1 Whole Year...

I know I have been majorly slacking on the updates to my blog. Well, that might be a little understatement seeing that my last post was a year and a half ago. Well, I guess the short run down of this last year was...

I finished grad school. At the end of it Scott was telling people he was more excited for me to finish and have his wife back than I was. I did my internship in cardiac rehab during the summer and graduated in August with an MS in heath education/public health. My GPA was the thing I was the proudest of: 4.0, yes that means I was perfect.

I also finished my collegiate running career. It didn't go as well as I had hoped, but I also was injured during all of indoor and outdoor. At the end of the season I was only able to run about 3 miles a day until the pain was too great for me to handle, and I like to think that that is a lot.

So, as I said in the other post I got injured. It started in November with REALLy tight IT bands. I asked my trainer to rub them out and werf (word for he or she) said no. That's an even longer story, but then in December it got worse. I got an MRI in January and was diagnosed with osteoitis pubis. This is softening of the cartilage at the pubic symphasis (where your hip bones come together in the front). I also had a stress fracture on my pubic ramus, but was only told that later. So, they said since it's your last season, you can just run through this and go to physical therapy. I loved my physical therapist but I still continuously got worse and worse. I had another MRI in April with contrast this time. We saw that I might have a labral tear and still had my other issues. At this point the orthopedic surgeon said I don't know what to do with you. I thought it was a sports hernia (athletic pubalgia) and a labral tear. The surgeon said I don't think it is a sports hernia and the only reason I would go in with a scope to your hip is because I think fixing your labrum might make you run differently, but I don't think it is causing you pain. At this point I was mighty frustrated with him (Scott was there and equally frustrated). This surgeon said you can go find a second opinion or have me scope your hip. He didn't give me any idea of someone to see or anything. So, I went online and looked for several hours. I found Dr. Meyers in Philly who does sports hernia repairs. This is a very new field and there aren't many people around who do these repairs. I told UC that I wanted to go to him because I felt as though I had a sports hernia. I did have all the signs and symptoms of one so I have no idea why this surgeon thought I didn't have one. Well, we got me in at the end of June 2010. Had an appointment with him on Monday he said you have a huge tear in your rectus and have ripped the muscle partially off the bone. The next day I had surgery.

