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).

Shopaholic?

Last weekend I was at the store with Abby and my mother-in-law. We were standing at the counter and Abby started fussing for my wallet (she loves my wallet - so many pockets and zippers!). Anyway, I handed her my library card to keep her occupied. She immediately turned to the credit card swiper and tried to put my card in to swipe! I swear she didn't learn that from me... I really don't shop THAT much!

Flashback Friday - Youth Conference 1998

Since our stake here did a "mini" youth conference last week, I've been thinking back to my experiences when I was a teenager. All our activities were memorable, but one of my favorites was my very first one - "Find the Real You: Building our Field of Dreams". We stayed in Exeter for the 2.5 days doing projects on our Stake Center's property. We built a baseball diamond, built dugouts with benches, painted a pavilion, built horseshoe games, and even put in a volleyball pit with sand. There was also a small bridge built going over a little stream (shown above), and we painted a chain-link fence green (there was a very difficult neighbor who complained that the silver was too shiny and distracting).

I've done a lot of work in my life, including lots of physical labor, but this set a new record. There was so much work to, and it was tough! We hauled rocks, dug holes, painted. It was really hard, but so much fun. I was assigned to the dugouts, and would you believe that the posts of the benches go down 4 feet into the ground?? It was a lot of work.

On the last day, all the families of the youth were invited to come for a BBQ and to check out all the things we had done. It was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.

How did we get away with wearing such short shorts to YC?? :)

Flashback Friday - Performances & Dressing Up

After my Dad finished with the Air Force, our family moved to Orem, UT, where he went back to BYU to get his Master's Degree. I remember before we moved, we had a Family Home Evening where we voted on where we wanted to live: we could live in a house my grandpa owned in Provo, or we could live in Orem in my aunt and uncle's basement apartment. Of course, we chose the latter, because it included cousins.

It was a GREAT choice. We lived in an awesome location - just steps away from a movie theater, pool, and a huge park with many playgrounds. We had such a good time living there.

One of our favorite things to do with our cousins was to put on plays for our parents and anyone else who would sit and watch us. We did dance shows, roller skating shows, regular plays.. basically anything that put us in the spotlight to be admired. The girls were all in ballet, so oftentimes we'd come home and make up our own shows and performances. One year, our ballet company was putting on "The Snow Queen", so naturally, we did our own "Snow Queen" at home too. It was especially fun because our brothers would join us. I think that most of this "home show" was adapted from the Faerie Tale Theater version. Anyway, I remember that in one scene of our show, Emma (the Snow Queen) ate a cracker, and I thought we were going to get in trouble because eating in my aunt and uncle's living room was absolutely forbidden.

Anyway, here are some pictures of shows throughout the years (not all of them are from UT)...

This might have been a roller skating show, since we're outside

The Snow Queen

Ballet costumes from the real Snow Queen show.

Achievement Day play - the Kirsten play from American Girl

Just dressing up... it never gets too old (and clearly, neither do I)

I know there's a picture of Courtney, Ashley and I wearing some awful 80s prom dresses... luckily for them (and, let's face it, you), I can't find it anywhere!

And the password is...

A few days ago I was trying to look up car insurance quotes for our "new" car (I'll post on that later!). I went to our current car insurance website and tried to sign into our account, but lo and behold, I could not remember the password for the life of me.

I went through the 5 or 6 passwords that Garrett and I regularly use, but none of them worked! I even tried each one twice, just to be sure I was typing them in right. I remembered that Garrett had set up this account, so then I used some passwords that only he uses, but still nothing worked. Thoroughly frustrated, I finally just gave in and clicked "Forgot Password?" I hate this part... typing in all kinds of unnecessary personal information. I mean, I'm glad that it's hard to hack into our account, but honestly, it's such a waste of time sometimes! Anyway, about 5 minutes later I had finished entering all the information and waited for the website to give me my "Hint Question". Want to know what it was? It said,

"Do I really have to tell?"

Thanks, Garrett.

But you know what? When I read that question to Garrett (he had been trying to remember the password, too), he immediately knew what the password was.

Maui!

Maui was awesome! We left on a Friday night after putting Abby to bed, which actually made it really easy to leave... almost TOO easy. I mean, it doesn't really count that we were gone that night because she didn't even know we had left.

Our flights on Saturday were great, (LONG, but very enjoyable because I could do whatever I wanted to) and miraculously, we had no delays or lost luggage (on either end of the journey). The way there was especially fun because we had a long layover in SLC, so Garrett and I got to see Emma (my sister), Chris (her 18-month-old), and Jenna (friend)!

After Church on Sunday everyone took naps for a couple hours (the time change was rough), so while they slept Garrett and I took a little drive around Wailea, just checking out the area. We just HAD to check out the beach... it was beautiful!

Anyway, the whole week went by in a blur. I did miss Abby, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. It would have just been too hard to have her there. During nearly every activity, Garrett and I would look at each other and just say, "Wow, this would be really rough if Abby was here right now." It was just wonderful to be together and do our own thing without having any responsibilities except for ourselves (and getting everyone out the door on time, but that actually wasn't too difficult!).

At a rainforest

First time visiting the beach
We took a boat ride and went snorkeling

All the kids on the beach
Walking along the beach before the Luau
The whole family (minus Abby)
We drove the Road to Hana - this is in Hana
Garrett and Jared spent over an hour climbing a coconut tree / breaking open coconuts / trying to eat them. And they tasted pretty gross.
The biggest Banyan Tree in North America - it covers over 2/3 of an acre!

Thanks SO MUCH to Garrett's parents for this great vacation, and thanks Brenna & Jesse for planning it. Garrett and I are in charge of planning next year's trip, and we're excited!