Birthday celebration!

I'm beginning to like the 2 day birthday which happens when I'm in US. I get a 48hr celebration with the time differences. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I made the most of having the day off work and had lunch with Nina then booked in for a much needed haircut, even the hairdresser pointed out that a colour was well overdue. Its back to having healthy hair again and all the same tone :).

As always I left my present opening til the evening, to Shammy's frustration, I was even thinking of leaving it til this morning (Oct 10th), but that didn't go down very well.

Shammy surprised me with an evening out at a classy restaurant in Bethlehem, called the Edge. The quality of food was superb and I ended up having green beans seared with coriander, pine nuts and cured tofu and grilled tuna (soooo goood!!). Shammy on the other hand went for the black truffle angus beef burger served with truffle parmesan fries and I didn't hear too much complaining from him :). On the way to dinner he had also stopped off at the itunes store and I'm now the owner of a new itouch which is great to store my pharmacy applications and lighter for running with.

I then had a birthday dessert of homemade cinnamon ice-cream on apple pastry which Shammy and I had a tug-o-war over, yum, yum!

Then home to a surprise present under my pillow (my favourite magazine and a card inside). This was particularly cool in that Shammy has never been a greeting card man.

I wish it was my birthday every day of the year. Back to the reality now of study. We are both in the hospital library this weekend as Shammy has an exam next weekend and I still have plenty of study to do for mine. I seem to be working more than the 2 days I planned on at the moment, seems like they need assistance at work still.

We will have to start looking at overseas flights to Australia and India soon and are trying to work out what our next competitive run will be. We have started doing Boot camp classes at the gym and it takes about 3 days afterwards to walk and sit normally again.

Fall has definitely arrived and the jumpers are coming out of the closet again.

Okay no more procrastinating, back to the study books :)

Happy Father's Day to my bros (minus James of course) and my Dad in Oz!

Shammy and I have been keeping abreast of whats going on with the blogs and pics that keep coming. I am now into my 4th last week of internship and I'm trying to get some study in at the end of the day to get things started. We house-sitted for a friend of a friend last weekend, we managed to get a swim in in their pool and use their hot tub and Shameer particularly liked their theatre room. We did however have to sleep on a wirey sofa bed downstairs which didn't give us a good night sleep and their dog luke has destroyed their carpet by peeing and pooing everywhere, I think the dog felt like it was missing out on the action.


We also paid another visit to the velodrome for the last meet of the season. It poured so after a rain break where we went and grabbed some dinner it started back up again. The Ozzie girl took out the female title.
Shammy and I have been getting into some tennis and mixed beach volleyball with some of the medical residents, I forgot how much fun it is!
We are also doing our final training runs before the relay marathon coming up on the 13th of September. One of the guys has pulled out as he can't get a replacement to work for him so Shammy is doing 2 legs (4.8miles and 3.9miles), the 3rd and the final leg. I am doing the 5.8mile and 4th leg and I'm hoping the day is cool but if its as warm and humid as it has been lately it could be interesting.
This weekend is a 3 day weekend as they have a labour day holiday on Monday so we are making the most of it.

Yesterday we went to Hawk mountain, a National park 30 minutes away from here. It was a spectacular vista from the top of the range and it is Hawk season so we spotted a few flying around, we weren't however paying as much attention as the avid bird watchers. We set out for a nice hike with our friend Raj. It was funny because the one trail we weren't going to do because it was supposed to be hazzardous with cliff drops and rock climbing we ended up unwittingly doing. This was because we thought the hazardous part was further along in the other direction away from the visitors centre so we headed off on the trail towards the visitor's centre, oh well it made for an adventurous hike.
The allentown fair was on last night so we thought we would drop in as the lehigh valley hospital staff got free entry. This of course was not supposed to include family, however I managed to get in free also. I don't think the volunteer at the gate was going to take on Shammy or thought it completely amusing when Shameer said "THIS IS MY WIFE", he probably thought yeah and pigs fly :) but good on ya mate for giving it a go. We tried our first funnel cake which is piped dough into hot oil and then sprinkled with icing sugar. It was quite tasty but definitely a once a year treat. The other thing Raj thought we should try is a fried Oreo, Shammy and I tasted that but one bite was definitely enough for us, too rich and I was thinking about the amount of saturated fat we would need to remove from our systems. That kind of food doesn't really mix with running or our stomachs :).
Well we are off now to drive over the course for next week, a 2 mile run followed by a hit of tennis, sounds good! The only thing missing is it would be good to have family here to share in our experiences.

