Here Comes the Bride!

Weddings are my favorite. 

Here is why:

     1.) True love at its’ finest

     2.) A reason to hang out with great friends

     3.) Taco Bar.  Jake may have been a little jealous when I mentioned that.

In case it wasn't obvious, I have a bit of a salsa obsession.

     4.) A reason to wear something other than running clothes.

     5.) Dancing. Especially when toddlers are involved.

     6.) Adorable mini cupcakes that taste even better than they look. 

Weddings are the best. 

I want to congratulate my amazing friends, Becca and Ricky!  I wish you a lifetime of love, fun, and lots of long runs together!

I met these two wonderful people right when they started dating last year when I lived in San Diego.  It was so much fun to watch them fall in love and get engaged.  I feel so lucky that I was able to make it to San Diego for their wedding... the timing was perfect!

My BFF Carrie and I were wedding dates and had way too much fun.  

I miss this girl so much!  

It was a very fun night and I am exhausted. All that dancing and cupcake-eating really takes it out of you!

San Diego, How I’ve Missed You.

I arrived on Friday to my home away from home... 

the place that holds half of my heart... 

the land of beautiful beaches and great friends.

I am here for a few days because:

1. I can’t stay away from the magnificent San Diego
2. It had been far too long since my last Pannikin GF Chocolate Chip muffin
3. I missed my amazing friends
4. I needed to run on the beach/Torrey Pines/San Elijo Lagoon
5. Today is a BIG day for my friend Becca!  She is getting married to the coolest guy ever, Ricky!  I can’t wait to see her walk down the aisle :)
6. Do I even need a reason?  Come on, it’s San Diego!

I get to stay with a few of my favorite people in the next few days and experience San Diego as a real, live person... not a sleep-deprived, stressed out PA student.  

What is the perfect way to start a vacation?  

Brunch & the beach.  

What is the perfect way to lay on the beach?  

Runner's World and animal visitors!

Seal came to say hello!

After a day of relaxation, my BFF Carrie picked me up and we went to dinner with some of my new favorite people!  I will say, however, I will never be back to the restaurant we went to.  Worst. Service. Ever.  Oh well, good friends and a beautiful sunset always make the night fun!  

Today involves three of my favorite things: running, chocolate chip muffins, and a wedding! Can't wait.  I hope you have a great Sunday!!

My Last Weekend in Paradise...

This weekend was a perfect way to end my 13 month stay in San Diego. Saturday morning started bright and early when I volunteered as a RaceGuard for a great cause.  It was the 3rd annual Finish Chelsea's Run.  The run was created after a horrible crime took a young girl's life in 2010.

(From the Chelsea's Light Foundation website:)

"Chelsea King was a 17-year-old Poway High School student who will always be remembered for her compassionate heart and positive spirit. On a sunny Thursday afternoon, February 25, 2010, Chelsea disappeared after setting out for a run in a San Diego community park. Law enforcement and thousands of volunteers searched for days, until they finally found her body in a shallow grave just off the trail she was running on, by Lake Hodges. Chelsea was the victim of a horrific crime committed by a convicted sex offender who later confessed and plead guilty to taking Chelsea’s life. In the weeks following her passing... a handful of members of the San Diego running community were so affected by her loss that they asked some of their friends to meet one Saturday to finish the run Chelsea started on February 25 in Rancho Bernardo Community Park. Word quickly spread and on the morning of March 20, 2010 more than 3,500 community members joined together to run and walk in solidarity with, and in honor of Chelsea, who they adopted as one of their own. The annual run/walk is now the primary fundraiser for the Chelsea’s Light Foundation Sunflower Scholarship Fund, providing scholarships for San Diego County college-bound teens who have embraced characteristics that embodied Chelsea’s academic prowess and service-over-self ethic."

