Mmm, I love sprouts...

Wow. I still don't believe it. After 3 years of planning, a 6 month application process, relentless research, and weeks of anticipation and waiting, Jen and I found out today that we were accepted for the Olmsted Scholar Program. We're going to Brussels, Belgium for 3 years! Like I said, it still hasn't sunk in.

While we're there I'll be going to school to get my Master's degree, and Jen isn't 100% sure what she wants to do yet. She's thinking maybe trying to do some nursing, or taking some classes. We'll definitely be traveling a bunch, since that's part of my job while I'm there. This is going to be such a rough time. If anyone out there knows French, I need some lessons.

Late February Update

Okay, so I've been a bit busy lately, but that's no excuse for not updating the blog! My apologies... Here's the back brief fo' ya:
-Early February was dominated by Jen and I finishing my application for the Olmsted Program. In case you haven't heard us blabbing incessantly about this for the past, oh, 3 years, that's the program that will take us abroad for 3 years. We find out on March 9th if we're accepted. We've got our fingers, toes, and I think at this point, our intestines crossed.
-Early FEB: Rainy days. I haven't seen it rain this much in SD since I moved here in 2005. It's nice for a Seattle boy like me, though. I really don't mind it at all.
-1 FEB: Awesome bonfire with the peeps down in Coronado. Guitars and good times.
-18 FEB: Bob Schneider concert at House of Blues. Most of the peeps down here are borderline obsessed with this man, and after this concert I'd say I'm borderline-borderline obsessed too. It was a pretty incredible show and we had a blast. The opening band wasn't awesome, but they did get in a lovers' spat midway through their set with the girl walking off stage. I'm not sure whether it was staged or not, but it was mildly embarrassing and created an awkward atmosphere for everyone present. Alyssa and Colin were in town, and it was awesome having them there with us.
-20 FEB: 2600 Strange Ave Launch Party. Ryan, Alex and I have been working on getting our t-shirt company up and running for the past 6 months, and we took it public on the 20th by hosting a big party at Chris' house down in Little Italy. It was a blast, we had a good turnout, and we even sold some shirts! Alex wore his Greek flag, Jen creamed everyone at flip cup (as usual), Patty ruled at Beirut, and at the end of the night, Team D brought home the Chalice of Greatness!
-27 FEB: Get a little culture. I wanted to take Jen out for a night on the town, so I picked up some tickets to the San Diego Symphony and organized for everyone to meet up downtown afterward. It was our first time at the symphony here in SD, and it was great! The program opened with the full symphony playing a pieces by Strauss and Mozart. These pieces only took about 12 minutes to play, and when they finished it up, the lights came back up, and everyone left the stage. We were severely confused. Was this the intermission? The performance was supposed to take 1:50 from start to finish, and we were only 15 minutes in? Little did we know, they take a short break in between each major movement to reshuffle the performers, so our consternation was completely unwarranted. For the second piece, a harpist and a flautist (I swear, that's the way you spell it. I looked it up.) took center stage and played a piece by Mozart. The "real" intermission followed, and finally the full symphony returned to the hall and finished with Debussy's La Mer. The head conductor came out just prior to the performance and introduced the piece in such a descriptive, engaging way, and the performance really lived up to his introduction.
After the symphony we caught a cab over to the Gaslamp to meet up with everyone. I'd heard good things about a wine bar called Syrah so we decided to meet up there. We got there just in time to catch Nate and his buddy Dick waiting in line to get in, so we hopped in there. As we waited in the rain, Alex and Chris walked up, and we all headed in together. The design of Syrah is a little Alice in Wonderland, with roots hanging from the ceiling, candles everywhere, and walls covered in thick, green moss. Inside we met up with Laura, Lauren and Jody and the crew was complete. We had a great time, didn't have to pay a cover charge, and the bar wasn't too completely packed to have a little space to talk without being crushed against everyone else.

We had a great February, and March should be even bigger!

Strange Unveiling!

