-climbing with several other BCM students (as part of Baylor's Wilderness Medical Society) just west of San Antonio. A cold rainstorm hit late in the night, and only one person in our large group managed to stay dry. Elliott and I switched spots partway through the night, so both of us had the chance to sleep in the large puddle in our tent. However, the following day turned out sunny and pleasant and absolutely perfect for rock climbing. On our way home, we stopped in San Antonio for a few hours, where we had dinner and explored the River Walk.

The next day was Halloween, and we attended Baylor's annual celebration, Coffeehouse, a variety show put on by the medical students. A great time was had by all. There was a costume contest and we took second place as Kanye West and Taylor Swift (losing to a pretty awesome Russel from "Up").

To continue our winning streak, the next week we brought the prize-winning hummus to a "Stuff White People Like" party thrown by our friend Lauren, and received spectacularly ugly sweaters for our efforts.

Long December

Elliott and I spent most of December apart; I was in Alaska, helping my Mom after shoulder surgery, and Elliott was in Houston with his nose to the scholastic grindstone. It was great for me to be with my family and great for Elliott to be able to focus on school, but it reminded us that we'd much rather be with each other than not.

A couple days after Elliott's Block 3 exams were over, I returned from Alaska. I'd been home 18 hours when we loaded up and drove to North Carolina for Christmas. Elliott's whole family was gathering and we were the final two to arrive, bringing the total to 15, including our four nephews and our brand new niece, who we got to meet for the first time during our visit. It was so great to all be together and we had a great Christmas!

Life in General

We've been pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoy living in Houston, despite the failed promise of pleasantly warm winters.

Living inside the loop has been a nice change for Elliott (who went to high school in the suburbs), and living adjacent to the Texas Medical Center has made it easy to commute to school, go running in Herman Park or around Rice, and visit places like the Rothko Chapel.

Elliott is able to bike to school most days, and with our purchase of a bike for me, we have started going on biking adventures together. (Last week we discovered an amazing city park--complete with hills and unpaved backwoods "mountain" trails--in Houston.)

Also of late, we have been engaged in several home improvement projects, which we will be unveiling in later blogs.

It's been a good year and we've been able to do lots of fun things, but right now, most of all, we're hanging in there as medical school and the job hunt grinds on.