Celebrating with family and friends in Cabo was the best decision we could have made, and we enjoyed every minute of it!  The weather was terrific, the company was fantastic, and we had such a fun and spirited wedding, complete with a pinata, fire dancers, sparklers and cupcakes!  Thanks to everyone who was there — you made it beyond memorable and we love you!  For those of you who couldn’t make it, we missed you and love you, too!

Wedding festivities officially began on Thursday, June 3rd.  Most guests arrived that day, and we celebrated with a welcome dinner on the beach that evening — Mexican themed, of course!

Shot of the resort:

The Burkes enjoying some Mexican food and drinks:

Some of my favorite girls!

The wedding took place the next night on June 4th.  It was perfect!

Here I am, finally ready to go!

One of the first posed photos:

Before the ceremony, reunited!

Photo with my family:

Love this shot of Kristin and me:

Kurt waiting for me to walk down the aisle:

During the ceremony, so happy!

Kiss!

The bridal party (minus Adrienne):

The Kolinskis:

Kristin, my matron-of-honor, giving her amazing toast!

Photo with my mama:

One of my favs:

Hola!

Yale girls!

Kurt and my dad having a lot of fun!

One of the amazing fire dancers from Lunas De Fuego:

My dad and me after a tequila shot:

Clearly I could go on and on with the wedding photos, so we’ll stop here until the professional ones arrive (!).

The next day we took a beautiful, but very windy, catamaran cruise:

No post would be complete without a new photo of my nephew!

OK, I’ll stop before this is truly the longest post ever in the history of the world.  Thanks again to everyone who made our day so special.  It was an amazingly fun wedding because of YOU!

Love,
The Kolinskis

So let’s see, it’s been 2 1/2 months since my last post – not good, not good at all.  Here’s the run-down on Corminski happenings:

5-year anniversary in Vermont: awesome.  We stayed at the Woodstock Inn and had a fabulous time eating, drinking, tootling about town.  Seeing myself here in a winter coat and snow on the ground gives me a eye twitch (oh wait, that was already there!), but pretty nonetheless:

Look at this cute boy, who had champagne, cheese and chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us in the room:

Moving right along . . . In March, Adrienne and my other lovely San Francisco girls threw me a bridal shower at Adrienne’s place.  It was all so perfect!  They made what they called “Jenn greatest hits” for the food, and had everything in navy and fuchsia (the wedding colors).  To top it all off, they had Kurt video himself answering various questions about us and our life, and then Christina compiled all the little snippets into one long, game-show like, video. It was adorable. I would have to answer the question asked, and then we’d play Kurt’s response.  I will cherish that video forever!  To top it off, my mom and sister flew up from San Diego, and Kristin came into town from DC!  I’m a lucky, lucky girl!

Look at the beautiful table setting:

Here’s us watching the video of Kurt – so cute!

Opening presents

My mom found the baby (baby Nora):

After San Francisco, I took a quick flight down to San Diego, where we had gorgeous weather and took care of some wedding details.  I took my mom for lunch in La Jolla, and it was a perfect day outside! We sat on the patio at Brockton Villa, and despite the temperature being at least 70, a woman next to us asked the waiter if the outside heater could be turned on.  This wouldn’t have surprised me a few years ago, but hey, spend a couple years on the east coast, lady.

What S&S post would be complete without an adorable photo of my ridiculously cute nephew?  He loves to ham it up for the camera:

I also got to meet Kelli’s baby, Abeni!  She’s so little and sweet!

In extremely exciting news, we had an engagement photo shoot in NYC!  Seeing as I’ve already plastered these photos everywhere, here are just a few:

This posting wouldn’t be complete without a mention that my darling friend, Amanda, received a creative writing award! Not only was her piece beautifully written, her delivery as she read it on stage was jaw-dropping.  She’s incredibly talented, and I couldn’t be more proud!

Finally, guess who got a surprise party this past weekend?!  After a Friday night dinner, and a bit of bizarre behavior from Kurt, I came home to a surprise “Cabo” party organized by Amanda and Tanya.  Do I really have to state again how absurdly lucky I am? It really got us in the spirit for the upcoming trip! I’m still waiting for most of the photos from my girls, but here are a couple from my camera:

We took a whole collection of “Cabo” photos (of the girls at the party who are making the trip).  Here’s just one, but you’ve gotta see the one where everyone showed what they would do if someone tried to stop us at the alter, ha! BTW, amazing signage created by Kaitlin, second from right.

