Summer Photo Dump

Well, we've had quite a few adventures this spring/summer but I've become a blogging failure... so here's a photo dump for your viewing pleasure.

 Our anniversary weekend in Seattle, including a visit to Pike's Market and delicious crab for dinner. We licked the plates clean!

 Taylor's dad came into town and we all had breakfast at Kneader's (Trent is taking the picture).Yum!

Then, we graduated :). This pic is of us in front of our beloved house in Provo. We have loved it so much here and are going to miss it a lot!

 

With our favorite professor, Dr. Cole, and a fellow TA of mine--

The whole McGregor clan....

*Rise and shout, the cougars are out!!!* lol

Glad to have Trent home from his mish and part of all our family festivities.

 One night after work we took a hike to the local hot springs and enjoyed a toasty dip! It was really fun, and while we had to decline some pot from some friendly neighbors, we still had a good chat and a great time :).

 And of course there has been a whole lot of rock climbing. These are just a few photos of our (especially Jordan's) excursions.

And then last weekend we went to LA to house hunt and squeezed in a couple quick beach trips to my favorite beach-- Manhattan Beach. We're really excited to be closer to the ocean! Okay mainly I'm really excited, and Jordan's really excited that we were able to score some sweet digs in Altadena close to the mountains. Everybody wins!

No date is complete without delicious ice cream, really.

And now we are packing our house for two days, then heading to Sacramento for MY LITTLE SISTER KATIE'S WEDDING!!! then we're coming back and finishing our pack/move in two additional days, driving to LA and unpacking.... getting settled/prepped for school/registering our car/getting new licenses/etc then driving to Sacramento for Jordan's half iron man (his birthday present) and then starting school, and then heading back to Utah for Jordan's LITTLE SISTER DANIKA'S WEDDING!!! What a happy, exciting zoo of a month. In case you weren't counting, if you add in our road trip to Washington the weekend before the LA trip, that's SIX 20-hour+ round trip road trips in 6 weeks. We are crazy, seriously crazy. And ya know my main thought about all this driving? If Jordan doesn't listen to Harry Potter in the next month I don't think it's ever going to happen ;).

And the final decision is....

 

 
 

University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles

After much interviewing, visiting, debating, praying, crying (okay only one of us cried, and I bet you can guess which one of us it was), and praying again, we have decided to attend USC in Los Angeles, California. Ultimately, USC offered the best combination of scholarships, programs for both of us, long-term flexibility, etc. And the prospect of sunshine and the ocean didn't hurt either ;). Now those of you who really know us know that we are not well suited for big city living.... so what are we going to do about that?! We'll definitely be downsizing a bit from our spacious house in Provo, but we're excited about the prospects of living in the Pasadena/Alhambra area. South Pasadena specifically is on the light rail that runs straight to downtown/USC main campus (the law school for Kelsey) and is within biking distance of the medical campus (the PT program for Jord). Yep, we're going to be on different campuses, but they're pretty close and if we live in South Pasadena area we're optimistic that we can both get to school without commuting in a car on the hell-ish (woops!) freeways of LA.

[exhibit A]

 We also drove through Pasadena and loved the colorful bungalows, green hills (they don't really merit "mountain" status after living at the base of the Rockies so long), cooler weather, relative quiet, and small-town feel of the community. Now we just have to find a place-- and we welcome your tips!

 

Here's to a new adventure :). We should be moving in early August, after attending the wedding of these two lovebirds:

Congratulations to Katie (my lil sis) and Taylor for their wonderful engagement and upcoming nuptials! We couldn't be more thrilled for them :).

welcome spring!

When it rains it pours

And in this case, it's in a good way! We thought that phrase was appropriate for what's been going on with us and our rainy-but-beautiful Seattle, WA school options. While this picture might lead you to believe that we're relocating to Seattle, it's not quite that set in stone. But we're excited that Seattle is becoming a more viable (and appealing) option all the time. Kelsey has been invited for interviews at both Seattle University (this weekend) and University of Washington (at the end of the month) for their premiere public service scholarship programs. Both schools are generously covering airfare and housing for the trips, which is a real thrill for our student budget! :) We're hoping/planning to fly Jordan out as well for the UW interview, so he can visit UW's campus and check out the DPT program (which he was accepted to last month, what a stud). The interview dates also happen to be the weekend of our 4-year anniversary, so we will say thank you in advance to the complimentary and very plush hotel stay we get to have because of the scholarship interview! Should be a fun and exciting weekend of *terrifying* interviews and lovely adventures exploring Seattle. Can't wait!

As for USC... we're still crossing our fingers for an interview for their scholarship too, but it's an incredibly competitive process (only one incoming student gets it). We should hear in the next week or so whether Kelsey got that interview, which would be scheduled back-to-back with UW's. Fewf! Pretty crazy, but it would be so great to have those options, and we really are rooting for USC because the programs are amazing.

Here's to new adventures!

Belated Vday

Here's some fun from our Vday dance photos with Katie and Taylor... they came and crashed our married ward dance with us for about ten minutes of hardcore dancin' and some quick photo ops :).

