The Wright Stuff

Time Warp

2012-01-13T10:34:00.000-08:00

We're back! Actually, we've always been here, I've just been neglecting our poor blog since my discovery of pinterest. If you don't know what it is, check it out. You will either thank me for opening a world of possibilities or curse me for the imminent addiction. Or maybe a little of both. So..... here's what we've been up to!

August: To celebrate/commemorate the ending of summer, we cabin-ed (too luxurious to say camped) in Gatlinburg with some good friends.
September: I whipped my students into shape. :) Here they are executing perfect restroom behavior.

I went with my girlfriends to Atlanta for a baby shower and Ikea Trip.
October: We both had fall break at the same time, so we spent a few days in Atlanta

...highlight of the trip was the Atlanta Aquarium and the whalesharks!Brian turned 27 and all his birthday wishes came true! (Costco cake and Wicked Tickets)

November: We had a fantastic Thanksgiving with friends! Somehow, the only picture I took was of the place settings...

December: Our Christmas break started with a bang (or, rather, a crash) in Tucson when Michael crashed his bike and suffered a minor concussion and 3 fractured vertebrae. It is a huge blessing that he is ok and only needs to wear a neck brace for 3-6 months.

Brian was cast as "Joseph" in the traditional Oldham Family Christmas Eve Nativity Story thanks to his newest and biggest fan, Carrie (who played the part of Mary).

We went to a UofA Basketball game (Go Wildcats!)

Brian constructed a Gingerbread-stadium. Well, technically speaking, it was made of graham crackers.
We got to spend New Years in Oregon-- we enjoyed the beautiful real tree, playing with neices, and dancing to Wii games with family (I'm so bugged I didn't get any photo evidence of that)!January: Brian gave me the BEST birthday present EVER: a teddy bear that is almost as big as me. Coupled with a warm blanket and the books Stacey gave me for Christmas, I was in my version of paradise.

Natalie Fight

2011-09-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

My sweet 14 year old girls at Mutual (youth activity night):

M: Hey Natalie, I like your cardigan.
S: Oh yeah, well I like her necklace!
M: Well, I like her hair!
S: I like her shirt!
SJ: Well, I like her PERSONALITY!
E: Well I like her... spirit and...TESTIMONY!

Aw.....They totally made my night! I am so blessed to hang around with these amazing girls.

Voracious

2011-09-01T19:20:00.001-07:00

This year I am trying out a new way to teach/manage literacy called "The Daily Cafe." We have a C.A.F.E. Menu board that we keep our strategies as we learn and use them (C for Comprehension, A for Accuracy, F for fluency and E for Expand Vocabulary).

This week one of the strategies that I was teaching that would help our fluency was "Voracious Reading: the more we read, the more we learn." To introduce it, I was going to have the kids act out some animals who eat voraciously, then connect that back to how our brains should be "hungry for books" and we should just read and read and read and never stop, just like these "voracious" animals.

Great plan, right?

Well here's how it went:

Mrs. Wright: Alright, ladies and gentlemen, I would like you to please close your eyes. Now, imagine a BIG dinousaur in your mind (a few muted shrieks and giggles). Imagine what that dinosaur looks like when he is eating. Now, open your eyes and show me what that dinosaur looks like when he is eating.

Students: 3 just stare at me, and the other 18 all start slowly working their jaws around, like a cow chewing it's cud.

Mrs. Wright: Friends, I want you to think about a FEROCIOUS dinosaur! How does a T-Rex eat it's food?

Students: Same slow chewing motions with a few growls.

Mrs. Wright: (Thinking fast). Ok, ladies and gentlemen, let's try a different example. Um... Put your hand on your head if you know who cookie monster is....

The cookie monster analogy worked a lot better.

Four Days...

2011-08-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

In four days

... I will become "Mrs. Wright" again.

… I will be nervous the whole drive to school because I have "First Day Jitters."

... I will have pencils sharpened and new office supplies handy.

… I will begin the new journey with 24 (give or take a few) smiling (I hope) faces.

... I will have 24 crazy new names to remember. (I wonder how many apostrophe's this year...)

… I will lay the foundation for reading, writing, math, and friendships.

… it will be the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!

Memphis

2011-07-11T07:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind on the times (you'd think that since it's summer I'd have more time.... not the case), but Brian and I went to Memphis 2 weeks ago to see the Broadway musical "Beauty and the Beast."

If you haven't been to Memphis, don't go. No offense to you if you live there/love it. But it's dirty and run down a little scary. Now that we can say we've gone, we probably won't go again.

That being said, we did have a fun time just being there for 1 day.

They love Elvis in Memphis!
This is as close as we got to "Graceland"-- Elvis Presley's home. Tickets were $18 each and parking was $10! We did a drive-by of Elvis' private jet.
The Pyramid was closed due to flooding. :(We spent most of the day on Mud Island, where they have a wading river that is replica of the Mississippi River scaled down to .5 mile. The cool water felt so good on such a hot day!

Brian crushing the mini dam.

Drying off.
We ate at "Gus's World Famous Chicken." It was rather good, if a little spicy.

After walking down Beale Street (just to say that we have), we went to the theater for Beauty and the Beast.

Brian's Beard Bio

2011-06-12T14:49:00.001-07:00

Brian's medical school class had a "Beard Growing Contest" right before their final exam of 1st year. It lasted 3 weeks.

Here is Brian before the contest started:After week 1:
After week 2:
After week 3:
Hairy BEAST! EEEEeewww.
Apparently he named his beard Veeachislahv (since I nixed it as a potential name for our first-born). I guess he was rather attached.
He was a finalist (top 3) in the competition, but lost to a gorilla.

Then he shaved it off bit by bit.

And we're back to the sweet soft-faced Brian that we all know and love!

Smooth Criminal Dueling Cellos

2011-06-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

I must be on a video kick... I got this from my brother (an amazing Cellist himself). I just can't stop watching! These guys kick some serious trash! (While trashing their bow hair....)

what you see will BEEEEEEEEEEEEE

2011-05-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

I totally thought a woman sang this... not a dude.

Pretty sure I was rolling on the floor at 1:25-1:40 and 2:03

I may have even stopped breathing.

Here's to the glory days of children's films. They don't make 'em like they used to.

Things we do in Nashville

2011-05-22T14:49:00.001-07:00

We go to country music concerts at the Grand Ole Opry.

This is how close we were! (Lil' Jimmy Dickens is on stage-- the cutest and oldest country singer I've ever seen/heard!)Rodney Atkins
(funny story, he kept trying to throw guitar picks to the girls clustered around the stage, but he couldn't get them past the stage, so then he'd try to kick them off the stage in the middle of singing. He looked like he was doing a weird dance)
Kerri Underwood

We attend crazy Medical School events like The Cadaver Ball (?!)
We experience the Nashville Symphony
We sit court-level at Vanderbilt Basketball Games
and more Vandy basketball games We support the Nashville Predators Hockey team
(one of my favorite bilboards in Nashville says "HOCKEY TONK SMASHVILLE")

We have Fondue parties with friends (even those that move away and leave us! *cough*Haymores*coughcough*Davis'*cough)

Oh, and sometimes Brian does a little bit of studying and Natalie does a little bit of teaching.

Sweet Home Alabama

2011-05-08T18:01:00.000-07:00

Brian and I spent 2 days down in Alabama helping clean up from the tornado. There is a video of the tornado and the damage in Cordova (where we were working), if you click HERE. There are also many other videos on youtube if you are interested.
We made the 3 hour drive down to middle Alabama.
Imagine Steven Haymore's voice "Oh my goodness. You can get an IL CHANGE here!"
We worked in a small town-- Cordova, Alabama. Cordova was hit by an F3 tornado at 5:00am and then 12 hours later was hit by an F4 tornado that split and became 2 tornadoes. So basically the town was hit by 3 tornadoes. The town was devastated. Most of the houses were not livable.

We spent most of the time clearing away debris and moving it close to the road so trucks can pick it up easier later on.

We spent a lot of time taking these:

(This tree is HUGE. The roots are probably 10 to 12 feet tall)

And sawing, cutting, dragging, carrying it to the road to look like this:
I didn't take very many before and after shots (I guess that's a good thing-- I was working, not photo-documenting). Here is the pile during my first water break:

And here it is at my second water break:

Here we can see the wild species of Bearded Brian in it's natural habitat:This yard was full of tree debris! As we chopped it all up and hauled it out, we uncovered a lamppost and a garden statue! I think all the yellow Mormon Helping Hands t-shirts make us look like Despicable Me's minions. No?
Lunch break:
This carport was totally mangled and the poor blue geo was crushed by the sheet metal and a tree.

The "Mormon Helping Hands" tent city where we stayed.
Random pic: We were driving behind this van... do you think they meant "Litter"?
We were guessing by the architecture that this brick house was built in the late 1800s. We heard that the people who lived there had just bought it and were renovating it. They didn't have home insurance yet.
You can see the path the tornadoes took. Trees are completely scattered but just past them the trees are untouched.

Can you see the sheet metal wrapped around the branch at the top of the tree?
It's hard to see, but that white house had been picked up and shifted off of it's foundation. It slid a good 10-15 feet off of it's foundation.
I loved the rainbow painted on the wall inside this bedroom.
Roll tide!

(Not only does everyone in the south have strong allegiances to college football, they display it grandiosely! No small window-cling stickers of their Alma Mater... every car (truck) had HUGE displays of collegiate football support. I was sad I didn't get any pictures of the trucks.)

Headed back to Tennessee.

There were a LOT of us and we worked SO hard, and still we barely made a dent. It was devastating to be uncovering toys, clothes, tax documents, etc from underneath piles of roof shingles, downed trees, and building materials.

The people in Cordova were so grateful, and so hospitable! All day long people were driving up giving us sack lunches, waters, gatorade, and other treats. I felt so blessed to meet the amazing people who live in Cordova, and even shower in the locker room of the 2007 state high school football champions (Go Cordova Blue Devils!).

In the South, many people say "Have a Blessed day" instead of "Have a good day". The cashier at walmart, the text at the bottom of receipts, and people passing in the street. It's one of the many sweet, quaint bits of southern culture that I just love!

So, have a blessed day, y'all! Especially those of you in Alabama!

Spring Break

2011-04-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

I had so much fun doing projects over Spring Break!

Coffee Table Re-do! ($15 craigslist find)
Started out with this:
Halfway through day 1 of stripping it looked like this (I had to run to the store to get more stripper!):
After 2 days of stripping (3 cans of aerosol paint stripper later...) it looked like this:
(I didn't get a picture of day 3-- sanding with my new mouse sander!)

Mid-day 4-- painting and priming!

And the finished product!
I love the pretty blue knob!

Baking S'mores cookies

Baby Onesie Embellishing
I have a friend at work who has a daughter named Seven. She gave me some onesies and fabric and told me to do whatever I wanted with them. I had fun...

Monsters

2011-04-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

Here's hoping I win a book from one of my favorite blogs!

Before Bieber

2011-04-11T12:19:00.001-07:00

Notice my name comes before Justin Bieber's.

Ranger

2011-03-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

I came into our bedroom after brushing my teeth one night and found Brian praying.

Is it just me, or does anyone else see the resemblance to one of our favorite books?

My very own Ranger...
Although (for those of you who have read the books), Brian is more of a Horace in my mind...

Bag-a-rama!

2011-03-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

I had a bag sewing weekend! I am having so much fun figuring out my new sewing machine. I even made a button hole for the first time in my life!

This one is going to be for Sarah when I see her in MAY! I can't believe that she will be getting back from her mission already.
This one I made for my good friend Grace for her birthday. I am giving it to her today... I hope she likes it! My favorite part is the pleat. :)

We have a problem...

2011-03-27T17:37:00.001-07:00

... it's called books.

More specifically, it's called McKay Used Books. It's the most awesome place EVER! If any of you know Brian, you know that he is a little OCD about the condition of his books. And HE actually finds books that he wants every time we go. It's starting to become a problem.

Here is documentation of a few (that's right, there's been others) of our trips to McKay.

I have a hard time saying no to "How Do Dinosaurs" and board books ($0.55 each!). Right now people look at us kinda funny if they realize that I have a whole shelf of baby books... but someday our future children are going to have an awesome selection of board books!

This big pile of books cost us $5.25! Those Tom Clancy books were $0.25 each!

Yes, we have a problem...

my inspiration board

2011-03-08T18:56:00.000-08:00

I had WAY too many ideas lying around on my desk, so after reading this blog, I decided to make myself an inspiration board. Luckily, I had a snow day to complete my project!

I found a big frame at goodwill ($6!) with an ugly picture in it.
I took out the ugly fox picture (apparently this was an original! No wonder it is so pixel-y)
Spray paint! Can you see all of that snow?! I had to spray paint on my front porch because I could only stand to be in the cold for as long as it took to quickly spray a coat of paint and then run back inside!
While the spray paint was drying, I cut out the joist sheeting that I had bought from Lowes (WAY cheaper than sheet metal! I found it in by the air duct materials).The blue was a little bit bright, so I glazed it with some old white paint mixed with water to give it some texture and tone down the blue.
While that was drying, I used my handy dandy glue gun to attach ribbon as a border. I tried to use materials I had on hand, thus the tiny polka dots. I may switch that out later if I find some ribbon that I like better (on sale of course!).
Then I put it all back in the frame and added some stickers. Again, I was trying to use things I already had-- I wanted to put some back vinyl in the shape of some scrolly damask or chandelier silhouette in the middle, but alas, the dollar store alphabet stickers will do for now!
Now it looks great above my desk! I can start pinning up all of my ideas and inspiration for new creative-ness!

2011-02-25T21:18:00.000-08:00

Cheaper than Therapy

2011-02-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

Teaching elementary school is hard. I've taught before, I know this. But I found out this year that teaching at a High Priority school is hard and stressful. So as a way of coping, I've adopted a new mantra:

"A good hobby is cheaper than therapy."

