Virginia HATES Pumpkins!

A little while ago, Sydney and I decided to get into the Halloween spirit and carve pumpkins and decorate our house all Halloween-like. It was great. If you see our previous blog post, you can see how wonderful our pumpkins turned out.

This is how our pumpkins looked 2 days after being outside.

The squirrels must be starving. 1 week later....

Virginia HATES pumpkins!

Also of exciting note, I Sydney and I destroyed the #1 team at bowling a few weeks ago. I bowled so well that I got my first bowling patches. I can't wait till Sydney and I get bowling shirts so I can sew on the patches. (1 patch is for a game over 225 (I bowled a 233), and the second patch is for a series over 600 (the total of all 3 games in one night, mine was 641).

Then just on Saturday, the 23rd, we had a youth temple trip to D.C. It was a lot of fun. The day started at 8:15am, when Sydney and I left our house to start picking people up, & we got back at 9:15pm. We had a lot of fun. Yusu and Eric from our YM came, along with my new counselor, a 3rd year med student Nat Mann.

This video is Yusu catching a grape in his mouth. We had a picnic with the YW at the little park areas just by the temple. Impressive catch huh?

After the temple, we decided to stay in D.C. for the day and visit the Zoo. It was great because it is free, but when we got there around 3:00pm, it was closing early for some "special event" at 4:30pm. We ran around and tried to see everything we could. We didn't end up leaving the zoo until 5:30pm. It was awesome.

A red panda of some sort.

Yusu and Sydney with the Komodo Dragon.

We ended the night with a delicious trip to A&W, where we ate our hearts out. Eric (a 15 year old boy who is 6'4" was randomly recruited by some guy at A&W to play basketball with some league. It was funny.) After A&W, Nat Mann wanted to visit one of his favorite restaurants, Checkers, while we were in Fredricksburg. So, we went for round 2 and had some more hamburgers. Eric had an entire 2nd combo meal. What a trip!

The week before for YM activity, we had a cooking night. Each boy chose something they wanted to learn to make & we helped them make it. Spaghetti, French Fries, Nachos (RoTel). It was a lot of fun. You can tell that the YM really like food. :)

Also, of excitement. We have learned we have mice in our rental house. What do you think?

Don't worry. In the last 4 days I've caught 6 mice. I know there are a few more, but they're tricky ones. I'll get them. One of the mice I caught only got his leg in the trap, so I had to take him out back. He became intimately acquainted with the heel of my shoe. That was disturbing.

Also, a few weeks ago, we received a present from our Sister Missionaries. It was very nice of them, but one of their little sticky things looks a little creepy. We love our Sister missionaries. :)

The door.

The "creepy" note. I feel like they're looking in on me showering or something.

All in all, Syd and I have had a fantastic October. Lots of busy stuff going on. Both Syd and I are perpetually sick this month. But, we're having lots of fun. Dog walking has been going great for Sydney. She has lots of clients and visits that keep her busy!

Hematology and Oncology are just as bad as everyone said. Blah! I've really been liking being in clinic though.

911?

Sydney loves her puppies! The two extra dogs are Tinka and Torino. They belong to Nikki, a girl in my class who "had" to go to San Diego to present a paper. Fizgig is jealous.

This weekend has been an exciting one! Not only did I finish our 3 week Renal course with a big test on Friday, but we've had some other exciting events. I did well on the test, maybe because I was on a lucky streak. The night before the test (Thursday) is the night of our bowling league, and I decided to go despite needing to study. It's a good thing. Sydney and I played the first place team and kicked their butts. I bowled a 233 and averaged 214 for the 3 games we play. Pretty good considering my average is only 155. Sydney also played really well. We're so clutch. Secretly the team we beat were so mad. We loved it!

