Saturday, October 18, 2008

Moving, Cruising, and Schooling

I know you're all thinking to yourselves that it's about time T and I update our blog. I would apologize but life has been a roller coaster for about the last month. We have been here and there and everywhere...literally. A lot has gone on since we last posted. I hope after this post we'll have more time to post more often.

Moving
We moved from Rexburg late in September. We finished up our jobs, packed our stuff and loaded it in a truck in a matter of two days. I don't think I ever realized how horrible moving is. I've moved myself around but that consisted of only my stuff. Add in another persons things and a whole heap of other pointless crap and we had a mess of our hands. T and I really don't have much, for crying out loud, we only lived in a 600 sq. foot apartment. You can't cram that much in that space, plus if you've read our previous post we sold our couch. However, while packing it seemed the CRAP never ended and the packing never ceased.

We were finally off on September 18 and we were a bit sad to leave a wonderful place and many of our closest friends. To add to our moving woes we were not able to move into our apartment right away so we had to store our things at my parents house for over a week (by the way, we would like to thank my parents for storing our stuff in their house. It was not very convenient for them but very much appreciated by us). Finally, after over a week we loaded a moving truck for the second time and unloaded it for a second time at our new apartment in NE Portland. Our new joint is older than our previous place and still a one bedroom but it is 135 sq. feet bigger which is easily noticed...we are able to fit a couch, love seat, and recliner chair in the living room. In our old place we only had a couch and that barely squeezed in. All in all we are happy here so far and we feel it will be a good neighborhood to live in for now. It is quiet and surrounded by residential houses so it keeps the foot traffic away and gives the area a safer feel to it. Hopefully we'll enjoy our time here as much as we did in Rexburg.

Cruising
OK, enough of the boring stuff, let's talk about our cruise we went on. While my folks were watching our crap T and I went on a cruise to the Caribbean. We left from Florida and spent 7 days cruising to the Bahamas, St Thomas of the US Virgin Islands, and to St. Maarten. In general it was all beautiful, it was mostly relaxing and the food was delicious--at least the food that didn't make me sick--(I'll explain in a few). Cruises are definitely ALL that they are cracked up to be. And Carnival was awesome too.

The only downside was getting food poisoning. I'm not really sure why I couldn't win money through Bingo or win the drawing for a free watch but I could be the one person on the ship to get food poisoning. I let me tell you, did I ever get sick.

I'll begin to describe the situation by explaining that I have always wanted to try ahi tuna. So many people have told me it's good and cruises are the perfect time to try new foods because it's all free. So I have waited many months for this cruise and passed up many ahi tuna at restaurants so I could try it on the cruise. So, I did...and it was NASTY! It was served with a cube of watermelon and it did not satisfy any of the craving I had build up over the months. I didn't think anything of it considering I had never had ahi tuna and just figured I wasn't too partial to it. Well, after a nap and a small bowel of strawberry ice cream I was not feeling so good. Again I didn't think anything of it due to the fact that I had gorged myself the previous night at dinner by eating a New York strip steak, a full rack of baby-back ribs, some shrimp concoction, and a dessert or two. I just figured I had a bit of a case of indigestion...go figure. At this point all I was concerned about was feeling better before dinner so I could gorge myself again. Well, the uneasy feeling became a really sour gassy feeling and shortly after became painful. Dinner was rapidly approaching and I knew I had no chance of getting over whatever I had before dinner so I settled in for the night. T finally got hungry herself and went to get a bite to eat. Soon after she left all hell broke lose inside my digestive system. I had diarrhea every 20 minutes. Though it was horrible I can handle diarrhea every once in awhile. But of course that couldn't be it. About an hour after the squirts began I started to throw up. Remember, I had gorged myself the previous night, and in fact, the whole time we had been on the boat so I had a lot of food to barf up. Throwing up was so horrible that I would like to describe it as follows (if you are the least bit easily grossed out I would skip the rest of this discussion). As, anatomically accurate as I can explain it, it is a good thing my digestive system is attached to the outside of my body via the anus to the rectum or else I might have thrown up my whole GI tract. I was heaving so hard I was literally asking Heavenly Father to take me from the earth right then. I have thrown up many times in my life but no other time was even remarkably close to as bad as this. Anyway, enough of that. The rest of the cruise was good once I cleaned my system out and I recovered a bit.

Here are some pictures

T and I on the outside deck of the ship
When we arrived on the Bahamas
Breathtaking picture of a Coci beach
Hundreds of fish seen while snorkeling at St. Thomas
(Taken above the water because we don't a waterproof camera)
After we debarked in St. Maarten

T and I with our evening servers. Orlando (L) Antonio (R)

T about to dive in at a St. Maarten beach

Schooling

I started Chiropractic school at the beginning of October. It's crazy but awesome. I love that I am learning things that will pertain to me as a Doctor of Chiropractic. I also get to do a full dissection of a cadaver and I love it. I'm starting to think I would have been a pretty good surgeon. I am excited to meet new people and so far they all are fun and interested in studying and learning. I'll leave it at that right now and give a more in depth overview next time I post. This blog is long enough as is.