We've had 10 snow days so far this year, which have been great therapy days for me. Here are some of the therapeutic activities that I've been up to lately....

Over Christmas break, I found a piece of scrapbook paper with my mantra on it! It became this:

One of my new favorite recipes-- Blueberry muffins to die for

Brian Wright liked pretzels with sprinkes
His wife would eat them plain.
And so, betwixt the two of them,
No pretzels will remain!

My favorite project so far-- Ikea coffee table turned entry way bench!
BEFORE:AFTER:
I also made a magnet board for my craft table... I'll be posting that soon!

Whale Poem

2011-02-15T18:41:00.001-08:00

My students do literacy centers every day. They do 10 a week with partners while I pull back small groups for focused instruction.

In the Science and Social Studies Connection center this week, my students had to research information about whales and then write a poem about whales. Here is my favorite:

For a fact people hunt down whales and use blubber
for rubber.
Well gee that sounds sad
you shouldn't be glad.
Those pour little whales
are becoming stail.
Whales eat krill.
Humans bbq them on a grill.

p.s. This kid has told me that his dad is a rapper. He also has 8 brothers and sisters and all of their names start with "Ter-".

Treasures

2011-02-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

The first Saturday of the month is
Half off Everything at Goodwill day!
I'm a total dork, but I love it. It's like treasure hunting!

This month I found so much good stuff for my projects: Sheets with some really fun prints that I'm going to use as fabric, frames that are going to look great once they have some new paint, etc.

My favorite find:
I'm 99% sure they have never even been worn! And the very best part is that they were $2.50!!

That's right, only $2.50!!!

Now I'm just waiting for the weather to warm up so I can actually wear them...

Doody

2011-01-20T15:39:00.000-08:00

.......Setting-- 4th grade bathrooms......

(Shrieks coming from the girls side of the restroom)

Mrs. Wright: "Ladies, what is the problem?!"

A: "Mrs. Wright, K went doody in the bathroom!"

D: "HAHAHAHA DOODY!"

C: "I can smell it y'all!"

R: "Doooooooody doooooooody...."

(More Laughter)

Mrs. Wright: "Oh come on, ladies- just drop it, everybody does that."

A: "But it's doody!"

Mrs. Wright: "Well don't make fun, everybody needs to do that sometimes, it's not a big deal."

C: (thoughtful expression) "Mrs. Wright, do YOU do it?"

First Young Womens Lesson

2011-01-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

I am now in the Young Women's Presidency in our church congregation! I was asked to serve in this calling a week ago and we dove right in! Three other women and I are in charge of the teenage girls in our ward (12-18 years old) and their Sunday class as well as their Wednesday night youth group ("Mutual"). I am specifically assigned to the "Beehives" (12-13 year old girls) but since we don't have very many Young Women, we all meet together anyways.

I am so excited! The girls in my ward are way cute and we have already planned some super fun activities!

Today I taught my first lesson to the group. It was on being a daughter of God and growing closer to Christ through daily activities. It was actually going pretty well right up until the end (about 5 minutes before I was finished). The room we were in had 2 doors, one at the front where I was teaching and one at the back behind where the girls were sitting. We were having a really good moment when all of a sudden one of the Young Men threw open the door, tossed a ball of paper at the girls, and took off down the hall.

Instantly, the 4th grade teacher inside of me reared it's ugly head. I opened the door close to me and ~~chased~~ walked quickly to catch up with the Young Man around the corner, where he had run-- foolishly assuming I wouldn't follow him :)....

He turned and looked at me over his shoulder.

Scary Sis. Wright: "EXCUSE ME."

Young Man with Pink Tie: "Yeah..."

Scary Sis. Wright: "That was EXTREMELY rude."

Pink Tie: "uuhhh..."

Scary Sis. Wright: "That will NEVER happen again."

Pink Tie: "Yes ma'am. Yes, ma'am."

Scary Sis. Wright: "Thank you."

Do NOT disrespect me when I am teaching*

(There may or may not have been some slight attitude head bobbing on my part-- learned behaviors from my students.)

...So much for getting in with the kids and being a "Cool" youth leader.

At least my girls thought it was funny.

I walked back in and finished my lesson about making choices everyday to bring us closer to Christ and feel peace.

*I never would have done this a year ago. Teaching in an urban school district has apparently changed me.

2010 in Review

2011-01-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

ⒽⒶⓅⓅⓨ ⓃⒺⓌ ⓎⒺⒶⓇ ➋ⓞ➊➊

Here's our quick review of 2010:

We traveled to Vanderbilt for 2nd look weekend and decided that "Vandy" was were we wanted to be.

Brian graduated with honors from BYU and was chosen as the student speaker for BYU's April 2010 commencement.

Natalie completed classes earning her teaching endorsement in English Language Learners.

Natalie was hired to teach 4th grade.

We survived the move to Nashville, Tennessee.

Brian started medical school at Vanderbilt.

We celebrated our 3rd anniversary on December 29th.

We are so grateful for all of the blessings we have experienced in this last year! We have truly been watched over in all of the changes we've had to go through. We are thankful for wonderful family and amazing friends!
We are excited about 2011 and all of the adventures that will come with it!

Oh 4th grade...

2010-12-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

Even though they give me more drama and attitude than I thought was possible with 20 kids, I can't help but love them. I feel so blessed that I get to interact with these kids and hopefully give them something to look forward to in coming to school. Aren't they cute?
(this picture was taken when my cousin sent me "Flat Hailey" to spend a week with me. That is what K. is holding in the front.)

803 Zoomin'

2010-11-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

Our car is officially a Tennessean.

Off with the Utah plates!
We really like our new plates: 803 Zoomin'! Perfect for our Mazda (zoom zoom).

Of course we left our BYU plate covers on!

New Hair

2010-11-03T16:05:00.000-07:00

I finally got brave and walked into a salon to get my hair done. I have NEVER done that before! I've always gone to someone that I know or someone a friend recommends.

I put it off way too long. My roots had grown out and my a-line bob had grown almost to my shoulders, so I finally manned up and got it done. I was pleased with the result!

Vanderbilt Football

2010-11-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

We were so excited to go to football games again! Even though Vanderbilt usually loses, it is a fun atmosphere to be in.
But.... they wouldn't let us take our water bottles in! Even though they were empty! I mean, come ON, even AIRLINES let you take empty water bottles through security! The security guards kept insisting that we could not under any circumstances bring in containers. Brian even asked "What if someone is diabetic?" The guard answered "We know who those people are before they come." (really?)

We had parked pretty far away so the security guard told us we should go hide them or bury them somewhere and find them again after the game (honestly?!) We decided instead to walk 10 minutes across campus to Light Hall and leave them in Brian's locker.

Despite our water bottle frustration, we still had a great time at the game. The weather was beautiful!

Happy Birthday, Bri!

2010-10-31T15:48:00.001-07:00

(a week late)

Happy Birthday to my best friend! He is an amazing friend, husband, student, musician, athlete, fan, comedian, and partner in mischief. :) I feel so blessed to be with him forever!Isn't he handsome?! We had a fun birthday dinner at Red Robin (YUM!). We both got the bacon burger, with--of course--campfire sauce (Natalie) and honey mustard (Brian) for the fries.

Then we came home and opened presents.

A funny Doctor Shirt from the Evans:

Sporting all his new Vanderbilt gear from me:

Happy 26th Birthday!

The Right Profession

2010-10-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

Brian is definitely in the right field. When I met him on campus today to work out, he was practically giddy; he told me all about cutting apart his group's cadaver (affectionately known as "Jeff").

(He had already told me all about how it took all 4 of his group members to move Jeff onto his stomach and how they cut through and opening up the skin on his back.)

Today he got to pull back the ilio costalis, spinalis, and longisimus (back muscles) and broke off parts of the vertebrae to expose the spinal cord. He animatedly described using a bone saw to get through the vertebrae and the subsequent juicy-ness that splattered his shirt.

Personally, I don't think I could handle that. But Brian loves it.

Just now, he said (from behind his computer):
"Oh sweet! On Friday we get to use power saws to cut the clavicles and the lower part of the sternum. And use pruning shears to cut apart the ribs!"

Yup, pretty sure he's in the right profession.

Adventures in Tennessee

2010-10-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

I had initially intended to blog about each of these things separately, but some of these pictures are already months old, so here's a hodgepodge of what we have been up to here in Tennessee!Vanderbilt medical school "sorts" the students into "colleges" (not unlike Harry Potter being sorted into houses by the sorting hat). Brian was put in "Robinson College", the defending champions of the college cup. College Cup was a weekend full of competitive events: a swimming meet, 5-k race, basketball, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, dodge ball, water polo, trivia, iron chef, laugh-off, dance-off, and others. Each college competed for the championship. Unfortunately, Robinson did not win overall this year. :( Brian participated in Basketball, Volleyball, the 5-k, and Water Polo. I participated in the swim meet and water polo (the ultimate frisbee team was full--- sad day!).

We have been hosts for several potential med-students who come to Vanderbilt for interviews. One of them left us a 6-pack of beer as a thank you for letting him stay with us! haha. Our next door neighbors saw him bring it in and asked us if they could have it because they know we don't drink.
Thanks to my amazing friend, Angie, we discovered a new favorite cookie recipe: S'mores chocolate chip cookies! Yumm!
Who knew (before seeing the movie "The Lightning Theif") that there was a life-size replica of the Parthenon in Nashville? It is beautiful!
Apparently there is a museum inside, but we didn't want to pay the $10 admission fee. We had a lot of fun walking around the park outside, though!

Rafting

2010-10-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time we went rafting with some people from med school on the Ocoee river

Medical School and White Coat Ceremony

2010-08-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Brian has officially started medical school! Well, it's actually been a few weeks, and he is absolutely loving it so far!

First Day of School Picture:

The medical school does a "White Coat Ceremony" to initiate the students into the profession. The ceremony took place after the first 2 weeks of classes where they studied ethics and "foundations of the profession."

The ceremony is actually a pretty big deal; most of the students had family fly in from all over the country just to be there. There was also a live podcast of the event. One of the deans gave a really good talk about the white coat symbolizing a desire to help others, not a status or a reason to become arrogant. Then they read each student's name, undergrad college, and undergrad major(s).

Brian walking up as Dr. Zic reads his bio.

Shaking hands with the deans

Brian's class

He's official!

Starting out on quite an adventure!

Our new home

2010-08-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Finally, some pictures of our new home! We have so much extra space-- if you are ever in Nashville, come stay with us!Outside. We are the unit on the left.

This is what you see when you first walk in the front door. (Brian's playing piano in the "study")

Living room.

Living room. Someday we'll get a TV, but for now we have a quote by professor Dumbledore decorating our TV stand "It is not our abilities that show what we truly are; it is our choices."

Kitchen

Downstairs Bathroom

Downstairs bedroom = "study" It's a little cluttered right now...

Upstairs extra bedroom. We had a student staying with us who was visiting Vanderbilt for his med school interview. Ignore his stuff.

Hallway upstairs. The master bedroom is straight ahead, the extra room is right behind, the bathroom is to the left and the laundry closet is to the right.

Upstairs master bedroom. This is the window you can see from the front of the house.

Upstairs bathroom. It took me a while to figure out why this picture looks crooked. It's because of the white door on the right side.

Laundry closet. Possibly my favorite room in the house. Laundry closet = no more laundromats!

We are so blessed to have such a beautiful place to live!

Mile Marker 32.5

2010-08-15T16:25:00.001-07:00

by Brian

July 14, 2010...

Up until the third and final day of our trip, we had had a pretty uneventful journey. Sure, we had narrowly missed Bambi, nearly floated our truck across the road in the flood, and barely missed the Highchair of Death as it careened down the road towards us, foaming with sparks like a rabid squirrel (the chair, not us). But none of that compared with the 4 1/2 hour episode that I like to call "Survivor: Illinois."

We were feeling good, it was 7am and we were 30 minutes past St. Louis when a car drove by us and a lady in it started pointing and mouthing "Your trailer!" It pains me to imagine the stupid look I must have had on my face as I tried to get over my shock. We pulled over and went back to inspect the damage. One of the wheels was smoking pretty badly and looked a lot like how we felt after two full days of traveling. Our initial elation of "just" having a flat tire turned into very bad thoughts about the Budget Truck company when we realized that we were not provided with a spare tire.

The Death of a Trailer Tire

It seemed that the Illinois state police were out in force that morning, and not long after we pulled over the first of our road-side friends in uniform pulled over to see what we needed. Some of them were so big and beefy that I was glad that we weren't in any position for them to catch us speeding or steeling corn from the neighboring corn field. After the first officer left, I told Natalie that five troopers would probably stop before we finally left (probably the most important prediction of all-time). Remember that magic number.

We called Budget and they said that they would send someone out with a new tire to our location (which was graciously provided by the second of the State troopers, who stopped by while we were on the phone). We were told that help would arrive in about 1.5 hours. We then had nothing to do, but wait....

After rescuing the violins from the cabin of the truck, we sat behind the truck, huddling up in what shade we could find with the violins. Officers three and four stopped by within about ten minutes of each other. As the sun gradually rose higher in the sky, our shade slowly began to disappear. After having been waiting 3.5 hours (still no tire man), it seemed like we were destined to perish, clinging to what little shade we had. It was about at that point that we realized that our hazard lights had stopped blinking. Our battery was dead. We weren't too concerned, since surely the tire/roadside assistance person would have jumper cables.

The violins get first dibs on the shade.... Notice how much less of it there is than in the previous picture.

Well, who knew that not every roadside assistance person carries jumper cables? When the guy finally showed up, he looked at us like we had been out in the sun too long after asking about cables (which we had been, technically...). He fixed the tire and went on his not-so-merry way, probably to the next person who had been waiting 5 hours or something.