Although I did not know Chelsea, it was a very emotional day as over 5000 people came out to support such a worthy cause!  Being a RaceGuard was very fun because I got to run the course twice, cheer on fellow athletes, and keep an eye out for injured runners or walkers.  Luckily, there were no injuries to report!  And that includes me!  Another pain free, awesome run.  I am on cloud 9.  Did I ever mentioned how much I hated being injured?

My friends from 10MW were there too! 

I was able to sneak in a few hours of studying after the race, then it was time for my friend Becca's bridal shower!  Delicious tea, funny stories, and baked goods galore.  It was a fun afternoon and I'm so excited for her wedding in just 6 weeks!  She'll make a gorgeous bride. :)

After the shower, I'll give you one guess as to what I did.  And no, it wasn't "go to the beach."  (Although that's what I dreamed of doing... I would like to thank San Diego for providing me with one final 80 degree, sunny, glorious day to make me wonder why I'm leaving this place!) Yep, more studying.  And packing. And dreaming about the beach.

This morning I did something huge.  I did a 15 mile trail run!  WAHOO! It was a beautiful run with my friend, Linda (pictured in the RaceGuards picture above!), through Penasquitos Canyon.  7.5 out, 7.5 back with a nice light cloud cover to keep us cool!

It felt phenomenal, at least it felt phenomenal until a had a face plant on the trail.  You must know that I sometimes forget how to lift my feet and somehow end up having fights with the pavement, trails, and grass.  Luckily, there were no lasting injuries (other than my ego, of course).  Just a few sweet bruises and scrapes on my knees and elbows to add to the growing collection of scars. War wounds add character, right? 

The rest of my day consisted of refueling at delicious Panera, studying with my study-buddy, Alia, and alternating icepacks between the elbows and knees.  

Tomorrow is my last day in San Diego. The day will consist of packing my car, cleaning my room, and attempting to study as much as possible.  Then tomorrow night, my running buddies and I are meeting for a final "hurrah" run and dinner/drinks after.  It's a good alternative to the pity party I was going to have instead.

San Diego, I am really going to miss you.  

Time Flies...

Busy much?  I have been just slightly preoccupied with life lately, so I apologize that you haven't been able to hear my silly stories of my daily life.  Here's the cliff notes version of what you've missed:

1.) Surgery Rotation: I finished the rotation which was an accomplishment in itself.  As much as I loved being in the OR, one can only work 12-16 hour days and survive on 4 hours of sleep for so long... It was a good experience overall, but I value my sleep and evening study time!  Let's face it, I don't remember anything without sleep and I think the surgeon thought I was a complete idiot because I couldn't remember the simplest medical details.  I am happy to spend my FINAL week of clinical rotations at my "home" clinic with Dr. Watson.

2.) Running:  Guess who ran 12 miles on Sunday?!  This girl!!  Physical Therapy has worked wonders!  I'm still being VERY conservative and running only 4-5 days per week and cross-training on my friend, the elliptical.  The key to my successful healing has been to do my stretches and exercises EVERY day.  No slacking.  It's amazing what you can accomplish when you want something bad enough.  47 days until Boston... !

3.) My last week in San Diego:  Picture my face with tears and smudged mascara.  I'm in denial that  I'm actually leaving so it's been a pretty effective way of coping.  I don't need to move my stuff, right?  I can just keep renting my apartment until the end of time, right?  It'd be perfect! A house in Alaska AND San Diego.  Problem solved.  According to Jake, that's not the most realistic solution, Shoot.  I'll have to just come back and visit a few times per year!  I've been so grateful to be back running in the few weeks because I've been able to spend lots of quality time with my favorite people.  AND I've been able to see my favorite places like these:

This past year has been an amazing ride and San Diego will forever be the place I call my second home.  I will miss all of the amazing friends I've made like these:

Love Her!

Best training buddy ever!

Love these girls!

10MW, I'll miss you!

Fastest girls I know!

Such a fun group!

