Cancun Trip

In June, Jeff and I went to Cancun. It was a great trip! We stayed at an all inclusive resort that was right on the beach and absolutely beautiful. Hopefully we will go back some day soon.

While we were there, we ventured away from the beach and went on a Book of Mormon tour of some Mayan ruins. It was given by a wonderful family who knows so much about both the Book of Mormon and the local culture. It was definitely a testimony builder to see the lands talked about in the Book of Mormon.

The Chichen Itza, one of the biggest ruins. Notice the clouds. It started pouring rain shortly after this picture was taken.

Luckily, the family we were on the tour with came prepared, and let us borrow an umbrella.

...Hybrid of a bag lady and a pancho lady...

Standing in front of the Chichen Itza.

Before we went to Chichen Itza, we went to Tulum, ruins on the beach

Jeff and I at Tulum

Jeff's picture of an iguana (they were ALL OVER down there)

Tulum

Entrance to Tulum

In between Tulum and Chichen Itza, we went to a classic Hacienda and had a traditional Yucatan Cuisine Lunch. Delicious!

Here is a view of our Hotel from the van.

View outside our Hotel room (inside the hotel)

Hotel Lobby

View from our Balcony of the ocean.

Another view of the ocean from our room

Graduation - May 21, 2011

Well, I guess it's official...I am a college graduate!

Although I finished classes in December, I actually walked in May. Here are pictures from the big day. I got to sit on stage during the ceremony and got a special award. It was really fun and an experience I will never forget. Jeff's mom and dad came down for the occasion, as well as his sister Jennie and her family. We had a great time, showing them around our neighborhood and spending quality time together.

Here are pictures of the day:

Before the ceremony, my dad and I went all around campus and did a little photo shoot at all the places that are important to me.

The walkway to the library

Then I met up with friends from my major and we all took group shots around campus together...

Super Cheese!: Me, Kim, Jennifer, Rachael, Annie, Isa, Marya

Annie, Rachael, Marya, Kim, Andrea, Jennifer, Isa and Me

Annie, Kim, Andrea, Rachael, Me, Marya, Jenifer, Isa

Then we parted ways and we got in position for the ceremony. Backstage was pretty cool. We had a special dressing room with refreshments (fruit, cookies, nuts, cheese and lots of different beverages). It was really cool. I also got to sit in between two of my favorite professors, and in front of my other favorite professor.

Standing on stage during the ceremony. Can you find me?

After receiving the award for "Outstanding Student in the Nutrition Major": Dean Grattas, me and my "most influential teacher", Dr. Beshgetoor (Medical Nutrition Therapy Teacher)

After we received our award we had to stand in front of a green screen and have our pictures taken. This was my end result...Always gotta pull a face, just ask my mom...or husband...

After the ceremony: Dave, Carole, Me, Jeff

After the Ceremony: Chris, Mom, Me, Grandma

Me and El Jefe

The Happy Parents

Everyone minus Me, Bradley and Jennie: Chris, Grandma, Dave, Jeffrey, Carole, Mom, El Jefe, Lenny (photo courtesy of Jennie)

Carole, Lenny, Bradley, Jennie, Bradley, Me, Jeff

Graduation Present from Mom and Dad...Part One

Graduation Present from my mom and dad...Part Two. Amazing!

After the long, long, long ceremony, My friends Marie and Doug met us at Mazara's, an Italian Restaurant down the street from our house.

Group shot. The food was delicious. We had a great cake afterwards. I felt loved and was surrounded by awesome people the whole day.

Blessings All Around

Hello!

It has been quite a while since I have updated thing thing, eh?

Well, a lot has happened...

I finished up my grueling last semester at San Diego State in mid-december. I ended up graduating magna cum laude with distinction in the major (but don't walk until may). That was a pretty cool moment when I heard that news.