I ripped a page out of our atlas and was about to write "Need a jump" and flag down cars at the side of the road, when Natalie remembered that every one of our State trooper friends had told us to call 911 if we needed anything. Well, since jumper cables fit under the "anything" category, Natalie got the honor of calling 911 and requesting some jumper cables. After all that we went through, it really was too bad that she didn't ask for a couple of milkshakes, too. Can't have everything I guess. Afterward, she voiced her disappointment that the dispatcher didn't answer the call with "911, what's the emergency?" like they do in all of the movies. Tssk. Tssk.

Huddled up in our bunker of shade... trying to stay sane... not succeeding....

Thirty minutes later, the FIFTH state trooper showed up! He said that he had jumper cables, but because of insurance reasons couldn't give us a jump. He said that we should get our car down off the trailer and use it for the jump. We replied that that wasn't an option and I said that I would start flagging cars down. When I started to get my sign, he suddenly had a change of heart and said, "Well, hold on, let's see what I can do...." He then pulled his blessed squad car up next to our truck (so that our truck was between him and the road). He hooked up the cables, and a few minutes later our engine had been resurrected. He told us that if anyone asked, it was our fairy godmother who jumped us, not a state trooper. Fortunately, this story does have a very happy ending as the next exit where we stopped for gas had a Burger King at the gas station! That made everything worth it!

All in all, it was a frustrating ordeal, but it could have been so much worse. But after that setback, we were even more excited to finally make it into Nashville.

The Trek

2010-07-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you take 2 of these...Plus one of these...
Plus 1,647 miles?
... a whole BUNDLE of MAD CRAZY FUN!

We finally got all of this:

to fit!

YAY! With room to throw all of our cleaning supplies in at the end!

The only problem was the dolly that they gave us for our car had the back 2 wheels dragging and we discovered that since our car is such a "low rider" it wasn't going to work. Of course, we realize this AFTER they are closed, so instead of getting an early start, we got to sleep in until the Budget rental place was open. By 9am we had our new car trailer and we were ready to hit the road!

Are you ready for 30 hours of driving? *serious driving face*

We had just finally crawled to the top of a hill somewhere between Utah and Wyoming at 20mph (in a 65mph zone), barely escaping an overheated engine, just to see this ahead of us:

This is us battling the hill. When I took this picture, we were going a whopping 15 mph. I watched as the cloud shadow overtook and passed our truck.

Beautiful cliff faces

The clouds in Wyoming were stunning! I've never seen anything like them!

This quaint town was the last we would see for a while...

We passed a refinery! I thought the flame was neat.

I think the song "Wide Open Spaces" was written about Wyoming. It was stuck in my head the whole time.

Does anyone know what these partial fences are for? This question kept me busy for hours. I came up with lots of interesting (though none of them convincing) hypotheses. They obviously aren't to keep animals in or out or away from anything, because we saw plenty of cows moseying their way around them.

This one is for Stacey:

Brian kept telling me to check the trailer-- this was my view. I just kept hoping it was still attached!

This pretty much sums up Nebraska:

Who knew that the National Cabella's headquarters are in the middle of nowhere?!

This sunset was so neat, I wish it had come out on the picture!

After our first day of travel, we stopped in North Platte, Nebraska at a tiny hotel. We pulled in and then realized that we couldn't get out. While it is technically possible to back up a truck with a trailer, they told us numerous times to avoid it, and after about 40 minutes of trying to, we knew why. No matter which way we turned the wheel, it seemed like the trailer had a mind of it's own on where it wanted to go. It was impossible. We were both so frustrated and we didn't know what to do, when a lady drove up. She rolled down her window and said "Go Cougars!" She drove around back to see if there was a way we could just pull the truck through and come around on the other side... Luckily, it worked! We probably would've figured it out eventually, but we were so grateful for her help! Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures of the ordeal, we had our minds on other things.

Day 2

I thought this huge bridge was kind of random.

It's a misty moisty morning!

We saw so many of these! My favorite (I didn't get a picture, some trees were in the way) was painted like a golf ball on a tee!

Wagon Building

"The People of Iowa Welcome you!" --Why, thank you.

We passed a sign saying "road flooded ahead"... they weren't kidding!

We were just glad that it wasn't closed!

I love this picture: doesn't it remind you of the movie "Cars"? I can just imagine the big semi saying "Who do you think you are, parking over with the big boys?"

This sign was the theme of our trip, I think. We saw our share of road construction!

We actually had to use the weigh stations!

Elementary school pictures, anyone?

Kansas City

I was trying to get a shot of this bridge they are building, but the road looks like it's bending in an earthquake or something.

Home of the Kansas City Royals

Refueling.... 10mpg, baby!

This is in Ozark county. I can just imagine Billy out hunting coons with Old Dan and little Ann!

We stayed on the west side of St. Louis, right next to the airport. You can see the airport radar tower in the background, that's how close we were.

The historic St. Louis arch!

Dun Dun Dun! See upcoming post "Mile Marker 32.5" for full story.

Brian took this picture while driving because I was on the phone with the electric and water companies trying to get everything turned on.

We are so close!

The hills surrounding Nashville are gorgeous! It reminds me of Oregon.

Finally, Nashville!

I GOT A JOB!

2010-06-29T07:36:00.001-07:00

My trip to Nashville 3 weeks ago was not in vain! I had a few good interviews and I got to see our townhome (holy SPACIOUS!)!

In one of my interviews, I met a wonderful principal who actually didn't have any positions at her school open, but she (for some reason) just loved me. Ever since I got back to Utah, she has been emailing me and calling me and taking my resume around to all of her principal friends.

Yesterday she called me (I was in Old Navy at the time):

Principal: *heavy southern accent* Hi Nat-lie! How are you?
Me: I'm great! How are you doing?
Principal: Fine! I'm just here with my best friend having lunch and she has a 4th grade position open, do you want to talk to her?
Me: Oh! Sure! Yes, please.

I talked with her friend who told me all about her school and then said that she is in the middle of moving and working on her dissertation so she is really busy. She said that since her best friend was just singing my praises she was going to trust her best friend and hire me. (!!!!!!)

So I will be teaching 4th grade in the city of Madison, Tennessee!! It is just a 15 minute drive from where we are living in Nashville! I am so excited!

Life is Crazy

2010-06-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

We'll probably have a great post later on with pictures and the whole shabang but for now, here's what we're up to:

Last week was the last day of school for Elementary School. School ended at noon. After a faculty luncheon and a not-so-quick cleaning up of the classroom, we went home and to bed at 6:00pm. We woke up at 12:00 midnight and began the 12-hour trek to Tucson, AZ. Crazy, you might say. Some might agree. We would do it again any day. It was worth driving half of the trip in the dark (we do not have tinted windows and when the sun came out in full force our car was an oven!), and it was nice to be the only ones on the road basically until Flagstaff.

We've been in Tucson since last Friday, soaking up the sun, stuffing ourselves with Mom's cooking, bruising each other in dodgeball, and playing plenty of rounds of "Bang!" It's been so nice to just relax... until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, I emailed a principal in Nashville who had invited me to tour her school and schedule an interview. I told her that I was not going to be in Nashville until July but I would love to speak with her over the phone. We emailed back and forth for a while, and then talked on the phone a bit, and she told me she really "needed" me to fly to Nashville to interview with her on Monday. AH! All of a sudden, I had a to-do list on my vacation:
1. get a flight to Nashville
2. arrange for a couch to sleep on in Nashville
3. figure out how to rent a car in Nashville
4. go shopping for interview-appropriate clothes
5. try to line up more interviews

So, we bought a flight to Nashville-- poor Brian gets to drive back to Provo alone with my 16-year-old brother and his friend who are EFY-bound.

We contacted some friends that we met when we went to Vanderbilt Second-Look Weekend who not only found me a place to stay, but offered to pick me up at the airport and let me use a car!

My mom took me shopping (thank heavens for mothers) for appropriate clothes.

And I've spent the last 2 days emailing/calling principals to try to line up more interviews with not much luck. I even applied to all of the open middle school positions! (that would be scary... but I could do it)

I can't believe how blessed we are!
Blessing #1: I actually have an interview with a principal that is very interested in me!
Blessing #2: I have a second interview with a principal that seems mildly interested in me.
Blessing #3: We met wonderful people last time we were in Nashville who are being so kind and helping me out!
Blessing #4: I get to see our townhome and meet our landlady while I am there!
Blessing #5: The director of my ESL class didn't seem too bothered that I am missing the first 2 days of class.

Hopefully I walk away from this experience with a job, but even if I don't, it has really shown me how blessed we are!

3rd Grade

2010-06-04T13:46:00.001-07:00

(More coming soon about the last day of school)

I just wanted to clarify that *tear!* in the previous post really translated into: *many tears*sob*more tears*sob*sob*... etc.

And the process repeats itself every time I get an email from a parent telling me that their son/daughter misses school.

I miss those kids.

Our timeline

2010-05-17T18:07:00.001-07:00

7 1/2(school) Days left of 3rd Grade at Canyon *Tear!*
13 Days until we go to AZ
39 Days until Natalie is ESL endorsed
44 Days until we go to OR
56 Days until we leave Provo on our cross-country trek
58 Days until we start our next adventure

...in NASHVILLE TENNESSEE!

A to Z book

2010-04-28T15:22:00.000-07:00

Throughout the year my students make several class books. I especially love doing A to Z books. Most recently we made A to Z books for the secretaries at our school (Mrs. Higginson is Awesome, Beautiful, etc). Each kid gets a different letter and it makes it more fun to read rather than having all the kids do the same thing.

We were reading an A to Z artifact book that had all sorts of different historical artifacts, so we made our own 2010 A to Z artifact book. The criteria was: 1. What is it? 2. What is it used for? 3. Who uses it? This is some of what they came up with: (I thought they were hilarious, and in some cases very clever)

A is for Apple. We uss apples for snaks. Apples have been around for a long time.

B is for Base (Bass). It is So tall it is hard to play! You play it with musicians at a place. Anytime you want.

C is for Camal (camel). a camal is ugly. and fat. and stoopid. and lets people ride on them.
(We only talk about capitalization EVERY DAY. Not to mention complete sentences... c'mon kid)

E is for Easter Eggs. Lots of people use easter eggs because it is a holaday! Lots of people use them a lot. Lots of places.

F is for Fish. Pleople used fish for oil to keep their skin from becomeing dry. Ther are a lot of kid of fish in the world. Fish oil is used in peels too. They have been around a long time. They live in rivers, seas, lakes, and ponds.

I is for Ice Cream. Ice cream is A flavored liquid frozen. Boys and girls use ice cream. It has been around for tons of years.

K is for Killowate. scientists use if for lights and phones.

M is for Megaphone. A person who talks to a large crowd uses one of these. It's like a cone, or electric device that amplifies the sound of a voise. You can use it at places such as track meats, circuses, and places with large crowds to get their attention. I don't know how long it's been around.
(haha an 8 year old who uses "device" and "amplifies." There's 1 in every class)

N is for Naked. A person without clothes. You will be in your home. You would be without clothes, uncovered, nude. You would be naked when you are in the shower.

P is for Platashin 3 (playstation3) It is the best. it has games. it is kool. I dont care when it was made.

R is for Ravioli. it is a type of pasta. It was started in Italy. lots of people use it. and like it.

T is for Treat. Some thing that is very good and tastey. Everyone likes this.

I love 3rd grade.

Brian's Graduation

2010-04-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

Brian graduated! We didn't do a very good job of getting pictures, we may add some more later when we get them from various family members off of their cameras.

We started off the day with a very exclusive breakfast (only 3 graduates and their families were invited). It was put on by the Honor's Program, and Brian got invited because he had been selected as the student speaker for commencement (the other students were speaking at the Honor's Luncheon). The food was delicious!

We went straight from the breakfast to a run-through at the Marriot Center. I had a fun time acting like paparazzi and taking pictures of Brian. :)

The two graduates!

After the run-through, there was an Honors Luncheon and then there was the Commencement ceremony! Brian got to sit in a small pavilion with President Samuelson and all the other big-wigs while all the graduates promenaded past.

Here's a picture of him on the stand with all the dignitaries after they came into the Marriot Center. He said that Elder Christofferson's body guard was disguised as a dean sitting right behind the apostle! (he was the only "dean" with a pistol and an earpiece...)
Brian did a fantastic job on his talk!

We got a picture with Elder Christofferson and President Samuelson after the ceremony, but not on our camera.... so stay tuned!

Congrats Brian! Only 9+ years of education left.... ;)

Book Review

2010-04-09T11:40:00.001-07:00

If you know us, you know that we love books. Despite our recent oath to NOT buy any more books, we caved and bought a few... but honestly, they are such good books, we couldn't resist. Here are some of our more recent acquisitions and recommendations:

Ranger's Apprentice Book 1: "The Ruins of Gorlan"

I know, it does look a little creepy. But the story is definitely not as dark as the cover. I wouldn't recommend it for young children, but maybe 6th grade and up, just because of the fancy language (I came to a word I had never seen before!)

These books have kind of a Lord of the Rings feel, but they are much more accessible. It is set in medieval times, and a group of orphans receive their apprenticeship assignmnets. Young Will wants to go to Battle School but is too small, so he becomes the Ranger's apprentice....

There are 7 books in this series, the 8th one comes out in the US later this summer, and I believe the author is planning to write at least 10. ooooh I can't wait!

The Heir Series: Book 1 "The Warrior Heir"

This is a really interesting series. This is more of teenage/adult fiction (I know!! Who thought I would read anything except children's literature?). It is similar to the "Percy Jackson" series in that it is about an adolescent boy who finds out that he is not as normal as he grew up thinking. This knowledge unleashes a host of enemies that hunt for him. It is similar to "Hunger Games" in that there are characters that are basically being trained to be gladiators.