Then we went to bed on Friday night around 1am. Bad choice. Our new puppies were so barky and whiny that we didn't get to really sleep until they quit around 3am. Then we were awoken around 5am to some yelling and swearing outside. Syd and I got up and saw 3 guys standing by their car parked right in front of our house. Things were getting heated and then 1 guy (a big guy) starting beating the crap out of another guy. The 3rd guy just stood there and watched while the big guy wailed on the other guy. Now, I've watched quite a few UFC fights on television & I'm telling you, I was very worried for this guy's life. We immediately called 911. First time for me. The guy is laying face down in our parking strip while the other dude is just beating on him. Shortly thereafter, the guy decides to split and heads out. The police get there pretty soon after. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep after that. Finally we got to bed & then Syd had to get up for a Pet CPR class. Barf!

At least there was the Legendary Richmond Branch Fish Fry to attend with lots of food and DELICIOUS fish thanks to Bro. Chambliss. It was so good!

The rest of the weekend we had a couple from South Dakota stay with us. The guy is interviewing at the medical school tomorrow, and Syd and I have signed up to host students who come to interview. The last kid who stayed with us was really nice and even gave us a bottle of wine as a thank you. This guy was weird. First, he said they would get here on Saturday at 2pm. Then he called around noon and said that they wouldn't be in till around 10pm and that he'd let me know when they got close. Well, 11:45pm rolls around and I haven't heard from the guy. This is considering that Syd and I got around 2-3 hours of real sleep the adventurous night before. We were ready to go to bed. Who doesn't call when you're almost 2 hours later than you said you'd be when you're staying at a stranger's house for free? Anyway, I called him & they showed up about a half hour later.

But life goes on! Syd is working lots and the puppies are great! We're starting Hematology and Oncology tomorrow. I've heard it's tough. Hopefully that is wrong. It's going to be a busy rest of the month. Youth temple trip. Trunk or Treat. Too much to do!

I'll take a picture later, but the squirrels tore Sydney's skull pumpkin apart while we were at church. :(

Pay Attention To ME!

This is the latest in a string of attention getting attempts. Yes, he is sitting directly on poor Sydney's head. Little Fizgig can hardly stand that I ignore him all day and just read books and listen to lectures. I made Sydney freeze for me to take this picture. Fizgig had no problem holding still. He was glad we finally were PAYING ATTENTION!

I love these two. Aren't they the cutest? I think so.

Happy Halloween!

We decided to take a study break the other night & head out to purchase a bunch of junk. Our goals; buy a bunch of stuff for packages for Tyson and Adam (our brothers on missions in Spain & Finland respectively) (Both of their birthdays happen to be in October), and get some festive Halloween decorations for our house!

We came back with a bunch of junk & a candy bowl just like one that my parents have.

What else is new? Sydney and I have decided to drive home for Christmas. Yeah. Even after I swore I would never make that drive again. It will cost 1/4 of what it would to fly home, & we wouldn't be able to bring our little pup (he's just a little to big for carry-on). We'll probably fill the rest of our car with other equally poor students who want to visit home for Christmas. Should be exciting.

Currently in school we are studying Renal. It's been a very nice change from Microbiology which I found very difficult. Lots more conceptual stuff instead of rote memorization. Test is next Friday, so we'll see how I like Renal after that. Most of our classes from here on our are just 1 cumulative test for the whole course which is a little nerve racking.

Tonight Sydney and I are the transport wagon for the youth costume party/dance. I already feel like such an old fuddy duddy when that's pretty much the plan for our Saturday night.

Last night we watched a really weird movie. Knight and Day. Tom cruise & Cameron Diaz? Huh? It was actually pretty entertaining and luckily didn't try to take itself to seriously. Not a bad flick if you're really bored & not looking for something life changing.

Finally, I want to pose this question to those who read this blog (which probably isn't much more than my mother).

What do you guys think about making it legal to sell organs? Currently in the U.S., this is illegal. The reason why I ask the question is because I've recently learned a lot about Kidney Disease & dialysis and learned that Medicare pays for a lot of dialysis. In 2007, $8.6 billion costs were reported to Congress for dialysis & associated costs. Amazing considering that despite these high costs, about 10-15% of patients on dialysis die each year.

The alternative is a 4-5 year wait on an organ transplant list. There is a large shortage of organ donors. What are your thoughts on making compensation for donating a kidney legal?