THANK YOU, my east coast girls!!

Speaking of Cabo . . . here we come!!!  Kurt and I get married in 18 days!!! We’re still looking for an apartment in New York City, but school is done, and life is good!

xoxo

So let’s see, what’s been happening?  Well, I neglected to share our Disney World trip with you that we took over Christmas!  It was such a fabulous break–from the weather, from New Haven, from school stress–and was a much needed vacation for Kurt and me to take together since we see so little of each other these days!

We started day #1 at the Magic Kingdom:

Thunder Mountain is the best ride ever (OK, Space Mountain rocks too):

Every day we’d come back to the hotel and go in the jacuzzi with a cocktail in hand – it was the best way to relax after walking around the parks all day.  We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria in Orlando, and their lobby was so festive!

The next day we went to Epcot.  Here we are in Morocco!

and then we popped over to a few other countries.  Can you see the Eiffel Tower in the background?

The detail they put into each “country” was impressive!  Kurt was even impressed, and he’s a hard sell.

Kurt jumped over to Germany for a little beer & bratwurst:

Christmas morning we slept in and then started the day with room service and more laziness.

Later we got to meet up with my friend, Brett, who used to live in San Diego but now lives in Florida. It was so fabulous to catch up – it had been way too long!

After Disney, we reluctantly came back to New Haven and had a quiet NYE celebration with dinner out and drinking in:

After New Year’s, Kari came into town, despite the freezing temps!  I no longer see her Facebook status updates that say, “it’s so hot in San Diego . . . I wish I could wear sweaters!”.  We had a great time in New Haven and NYC!

Here we are at one of my favorite pizza spots in New Haven, Kitchen Zinc, where we had my favorite thing on their menu: the portobello mushroom pizza!  It looks absolute gigantic in this photo, but I promise it was just the angle (although we did eat the whole thing!).

It was sunny, clear and absolutely freezing while she was here!  The week after she left the temps shot up 20 degrees, of course!

Here we are in Times Square being such dorks in our ear muffs:

Here we are in front of the Rockefeller tree (still freezing!):

Also while in NYC, we did some dress shopping, including the infamous Kleinfeld:

Kleinfeld was quite the scene.  They were filming that day for TLCs ‘Say Yes to the Dress’, but we didn’t see anyone.  The whole place is really so fake, and everyone that works there tells you absolutely anything they think you want to hear.  I’m not a fan, but I still think it was a randomly fun experience.

The following day, I was lucky enough to have Kristin AND Tanya join Kari and me in NYC for some more dress shopping at Pronovias. We had a great lunch, tried on some dresses, and then hit The Plaza for a drink, followed by dinner with Kurt that evening at a yummy restaurant in Tribeca.

I can’t believe you girls came into NYC just to see me try on some dresses!  I’m *so* lucky.

At the end of January, I helped to throw the annual Annie Goodrich Ball, and it was quite a success!

With Kait and Mo, two of my most favorite people:

and here’s my dear Katie, looking quite hot if I do say!

and darling Devon, looking positively adorable!

Finally, Kait took this shot – best self-taken group shot, ever?  I think so.

In other super exciting news – I received my Yale Diploma!

In more annoying news, we’ve had a crapload of snow (official measurement — you can check).  While it’s nice when you’re sitting at home all day, it’s maddening when you have to drive an hour north for clinical.  Here’s one of the more peaceful days, when I was studying in my sweats and snapped this from the warmth of my office:

That’s pretty much two months worth of updates!

Be on the lookout for another post soon, including photos from our anniversary in Vermont that we took last weekend!

Lots of love,
Jenn

So let’s see . . .what’s else . . .Well, amidst all the chaos of finals, Christmas present shopping, planning our school’s Annie Goodrich Ball at the end of January, and wedding planning, this girl has become really good at the art of using every single damn second in the day.  Just for kicks, we (and when I say “we” I mean “me”) also planned our 5th Annual Christmas Party, which took place on the 12th, and was a lot of fun!