Brian and I both read "The Warrior Heir" on the plane ride to Nashville. It is thrilling, suspenseful, and entertaining! I haven't read the next two books "The Wizard Heir" and "The Dragon Heir," but I have high expectations.

Kaleidescope

2010-04-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

So here's a kaleidoscope of what has been going on with the Wrights in the last few months:

Avatar

We saw Avatar in IMAX 3-D and we loved it! Brian bought the soundtrack online minutes after we got home and we've already pre-ordered the Blu-ray (even though we don't have a blu-ray disc player... hmmm can you tell what our next big purchase will be?)

Disneyland/California Road Trip

We had an awesome road trip to California, thanks to Tucson's Rodeo Break (my siblings were off.... I actually had to take off a few days of school)! Brian drove the whole 10 hours to Anaheim!
We LOVE Disneyland!
10 minute wait for Space Mountain? Brian has died and gone to heaven.
We also got to visit the Science Museum at USC and snuck over to get a picture by the Coliseum.

When we returned to Home Sweet Home, it didn't seem so sweet... Will spring ever come?
3rd Grade
Teaching is going great! I really love my job. My 3rd graders are 31 of the most awesome kids ever and we have a blast every day discovering new things. We are reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" for read aloud and it is so fun for me when they raise their hand in the middle and say "I have a connection..." or "I want to make an inference..."It is so awesome how they see themselves as readers and they feel so grown up analyzing literature. They are so proud of themselves and it is so cute.
We got to go on a sweet field trip to the Clarke Planetarium in Salt Lake! Brian even got to come (he's taking the picture).

Vanderbilt
Right after the field trip, I sent my students back on the bus with a sub and Brian and I took off to the airport. We had an awesome time at Vanderbilt's 2nd Look Weekend!

We spent the first morning walking around checking out the various housing options. We found a place named after our good friends, the Hamiltons! Maybe if we lived here, it might blunt the sting of moving so far away from them? ;)

We were exhausted by the time we had walked all day, and extremely disappointed with the fact that the fancy hotel that Vanderbilt put us up in had NO POOL! boo.

It's too bad we didn't take more pictures while we were at Vanderbilt. We actually had a blast! Especially the night that everyone else went out drinking and we got to play volleyball for 3 hours with all the other students who didn't want to drink! :)

The only "grumpy point" of the weekend was the fact that I was not invited to any part of the second-look-weekend besides the banquets. Brian even tried to get me a free t-shirt (they were giving them out to all the prospective students) and they wouldn't let him have one! Yet... there was another married couple there and she tagged along to the all-day events! Still, I wasn't too bugged by it because I got to sleep in (wonder of wonders), lounge around the hotel, watch Harry Potter on ABC, and I even went out and bought Krispy Kreme donuts. It wasn't a bad day. :)

Addiction

2010-02-21T19:21:00.000-08:00

We recently found a quote that describes us pretty well:

"When I get a little money I buy books, and if there is any left, I buy food and clothes." --Erasmus

To illustrate:

Brian is putting together a spreadsheet where we can keep track of our budgeting/finances. He was especially excited about the charts he rigged up to show our expenses (since I am a very visual person). I went to look at it on the computer and this is what I saw:

That's right. For those of you with poor eyesight (that legend is really small!), the yellow section is "books." Compare that to the purple section, which is "food." I am thinking "woah, we have a real problem!"

But then Brian told me that he had just taken a break and was not even close to finished entering data for the other categories. So this chart isn't exactly accurate.... (but it's funny).

But I still think we have a book addiction problem. People are seriously going to hate us when it comes time to help us move.

Catch up!

2010-01-24T14:52:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it's already February! But my neighbors still have their Christmas tree up (it's covered in valentines-day themed ornaments now), I figure it's not too late to post about our Christmas break...

We had so much fun in Tucson! Brian was officially initiated into the Evan's boys brothership, as he received his very own "Ultra-Saber" on Christmas morning:He can now duel in realistic hand-to-hand lightsaber combat with James (17), Clark (15), and Michael (9). :) Unfortunately, the ultra-saber had to be left in Tucson because it wouldn't fit in our checked baggage and I don't think the airport personnel would let him carry it on. We'll have to wait until May when we drive down to get it.

Brian was also privileged to experience several of Dad's "bike trips." Between two excursions, they rode over 60 miles together in the beautiful Tucson desert.

Here's Brian after donning all the gear:

...and off he goes!

My favorite part of the trip was hiking Picacho Peak (the site of the only civil war battle fought in the west). It takes about 2 hours to reach the peak and 2 hours to get back down.

at the base

at the peak

I wish we had taken more pictures as we went, because it is a fun hike! There are parts that are so steep, they have installed wire cables to hold onto as you climb up the rock.

We saw a lot of UofA fans on the hike, and of course we were all decked out in our BYU gear (BYU had beat the UofA basketball team the day before, with Jimmer Fredette breaking several records during the game). We heard all kinds of comments-- mostly positive ones about what a great team BYU has. :)

Another fun part of our stay in Tucson was dodgeball. Almost daily, we would go down to the church gym and play our version of dodgeball (I think my siblings have named it "fungus"). It is a blast to play or watch. Basically 2 teams throw things at each other and if you get hit, you go to the other team, until everyone is on the same team. It's great because everyone wins in the end!

We can't wait until we are in Tucson next! Even though it will be a bit warmer...

DELAYED-- our new favorite word.

2009-12-23T21:27:00.000-08:00

Holy. Worst. Experience. Flying. Ever.

We got to the SLC Airport 2 1/2 hours early because there was a storm coming in and we wanted Alene (who was SO nice to drive us to the airport) to be able to get back to Provo before it hit. (not to mention get back in time to watch the Las Vegas Bowl Game)

Our plane was delayed in getting there. Of course. But it eventually came and we only boarded 15 minutes late. We were thinking "great! we will still be able to make our connecting flight in Las Vegas!" We taxied out to the run way..... then sat there for an hour. Yes, delayed 1 hour. The storm just kept getting worse and they had to de-ice the plane for a while. Just when we thought we would be stuck there all night, they were able to take off. We were starting to get a little nervous about making our connecting flight. We talked to a flight attendant about it but he was not helpful, even a little bit RUDE.

(Sub plot: Brian was by the window and I was in the middle. Our flight was full and an older woman sat next to me who smelled r e a l l y w e i r d. On top of that, she ordered coffee, which I cannot abide the smell of. Not a good combination...)

Due to adverse weather conditions, our 1-hour flight took 2 hours. We had long since given up hope of making our connecting flight. Also due to adverse weather conditions, our flight was more like a roller coaster/elevator on steroids. I am not usually prone to motion sickness, but combined with all the lovely odors coming from the woman next to me, I was rather ill. I will spare you the details, but I will say that I hope I never have to use the little white bags in the seat-back pockets again.

But wait. The drama is not over! We landed in Vegas. If you were watching the Las Vegas Bowl Game BYU vs. Oregon State, you know that Vegas was experiencing winds upwards of 60 mph. Apparently winds like that make it hard to fly airplanes, so the Vegas airport only had 1 runway open. The place was mass chaos. Every flight was delayed. We had completely missed our flight to Pheonix, but after a lot of talking and negotiating, we were finally able to get stand-by tickets on a later flight, that also got delayed.

I still wasn't feeling well but sweet Brian braved the mobs and bought me over-priced food and very over-priced motion sickness medicine (the drowsy kind), which knocked me out until we arrived in Pheonix at 11:15 pm (3 hours after we should have been there). I hope I am worth it.

We got to the baggage claim and couldn't find any information about our flight. Finally, an announcement came on: "Passengers of flight 3926, your baggage has been delayed. Thank you for your patience."

By the time we got our baggage it was midnight. My poor grandparents who were picking us up! We are so grateful that they were willing to come get us!

We are just glad that we've finally made it to Tucson. It was a rough trip-- and it's debatable if it would have been faster to drive or not-- but I'm just glad we're here!

Birthday Bash

2009-12-22T14:55:00.000-08:00

It was my birthday on Saturday! Brian was the best-- he did an hour and a half of dishes for me! He also surprised me with a book-- "Peter and the Sword of Mercy." It's the 4th book in a series... and until recently I thought that the series was a trilogy! I am excited to read it on our flight (we are actually in the airport right now, 1 hour to go before our flight leaves).

We didn't eat breakfast because we went to Tucanos Brazilian Grill for lunch. We ONLY go there when one of us has a free birthday meal, and we only go for lunch, because it's cheaper for the person who has to pay for their meal. Yay for being poor students! But Tucanos is amazing. There's a buffet-style salad and pasta bar that you visit as many times as you want and then waiters come around with about 10 different kinds of meats (and pineapple) grilled on an open flame. My favorite is the pineapple. There is a cylinder on each table that has red and green on the ends and that's how you show the waiters that you want more grilled meats or if you want them to stop bringing them. So towards the end of the meal, Brian and I put it on the red side, but whenever we saw the pineapple coming, we would switch it to green. The waiter started making fun of us! (We didn't even need to eat dinner that night, we ate so much! I'm sure that wasn't very healthy to gorge ourselves that way, but it was SO good!)

After Tucanos we did laundry.... SO glamorous.....

But then we went to Salt Lake for the Eclipse Christmas Concert. If you've never heard of this group, go here and listen to "We 3 Kings." They are such a fun group to see in concert! Brian even bought me 2 of their CDs!

So now I'm officially 23.... I need to remember that, I keep forgetting how old I am because I don't tell my students my age. They spend all year guessing, then I tell them on the last day. But every once in a while I have to stop and think wait, how old am I?

I am excited to see what will happen in this next year of my life. There will be a lot of big decisions to make and a lot of changes, with Brian finishing at BYU and starting Medical School. We will probably make the choice of where we are going in March, move out of Provo in July, and Brian will start school again in August. Hopefully I will be teaching.... but who knows? It will be interesting to see where we are a year from right now. This year will definitely be an adventure!

Dear Santa,

2009-12-06T07:39:00.000-08:00

Macy's has partnered with the Make a Wish Foundation to donate $1 to them for every letter to Santa that they receive. So my class wrote letters to Santa Clause this week. Here are some of my favorites:

Thank you for the stuff you gave me last year. I hope I will have fun like last year. I rilly want to see a rain deer.

Nevermind the ear piercing from the email. I got it for my birthday. But I would like earrings now like pink blue green black white.

Do you get presents? I hope you have a WONDERFUL Christmas. I want books.

I want a family trip to Californya.

Do you like to go golfing. Have you gone of vacation to Hawaii. How many elfs do you have. How many children are there in the world.

Thank you for reading my other letter that I wrote. My sister gets to be one of your elfs in a play.

Can I have a elf for Christmas? Plese I will triy to be good a lot! I ascked you last yer! I mustf bin bad. sory.

I just want to say thank you for all the toys you have gave me the last few years and especially my baby alive. Merry Christmas

You are the nicest person in the world. I know Rosey and Buger, they are nice elfs and they always come to my house. how are you and mrs. clause. I’ve been having fun.

Apparently I need to teach them how to use question marks.

What I am thankful for

2009-11-22T16:04:00.001-08:00

With Thanksgiving coming up, I was thinking of some the things I am thankful for:

#1. I am thankful for BrianThis is Brian after eating a cream puff the size of his face

I am so blessed to be married to by best friend! He is everything to me! He makes me laugh and laughs with me. He plays the piano and violin with me. He explains the finer points of football to me. He listens to my endless stories of third grade. He plays frisbee with me. He is patient with me in every situation. He respects me and honors me. He tells me everyday that he loves me. He tells me that the macaroni and cheese tastes great even when the sauce comes out lumpy. He keeps me warm when I am cold, which is most of the time. He puts up with me talking (and singing) in my sleep. He tells me I'm beautiful when I don't feel like I am. He encourages me to be my best and inspires me to be even better. He is the best husband I could ask for. What would I do without him?!

#2. I am thankful for my family

I am so blessed to be part of such a wonderful group of people! The Wrights, the Evans, the Oldhams, and everyone in between! I am thankful to have so many people who love and support me and are such great examples to me.

#3. I am thankful for the temple

The temple is such a beautiful place where such beautiful ordinances are performed! I am so thankful that our Heavenly Father has provided such a great plan to help us to return to him. I am thankful for the eternal truths that I can learn when I go to the temple. I am thankful that I can serve my brothers and sisters by going to the temple and serving to unite families forever. I am thankful that I can be with those I love forever because I have been sealed to my parents, my brothers and sisters, and my sweet husband for time and all eternity.

#4. I am thankful for good friends

I can't put a picture for this one because inevitably I would leave someone out. I feel so blessed to be friends with such amazing people. I work with amazing people at school who are always there for me and love me even when I'm not perfect. They help me "lower my affective filter." :) I also have so many great friends in our complex and ward. Just this week while Brian has been gone, someone has invited me over every night to make sure I wasn't feeling lonely. They are such great examples to me of loving service. I am thankful for wonderful neighbors who are our great friends. I am thankful for those friends who, even though we don't see each other often, are always there-- all of those friends who can pick up our friendships right where we left off, no matter how much time has passed. I am so thankful for all of my friends-- they are all wonderful examples of strength, endurance, kindness, and service.

#5. I am thankful for my job

These are my students eating noodles with chopsticks. We were reading a story about a girl from China.

I have the best job in the world! Every day is different and exciting. I love my students to pieces (even when they drive me crazy!). I am so thankful to be a teacher and learn so much from these fun boys and girls. I love watching them learn. I love seeing their curiosity grow. I love it when they find that book that sparks a love of reading inside them. And I love reading Harry Potter to them on the rug.

Great Books

2009-11-21T17:27:00.000-08:00

I just read a great series! I actually read the first one because I was going to have one of my higher-level guided reading groups read it at school (it is about a 4th grade level). After that I got hooked. I'm not going to lie, the cover initially turned me off:
but this particular book definitely proves the adage "don't judge a book by it's cover" true. It is about a group of people who live in a village beneath a forbidden mountain. Because their culture puts a lot of value on strength and courage, Rowan is looked down upon for his timidity and small, weak stature.

