April 2011

Overall, April has been a pretty low key month....


Easter Sunday 2011

 Even though Bill and I have been in Yuma for a couple of months now, I finally feel like we have settled into some sort of routine that works for us and things are becoming more familiar, which has been great! Sometimes, I think that it is difficult to realize you're still adjusting until you look back and process all of the changes that have happened in a very short amount of time-- like new jobs, new people, and new geography:) Sometimes, it feels like we have been here forever already when we really haven't! Fortunately, for both of us, all changes have been and continue to result in positive professional and personal growth.

My job continues to be great in the sense that I am afforded the opportunity to learn something new everyday in regards to the Behavioral Health/Mental Health field.  More importantly, it has given me the opportunity to work with children AND their families, which has been challenging and rewarding. Working with these families has given me an overall sense of appreciation for growing up and having the family that I do! During this particular month, I was able to take a group of 30 kids to Mission Beach located in San Diego, CA for one of our trip outings. That was alot of fun as it was some of the kids' first trip to the beach! They loved it and even got to see some dolphins swimming in the waves! I think that this has been the best outing to date and look forward to assisting with future trips.

Bill will be wrapping up WTI this weekend, which is GREAT news (for me, haha)!! In all actuality, WTI was NOT that bad in regards to Bill being gone all the time. Maybe it was because my job keeps me pretty busy... OR maybe because nothing compares to the work ups and deployment we were preparing for last year! Actually, I feel bad for saying that because I know that Bill loves what he does and I am proud of him for what he does. BUT, I can't deny the fact that I am looking forward to having our full weekends back so we can execute some of the official plans that we have made for the upcoming year!

And, we sure do we have some plans!!! A couple of Sunday's ago, we vegged out with some Papa John's Pizza and mapped out the rest of the year in regards to our "adventures". We really wanted to hike Half Dome located in Yosemite National Park over Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, we missed the memo that you have to get a permit to hike the cables, which are available only 60 days in advance. Well, apparently, they sold out within minutes of being available. SO, we have made a change of plans and are planning on hiking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon over the holiday weekend, which I think will be equally as awesome!! I am really looking forward to it!

I am even more excited for our Fourth of July plans that we have booked to Catalina Island, which is located just 26 miles off the coast of California. It is supposedly a very popular scuba diving destination, which would be awesome to do. I haven't been diving since my check out dive in college, which was in 37 degree water temps with 0 visability! Hopefully, if we get around to diving, it will be much warmer and we would be able to see if we were going to be shark bait before it was too late! Even if we don't, I think it will be a great trip! For you Bachelorette Fans, Catalina Island is where Roberto and Ali got engaged! :)

Other adventures that we have planned for the year include a family reunion in Montana and a family wedding back in New York during the later half of August! And of course, our Hawaii destination wedding in November, which is already set!:) I am looking forward to the upcoming months!


Mom and Dad


Speaking of family and holidays, we were fortunate to have my parents out to visit over the Easter Weekend. We enjoyed Beer Margarita's by the pool concocted by Bill himself. We were also able to show my parents around town including a tour of the Prison, Quarter Master Depot, and the rolling Sand Dunes. It was a nice treat for them to come out and enjoy the beautiful weather considering it has been a cold and miserable winter back home in Rochester! We enjoyed their company and were sad to see them go!! Hopefully, they will make future trips out!

Dad and I



Center of the World
Felicity, CA

 On a more random note, Bill and I were able to visit the "Center of the World" over the past month, which is apparently located just outside of Yuma. Who knew?! Actually, it was kind of hokie, but the official "Center of the World" is located in Felicity, California -- 10 minutes from Yuma. If you're like me, I am thinking you want to know how that specific point became the "Center of the World". Well, its a short story really --some French guy wanted to establish a town and to do so he wanted to claim SOMETHING to make it grow. Well, since nobody had yet claimed the "Center of the World", he did and that is how it came to be. Disappointing, I know!! No scientific evidence whatsoever!! On a positive note, if you visit, you will get an official certfiicate and get to make a wish when you stand on the exact center. Happy touring! PS...it still remains the ONLY establishment in Felicity, CA....that town still has ALOT more growing to do!!


