Wrapping it up in PA

So yesterday was a sad day. My last day at Magee-Women's Hospital. I'm relieved to be done... but it was really hard to say goodbye to everyone. They threw me a party which was really nice of them. Some people made food to bring and they also pitched in to order some pizza. They bought me a cake and all signed a card with some nice messages. Someone even made Texas cookies! I cried a couple of times and got some good pictures. I had three deliveries my last day. It was a good one. Take a look at the pictures I posted...

That night, Jon threw a frozen pizza in the oven for me. I went to get it out and burned the hell out of my hand. I guess I turned my hand a funny way... and laid it down on the rack! Yikes. It's a blistered line and it's probably gonna scar. Yuck. Nice way to end the day.

So far our travel plan will work something like this... Our moving company is coming sometime on Monday Dec. 7th. We will know on Friday 4th what time they will be here. I am hoping in the morning. If that's the case, we will leave by lunchtime for Texas! We will stop to sleep Monday night and in theory could be in Austin late on Tuesday night. If the moving company doesn't come until the afternoon, we may be looking at getting to Austin sometime on Wednesday. We will definitely keep everyone updated as things progress. We can move in to our apartment on Wed. 9th, but our stuff will not arrive until at least Fri. 11th. And it might not even show up then. We have a pretty wide window for delivery. So that's the plan so far!

Grad School x2!

So today I found out I am accepted to graduate school! Crazy, since I didn't think I would know until January. I start at the end of March and will have two long years ahead of me. I will be attending the University of Cincinnati in their Master of Nursing Women's Health program. Although I'm sure they have an excellent school of nursing on campus, I will be completing their distance program, which includes coursework online and a local Austin-area clinical with a nurse practitioner. At the time of graduation I will have completed the components necessary for taking the Nurse Practitioner licensing exam. I guess Jon gave me the "higher education bug". I have a few months before I begin, so hopefully we'll be all settled in Austin and I'll be ready to go!

40 Days Until TEXAS!

My in-laws are the best. We received a care package from Jon's parents (with help from Jan) tonight. It was a chain link made up of "40 reasons to look forward to Texas". It's the cutest thing! We pull of a link every night until we leave! It was so thoughtful and the "reasons" are all true! Some of my favorites are "mexican martinis", "babysitting Caleb", and "no icy hills".

Countdown to Austin

Well it's official, I've put in my resignation notice at work! Seven more weeks of working in Pittsburgh. My last day will be the week before Thanksgiving (the schedule isn't out yet). Jon has his last class on Friday, December 4th. After that, we'll be set to go home anytime! It will probably be the week of December 7th, either that Monday or Tuesday that we leave for Austin. Yay for travel plans home!!!!

Congrats Jonathan!

Jonathan was recently named one of Carnegie Mellon's Siebel Scholars. This a huge accomplishment, one that he has worked very hard for over the past year. I couldn't be more proud. It's really amazing that his dedication and natural leadership has been recognized by an organization of this magnitude. I am so happy for him!

To learn more...

http://www.siebelscholars.com/scholars

http://mse.isri.cmu.edu/software-engineering/News/hartje%20awarded%20siebel%20scholarship.html

Austin Visit

Our trip was wonderful! We had such a great time. It was, of course, over too quickly. Now we're back to life in Pittsburgh. Check out the photo album for new pictures! Thanks to everyone that worked us into their schedules. We loved seeing you. Fingers crossed, we'll be back in December for good!

August Travel Info

Here is our flight information:

Tuesday 8/11

Pitt to DFW 7:20-9:13am AA 1055

DFW to Austin 10:00-10:55am AA 419

Tuesday 8/18

Austin to DFW 4:55-6:00pm AA 1057

DFW to Pitt 6:55-10:35pm AA 1188

We can't wait to see everyone! Love A & J

4th of July in Pittsburgh

We watched fireworks with some friends on a bridge over the river. Very nice view.

More pictures in the album, enjoy!

Home!

So it's official! We're coming home to visit! The dates are August 11-18th (Tuesday-Tuesday). So mark it down! We should be buying our tickets this weekend, but those dates are pretty much set. We can't wait to see everyone! Not looking forward to the heat though...

