Ice Day!

The weather here in Abilene has been in true Texas form over the past 2 weeks. Last week we had quite the heat wave with the highs for 3 days well above 80! This week however an ice storm came into town dropping the temperature below freezing for about 48 hours and bringing LOTS of drizzle, freezing rain and last night some sleet. Since I'm working in the school systems right now I had an 'inclement weather day' yesterday and, naturally, all of our clinic kids cancelled as well. Todd's flight yesterday got cancelled but he was still supposed to go in at 10am and he got half way to base and got a call that they were closing the base to all "un-essential" personnel. It was fun just staying home in our pajamas, watching movies and hanging out all day. Of course, we got bored since we're such busy people but I don't think either one of us would complain about the free day off. The temperature today is supposed to get up to 50 but not until lunch time or later. I was fully expecting a delayed start to my day (Todd's had already been determined to be 9am today) but when I woke up I was shocked that all Abilene/Wylie schools were cancelled again! Fortunately, I have 5 kids to see this afternoon in the clinic after the ice melts so my day won't be a complete waste. So that's some fun times in Abilene. We usually get at least one nasty cold weather week in January in Texas and since it's January 28...I'm guessing that's it! Here are a few pictures of our ice day.

Shades of things to come??

View from the back porch

View from our front porch

Thunderbirds, here we come!

Today was "Squadron Night" for Todd, meaning he found out which squadron he will be going into at Ellsworth AFB. Todd got his first choice the 34th Bomb Squadron the Thunderbirds! We're very excited because all of our friends that we've been with since the beginning as well as new friends we've made in Abilene are all going to be apart of the 34th! This also means that we know Todd will be deploying in January 2010. We still won't know for about another month or so when we will be moving but it's nice to know where we're going :)


This is an actual Thunderbird B1 that had flown into Dyess recently.

Best Careers for 2009

According to US News & World Report Occupational Therapy is in the top 30 careers for 2009. There is also a good article about OT from the list http://www.usnews.com/sections/business/best-careers/

Looks like I made a good career choice :)

Holidays Update

Here we are in 2009! They always say when you're a kid that time flies as you get older... and it DOES! 2008 was quite the eventful year! I'm not going to lie- I hope 2009 is NOT as eventful. The 2 big things happening for sure in 2009 include FINALLY graduating from OT school and moving to Rapid City, South Dakota. Both of which I'm very excited about. After 7 years it will be so wonderful to finally be an occupational therapist and actually get paid or doing something that I love. I'm excited but also nervous about the move up north. I've never lived outside of Texas and I've never lived more than about 4 1/2 hours from my family so I imagine homesickness will happen on occasion. But I am very excited to see new places and experience new things with Todd as well as really experience Air Force life in an operational squadron since all we've ever known is training squadrons. As of Friday January 9 we will know which squadron we will be a part of at Ellsworth which will also tell us when Todd will deploy ( either January or July of 2010) so either way we still have some time to prepare for that but it will be nice to know.

Tomorrow officially starts the beginning of the end of my masters degree! 12 more weeks of free labor, 1 national board exam and graduation are all the stand between me and being a licensed occupational therapist. I'm really looking forward to the next 12 weeks. While I absolutely LOVED my hand therapy rotation, I did get into OT for kids so I'm excited to be working with them again. I have 2 clinical instructors (CI) this time, one of which I will be with all morning in the Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) centers with kiddos 0-3 and also in the Abilene and surrounding school districts with kiddos 3-18. In the afternoon I'll be with my other CI who I got to know quite well during my first rotation in the outpatient clinic seeing all sorts of kiddos. I think I'm really going to learn a lot and get to see a lot of different perspectives of pediatric OT.

Todd started flying last week. He's had 3 flights so far that all went really well. He hasn't had to plan for them yet but just show up and go so they haven't been a true test of his full knowledge of the B1 but those flights will be coming soon. We're actually praying right now that the rest of the flight don't occur as quickly since I have to be here until March 27 we'd really like to be able to move together.

Our holidays as a whole were very relaxing after we got back from the whirlwind trip to Minnesota. We spent Christmas with my parents in Austin and really didn't do a whole lot but run and eat and spend quality time with family. New Years Eve was spent here in Abilene at our friend's house where we successfully stayed up until 1:30am and then spent New Years Day lounging around the house and taking down Christmas decorations.

The only other news to officially share with everyone now is that over the past 3-4 weeks I've been pretty sick and in the past week I've found out that I also have Celiac Disease (www.celiac.org) like my mom which is an autoimmune disease where gluten essentially destroys the small intestines and I will now be living on a gluten free diet...which is no fun AT ALL but at least I feel 10 times better and healthier now that I'm not eating gluten. Major change but with the love and support of my friends and family it will all be ok. :)

As for New Year's Resolutions (which I never make)....to start studying for my OT board exam!