Our travels

Here we are in Madison Wisconsin at the AAU TaeKwonDo National Championships. We drove up here from Houston. We took off at 3ish on Saturday and arrived at 9 am on Sunday. Jesse did the whole cutting weight thing and made weight this morning at 8:00am at a whopping 147.00 (his cutoff was 147.4) Rock on! We then ate some pancakes (he was really hungry). After we came back to the hotel and Jesse took a nap while I ironed his uniform. at about 4 we went over to a different hotel so that Jesse could test for his 4th Dan (degree). About an hour and a half later and a lot of sweat, Jesse passed and was an 4th Dan certificate...which means he is now MASTER Jesse! How fun! Jesse and his instructor Master Julio then took me to get my nails done (I really needed it). Now we are back at the hotel. Jesse will go and kick some before going to bed and then its off to sleep. Tomorrow Tuesday he will fight at about 11am. Please pray for him. I will post some pics later. I am very excited because Jesse has been training hardcore for the past 6 months. I will post again tomorrow evening.

Packing

So, Jesse and I have begun our packing. Its a pain and our home looks like a tornado hit (although it didn't take anything with it). Fortunately, I have used my condo yahoo group to post things I can do without, and I have gotten great responses! Looks like I won't have to lug all the bookshelves to Laredo. My game cube was the first to go! Anywho..packing will be interesting, but the less that goes with us, the better. Who knows when we will get a house of our own. My biggest task, papers, journal articles, class notes. Eventually I will get the organization skills to scan them all onto my computer and then burn them! But dont' have the time nor the patience. I wish I would have known how much paper and space could have been saved if I would have taken my laptop to class for my notes since the beginning of school. Hm. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20.
By the way, today I realized we own 5 printers. HA!

Tomorrow there is a good chance I will see the Garcia Saenz family. Yay! They will be at IAH briefly before they get on a connecting flight to Laredo. I haven't seen them in so long and I am excited to say hi!

See you all soon!

So much to do

so little time. Jesse and I went to watch the Hulk today, we both had a long day at work and we decided to reward ourselves with a Monday at the movies. It was nice because we had a free movie ticket from our rewards club. The movie was very entertaining although we didn't nearly as much as we did in Get Smart. When I walked in our home I realized we have so much left to do. We leave on Saturday to our 19 hour trip to Wisconsin, drive back next Wednesday, go to work Thursday, attend a wedding rehearsal on Friday, wedding on Saturday, and pack the Uhaul on Sunday for Jesse to move back down on Monday. He is only supposed to leave me a tv, my clothes and a bed. Ha! Please don't ask how much we have packed. THAT should tell you how far behind we are. But...no fear, years of deadlines and last minute papers has trained me to remember that anything is possible, all you need is a little Red Bull (AMP for me) and perseverance. I don't know how this next week goes, but I sure am packing for the next 3 days.

ugh.

KuGar TaeKwonDo update

Alrighty guys and gals.... we are on our way to be up and running... Our website was updated and now ready for viewing and sharing. Feel free to share to anyone you know in Laredo. :)

We have signed our lease, ordered our mats and ready to go... I am still looking for good deals on t-shirts, so if anyone has contacts in Laredo, let me know!

On a side note, Jesse had a sparring session with a couple of guys, one of which is on the Collegiate National Team. He looked VERY good! Jesse was scored on not more than 2 to 3 times and he scored well over 6 points. We are psyched about Wisconsin in a couple of weeks and ask you to keep him in your prayers.

Current News

First of all let me extend a very Happy Birthday to Roxana, my sis-in-law! May the Lord shower your with blessings this new year as you explore motherhood.

