We Live In A Real House

Busy Bees Being Busy

2012-01-09T10:43:00.001-08:00

Well, since we got back from Utah for Christmas, things have gotten right back to the usual business around here. Sydney is working lots, and I'm at the hospital all the time. Surgery has been a really awesome rotation so far, but the hours are intense.

I had Saturday off (after 26 hours at the hospital) and after a quick snooze, Sydney and I headed out to Maymont park. It was tons of fun and the weather was so nice! It was 68 degrees. Winter weather that I could get used to.

Family Pictures in Utah

2012-01-01T19:38:00.001-08:00

Since my little brother Adam just got back from his mission to Finland, and everyone was home for Christmas, my mom decided to get some family pictures taken. These are not those pictures. These are some of the 290 photos I snapped while we were goofing around.

Christmas Time

2011-12-24T21:40:00.001-08:00

A good time in Utah.

2011-12-21T14:43:00.001-08:00

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

Santa's Coming to Town

2011-12-11T18:50:00.000-08:00

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!!!

My awesome wife is so crafty.

2011-12-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

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.

What a world....

2011-12-06T06:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Frustration....

2011-11-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

So, I'm doing my Community Outpatient Pediatric Rotation right now, and I've been working in an office that is in a sketchier part of town with an interesting patient population. Without going into too much detail, I think most reading this will know what I'm talking about. Most patients are black. Most are insured by Medicaid. Most are single mothers with no father figures for their children. (As a disclaimer, when we moved to Richmond, and my wife starting to look for a job, she qualified for food stamps. We used the money then and it was great. I am not against food stamps.)

Well...I was there waiting for patients to show up. I had arrived about 30 minutes earlier, and we still hadn't had a single patient come in. I checked the schedule and saw that by then, we should have had 12 patients come in. I was talking with the nurses about it, and one of them smacked her leg and said, "Oh! I know why no one is coming in today. It's the 1st of the month." I looked at her and at the other nurses, not understanding exactly how this explained things. She said, "They're all out shopping at the grocery store, because their food stamp cards got their money." Really? Yeah...really. We had about 3 out of 25 scheduled patients for the morning show up that day.

So, quick rant, and some quick facts. "The number of food stamp recipients has climbed by about 10 million over the past two years, resulting in a program that now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children." Is everyone seeing this? (I used the program HERE to get this info) I can hardly believe that there are this many people in America who don't make enough money to pay for their own food. Seriously? This must be how everyone is able to afford their expensive cell phones and service plans. Oh, but you can get that free from the government too...right?

This leads to my next experience. The next day at the Doctor's office, I was again waiting for patients to arrive. One of the office ladies came in to where the nurses work, and she was holding a large receipt in her hands. She held it up from the top and revealed a receipt that was well over 10 feet long. She bragged that she had gone shopping yesterday and bought a lot of food. She then explained how she has a neighbor who receives so much food stamp money, that she has thousands built up on her card. This neighbor then "sells" the extra money to people at half price. The lady working in our office had purchased $600 of food stamps for $300.

I seriously was having the hardest time sitting there and not saying anything. But what could I have said that would change anything? "That's illegal, you know." Of course they know it's illegal. "You know that you're pretty much stealing that money from yourself as a taxpayer." Oh wait, she mentioned how she only gets $500 on her food stamp card herself, before she bought the $600 from her neighbor.....meaning she probably doesn't pay any taxes either.

So, I sat their and cried inside about how CRAPPY this nation is becoming. This isn't the first time I've heard about stuff like this. (Heck! There's a homeless guy who lives with our friends next door (I guess he's not homeless anymore since they offered to give him a free place to stay) and he makes extra money on top of his disability and food stamps by "arranging" these food stamp swaps and charging a fee.

So, what I'm really ranting and complaining about is the amount that this type of discussion makes me want to vomit all over my computer. How all my young men know how much money you get in food stamps for each kid that you have. How a guy wins $2 million in a lottery, and still is collecting food stamps 11 months later. How we are moving to a country where EVERYONE feels like they DESERVE EVERYTHING. It is a sad state of affairs.

I'm going to spend this next week seeing if there is any data to support the idea that Food Stamps helps anyone to learn to be self-sufficient. I hope I find something. Poor America. Why do we allow this abuse of the system. Why did I just stand by?

