Goodbye 20’s, hello 30’s!

To be honest, I’m actually extremely excited for my 30’s. I’ve had some great experiences in my 20’s, but some of the best experiences of my 20’s were honestly toward the end of my 20’s. Twenties were some hard years. I finished college and started medical school. Going through medical school was honestly the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There were some fun times, but mostly it was studying, exams, and stress. Being in a big city can ironically be very isolating as well.

However, once I started my Internal Medicine residency, I started to have a lot more fun. I moved to West Virginia, rented a beautiful apartment there for cheap (cost of living in WV is incredibly low), made very close friends, and finally, finally, got to start doing what I spent all of high school, college, and medical school working toward. Residency is also where I met the love of my life Leanne, who is now my wife.

The end of my 20’s were rocked by me moving to California, getting married, landing an awesome job I love at the VA, and having the time and space to think, reflect, work on myself, work on my hobbies, read, relax, and just learn more about myself.

All this to say, I’m ecstatic to be entering my 30’s because I think it’ll be the biggest growth decade for me yet. Now I finally have a stable job and income, time and space to grow and learn, and the chance to settle down a bit with Leanne. Not to mention, we are getting a puppy!

My 30th birthday was awesome! Leanne and I, being in California and in the middle of a pandemic, had to celebrate without other family, but we made the most of it!

It’s tradition in Leanne’s part of China to have noodles for your birthday. The long noodle symbolizes long life. The dish must also have eggs, but we aren’t sure why. Still tastes great though! We started the day off with a ramen noodle brunch.

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Next stop, Sacramento Zoo! Leanne made reservations ahead of time and we went to the zoo to look at the animals. This was a throwback to one of our first dates in California when I took Leanne to the zoo. It was also the perfect California day, about 72 degrees and sunny with clear skies. Perfect!

After the zoo, we picked up some food and drove to a drive-in movie theater in Sacramento! Got the Subaru parked with a front row seat to the big screen. We put the back seats down, threw some blankets down, got comfy and waited til it got dark and for the movie to start.

After the movie, we were exhausted, but not too exhausted to eat some of the amazing cheesecake Leanne made from scratch! My favorite!!

(We couldn’t help but start chowing down into the cheesecake before we realized we should have taken the picture first, whoops!)

All in all, it was a perfect way to kick off what I think will be my best decade yet!