Here’s a few of us at our Christmas party (Kait, Phoebe, Moey, me and Katie):

The weekend before was Devon and Katie’s 2nd annual holiday extravaganza, and was a costume party (the creativity was just unbelievable!):

Pam, Mo, Casey, Kait, Katie and me:

Katie:

Andy and me:

OK, onto a touchy topic with me — the weather!  Even though it’s already snowed twice in New Haven, it had yet to stick until last night!  We didn’t get hit as hard as DC or Maryland, but we still got a good foot or so.  Here’s a view of the Green, just about an hour ago:

Alright friends, to finish off the post, here’s a recent photo of my nephew, who is the cutest little thing!

Merry Christmas and much love to you — we’re off to Disney World tomorrow!  xoxo

Here’s Katie, Kait (the birthday girl), and yours truly:

I knew that Kait loved these cupcakes, so I opted to make them instead of a cake:

Here she is, making a wish!

That’s right – it’s me on bass guitar!  I’m taking this very seriously.

HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR KAIT! xoxo

Here’s Kurt with the miniature trees:

and then with the monster big trees (which cost just a bit more than a regular ol’ tree in San Francisco!):

of course, Kurt needed a Christmas cookie to go with our hot apple cider:

We opted for a smaller tree this year, so we looked in the 5-7′ range (opposed to the 8-9 feet trees we get every year!):

Here’s the pretty tree we picked out!

So in the past we’ve done a red & green tree, a red, white & blue tree, and a red & silver tree.  This year, we’ve gone eclectic.  It’s a mish mash of sail boats, Santa Clauses, retro colored ornaments, and as always, Kurt’s silver pig (because you know, nothing says Christmas like a pig ornament!).

I hope you have fun picking our and decorating your tree, too!  xoxo

Thursday morning we made a new pancake recipe (with sour cream, yum!) and leisured over breakfast before getting a coffee at Starbucks and planning the day.  I made a delicious cranberry upside-down cake, which will be posted to Dreamy Dish soon (and is unbelievably recommended)!  Thanksgiving evening we had a really great turkey dinner at Heirloom.  We started with a couple glasses of Prosecco, followed by a huge bowl of lobster bisque.  Then our turkey dinner arrived, and as I looked down at my plate and saw all the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, harticots verts, stuffing and cranberry sauce, I said aloud, “Whoa, this would have taken me 8 hours to cook!”.  What with all the delicious food, Prosecco, red wine and dessert, I may never cook a holiday meal again!

Here’s me in our lobby, headed to Heirloom (I’m looking quite Thanksgiving-y, no?):

and here’s us, at dinner!

We got home from Heirloom and was in such a food coma that literally at 7pm we were both ready to pass out!  In fact, I think Kurt did pass out for a spell.

Friday we actually hit the stores for Black Friday sales.  We intended to get up at 7am, but then thought better of it and went back to bed until 9.  Ahh, sleep.  We went to Target, which probably had the best sales of any, but all in all it was rather understated and disappointing.  We did get a few people checked off the list though, so hey, we’ll take progress where we can get it.

Speaking of progress, we came home from shopping yesterday and ordered our save-the-dates!  We love them and I can’t wait for them to arrive! We ordered them from Wedding Paper Divas – love that site!  After such a triumphant day, what with all the checking stuff off the wedding list and all, we ordered in Thai food and watched Christmas Vacation.  Perfect.

Since we’re obviously on a roll here, we decided to register at Crate & Barrel today, which was so fun!  Kurt of course was super excited about using the scanner.  Boys!

Tomorrow we’re off to get our Christmas tree from Jones Family Farm!  We’re going to do a little decorating tonight, and then finish up tomorrow.  I adore Christmas.

Hope you’re enjoying your weekend, too!
xoxo j.

About a month ago, as we were getting mani/pedis, my friend Katie said that I needed to reserve November 14th for something, but she wouldn’t tell me the reason.  I was thinking that she was going to run a race, or schedule a shopping trip, and she needed our support/company.  As time went on, classes became crazy, and I promptly forgot about this date until Katie reminded me again that November 14th was coming up, and to be sure that I could make it.  Now I thought, “Is she getting a tattoo?  I’m sooo going to talk her out of it!”.  I have no idea why this idea crept into my mind, but I kept thinking it was something that we needed to be there for Katie to lend out support and cheer!

