Sunday, February 27, 2011

Spicy Night

I'm beginning to realize, that I've taken over this blog. I guess it's okay. I'm pretty sure that Sydney doesn't mind. Pretty sure...

This week for YM it was Tay's birthday so, we decided to have a party. Tay's request was that we have a "Spicy Night" where we have all things spicy. The boys are big fans of the 2nd Degree Doritos flavor, and we've had a little spice at my house before as well. So, this time I made 5 1/2 pounds of shredded pork and got a lot of hot sauces and a bunch of a jalapenos and some habaneros. I made the pork medium spicy and then just made a "devil's" salsa from the jalapenos and habaneros. (Note: roasting a jalapeno to make a chipotle is DELICIOUS and EASY).

Well, I don't know what more to say but I believe that this video speaks for itself. Malik is the boy to the left and Alex is the boy to the right (this was his first time to YM. He's a friend of Elijah's).

Only 1 boy threw up, which I considered a success. We ended the night with playing "The Movie Game." All in all, we had 8 boys there. Just me and 8 boys. A far cry from when I started this calling. I love those kids.

This week Sydney's only employee was on vacation, so she had to pick up all her dog visits, which is a lot! I did 2 when I could. I love my Sydney. She's such a hard worker and a savvy business owner!
Wanetta Playing with Fiz

On top of extra visits, we had Wanetta (a dog Sydney walks) stay with us this weekend. She is the sweetest dog ever and super easy to take care of. Fiz is the naughty one. Unbeknownst to us, Fiz found Wanetta's supply of food and ate to his heart's content. Any of you who know him, may know that he is very much into food. When we got him, he had a twin sister who weighed 6 pounds and he only weighed 3. Ever since we got him home he's been trying to get as much food as possible into that belly. Well, he succeeded.

Anyway, Syd and I went shopping thinking nothing of the incident, and came back to find our little Fiz bloated beyond belief. I'm telling you, he was ready to pop. The poor guy was obviously regretting his earlier choice and begging me to make his expanding tummy to go away. We called the vet and asked if there was any need for us to bring him in, and they said yes. So, off we went to the Emergency Vet (it was 9:00 on Saturday night). Long story short, they wanted to do X-rays and fluids and bla bla bla. I talked to the doctor and was like, "I'm a med student. Sydney walks dogs. We don't have any money. Is he going to be okay if we just take him home and watch him?" The doctor was really nice, and told us we could just take him home with some pain meds and watch him closely. She told us to let him drink and take him for a walk every 2-4 hours. When we went up front to pay, we found out that the Doctor had decided not to charge us the $90 exam fee. Hooray for blessings!
Sydney and Fiz at the Vet ER. If only you could have felt his bursting belly.

He's totally fine now. Took a little while for the belly to work through the about 3 days worth of food that he ate in about 10 minutes, but he made it. You know you love that cute little face.

Sydney got me some really nice paints for my birthday this year, so we finally got around to making another painting. What do you think?
It's sad, because we totally got destroyed in bowling league this week.

I don't think there's much to say about this picture. I have perfected the pizza. Finally! This is the barbecue chicken pizza I made for dinner this week. YUM!

On Tuesday this week we are having an activity to teach my boys how to change the oil on a car. We've been trying to do this activity since last Fall, but had to always move it for some reason or another. I'm going to see if the boys like it, and then we might be offering oil changes as a fundraiser for our summer camp. Check out the video on the webpage of the high adventure camp http://www.aceraft.com/ I hope I get to go.

Friday, February 18, 2011

It's Official

Another test down, and another blog update. We just finished our Gastrointestinal course today. It feels so nice to have a few free minutes. We've been going full speed lately. Sydney has been very busy with dog walking, and there's been a plethora of youth activities lately.

It's official though. Sydney is now the Young Women's President of the Richmond Branch. Yep. That's right. I'm YM President and Syd is YW President. It's going to be crazy. The previous YW president of 3 years is moving back to Oregon, and Syd gets to be her replacement. It is going to be challenging but fun. I'll let her tell you about her feelings on the subject. All I can say is that there is no comparison between young men and young women. Case and point. We had a combined activity on Tuesday where we thought it would be fun to do a get to know you game for the new leaders (Sydney and Cassidy Stewart) She doesn't have a 2nd counselor yet, because the past 2 people she submitted turned it down. I seriously didn't think that people turned callings down. Isn't that the idea? Revelation & Inspiration. Kinda like saying..."I know you know me pretty well Heavenly Father, but I don't think this is for me...even though you obviously think I'm the person for the job."

While the YW leaders were setting up the get to know you game (we all had baby pictures and facts about ourselves that the kids had to match with each leader), I was in charge of entertaining the YM and YW. I chose to play a family favorite, "The Movie Game." Basically....
1. Everyone writes a movie on 3 small pieces of paper.
2. They go in a hat and you take turns in teams to pull movies from the hat and get your team to guess in 30 seconds.
3. 1st round through the movies - say anything but the words in the title, 2nd - only acting, 3rd - just 1 word as a clue.

It is a VERY fun game and I was sure the youth would love it, BUT I have never yelled more in my entire life trying to organize this simple game. I have never tried so hard to get teenagers to stay in one spot. I felt like I was working with toddlers. Very LOUD toddlers. I'm pretty sure I had a mental breakdown, and by the end of the game, I couldn't take it any more and I yelled at those kids like I've never done before. Oh it was a pleasant night. I wish Sydney good luck. My boys are never like that. At least when they're not with the YW.