So, in the last year as I just explained we also took a trip to philadelphia. We went down on a Thursday night right after Scott was done with work. Got to our hotel in Gettysburg at some a full hour at night. Scott was so tired that he was hallucinating things like umbrellas popping open in the middle of the road. The next day we went and bought an audio tour of Gettysburg and drove around and listened. It was awesome. I did this with my family when I was younger, but it meant a lot more to me now. We went on a couple of tours at the sites and ran into this really funny tour guide that thought it was pretty cool that we were LDS. So, after that humbling and awe-inspiring tour we went to hershey, PA. This was a lot less awesome than Gettysburg, but I guess what do you expect! It was still fun and we (Scott) got free chocolate out of it. Afterward, we drove into philly, which was crazy. I have to say that looking for parking was crazy. We finally gave up trying to find a cheap place to park and parked at our hotel (the hilton in downtown, $50, I love priceline) for $31/day. We then walked to Penn's landing and went to a thing called taste of Philly. A whole bunch of Philladelphia restaurants had booths that you can buy little servings of their food. We got some philly cheese steak and some other food that I don't even remember now. For dessert we ate some gelato that wasn't amazing. Saturday we woke up and went to Valley Forge and did a cell phone tour around that area. There were also some fun story tellers at the different stops along the way. Our history is just so fascinating and amazing. After we were done there we went back to the hotel and went to the Ben franklin museum. We watched Iron Man 3 in Imax. Then went to Walmart to buy food for the next day (Sunday). We went to church which in itself was a whole process! We have a GPS (Sam) and he kept taking us on streets that were shut off because of a bike race. I don't know why but Scott and I couldn't stop laughing about it. We got to church about 30 minutes late, but we tried right? The talks were very interesting. I felt like I had entered in a revival. 90% of the congregation was African. I absolutely loved the last women who spoke. I don't remember what she spoke about I just remember the spirit as she spoke, and the love and passion she had for the gospel. I don't think that us white americans are very good at that. Relief society was very interesting. It was a talk about good, better, best but I felt like I was in primary. We microwaved our lunch in the kitchen there and left to go to Longwood Gardens. These are gardens right outside Philly that a guy made and designed himself. It was breathtaking and amazing. I highly recommend this to anyone. There were lots of fountain shows and what not. We then went back to the hotel to plan the next day. We went to the visitor's center and got tickets to independence hall. We watched a movie on it and then went to the liberty bell. That was supper cool. That huge crack in the liberty bell, was actually not the fatal crack. The fatal crack was so small and tiny that you could bairly see it. There's a good anallogy in there somewhere, I just don't feel like drawing it out. The liberty bell that was sent over actually is not the same one that we have now. They had to recast it and people were saying it might not even be the same metal. We then had to go get an MRI on my hip (that was why we took the trip). After, we went to our independence hall tour. That was amazing as well. We go to see where the founding fathers decided to declare independence. They also had some of the founding fathers things out on the tables and chairs. We had to leave the tour right before they were ending to run up to the appointment with Dr. Meyers. We literally ran several blocks to get there. I was SO sweaty during the examination, I was so embarrassed. We were told about having to get surgery the next day. We got philly cheesesteaks and auntie anne's pretzels that afternoon. That night we had room service (first time for both of us). The next morning I had the surgery. All I really remember about it is waiting in the preop room for an hour. I talked to all the people in the beds next to me, read my doctor's notes. Finally I went it and as they were telling me to climb onto the operating table I put my head in the pillow and said, wow this is a very comfy pillow. They told me I could keep it and call it my 35,000 dollar pillow. I also remember coming out of anesthesia and shaking uncontrollably. People kept asking how I was doing and I kept saying fine how are you doing. I remembered that my anesthesiologist didn't get lunch before the surgery so I kept asking him if he had lunch. I also kept complementing the nurses on their hair and shoes. All I wanted when I woke up was water and my husband. I kept setting off the alarms on my monitor because my HR dropped below 40. I got into my own room afterward and they told me to order some food. I watched TV and waited for my food and husband. They kept me there a little longer because of my reaction to the anesthesia. Scott finally came and next I'll explain what was keeping him. He went back out and got me some auntie anne's pretzels. We left the hospital and went by a philly cheesesteak place. There was no parking so, yes, probably 5 hours after my surgery I stood in line for a philly cheese steak. The next day we got up and walked around valley forge, where we stayed the last night, and then drove home with several walking breaks.

Another this that happened that I hinted at was that we sold our house in provo!!! We were praying for this for a long time, and the Lord has a funny sense of humor sometimes when answering our prayers. A couple minutes after Scott said goodbye to me as I was wheeled into the preop room, our real estate agent called him and said I need you to print, signed and get these document notarized and sent back to me now. Scott said, my wife just went into surgery, can't we wait until later or tomorrow. The agent said no. So, luckily the nurses there were very nice and let him use the computer and print things out, found him a notary in the hospital and a fedex building close by. So, that is what Scott was doing while I was in surgery, and why I had to wait to see my husband after surgery.

We had thanksgiving at our place here in Cincinnati again. That was SO fun to have all my family here in our little apartment. We didn't do a salt encrused turkey this time but we brined it. While my family was here we went to the Zoo and aquarium. We also did the turkey trot here in Cincinnati.

We went to Boise at the beginning of December to see Scott's family up there. That was so much fun to see all the adults but mostly the little ones that had grown SO much! It had been 9 months since we had been to Idaho.

Scott and I went to Texas that year for Chirstmas. It had been something like 2 1/2 years or more since we had been to Texas. While we were there we went to the Space center in Houston where they do all the astronaut training.

This whole time I have been looking for a job to no avail. That is still where my employment status is right now.

Scott has earned two raises and one promotion since he has started his job. They seem to really like him there and he likes it as well.

The most recent saga of our life is our SECOND trip to philadelphia. Yes. The saga will forever continue it seems. I have spent too much time on this update and I'm sure that no one will read the whole thing so, I don't want to bore anyone more.

Sleepless in Boise

So, as you can tell I'm in Boise and can't sleep. That seems really weird because we were up until 2:00 A.M. just sitting around and talking. I've come to the conclusion (about 3 years ago) that I have the best in-laws... ever.
It's been so fun to be out here in the mountains again. I forgot how much I really missed them horribly. The first run that I did here I had to concentrate on footing and then I finally got to look up and just stared at the mountains for the next several miles and had the most goofy looking grin on my face because of them.
Well, I know this is a short post but I still want to read the scriptures and then I have to go face the 4-5? inches of snow that fell last night. That one might be one point for Cincinnati over the rockies.