Yip Yip....Uh huh!

2011-10-29T18:58:00.000-07:00

We've been wanting to do these costumes for awhile now. Finally did it! This was at our branch Trunk or Treat yesterday. I can hardly believe we didn't even win an award for our costumes of amazingness.

Rare photo opportunity.

If you're confused about who we are....please CLICK HERE. If you know who we are...you're awesome....like us.

The music choice is thanks to my good friend Troels Jørgensen. Tack o hej!

Old Rag, part 2

2011-10-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we celebrated the end of my inpatient portion of my pediatrics rotation by hiking Old Rag again. Well....kind of. It turned out that at least 1 million other people thought they would do the same thing. Ever waited in line when hiking? That when we decided to turn back. Overall, it was still a pretty awesome day. Sure beats the heck out of working. And we made it about 3/4 of the way up.

The head of the trail.

Sydney snapped this photo when I least suspected it. :) I promise I'm just climbing over.

Just Spencer hanging out on a mountain...

Yep

"My name is Spencer and I disapprove of this line."

There's no telling what dangers lie ahead.

The line that broke the camel's back. We turned back at this point.

All in all, Sydney had a great time!

It was a lot of fun and we really like this hike. Too bad there were so many people there. We finished the evening off with a double feature at The Byrd of Captain America and Cowboys and Aliens. I was just happy not to work. The movies were okay. Sydney and I realized that it was the first time we had been to a movie theater since we were home for Christmas last year, and my parents took us to a movie. :)

Otherwise, things have been the usual. We're tired of figuring out how to travel home to Utah for Christmas without selling body parts. If anyone has an old teleporter...we could definitely use it.

I be QWOPING!

2011-10-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

Working nights at the hospital and not having many patients leads to boredom.

I dare you to beat my 11 meter record!

HERE!

We Update Infrequently

2011-10-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

I figured I could at least throw some pictures up on the old blog. Here ya go!

Watching General Conference. Scott's face says a lot about why I wasn't here during this. (I was actually next door at our neighbors with the YM----which turned out to be 1, but much quieter.) I literally don't know how Sydney has kept her sanity around these ladies.

Obligatory cute Fizgig photo.

Isn't my Sydney awesome? This is delicious banana pudding thing that my mom taught us how to make last summer. Delicious...but for the YW. Sydney...why U no make for me?

Aside from the usually youth madness, and school madness, and dog walking madness, things have been going well. I'm on Pediatrics right now for 8 weeks. I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. I'm endlessly frustrated with parents and their inability to care, but so happy to see the ones that do. I just finished my 2 weeks of inpatient teams, and next week will be Emergency and the last week of inpatient I'm on night float (7pm-7am). I'm glad to be on ED now, since I've been having to get at the hospital around 6am (meaning getting up when the clock still says 5:something, which I'm really not a fan of).

In other news....Sydney and I have been rocking the bowling league. I bowled my brains out a few weeks ago, and bowled a 266 to beat a guy who bowled a 244. I've also made it to the "top 10 bowlers in the center whiteboard list." It feels pretty good to have accomplished so much in my short life.

The proof.

It's an elite group. :)

That's all for now. Next post will be about my motorcycle restoration project that I do when Syd is walking dogs, and I'm sick of reading or hospitaling. Hejdå!

M3

2011-09-09T18:58:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the extreme delay since our last post. We've been busy and lazy.

Yes, we felt the earthquake. I was at my primary care office and everyone was freaking out. It was hilarious.

Also, Hurricane Irene came and knocked out our power and cancelled church. We actually didn't have power for 5 days or so. The worst part was no internet, which was down for more than a week. Buji! Literally, the only picture I have is below. It's a lot easier to go to bed early when it's really dark, and there's no TV or internet or power. I studied by headlamp. It sucked pretty much.

Last week we took the YM bowling. It was fun. Thanks to Groupon for the $23 coupon for 6 people for 2 hours of bowling. Yep. That was a good deal.

Nat is destroying some pins in this picture.

I've also started a new moped project. Pretty excited about this one. It's a Honda Hobbit (aka PA50) and Sydney is pushing for the name "Bilbo" for obvious reasons. I was something a little more masculine. The checker paint job was Sydney's idea. It think it turned out pretty rockin'!