Enough about that. We also had a temple trip last Saturday. That was a busy day! My boys won their basketball game in overtime against our rivals, the Glen Allen Ward. The temple was great. We went to Cici's pizza afterwards, where a few of my young men proceeded to eat 20 pieces of pizza. I brought my small laptop and we wedged it between our front seats (reminicent of this) and the boys watched Megamind on the way up AND on the way down. (A great show, if you haven't seen it).
Fiz loves to sleep in with Syd.

We both got Christmas presents from Adam and Tyson (mine and Syd's brothers who are on missions in Finland and Spain respectively). In true Josh and Sydney style we chose to take jumping pictures with their presents to show our appreciation. The pants were from Tyson. I'm wearing a sweet belt and buckle that Adam sent me, and Sydney has her Finnish hat on. Thanks guys!

Finally, to end this giant update, Valentine's Day! I took Sydney to the ballet on Friday night. We saw Giselle (the only other ballet I've actually been to), and it was so good and fun!

It's fun when you've been married longer and you start to get used to each other. Sydney got me mechanics gloves and a shop lamp for Valentine's Day. She's the best!
My wonderful wife!
There were purple lilies too, but their death came a little too soon.

Well, if you've made it this far, I will reward you for your dedication to this blog.

Oh yeah. We bought a car.
Familiar?

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Couldn't Be Prouder


So, since I've been bragging to everyone I talk to, I figure I might as well blog about it as well. This last Sunday in Fast and Testimony meeting, 3 of my young men got up to bear their testimonies. Eric shared his testimony about how he's been so busy with school he's only read his scriptures twice in the past week. Also he told a hilarious story about talking with his school counselor about religion. Raul shared a fantastic scripture are repentance and gave a strong testimony about how we can repent when we make mistakes. Yusu bore his testimony about the church and his belief in Jesus Christ. You have got to love these boys! I sure do.

Tonight we were going fishing for our activity. Tay is really into fishing and has been wanting to go for awhile now. It was freezing but fun. I tried to take a few pictures.
Despite having about 7 fishing poles in the water among the 4 of us, we didn't catch anything other than cold. It was a lot of fun. Something else that the boys have gotten into lately is getting me to let them drive my car around the parking lot. Tay is 17, Raul is 16, and Eli turns 16 this year along with Eric. None of them have their licenses or get to drive much. I want to try and get them all jobs this summer so that they can start saving towards having a car. It is really hard for them to find jobs, since they don't have any way to get there, other than the bus. We'll get them working. :)

Eric also had a brand new suit on for church on Sunday. Someone in the ward took him out shopping for a cheap nice suit that they got tailored for him. Very nice! I'm considering trying to start a fundraising fund among members of the church I know towards getting these boys a suit for their 16th birthday. It would be fun!

Looking forward to our temple trip on Saturday. Sydney spent the whole night with her primary presidency making really cool scripture cases for the primary children. I'll have to get her to take some pictures of how cool they look. They really did a great job.


Saturday, February 5, 2011

Team Vector!

That's right. Sydney and I named our bowling team VECTOR! We have both direction AND magnitude. If you couldn't tell, bowling league started on Thursday and we are loving it. Our last league ended in November, and we have been really wishing and hoping for it to start up again.

It's a Social League, which is a lot of fun. They give everyone a handicap that adds to their average to make 200. That means that it's fair for everyone to play regardless of your skill level. It also makes for some pretty fierce competition. We took 2nd place last fall and have every intention of taking it all this time around. The first week is just a fun week where you establish your handicap. Everyone jokes about bowling really badly on purpose so they can build up a good handicap for the season. We totally screwed that up. I bowled a 213 average for the 3 games (with a 240 for my final game).

I attribute my bowling luck to the feverishly attractive bowling shirts that my mom made for Syd and I as a Christmas present. I meant to take a picture at the bowling alley, but forgot, so these photos will have to do for now.
I have some pretty attractive hat hair in this photo. Sydney made me take my hat off because you "couldn't see my eyes."
One of our bowling friends, Darryl, begged me to talk to my mom about making a shirt for him. He said if I did it, he'd do anything for me. "Even if you were broke down in Alaska, you could call me and I'd come get you." Darryl is also famous for his turkey gobble that can be heard throughout the entire bowling alley. We love being in our bowling league.

Also this week, we had a interviewee at VCU from Utah State come and stay with us. He's the 4th student that we've hosted while they've been interviewing here. A student hosted me when I interviewed at Wisconsin, and Sam Allen let me stay with him when I interviewed here. It's always fun to have the little guys come stay with us. They're always super excited and full of energy about medical school. :)

While he was here, I "attempted" to replace our leaky radiator. (Can't even begin to count how much I've worked on our car in the past month) I say "attempt," because after getting the old one out and putting the new one in, I found that the ATF lines did not fit (a.k.a. the radiator was the wrong one). You may say, no big deal. Radiators aren't that hard to put in and take out. Not in normal cars. This car was a huge pain and took forever. PAIN PAIN PAIN! So, I got to get up early on Wednesday morning and put the old leaky radiator BACK into our car so that Sydney could use it for work that day. Oh, the joys of having one car. (Don't worry. The leak is holding pretty well with a little JB Weld. We'll see if I end up trying to get the correct radiator and doing that circus show again.) Don't you love life?