Stairs from the Eiffel Tower also located at the Center of the World Landmark

Lastly, we continue to stay in shape, which is an essential stress reliever for me. I have continued my running, but I am embarrassed to say I STILL have yet to get out on my new Road Bike!! I finally have all my gear in, but I think that I ended up with a wrong combination of shoes and peddles, so I am still working on that!! However, I am participating in the Warrior Dash this upcoming weekend in Florence, AZ --which should be a good time!! Wish me luck!! :)

Until next time.....

March Madness



Irish, Shod, and Silas

This past month has definitely been an interesting one, especially with family members in all parts of the world! I am glad to say that my brother, Shod, his wife (Irish), and son (Silas) are all safe despite the record breaking Earthquake and Tsunami they experienced earlier this month in Japan. Shod was actually deployed out on his ship, the U.S.S. John McCain, when this happened and stated that he could feel the quake in the ocean and witnessed oil riggs exploding on the mainland. He was scheduled to pull into the port the day this happened and was immediately sent back out to sea to participate in relief efforts without the opportunity to see his family first. Fortunately, they have all just been reunited as of today! I would like to commend Irish on her strength and courage to get through this difficult time on her own with a baby!! Thank you for being such a strong support for Shod and keeping my nephew safe!





Home!







Oil Riggs from the Ship







Bill's brother, Mike, is currently deployed on the 26th MEU and has been a main player in all of the Libya Action that has been going on. We continue to keep him in our thoughts and prayers and look forward to his safe return to the United States within the next couple of months!

Bill

As for Bill, WTI kicked off March 13th, which means he has spent alot of time preparing his classes for the students who have come from all over the country to participate in the 6 week course. He taught his first class yesterday, which went well! I think he is relieved to have that first one completed and under his belt. At this point, the academic phase is almost over and they will be moving into the flight phase soon, which means alot of flying over the next three weeks--the fun part so-to-speak!

As for me, I continue to work with ACTS as a Dedicated Case Manager. However, there was a vacancy for a therapist position that I applied for, but the position froze before they could hire anyone. I continue to hold out hope that this will re-open in the future. In the meantime, ACTS has decided that they will still assign a few clients to me for therapy anyway, which I am excited about as I hope this is the first step to transitioning full time into this position. Overall, I am enjoying my position  as a case manager as we get to do alot of neat things with the kids. For instance, I took 9 kids to the MCAS Airshow over the past weekend for prejob development. It was harder to keep them entertained than I thought, but I think they enjoyed it:) Over the next week, I will get to take my probation kids to the Balboa Science Center and am also taking a group of kids hiking out at Lake Cayamuca (don't ask me how to pronounce this!). It is always rewarding to expose kids to different activites that they may not have had the opportunity to do before.


Trek 1200



Other than work, Bill and I have both been working on our fitness. In fact, I finally went ahead and bought an entry level road bike for Triathalons! I have yet to ride it as I need some lessons on riding with the clip in shoes! Fortunately, I have some pretty knowledgeable individuals helping me out here and I should be riding in no time. I have my first Triathalon scoped out in Encinitas on May 15th. Other races that I am preparing for are the Warrior Dash, which is a mud race/obstacle course on May 1st in Florence, AZ. I did this race last year and it was the best time ever! Here is a preview of what the Warrior Dash is all about:

                                                                                                            http://www.warriordash.com/.

