Much like the week-long diaries I managed to keep as a child, my blogging skills are terribly poor. I will try to be better. I think what I would like to do next here is a little recap of The Wilkins' summer.
On May 16, after 21 years of full-time education, I finally graduated with a PharmD from the University of Arizona. That week was a lot of fun with tons of graduation activities. I also had a graduation party at my house complete with my very own keg. While it was only a pony keg, I still had a keg at my house which I felt was a natural end to my 7 years in college.
After graduation, I continued my work at Walgreens but was now considered a "graduate intern" versus a regular "intern". Having a Doctor of Pharmacy is not the only thing required to practice pharmacy. A pharmacist license is also needed. Getting licensed required two additional exams, but it took nearly two months to get all of my paperwork through the state board of pharmacy and schedule the exams. Therefore, I still basically had the same job (with a raise) at Walgreens even though I had graduated. This time really sucked because I was ready to finally move on and be the pharmacist but wasn't allowed yet!!
On June 1, 2008, the entire Vander Ark Family consisting of my parents, my brother Mark and his girlfriend, and my sister, brother-in-law, 4 year-old nephew, and 2 year-old and 5 month-old nieces, and of course Daved and I, embarked on a week long Carnival Cruise. This was a Mexican Riviera cruise with ports at Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas. This was my brother and I's first cruise so it was very exciting. Daved had been on one with his family in high school. Daved and I celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary on June 3, and my sister and bro-in-law had their 11- year (!!!!) anniversary on June 7. In Puerto Vallarta, Daved, my mom and I went on an Extreme Canopy tour. We started off with a speedboat ride from where the cruise ship docked to the other side of PV, then went on this off-road type vehicle to the canopy place, then rode mules to the top of the canopies. They call this an extreme canopy tour because it also involves repelling off of a waterfall and another very high structure. It was totally thrilling and definitely our best day on the cruise. My mom did amazing also! She had absolutely no trouble at all. I would highly recommend that to any thrill-seeking person off to PV. The next day in Mazatlan, my brother, his GF, Daved and I went to a tiny island and rode horses and hung out on the beach. This particular horse adventure was definitely no "follow-the-leader" ride. These horses were galloping and you could go as fast you want. Apparently, riding a horse is much more difficult in real life than it appears on the movies. I was already a bit sore from the mule ride the day before so it was definitely interesting. It was a blast though, and we had the best scenery possible ride a long a completely undeveloped beach. In Cabo we basically just lounged on a beach after a terrifying ATV ride through the city. All in all, it was a fantastic first cruise and it was fairly depressing to have to come back to real life.
Next came a trip to Denver to visit some of our friends that had moved back there in February. They used to live within walking distance from our house, and we used to go over there every Sunday night and Lauren would make dinner and we'd watch Desperate Housewives and Extreme Home Makeover. We still miss those days. Anyway, we went to visit them over my 25th Birthday weekend and we had a blast. We went out in downtown Denver which was only a few minutes from their house, we went to a Rockie's game, we BBQ'd, went out for some seafood, and made a quick trip up to the mountains. Denver is a really neat place and I can see why they love it. We miss the Ginn's!
Next we had 4th of July with both sets of our parents being in town for about 5 days. We went up to Mt. Lemmon, went to Gaslight theater, and had our traditional 4th of July party in our backyard since the Marana fireworks are set off less than a mile from our house.
Right after that, I spent most of my days studying for my boards and finally passed. I got licensed as a pharmacist in the state of Arizona on July 15th, and also became the policy holder of $3 million in malpractice insurance. I still can't believe I'm done. Once I got my license I was able to complete my application for my VA (Veteran's Affairs) job (more to come on this later). While I wait to start my "real job" I am still working as a pharmacist at Walgreens floating around all of Tucson.
On the weekend of July 19th Daved and I flew to Sacramento, CA, then drove from there to Chico for my friend Kristen's wedding. Kristen and I met in Fall 2002 when we both did the National Student Exchange program from our respective schools, me University of Arizona at the time and Kristen from Chico State, to little Bridgewater State College. This was about 25 minutes outside of Boston. We had a blast that semester, with Kristen being an amazing director of our travels. Nearly every weekend she planned something really fun for us to do, from a weekend in Boston going to a Red Socks game, to a weekend in Montreal going out to clubs (only have to be 18 to drink in Canada). It was just a neat time. Anyway, we've stayed in touch all these years and have now attended each other's weddings. Kristen did a great job planning their "destination wedding" and had many wonderful events planned for all of the guests. The wedding was held at the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico and it was a fantastic venue.
Within one week of getting my license, Daved quit his "day job" to become an actor at Gaslight theater in Tucson. This is a really fun comedy dinner theater here in Tucson, so Daved is finally getting back into acting. This is very exciting for both of us since Daved is really not a 9-5 guy, but he dealt with it so well waiting for me to get done with school.
1 comment:
We really wish we could have been there.....
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