Even this morning, I had NO idea what we were doing, and the thought never crossed my mind that it could be something for me.  Katie and Mo picked me up, and we started driving.  We pulled off the freeway and I thought, “Maybe we’re going to the outlets?”  -  they promptly said “No” and we kept driving.  We pulled into a beautiful winery and I saw Kaitlin’s car and I thought, “Hey, how did Kaitlin know that we were going here, does everyone know but me?”.  I started to get suspicious.

We walk into the winery and the rest of the girls were there and yell, “Surprise!”.  I still was a bit lost — wait, my birthday has passed!  I was shocked and then they Kaitlin says, “This is your engagement party!”  I couldn’t believe it — I was truly overwhelmed with emotion and love and happiness, and just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this day was for me.

It’s amazing when you leave a place where you have friends and you are loved, and you arrive in a new place where no one loves you, or gets you, and then all of a sudden, you are loved and have amazing friends who throw you surprise parties.  I really couldn’t feel any luckier or special.

We started with a wine tasting, and proceeded to buying a couple bottles, taking a wine tour, and eating all the fabulous snacks and desserts they brought.

Here are some adorably silly photos we took:

Yes, they got me a crown and I’m wearing it to school on Monday!!

Katie, Jenn, Devon and Casey:

Look at these cupcakes – beautiful!

Case, showing the barrels some love:

Group shot, with our adorable wine guy, Mario!

Prom photos!

So much love for this photo:

Love ya!

Mint milanos!

Thank you for the wonderful surprise, and for making me feel so loved and special.  You girls are amazing!! xoxo

It started benign enough — breast exams.  We were taught how to do them in a way that was thorough, yet comfortable and respectable to the patient and included instruction in how to best communicate with them in the situation.  It was actually a very wonderful experience, and I swear, I’ve never had a breast exam as good as the ones they taught us to give.

We then moved on to something slightly more daunting, but still interesting and exciting — the gynecological exam.  Again, this experience was terrific, and I learned so much about giving a woman a GYN exam that was respectable, comfortable, and a positive experience.  It’s crazy though when you’re in the moment, and you have one hand inside the woman, and another outside, and you are literally cupping the cervix between your two hands.  You can also feel a very strong pulse inside the woman that we had to find while we were in there.  Fascinating.  So my experience was very positive, as was the case for most everyone.  However, I do have a story related to me by a friend, and it’s just amazing and disgusting all at the same time.  If you have a weak stomach (or you’re a man), you may want to skip the next paragraph . . .

So there she was, doing her first ever GYN exam, and she had the speculum in place (inside the woman who is teaching her how to do this mind you), visualizing the cervix and getting comfortable with the whole thing.  So she finally pulls the speculum out when she’s done, and she immediately realizes, in her horror, that something came out with it (!).  She thinks, “OMG, I pulled out a part of her inside with the speculum!”.  A million things flash through her mind, but first, is the woman in pain?!  She says to her, “Are you OK?”  The woman responds that she’s fine, and my friend proceeds to say something to the effect of, “OK, well, something came out when I removed the speculum”, with probably a total look of shock on her face.  The woman turns red, and finally says, “Oh, that must be a tampon that’s a few days old”.  O.M.G.  Your a gynecological instructor and you can’t remember to take our your nasty days-old tampon before teaching people how to do exams?!  Ewwwww.  Worse, she says that it was an “emergency tampon”, where by “tampon” she means “toilet paper”.  Yep, this woman shoved a bunch of toilet paper up her bajingo and then forgot about it for a few days.  Worse again, she comments, “I thought it smelled sort of funny down there”!  Are you serious?!  So disgusting and so funny.  That’ll be a GYN experience my friend will never forget.  I fear we have more of those to come!

So finally, having breast and GYN out of the way, there was only one thing left – Male GU.  Dun dun dun!  The exam required an exam of the penis, testicles and then, yep, you know it, the rectum.  Seriously, what did I sign up for?  It’s funny too, because again, your instructors are the ones who teach you how to do it, so literally, with the guy bent over the table, he’s saying things like “No, not your finger there, look at where you’re putting it!”.  hahaha.  My goodness, you are joking.  And speaking of rectums, do you know how far your finger has to go in order to feel a man’s prostate?  Whoa. I am not even exaggerating a little when I tell you that he would say, “Further, further, further (!), further, further until I literally thought I was starting to lose sight of my fist.  Whoa.  The rectal exam did inspire a new dance move — remind me to show it to you next time we see each other (it has to do with a spinning motion you have to make on the stool in which you’re sitting in order to thoroughly examine the rectal wall).  Even funnier to me (being amused by junior high humor as I am) — that guy had 6 woman’s fingers in his rectum last night!  Do you think this makes him a stud amongst his friends?  I mean, who signs up for that job?!