Flashing Red Lights, Frustration, and Freakishly Close Encounters of the Cervidae Kind

Disclaimer: This is a post from Scott. I (Jocelyn) have done all the other posts. So, now this blog can officially be the Scott and Jocelyn blog!

Two weeks ago, we had a very interesting experience on our way home from school and work. It was a dark and stormy Wednesday night (really, it was dark and stormy…and it was a Wednesday for that matter.) It is important to know that it was stormy…not so much that it was dark, but that it was stormy…and it was Wednesday. Jocelyn and I were on our way home from work and school and just pulled onto I-75 to go home. The entrance we got on the freeway at is no more than 1 mile from the exit where we get off. Just as we get onto the entrance ramp we round a corner and see the entire freeway before us full of frozen red lights. I-75 had turned into an utterly static parking lot as far as our eyes could see. This was bad news because it was a Wednesday (see, I told you it was important to know it was a Wednesday).

It just so happens that Wednesday evenings at 7:00, Jocelyn and I teach a personal finance class at church. I am a firm believer in starting meetings on time and told the class that we would begin our classes promptly at 7:00 every Wednesday night. After 10 consecutive weeks of beginning at 7:00, I was not about to break the streak. I glanced at the clock to see how much time we had. 6:20. We sat on the entrance ramp waiting for any signs of movement. The clock kept ticking…6:25…6:30. The rain drummed down on the roof of our car as we sat overlooking the sea of red. My fingers drummed the steering wheel impatiently watching the minutes tick by with no sign of reprieve from the gridlock. After sitting in the same place for over 15 minutes, I turned off the car hoping to invoke the eternal Law of Traffic that states once you have sat idling for any significant length of time, traffic will begin moving the moment you turn off your car. No such luck tonight.

The digital numbers on our clock ticked closer and closer to 7:00. When it became apparent that no matter how quickly traffic cleared, we would still not make it to the church on time, I called the one member of the class whose number I had in my phone and asked him to let the rest of the class know that we would have to push our start time back to 7:30. In an effort to find out why in the world we hadn’t moved in over 25 minutes, we turned on the radio and listened for a traffic report. (This is where the stormy part comes in.) Right at the very exit we needed to take, a semi had slipped on the wet roads and was jackknifed blocking all lanes of traffic. To make matters worse, there was also a diesel spill on the road making it impossible for any traffic to pass.

Around 6:50, traffic finally began moving. When we got home, Jocelyn scrambled to make us salads for dinner as I got the materials for class together. As we were rushing out the door with our dinners, my bowl of salad slid from its perch on top of my binder and launched a beautiful salad, complete with salad dressing, all over our front room. Perturbed at another set back and having lost my dinner, I ran to grab towels to clean the mess. We tidied up as best we could and ran out the door with the few pieces of lettuce we could salvage from the carpet.

It was now 7:10 and we still had to get the room set up for the class. We were not, however, too worried because the church was close and we never had traffic on the roads we took to church…except tonight. We pulled onto the street and again saw the ominous, steady glow of brake lights. Letting out an audible groan, we pulled into traffic and sat, waiting. After another ten minutes, the cars began moving past a three-car pile-up that had been moved to the side of the road. (You have to understand that in Cincinnati, the “side of the road” means the right lane of a two lane road.) It was now getting dangerously close to 7:30 and we were still not at the church. As we pulled off of that road, I said aloud, “There had better not be a wreck on this road!” Had I only known then how close we would come to making that statement true.