Warrior Dash 2010
Moutain City, GA

I have also just signed up for the San Diego Rock n' Roll Half Marathon on June 5th, which I am excited to run! The last half marathon  I did was the Kentucky Derby Half with Bill in 2009. In addition to the Kentucky Derby Half, I have done the Wilmington Battleship Half in 2008. Both races I think I could have prepared more for, so I am hoping and thinking that I will be better prepared for the San Diego Half !! Mile 8 is always a killer when you aren't fully prepared!:) Hopefully, additional training will result in breaking 1 hour 50 minutes. So it looks like the month of April will be spent running (and hopefully biking)!! I look forward to when Bill is wrapped up with WTI so that we can pick out a race or two to run together! We always have alot of things we want to do, but never enough time:) We are still working on our upcoming hiking plans over Memorial Day and will keep you posted!!





February Fun

Usually, February tends to be my least favorite month of the whole year because it is usually the coldest, which causes all outdoor activity to cease. However, this year, that has not been the case! Though it has been a rough Winter for most of you back home in NY, NC, and TX, Yuma has been a consistent balmy 65-70 degrees and sunny! Don't be too jealous, because I am sure that in the middle of July we will be wishing for sub zero temperatures! I will also admit that we did have one frost that did freeze and kill all the lettuce crop around here, but that definitely hasn't been enough to keep us indoors or other good things from happening this month!

In regards to good things happening, we would first like to congratulate Matt and Beth for the newest addition to their family: Lilian Marie Wallace born earlier this month right in the middle of the big Dallas snowstorm. That makes for a total of 7 nieces and nephews for Bill and I! Hopefully, we can meet her soon!

 

Captain Howie

Also, speaking of family, Bill and I were FINALLY able to take some time and plan our family wedding ceremony in Hawaii!! We will be getting married (again) on Waimanelo Beach/Angel Bay on November 23rd, 2011 conducted by Captain Howie. Haha. It took some convincing on my part to get Bill to go along with Captain Howie as he seemed to come straight from the 1960's era. However, after researching some of the testimonials, making some phone calls, and promising Bill that I would not allow Captain Howie to wear a tie dye t-shirt on our special day, he was on board as well. Following our ceremony, we have booked a reception dinner followed by drinks out on the town of Waikiki! We are excited to finally do things right and celebrate with our immediate families in a tropical island paradise!

Here is a preview of Captain Howie AND Angel Bay: http://vimeo.com/12862785

Muggins Pk Sunset

 In regards to other adventures this month, Bill and I were able to explore Muggins Peak located right here in the Yuma area. This was a spontaneous decision, which caused us to get a late start. We got to the peak around 3pm and I don't think that either of us had a real intention of completing the whole hike considering the guide indicated that it would take at least a couple of hours to complete and we knew that sunset would be upon us soon. However, Bill and I like to challenge ourselves and we kept hiking and hiking until we were all the way around the other side of the peak. We eventually strayed off the trail only to find ourselves now going up and OVER the peak, where we eventually met back up with the trail. It was a fun hike as we were racing against daylight and got to exercise our teamwork skills to get us back to the truck before dark! We also go to see some amazing views from the top!



Sedona, AZ

Our other BIG adventure was Sedona, AZ, which Bill had planned for our Valentine's Day weekend. I had no idea what Sedona was all about, but all I can say is that after visiting, it was probably one of the most unique places that I have EVER visited. I fell in love immediately and would go back any day if I had the chance. The red rock, landscape, and trails were amazing! We landed in Sedona early on a Saturday morning, bought a hiking guide, and picked out the most strenuous trail we could find, which was Bear Mountain.   

Only 1/3 up Bear Mountain!

Bear Mountain seemed pretty reasonable upon first glance, but once we started up the trail we realized there there was alot more to it than our first impression. Everytime we got to the top (or what we thought was the top), we realized we had another summit to reach. This happened about three times. By the time we really reached the top, we were at 6,434 ft above sea level. The first summit that we had reached looked like an anthill at our feet! Once at the top, Bill and I found a cliff to sit on and enjoy our victory with some water and power bars. As we sat there, it was awesome to see small airplanes taking tours of the canyon and know that we were sitting higher than they were flying. It was even more satisfying knowing that we hiked to those heights with our own two feet. We also got to sit above the canyon birds and literally hear them soaring through the air since it was so quiet up there --it was very serene. Overall, this hike took us about 2 hours to climb to the top and about an hour to descend.

