Christmas with the Kreneks..

This year, I spent Christmas with both sides of Kristi's family, the Krenek's and the Jasek's. I wasn't able to spend it with my own family on the holidays due to both my mom and dad being very sick with the flu and warning me against coming anywhere near the house.

Everything turned out ok though, and there certainly was a lot more activity than what my family has had in the past. As food is concerned, we had everything from home caught fried fish with shrimp etouffee to large helpings of turkey, ham, and deer sausage. Everything was really delicious and it was good to spend the holidays with a large family gathering again (twice!). It was also good to spend some time getting to see everyone again, some I've only met on one or another occasion. I think several of them are worried that they scared me off or something! haha.

I hope everyone else has had a wonderful Christmas or holidays of your choosing and here's wishing for a very Happy New Year.

Goin' Skiing...

After exams and school was pretty much over for another year, we managed to hit the slopes again for a well needed break. This time, four of us were able to make it up to Wolf Creek, Colorado, one of our favorite places to go. On the last occasion, the weather was very cold with blizzard like conditions for most of the skiing time, however, the weather cooperated very well with amazing sunny and warm condtions. There wasn't much snow, but it was still early into the season so that was expected, but we still managed to have lots of fun in the mean time.

We stayed at one of the closest places you can stay to the ski mountain. The Wolf Creek Ranch Ski Lodge which we have stayed at several times in the past. It has both cabins and a streetside motel, this was the first year that we weren't able to secure a cabin, but the motel worked out just fine as well, and was probably best since we just stayed 3 nights.


At Wolf Creek Ranch Ski Lodge

The lodge is situated right in the middle of Wolf Creek Pass, with mountains on both sides and the Rio Grande river right behind the property. It's really a pretty scenic area.

Mountains and Pallisades outside



More mountains on the way to Wolf Creek Ski Resort

Kristi got a new green ski coat for Christmas.


Here's the two of us going up the ski lift to the top of the mountain.


Kristi and Wes


The View from the top really is quite amazing, I wish I would have taken the time to get some more pictures, but here's one of the four of us. Sam, Wes, me and Kristi.



One of the things that I like so much about Wolf Creek is how varied the terrain is. There are your usual runs that are trails bordered by trees on both sides, but then there's also alot of really open terrain with no trails that you can pretty much choose where and how you want to ski it. You can ski down the same area 10 different times and get something new out of it, especially if you're into skiing trees and through non groomed terrain.



One Run in particular gave us a good challenge, "Windjammer", starts out with a very steep grade with moguls, some 3 feet high. It then levels out and ends with several jumps, hills and a gully that can catch you off guard if you're not in control. Below, Kristi found the gully by accident. You can also see Wes up in the top right trying to avoid it.


On the way back up to Alberta Peak... It's not a very tall mountain--elevation wise, but it is spread out quite a bit with also an extensive backside area. So there's still plenty to see and ski.



Flags flying at the base area representing the states they get the most skiiers from. Good to see Texas strongly represented.



We only had 2 days of skiing, but I think it's safe to say that we made the most of it. Everyone had fun and stayed safe, and of course looking forward to next year already!

Done!

Just got out of my Psych final and I'm officially on Vacation! At least until the middle of January when I actually have to bunker down and start studying very hard for the next most important test in my life (the one that determines where I go after I graduate), but until then I can have some fun. Mountains and snow skiing here I come!

The joys of being 26....

Are there any joys of being 26? Hmm, good question, I'm not really aware of too many from this point on. Lol, birthdays kind of eventually lose their fun I guess after awhile. The day was pretty gloomy as it was raining pretty heavily in Houston, but it was also my last day on clinicals for the year, so that just means that once I get my tests out of the way tomorrow and Friday I'm on vacation! That means skiing and Christmas and just enjoying not doing a whole lot of anything for a little while at least.
















Kristi made me a cake for my birthday, which she actually gave to me last weekend. It's very yummy with devil food cake and white icing, and she even put planets and stars on it for me too, haha. It's already almost gone though. :-( I'm eating out with Classmates tonight and will most likely have birthday with my parents on Saturday night. We may also go see King Kong then too if we have time. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Peter Jackson did to the great gorilla. Other than that, good luck to everyone taking final exams or other types of end of year activities/things!

Celebrating 2 years at the Aquarium

Kristi came down to Houston this past weekend, and with so many things to do and occasions going on, we kind of had to cram a lot into this one weekend. For one, this past Friday was her medical school interview at Baylor (my school), so that was kind of an exciting affair. We also were celebrating our 2 year anniversary since we started dating, and I also have a birthday (my 26th) coming up as well, so we tried our best to get as much in as we could. And in the middle of all that, I had an overnight call that I had to spend in the Psych ER too! So yeah, this was a pretty hectic and crazy weekend, but overall I think it went very well.

As I mentioned, I had to spend all Thursday night in Ben Taub Hospital for an overnight psych ER call. It went ok, tended to two patients all night as it was really slow due to the cold winter weather that Houston got that night. I did manage to make it home in time for K to get off to her interview, after which I slept pretty much the rest of the day. After picking her back up, I had made plans to go to the Downtown Houston Aquarium (restaurant and theme park type place) all dressed up and have a fun night there for a our 2 years. K wore a dress I had recently gotten her and I wore a new suit I had gotten recently.

Ready to go


It's a really cool place. The restaurant itself is three stories with a bar/lounge on the first floor, and you walk up a spiral staircase around a 3 story cylindrical aquarium to go up to the main dining floor around an even larger tank filled with all types of fish, sharks, and coral reefs. We both had fish and then just walked around and enjoyed the sites.


Inside the Restaurant


There was a large decorated Christmas tree outside within view of the skyscrapers as well as the landmark neon Ferris wheel. K also posed outside one of the many water fountains as well.


Christmas Tree and Downtown


Talking with Santa


Neon Ferris Wheel


Marlin Water Fountain


We then made our way through the large aquarium exhibit that had many many different kinds of fish, as well as the white tigers from Asia. We had a really fun time and said that we'd have to go back again when it wasn't so cool outside and we could do more of the attractions.



Home after a night out.

After making it back, we had birthday cake and all that fun stuff as well. She got me Scrubs season 2, yay!

From the City to the Fields

This past weekend was spent in Dallas while K was still hot on the interview trail for medical school. This Saturday was her day at UT Southwestern Medical School which is very close to Downtown Dallas. My friend, Lucy, who is currently a Physician Assitant there was very gracious to offer us a place to stay for the weekend. We had a good time, with way too much good food to eat, and K said that her interview went very well with no major surprises or hiccups along the way. Also got some Christmas shopping out of the way as well. Wasn't able to totally get away from medicine myself, I actually had to help answer a page or two while Lucy was driving, haha. One of the place that we had dinner at was a Latin restaurant named Laduni. It was really really good, I had some pork tenderloin tacos and we all split an amazing dessert. I highly recommend it to any in the Dallas/Highland Park area.

On the way back, we stopped in Lorena to see K's parent's again, and got recruited into picking pecans in the countryside as well as scouting out potential Christmas trees on their private land. We came up empty handed as far as the trees go, but managed to pull in about 20 lbs of pecans. A pretty nice haul. Finally made it back into Houston late Sunday night, with the workings of an eye infection in progress too, oh well.