Still need to paint those red shocks.

We went to VA beach last weekend to see Syd's brother Scott who is working out there. Got towed while we were at dinner. I'm totally going to fight the ticket though. Check out the signage! I was parked in the spot in front of this truck.

It has also pretty much been raining for a week straight. I HATE rain. Seriously. This is our ~~pond~~ backyard.

I've been really enjoying my 3rd year of med school so far. I started with my family medicine rotation, which was 1 month, and now I'm on Neurology. It is so nice to get out of the classroom and get to see patients. I still can't believe that I'm paying out the nose to work 40+ hours a week. (I can't wait until surgery). At least during my rotation right now, the residents I work with don't call us in when we're "on call."

That's all for now. I'm hoping to finish my motorcycle this weekend. I need to before riding season ends. Hopefully it will last a little longer here in Richmond.

Girly Camp

2011-08-04T15:07:00.001-07:00

Clearly Josh is Way better at updating than I am. Just in case you were all wondering, yes, I did go to girl's camp this year. And. It. Was. Awesome. Slash Scary.

It was super challenging to plan a girl's camp as I had never done so, nor had any of my other leaders. Add in the fact that we had to organize all the supplies for the girls and up until (literally) the morning of had no idea just how many girls were actually going to come, and you've got a stressed out Sydney. Luckily we all survived and I think everyone had a good time.

We ended up with 6 girls and 4 leaders. Thank heavens it was that ratio because I think I would have died had there been less adults. My first counselor Cassidi and I headed up on Tuesday morning with all 6 girls in tow and a priesthood leader pulling our supplies. Somehow we managed to be on time for something and set up camp. This was fun because I simply handed the girl's their tent and said, "Good luck!" I have to admit, for having basically zero camping experience, besides two years of girl's camp, my girl's were pretty good and had their tent up in a jiffy.

Though they still have a ways to go to be an old pro like myself.

After setting up we had a few hours of free time, during which we handed over the camera and were pleasantly surprised to find oodles and oodles of awesome pictures.

After our free time we had camp orientation and then got ready for dinner. As soon as we started we were hit with one of the biggest rain storms ever! Boo rain. Normally I wouldn't mind it at all if it rained while I was camping. Being in charge of 6 girls who need to eat kind of changes that, especially when the Stake leaders are screaming, "Get your girls to the cars!! It's too dangerous!" Women. I swear. This meant Cassidi and I had to make dinner all by ourselves. I had to stand with lids over the fire to keep it from going out, and Cassidi had to do everything else under the shelter of a kind neighboring camp's canopy.

Since it still hadn't let up by the time we were finished we simply ate dinner in the back of our well-used Volvo. Thank heavens there weren't any more of us.

Luckily the rain only hit us that one night and the rest of our days at camp were filled with beautiful sunshine. Wednesday we got to go to the lake. Very pretty.

It was the fanciest lake I've ever been to. They ship in white sand so it's just like sitting on the beach.

After the beach, I mean lake, we had more cooking, which was a challenge from then on because some of our stuff had been ruined by the rain so we had to rearrange things until our other leaders could bring more supplies up, and all of our meals were cooked in the fire, which was interesting since all of our wood had been soaked the first day. Somehow we managed.

We also had skit planning. Thanks Lisa for the random skit materials. Josh was with us for all of camp. :)

Then we had the awesome skit written by Jada herself. (The one fleeing the scene.)

We also had fun learning about the wild life. The girls LOVED the bugs... okay not really. You should have heard how loud they yelled at each other if they left the tent door open for more than a few seconds. "You're going to let bugs in!!!" :)

There was of course hiking. Ruka's hydrating before the big trek.

Finally we were joined by our other two leaders. We were so excited to see them that we had to break it down for the camera, and also try our best at the poses the girls usually strike. I think we did pretty good.

We had clearly been at camp too long...

Clearly...

After about the 30th time of a YW asking me where the garbage can was, (it was hung from the same tree the entire time.) I finally threatened to make the next one to ask run a lap since we were camped in a large group campsite in the shape of a circle. I really wasn't serious, but Desta was and the next person to ask ran it. Soon we also joined that up with, anyone who takes the Lord's name in vain has to run a lap, as this was a constant problem. We had about 6 laps run total, and the girls say they still think about it to this day and it helps them remember to not do it. Glad they learned at least one important thing at camp.