The next step after graduating was to put together all my application materials to apply for a dietetic internship. This is a necessary step to become a licensed Registered Dietitian (which is the only legitimate licensure in the field of nutrition). Because the profession is growing exponentially, these internships are immensely competitive and hard to come by. To put things into perspective, the less competitive internships get about 200 applications and accept 40 interns. The more competitive get double the amount of applicants and accept only 6. Only about half of the people who apply to these internships get matched.

Knowing this going into the process, I knew that I had to make myself stand out. I got my letters of recommendation and wrote my personal statement and made a website (http://amandahibshman.weebly.com). I spent SO so SO many hours working on my application. Eventually I hit "send" and waited 6 weeks to learn my fate. I struggled in the time in between graduating and learning about my internship, because I did not know what my future looked like. I could not answer the question "what will you be doing in 6 months" and it kind of freaked me out.

My number one internship pick was the VA Hospital. It is highly competitive because it is one of the only internships that offers a stipend (of $12,000) instead of having a fee to participate (anywhere between $8,000-$50,000). It is also in an awesome city that people want to come live in...so it is competitive on a national level. Only one SDSU person usually gets accepted each year. Aside from the pay, It has a strong clinical emphasis, which appeals to me more than other internships...so it would have been my #1 regardless. My other two options were "distance internships" that are based in other parts of the country, but I find my own preceptors in San Diego. I was completely prepared to get matched to my 2 or 3 choice...but I was matched to the VA Hospital. I could not believe it. When I saw the computer screen saying that I was matched, I screamed, and cried, and screamed a little bit more. Jeff and I immediately called our families. I still am a little in shock about the whole thing.

Then, today, out of the blue...A woman from the dean's office at San Diego State called me. She said that I have been chosen by the faculty and staff as the "Outstanding Student of the Foods and Nutrition Major" and I will be awarded at graduation, and I get to sit on the stage, and get to chose the most influential faculty member, and they get to present me with an award...all at the graduation ceremony! Apparently it is a really big deal. She asked me to write a 2-3 page biography which will be submitted to a committee. They will then chose one person (I guess there are about ten of us in my college) to speak at graduation. So I have a 1/10 chance of speaking at graduation! How cool is that? Another cool thing, is that I will get special tickets for my family at graduation to sit in a special place (I think it is just down close).

I just feel so relieved. I used to always say "I am kinda good at everything, but not great at anything." I am a good singer, but I'm not great. Same with dancing, and acting, and every other hobby I take up or career path I follow. I have always felt just mediocre. But I finally found something that I really truly to excel at and can be great at...and get acknowledged for! After years (and years) of being rejected in the theatre world, and journalism world, it is so incredible to be so welcome in the nutrition world. I really feel like I have been incredibly blessed and know that this is the path that I should be on. To top it all off, through the nutrition major at SDSU, I have made lifelong friendships with some amazing people.

Anyway, I just kind of had to get this all out there. I am really reluctant to share things on Facebook or anything like that...so all of you get the pleasure :-)

Thanksgiving 2010

Here are some pics from our Thanksgiving:

dad, david, jeff and me getting food

sarah (cousin), aunt tricia (grandma's sister), erika (cousin), grandma denton, aunt susan

Cousin Samara and me

Dad, Jeff and me, eating

Grandma and me

mom, grandma and me...the black friday trio

jeff and dad watching football

Love this pic of both my grandma and mom. Grandma looks like a classic beauty and mom has awesome bone structure...Beautiful ladies!

Quick Little Update

Hello!

Well, Jeff and I are as busy as can be right now.

This is probably the most intense semester I have ever had. My two favorite classes this semester are essentially medical school for nutrition (we have to understand not only the disease states and how to treat them nutritionally, but also what lab values are effected, how its diagnosed, how it is treated medically...kind of a lot of information to pack into one semester!). It is supposed to be taken in two separate semesters, but I want to get out now! Another class that is consuming my life right now is a community nutrition and counseling class. It is community nutrition because we go work at WIC and teach classes there and then write multiple papers on our time spent there. I completed my hours last week, and was surprised at how much fun I had teaching the classes at WIC. The counseling part of that class is really fun, but there is so much work that is involved. We get these fake situations and then have a pretend counseling session with our classmates in front of our classmates. Its a little uncomfortable, and the 10 page papers we have to write about it before we do the counseling session aren't very fun either. I am not much of a writer (which is probably the reason I don't update my blog very often, unless I have pictures...) so having a class that is mostly based on writing papers isn't really my idea of fun. Another class I am in right now is food service management. It is from 7-10 at night once a week, and the material is really dry...but I have a great teacher who is trying to motivate us and tells good stories. I have my first test in that class tonight, so we'll see how much I like it after tonight.