In the first book, "Rowan of Rin," the river running down from the mountain goes dry. The village wise woman, Sheba, gives them a prophesy/riddle to solve that will help a small group navigate their way up the mountain.

Seven hearts the journey make,

Seven ways the hearts will break.

Bravest heart will carry on,

When sleep is death, and hope is gone.

Look in the fiery jaws of fear

And see the answer white and clear,

Then throw away all thoughts of home

For only then your quest is done.

In each book there is an adventure, usually guided only by Sheba's seemingly confusing and helpless prophesies. Each one is a great read!

The series is in this order:

Rowan of Rin
Rowan and the Travellers
Rowan and the Keeper of the Crystal
Rowan and the Zebak
Rowan of the Bukshah (Alternate title: Rowan and the Ice Creepers)

I particularly enjoyed these books because they were quick reads (around 150-200 pages-- I read each one in 1-2 evenings), but they were still intricate and exciting. I think Emily Rodda does a fantastic job of developing her characters and setting, even in such short books. I highly reccomend these books to anyone who enjoys fantasy and adventure!

Halloween

2009-11-01T18:43:00.000-08:00

We love Halloween!

Despite the fact that we both woke up feeling under-the-weather (which resulted in not being able to spend the evening with our good friends the Hamiltons... sad day!), we still were able to take part in a few Halloween Traditions:

Carving Pumpkins

Costumes!

And, of course, Garfield's Halloween

Ingenious Contraption

2009-11-01T18:03:00.001-08:00

On Saturday, we figured out that we had probably put too much oil in our car... like 3 quarts too much oil... but we weren't quite sure. Our new Mazda's dipstick is absurdly hard to read. It's a long story with lots of details that no one really cares about, so we'll just say that we're pretty sure we thought it was empty so we added 3 quarts, and now we're thinking it was probably full to begin with.

So, being the self-reliant (not to mention "poor") students that we are, we had the great idea to rig up a homemade device to suck some of the oil out. The device would involve some rubber tubing from Lowe's and a baby nose-sucker from WalMart.

We drove all the way to Lowe's and were walking in when we realized that neither of us had our wallets (aka no $). We decided to check to see if they even had what we were looking for. They did. It cost 9 cents per foot. Dilemma: do we drive all the way home to get a quarter or do we search the floors of Lowe's until we've found all the loose change people have dropped? We searched the floors for about 5 minutes as we walked from the back of the store to the front doors, then drove home. We considered asking random people if they had any spare change. It's too bad we didn't have a spare Santa suit, a bell, and a Salvation Army bucket in our trunk.

We eventually did acquire the needed materials and produced the world's most inefficient oil-sucker. It took us about 45 minutes to suck out about a quarter of a quart.

We finally decided to take it to Jiffy Lube on Monday and have them drain all the oil and put in the right amount, just so we can be sure.

A New Member of the Family

2009-10-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

We've been wanting one for a while.....

We haven't decided on a name yet.....

We finally got an amazing deal on the car of our dreams: a 2008 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback. This car is just the color and has the features that we wanted. Our car broker got it at an auction last week and we were finally able to pick it up from his house on Wednesday night. So far, we have been enjoying the sunroof way too much and the nice sound system.

There was some early drama with the car, as it was leaking oil faster than Rocky was leaking blood during his fight with the Russian man of steel. We took it back to the shop and they had put the wrong oil filter in (which is what we thought happened). They fixed it in an hour. The whole time we were surrounded by Latino children running around, drawing pictures, and offering us candy that had fallen out of their mouth onto the floor.... At least we got the car fixed, even though we felt like minorities in our own country.

We're not used to driving a sporty-looking car yet, so we feel pretty nifty every time we climb into it. Fortunately, we do a pretty good job of sharing the joy of driving it, so we don't have to set out defined custody agreements and times.

Baylor College of Medicine

2009-10-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: This blog was written a couple of weeks ago but due to technical complications was not uploaded in a timely manner.

After waiting around the Columbus airport for forever (9/24), I finally boarded my plane for Houston. The plane made a brief stop at the Chicago-Midway airport, so naturally the seven of us continuing on to Houston made a mad scramble for the good seats (front windows) once we were done being counted. An old lady ended up sitting next to me on the plane, and we started talking during the flight because she kept spilling her food on me. She started telling me all about her granddaughter who was studying at some Texas university, minoring in Religion so she could go be a missionary somewhere. I told her that I was a missionary in Russia for two years without even having minored in Religion. She had all sorts of questions about that, but it seemed that when she found out that I went to school in Utah she stopped being so curious. Oh well.

I got a ride on SuperShuttle to get from Hobby airport to my host’s apartment. There were only two other people on the shuttle with me and, oddly enough, one of them was some lady from Orem going to some ultrasound conference (she worked in a hospital). So it really seems that I can’t escape from Utah Valley regardless of wherever I go. My host people were really nice (a married couple from BYU), and I just ended up watching “The Office” and “Jeopardy” with them the whole evening while I prepped for my interview.

I rode the light rail transit system into the Texas Medical Center (TMC) Friday morning and was completely amazed at how large the center was! It seemed that TMC should stand for Texas Medical City, because it was definitely larger than some cities that I had been in! If I felt like a little flea at Ohio State, I definitely felt like a tiny electron being bounced around in that big city. I walked around and took pictures of the area (something I actually got into trouble for later on by some of the police… they said I looked like a terrorist taking pictures and could get into trouble with homeland security…. Spending a night—or lifetime—in jail would be a great to impress Baylor!). My interview day didn’t start until noon (and I left at 7:45 when the host-husband-person left for his classes), so I sat around a lot. I saw a lot of applicants interviewing at the neighboring UT-Houston medical school. They got those cool backpacks with the drawstrings! And all I got was a name badge. Not fair, but in a just world they will end up paying for it through their tuition.

The monstrosity Texas Medical Center

More of the medical suburb inside Houston

There were about 50 applicants being interview at Baylor that day, so I was definitely in a big group. After stuffing us with pizza and tons of information about the school, we had a three-hour block where we had two 30-minute interviews. My first interview was with a faculty member who must have been from Nepal or India or something (I’m not an expert, unless he would have been Russian). He had lots of questions about my mission in Russia and wanted to know what a typical day was like. At the end I asked him how he balances his career as a physician with his family (and also how he did it in medical school). It seems that he wasn’t the most qualified person to answer that question, because he told me he sacrificed and left his family to go to medical school because he knew he wouldn’t be able to divide up his time properly (though he is married). Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! You can’t divide up your time properly so you just completely cut them off? He was happy with his choice, but I definitely won’t be following his example in that way. At the end of the interview, he said that he would be excited to have me at Baylor and his comments to the rest of the admissions committee would be towards that end. : )

My second interview was with a medical student on the admissions committee. Towards the end of the interview he asked if there was anything else that I wanted to tell him about myself that wasn’t on my application. I told the thrilling story of when I was biking in the Columbia River gorge and did not know that my brake was dragging on my front wheel for 29 out of the 30 miles that we rode (this is the cliff-notes version). After I finished he said, “Wow! Did you rehearse that? If that was off the cuff then that was pretty impressive. I can definitely tell you have some background with literature.” I thought that was kind of funny because it’s not like I sat down the night before and planned out that story. Yeah, I’ve told it before but it’s not something I always keep in my back pocket in case a dull moment comes my way. As we were walking out of the room he said how much he enjoyed my story (at least I know that it will stick in brain and give him something to remember me by when he reports to the rest of the committee) and would look forward to having me with a colleague. Hopefully both of these interviewers weren’t just saying that to everyone, because it definitely lets me gauge how well they thought the interview went.

We had several tours of the metropolis known as the Texas Medical Center afterwards and we were finally done with our day at around 7:15. I ran over to the McDonald’s on the main floor of the heart hospital (what a great location for a place that fills you with cholesterol the second you step through the door) for dinner before getting picked up by my student host. It was here that I realized that my name in Texas is not "Bri-an" but rather "Brahn." The cashier did not recognize my name when I said it. After I repeated it, he asked "Brahn?" "Uh... yeah."

Overall I think that the trip to Baylor went pretty well. I was pretty disappointed with it at first (when I first arrived at TMC) because it seemed pretty impersonal and immense, filled with great and spacious buildings everywhere. However, once I got to the medical college, met the students, and got to know more about Baylor I started to feel much more excited about it. Thus, this is a perfect example of why it is so important to interview at the school and keep your feelings open so you can get a feel if the school is right for you or not.

I woke up at 3:30am Saturday morning to catch my 4:00am shuttle to the airport (the driver asked if I was "Mr. Brahn"...). I had never flown on Frontier airlines before, and it was quite the adventure! Each airplane is painted with a different animal on it and so I felt like I was walking into a zoo onboard. Everything from the flaps to the landing gear was creaky, and so at first I worried that the monkeys had gotten loose and tinkered with everything, but we flew safely. At the end of the flight, our pilot let us know that “Sal the Cougar” (the mascot of our plane, apparently) was grateful that we flew with them that morning. I saw the other Frontier planes when we pulled into Denver to switch planes, and I was scouting out which animal I would want to ride on next. It turns out that I got stuck with Jack the Snowshoe hare. Not as cool as Sal the Cougar. I got into Provo at 9:30am, just in time to get picked up from the airport, beat traffic back home, and get ready for the BYU-CSU game! Thus ended my long road trip, finishing the second interview of my double-header. Baylor will start informing the applicants that they accept starting on 10/16, informing a few every week, working their way down their rankings list. So the sooner I hear back from them, the better!

My Hero

2009-10-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

My little sister is one of the most amazing people! She is kind, selfless, caring, patient, and always willing to help. I feel bad because sometimes I get grumpy around her because she is so good at so many things that I am trying to work on myself. But she is always sweet and patient with me.

Sarah has been called to serve in the California, Fresno mission speaking Spanish (exotic, yet domestic)! She flew up to Provo on Friday with my parents. My parents left on Sunday and I got to be my sister's companion for 2 days until she reported to the Missionary Training Center. It was fun to have her tagging along to my class and the different errands I had to run. She took her scriptures with her everywhere and read, because she was determined to finish the Book of Mormon before she reported to the MTC.

I was pretty much in denial the whole time. I kept thinking "she is going to be living literally down the street from my house for 8 weeks while she learns how to teach in Spanish." I just ignored the little detail that I won't be able to see her or speak to her even though she is that close...

We dropped her off at 8am on Wednesday, so I could get to my school by 8:30. That was when it hit me. My baby sister is going on a mission! I can write her letters, but I won't be able to see her for A YEAR AND A HALF. I know it will go quickly, but so many things are going to happen in that year and a half. Moving, medical school.... and who knows what else.

I am so excited for Sarah, she is going to be a fantastic missionary.

Prayer in Schools

2009-10-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said:

'Let me see if I've got this right.
'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.
'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.
'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.
'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams.
'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.
'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps.
'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?'

I love teaching! And it does take a lot of (silent) prayer to get through the day!

Going Nuts in Columbus

2009-10-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

So, once again, poor Natalie had to wake up with me way before the crack of dawn in order to take me to the airport. Before we left for the airport, though, I checked our e-mail and saw that I received an invitation from Washington University in St. Louis to interview there on 10/20! That was exciting and I hoped it would prove to be a good omen for the remainder of the trip.

My flight to Columbus was surprisingly uneventful and I waited around the airport for an hour or so for the Leales (our friends. Yes, we do have some! I used to be their home teacher--twice) to come rescue me from the airport. Natalie and I had considered buying them a gift card to Chilis restaurant as a "thank you." However, it's a good thing that we did not go that route because I was sitting right by a Chilis in the airport and doubtless would have consumed the gift card on my own guilty pleasures (the chicken tenders with honey mustard... mmmm....).

Later that night when I checked my e-mail I discovered interview invitation numero dos: from Michigan! So far that day I had been two for two on opening my e-mail and getting an invitation. Unfortunately that easy pattern has been broken the last week or so as I have not heard anything else. Of course, only when Michigan sees me going to interview at their rival's campus would they send me an invitation.... Whatever. I'll deal with them on 11/13 when I go to Ann Arbor for my interview.

It turned out that the following day, the day of my interview, was Jimmy Leale's first day of dental school classes. So I, being the dutiful home teacher, flew all the way out to Columbus so that I could escort Jimmy to his first day of classes and make sure that he got to campus alright. I'm sure if word got out about this it would end up in some inspirational story in the Ensign or General Conference. Anyway, so I walked around campus for awhile. I felt like a little flea walking around the huge campus. I also felt like a tourist taking all sorts of pictures of campus, until I realized that it was the first day of school for all of the undergrad students. So instead of a tourist, I just looked like a helpless freshman taking pictures of his lecture buildings so he can find them the following day (I think I prefer looking like a tourist).

Mirror Lake. This is where everyone jumps in during the week of the OSU-Michigan game. They really are "nuts" here at OSU.

The interview day went pretty well. I got a nifty shoulder bag with a logo on it that basically cries that it, the bag, the user, the user's family, and the user's dog are all property of Ohio State (think I should wear that around Michigan?). There was another BYU student interviewing there, as well, as seems to be the trend. We had several information sessions for the first two hours or so, had lunch, took a tour of the area, and then waited in the conference room for our interviewers to come get us. My first interview was with a med student on the admissions committee. It turns out that he is from Ogden, so he actually knew where Provo is! That interview was only 20 minutes, which was surprising. Up until that interview I had been wondering if I had made a mistake in making my application so unique (emphasizing my Russian background and interests). I thought that maybe I had come across as some sort of freak (which fact I am trying to hide until I am accepted...). However, this interviewer went off about how much he loved my application and personal statement because it was unique and like a breath of fresh air. I had been reviewing it the night before and came across something about my research in Russian literature that I should find a concrete example for. So I came up with one at that time, and then during the interview the interview asked for a specific example of the very thing that I had thought of. Whew! So I felt that it went pretty well overall.