The View

The end of West Fork Trail

Our second day, we still chose to hike a lengthy trail, but one that was much less strenuous ( I was kind of sore after the previous day)! We hiked West Fork Trail, known as Sedona's most romantic trail. However, this trail is more famously known as the inspiration for Zane Grey's book Call of the Canyon, which became Sedona's first Western and was also made into a motion picture utilizing the natural beauty of this particular area. The trail was about 6 miles long and had it's own uniqueness. It had lots of streams that we had to cross, Bill's foot took a dip on one of the crossings. He wasn't too comfortable after this considering this trail was much cooler than Bear Mountain. In fact, most of the trail was ice/snow, which meant the water must have been pretty cold! I took a couple of falls myself and by the end of the trip, Bill and I decided that it is time to invest in some good hiking boots! Especially, since I also slipped and fell at the summit of Bear Mountain, which scared me pretty good as I thought I was going right over the edge! Fortunately, we both made it back in one piece!

West Fork Trail

This trip has only reaffirmed our desire to continue hiking. We love the exercise and we love being close to the natural beauty that surrounds us! In the future, we have already decided that we want to try out Yosemite's Half Dome Hike in May, we will let you know how that goes when we get around to it. That should be a pretty intense hike though!!!  Also, we definitely plan on the Grand Canyon at some point this summer!  

Crossing the Stream

Until then, we will both keep busy with our jobs. As we approach March, I know that my time with Bill will become less and less right on up through May as WTI approaches. However, I am slowly coming back around to my own roots and trying to get back into good shape. I have had some recent motivation to try biking and have started looking into picking up a bike so I can try a triathalon (something I should have done LONG ago, while I was in great shape!!). However, there seems to be no better time to start than now!!

Lastly, as we approach the end of February, we are happy to have Bill's parents out here visiting us for a few weeks. We have had a nice time chatting and catching up over the past couple of days. They have also been a great help in assisting us to get settled in our new home as Bill and I still have some odds and ends that we still haven't had a chance to get around to. We look forward to the rest of their visit and hope the weather continues to be great for their visit!







The Beginning....

As we approach the end of January, I feel that it is time for an update as Bill and I have already been in Yuma for almost a month!! In the short amount of time that we have been here, we have been extremely busy (much more than I expected)! I thought that I would at least get to be bored for a couple of weeks!! Just kidding :) As mentioned in the previous post, we got here right before the New Year and have since unpacked (for the most part--though we may still have some boxes to sort through), done some home decorating, and have both started new jobs.

Bill immediately checked into MAWTS-1, his new squadron, and has been preoccupied with getting ready to instruct his first Weapons and Tactics Instruction (WTI) course starting in March/April. This has entailed some long hours in the office and some trips out to Camp Pendleton. Fortunately, he has been reunited with some long time friends whom have already been stationed on the West Coast for quite some time now.

I have been hired as a Dedicated Case Manager for a Children's caseload with a Behavioral Health Agency called Arizona Counseling and Treatment Services (ACTS). I will be responsible for the coordination of services for children whom have behavioral health issues in order to keep them integrated in the community and in their own homes as much as possible. I will also be responsible for some of the Adolescent Substance Abuse Groups held in the evenings, which will allow me to start working toward my independent licensure as a counselor once I am registered with the Arizona Board of Behavioral Health examiners, which I am in the process of doing. I will officially complete orientation on Monday, wish me luck!!

In addition to new jobs, Bill and I have also been trying to get involved with the community and work on our Spirituality as part of our New Year's resolution. Therefore, we have been trying out some different Churches, which has been quite an experience! We have accepted the fact that anywhere we go, we will most likely be approximately 30 years younger than everyone else.... However, we feel that we have found a Church that we both like and have enjoyed making this a part of our Sunday ritual. 