In other news. I caved in and began Tony Horton's P90X which is a home workout regime. You might have seen the infomercials on tv. In the package, you get 12 workouts and a plan for 90 days interchanging the order of the workouts and increasing intensity. Day 1 was very tough, Day 2 was even tougher...and to this day it is still super tough, and I can't get through every single exercise yet (during the tough workouts). I am currently on Day 1 on Week 2. Goodness, it is tough. After every exercise, I wanted to quit. I first did the Back and Chest routine, which includes many different kids of push ups and pull ups (using a pull up bar). Then after 58 minutes of that, I moved on to Ab Ripper X, an intense ab workout that although lasts on 16 minutes incorporates non-stop ab exercise for a total of about 375 total movements. Anywho...we'll see how this treats me. I practically fainted after this one. The funny thing is that about 3 or 4 days ago, Jesse and I did Yoga X, and we had a super hard time! Jesse would look at the tv and then look at me and say "you've got to be kidding me, I can't believe this is that hard". Jesse usually joins me for low impact days or for the ab portion only because he does his thing consistently at the TKD school.

Onto another topic! Today we opened 2 wholesale accounts, faxed our lease, ordered the credit card machine, filled out most of my licensure applications, worked out, registered our new school with the national governing body (USAT), and I think thats it. I also found out that after all is said and done, it will cost us about $2000 to get fully licensed. Goodness, and I thought Grad school was expensive!

Its 1am and Jesse fell asleep watching Underworld. So..I think I will join the dreaming realm with him...

Alrighty...good night folks!

Others would agree

This summer I have been working in a classroom full of children with autism. I mostly help out the teacher and focus on improving these kids' social skills "Hi how are you, I am fine and you? I am great, thank you".
In class yesterday, one of the boys who was having a bad day says.

"I don't want to work with Ms. K, she talks too much"

hehehehe

Book Review - Twilight Series

Life is good in the neighborhood which gives me lots of time for...READING!

I began this series last week and finished all three books (over 500 pages each) in 4 days and then Jesse finished them in 5. What books? The Twighlight Series (Twilight, New Mood, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn). Stephenie Meyer is a relatively new author that has been reportedly named "The next JK Rowling". Can she live up to the hype? I think so.

The premise of the series is a simple girl who moves to live with her father in Forks, WA falls and love with the mysterious Edward Cullen. The problem? Edward and his family are vampires. WAIT! Before you totally throw this out as a foolish ol' vamipire story read on. You see, Edward has been alive for over 100 years and has never fallen in love. Now that he has, he will do anything in his power to make the girl of his dreams happy. Too bad there are things in the way, such as the whole vampire thing, plus bad guys, and did I mention the whole vampire thing?

Girl Part: Meyer describes Edward's love as completely and perfectly unconditional. Its completely unhuman in that it is a pure love that we humans are, in essence, to selfish to experience. Edward is the man that all moms and dads want to meet their daughter. If you are a girl, and you every dreamed of the perfect prince charming...prepare to meet him in Twilight. The story also grapples with sexuality in a very wholesome way.

Boy Part: To keep it entertaining for the boys or those not interested in just the love part, there are some plot twists, cool fight scenes, and bad guys. There are also great back stories that describe how each of the Cullen family became vampires in their own way. Not to mention the italian vampire mob that keeps all the vampires in check.

I would recommend this book to anyone who fell in love with Harry Potter and would like a young adult fiction novel addiction. The 4th in the series will be coming out August 2nd and Jesse and I can't wait. If you have some time, check it out. If you love reading, then you'll love this book. This series is definitely in my top reads. Its completely fictional, fun, and entertaining.

KuGar TaeKwonDo

Introducing KuGar TaeKwonDo!
Please visit our site and let us know if you have any pointers..

www.kugartkd.com

We are currently working on flyers and such...and I will post more information with time.

Happy Father's Day!

Jesse and I had the chance to spend Father's Day with Papa Grande! It was very fast-paced but fun! We enjoyed some steaks at the Ambassador Steakhouse and then had some fun at home. It was a great day to remember the wonders of fatherhood and give a tiny piece of the appreciation we all feel. Congrats Papa! We also had fun playing on the new swingset at the Garcia Gonzalez Residence.





While we were in Laredo, we had the fortune of dropping off the deposit of our TaeKwonDo school. It looks like KuGar is coming sooner than we think! For those of you in Laredo, we will be in the Village Plaza @ Del Mar. Its the business plaza in front of Mary Help Elementary and next to Nye Elementary. We ended up switching our place because we felt that the other owner was a bit....difficult. But thankfully, we will be signing this next week and will the fun planning begins...

