23 - A Reflection

As Thursday approaches (and this time I'm talking about my birthday and not olympic trials) I'm feeling more and more reflective on the past year and all that has happened while I've been 23.  While my actual birthday last year was not so hot (getting stranded alone in a small town in Australia in the middle of the night, almost having to sleep in a scary bus station, shelling out extra money to the only hotel that would take me in in the wee hours of the morning...) the series of events that occurred afterwards were rather awesome.  Here are few of the highlights:

traveling up the coast of Australia and getting to swim in the Great Barrier Reef

moving across town in Melbourne, allowing me to get away from the horrible management while gaining some roommates to do things with

Melbourne food adventures

seeing the queen of England

conquering LabView on the way to getting H1 in Clinical Engineering

completing grad school

cooking my first Thanksgiving dinner

seeing mom and dad after 10 months and showing them around Melbourne, a city I really grew to love

UniMelb graduation

Australian family vacation

spending Christmas eve on the beach

traveling Europe with my brother

getting the chance to go to London to watch Alex compete in the olympic venue for the gymnastics test event (and of course seeing him after 11 months...how crazy is it that the first time would be in Europe and not at home)

coming back to California after a year away

being reunited with all the people I missed so much while in Australia

getting TWO jobs...coaching and working at Intuitive

traveling with Cale to Las Vegas and learning how to play Craps

having the east-coast members of the family out here in California

traveling to St. Louis with Cale and watching Alex be awesome and make National Team/qualify to Olympic Trials

Wow, that turned out to be much longer than I had originally anticipated!  Crazy all that can happen in a year and I'm excited to see what the next 365+ days have in store.  Let the good times roll!