Well, there you have it — the adventures of becoming a family nurse practitioner. Until next time, xoxo.

Seriously, when we all started the program they made such a big deal about how hard the 1st year was that we naturally assumed that surely that meant years 2 and 3 were going to be better/easier/whathaveyou.  We sort of counted on that belief, and it was what got us through that first year in fact.  Perhaps it’s better that we didn’t know that the worst was yet to come, or we might have just casually stepped aside, gave out a few hugs, shook a few hands, and said, “Thanks but no thanks” with a one-way plane ticket back home.  Ahh, home.

Well, here I am, with just a little over a month until the first half of my 2nd year is behind me, and I get almost a month to recoup!  I’m finally through the worst of it — I’d been counting on last night’s arrival for quite some time and it was such a relief when it finally arrived.  I celebrated with PJs, TV, mac & cheese and a glass of wine.  Perfect.

So let’s see, what’s been happening besides 12 hours a day of studying and not getting enough sleep?  Hmm.  Surely there must be something.  Well, I had a birthday!  It was such a crazy time that it was hard to even recognize it this year, and if you know me, you know that’s odd because I love birthdays (thank you all for the cards and presents — I appreciated it so much!).  Kurt did take me away to Newport for the night, which was lovely despite the rainy weather.  We ate dinner at the White Horse Tavern, which is one of the oldest tavern buildings in America, built in 1673.  It was a very memorable experience and funny too — it’s a very nice place, and yet as the rain started to really pour, I started getting sprinkles of water shooting at me.  Hey, what do you expect when something was built in the 1600s?!  Our server was excellent and we had a very good meal.  There were some people out on a nighttime walking tour of Newport that I think were on a ‘ghost’ tour, and people kept snapping photos of the Tavern while we were eating by the window, making me think the guide must have been telling them stories of it being haunted.  Let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised!

Here are a couple scenic shots from the weekend . . .

From our top-floor hotel room – it had a really great view; this photo really doesn’t do it justice (the road you see is from Newport to where we were staying on Goat Island):

A view of the bridge that takes you into Newport:

I also had a lovely recent visit from my dear friend Tanya, who currently lives in New Jersey.  She attended a couple of my classes, baked for me, made me laugh, listened to me endlessly whine about school, and kept me company during the week.  Love you, CB!

Kurt has still been working a ridiculous schedule, but it looks like he might be able to start coming home on Thursday nights, which will just be so much better.  I know it’s only 1 extra night, but tipping the scale to have him home more nights than he’s away is a big deal to me.   So between his schedule and my schedule, we’ve been really busy, and really stressed, but we’re managing!  How are we managing, you ask?  Well, see for yourself:

What did you expect — photos of us meditating?  This is the east coast, people — when in Rome, you know!

The weather is starting to get quite chilly (it actually snowed a few weeks ago — *crazy*!).  Today was surprisingly temperate, and since the BIG CHILL is right around the corner, I had myself an iced coffee today in defiance. Screw you, winter!

Besides an obscene amount of constant exams and studying, I also get to play with newborn babies, as the family and pediatric specialties have to know how to do full newborn assessments (fine by me!).  I love their little squishy bodies, especially when they are sooo tiny (like 12-24 hours old).  I’m all done with those now, and will be moving into older adult assessments, starting Thursday.  Be prepared for a story or two!

In other, more interesting, news — we’ve made Christmas plans!  San Diego, you ask?  Nope!  San Francisco then, surely?  Nope!  We’re going to Disney World!  Neither of us could bear the thought of a really long flight, or schlepping presents across the country and back, and while I miss my family and friends just so much it hurts, we really needed a trip where we could look forward to spending some quality time together in a warm climate with no stress.  How can you be stressed in Disney World?  Exactly.

Finalizing wedding plans is on the agenda for this week, but June 2010 is Cabo is *very* likely.   Stay tuned!

That’s all for now friends, but I promise to be back sooner than soon!  Have you checked out Dreamy Dish recently?

Miss you, xoxo!