I take back an earlier statement I made…it is important to know that it was a dark night. As we were being passed by a car in the left lane, we noticed movement in the car’s headlights. Jocelyn immediately began screaming, “Deer! Deer! Deer!” I slammed on the brakes as a deer came bounding across the road not more than 10 feet in front of us. After it scampered off the road, I accelerated to get back up to speed when out of thin air, another deer appeared directly in front of the car. I slammed even harder on the brakes causing the car to go into a slide on the wet road. Everything seemed to slow down and I could see the deer’s eyes get wider and wider. It was almost as if I could see a little thought bubble come out of its head that read something like, “Not gonna make it…not gonna make it!!!” It was only half right. Just as the deer made its final Herculean leap to get out of the trajectory of our careening car, we felt its back leg knick the front corner of our car. I regained control of the car as the deer bounded off to safety. Jocelyn and I immediately erupted into that terrified, relieved laughter that comes after a night of frustration and near death experiences. We at last pulled into the safety of the church parking lot and found that someone had already unlocked the building. (It was a good thing too because the family we normally borrow a church key from was not answering their phone that night.) Needless to say, it was an interesting night fraught with flashing red lights, frustration, and freakishly close encounters of the Cervidae kind.

For those of you wondering, Cervidae is the genus of deer (at least according to the all-knowing Wikipedia).

PICTURES

We had three pies and a cheese cake. Scott loves pie, I think he would eat it for every meal.
We had some fall fun. we couldn't make that big of a pile when we didn't have a rake.
This is our turkey. I know it looks weird. We tried something new. It was a salt encrusted turkey. It was actually really really good. Sounds bad but it isn't.
Fatty while he was still alive!
Yes this is our tree and yes it is wrapped. Some how we fit it in our car.
These are the ornaments that Scott and I made! How cute!


This is my santa. All of these look at lot more awesome in person. I was really proud of my santa


This is what we had to do to get to our salt encrusted turkey. Scott liked it because he got to use power tools.

So, I really don't feel like studying right now so I guess I can consider this to be productive too. I wrote a whole huge blog post a coupe weeks ago and then my computer decided to shut down so, I didn't have the time or effort to rewrite it. I also wrote Chelsea a letter that my computer lost too! Well, lots and lots has happened this month. Cross country is over it ended quite sadly but life goes on. Also, another sad story is that Baby mac died, he is now in the morgue. For those who do not know who baby mac is, it is my computer that has been with me for 4 1/2 years! Well I was in the middle of writing a research paper. I had probably spent 10 hours on it. Monday morning I woke up at 3:00 A.M. to finish it because it was due at 4:00 P.M. but I have to teach and go to class during the day. So, I turned it on and it went to the normal blue start up screen. Then tragedy fell and it went to this gray screen with lines across it. Well, I couldn't write a paper completely over and turn it in by 4. so I tried everything I woke Scott up and he tried everything. Then I sent my professor an e-mail and explained everything and went back to bed. Well, luckily he was very kind and let me turn it in on Thursday at 2:00 pm. But, it is still very very sad he has died. My father-in-law called us this last Sunday and said he was coming to visit the warehouse that next day so he wanted to see if he could stay with us. We of course were thrilled and so it was fun to have him on Monday. Then wed. Megan (my sister) came. Thursday we spent all morning cooking and then went and drove around Cincinnati and showed her all the gorgeous houses and that night we stayed up late (for me not her) and just talked with all three of us. Friday we took her to this awesome grocery store. It has food from all around the world. Then chatted some more and sent her away with lots of left over thanksgiving.
One more story happened at the beginning of this month. We were about to go to sleep when we hear what sounds like a waterfall coming from our bathroom. We go in and water is flowing over our vanity and flooding our bathroom. So we get some bowls and start dumping it in the bathtub. Scott sent me to sleep while he cleaned it up because it was 2 nights before a race. In the middle of the night I woke up and heard our sink gurgling so I went and took care of it. Then it happened again around 3 am. so I woke Scott up and said that our sink was acting up again. He's the best husband ever because he got up and took care of it. Our landlord called us and told us not to use the sinks. Well, everything is all clear now. Oh we decided to cut a Christmas tree down this past Saturday so we went to a farm and got one for 30 bucks! It was so fun. We found this one which we call fatty for obvious reasons. Then we went to get some Christmas stuff. I decided that I was going to make some christmas tree ornaments with my acheivement day girls. We are going to make snowmen heads together but then I made a santa head which I think was pretty cool and awesome. Well, I try to post some pictures now. Hope everyone ad a great thanksgiving and I only have 1 1/2 weeks of school/finals!!! Hurray!