I've been busy packing up the 239,204 pages of notes, 19,021 flash cards, and countless books that I've accumulated in the past 2 years.  It seems that I've killed 5 trees with my PA school ordeal.  I apologize Mother Nature, I promise to NEVER do it again.  Ever.  Ever.  I really don't know how I accumulated so much JUNK.  Getting it all back to Alaska should be interesting... ha!

4.) Grandma update!  It's been forever since I've updated you on how she's doing!  To refresh your memory, she was visiting me in November for Thanksgiving and fell and broke her hip while walking at Pacific Beach.  That was a horrible, horrible, horrible day.  She had a partial hip replacement here and spent almost a month in an assisted living facility in Carlsbad. She was able to go back to Salt Lake City (where she lives) on December 27th.  She's been getting better day by day and is walking with only a cane now!  When I talked to her on Sunday she said she frequently forgets to use it because she is feeling "almost normal"!   I'm so proud of her :)

Okay, that's the update for now!  I'll have plenty more to share (including some yummy recipes) in the next few days!  Have a GREAT Wednesday!

#4- Grateful for the "Fall Back"

Oops- this is a day late.  Forgetful Brittany forgot to publish this one.

November 4: I am grateful for Daylight Savings!

An obvious one, I know.  But I am grateful that I got an extra hour of sleep today!  Even though it really wasn't extra because my master plan of going to bed early didn't work so well.  The wheels in my head were turning until 2AM last night, so I didn't quite get that extra sleep I wanted.  Oh well!  The only part of the fall back is that it is dark at 5:00 which greatly increases the chance of nighttime laziness.  How do I survive the long Alaskan winters without daylight?  It is a mystery.

Today marks the second day without any nerve pain in my leg.  Aren't you happy to hear that?!  You should be.  This means happy Brittany will be returning soon. ;)  I'm giving myself one more day of healing/no running, so tomorrow will be the test!  This is a very good thing, because if I have to come up with one more distraction for while I'm on the elliptical... I might set the thing on fire.

And you thought just studying was boring... try studying on an elliptical.
Luckily I have these lovely cartoon flash cards to save the day.

This card is my favorite. Who knew learning about pharmacology could be fun entertaining bearable.

This is the extent of the Sunday football I will see.

Okay, now for serious business.  I just realized that I only have 3 more months in this beautiful city.  I may have cried when I realized that.  It's no joke that I will struggle to leave San Diego and go to the cold Arctic.

Here are just a few reasons why:

Breathtaking. 

Sunset walk on the beach = happy girl.

But mainly.... here is why:

California: High of 90 tomorrow

Home.  High of 25...

My week in pictures

This week was busy.  Very busy.  Finals is once again upon us... it feels like we JUST had finals!  That means I head back to San Francisco next weekend.  Unlike most trips to Stanford, I will be there for 6 weeks this time!  After finals, I will be doing a 4-week inpatient medicine rotation at Stanford in the Pediatric Liver Transplant Unit!  I am sad to be temporarily leaving my life here in San Diego, but I know that I will have a great experience at Stanford.  

AND I get to stay with my most favorite family in the whole wide world, The Griffins.  I met this amazing family at our good friends, Nick and Tina's wedding a few years ago!  The Griffins are best described as.... generous, loving, wonderful, hilarious, thoughtful, caring... and the list goes on.  They're also brave souls for letting me stay with them all the time... Stressed Brittany is not always fun Brittany :) 

Brendan, Marie, Ashley, Tina and Nick!

This week I went on a couple of beautiful runs.  I've been dying to do a sunset run for weeks, so I took it upon myself to go on Thursday night.

I learned a few things on this run:

1.)  Sunsets are 96.5% better when witnessed while running.  The other 3.5% would apply if Jake could be there with me. 

Sunset Run

2.) As soon as the sun sets, you should anticipate complete darkness in approximately 22 minutes.  I know this because I still had  4.5 miles to run when the sun set.  

Del Mar.

3.) There are no street lights in San Diego.  I had a few too many close encounters with speed bumps and spiderwebs that I hope never to experience.... EVER again.  

True Story.

