CALIFORNIA!!!

Well it has been ahwhile and as always lots has changed! I am sitting in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea and ready to catch everyone up on all that has gone on! I am FINALLY in California and living with Brett! We are really enjoying spending time together and making our house into our home! I drove out to California after finishing my 3rd clinical in Stillwater, MN. My sister helped with the drive and it was so nice to have company and another driver. The drive was uneventful for the most part, we did sit on I-80 in Wyoming for about 30 minutes waiting for it to open again after a snow storm! Otherwise it was great and we had a nice time- we were ready to get out of the car though after 30+ hours of driving!!

We got to California on the first Friday in March and Shelly was able to stay til Tuesday which was great because on Saturday (not even 24 hours after we got to Cali) Brett left on his first mission to Europe and Quatar for 12 days. It was so nice to have Shelly around while I was getting used to being in Cali. We also had our friend Will Giles (who is a C-17 pilot we met while Brett was in pilot training at Vance AFB) staying with us while he completed his inprocessing and finding a place to live.

Brett made it back safely and has also gone on another 5 day trip since to Hawaii, Guam and Japan. He is enjoying flying and the guys in the 9th Air Refueling Squadron. He now has a job in the squadron and is helping to schedule trips for the pilots. Hopefully he will get his pick of trips that work best for our schedule:)

We now have a new addition to our family! His name is Cooper and he is a 3 year old Black lab. We got him from the Golden Gate Lab Rescue and he is a great dog. He is very energetic and likes to play and run, we took him to the lake today and he was fetching a stick in the water for at least an hour! He also does very well at being calm in the house, as I type he is sleeping in the front living room. He stays in the house when we are gone and hasn't even chewed on anything!

He is definitely a companion dog, he likes to be wherever we are. He had a hard time when Brett was gone on a trip a couple weeks ago and he followed me wherever I went, and I do mean wherever, bathroom and all! He likes to be a part of everything we do and doesn't even like to be in the backyard unless we are there. He barks when people come to the door and is protective of me. We were over at a friends place on Thursday and he would growl whenever their dog came close to me. He loves to play with other dogs and has a blast at the dog park whenever we take him. He is a great dog and is very gentle and loves any attention he gets.

The weather has been warming up here lately and we took a trip to Lake Berryessa today to go kayaking! We grilled and took a walk and kayaked and had a great time. It is so great to relax and enjoy the outdoors. I am loving my clinical at North Bay Medical Center, a local hospital. I am working on preparing for my national exam in May/June and applying for a license and jobs!!! Not much fun but I am looking forward to getting a paycheck for all of my hard work! We are really enjoying the Fairfield area and are making some great friends. Everyone is so nice and welcoming at our church and at the Air Force Base, it is a great place to live and we are so excited to be finally settled down for awhile:)

Changing seasons once again!

So once again the seasons are flying by and I am just trying to keep up! I have been in California with Brett since last Friday and it has been so great to spend some time organizing and relaxing in my own house! I am very excited that this is the last time I will "visit" my own house and in March when I come back I will be living here and visiting everywhere else!

So here is a synopsis of the past 3 months- hang on there is a lot that has happened!!!

Brett was able to come and visit me in Grand Forks in the beginning of October- we had such a great time. It was so warm and beautiful out that weekend- we were able to walk around campus and reminisce about when we met and just enjoy the campus together for the last time (we will be back for my graduation- but will probably be crunched for time). We were also able to go down to Moorhead and meet up with my sister and go to Extreme Makeover Home Edition which was building a house for a family in the area and we were able to be a part of the crowd screaming "move that bus". It was a fun time!

At the end of October I was able to attend a national physical therapy conference for students in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. There were 20 of my classmates that went and 2 students from the first year class- we had a fun time and learned a lot. It is definitely different out east and we were ready to come home! We had a good time seeing all of the historic sights in Philadelphia and took a trip to Atlantic City as well! I had my first ever philly cheese steak sandwich in Philadelphia so that was pretty neat.

