Summer 2009 Book Review

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

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

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

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!

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!

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

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!