As for Jeff, he has been working so hard lately. He has this project at work he has been working on, and the design review is coming up, and problems keep happening that need to be fixed. Unfortunately, because of his strong work ethic, he stays until the job is done and sometimes, that means staying until 9 at night (and going in at 6:30!) Poor guy needs a vacation. I keep trying to talk him into going on a trip after I graduate (I am really pushing for Italy...but it is doubtful we'll make it over there. I would be lucky if we made it to New York!) He has been golfing a lot lately too. Our next door neighbor, Michael, is an avid golfer, and always asks Jeff if he wants to come along. I went with them a couple weekends ago, and I actually had a really fun time. I am kind of starting to get better, so it is kind of getting more enjoyable :-)

In other news, it has been raining like crazy down here and the weather has just been pretty gloomy all month. The owner of our house has tried patching up our roof that leaks (in jeff's music room!) each time it rains, and last night the water was just coming in like crazy! I called the owner, and he came over and got up on the roof in the middle of the storm, and cleaned out a clogged drain. That seemed to help for the time being, but we are gonna get a new roof on this bad boy sometime soon! Hopefully it isn't too disruptive.

That's about it. I gotta get back to studying, but hope that gives everyone a good taste as to what has been going on in our little world lately.

Ta Ta For Now!!

Hairdo

Last weekend, Jeff decided he wanted to do my hair. I don't think he knew what he was getting himself into, because it took a little over an hour. But he blow dried, curled and styled the whole thing. It was fun and ended up looking good! I told him that he should go to beauty school and open a salon. I'm sure after an hour of curling and blow drying he didn't feel much like doing that!

Here are pics from it:

Jeff's Birthday

For Jeff's 32nd birthday, we were planning on grilling some fresh seafood. But after slaving the morning away in the kitchen to make his birthday cake, we decided to just go out to lunch and get seafood!

This was the location: The Fish Market

We both heard good things about the restaurant, however the best thing in my mind was the view of the bay. You can see out to Coronado island and the bridge. It is very pretty. The sourdough bread as delicious, and our food was ok. A few days later, I learned the go to items (that neither Jeff and I ordered) that included tomatoes sauteed in olive oil and garlic with mozarella cheese. yum. It makes me want to go back just for that!

After lunch, we walked around the marina for a little bit. There is a Tribute to Bob Hope (above) exhibit that is up permanently. There are a bunch of creepy statues watching Bob Hope give a speech, and playing in the background is the audio of Bob Hope's speech and thunderous applause. It is especially creepy at 7am when there is no one down there!

But we decided to not let this great photo opportunity go to waste, so we got a shot of a little asian girl telling Jeff a secret.

After lunch, we went to look for part two of Jeff's birthday gift: a pair of Persol Sunglasses. We couldn't find the ones he really wanted though, so we didn't get any. Part one was given to him the Friday before his birthday, which was APC Jeans. They are raw denim, and you have to buy them 2 sizes too small and not wash them for 6-12 months. They will look really neat when they are broken in.

Then we went home and had some carrot cake. It was pretty good!!! If you have ever made carrot cake, you know how much of a labor of love it is...shredding the 3 cups of carrots is a tedious task! Well, the batter was all prepared, and I put the cake tins in the pre-heated oven. I didn't realize it was set on broil (because of the dinner we made the night before) so five minutes into the baking process, we smelled burning. Luckily it was salvageable and the cake turned out fine, just a little lopsided.

It was a fun day, and now Jeff is another year older and another year wiser :-)