My New Home

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intend to be." Douglas Adams

After five incredibly stressful days on an extreme emotional rollercoaster, I secured a pre-doctoral internship and will be moving to Bellingham, WA this fall. And, while I never dreamed of moving to B-ham (as the locals call it) or Washington, I can honestly say I am SO EXCITED for this opportunity!

I am excited for two very important reasons. First, the internship is going to be awesome! I will be interning in the Counseling Center at Western Washington University. I love working with college students and am especially excited because they have two eating disorder specialists on staff and work with a campus dietician and physician. In addition, there are opportunities to work the the student-athletes. Yay! :)

Second, Bellingham seems like an incredible town. It is 90 miles north of Seattle, 70 miles north of Olympic National Park, 25 miles south of Canada, 60 miles south of Vancover, right on the Pugeot Sound and just to the west of the Cascade Mountain range and Mt. Baker. The town prides itself on outdoor recreation and open space. Can you seriously pick a cooler town to live in for a year?! :)

My Best Friend

You saw a picture of my best friend, Edith, right after she was born. Six months later she is the cutest and happiest baby ever. I love spending time with her. Her smile is contagious! :)

Catching Up
I can hardly believe a month has passed since my last post. I neglected my blog partly because I did not have internet at home for 10 weeks. The other part is because I was busy trying to get my dissertation proposal turned into the IRB before Eric came to visit. I turned it into my committee and now have approval from one committee member (waiting on two others before I can submit to IRB).

And I finished it just before Eric came for a week long visit. He has been skiing before but never experienced winter quite like this. On our first ride (I was cleared for road riding in early February), he wore 5 or 6 layers to stay warm. It was in the upper 30s that day...not quite CA but not all that cold either. I was only wearing a baselayer, jersey, and vest.

We went up to The Pantry (Green Mountain Falls) one day and ended up pond skating after breakfast. I have not done that since I was a kid and it was so fun. No skates, just our shoes, but it was a blast to play on the ice for a little while before we froze.

Eric also got to meet almost all of the important people in my life that live in Colorado Springs, including a special breakfast date with my best friend Edith (Mandy's baby). He's back in CA now while I focus on moving forward with my dissertation and am trying to line up an internship for next year. I am also starting real training again this week and head to Costa Rica in five weeks. Hopefully I will be better at posting now that I have internet at home; although, my life is pretty dull these days with most of my focus on dissertation and internship.