The rest of my week looked something like this:

Imagine that!  Studying?

However, yesterday, Dan made me take a break from our 12 hour cram session to go to the beach.  We stayed for about an hour and although I was reluctant to take a time-out from studying... all my worries seemed to fade away...

Can you believe I've only been to the beach 3 times since moving here in February?

Okay, okay... I admit I snuck my study materials in my beach bag- so it was the best of both worlds. 

I have separation anxiety when I'm without my books.  

Thanks for the forced break, Dan!  Much needed vitamin D!

My long run this morning was 16 miles.  What would normally be an easy distance on my favorite loop quickly turned into a horrendous, awful, worse-than-the-spiderwebs experience. I'll spare you too many details from this fun run today, but let's just say I thought I had recovered from the viral gastroenteritis I've been fighting the past few days... Turns out I hadn't.  

Blurry- but me attempting to chase Dennis up the Hill d'torture

Beautiful sunrise 

Advice of the year: Do not run 16 miles when you think you are "over" gastroenteritis. 

You aren't. And your stomach will let you know in a very violent, painful way at mile 12.  Don't worry, I toughed it out and made it back to the car unharmed.  Operation gatorade is now in full effect.

Packing for 6 weeks is not an easy job.  School books, binders, professional attire, running gear....

My packing list for San Francisco.  Do you notice a common trend?  Important things first. 

There is a lot of excitement in the weeks to come: Ragnar Relay on Friday, School/Finals (less excited about the finals part, more excited to see my classmates!), Inpatient Rotation at Stanford, St. George Marathon (get to see my family!), Nike Womens' Marathon, and 6 weeks of fun adventures in San Francisco!  

Swap Meet!

For our PA program we are required to conduct Community Health Service projects.  I already completed mine at my family practice clinic, but I was asked to join in and help with a few of my classmate's AWESOME project.  It was also my first experience at a swap meet! How come I didn't know these existed until now!? It is a garage-salers dream.  (Trust me- I'm married to one!) 

Their project is called: Face Paint & Educate!  At the swap meet, they host a booth that provides free face-painting and choosemyplate coloring activity for the kids... and nutritional education for the parents!  It was a BLAST and I was so glad to be able to help out my friends! My artistic abilities consist of hearts, stars, and smiley faces.  Turns out kids like things like spiderman, puppies, and pirates.  Sheesh, talk about picky! 

So.... I was elected to speak in Spanish to the parents :)  The swap meet was just a few miles from Mexico, so I had a fun time talking to the parents about their diets and answered as many questions as time allowed.  

Fun Times with my PCAP friends!

Our Booth!

The swap meet reminded me of a Street Market in Mexico.  Used clothes, propane tanks, bulk groceries, knock-off Prada purses (with the 99 cent price tag from Goodwill still attached- selling for $50. Ha!), old VHS tapes from 1989, beautiful used bikes (note to self: always use a good bike lock in San Diego), and all sort of household goods and tools.

A serious shopper!

Jake would have been in heaven.  Almost as good as a Taco booth.

All jokes aside, it is a blessing for the community to have a place for people to work on the weekends either for their only income, or their supplemental income.  It is also an affordable option for clothes, shoes, and household cleaners!  Especially for a broke grad student! I'll give you one guess where I'm shopping for Christmas presents this year.  :)

The other awesome thing about this location is that when it's not busy being a swap meet, it's the home of one of two Drive-In movie theaters in San Diego!  That is now #78 on my must-do-before-I-move-away-from-San-Diego List.  I have got to find a way to tackle the list.  If only studying didn't take up so much time....

Beautiful Rainbow (and drive-in movie screen) in the background!

The rest of the day was spent studying with my bestest-bud, Dan.  It was probably one of my most productive weekends in a long time! 

To celebrate my success... I will be getting up tomorrow at 4:30 AM to run 20 miles.  Followed by 12 more hours of studying. 

Favorite Running Quote Ever.

Happy Labor Day!