A weekend of sport

Last week Shammy and I had our first game of tennis over here and it was so good to get out and about and run around the court again, even if the shots were a bit rusty. Friends of ours (Courtney and Sean) have a court in their complex so Shammy and I played them first which of course led to a convincing 6-1 win. I thought a girls versus guys match up would be slightly more equal and of course the girls rocked to Sean's annoyance :). Shammy also managed to get a game of Basketball during the week, and came back wet through from sweat, partly because it was humid and partly because one of the other guys managed to rub off his sweat on Shammy, hmmm nice. This was of course after a 6 mile tempo run that morning and we then went to Ash and Krish's for her b'day. Needless to say we both slept like logs that night.
A highlight for our weekend was the Velodrome on Friday night. I scored some free tickets when I mentioned I wanted to go to the velodrome to some ladies that work at Java joint (a coffee house), and one of the ladies there just happened to have some! I kept on thinking of the boys, what a fabulous night. There were 2 Nathan lookalikes, the curly hair and all, would you believe it they were both from NZ and I have to say their thunder thighs would have been at least double the size of Naths. All the pro sprinters had incredible butts and huge thighs. The longer distance lap cyclists were of course much slimmer. We sat right down at track level and on some of the races, they started right in front of us by hanging onto the wall for support, I was loving the view!
The Aussie lady took out the title for the night and is the current series leader, go ozzie, go!
The Aussie male was also up there, coming in second in the series.
There were some serious spills as well and they were not pretty, and the serious injury of the night looked like a broken collar bone, it doesn't take much to clip someones bike when they follow each other so closely. The highlight of the night for us was the corporate challenge where one guy(previous olympic sprinter) managed to pull back almost half a lap from the other team, his leg speed was insane to watch. By the end of the night Shammy was convinced that he could give the track a shot, we will definitely be back.
We got free tickets to the local baseball match on Saturday night as it was an evening out for the residents and it was a good social event. I didn't watch too much baseball, I find the game frustratingly slow but got updates from Shammy on what was going on. The local crowd itself was amusing enough and the crowd that hangs out near the food stalls, hmmm lets just say they enjoy their food, Shammy at one stage couldn't work out if a guy was wearing a dress to cover his stomach or a long shirt. Definitely a night for me to eat beforehand as vegetarian just doesn't feature on the menu.
At a surprise birthday party, I also managed to come across another HANA, she was sooo cute and reminded me a bit of our Hana. She is a bit older at 2 years of age and is asian, I put the photo up for you to see. She blows kisses and is quick to knock your glass for a cheers!
Tonight I'm being spoilt with a Shammy cooked dinner, so better finish up so I can go and enjoy.

Weekend of fun

It was nice to have the weekend together as Shammy has been doing on-calls and covers for at least a day or a night for the last few weekends. We made the most of the sunshine and went for a trip to the outskirts of Philadelphia in an area called Valley Forge on Saturday. Quite a wealthy area with a national park bordering it so it had lovely greenery and a lot of the houses had surrounding grounds of a decent size.
We visited some of Shammy's friend's there and had some yummy indian food for lunch and played with their kids. Our visit extended when other friends decided to join them so we finally left at about 4pm to check out the second largest shopping mall on the east coast called, King of Prussia. It didn't matter as King of Prussia was huge with lots of the latest fashion stores, designers and more but it was definitely just window shopping for us. We headed on to the nearby outlet stores instead to pick up some great deals. We were still going hardcore at 9pm when the stores closed but I could definitely spend another day as I didn't get to any of the women's clothes stores. Sooo much fun, I said to Shameer that Mum could easily get lost there for the day.
On Sunday we kept our friend, Krish company with her 2 children Om (4 months, but 29 weeks premi) and Shiva (2 years old and very active and a very cheeky in a very cute way). Her husband Ash had just started the cardiology fellowship and was on-call all weekend at the hospital, returning late in the evening if at all and totally exhausted. I kept thinking my turn will be next!
We also managed a hike at the local bear creek resort which is for skiing in winter and for hiking and mountain biking during winter. We then caught up with another friend in the evening. He has recently moved apartments and had a few friends over to celebrate. We love his 2 bedroom apartment and are considering moving there next year when he moves out, just have to work on the finances thats all.
Shammy is going well in his third year and I have now accrued 1000 intern hours only 500 to go, so I am starting to pull the study books out again. Nina, a friend who has recently done the board exam required to register as a pharmacist was telling me about the difficulty of some of the questions so this has definitely motivated me.
We have also been keeping up our relay marathon training with lots of runs along the parkway here, its a trail run that follows a stream, it makes running in the evening enjoyable.
There is a also a very popular velodrome which attract lots of overseas cyclists to Allentown. We are planning to go and watch the action next Friday with some free passes we picked up.