While I was on my trip in NJ we found out that my mom has breast cancer. I was able to go home for a couple of days and be with her when she had a lumpectomy. She is doing well and the cancer is stage I and her recurrence rate is low so she doesn' t have to have chemo. She will be starting radiation in January sometime. Keep her in your prayers- it is never a good situation but God has blessed us with much good news with things that could have been worse.

I was able to come out to California for Thanksgiving and we had a nice time. We had Thanksgiving with a couple that Brett knew from ROTC at UND, Kristy is a nurse out here and in the Air Force and her husband Randy works at a golf course .They are fun and we really enjoyed spending the holiday with them and a few other of their friends and some other pilots who didn't go anywhere for the holiday. It is nice to have familiar faces out here and people who have similar values of living in the midwest. We decorated the house for Christmas and Brett put up lights outside with his new ladder!

I finished out my last semester of PT school classes and I am excited to get back into the clinic and see patients. I am doing my first clinical in Stillwater, MN at the Courage Center and will be staying with Brett's parents. Then after 9 weeks at the beginning of March I will be driving out to CA with my mom and sister and then I will be living here full time! School went by so fast and it was sad to leave GF and all of the amazing friends I have made there- but I am ready to live with my husband and it will be so great to finally get settled in together and not have a long distance relationship. It has been way too long! Before I left GF we had a class banquet and we had a nice dinner with all of our professors and the students and it was very nice. It was a nice ending to a great semester and great couple of years!

Brett has been busy doing simulator training. He is finishing his last sim today and then will start to fly sometime after Christmas break. He has really enjoyed his instructor and the guys that he is training with. It will be nice once he gets in the plane and can start flying- he is excited to keep going. He will be done with training sometime in late February- early March. he is scheduled to deploy at the end of May- so he should be able to be at my graduation and be back for his brothers wedding in the middle of August!

We are heading back to MN tomorrow to have Christmas with our families and are excited to see family and friends. Several of our good friends have had babies in the past couple of months and other friends that we haven't seen for awhile are in town so we are excited to have a week of celebrating Christmas and spending quality time with family and friends.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Love,

Brett and Emily

God's Timing is Perfect

So, I have many an excuse of why I haven't been blogging lately- of which you will be updated in this blog- and I am sure you will forgive me for not updating you as I promised!!
After finding out we were moving to California everything just flew by the next couple months- really until now! We had Brett's graduation and had many family come down and had a great time! We were able to fly the simulators, look at the planes, and spend time together. It was so great to see Brett graduate and I was able to pin on his wings. He was the top of his class and won a lot of awards! I am so proud of him! Below are some pics of the event!

We found out that Brett would be going to training on August 11th and had to be moving to California by September 13th. We went to Bismarck, ND for our good friends' wedding Kari and Chase and had a blast seeing college friends that we hadn't seen in awhile!

The wedding was beautiful and we all had such a fun time dancing the night away together and catching up with each other! Kari and I were roomates for three years so we got to be pretty close- as did Chase and I- it was so fun to be a part of their big day!

As soon as we got back from North Dakota the next day we flew out to California to find a house to rent. We flew standby on tickets we got from one of our friend's that is a pilot and had quite the trip. We were able to sit in first class twice and had quite a smooth trip out there! We stayed on base and looked at many houses and were able to decide on one and put in an application all within 48 hours! It was such a blessing to have that time to pick out a house together and see the place where we will be living for the next four years! Brett moved in a couple weeks ago and I was able to go out this past weekend and we got some decorating done! I will post more pictures once we are completely finished but here are a couple to tide you over until then!

After we got back from California we spent the rest of the summer packing up the apartment and cleaning since Brett would only have a few days after he got back from Survival School in Washington to get out to California. We spent some time with all of the great friends we had made in Oklahoma and friends from ND that were in Oklahoma- Steve- who graduated from UND with Brett and is a C-17 pilot in the air force and his girfriend Jamie- who happens to be in my PT class! He was in OK for training so we spent a couple of weekends with them- it was so great! There are so many more pictures and stories than I can even write here so you will have to just ask me about it sometime!