This is Desta informing them that they really are going to have to run. Notice the look of shock on their faces.

We also had singing in the trees. I wish I could have gotten a picture. Right after we finished and were heading back to camp we saw more fireflies than I've ever seen before. They lit up the whole grove they were in. It was seriously one of the most magical things I've ever witnessed.

There was also flag ceremony.

Crafts.

Pyramids, water games that us lucky leaders got to fill up thousands of water balloons for... no joke. Thousands. And much much more.

It was mighty stressful, but such a fun way of getting to know my girls better. They are so awesome.

Boys Camp!

2011-07-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

This summer our stake had organized an awesome High Adventure camp for our young men. I was really excited for our boys to go to it since it was at this place. Pretty sweet. Until I found out it was $280 for each boy to go. (Definitely not something my kids could afford). Also, it was only for boys older than 16. The rest of the boys would go to a merit badge camp (also $280).

Needless to say, we didn't raise the money. (We would have needed $1960 to pay for all 7 boys) Our stake was great at helping us pay for it, and even offered to pay $100 per boy, but even then we couldn't make enough money. We first tried to do oil changes for members of the branch. I thought it was a great idea. Someone that everyone needs and the boys can learn a skill. Apparently it was just too practical. People signed up and didn't show up the day we had the fundraiser, only 7 or 8 people signed up, and it basically netted us about $200.

I learned this year that people want to buy very over-priced meaningless crap for fundraisers. I don't understand why, but Sydney and the Young Women made caramel pretzels and chocolate covered strawberries and sold them to people for like $15 bucks. Pretty much every member bought one, and they made like $500. I've learned my lesson. A fundraiser for something practical that you might actually use, is going to be an unsuccessful one.

Anyway, we went on a campout. To Lake Winnipesaukee.

Ok. It's actually called Smith Mountain Lake, but that's where "What About Bob?" was filmed. It's easily one of my family's favorite films. So stinking funny, and the lake did not disappoint.

My car was packed to the gills with boys and gear. We literally had people pointing at us as we drove down the highway. :)

The boys campsite.

The leader's campsite.

Eric!

The small pond at Camp Karma, the campground where we stayed, about 10 miles from the lake. Tay and Eli were catching fish like crazy.

I don't know why Eli does this face in every picture I've ever seen of him. If you need a reference....HERE. He's really a happy kid in person.

Chinese Checkers with Eric (guy in green shirt), one of the camp owners. They were nice enough to let us use their indoor game area that they are building. It was raining cats and dogs out and we were grateful for the shelter.

Fishing and swimming at the lake after our grueling 1.5 mile hike.

My favorite picture of the camp. It is Malik.

Dinner on Thursday night. Best tin-foil dinners ever. Sorry mom. The secret? Bacon!!!

Naturally, Tay was the camp cook.

Yusu absolutely ate this entire plate of food.

Elijah gathering firewood.

On Saturday, we packed up camp early and headed to the lake. We rented an open deck boat and spent the whole day tubing and having a blast. The lake was beautiful, and despite the insane rain all the night before, the entire day was beautiful.

My phone was constantly dying, so I only got a few pictures. I think it's time to get a new camera. I broke our last one someone. Surprising, since it was waterproof and "shockproof." Although I did smash it up against some rocks while it was in my pocket while riding the rapids of the James River.

All in all it was a great camp. We had all 7 of our boys come. It was all their first time ever being on a boat in a lake. First time tubing. It was Malik's first time camping. It was everyone else's second time, since we took them to the Father and Son campout a few months ago.

How did we pay for all this you might ask? Well, we had the $200 from oil changes, and if you remember from a previous post, a lot of clothing and shoes were donated to my young men a few months back. (You can see the shoes at the bottom of this post.) Well, I made about $280 selling those shoes on Ebay. Amazing. Hooray for technology.

The rest of the money was donated in the form of old medical textbooks donated by Nat Mann (one of my counselors) and Spencer Hardenbrook (a hilarious and generous medical student). I've probably sold about $150 worth on Amazon, and I've probably got about 50 more to sell.

Hooray for awesome people. The world needs more of them. I wish crappy people would spontaneously combust.