Shammy matches as Cardiology Fellow

We had great news last Wednesday, Shammy, after a lot of hardwork and dedication matched at the Lehigh Valley Hospital to start his Fellowship next July. Shammy was on nights so I checked his results out at work and then jumped around the pharmacy waiting for him to wake up and give me a call so we could celebrate together. Needless to say he didn't get much sleep that day and we have had our fair share of celebrating.
We are also back in training this week for our Lehigh valley Marathon relay run in September. We are getting plenty of rain and thunderstorms over here which the locals are finding unusual but it reminds me of Ozzie summers.
I also discovered last week that steam burns from the pressure cooker are pretty nasty and after some quick first aid by Shammy and with the benefit of being able to grab some burn cream from the compounding unit in the pharmacy it seems to be mending even if a few blisters have popped up today. I thought I'd put a piccie on the website to remind me of why I should always remove the whistle first. :)

Acadia National Park - the rain starts

We woke up to an overcast day but still headed out to hike the longest ridge climb along Sargeant Mountain. On the way up the mountain we had some stunning views before the weather came in. It was funny as during the last climb to the summit, I commented to Shammy "Lets hope it doesn't rain", so what does it do sleet instead. It was quite eerie on top of the mountain with the cloud cover coming in but also serene. On the return journey we both looked like drowned rats but there is still something beautiful about a damp forest, the smell and fresh air.
We have just been out to dinner at the Chart house on hull cove, overlooking the water. Nice cosy candle lit restaurant, it reminded me of some places I have been in England. We tried the local specialty Lobster which was nice and fresh followed by the apple crisp dessert and blueberry ice cream, yummy, yummy!

Back to nature - Acadia National Park

We spent a nice weekend mainly with Shammy's sister and Chintu in connecticut as Kareem and Shannu left Saturday for an overnight trip with there cousins. It was a nice relaxing start to our holiday Shama made us some yummy indian food, and Chintu kept us both entertained. Chintu has learnt the phrases A....ow and sorry and uses them at appropriate moments like when he kicked the basketball we gave him and a it hit a piece of furniture, this had me giggling. He also has worked out that to avoid carpet burn on his knees while he is playing with the train to crawl along using his feet. He is very focused and once his attention is on something even calling his name does not distract him until he has for example emptied every card out of its container, even if Uncle Shammy keeps putting them back in while he is trying to pull them out.
Speaking of focus Shammy displayed this on the drive up to Acadia National Park when he tried to remove the bird poo from the windscreen using the wipers to no avail except that it left me in hysterics.

The national park is actually situated on an island just off the east coast of Maine and formed from Granite rock after volcanic activity. It is beautiful with interesting rock formations on the mountains and surrounded by rugged coastline. As a result we have hiked some very interesting trails with plenty of scrambling and my quads and Shammy's calves are starting to feel the pinch. There have also been lots of fit and not so fit cyclists making the most of the hilly road climbs and every time I see them I think of my brothers and how much they would love this.
The seafood here is also fresh and their local specialty is lobster and crabs, right up your alley Dad. They are also famous for the wild blueberry so you can guarantee blueberries feature in every entree, main and dessert :). We usually make the most of our continental breakfast packing snacks for the rest of the day then treat ourselves at night time to a meal at one of the local restaurants.
Some highlights for me have been rock hopping back down the highest mountain, ( Mount Cadillac), a climb up to the Gorham mountain ridge trail which has views of the coast the entire way up. It also required a very nerve racking climb up iron rungs on the side of the cliff face, eek!
Also our drive and exploration of a remote lighthouse in Bass Harbor yesterday and the sunset from Cadillac mountain last night.