On August 11th Brett left for training and I left to spend a week with my family in Minnesota before heading back to school. Initially I had been upset about Brett having to leave for training when we still would have had a week left together but God knows what he is doing. My Grandma Clara who had been put on hospice about a month before started to decline fast. I was so blessed to be able to spend that last week of her life here on earth with her talking about the good old days when we would spend time at her apartment having sleepovers and she would make us pancakes in the morning. I spent many hours at her bedside that week reading the Bible to her and singing hymns. I still can't believe how amazing of a woman she was even in her last days as she would tell me how beautiful I was and how great it was that I was there with her. She went home to be with Jesus now and I still miss her everyday. I don't think I could have ever gotten enough of her and I can't wait to see her again someday!

I hit the ground running as I came back to school- Grandma's funeral was Saturday, we moved some of Shelly's stuff up to Fargo on Sunday and I started class Tuesday. It has been busy as ever- but I am so glad to be on the home stretch. I will be in class in Grand Forks until December and then on clinicals all spring and then I graduate in May!!! I am so excited. I am so blessed to be able to do my first clinical in Stillwater, MN and live with Brett's parents and then my second clinical will be in California! Brett and I will finally get to live together and we couldn't be more excited! (Although he could get deployed in March- but I am trying not to think about that) He starts his training in the KC-10 on Monday and will be done in February.

The picture below is of the Tour de Forks 5-K to raise money for Breast Cancer Research. These are some of my classmates and the 1st year PT class as well as one of our professors. My good friend and classmate Alishia (in the pink in the front middle) was diagnosed with Breast Cancer this summer- she is on chemo now and doing well. So keep her in your prayers! She is a dear friend of mine and an inspiration in her strength in fighting through this tough time in her life.

So hopefully you now have a window into what my life has been in the past few months! I will try not to be so long between posts now! Through all of the craziness I know God has a plan and he is good! I just keep trusting he knows better than me!

Happy Fall!

Emily

Brett's Assignment Night!!!

Well it has been quite the exciting weekend this past weekend. We had Brett's assignment night where all of the guys in Brett's class get to find out what plane they will be flying and where they will be moving! Brett's parents and his college roomate RJ came down for it so that was fun. He got to go up in front of everyone and they made fun of how much of a nerd he is and how smart he is! (He shook his head- but I told him it could have been worse!) So then we found out that Brett will be flying the KC-10 Extender, which is a refueling plane(I will have him post and explain more later) and we will be moving to California!!! The base is right outside Fairfield, CA which is between Sacramento and San Francisco. We are very excited!!!

The KC-10 was Brett's first choice, so it was really great that he got it! (the guys get a list of the available planes and then rank them in the order they want them, he had wanted to fly a C-5 but it wasn't an option right now) The picture above is of us by the T-1 which is the plane that Brett has been flying now. We haven't found out any details about when we will be moving yet or anything, but we will keep you updated!!!

Sweet Summertime!!!

So summer has been flying by just as fast as it began! I can't believe that it is almost July!! I only have 2 days of class left and 1 final to take and I get to go to Oklahoma! I had 10 credits of classes this summer and 4 of them were my scholarly project (kind of like a thesis but shorter) which was to write a case report on a patient that I had in the clinic this past fall. I wrote it on a patient that had an amputation and had to do research and write it up according to specific guidelines using a template. It turned out well and my advisor was very happy with it. It was so exciting to turn it in!!!
I took a cake decorating class at Michaels with a few friends from my PT class. We had a great time and learned a lot! I am excited to make cakes! I decorated my first cake for my dad for fathers day!


Brett and I had a great time together in May for my break, I was able to be in Oklahoma for a little over 2 weeks. We were able to be together for our anniversary which was very nice! We went camping- it was hot and extremely windy so we stayed one night instead of 2, but we had a nice time anyways!
I also moved into a different apartment when I came back to ND at the end of May. It was sad to leave Kari, but moving to a new place is just a sign that the time when Brett and I will be able to live together is getting even closer! I am living with a classmate Robyn and it is going well, her husband lives about 7 hours away, so it is nice to keep each other company and we understand each others' situation.