Okay, I didn't actually take this picture, but I like it because it shows the medical center (left side) and the building where my interview day was (front right).

I had a 30 minute break until my faculty interviewer came in to get me. We spent the first couple of minutes just talking about the Northwest and hiking/doing outdoors stuff there. I told him how my brother Bill and I had hiked up to the edge of the crater of Mt. St. Helens and that he should do it too as long as he doesn't fall in and get incinerated. He also said how much he enjoyed my application. He mainly talked about how well-balanced he felt that I was as an applicant and asked me some questions about the various things I've been doing. At the end of the interview (it was about 45 minutes), he went off about how much he loves BYU students. He said that "they are so mature and go on their missions and learn so much about themselves." I tried to be nice and score some extra points for the home team by saying that it says a lot about their program that they value BYU students so much, because it indicates the kinds of values that they focus on. I hadn't really thought about it in that sense until then, and so I started to feel better about the fact that there are so many BYU students there. He also told me how much of a BYU football fan he has become, cheering for the little guy (is that supposed to be a compliment?). He asked, "Who did you guys play last week?" "Uh, Florida State," I replied with a wince. "Oh yeah! That was such a physical game! I didn't know who was going to win until the very end!" It then dawned on me that he was referring to the Oklahoma game, because those would not be the 18 words I would use to describe the FSU game (if you went back and counted those words, shame on you). However, I didn't want to burst his bubble (or get rejected). He also said it was great when we burst into a BCS bowl game a few years ago. This time, not only did I not want to get rejected, I did not want to give Utah any more credit. Anyway, the whole day went pretty well and I came to like Ohio State a lot better than I did before I came.

The Leales showed me around Columbus later in the evening. We went to a German restaurant that had cream puffs the size of my face! I couldn't pass up an experience of a life time, eating one of the 8 wonders of the world, so I had to order one and test my prowess at eating such a monumental conglomeration of fatty acids and carbohydrates.

The next morning I was dropped off at the airport, where I waited for my flight to Houston for my interview at Baylor! I had a great time at Ohio State and had fun staying with the Leales. They showed me the wonders of Columbus and taught me many important things, such as the fact that a "buckeye" is a poisonous nut. Oh well. I guess even though a wolverine may eat it eventually, its victory will be short-lived. I guess that's the strength of a buckeye.

I won't hear back from Ohio State until after 10/16, so after then we'll see if I get in!

Un-cle BRI-AN

2009-09-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite pictures from our adventures this summer (taken at the Keldsen's house during the Wright Family Reunion). Paige was absolutely enamored with Un-cle Bri-an.

"Uncle Brian, will you marry me?" --Paige Keldsen

The pen is mightier than the pencil

2009-09-23T16:10:00.000-07:00

Today my students made a class book titled "Unfinished Proverbs." I gave them the first half of a common saying and they had to complete it. This is what some of them wrote:

The early bird... wacks up so early.
It's the squeaky wheel that... is squeaky.
A rolling stone gathers... lots of snow.
No news is... a diashish. (I have no idea)
When the blind lead the blind... they get lost.
Too many cooks... bake to much food.
Where there is smoke... it reminds me of whispopping and burping. (whizpopping is passing gas for those of you who haven't read Roald Dahl's The BFG)
Never underestimate... pizza!
It's always quietest... at DEAR. (drop everything and read)
Every cloud has... some rain inside.
Happy is the bride who... marries the best guy.
All that glitters is... underwear. (insert 3rd grader illustration of diamond-studded briefs)

and my favorite:

The pen is mightier than... the pencil.

Music City Mania

2009-09-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

So once again poor Natalie had to drop me off at the Salt Lake City airport during the wee hours of the morning so I could make my 7:10am flight. However, apparently everyone else in the area decided to fly out at around that time, as well, since the security line stretched for about a mile. Sadly, I arrived at my gate just after my boarding group started to board, so I had to jump in behind everyone else like a second-class citizen despite the status my boarding pass confered upon me. We changed planes in Phoenix, and then headed to Nashville, TN! Due to my superior punctuality skills I was an "A" boarder, so I got to pick out a good seat on the plane before the majority of other passengers. I picked a good window seat and then tried to puff myself up as big as possible so as to discourage any other potential-seat neighbors from sitting next to me. To my surprise, it actually seemed to be working! People kept walking by me, searching for other seats. When I scared the last guy off (or so I thought), a skinny guy with long hair, I discovered that the people who walked by me were still looking for a seat. So, unfortunately, a large man was forced to sit next to me. I felt like crying out, "Skinny guy! Come back!" because it definitely would have made for a more comfortable flight. So it was at this point where I determined that I am an unfortunate size for traveling. I am large enough that any plane seat I am in is uncomfortable, yet I am not so big as to scare everyone away from me. Oh well.

I knew that I had arrived in Nashville when the first song I heard off the plane was "I should have been a cowboy," sung by some guy in an airport bar. I purchased my round-trip ticket from a shuttle service and waited at the curb for the shuttle to pick me up. Four of us got on the shuttle at first, and then the game of attrition began. One guy accidentally got on the wrong shuttle, and then another guy had not actually bought a ticket yet. So they both got booted off the bus (with a string of curses). The two of us surviving passengers then were finally able to leave the airport! We drove through downtown Nashville (right by the stadium where the Tennessee Titans play!) on our way to the Vanderbilt Medical Center. The shuttle driver explained all of the significant landmarks over the bus' speaker system. Both the other passenger and I were sitting right by the bus driver, so we could have heard him fine even without the speakers. One time I even asked him a question and he answered without using the speakers, and then when he was done answering my question went right back to talking over the speakers.

When I arrived at my student host's apartment, I couldn't find the key he hid for me, so I spent a good 45 minutes snooping around his apartment, peaking through the windows, and feeling under ledges. The whole time I was just hoping that the police wouldn't show up, but then I figured that the neighborhood was shady enough that the neighbors were probably already used to this kind of behavior. I finally found the key, dropped by bags off inside, and then walked around the Vanderbilt campus. I was on strict orders from Natalie to take pictures of the area, so I walked around with my camera like a total tourist. At one point I took a picture of the medical center and then looked over my shoulder. There was a medical student standing there with an evil grin on his face. He said, "It's just a hospital." So I kind of started to feel a little more self-conscious about my camera after that....

The whole campus is a National Arboretum, making it impossible to find your way to class.... The poor confused guy on the left is trying to figure out which path is "the road less traveled" since, apparently, "it (makes) all the difference."

This building puts any building on BYU campus to shame.

My interview the following day (Tuesday) went really well! There were about 12 students or so interviewing overall that day. My interview was scheduled for 9:00am, and so I checked in at the admissions office around 8:15. It turns out that there was another BYU student interviewing that same day! We later pieced together that our wives know each other and that, at one point, we were destined to hang out together. However, those plans fell apart and our destiny crumbled--or rather postponed until 9/15 and again 9/25 at Baylor at two of the randomest of all places. Anyway, so once again, it was interesting to see how well-represented BYU is at these medical school interviews!

The Medical Center. This is where I got humiliated.

An employee of the admissions office escorted me to my interview at 8:55. As we were walking across campus to where my interview would be (in the Children's Hospital), she asked me what I was studying. When I told her I was studying Russian, she asked "Ты говоришь по-русски?" ("Do you speak Russian?" for those of you who don't говорить по-русски... which is probably nearly everyone....). Then she asked if I had served my mission in Russia. I was pretty shocked, but it became increasingly clear that she was a member of the church (the fact that she served a mission in Kiev was what made me begin to suspect this... and the fact that she graduated from BYU-Idaho....). So it was definitely pretty random! I was hoping that it was a sign that everything else that day would be going my way. But was it?

My interview was with a pediatrician lady doctor in her office at their brand-new medical center. The interview lasted about 50 minutes and was the easiest and most laid-back interview so far! The whole interview really was just a conversation. We asked each other some questions, but mainly we were just talking freely back and forth. She asked me the same question that I got in Rochester: "How do you deal with stress?" I gave her the same answer, but this time made it clear that I do not suffer from chronic depression! :) I said that I can handle with external pressure really well but can be susceptable to internal pressures that I put on myself (but it was a much more refined, elaborate, and stunning answer, of course...). I am glad that I told her all of that because she commented that that was a very mature outlook. She was completely different from the last interview lady at Rochester--she actually smiled and laughed a lot during our interview! I almost started laughing when she asked me "What three words would your wife use to describe you?" When Natalie was driving me to the airport Monday morning, I asked her this very question because I knew it was a possible question that might come up. So I was just like, "Well, I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure she would say...". : ) Natalie definitely helped me score some major points, not only for the nifty words but also because the interviewer has a 3rd grade child, and so she loves 3rd grade teachers (something we had in common! Although, my interest there is only in the singular). She also laughed when I told her the story of Natalie teaching me violin lessons and how it seemed that I was totally just wanting to crawl back into Natalie's life. However, for the record, that was not the case. Well, not completely.

Overall, the interview went really well. My only potential stumble was when I was explaining what I meant by "efficient" (one of the words Natalie used to describe me). Initially I said that I was efficient in my school work. Then the interviewer asked, "Would she mean that you are efficient in allocating your time between school, church, and work? That you are able to find time to spend with her despite your varying responsibilities? That when you are home to be with her, you really are home to be with her?" I was just like, "Uh, yeah. Exac--exactly." So she threw me a bone there and totally answered the question for me! I will definitely have to use that answer next time. At the end of the interview, she seemed really happy and said that she had really enjoyed talking to me. So it was really well.

They took us on a tour of the medical center later on in the day (which is very nice!), and then another applicant and I had to leave early to catch our flights at the airport. I thought this other applicant already had a ticket for the shuttle, but I found out as we got on the bus that he did not. He did not have any cash, and the driver could not accept his credit card. However, she did not learn that he didn't have any cash until after we had left. So we drove around downtown Nashville looking for an ATM. We finally found one, but it wouldn't accept his card (stupid U.S. Bank). By this time he was starting to freak out because he didn't know how else he would get to the airport. I was sitting right behind the bus driver, so I leaned forward and asked her, "When we get to the airport, will you let him run into the ticket counter and by a ticket there with his card? You can hold onto his luggage so you will know he will bring the ticket back to you. That would make everyone happy." I was trying to stick up for the kid (it's amazing how much older a mission makes you as an applicant... everyone is so much younger!). However, apparently I am a better negotiator than I give myself credit for, because she ended up just letting him ride for free as long as we promised not to tell a soul. We zipped up our mouths and made it to the airport just in time to catch our flights.

The flight back went almost without incident (are any of my travels ever free of that?). I made the mistake of sitting in the row in front of the emergency exit row, so my chair would not recline. I then started to hope that whoever sat in front of me would not lean their chair back, or else I would be smooshed like many of the bugs that used to frequent our apartment! A lady (with a very thick southern accent) sat in the seat in front of me and her mom sat right next to her. The lady had a pillow with her and was telling the whole plane how she was going to sleep the whole way. I braced for the worst. However, I was pleased to see that for the first 20 minutes she didn't lean her seat back (I don't think she knew it reclined). Her mother, unfortunately, eventually leaned her seat back. I froze. A couple seconds later, the lady leaned her seat back, smashing me up against my lap top. The only thought that flashed through my mind was, "You're a bad example to your daughter, ma'am." So my flight back to Las Vegas was not one of luxury.

Then, as I was waiting for my flight from Las Vegas to SLC, I was facing the wall as I picked up my luggage and prepared to sit closer to my gate. As I picked up my bags, I heard someone behind me say, "Hey, you were my Genetics TA!" So it turns out that there was another BYU student coming from an interview, and I happend to be his old Genetics TA (I didn't know who he was). I had no idea that such a position would endow me with such immortality and glory. I had been looking forward to getting some homework done, but instead got stuck talking to him for 30 minutes. Then he called his wife to check in, and the first thing he said was, "I tried sending you a text message from 30,000 feet, but it wouldn't send for some reason." I thought he was joking at first, but realized that he was serious when his wife started chewing him out over the phone and he tried to defend himself. At that point I started to scoot away towards my place in the boarding line. Sweet Natalie picked me up, and my wonderful Vanderbilt adventures came to an end!

I really hope that I get accepted to Vanderbilt, as it seemed like an amazing place. Hopefully, if I do get accepted, I will get a lot of financial aid from them, as they give out pretty generous scholarships to some students! I fly out to Columbus, OH this Tuesday for a Wednesday interview at Ohio State, and then fly to Houston on Thursday for a Friday interview at Baylor. Quite the road trip! These are my last interviews for a while though, so Natalie will finally be able to get some sleep after this week!

The Return of Shelob

2009-09-06T20:26:00.000-07:00

One day recently Natalie and I were returning home from a long day in the real world of work and toil when the real adventure of our lives began (Read on at your own risk-- it gets pretty graphic). We walked up the steps into our stairwell when Natalie suddenly stopped. I was completely oblivious to everything around me (except Natalie, as always) and would have walked right into the trap if Natalie had not stopped. On the wall near our door was the biggest spider we had ever seen! We recognized it instantly from the blockbuster movie "The Return of the King" as the one and only Shelob, fully healed after her battle with Samwise Gamgee.

Can you see the resemblance?

It was pretty nasty. We stayed as far away from it as possible while we snuck into our apartment. Fortunately, it didn't pounce on us yet. Natalie armed me with the bug poison sprayer of death and then sent me out to do battle with the dreaded arachnoid (she followed me out with the camera to document our victory, finishing what Samwise the Brave failed to do).

None of us wanted to get particularly close to the monster, so we stood aways away and I doused the creature with poison for a good couple of minutes.