Since Ryan was in town this last weekend, it only made sense to have a party at Chris's that ended up at the Waterfront. The crowd was all there, and we had an incredible amount of fun without much exciting going on (although the spontaneous game of Catch Phrase was a riot). Ryan brought his friend Jen down from LA, and she was a great addition to the gang. And just when it almost couldn't have gotten any better, Jenny and Jordan showed up. I'm still recovering. Oh, and we decided to unveil our new 2600 Strange Ave shirts and hand them out to the boys (don't worry ladies, we've got shirts for you coming very soon.) Enjoy the pics. They're hilarious.

P-town

Last weekend Alex and I flew up to Portland to meet up with Ryan. Our goal for the weekend: complete the grunt work to get our new business venture off the ground. In case I haven't already talked your ear off about our start up, 2600 Strange Ave, we're in the midst of getting rolling with an apparel business. This last weekend we printed the shirts (420 of them) out in Alex's brother Nick's shop. He was such a great host and helped us out immensely, since neither Ryan, Alex nor I have $100 Gs of printing equipment laying around. Ryan's friend Erin (she's a pro-photographer: check our her site here) even came over to take some pics of the process! I haven't gotten her pics yet, but when I do I'll definitely throw some on here or on our 2600 Strange Ave site. It was a highly successful weekend and it was great to be back in the Pacific Northwest. I had almost forgotten what rain was like!

New Years festivities... Sterks' betrothal... Surprise! It's a Cessna-versary!

We've had about the best 4 weeks anybody could ask for: a trip to Costa Rica, then our good friends Matt and Cara come to visit, then a fun New Years night, then an awesome Sterk wedding, and cap it off with a little high altitude joyride. Here's the recap (I promise to keep this shorter than the Costa Rica post).

Matt and Cara in town and New Year's Eve
Our two favorite Tennesseeans rolled into town on New Year's Eve day just in time for the festivities. We planned to spend the night at The Shout House, a dueling piano bar downtown; a chill, but fun place to spend New Year's. We had a good crew in attendance, the drinks flowed like the salmon of Capistrano, and no one got either arrested or hurt (except for the dude Matt and I saw outside running from the cops. He got both arrested and hurt, but not in that order).

Sterks' Betrothal
Pete and Jen planned a wedding close to New Year's Eve, and I personally thought it was a great idea. When it's freezing and blizzarding everywhere else in the country, it's easy to convince people to come to San Diego (it was about 70 degrees and sunny on the day of the wedding). The ceremony was intimate and very nice; my personal favorite part was watching Pete up at the altar before Jen strolled down the aisle. The look on his face was awesome, a mixture of sheer joy, impatience and even a little teary-ness alternately showing on his face like a bubbling like a lava lamp of emotion. We followed the ceremony with a reception at The Soledad Club. The club is perched on the south slope of Mt. Soledad with a panoramic view of the coast from La Jolla down to downtown and Coronado. Tied for my favorite parts of the night? Dancing to the great music with Jen (who's a great dancer, by the way) and the "make your own frozen yogurt sundae" bar. The Sterks know how to party.

Surprise! It's a Cessna-versary!
The final event of our amazing New Year's weekend was a little surprise I've been cooking up for Jen for a few months now. 4 years ago on New Year's Eve Jen and I got hitched, so I wanted to do something special for her, but I didn't think a dueling piano bar quite fit the bill. Somehow even though I've been flying for almost 7 years now I had never taken Jen up on a flight, so I went in to my local flight school up in Carlsbad, got checked out, and scheduled some time in the airplane for Jen and me. The funny thing was that the only airplane they had available for that time was a Cessna 152. I'd never flown a Cessna 152. All my civilian flight time was in a Cessna 172. The flight school was fine with me taking it, though, so I figured, "how different can it be?" Besides, what's the worst thing that could happen, right?
It turns out that they really aren't that different, thankfully. Other than having to fake my way through some of the start checklist (Checklist says "Carb heat-On"... Brian: Hmmm, carb heat, where's the carb heat... Ah, there it is... Smile and a wink to Jen.) the flight really went without a hitch. We took off and flew a big loop, heading east first to fly south over the I-15, then we hooked a right at the SR-56 and did a few circles over our house so we could take pictures. We continued to the coast, hooked another right, headed up the beach and ended up back where we'd started in Carlsbad. Jen did great and took pictures the whole time. I think next time I'm going to have her fly the whole time!