Flashback Friday - Last Day of 1st Grade

Since it's school season, here's a picture for you to enjoy. It's my brother Mike and me, on our last day of school (first grade for me, second for him). I loved going to school with Mike (although, I was scared of all his second-grade friends - they were so big!). We lived on a dead-end street, so every morning we'd walk from our house up to the main road, where we'd meet some other kids and the bus would pick us all up.

Look how cool I am with my "pocket tee", and... festive shorts. And clearly I was too cool to wear my backpack on both shoulders. Then there's Mike with his black high-tops and duffel bag. Oh, the good old days.

Lately

Sorry to the grandparents for not posting many pictures of Abby lately. Most of the recent ones are on my laptop, which I try not to use much because a) it overheats and shuts itself off at the worst times, and b) the screen is completely detached from the keyboard, and they are only connected by a wire, so it's really annoying to set up. I need to start putting our pictures onto the desktop instead.

But anyway, here are some of Abby recently. She does this on her own - she LOVES digging through her drawers of clothes and playing with them. Lately she's been trying to put them on her head, and this is her latest "look". She did it all on her own!

And here are a few more for your enjoyment.

Feeding her teddy bear

Cheese!

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary!

Probably my favorite part of our whole wedding day was just before we left for our honeymoon. Everything had been cleaned up, and Garrett and I were changed and packed to go. Everyone had left except for the family and a few close friends, and my parents suggested that we sing a song and have a prayer before we left. Dad played the piano and we all sang "Families Can Be Together Forever". It was one of my favorite moments.

08.08.08 - Go USA!

For the opening ceremony of the Olympics we made a cake and ate Chinese food to celebrate (I know, I messed up the rings - the bottom ones shouldn't overlap).

Garrett and I have LOVED watching the Olympics so far. Like most people, we've loved seeing Michael Phelps go for the gold 8 times. So exciting! I can't believe he actually did it. During the final race I was so nervous I couldn't sit down! I was pacing like crazy during the first 3 swimmers of the relay, and by the time the fourth swimmer dove in I was running in circles around the room. Literally. It was pretty intense.

I have really enjoyed watching gymnastics and diving as well, but I have a hard time watching the sports that are judged. It all seems so subjective, and I usually don't understand the scoring at all. Especially for gymnastics - and don't even get me started about that little 14-year-old Chinese girl. I just wonder how long it will be until someone breaks down and just admits the truth (the girl herself? family? friends? the government worker who gave her the passport?). Anyway....

All in all, though, the Olympics have been wonderful and I will be sad when they're over. I will, however, get much more sleep. I'm up every night until at least 12:30 now, watching all the live coverage I can. Poor Garrett goes to bed early and misses most of it, because he has to be at the hospital around 5:30 or 6 in the mornings, but I usually give him a good recap.

Are you enjoying the Olympics? What's your favorite sport to watch?

Flashback Friday - Thanks For the Uni-brow

This is an embarrassing post... clearly I'm running out of things to blog about.

I was going through my pictures the other day, trying to think of a topic to blog about for my Flashback Friday, and I was embarrassed to realize that I had a uni-brow when I was younger.

Don't get me wrong - I was aware previous to this that I did in fact at one point have a uni-brow. I was mortified to discover, however, just how long I had one. This is bad, people.

Here's the first little inkling of it... 2.5 years old.

And again at 3.5 years

I think it was fully pronounced at 5

Still going strong at 6...

Now, at this point, it's still semi-okay. I'm only 6.

But this is the end of 4th grade!

Fifth grade. Seriously. Why didn't anyone SAY ANYTHING!?! At this point, I start to blame others. Like my friend Courtney.

Dear Courtney,

When you moved into our ward (age: 11) I relied on you as my example. You had cool clothes and style. You knew a lot more than I did about.... everything. You had your own room and a queen-sized bed. You even had your own Mariah Carey cd's. You were so mature and cool - basically, you were about 5 steps ahead of me. Why, oh why, did you let me go so long with a uni-brow? Look at the embarrassment it's caused me. I hope you're happy.

Love,

Hannah

Seventh grade. Thankfully, this picture is the last real evidence of the uni-brow. I must have gotten a clue or something... it starts to "recede" slowly but surely from here on out. Until later in middle school, when I overdid it just a tad and my eyebrows are really short. But that's a whole other story.

Mamma Mia!

I went with Garrett's mom, sister, and grandma to see Mamma Mia! a few weeks ago. I really liked it! I didn't know anything about it before we went, and I enjoyed the music and acting a lot. My favorite thing about it was that they cast people who weren't full-out "singers". Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, etc. They aren't fabulous singers, but to me that made it more real and simple. When it gets to the dollar theater I'd love to see it again - with some girls! I would never drag Garrett to a movie like this.

It's a Man Shower, Part 2

A few weeks ago we had another man shower for our friend Brian (Man Shower: a baby shower for the dad, generally because it's his first son). Generally, man showers entail lots of junk food, fun games, and conversation about guy stuff (sports, politics, etc.). We ladies even let our husbands win all the games. We had a great time!

Brian and Andrea

Brian was being asked questions about Andrea's pregnancy. He missed a few...

Ready... set....

Go!

Great job, Jason!

Garrett clearly wasn't very hungry.

The rest of them, however, really dug in

Brian won! (there was a time limit)

Welcome Third Year!

First day of rotations!

Garrett is 4 weeks into his third year of medical school, and he is really enjoying it. He's pretty much done with classroom lectures, and for the next two years he'll be working in the hospital, rotating around between specialties.

So far he's done 2 weeks of orthopaedic surgery, and two weeks of plastic surgery. He especially liked ortho, and has put that on the list of possibilities for his career. The schedule was pretty good - usually he had to be in around 6 or 7 a.m., but he was home by 4 or 5 every day, and sometimes earlier. A short day, when it comes to the medical field.

This week, Garrett starts his 4 weeks of general surgery. This rotation is know to be pretty rough, so we'll see how it goes. I think that more than anything, he's just happy to be out of the classroom. His days go by much more quickly when he's working with doctors and other residents. The only thing that kind of stinks is that he's on call 4 times (that means he works all day at the hospital, then spends the night there, then works the next day until early afternoon). Everyone else in his group was only assigned to be on call twice, so it was really weird that Garrett had 4 nights, but oh well. Two are in one week, so he'll get them over with pretty soon. Hopefully he'll actually get to sleep and won't be called into surgery all night. We'll see!

Pioneer Day Fun

Sorry I have been so bad a posting lately... most of my computer time has gone towards my other blog. I'll be better, though... I know the grandparents really appreciate it!

On Pioneer Day weekend, our ward had a breakfast and some games. It was a lot of fun - Garrett participated in the "stick pull" and did a great job! I guess that means he would make a good pioneer?

We also had fun watching the kids pull each other around in a handcart, and having watermelon seed spitting contests (below).