Too much fun with these two. :)

Birthday & Plans

This weekend I turned the ripe old age of 24! Complete with beautiful flowers in the mail from my fab parents, festivities with my McG grandparents (who both have a birthday within a week of mine), birthday dinner and shopping with my awesome sister, a surprise get-together with some of our friends (thanks to my sweet hubby and awesome friend Janelle for making it a hit!), and an amazing birthday dinner at my in-laws! We only got pictures on my actual birthday at the Perrys, so here's what we've got:

Putting together my favorite dish, pasta primavera :)

Complete with shrimp, carrots, tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, peas, and broccoli! Yum.

It really is a beautiful pasta with all the vibrant colors! Tastes just as good as it looks, if not better.

Jordan also made homemade garlic-rosemary breadsticks which were delicious, but we didn't get a picture. The man is a baking genius though, truly!

The Dessert: Red Velvet Cheesecake

Me and my sis... and my awesome mother-in-law belting The Beatles' "Birthday" song ;)

Delicious!!!

Making my wish :)

Partying it up to The Beatles' "Birthday"

Opening up my darling apron from the Perrys. Handmade by Jolynn!

You can't see all the details, but it's beautifully done and has a real vintage feel to it. Sure makes cooking that much more enjoyable! It's even got two deep pockets where I can stash my iPod-- I always listen to Harry Potter while I cook :).

It was a wonderful birthday, thanks to my wonderful family and friends! :) 

Especially Jordan, who makes everything wonderful. Love that man more every day.

In other news, Jordan got into University of Washington's DPT program this morning! Congratulations to Mr. Smarty-pants, who gets an official pass for the rest of the semester since he got into his top two schools of choice. Course he's too good to actually sluff school and get C's, but I like to keep teasing him that he can ;). Anyway, it is nice to have the grades-pressure off.

This is also awesome because that means we both got into our top programs of choice, bringing the running to UW and USC (Boston is still in the mix, but not really as desirable of a choice). Now we just have to make the deposits for Jordan's programs at each school (ouch! $1500 total, non-refundable! being a grown-up sucks) and wait for me to hear about scholarships (crossing fingers). I should hear if I got an interview for each school around the end of this month or early March, and if I get them then they're both during the last week of March (also when we have our 4th wedding anniversary! annnnd also when the Hunger Games comes out...). So if I get the interviews, I'll hear back about the scholarships in early April, and that's when we'll make our decision! Pretty exciting, but we're glad to have two great options on the west coast in beautiful cities with lots of great assets in each. And I'm glad to be in the best of company as we go forward with this exciting new adventure :).

The School Situation

Ready for some more updates? Man, it's a big year for decision making, and we're really fortunate to have several options already:

Jordan's list:
*Elon (interviewed, accepted and offered a scholarship)
*USC (accepted-- the #1 program in the US!)
-UNC (invited for an interview)
UCSF (not accepted... their loss ;)

And we're still waiting on Azusa (Los Angeles), Northeastern (Boston), Boston University, Duke (Raleigh), and UW (Seattle)

Kelsey's list:
*UW (accepted)
*Boston University (accepted)
*Northeastern (accepted and Dean's Scholarship)
*UNC (accepted)
*USF (accepted and Dean's Scholarship)
*Indiana/Purdue (accepted and Dean's Scholarship)

And we're still waiting on USC (I was invited to apply for their most prestigious scholarship, so that's a good sign), UCLA (just applied last week, so it will probably be awhile), UC Berkeley (ruled out anyway because Jordan didn't get accepted to UCSF), and Boston College.

As we've been thinking and praying about our options, we've been feeling that we will probably end up in Los Angeles... which we have mixed feelings about. Kelsey spent some of her childhood there (0-4 in Glendale, 10-14 in Manhattan Beach) and Jordan served his LDS mission there, Spanish-speaking. There are some things we don't love about the city, BUT if we do end up in LA, there are a lot of pros: a) We both have some of our best academic opportunities at schools there, b) We love California, c) Kelsey can escape her nemesis/archenemy: snow, d) It's the location that is equi-distant to both our families, and allows us to travel by car to visit both!

So we're excited, and hopefully Kelsey will be accepted to USC and/or UCLA with a scholarship so that it becomes a real option for us. We're thinking we might rule out the North Carolina schools, just because it doesn't feel right (even though it is a very attractive option!). Jordan was surprised by this because he loved the area when he interviewed at Elon and has two opportunities there, but despite the lovely area, amazing academic opportunities, and affordable living provided by NC, we haven't felt like it's the right choice for us.

Since Indiana schools and Bay Area schools have been eliminated because we weren't both accepted, that narrows the choices to Boston, Seattle, and Los Angeles! We're excited about these options and look forward to seeing how things pan out. Jord will continue to hear back from schools into February, and Kelsey has applied for scholarships at BU, Boston College, Northeastern, UW, Seattle University, USC, and UCLA that we will still need to hear about before we make a decision. Odds are we won't have all our information before we are forced to make a decision because of deadlines and fee requirements, but we'll have to just wait and see!

Here's to all our new adventures in 2012 :). Happy New Year!