son-of-a-bee-sting.

June is ticking away already!!! Another day, another dollar...or in our case, another day another dollar OWED. Sorry, that was a downer. And things haven't been too shabby for us here in the 602.


Since we spoke last about Comic-Con, we have (sort of) kicked off our summer. Summers don't quite mean the same thing when you're not both in school, however due to my "premature" departure from Maryvale, it feels as though we are getting a last chance at a summer break together. As most of you know, the great folks at Georgetown decided to make a last minute curriculum change for the midwifery students and it is easiest for them to do so in the summer as to not effect the 'in-house' students on campus who will return in the fall. However, the full-time midwifery correspondence students who were supposed to start in May were kind of shafted (namely because there weren't that many of us and it made most sense to screw us instead of an entire class of on-campus students). UNFORTUNATELY...they informed me of this decision about 48 hours AFTER I left my job at Maryvale for my May 23rd class start. Oops on them. They have been great to work with and extremely apologetic and are even able to take care of some expenses for the program that would have originally been on us. So, even though it's not ideal, I have bumped back into the next cohort (starting August 8th) and will be starting school the same exact day that Christian starts his second year of medical school! Fancy that. And I am taking a forced summer vacation one last time. Things could be worse, right? June will bring us: Chris doing some more research (man, that kid loves research) at Maricopa Medical Center, me teaching my first series of childbirth classes for Teen Outreach, two weddings, and at the end Chris will ship off for San Fran.

But in the meantime:

We found the "dollar" movies up here! Well, they used to be a dollar when I was a kid, but $3 is nothing to scoff at. My FAVE go-to activity is a solid cheapie movie (or not-so-solid, I'm not too picky). Sarah and I made an effort to go every Tuesday in Tucson for two dollar Tuesday (#tonguetwister) for a while and although that lasted about as long as anything else I've ever tried to do consistently, we had a great time. Our Phoenix cheapies is called Pollack Tempe Cinemas and is ALSO home to $2 Tuesday! The only thing playing we wanted to see was Adjustment Bureau (eh...not bad but not awesome) but the real experience was the totally trippy theater itself.

YEAHHH!

I had a work retreat for Teen Outreach in Casa Grande (yes, you read correctly...it's the 'halfway' mark for Tucson and Phoenix staff). We had two days at a hotel in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE to get training on a four-year federally funded research project that includes my teaching site and about a half a dozen others in Tucson and Phoenix. It's pretty exciting stuff. I'm glad to have something worthwhile to do while going to school. And I can't lie, I had a really great time spending the evening with the other nurses and case managers there. Boxed wine and hot tubs (and me as the sober lifeguard)! Makes me feel like a normal 24-year-old. :) Also, makes me wish all my besties lived in Phoenix with me so we could find hot tubs to have shenanigans in every night. :/ I miss you guys.

After Casa Grande, I joined Chris in Tucson for a few short days (every day there seems way to short).  We got to watch Josh play some basketball, go to a graduation party for a family friend, and see X-Men: First Class with my mom and Ethan!

Photo found here.

It was awesome and I'm kind of on an X-Men kick. First X-Men movie is on Neflix instant stream! Uh oh. :) And that James McAvoy is easy on the eyes.

Viesa got some quality time in with her Auntie Megan. She has a really hard life.

Until she actually DOES. Some of you may know that Viesa has seizures sometimes, usually when she needs to throw up (or maybe the seizures make her throw up, not too sure). She can feel them coming on and she'll run as fast as she can into one of our laps before it starts. We snuggle her through them and she usually bounces back soon enough. She had one this morning, poor baby. It sucks to watch, but I'm always glad to be around when she does (to our knowledge, she's never had one while we're gone...we've never found a pile of puke). So now, she's pretty tuckered out and usually rests for a big part of the day after being sick. And so, like any good mom, I'm couch-bound in solidarity.

The rest of our Monday will (hopefully) be less eventful and very productive. We're looking at being in town again this weekend (again, hopefully) so I can see you --> SARAH AND KRISTIN I DIDN'T FORGET YOU. Dang. Bad friend of the year award.

Happy Monday everyone.
Love,
Ash + V