Apparently Shelob didn't think too highly of our actions, as she started to try to outmaneuver the stream of death that was soaking her by the second. Fortunately my aim was steady and true and so she couldn't shake me. However, after a couple of minutes we got tired of using the spray, and so I tossed it aside, grabbed a broomstick, and prepared to enter the arena of death and engage the spider mono y mono. Okay, I still had a broom, but she had 8 legs! And fangs! And that poison thingy! Luckily for me, I struck first.
This knocked the Terror down onto the mat right infront of our neighbors' door. Knowing that there were children inside, I didn't back down from the evil that was only a couple feet away from me. I took a big wind up with the broom and brought it down right on top of the merciless monster's head (and body and legs and poison thingy...). Apparently if only Sam had been standing above Shelob with a broom, he could have defeated her pretty easily in the movie. But that would have made a pretty lame scene. Anyway, thankfully that deft stroke finished off the creature, as she rolled over onto her back, curled her legs up, and gave up the ghost.

My death blow to Shelob was so mighty that our neighbor even came out to see the brave hero who finished her off. Well, on second thought, he was probably coming out to investigate what the big WHACK! was right outside his door. Regardless, we showed him the remains of the spider and we all marveled at the presence of such a monster in our stairwell. As victorious heroes often do, we discarded her carcass in the grass for the wild dogs and fowls of the air to feast upon. Wymount will sleep safely tonight thanks to the heroic efforts of two seemingly-ordinary residents.

Adventures in Rochester (NY)

2009-08-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

Poor Natalie had to wake up at 5:15 on Sunday morning to take me to the airport for my flight 7:14am flight out to Rochester, NY via Chicago (and she even picked me up the following night at 11:45! She must like me a lot!). I got to my gate around 6:55ish, but sadly our plane didn't make it for another two hours. Apparently, it was having a rough time getting going in the early morning because it was having trouble getting out of the hanger. We were all wondering if it was going to have a hard time getting up in the air and staying there, too. Randomly enough, another BYU student (with whom I worked and knew pretty well) was interviewing at the same place on the same day! So we talked for awhile. Needless to say, however, that the beginning of my first experience with United airlines was not a positive one. Apparently, our flight was on a tiny airplane (at least it had jet engines) that looked more like a missile with wings. The flight crew consequently gate checked large carry-ons (my poor bag included). However, they told me (and nobody else this) to try and see if mine would fit. My seat was in the back of the plane, so I got to walk by everyone on my way to my spot. It seemed that everyone in the aisle felt obligated to tell me that my bag was too big and that I needed to gate check it (did they not hear everyone else chastizing me too?). Even one of the flight attendants had to tell me off. Fortunately, even the guy behind me started telling everyone that I was told to see if it would fit in the cabin. Sadly, though, my bag didn't fit in the overhead bin. The awkardness of this was compounded a thousand times by the presence of another flight attendant, standing five feet away from me and watching me. I was about to squeeze it under the seat in front of me (it would have fit) but she snatched the bag away from me and walked it off the plane. So I was not the flight attendents' favorite passenger. However, I felt much better about United when I actually got into my seat. The seat was pretty comfortable for one in a missle and the window was actually at head-level. While I love flying Southwest, I get a little annoyed that my shouler gets the best view while my head (where my eyes are located, strangely enough) gets a nice view of the airplane's interior. I had never flown east of Utah before (I flew west to get to the Far East), so it was fascinating to look down at the country below. I officially came to the conclusion that the midwest/great plains are flat, and it was actually pretty boring to fly over it (good thing we didn't apply to any schools there... :) ). When we were waiting to board our connecting flight to Rochester from O'Hare airport in Chicago, TSA workers were conducting random searches of passengers boarding our plane. We were in a later boarding group, so I said to the other BYU student (as we watched), "Oh sad! They're only searching minorities." (Which they were.) It would be just my luck, then, that they asked to search my bag as I walked by them (the other BYU student was just laughing at me). They looked through the lunch bag that Natalie packed for me (seeing all the Zingers at the top of the bag) and said, "Somebody packed you an amazing lunch." They were coveting my lunch. My wife definitely looks out for me!

In Rochester I stayed with a former BYU student (he was my MCAT prep teacher) and his wife. He picked me up from the airport and gave me a driving tour of campus, so it was really nice. The next morning his wife dropped the two of us off at campus, and my day at Rochester finally began! There were only seven of us interviewing that day (including the other BYU student). I had never heard of the majority of universities the other students were coming from. I had never realized how well represented and respected BYU is outside of Utah (eat that, Ute fans!). Rochester loves BYU students and pursues them pretty aggressively. Out of the 100 students in their class, they usually take about 5 students from BYU. Most of the other students interviewing had never heard of BYU before, so they were surprised that it seemed to be so well represented.

Our day started with orientation with the associate dean of admissions, and then we were turned loose to go visit a class in a lecture. We snuck into the back of the room (well, we "snuck" as best we could, seeing as how the doors were at the front of the class and all of the med students just stared at us). During the class break, all of the med students descended upon us. You can perfectly imagine this if you have ever seen (in a movie or real life) what happens if you throw a ton of bird feed to a bunch of pigeons in a park: the instant the feed hits the ground, all the pigeons just swarm around the food in a frenzy. That's exactly what happened with us (the bird feed) and the medical students (the pigeons). I kept hearing "Oh my gosh! It's interview time again!" "It feels like just yesterday!" "I didn't interview until December!" Several of the BYU med students came up and talked to me, and everyone kept asking me if I was nervous (which I wasn't, for the record). The break was a lot longer than usual because most of the 100 students in the class wanted a chance to see us up close. When class resumed, I went out to my first interview.

My first interview was with a retired physician who was still closely connected with the university. We met in some sort of closet that seemed to potentially be able to double as a conference room for Smurfs. Space was kind of tight (but there was a relatively large table!), but it was enough for an interview. The doctor who was interviewing me was very nice and sweet, and spent the first seven minutes or so talking about himself so I would know him better. He then asked me such questions as "Why do you want to go into medicine? What experiences have you had in healthcare?" It was a really laid-back interview that was more of a conversation. He seemed to be familiar with our church, and said that he frequently drives by the temple "down the road" (meaning the Palmyra temple). He has a lot of respect for BYU and says that it is an amazing school that prepares students very well. Overall, the interview lasted for an hour, but it definitely seemed a lot shorter than that. After my interview, while I was waiting for lunch, the associate dean of admissions came out and chatted with me. He definitely likes BYU a lot (he came and visited BYU for the first time in March, and that's actually how I found out about Rochester). He even asked me how I thought our football team would do this year. When I told him that my brother used to play on the team, he then wanted to know everything about him. So it looks like he is slowly being converted into a BYU fan, too. : ) While there may be more Ute fans in the state of Utah, BYU definitely has a larger fan base outside of it.

After waiting around for an hour and a half after my interview, we had lunch with some medical students (who were actually kind of weird and spastic) . We then took a tour of the medical center. I felt pretty dignified and important walking around the hospital (like I was someone important) and didn't let people get too close a look at the big badge on my coat that said what I truly was. I felt that the big interviewing badge was analogous to the orange "dork dot" that I had on my MTC name tag for my first 10 hours or so in the MTC; everyone would just stare and smile at me.

At 2:00 I had my second interview (which was also one hour). I can only think of one word to describe it: "Yikes." My interview was with the associate dean of student affairs, so I showed up at the student affairs office and waited for her (the associate dean) to be free. While I was waiting, it became clear to me that I have seen way too many spy movies in my life. As I sat and waited, a custodian walked into the office, pushing a large cart with him. He could not speak English very well at all, and tried several times to tell the receptionist that he was there to change some of the uniforms in the locker room and needed to be let in. The first thing that jumped into my mind was, "Don't do it! He's a spy dressing up as a custodial worker! Haven't you seen any of those movies??!!" It would have been the perfect time for him to steal something or hack into some files or put a bug in their phones. But I don't think he did (I know, kind of boring). Right after that incident, I was called in to my interview.

My interview lady (she is an african-american) did not smile once throughout the whole interview! She did not talk about herself at all, but rather just asked me question after question. Some of the questions were the basic ones (Why do you want to go into medicine? What experiences have you had?). But then she brought out the bigger guns by asking questions such as "Talk about a time in your clinical exposure where you saw something that went against your personal culture/values. What happened?" or "How do you deal with stress/academic pressure? Give me a recent example of how you dealt with it;" "What contribution do you hope to make to medicine? What are your goals for medicine?" And also "We consider attendance and effort to be very important. Please talk about how you have shown your dependability to attend lectures and do your best in class." And she of course asked the classic question "Why would you be a good fit for Rochester? Why should we choose you?" Then, at the end, she asked if I had any questions. I knew that I would be toast if I didn't have any questions, so I thought of a couple at first, but she kept asking for more questions (at one point I even said, "this is my last question," and after that question she asked, "do you have any other questions?")! I eventually satisfied her quota, and the next thing she asked me was "So, when do you leave?" (Ah! What's that supposed to mean?!) I think she was just trying to make polite conversation. So we talked about random things for a few minutes, and then I left and was done with my day at Rochester! I'm not sure how I did overall as a result of that last interview, but I felt like I was able to deal with most of her questions pretty adequately. However, I keep kicking myself over an answer I gave that could very well be interpreted as a confession of depression (which I DON'T have). When talking about stress and pressure, I said that I am not affected by external pressures and demands. But to refrain from looking prideful or self-righteous, I further explained that the only stress that gets to me occasionally is internal stress, that comes when I don't think I'm doing as well as I should be doing or feel inadequate with low feelings of self-worth, which I haven't had recently or very often. Yeah, it kind of came out wrong in hindsight (which is always 20/20... 20/10 in my case, actually), but I'm pretty sure that she understood what I meant.

I wanted to explore a little bit of the campus before I left, but I ended up getting lost in the adjacent cemetary (I was told to walk through the cemetary to get to the undergraduate campus). The hospital has a huge cemetary right next to it, apparently making an accomodating place for all of those who don't survive a night in the hospital.... Supposedly the graves of Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony are both in that cemetary, but I didn't come across them. I did find a way awesome tombstone that was simply a large deck canon from a navy vesssel. Also, there were some small buildings that looked like the tomb where Aragorn (from LOTR) is probably buried.

I eventually did find the undergraduate campus, walked around for a few minutes, and then took a taxi from the medical school back to the airport ($13 for like a five minute ride! Forget med school, I should be a taxi driver!).

The flight back from Atlanta to SLC was a four hour nightmare (it took us forever to get off the ground... I think the pilots must get paid by the hour). My "window" seat did not have a window right by it and the wall was so smooth that I couldn't rest my head on it. But I needed to close my eyes because my contacts were hurting. So it was a very long flight. However, Natalie was there to pick me up on time and we traveled home safely! We will find out how I did on October 15!

Summer 2009 Book Review

2009-08-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

From Natalie:

Well Summer is officially over, and I started teaching school again this week. It's so sad that my summer reading time is over! Sure, I will still be able to read a bunch of books during the school year, but definitely not to the extent of summer reading (i.e. an average 1 book a day, reading for 5+ hour stretches of time). So here is a list of my favorite 2009 Summer Reads:

I read The City of Ember (by Jeanne DuPrau) to my students as a read-aloud book at the end of the school year (a movie was recently made), so I started the summer with the sequel The People of Sparks. (This title was especially funny for me, because Brian and I met when we were living in an apartment complex named "Sparks"). As soon as I could get my hands on it, I also read the third book in the series, The Prophet of Yonwood, and the last book, The Diamond of Darkhold. This series is EXCELLENT! It is a very interesting story about people surviving in the future. I can't say anything more without giving away the plot. But you should read these books!

At Brian's suggestion, I read most of the Redwall series (by Brian Jaques). Brian (my husband, not the author) had read these books when he was in 4th grade and loved them. I had heard of them, but never really was attracted to the idea of little mice running around waving swords. But, we have them in our personal library so I decided I might as well read them. I am so glad I did! I read Redwall, Mossflower, Mattimeo, Mariel of Redwall, and Martin the Warrior. There are several others in the series that I plan on reading. In these stories, the only characters are animals. The mice, rabbits, squirrels, moles, and badgers are "the good guys" and the rats, weasles, ferrets, and stoats are "the bad guys." Brian Jaques has written over 10 books in this series and each story delves into a new plot, usually culminating in a huge battle between all the good guys and all the bad guys. I laughed out loud quite a bit, salivated at the mouth (Brian Jaques spends a lot of time describing the feasts down to details), and even shed tears. I know, I know... but seriously, take my word for it, these books are worth your time!

I was devouring Redwall so quickly; I finally realized that I needed to give myself a break between books when I started dreaming about little animals every night. So in-between reading Redwall, I re-read one of my favorite series: The Enchanted Forest (by Patricia C. Wrede). The first book is titled Dealing with Dragons, followed by Searching for Dragons, Talking to Dragons, and finally Calling on Dragons. I love this series, because I identify with the heroine: a princess who would rather learn about fencing, magic, latin, cooking, economics, and juggling instead of the regular "princess-y subjects" like dancing, embroidery, drawing, and ettiquette. She finally finds a way to please everyone by moving in with a Dragon. Very funny and very witty.

Brian bought me two hardback sets for "Mothers Day"-- Percy Jackson (by Rick Riordan) and Fablehaven (by Brandon Mull)! He told me that he thought I would like books rather than flowers-- he knows me too well. I had already read most of the series, but this summer, I read The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson) and Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary (Fablehaven).

Fablehaven is a series set in modern-day Earth, but (similar to Harry Potter), there is a magical community that the rest of the world is unaware of. Magical creatures are kept in sactuaries, and Fablehaven is one of these sanctuaries. Each book tells of a disaster that nearly compromises the safety of the sanctuary, and in each it seems hopeless until the two kids step up and save the day in a way that none of the adults could. These books are great for both kid and adult readers.

