Filled with Happiness!

Well, it has been a while since I have written on our blog, so I'm excited to provide an up date on our lives :)

We are currently in the middle of Spring term. Daniel is taking Human Anatomy, studying every day, and going to his internship Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I am working 30 hours a week as a custodial supervisor at the WSC on campus.

Recently we have made some big decisions about our future. Daniel is going to take the summer off from school. Because of this break he will not be able to graduate until December 2013, instead of April 2013 with me. We chose this delay for a few reasons. After Anatomy this term, Daniel will have been going to school for a full calendar year, and Daniel is worn out; his brain needs a break. Also, most of the PT schools that Daniel wants to apply to require the GRE, and he just doesn't have time this summer to study for and take it in time to apply for school. Along with that, Daniel doesn't have the time that will be required to complete his PT school applications well. Daniel will spend next spring dedicated to studying for and taking the GRE and the summer working on his applications. He will graduate in December 2013 and will start PT school in September 2014. As you can tell we will have 8 months where neither of us are in school. We are going to spend that time working and saving up for school. PT school is a three year program with no breaks, so he'll then be in school from 2014- 2017.

We have also decided the 7 PT schools that Daniel will apply to listed in order of where I want Daniel to go. The rankings are in relation to PT schools, not graduate schools in general.

1- The University of Utah is the only University in Utah that has a PT program, so he will be applying there. U of U is ranked at 19.
2- Daniel will apply to the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. My family lives in Bellevue which is 20 min away. UW is ranked at 29.
3- Daniel will apply to Franklin Pierce University in Goodyear, AZ. Daniel has a brother in Peoria, AZ which is about a half hour away. FPU is ranked at 143.
4,5- Daniel will apply to two schools in Nashville, TN: Belmont University and Tennessee State University. Daniel has an Aunt that lives in McMinnville TN which is an hour and a half away. BU is ranked at 52 and TSU is ranked at 143.
6- Daniel will apply to Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR. Neither of us have family in OR, but my family is only 3 and a half hours away, and I think OR is beautiful, so I'd love to live there for 3 years. PU is ranked at 57
7- Daniel will apply to Idaho State University in Pocatello, ID. In Boise I have a cousin, and Daniel has a sister, so we'll have family only a couple of hours away. ISU is ranked at 95.

As you can see Daniel is going to apply to schools that are highly ranked, and not ranked very well. That was pretty much the advice that was given to him.

We have also decided how we are going to spend our summer now that Daniel wont be in school :)
We're going to hike the Y, hike to Mt. Timp cave, go to Daniel's 5 year high school reunion, spend time with my mom and sister when they come to visit, go backpacking like we do every summer, go to Zion National Park for our 2nd Anniversary, then we will either go to Arizona to visit family and check out FPU or go to Tennessee to visit family and check out BU and TSU, or both. That will depend on the family that we want to visit and how much money we want to spend. If we go to AZ we will head down there after our trip to Zion. On our way down we will stop at Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon. Although the Grand Canyon is an hour out of the way I figure it's better to add an hour in, and hour out of the canyon to our trip, than take a whole trip down there another time.

And my last comment for the day is that today, May 8th, is Frodo's first birthday :) Happy birthday to our favorite baby kitten!! :)

~Jessica~