Dad & Lindi Visit

We've had an exciting last few days. Visitors from home! Dad and Lindi came to visit, and it's been great. We've seen a lot of cool things. Carnegie Museum of Art/Natural History... We got yelled at twice for taking pictures.

We also went to a Pirates baseball game. They beat the Astros! It was a great game, and we got free hats!

After the game, there was a fireworks show and the Zac Brown Band played. Very nice night. 

We've had a great time running around with them and showing the sights of Pittsburgh. The park, the overlook, the market, and campus! Today's our last day unfortunately. Jon was able to spend the whole weekend and most evenings with us, so that was very nice. We love having company, so anyone is welcome! I'll post a new album, probably tomorrow, so check it out!

NYC 2009

I am really lucky to have a great husband. A husband that would be OK with me going on vacation without him! Meme and I decided that we wanted to take a trip to NY to visit Catty. We decided on a long weekend and flew over this last Thursday. Catty was nice enough to let us stay with her in her bedroom! It's a great place... but with the three of us, I'm sure it wasn't easy. So it was really kind of her to deal with us for four nights!  We had a great time walking around the city, shopping, eating great food and visiting. Here's a great view from Central Park. 

A few nights, we went out with Catty and her friends. We had lots of fun. NY has really great mexican food! We went to a cool bar that had a Zydeco band and dancing. It was great! Catty and I decided it reminded us a lot of Austin. Meme and I saw a broadway show and did some great walking all over the city. The weather was amazing. 

I had such a great time. I am so thankful it was something we could do. It was great to spend time with my family, to meet Catty's great friends and see what her life is like there in NY! Thank you to meme for accompanying me, Catty for putting up with us and Jon for being OK with me ditching him for a few days. I added more pictures on the slideshow link, take a look!

Spring... or Winter?

We have had the most beautiful weather. Things started to bloom...

And then, today it started snowing again...

And it's been snowing all day. I miss Austin...

Richard & Rachel Visit

We had visitors! Yay! Richard and Rachel came for a long weekend visit. They flew in Thursday afternoon and went home today. We had a really great time. They were a nice reminder of home. Unfortunately, we didn't have the best weather. Mostly cloudy and rainy at times. At least it wasn't in the 20's the whole time! Mostly 50's. We started the visit with a good view of the city. Between Richard's GPS and mine, we finally found the "best view" of Pittsburgh. 

We also had an interesting adventure at the Carnegie Science Museum. We played around, saw an IMAX show... and  a few other things...

We were able to board an old submarine they have in the river behind the museum. It was very interesting since Jon used to be a frequent visitor on the subs for work. I felt very bad for him after seeing the conditions. No space! And it stunk like nothing else...

So here is Richard. With his shirt still down... He's riding this crazy contraption at the science museum. He was brave to give it a try. Rachel tried it as well and did awesome! They both completely flipped, which looked really hard to do!

We also had dinner with some Pittsburgh friends of ours, and went to a game night with some other people. I think they got the full "Pittsburgh experience". Hopefully they had a good time and weren't too bored... We sure enjoyed having them. There are more pictures posted in the slideshow, so take a look!

Spring Break 2009

For Jonathan's spring break we decided staying home a little and relaxing would be great, but we also wanted to take a small trip somewhere close. We decided to go skiing! We hadn't been in about 3 years and figured while we were up north and only 60 miles away from a resort we definitely had to fit in a trip. We decided to spend two nights at the ski lodge. It was pretty great, we got a discounted rate since it's the end of the season. It was a beautiful drive. We had a nice fireplace and Jon did an excellent job starting the fires!

Here is the mountain. Only 8 trails were open for skiing. We went during the week, so there was hardly anyone else there! No lines, no waiting. Very nice.  Earlier in the week it got up to 70 degrees here! We were so bummed because we figured we would lose any chance there was of skiing. We were pretty lucky there was some left over snow! While we were there it never got above 35 degrees... strange weather.

Here's Jon skiing. I was taking a rest after a ridiculous experience with the ski lift. I've never had a problem getting on a ski lift, but for some reason this time it didn't go so well! I thought the chair was coming up quickly behind me, but obviously I was wrong, because I sat down too soon and landed on the ground in front of the chair! And of course, the chair kept coming... right over me. I did some crazy flip so that it didn't hit me too hard, and ended up on my back somehow. Poor Jon ended up on the chair that ran me down and was looking back at me when I finally got helped up! Not a great experience. 