Percy Jackson is a regular kid living in New York with his mom.... until he finds out that his dad, whom he has never met, is a Greek god. (You know all of those Greek myths with humans finding out that one of their parents is a god-- Odysseus, Hercules? Same thing, in a modern setting) I love this series because it modernizes Greek myths in a way that kids-- and even I-- can understand. Aries (the god of war) wears a leather jacket and rides a motorcycle, Poseidon (the god of the sea) is a sun-tanned beach bum in flip flops, Aphrodite (the goddess of love and beauty) is a gorgeous movie star, etc. These books are hilarious, but could get a little scary for kids younger than 4th or 5th grade.

Of course, I had to re-read Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince, in anticipation of the movie coming out. No, I haven't seen the movie yet (it hasn't hit the cheap theater yet!). I love Harry Potter, period. Each time I laugh out loud at how witty J.K. Rowling can be!

I also read another trilogy from the Shannara series. Terry Brooks has written this series in groups. We personally have 24 of his books from the Shannara series and I don't believe that is all of them. (I read the first trilogy, The Sword of Shannara, in middle school, as did Brian. Talking about this series really made us feel that we had a lot in common on our first date) This summer I read The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, which contains the books The Ilse Witch, Antrax, and Morgawr. Holy INTENSE! I would definitely recommend these sci-fi/fantasy books to more mature readers. The main characters go on a voyage, and most of their crew does not survive the dangerous (scary) things they encounter. Because each book doesn't really end, it just goes straight to the next book like chapter to chapter, I didn't put these books down for about 4 days!

When we visited Bend, Oregon for the Wright reunion, I purposely did not bring a book to read on the plane. I know myself-- if I have a good book, I tune out to the world. My sisters-in-law are women after my same heart, however, and when the boys went to play golf, they handed me The Hunger Games (by Suzanne Collins) and we had "reading time." I finished the book that day (after acting like a recluse, hiding in the upstairs bedroom with my book all day...)! Previously, I had heard a lot of commentary about this book. People either seemed to love it or hate it. It tells of a futuristic society in which the rest of the world is destroyed and 13 "districts" band together to survive. The Capitol district has all the latest crazy technology, and is extremely oppressive to the other districts, each of which serve one purpose. There is the coal mining district, the agriculture district, etc. People in these districts barely have enough to scrape by, and many die of starvation every year. Before the time when the book begins, district #13 rises up against the Capitol, and is immediatly crushed. To remind the other districts who is in charge, each year the Capitol requires each district to pay a "tribute" of 2 teenagers, a girl and a boy. These 24 "tributes" are put in an arena and hunt each other until there is 1 survivor. Their arenas are huge, sometimes wastelands, sometimes forests, and the "Game Masters" control the environment: weather, wild animals, natural (and un-natural) disasters. The Hunger Games is about a girl who volunteers herself as a tribute to save her little sister. The concept is a little disturbing, but fascinating. I highly reccommend this book for older readers!

Well, there it is: my favorite reads from my Summer 2009 reading frenzy. I read quite a few more (I taught a summer school reading program), but these are the books that I would most highly reccommend. On your marks..... get set...... READ!

A Tale of Two Cities

2009-08-16T17:54:00.001-07:00

Brian's update on Medical School Applications:

This story begins back in the middle of July (July 21, to be exact) when, to my wonderful surprise, I received an invitation to visit the University of Rochester (in New York). Upon reading the e-mail, I put my little chick embryos on hold (they know they're already low enough in the pecking order) and immediately started looking over the interview dates so I could make travel arrangements. The university requested that I know in advance if I needed to leave early from my interview because of travel arrangements. So, like a good little medical school applicant, I looked for flights first BEFORE signing up for an interview time (can anyone else already see where this mistake is going?). After spending nearly an HOUR consulting cheap flight gurus such as Expedia and Travelocity, I finally found the ideal flight that wouldn't cause Natalie and I to sell off the car that isn't ours and our violins. I checked on the university's website and saw my interview date was available. I then called Natalie and made sure everything would be alright if I bought those tickets. When I went back to sign up for that date, it was gone! All my stellar sleuthing for the best ticket price became useless. It was a sad day in America, but fortunately I learned my lesson (no, not the one about never asking your wife for permission to buy stuff...). In order to prevent getting screwed over twice in a row, I signed up for an interview date FIRST and then just e-mailed the university later, informing them that I would indeed have to leave early in order to travel back home (leaving the Finger Lakes area and eventually ending up in the Salt Lake valley... does that sound familiar?). Anyway, despite the little drama that occured, I was very excited to get invited for an interview (and so early!) and am preparing to fly out 8/23 for my interview 8/24.

Exactly a week later (at about the same time of day), however, our tale took a turn for the worst. I checked my e-mail in my lab and noticed an e-mail from the Mayo Medical school. I naively thought to myself, "Yay, another interview!" However, the words of the subject "Not selected" soon reverberated down my Cranial Nerve II (i.e. optic nerve, for those of you who don't habla physiology) and I eventually pieced together that I had been rejected. Ironically, the Mayo school is in Rochester, Minnesota, giving this tale of two cities its exceptionally exciting and propelling plot: on July 21 I was invited for an interview by a school in Rochester, NY, while exactly a week later I was rejected by a school in Rochester, MN, making it "the best of times" and "the worst of times"....

However, the tale gets better when two other cities come into the picture. While they are not connected by a common name, they both share a common feature: having a university that wants to interview me! In the beginning of August I received an invitation to interview at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. I don't know how I would feel about going to a private instituation named after someone often associated with greed (quite the opposite from Brigham Young University) and whose name sometimes reminds me of that of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Harry Potter's sworn enemy...). It's a nice school and medical center, however, so maybe I could warm up to it. : ) Then this past week I was invited to interview at The Ohio State University (can't forget the "The"!). I even got a personal phone call from the dean of admissions. My interview at Vanderbilt is 9/15, and I am hoping to be able to set up an interview in Columbus, OH on 9/16. I am excited to visit both of those schools!

Thus ends the first act of A Tale of Two Cities: A Modern Legend. Will our hero (aka me) be able to shrug off the evil blow delt by Rochester, MN? Will it end up being better he got gypt out of his first interview date? Will he end up at one of these four universities? Stay tuned to find out! : )

Wow

2009-07-21T16:15:00.001-07:00

Today I was in the Quilted Bear-- it's a huge store with lots of booths with crafty things people make to sell-- just pricing some flower hair clips (to see if I could buy them or make them cheaper). This is only the second time I've been in the store, but I really enjoy just walking around and looking at all the things people have made. I was just looking at some wall signs with cute sayings on them (wishing I could get one for our bedroom) and this cute lady stopped me. She was older, but not very old. I would guess at maybe late 60's? Anyways, she said "I'm sorry, you are probably going to think I am very strange, but I would like to give you some money for your purchase today." I started to object, but she interrupted me. "This is a tradition I have to commemorate my husband's death," she said. "Every year I do this, and I always start here at the Quilted Bear. I saw you walking around a few minutes ago and I thought you might be the one. Then I happened to run into you again and I knew that I needed to talk to you. Please take this, it brings me so much happiness." Then she handed me $40 in cash! I was trying to object, to tell her that it was too much, and she just told me maybe I should buy something I wouldn't have normally bought-- but she was insistent that I could spend it however I wanted.

So I bought the wall signs I was looking at. I bought both of them! One says "Always and Forever, no matter what" and one says "together is a wonderful place to be". I am excited to put them up in our apartment. Now they will have double meaning to me. I love the sayings, but also they will remind me of the example of that sweet stranger. I never even got her name! What a selfless and Christlike way to live-- instead of dwelling on her loss, she took the opportunity to reach outside herself and give to others. It will be a long time before I am in a financial position where I can hand out money to complete strangers, but I want to follow her example, if in different ways. This has been a strong reminder to always serve others, even when (or maybe especially when) the situation would warrant more selfish thinking.

Sarah's Mission Call! ...and a Jell-O eating contest

2009-07-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

Sarah Evans received her mission call on Friday! We were on our way to our ward Barbecue when Sarah called Brian's cell phone (I had left mine at home). She was on her way to our grandparents' house to open it there. 5 minutes later she got us on the phone again while everyone else was setting up conference calls on all the other phones. It took forever to get everyone on, but finally she opened it. She will be serving in Fresno, California and sharing the gospel in Spanish! She reports to the MTC on Octopber 14th. We are so excited for her!

The ward Barbecue was a lot of fun! The highlight was the Jell-O eating contest. Before we left home, Brian was worried about his favorite white and red polo shirt getting dirty and was considering changing before we left, but I told him it'd be fine, he wouldn't get it dirty. Then he goes and participates in the Jell-O eating contest!

He was so worried about getting his shirt dirty, he couldn't "really go at it" and didn't win. But as you can tell, he intensely enjoyed that Jell-O! (p.s. the Jell-O that did get on the shirt came right off with a little Spray-and-Wash)

4th of July Madness!

2009-07-05T20:25:00.000-07:00

We had a great 4th of July weekend! We spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings with some of Brian's cousins who were having a family reunion.

Thursday night was a pool party at the Pleasant Grove pool. Too bad the internet gave us the wrong address (they had the numbers for North and East mixed up) so we drove around neighborhoods in completely the wrong place looking for it. Finally we called Aunt Leah (who was the grand head of the reunion) and she told us the pool was on 100 East 100 West. Without thinking I said "OK" and hung up... before I realized that those two streets are parallel. To make a long story short, we got an excellent 40-minute tour of the thriving metropolis of Pleasant Grove before finally making it to the pool with only 15 minutes of the party left! The trip was not completely worthless-- we raced each other down the slides twice (Brian won both times) and got to sit in the hot tub for a few minutes before the lifeguards kicked the group out.

Friday and Saturday evenings were BBQ's, one in Mapleton, one in Pleasant Grove. There was good food, a family talent show, lots of basketball, and a huge volleyball game. Somehow I got pulled into doing a dance with all of Brian's female cousins. Our group name was "Middle Aged Mothers and Natalie." It was hilarious; none of us knew what we were doing and half of us all but lost it laughing hysterically.

The real adventure was getting home Saturday night. We left Pleasant Grove at 10:40. We can usually get home in 20-30 minutes. We got to BYU/Provo around 11:00. From there it usually takes us 1-3 minutes to get to our apartment, depending on the traffic. It took us over an hour and a half! Stadium of Fire (an extremely popular 4th of July show held in the BYU football stadium), this year starring the Jonas Brothers {insert pre-teen girls screaming here} and She*Daisy, had finished at 10:30 and traffic was absurd. We couldn't turn at a light to go directly to our apartment, so we had to go 3 blocks down, cut across campus, and come 3 blocks back up to get to Wymount. It took us over 3o minutes to go 3 blocks down University Ave and over 30 minutes to come back up 9th. I didn't realize that I had my camera with me all weekend until we got really bored sitting in the post-Stadium of Fire traffic.

Forced Smiles

Traffic! This picture definitely did not catch how bad it was.

Us passing the Stadium (you can tell how much Brian was enjoying himself)

So, finally we got home at 12:20 and collapsed.

The 4th of July always serves as a nice wake-up-call and reminder to what a wonderful life we have. We are so blessed to live in such an amazing country! (despite the temporary lack of organization in Provo's traffic controllers) We are so grateful for all of the many people that work every day to keep us safe and help us to maintain those freedoms. Our nation is truly unique and it is a wonderful blessing to enjoy the lifestyle we have. Our goal is to not take it for granted!

Baby Shower!

2009-06-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

I'm throwing my first baby shower! It is for Kathleen Hamilton, who is in our ward. The Hamiltons have been such great friends to us for the last year and a half that we've been in the ward! We really enjoy hanging out with them. Kathleen is due in about 4 weeks; they are having a little boy!

So with some of my added free time last week (I love summer!), I made the invitations. I was pretty proud of myself: I am horrible at scrapbooking, but they actually turned out pretty cute!
Since I've never thrown a baby shower before, it will be an interesting experience. I'm planning on having a few "organized" activities, but mostly just good food and talking-- that's what most girls like anyways.

Medical Schools

2009-06-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

We applied to Medical Schools this week! Tuesday was the first day that you could submit applications, so Brian got up early to submit them online. When he got online, it wasn't even open to submit yet, so he waited until after breakfast to try again. This time the submissions site was up and running. We did a double-check to make sure we had all the right schools and then clicked submit! 3 hours later, the application service had already processed his application (it usually takes 3-6 weeks)! These are the schools that we are applying to alphabeticaly, by location (funny how you can almost tell which schools have football teams just by looking at their logos):

Stanford Univeristy School of Medicine (Stanford, California)

University of California, San Diego, School Of Medicine (San Diego, California)

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (Baltimore, Maryland)

University of Michigan Medical School (Ann Arbor, Michigan)

Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Mayo Medical School (Rochester, Minnesota)
Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, Missouri)

Dartmouth Medical School (Hanover, New Hampshire)

University of Rochester School of Medicine (Rochester, New York)

The Ohio State University College of Medicine (Columbus, Ohio)

Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine (Portland, Oregon)

Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (Nashville, Tennessee)
Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas)

Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)

Whew! That's 13 schools right there, over $500 in initial application fees (secondary applications are even more... can't wait!)

So basically, Brian says he'd be really excited to get into at least 11 out of the 13 schools (Wisconsin and Ohio are kind of back-ups as of right now). So let's hope he gets in somewhere! Not that it will be that difficult for him-- he scored in the top 1% on the MCAT and he has a 3.9 gpa. I think he will be just fine. Even still, keep us in your prayers!

Blogging

2009-05-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well we've finally caved and started a blog. It just seems like the thing for married couples to do. Not that anyone would care what we're up to; we don't even have cute children to post pictures of... but now that school is over, I have a little more free time so I thought why not?