Jose and I enjoyed our time celebrating the new year in Yuma, AZ with Jacob, Sarah, and Mark Portaro at Kyle, Leanna and Vivi Buchina's home. We stayed up til 3:30 am playing a card game called "King's row" which took a total of about 5 hours to play. We're not much for staying up late but Jose got a nap in during the afternoon while the rest of us watched "Cars". It was a good time hanging out, eating, and playing games. Mark and Vivi are cute kids that I took pleasure in playing with. Thanks Buchinas for having us over and being so hospitable!
Tuesday, January 2nd was my official last day working at Starbucks! I am a little sad to leave. If you ever want a job for the purpose of giving you something to do and a small pay check then Starbucks is a great place to work. It's fun getting to know the daily customers, smelling the coffee, getting free drinks while working, flexible schedule, a mark out every week, and plus 30% discount. Okay, now it sounds like I'm advertising for them. Anyways, I thoroughly enjoyed working there. For now I can enjoy the month long break of not working and the blessing of being able to make visits.
We went to the Wild Animal Park on another beautiful day in San Diego. We walked around and got to watch the elephant show. It's great that we can be outside without freezing in the winter time!
One of our goals (as it is for a lot of people) is to get into shape. We have both put on some pounds (fat not muscle). It shouldn't be automatic that when you get married you gain weight...well I guess we're not getting any younger either. It seems to take more effort than it used to in order to stay in shape. We've been able to go on 3 nice bike rides - Lake Miramar, Mt. Woodson, and Rancho Penasquitos Trails. It definitely left the buttocks sore. We've gone to the gym on base a few times together. Now is probably the time that I should begin training for one of my life goals - to run a marathon. My dad and his wife Casey are running a bunch of races these days and on June 3rd they are coming here to run the San Diego Rockn'roll marathon. I'm thinking of joining them in this crazy endeavor. This would mean serious dedication to running about 5-6 times per week, increasing the mileage every week. I figure it's not going to get any easier as I get any older and that whenever the time comes to have kids that it's not going to happen then. I'll let you know if I sign up to do it - first I want to make sure that I'll be able to have work off for a couple days so that I can recover.
Jose and I will be leaving for Maryland on this Wednesday for 10 days. We'll be going to Brian Gallagher and Jecholia Jessee's wedding in VA. I'm looking forward to seeing my mom, bro and long time friends! I'm sure we'll have lots of pictures and stories to put up when we're back.