Picacho State Park

As far as exploring the area, we have had some time to do that as well. A couple of weekends ago, Bill and I took a quick day trip and flew up to Lake Havasu, which appears to be a neat place to visit in the summer, when it gets REAL hot! The lake was gorgeous in between all of the rock, sand, and desert. We also drove out to Picacho State Park, which is located just over the California state line and hiked around for a day. I would recommend this state park to anyone that heads out this way. We got to hike some trails, climb over some rocks, and tour the remains of an old Mining Town. We saw some interesting wildlife such as a jack rabbit and a wild donkey as well. However, I am pleased to say that we did not run into any mountain lions or rattlesnakes along the way!! Lastly, we have been able to tour the Yuma Territorial Prison also known as "The Hell Hole" of the Southwest for any of you 310 To Yuma fans...


Picacho State Park

I am very much looking forward to exploring other parts of the area....I am really really excited to visit the Grand Canyon at some point and I would also really like to see the Four Corners, which is where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona all meet. Hopefully, once we get settled in a little more we can take a weekend trip somewhere!  

Overall, I would deem our first month here a success! We have both decided that we are really going to enjoy our time here -- the weather is great, the people are friendly, and the great outdoors is amazing with lots of opportunity for adventure! We will continue to keep you posted!

 

Happy New Year!

 Each year seems to get faster and busier, but 2010 takes the cake! However, it was undoubtedly an unforgettable year with lots to be grateful for. To briefly review, Bill successfully and safely completed his 5th deployment aboard the Mesa Verde as part of the 24th MEU. He was gone from January to August assisting with Haiti Relief Efforts and Training Exercises in Jordan, Kuwait, & Djibouti. He was also able to enjoy some port stops along the way in Greece, Croatia, Dubai, and Spain.

Once Bill returned to the United States, it became a whirlwind as we spent a great amount of time traveling and getting ready for our move to Arizona. For instance, in September we were able to spend some time in Pawley's Island, SC and also made it up to the Finger Lakes Region to visit my family and participate in a Family Wine Tour:) 

In October, we headed down to Savannah, GA where Bill proposed in front of the Forsyth Fountain on 10/10/2010 (I said yes of course!).  Savannah was gorgeous and we are most definitely looking forward to returning some day! We were also able to make a trip to Richmond, Kentucky with some friends to attend Eastern Kentucky's Homecoming Football Game (Bill's Alma Mater).  EKU won!!

In November, we enjoyed driving up to New York in order to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday with my family. On the way, we were able to make stops at Monticello and Gettysburg to get a quick history lesson while breaking up the 15 hour drive. During our time in New York my family put on a festive Southwestern themed engagement party, which allowed us to catch up and celebrate our engagement with several friends and family. We also made it over to Canada to view Niagara Falls!

In December, we tied the knot at the New Hanover County Justice of the Peace on 12/10/2010. However, we are still planning on a destination family wedding sometime in 2011...details to follow! 9 days later we said goodbye to Wilmington and some GREAT friends then got on the road headed for Arizona....Fortunately, we were able to stop in Tyler, Texas to spend Christmas with Bill's Family and celebrate our marriage with some champange and cake!    

We have since completed our cross country road trip and arrived in Yuma, Arizona just two days ago. We are happy to FINALLY be here!! As 2010 winds down, we are in the process of settling in and looking forward to a relaxing and low key New Year's Eve. However, we are hopeful that 2011 will be as great as 2010 was! We are very optimistic of our time here in Yuma, Az and look forward to the next 3 years as we develop professionally, build new friendships, and explore the West Coast.

We wish you all a very Happy New Year with Best Wishes for 2011!!

Welcome!

Hello and Welcome to our Blog! We have created this site as we have opened a new and exciting chapter in our lives that includes marriage and a cross country move to Yuma, Arizona! As a result of our relocation, we are now far from many of our friends and family. Thus, it is our hope that this Blog will allow us to continue sharing our experiences and keep you a part of our new life together! We hope that you enjoy following along and that you keep us a part of your lives as well!