Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Time

:)

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

A good time in Utah.

It's so nice to be back in Utah. I wish we could stay longer.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Santa's Coming to Town

Yes, yes. We all know it by now. I'm officially a terrible blogger and if not for my fabulous husband Josh you all would never have a single blog update. Well, I am here to change that! I mostly just wanted to share that through all the craziness of med school, being YM's president, and spending time with me, Josh still manages to make people happy by taking on yet another responsibility the branch has thrown at him. This time is just happened to be Santa's helper.

Beware: this may not be young eyes, as they could become horribly confused and potentially have Christmas ruined for them.

He was AWESOME and spent at least 2 minutes with every little one in the branch to make them feel like Santa was really listening to what they said. They all loved him and one really little girl even cried when he went to leave and she didn't get to give him a goodbye hug. :) What can I say? He is pretty great.

Sorry it's not a long post, but it's 10pm and that's what time we go to bed now. Can't wait 'til next weekend. We're coming Utah!!!

Saturday, December 10, 2011

My awesome wife is so crafty.

I'm home alone during my day off. Why? Because my wonderful wife is working hard organizing and orchestrating a Christmas treat fundraiser for the Young Women in our branch so that they can raise enough money for girl's camp. Below is a photo of some of the delicious treats they are preparing. Aren't you all jealous you're not in Richmond to help support them?
Their focus was to try and make things that would be easy for the girls to do, but not easy for them to screw up. Hopefully they have succeeded!

Last year when I was in charge of finding a way to help the Young Men earn money for camp, I thought of (what I thought was) a great idea. We would teach the YM how to change the oil on a car, and then we could have a Saturday where we change oil for members of the branch for our fundraiser. In theory this was a great idea. (our profit per oil change was almost $25 after costs. Each boy only needed to find 3-4 people who would let them change their oil) In practice, it was terrible. Not many people signed up. Some signed up and didn't come. It was DIFFICULT! So, I learned a lesson. When people are offered the option to help donate to a good cause, they don't want something practical. They don't want a useful service. They don't want to get something that they actually might be spending money on anyways. They want caramel apples or Christmas candy, and they are willing to pay ridiculous prices for it. They want frivolous items with little value. It must make them feel like they gave more. Lesson learned.

This is the entryway that I came home to last night. Looks pretty good huh? My wife is so festive. I have not been involved in Christmas yet...well...I take that back. I was "volunteered" to be a part of Christmas at our branch Christmas party last night. My wife has decorated our house all awesome. The christmas balls spell "Merry Christmas." At least I helped make the blue snowflake ones.

Last Sunday, our downstairs neighbors, Jian and Andrea Pierotti, decided to bake pizzas and bread for dinner in a ceramic kiln that Jian made. It was pretty much the best pizza I've ever eaten in my life, seriously. I am no photographer, so I apologize for the photo quality, but I had to document the coolness that is baking your own pizzas in your backyard homemade wood-burning kiln.
Sydney and Fiz had fun.

And then we come to the obligate Fizgig pictures. Yes....we have 1 million of them.

Also of note, my wife's newest obsession....Owls.

Today I'm down one moped. I sold the orange checkered one that was previously featured on this blog. It was just taking too much time to finish, and when my surgery rotation started, my free time greatly diminished. Oh well. I still have 2 more mopeds and a motorcycle project to finish. :( I told the guy who came and bought the moped that I'm "addicted to projects." It's a disease. The first step is acknowledging it.

I have 1 more week of plastic surgery, and then it's home for 2 weeks for Christmas break. I'm so excited to come back to Utah. It's been 1 whole year. Amazing to think that I've only been back to Utah 2 times in the past 2 years. We're hoping to spend some more time there next year.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

What a world....

This will be my first attempt at updating on my phone. We'll see how this goes. I'm actually in the OR as I type (well, outside the room waiting for the cleaning people to prep the room for the next case). For those of you who don't talk to Sydney and I, pediatrics is finished and I'm now on surgery. I did 2 weeks of orthopedic surgery, which was awesome, and now I'm on for 2 weeks of plastic surgery. I have some incredible stories so far for any interested in hearing them.

A few weeks ago, Syd and I went to Med Ball which is basically a dance in medical school. It was actually a lot of fun.




Also, Sydney and I were victorious in our bowling league and tool home 1st place and the $50 cash prize! Yehaw! It helped a lot that I bowled my brains out the last week. We could not be stopped.





The couple that we were playing against were new to the league. The guy was a little concerned that we were destroying them. :)

Also, we're really excited to be coming home for Christmas. We are hitching a ride in a friend's moving truck to save some money and are leaving on the 16th. We're really excited to see family, since I only get to about once a year. My little brother Adam is getting back from his mission to Finland. It will be awesome to see him as spend 2 solid weeks not doing anything school related. (ok, maybe I'll read some on our 36 hour drive and on the flight home, but that's it!)

And then, obligatory cute dog pictures. An integral part of every post.