A Firefighter and a Vet: My husband made me do it. . .

I've always thought in the back of my mind that I would start a blog someday. Maybe after something exciting had happened in our lives, or we'd accomplished something great, or had kids and wanted to share their every little antic to the world. Sean, however, thinks it's a good idea to start now. We'll have a fun record of our lives during school, and might even help someone who is pursuing dreams similar to ours. Here's a photo of Sean and myself from September 2011, when we took a week long house boat vacation.

Here's the facts: Sean and I have been together since we were sixteen, we met in high school, fell in love, and we married at 18. Now he's twenty-one and I'm twenty; we live in Palm Desert, Ca with our two dogs and our cat. Gunther is the big guy, our first Great Dane. Cub is our rescue pup, a middle aged troubled-soul of uncertain heritage. Mrow Mrow was an unplanned addition to our family, made while on our honeymoon in Oregon. We love all three very much, at this point in our lives, they're our kids. Here's a photo of the three of them together, they are all buds and love being in front of the camera.

Sean wants to be a fire fighter. In high school, he considered heavy equipment operation, after watching a DVD some company sent him in the mail. He also considered become a Game Warden, since it's a lot quicker to get into than fire fighting. However, after a semester of criminal justice classes at our local college, he realized that was not the career for him and changed back to fire. Recently, Sean earned his EMT-1 license and has quite a few certifications under his belt. He tried to get into a fire one academy this fall, but they ended up not having it at College of the Desert so he was forced to push back his plans and take it in the spring. His ultimate goal is to get onto a government fire station on a military base, so he can follow me around in the future. This is a photo of Sean taking his Biddle exam, which he passed first try without even working out beforehand. He's such a stud.

I want to become a veterinarian. Yes, I know how that sounds. A lot of little girls say that as kids, many go through a strong phase even, but for me, becoming a vet is more of a calling than anything else. I have seen a lot, not everything obviously, but enough to know that I can handle blood, guts and gore and death and pus and illness and heart break. Sean and I ran a small rescue out of our home for a year, and while I do not recommend it, I think it finalized my resolve that helping animals is something I need to do. My goal now - and it may change - is to get my license and then come back to Southern California to fight the problem of pet over population. But, like I said, plans are always changing. First I wanted to go to school at UC Davis, then at Cornell, then possibly the vet school in Pomona, now I'm considering Oregon State. There are so many options. One thing I am seriously considering is joining to Army. There are two reasons for this: one, they pay for school which is my biggest worry. Second, I consider myself a very patriotic person and possess a strong love for this country, and would be proud to serve in through military service. This is a photo of me bottle feeding two orphan baby pygmy goats we adopted.