Everyone needs a little celebration

I think this time of year is going to be my favorite.. or it will at least be on-par with Christmas and Thanksgiving in a way I never thought my birthday would be. When I was little, I remember hoping I'd always celebrate my birthday.. then I wondered if I still would when I got older and it stopped mattering as much. Now, I know we'll be celebrating for both of us on that day till the cows come home, even when we've lost our glasses and forget where we last saw our dentures!
I can't think of a way I would have wanted to plan out our year better than our almost-incidental choice of marriage date has made the year turn out. Celebrating will now be almost a week long for us - every year at the end of April and the beginning of May. Like Christmas and Thanksgiving, it will give us plenty of excuses to do cute things together, and spend time talking to family and reminding ourselves how lucky and blessed we are to have wonderful friends, family, and a best friend who is ours eternally. It certainly has made this past weekend wonderful that way. wow. Happy Birthday!
I never could have imagined the peace and happiness this week has brought to our home and our lives - not to mention the excitement in hearing all the cool things going on in other people's lives. I'm afraid I don't have any pictures that can express the feeling of this weekend in any kind of adequate way.. so I'll leave it to imagination. Maybe, if you can think of the peace of the temple, the warmth of your eternal sweetheart's hand in yours, the tangy taste of garlic, seafood, pasta and marinara sauce, the pleasantness of clean laughter, the joy of giving appreciated gifts, the fun of friendship, the warmth and sweet smell of Hawai'i's breeze, and the excitement of family and receiving mail full of love from far-away, plus the anticipation of doing something sneaky to celebrate another birthday... then roll that all into one moment and one memory you'll feel the picture I need.
So, Thank you, Mom and Dad for your patience in raising me, and thank you Mom and Dad Q for your patience in raising J.. It's thanks to you that we are able to have each other for ever and ever for our birthdays. As he says, mahalo nuiloa! We love you!

A little Zen in our madness

The other weekend we had the chance to visit a pretty little place nearby called Valley of the Temples with Jimmy and Mikensi. It's actually a cemetery, but there is a small Buddhist Temple at the back end of it.
I have fond, if hazy, memories of the coy in my gung gung's fishpond in his old apartment, and the huge coy here were very cool (they were almost as big around as the swans!). The black swans were unique, and the whole experience was beautiful.

It was very peaceful, and I have decided I want to model any garden J and I have in the future after it.
He said that was fine with him, so I'll get to learn the art of gravel combing someday! Lucky for me, Elder M. Russell Ballard just encouraged young mothers to take some "me" time and learn a hobby they like.. I'll start my list of hobbies with gravel combing and banzai.




The rest of our time lately has been consumed by studying - either for school or for the MCAT.
We bought a new laptop for J, it's been so nice for him to be able to study anywhere, and it's a great help to me to be able to use the computer for school and work without interrupting him. Not to mention, it's beautiful and totally worth the price tag. (Which, actually, was not bad. We love Amazon.)

Tagger.com

Finally! A few minutes of down-time. And it's not even the kind I make up because I'm "taking a break" from studying.
It sure has been a long time since I've blogged, or read someone else's blog for that matter =) I just discovered that popcorn is part of a balanced diet (score!) and that I've been tagged again for more random information about myself (another score!). It has given me the perfect way to stay up and wait for JD to get home before I crash upon our wonderful pillowy haven. (Oh, yes by the way, that is the reason for my free time)

Before I indulge in information sharing, I want to reflect a little on the last couple of weeks. They've been wonderful. Our trip to New Caledonia was, while fast, very very beautiful and it was a great experience for me. French is a beautiful language, it is so melodic. It was especially great to take a quick break from the hectic lifestyle JD and I have at home. It was a little like another honeymoon, since JD couldn't leave me anywhere by myself or I'd be lost and confused. (This is literal; we had no way of communicating with each other out of earshot, I didn't know my way around at all, I don't understand French, and most people there didn't understand English.)
Coming home was also nice though. There is something to be said for familiarity and your own little home. It was also nice because JD's Uncle and Aunt and their son were staying in our apartment, and we and they were able to see each other/ meet for the first time during their crossover to JD's other Uncle and Aunt's house in Kailua.

We also found a lovely brand new stove in our house upon our return. And, an even lovelier wedding gift from our Uncle David, Aunt Val, and Tyler. (And an easter basket, Tyler filled all the plastic eggs, he's such a cool kiddo). It was kind of like Christmas to come home to a clean house and all the family and cool stuff!

At any rate, I have found myself especially grateful for all our family and friends, and the little and big things they do for us. So, Thank you all for being wonderful!
And,
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Happy Earliest Easter for the next 200 years!

Ok. Now for the tag

10 years ago: I was a very little girl in the 5th grade. I was beginning to love creative writing more and more, I think my sister and I had begun writing the Pooh Paper to go along with our elite Pooh Club.. I was minorly obsessed with American Girls, mostly because I liked to dress other people/things up and create lifestyles and life histories for them. I loved to run around, and I especially liked Sailor Jupiter and Mars because they could kick guys butts. I also began to hate boys because boys started getting involved with drama.. and I hated drama. Instead of boys, I liked books. I think I still prefer books. JD doesn't count.

If I were suddenly a Billionaire.. I would put about half of it away for JD's med school, and then some more of it for my own grad school and other schooling.. some away for our kids future education, then plan a second trip to New Caledonia, this time including Tahiti and Fiji. Then, I'd start a soup kitchen in San Francisco with an adjoining medical and psychiatric help center. I'd also donate a bunch of it to the athletics program at BYUH so the administration wouldn't phase out sports.

Things on My to-do list today: Work a lot. Catch up on last week's homework. Plan a way to get back on board with my church callings. Take care of graduation paperwork. eat some candy.