New things

Well, Last weekend I had a week off of racing so, we decided to go to the temple. It was a pretty drive down because the trees have still retained their color for the most part. When we got into the room I saw Scott talking with another guy like he knew him. Well, when I got out the same guy was sitting in the waiting area and he asked if I was Scott's wife. Well, he ended up being the only other LDS person that Scott knows works at Nielsen and his wife. We invited them to watch the BYU game with us but they had to get back to their kids. We have the tradition of going and getting a DQ blizzard after a session so we got a pumpkin pie flavored one. We had 3 other guys in the ward over to watch the game with us. That doesn't need to be talked about... this last week of school has been crazy just like all the others, but I had a midterm in the class that is actually really hard and in Stats. I ended up getting a 100 on the stats and I'll get the other test back next week because it was a 6 essay exam.
I left on Friday morning to go to Kenosha Wisconsin for Conference. The ride up was pretty uneventfull other than we all talked and I didn't get any thing done on this 8 hour trip except 67 stats question on my computer which I lost Saturday night =(. I roomed with Lillian who is the only Kenyan that we have on the team. Her story is quite interesting. She really wanted to help her village but her parents didn't have enough money to send her to college so she started running and UC found her and asked her to run for them. Now she is majoring in nursing so that she can help the corrupt system over there. She's an awesome runner and a very nice person. Well, I woke up Saturday morning with a stomach ache and I was all shaky. I had to force food down me at breakfast. We got to the course 3 hours before we were to run. It was freezing there but luckily there was a warm building we were allowed to stay in instead of sitting in the car for even longer. My team warms up an hour before the race. I never have warmed up that early before a race so I wait until they come back and warm up 40 ish minutes before. Well, on my warm up I couldn't breathe. I even took my inhaler and couldn't breathe. I took it again 10 minutes before the race and still couldn't breathe on my strides. I had said before that I was going to go out slower and with Lillian and Tamera, so I went out slower and ran with Tamera a little under 1 mile. Then I kept going and she went back a little bit. OH! I forgot to say that this course say SO muddy! It had standing water above our ankles on several places on the course and everything else you were just sliding around in the mud. 1/2 inch spikes come in handy, even though they look like they could kill someone. Well, I finished 34th and 1st for the team. It was an ok race but not really that awesome. I felt horrible at the end and just wanted to go home.
Our ride home was pretty uneventful as well. We drove through downtown Chicago and right by Wrigley Field. We were trying to decide were to eat when coach Susan (the heads women's coach for track and the person driving our van) said we could eat a steak and shake. The plan had been to eat at a nice restaurant in Chicago but most people though it would take way too long and we all wanted to get back home. So, then the plan degraded into eating at steak and shake. Well, she looked on her blackberry and couldn't find one. We kept looking at the exit signs and finally decided we would just go one more exit and we would just get off and find something. Well we came to the sign on the highway that says what food is at the exit and we were all reading through it and then everyone erupted in hurrahs when we read steak and shake because Susan had told us that there wasn't one in this town. We exited and drove for what felt like 4 miles probably more like 2, but there wasn't a steak and shake. We were in a lane to do a U turn and just go and find a different place to eat when Kayla who was in the very back row of this 15 passenger van said look there's steak and shake up on the right up there. So, we all erupted in hurrahs and laughs again. It was just was meant to be I guess. It was the first time that I ate at steak and shake, it was good. It was so nice to get home to Cincinnati even though a high school football game was getting out of the UC stadium right when Scott was picking me up. I love being at home and with Scott. It's the best feeling ever! Now I just sent the extra hour we had from daylight savings updating this blog somewhat. I would try to put pictures up, but our camera doesn't want to download to my computer.

Major Update

So, I guess it's kind of obvious that school has started! I haven't updated this in a while! Well, I've had two races since then and lots of school. School started and the first week made me want to quit. I came home after the first couple days of school and told Scott that I was thinking about quitting everything. I looked up the last day to withdraw without any fines. I felt overwhelmed with what I was expected to do. All is well now though. I teach a group fitness class for 12 hours a week. In group fitness I alternate what we do every week. So far we have done a cardio boot camp work out, stability ball stuff, and pilates. So far my classes have like it. We have had 3 1/2 weeks of school and only have 7 more to go! It's half way point of a semester. Well, I also am a slave to a proffessor for 8 hours a week, I just grade papers. Then some where in there I fit in running and 15 credit hours of Graduate work with some studying time. So far I don't feel as though grad school is hard as in mentally, but hard to fit everything in that I need to do.