Crossfit

So I started crossfit. Most of you know that being buff is one of those really important things to me. Sexy arms on a girl or a guy is always a little amazing to me. And I want buff arms.
So...I heard about this crossfit thing originally from my sister's husband Adam. There were only about 200 gyms nationwide a couple years ago, but now there are about 2000. Including one put on by my hospital. 5 minutes from my house. I think that's a sign.
Crossfit is basically a million pull-ups and push-ups and some lifts combined with a little running and rowing. I'm on my 4th week and I've never been so sore in my entire life on a consistent basis. Let's be honest, I haven't lifted this consistently since high school (I go 3 times a week). I have to use a band to help me do all my pull-ups (because last week, we did 115 one day), but I still feel stronger.
This picture is not me or my friends. And my gym is not in the woods. It's actually little and not very pretty, but I think that's the point. Crossfit started in people's garages.
The classes have only about 5 people in each of them, which means we all are really good at supporting each other and expecting the others to show up.
I graduate from "Essentials" to real "Crossfit" next week. We'll see if I die. Whoo-hoo!

I Heart Bekah

Bekah is my friend from nursing school in Idaho. She rock climbs. She travels the world. She has a boyfriend who's ten years younger than her (i.e., my age). Basically she's the coolest thing ever (I love you all, but she is REALLY cool). She also came to visit last week and we toured Taliesin West (Frank Lloyd Wright's Scottsdale house). It has cool fountains, an awesome dinner theatre, and even a door in a wall! It was so fun to see her and just hang out. Here's our pics!

Home for Christmas

I went to Idaho Falls for Christmas for the first time in what seems like forever. My roommate Vanie and Brad's roommate Kevin came with us. Both of them needed to see how the Carbiener's did Christmas. And they definitely did. They were there for a week. I was there for 5 days.
Vanie and Kaitlynn got along great. Kaitlynn is 6. She and Vanie left pictures on my phone for my birthday:

Speaking of my birthday, Kevin made me amazing eggs, and my parents got me cupcakes for breakfast. It was a beautiful way to wake up.
Christmas morning was awesome with Candice's kids. Kaitlynn loved her mermaid costume (from Santa), and TATE loved the letters I got him to spell his name, and Perri tried on Kaitlynn's new dress-up wig.


I also got Cole Haan boots which kind of blew my mind a little bit (I loved them, but I did NOT expect to get them). I've worn them about a million times already....

And we even tried valiantly to make snow angels in very uncooperative snow/ice

But Kaitlynn and I still had fun throwing snowballs!!

Basically, we spent our days laying around eating, laughing at Candice's kids, learning to play with them (I'm better at kitchen than Barbie's!), watching Despicable Me, and just enjoying each other. I even walked Candice's dog! Shocking, I know.
It was a wonderful vacation that left me remembering once again how lucky I am to be a part of them.

Petite Maison- The Aftermeal

The meal after graduation was at Petite Maison, a fancy schmancy TINY little French place that John had discovered the week before. We all sat at the bar and talked the ears off the bartender. We tried steak tartar (look that one up!), foie gras, duck, pork belly, and trout. And an apple tartlet. Basically it was very cute and so delicious. And here's a glimpse. (p.s. They also have a thing called "staff meal" where you can show up and chill out and eat a pre-set meal from 10-midnight Thurs through Sat; I've since found out that this is kind of the underground restaurant workers/bartenders hangout time. And I'm totally going soon.)

And, then, I graduated...

My parents also came in for graduation (of course, right?) They only stayed for a couple days because I was just about to go to Idaho Falls for Christmas. John came as well (we kind of helped each other out a lot during school) and Brad came because I made him. No one really likes graduation ceremonies. And because I think he loves me or something. (Most of these pics are already on facebook.) And there are no pictures of my dad because he hates pictures of himself. But he was there. And I love him. And there were 7 women's health girls; that's all of us.
(So to explain, I got my Master's of Science in Nursing. I take my boards hopefully next month to become a Women's Health Nurse Practitioner. I don't have a new job yet. I'll let you know. And last week I started the Doctor of Nursing Practice program. Which is mostly about becoming a leader in the nursing field and not about changing my job or anything. It also might kill me, so please start praying.)

Jessica Comes to Play!!

Jessica came later that week for my graduation. For anyone who's forgotten, Jessica was my roommate in Boise who I went to visit in May and whose wedding ceremony I performed.
We've been planning for her to come down forever, and finally she got to.
She unfortunately also had to sit through a poster session as soon as she got off the plane, but I tried to make it up to her :-)
So we shopped and ate fancy places. Because that is my limited view of what there is to do in Phoenix. We ate Sprinkles cupcakes. We shopped at Crate & Barrel. We ate fancy healthy breakfasts at d'lish. We stood in fake snow that made us cough and worried us a little bit.
And basically, we had a blast.
And didn't take enough pictures. I want my ELPH back.

The Craziest 5K ever.

On December 12th, I ran a 5K with a group called Girls on the Run. As part of the graduate nurse's organization, we are supposed to do a service project, so I got together with this group and we planned some things. The goal of Girls on the Run is to promote self-esteem in girls ages 8-13 by helping them run a 5K. They pair each girl with a "running buddy" to help her get through the race. So our nurses organization signed up to be running buddies. Terrified that I might hold my little running buddy up, I ran like crazy that week (even through the burning raw skin from my chemical peel). Turns out I needn't have worried. This is my running buddy, who refused to run and complained the whole way. We did pretend to run in front of her parents for a minute.

It took us about 2 1/2 hours to walk 3.1 miles. Her name is Destiny; her little brother Dallas joined us for the last half of the race. I think you can tell which picture is from before we started and which one is from the finish line. This is maybe what I get for setting up a service project on a Sunday?! (Click on this; her little brother is so cute and she is so upset....)

I love the car wash...

So I have a million things I could post about, so this one will be small. But Scottsdale has a new car wash. It's $6. It's just like Boise's. It gets my car soooo clean. It has free vacuums with small attachments that get in all the cracks and I love it. I love it. And it's about 1 mile from my house. Hallelujah!