As if the chair lift wasn't enough fun for the day... After lunch we decide we'll ski the "easiest" trail again and then move on to a blue. We picked the one I had really liked skiing, which we had done about 4 times already that day with no problem. About half way down, after one small spill, I had a major fall. We had both noticed more ice on the mountain than had been there previously. Not a huge fan of skiing on ice. I was going at a pretty good speed, went to make a turn and my pole caught on the ice in front of my ski, causing my ski to catch on the pole and literally flip me forward on to my right side. My right shoulder and arm slammed into the ice. It happened so fast, it pretty much knocked the wind right out of me. I was stunned and sore, so at that point we called it a day. I figured I would be a little bruised and swollen, but I definitely didn't expect to wake up the next morning and not even be able to lift my arm. 

Me sporting my super fancy sling. We got back home on Friday and finally decided I should see a doc. I couldn't get into the doctors office, so I ended up having to go to the ER. I needed some pain drugs for sure, and we figured it would be smart to make sure I hadn't broken anything. No break, the doc called it a sprain when I jammed my shoulder but couldn't rule out rotator cuff tear. I'll see an orthopedic specialist this week. I can't raise my arm at all without help, can't dress or write or feed myself with that arm. Can't drive. Of course I'm out of work until I can move it again. It feels muscular, like I tore apart every muscle in my arm. But hopefully it won't be more than 5 days to a week before I'm back to normal. Can't afford to miss work! How am I typing this, with our super fancy wireless keyboard that I can put in my lap! The hand and fingers still work : ) I must give props to the best nurse and housemaid there is. Jon has been really great. Thank goodness he's still out of school this weekend and has time to help me. He's cooked and cleaned, washed dishes, laundry and will help me grocery shop tomorrow. He helps me dress and get my sling on and goes crazy if I try and do anything with the arm. He's been great. So that's our spring break for you. The most memorable to date. 

Jonathan as Tom Selleck...

Don't worry, he finished shaving...

The Hill from Hell

So, some of you may remember an "incident" I had on an icy hill back in November. I never got around to getting a picture. I pass it often, sometimes there are stranded motorists, other times it's clear. I still avoid it at all costs. You will obviously not get the full affect of the steepness of it, but here it is.

Birthday Visit to WV

One of the best parts of my birthday was driving to meme's house the night before, to stay over and visit with her and my two crazy aunts! We had a great time. My wonderful husband came with me, even though I'm sure there was tons of work he could have been doing. He had to deal with four loud women... who were drinking a lot. He called it "Esty Fest 2009", as in estrogen. It was great fun though. We drove home on my birthday and I ended up getting him for the whole day! We saw a good movie and had a wonderful dinner. It was a great 26th birthday. 

January Snow!

It's so cold here! The high the other day was 4 degrees. Wow. That was a shock for me. Plus, it's been snowing all week. Last night it was coming down like crazy. I would say we have at least 4 inches outside, if not more. Lucky for Jonathan, I usually can take him and pick him up from school. The city does a pretty good job of keeping the roads and sidewalks clear and salted. 

Here's the entrance to our garage, see how deep the tracks are!!??

This is our parking lot right outside our living room window. I don't know how you can live in this city and park outside. Especially overnight. We watch people defrost and scrape their cars for 10 minutes everyday. It's crazy! It's actually warmed up quite a bit this weekend. It's 30 instead of 4. Yay! Just thought I would update everyone on the weather! I'll put more snow picks in the photo album. 

Holiday Visit 2009

Well belated Happy Holidays to everyone. It's been a while since we posted. We just got back from another great visit to Austin. Enjoyed seeing everyone and making up for being away from home on Christmas. We saw lots of good friends. Somehow I only managed to get pictures of a couple people! Most are probably happy about that.

We also spent time with our families, including the rapidly growing baby! He is beautiful and getting bigger by the second. 

It was so nice to be home. It gave us renewed energy for this coming YEAR of non-stop work and school. Unfortunately, this trip was probably Jonathan's last until we move home next December. I am hoping to fit in one trip sometime around spring/summer time. It all depends on the visitors we may have and when they decide to come up. 

Happy New Year to everyone, and we hope it is filled with all things happy and peaceful. Love to you all.