A Trip to the Bahamas!

2011-07-21T08:45:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the blog neglect. It has been a crazy summer for us. I finally took my board exam almost a month ago, and since I finished that, things have been non-stop action for us. Sydney had girls camp the next week. I did our young men camp the next week. Then we went on a cruise to the Bahamas the next week. We'll do posts about camps later. For now...the cruise!

We sailed out of Baltimore which was really nice. Took us about 2 hours to drive up. Not paying for flights was enjoyable.

Some Highlights:

The food!

The photo they snapped as we boarded the ship. Sydney said that she, "Wants the world to see this picture."

The sunsets.

Beach at Paradise Island in Nassau. The water was delicious!

Bike ride by the beach in Freeport. This was my favorite part. We went on a 12 mile bike ride around the island and got to see a lot and play at the beach.

Sydney and her new bag at the market.

No explanation.

Rainy in Nassau. At least it quit after a little bit.

Oh yeah!

Amazing giant Jenga that Sydney and I dominated!

More sunsets.

More...

Oh dinner time. How you be so silly?

Strawberry soup!

Fancy night!

Sydney and her land crab.

Taino Beach in Freeport. We jumped off the dock and it was awesome!

No comment.

Beautiful Botanical Gardens.

Late Dinner.

These hammocks were awesome.

Syd's face is precious, but this food looks delicious!

We sure had a lot of fun!

That's all for now. There are many stories to tell. I got chosen out of the audience to go up on stage with a juggling guy. That was pretty awesome. We totally juggled together. No pictures or video because the camera was in my pocket. I wish Emory and Tessa could have seen their clown uncle go.

Orientation for next year starts for me on Tuesday next week. I'm excited to actually learn some doctor things...like how to take care of patients. It's been a busy week this week trying to get ready. I fixed up our mopeds, and my motorcycle project is nearly finished. I'll get some pictures up of that too.

Play Lazy

2011-06-08T07:02:00.000-07:00

Crunch month has made my dog think I'm the most boring person in the world. He waits each day for Sydney to get home.

Old Rag!

2011-06-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I decided to take a day off from trying to memorize all of medicine and go hiking with Sydney and some friends. The day was beautiful, the hike was awesome, and it was so nice to take a little break. (Still listened to about 4 hours of Goljan lectures while we were on the trail. :)

We hiked a mountain in Shenandoah National Park called "Old Rag." Sweet name for a mountain. You can see a little about the hike HERE.

She's so thoughtful. Nature will do that to you.

The whole gang at the top!

Syd and I had packed lunch for all, which we enjoyed at the tip top!

I would definitely suggest the hike. Quite an enjoyable time. The rock climbing is awesome. There are a few places where you go under giant rocks, and through little skinny places. There were a ton of people there (not all the way at the top), but it still was lots of fun.

Well, back to the books!

Apt Apartment

2011-05-29T19:30:00.001-07:00

So... I forgot until just barely that I was going to update the blog with our recent happenings... and it's kind of late. My brain is starting to shut down so for now I'm going to spare you and not write much. Luckily not much has changed since the last post. Josh is still studying his brains out, and I have been working, stressing over YW's and trying to finish putting together our apartment.

Our first completed room is our living room, pictured here. Notice the fabulous couch. Thanks again everyone who donated to my giant birthday gift!!

On the wall not pictured Josh and I decided to do some bright green artwork. And now that I think about it, our living room isn't completed because I still have to cover up the Merry Christmas picture. It's ugly. The picture frames and their details are pretty sweet though so I hope you can see them.

Another almost completed room is our bathroom. We apparently use a lot of stuff to get ready in the morning (me so probably a bit more than Josh) and our bathroom void of medicine cabinet was suffering when we had to pile all of our stuff on the small counter. So, I thought I'd try my hand at a little carpentry. I started out with this...

And ended up with the worst shelf ever made by human hands. :( Thankfully I'm married to a man who has the handiest hands of anyone I know, and he fixed it up for me. We need shelves in our kitchen too, but I refuse to make them. Anyway, it still looks cluttered, but at least we have room around the sink.

Also, what would a post be like without a picture of our dog? Sometimes when Josh and I are busy, which seems like all the time now, Fiz tries everything to get our attention - including faking rigor mortis in spots we are most likely to see him.