3 bad habits: Beating myself up mentally about not scoring better on tests when I score fine anyway. Getting upset about things the administrative side of our school messes up for me, or could possibly mess up for me very easily. Watching American Idol on YouTube to see if David Archuleta is still hanging in there instead of doing homework.

3 places I've lived: California and Hawaii. Also my own little world.

5 jobs: Babysitting, Summer Nanny, Barett Koehler Secretary, Ke Alaka'i Copy Editor, Ke Alaka'i Editor in Chief.

5 things very few people know about me: My favorite cartoon is Garfield. There is almost nothing grosser to me than really long toenails. I am a really really big fan of free notepads and pens - more than free t-shirts- because I like the way they smell. My ideal wonderland would be a mixture of a free Costco, 99 Ranch, and a library.. If Bonnie the librarian could be there that would be really really cool. I dream that I can fly an average of once a week.

Okidoke! Um.. tag Sandra and Mikensi =D tehe.

Ok, now that I can see your glaring eyes through your words...

Ok, I can see you glaring and rolling your eyes at me because of our last blog. So to satiate your vicarious traveling desires, here is a link to all, well, most of our pictures. Some are movies. But just to inform you all, to capture the beauty of New Caledonia in a picture would be like preserving the majesty and immensity of the universe on the head of a pin needle.

Here is the link: http://picasaweb.google.com/laxjoe17/NewCaledonia02

Some are pictures of Sydney, and you should be able to pick out which those ones are. Anyway, I hope that you like the pics!



What a chick...en. Ain't she cute?

One photo to sum it all up...

More than 500 photos, 10 videos, 1100 kilometers and almost $200 in gas later, we finally arrived from our wonderful vacation/research trip. Naturally we can't post all 500+ photos on blogspot from our trip, so I decided to choose one photo to sum it all up. You can see it below:



Sweeten condensed milk in a toothpaste tube!!! Isn't that crazy! I mean seriously, can you imagine on April fool's day hearing, "Ok kids, who switched the condensed milk with the toothpaste when I made fudge!"

Ok, seriously, so there is no way that we can possible get a descent blog up tonight, especially since there are just SO many pictures to sort through. They are all gorgeous and wonderful. We'll get up a better blog soon, but tonight, so far, we're pooped. So keep watching for another blog post soon...

You'll understand why it's been such a long time...

My dear friends and family, you will understand why we've been neglecting our riveting and exciting blog lately after reading this post...

Top 8 Reason That You Know You Study TOO MUCH For The MCAT:

#8 You worry when you've only studied 20 hours for the MCAT this week, despite sleep, school, work and a wife. (Only 20 hours!!! Holy cow I'm slacking! Must study more....)

#7 You study more for the MCAT than your current classes. (Well, this chapter talks a little bit about cells so that counts for studying for my molecular biology class right?)

#6 You cut back on work and sleep in order to study more for the MCAT. ("Jody, sorry I can't come in to work today." Jody says, "Oh, that's ok, are you sick?" "No, I just have to study more for the MCAT.")

#5 You are becoming stronger and more physically fit because you have to take your MCAT books with you... everywhere... always! ("Joe, are those your suitcases for your New Caledonia trip?" "No, they're just my MCAT study materials.")

#4 Your idea of fun is studying for the MCAT just to see how much you've learned and forgot when in college, only to hope that this time when you learn it, it sticks... at least for another two months. (Gram negative and gram positive bacterial structures?... oh yeah, I remember those... I think.)

#3 You're leaving on a once-in-a-lifetime, almost all expenses paid dream vacation, and one of the main things that you're stressing about is not being able to study for the MCAT for an entire week. (Humm... which pages should I photocopy to bring with me... pages 439 to 728?)

#2 No matter what day, what time of day your friends call and ask what you're doing, your answer is, "I'm studying for the MCAT. ("Joe, whatcha doin'?" "Studyin' for the MCAT.") (Except Sunday's, naturally.)

and the NUMBER ONE reason that you know that you've been studying for the MCAT way too much is...

#1 You dream that you married a Magnesium ion (Mg2+). Then, in the dream you see the woman that is your wife in reality, you feel really bad because you knew you shouldn't have married the Magnesium ion. After you realize how much you love your wife in the dream, you kiss her and then feel horrible for cheating on the Magnesium ion! (Yes, I really did actually dream that I married a Magnesium ion. Oh sad day...)

=)

Then, after reading all these reasons, you remember that you should get back to studying for the MCAT

Hope you all are doing well!

No, we're not dead, just MIA

Yes, it has been quite a long time since we've blogged... but we didn't die. We've just been missing, shut away from the world, up to our heads in ACTION. For example, some of the non-stop action consists of studying for the MCAT for 18+ hours a week, cramming for the seeming endless supply of tests for my classes, not to mention the constant care and manipulation of polio-virus producing vero cells and antibody-producing AE-1 hybridoma cells as well as balancing not one, but two jobs. Lianna has been equally busy with her physics and psyc stats, sports classes, and her internship, calling, her demanding job, and just being absolutely wonderful.

But we're still here. =)

We had a nice valentines day. We were, of course, insanely busy but we managed to steal time away from the day itself and slip off to the beautiful beach to take a long walk. We thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with each other, as our coinciding free time is few and far between.

Lianna also had (and continues to have) great fun making messages from the pair of dice Mom Quillen sent to us as part of a Valentine's Day package. (The dice are the ones featured in the picture)
(Our Valentine's Day decorations, in their entirety, are shown here)

We hope that you all are doing well. We certainly are.

P.S. Just twenty more days until we fly across the ocean and enter the unparalleled paradise of New Caledonia!