Plop plop fizz fizz...oh what a relief it is!

And no, I am not talking about Alkaseltzer. hehe.

I am D-O-N-E! Here is the play by play:
Monday June 2
10:00pm My parents arrive in Houston at the Kuhns' residence. We stay up to talk up until 11:00 and head off to bed (or so I thought).
11:45 still awake...can't sleep...no feelings of nervousness but just can't shut down.
Tuesday June 3
12:30 still awake...I put my head where my feet are and vice versa..maybe this will help.
1:15 still awake...I need sleep I am very tired...my eyes just won't rest
2:00am ugh, so I might as well do something, I get up and flat iron my hair.
2:30 done with my hair, maybe I am tired enough to sleep
3:00 think again. I go downstairs, pour myself t glasses of milk and force 3 graham cracker cookies in my mouth (I wasn't hungry at all but hadn't eaten since 11am)
somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45 I fall asleep
5:30 (yes, 2 hours later) my alarm wakes me. ITs the big day.
6:30 My parents, Jesse and I are in the car, driving to Houston. On the drive I receive many good luck calls and texts.
8:00 arrive in College Station, I need my alone time so Jesse and my parents go park the car, and place 500 pennies (yes! 500!) on Sully while I go and set up my computer.
9:00 all the committee members are ready and it begins. My powerpoint presentation is about one hour long.
10:00am My chairperson asks the guests (my parents and two grad students) if they had any questions. My dad asked my how I felt :). At his moment in time, I felt relief. THe part I had rehearsed so many times was over and I didn't say "um" too too much. haha My guests are asked to leave the room and my oral exam begins
I was asked many questions about my stats, conclusions, data, everything...smooth sailing. When I didn't know the answer I would say very thoughtfully, "Hm, that is a Good Question, I wonder how that would have affected my results." One little thing needs to be changed about my stats, no big deal, my statistician says it will take 10 min.
10:45 I was asked to leave the room while the committee deliberates (decide if I pass or fail)
10:55 Dr. Hughes (my chair) opens the door and says "Congratulations Dr. Kuhns!" I walk in and my committee members are all standing and the shake my hand as they congratulate me as the knighted "Dr. Kuhns". Tears come out slightly, but I am mostly a mix of emotions at this point. Jesse has a dozen beautiful red roses waiting for me! Hugs all around!
11:20 my parents and I go to Sully to take pictures (with my 500 pennies). and we turn to ask some random guy to take a picture of the four of us. I hear from behind "Oh no, I got it! I'll take it."
Confused, I turned around, and GERARDO AND ROXANNA ARE THERE! Completely surprised!!!! Gerardo hugs me and picks me off the floor, I can't help but have tears come down my face. We take pictures and head off to eat at Christopher's World Grille with Dr. Hughes.
3:00 We got to the mall and the drive home after saying goodbye to my brother. On the drive home family calls and congratulates me. Enrique, Vero and Co. said prayers for me, Tia Mayte lit candles, Abuelita Moncha said a whole Rosary for me! At home, we are exhausted. We watch The Condemned (DVD) and just chill. Later, we pick up Star Pizza (the best pizza) and eat with my parents and go to bed.
This morning Dr.Hughes calls me at 7:45am to tell me that the small stat changes don't have to be done because the software I used to run my multiple regression already averaged the standard errors across the 10 imputed data sets. In short, I don't have to fix anything. I just need to add 3 sentences (literally) to the end of my dissertation!!!!!!!!!! Sigh of relief.
5:30pm After a long day of work, I sent in my 3 sentences (which turned into like 4 or 5) to Dr. Hughes, and I got a "two thumbs up" from her. Its OVER!!!! Okay so here are some pics!

Isn't my dad a cutie?

While I was waiting for the deliberation to be over.

Dr. Hughes and I

The Fam at Sully

500 Pennies!

The Garcia Ibarrola's showed up!

Thank you all for your prayers, candles, pennies, and thoughts. Without the help of those who care about me, I could not have written a word. Los quiero mucho!