Another fun thing that I have done this summer is go to Rib Fest in Fargo. They have different rib vendors and have a contest to see whose is best. They also had Phil Vassar there giving a free concert. He was so great! Summer concerts outside are the best!
I have also had a visit from my family to help me move and been able to visit the fam in MN and see my grandma. So far it has been a pretty great summer. Brett and I are both excited about what is to come, he finds out where we move and what plane he gets to fly on July 9th! Then we have a bunch of family coming for his graduation on July 23rd. We are so excited for the rest of our summer!
Hope you are having a great summer too!~!!
Emily

Springtime

Wow it has been a whirlwind Spring! Brett ended up being able to come up to Minnesota for Easter which was so nice! It was just a short weekend- but we hadn't seen his family since last July so it was nice to spend some time with them! We wend to the Swarm game (Lacrosse) with his brothers and soon to be sister in law. They lost but it was still a fun time.
We have been able to see each other once a month this semester so that has been such a blessing, but I think we are getting spoiled- the longer we are apart the more often we need to see each other- oh well, one year from tomorrow I will be graduating! So exciting!















I have had a very busy Spring up in Grand Forks as well. I participated in Relay for Life on the UND campus with some of my classmates and the 1st year students in the PT program. We had a fun time- although there were only 3 of us that stayed all night- so we had to take turns sleeping and walking alone- but it turned out ok. The picture below is the pirate cake that we made- it was a birthday theme so we had a pirate birthday theme- our cake was by far the best one there! It has really gotten me into making cakes- so I might have to try more in the future- some of my classmates and I might take a cake decorating class at Michaels this summer! I am excited!


The other picture below is of The Big Event- for those of you who haven't heard of this, it is in Grand Forks where the UND students and faculty get together and do community service projects for a few hours on one Saturday. People, churches, and businesses are sent a letter asking if they have any work they want done. People do painting, yard work, etc. We ended up doing yard work at a Lutheran Church. We had a good time- it was a wet and chilly day- but didn't rain very much so that was nice. We raked, cleaned up the parking lot and cleaned out flower beds. We really did alot in a short period of time and the groundskeeper was very thankful! It was fun to give back and do some physical labor since we sit in class alot!

Well, that is our Spring in a nutshell- Brett is busy flying and is getting towards the end of his training! He finds out what plane he will fly next and what base we will be moving to on July 9th! And then he graduates on July 23rd! WE are so excited to find out what is in store for us next and where we will be living!
Love,
Emily (and Brett)

Spring Break in Oklahoma

Hello everyone! We have been so busy lately so here is an update on what we have been up to!
Brett has been busy flying the T-1. He is really enjoying it and does very well on all of his tests and flights. He is quite busy, working from 5am to 5pm Monday through Friday. We are both looking forward to his graduation in July and have our families coming down to Oklahoma to celebrate with us!
I have been busy with my course work as well. I have a lot of group projects this semester so that can be challenging. But I am enjoying my other courses, I am ready for summer to be here and to get to spend some more time with Brett once my summer coursework is done. I am on my spring break right now and down in Oklahoma with Brett. (well, he is at work most of the time- but we at least get to eat dinner together and see each other every day) We went to Roman Nose State Park this past weekend and went golfing and mountain biking. It was 60 and sunny outside and we had a great time! I had never been golfing before and was really quite bad at it, but Brett was patient and a good teacher so I started to get a little better. We went biking as well and it was fun and challenging, the trail was quite rocky and steep in some places, so we are both sore still 2 days afterwards, but it was worth it. The pictures below are from our time at Roman Nose State Park.

The golf course was pretty fun and quite challenging. This hole was across a big ravine and Brett actually made it across (needless to say, I didn't). We had a great time speeding down the big hills with the golf cart and searching for our golf balls in all the dips and hills.

We are looking forward to being done with our schooling and being able to live together- we are getting closer all the time.

Hope all is well for everyone,

Emily