Patriot's Day Year Two

Today is 'Patriot's Day.' The day New England made up to get another holiday to celebrate 'Patriots' and other patriotic endeavors. It is also the day of the Boston Marathon which I hear is quite a big deal.

Chad is currently down by the finish line cheering as the wheel chair contestants make their way in ahead of super human runners like Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot who last year won the race in 2 hours and 5 minutes (the new record). Can you imagine running 26 miles in 2 hours?! Unbelievable. Chad said something like this last year, 'Hey, while we're in Boston, we should run the Boston Marathon.' I'm sure you all can imagine my response. I hate running to run. No way am I going to be interested in running a marathon. I like to be active and athletic, but let's be honest, I'm not hardcore about exercizing. The marathon began in 1897 and attracts 500,000 people every year. Chad is in the middle of swarms of people currently trying to catch a glimpse of sweaty bodies making their way across the finish line. Or he might be waiting in a gargantuan line at Qdoba for his free burrito (he got a coupon for donating blood last week). I'm sure he's doing both : )

Last week I had a small life crisis when I found out I didn't get in to any of the graduate nursing programs I had applied to. I started freaking out about my 'life plan' and wondered what was going to happen to me. How was I going to finish school in time if I now had to start a year later? When can we have kids? Can we even have kids when we have no money? And on and on. Ridiculously dramatic, I know. Then I realized that I'm an incredible blessed human being with lots of time and choices ahead of me. So I decided to trust in God's plan instead (novel idea, I know). I am going to reapply next year to shorter nursing programs and go back for my Masters later (maybe). And Chad and I talked about the whole 'kid' thing and we feel that in two years we will be ready. Of course I'm sure I'll be reassessing that in two years : ) I know that everyone says that I'm really young and I have years before I have to start thinking about kids. And this may be true for some people. But the fact is, when I think about what I want to do with my life. I think about a career, hobbies, interests, everything that I've dreamed about. But the thing I most dream about is having a family and being a mother (eventually) and hopefully glorifying God while doing so. And I've always wanted to be a somewhat younger mother. Which I don't think 27 is super young, however that's young enough for me. And... did you know that the younger you have your first child, the lower your chances for breast cancer are? This actually is something I should be concerned about because I have quite the lengthy family history and Chad and myself are shockingly quite attached to my breasts (I'm sure Chad hates it that I just wrote that!)

We had a very nice weekend. Friday night our friends Greg & Heather hosted a party for our mutual friend Derek to congratulate him on his newly published paper. There were a lot of friends there and we all had a great time. My favorite part being watching Kevin, Derek, Greg and Ryan play a grunge metal song on Rockband. It was quite entertaining, but you kind had to be there. Saturday night we went over for a delicious Korean dinner with our friends Steve & Joyce. They will be moving to California in a month so it was nice to spend some time with them - and Joyce really knows how to cook! They have been in our married small group for the last year and a half. Sunday I set up the decorations for Palm Sunday that I had organized earlier in the week. I got different sized potted palm plants that I set up in two groups of three to flank the podium. I covered the ugly plastic pots with wrapping paper and ribbon. I'm also decorating for Easter, so I'm going to reuse those plants and add a bunch of fresh potted flowers. It's cheaper and easier to use potted plants - and then people can take them home and enjoy them for a long time. I also tried out a cake recipe from Martha Stewart magazine. I wanted to see if it would work well for Easter next week, but I think I'm going to go in a different direction. It was a layered spice cake with raspberry jam and mascarpone frostong. It was actually extremely tasty - but not quite what I had in mind for Easter. And Chad isn't a big fan of spice cake.

I hope you all are having a fabulous week!

~Whitney