The Skinny

2011-05-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

I know it's been forever, but here's the skinny.

I'm studying for boards. It's what I'll be doing every day for more than a month for 11 hours a day. Buji. It better pay off!

Sydney is working a ton and busy with YW and girls camp stuff.

This is a functional HDTV antenna I built out of coat hangers. Yeah. That's right!

This is my moped project. It's getting closer to completion. I drive it to school!

This is a video of Fizgig watching a video of himself on our TV. The look on his face is priceless.

Just finding a comfy spot.

We also moved, once we get everything situated, we'll take some pictures of that too. Maybe we'll make a video.

These shoes were donated to my YM along with a MILLION pounds of clothes. We're selling the leftovers on Ebay to finance our summer camp. Anyone need some shoes?

Camping!

2011-04-24T14:02:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, Sydney and I went camping with a few families from the branch to celebrate Josh Souter and Cassidy Stewart's birthdays. It was a bunch of fun! We went to Pocahontas State Park, and I forgot to really take any good pictures. Enjoy what a did shoot with my Iphone.

This is Ellie, the Souter's daughter, just sitting and looking at the lake. Cracked me up! I had to take a picture.

Syd and Fiz. He doesn't look happy, although he was having the time of his life.

Just my beautiful wife.

I like these pictures. Fiz and Syd were racing to the top. Now you see him.

Now you don't.

It rained pretty much all of Friday night, but we didn't mind. We had delicious food prepared by Crystal (ribs, corn on the cob, chicken, hot dogs, salad, fruit, YUM YUM YUM!) We went back to camp and pretty much went to bed.

The next morning we went for a hike and hung out around camp trying to conceal our illegal daytime fire. (Apparently fires aren't allowed except 4pm-midnight until May)

Sydney made me film the previous video, and she'll be so happy that I'm putting it on here. Fizgig really didn't like the spontaneous dancing that I did at the end of Slumdog Millionaire. What can I say? I was feeling Bollywood fever.

School is winding down, which means board prep is gearing up. I have 3 more weeks of official class, then it's 1 month of insanity. I hope I make it. Many before me have.

We are moving this Friday. There is still a lot of packing to do. Barf.

If You Didn't Already Think I Am Weird...

2011-04-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

2011-04-15T13:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the absence of the YW birthday surprise picture. I (Sydney, yes I'm FINALLY blogging) had it on my phone so Josh couldn't put it on. So, here it is!

For those of you who don't know this story I will tell it now. About a month ago Fatima (the woman in plaid in the pic) asked me when my birthday was. I was picking up her girls for a sleepover at the time and she was saying, "You do too much. Ah. Too many girls at your house."(In a Nigerian accent.) I had only been YW president for about a month so I thought it was funny that she was saying this. Maybe her love for Josh was rubbing off on me. In any case, I told her my birthday was in April and she went to work planning a surprise birthday party for me. Thanks to secret phone calls to Josh and help from a friend, Crystal, I walked into the church to all my young women shouting, "Happy Birthday!" Fatima snapping pictures of me with a disposable camera, balloons, a feast that Fatima had made for me, a cake, and a card signed by everyone with a $40 money order inside. Needless to say, I was blown away. After receiving hugs from everyone Fatima wanted me to sit down in front of the table to take pictures. I was more than willing, but had to laugh when she kept telling me, "I want you to hold your babies for the picture." Apparently "my babies" were actually Crystal's kids Ellie and Solomon and Fatima even made me pose for a picture with just me and Ellie. She's too funny.

And there you have it. My Birthday surprise. I really do feel lucky.

Happy Birthday to Syd!

2011-04-14T06:36:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile for a post. Sorry. It was Syd's birthday this past Tuesday. Kinda unfortunate, since that's our activity night, and we both have YM and YW to do. That's okay. We just celebrated on Wednesday. That didn't stop Fatima (the mother of 1 of my YM and 2 of Syd's YW) from organizing a huge surprise for Syd at the church. I'll have to let Sydney tell the story (since I wasn't there), but apparently she went all out. She loves Sydney, and so do I!

This is my famous falling/tripping bowling shot. It usually ends with a strike.

We're getting pretty excited to move. It's set for the 29th. In preparation, Sydney really wanted a new couch. So, we drove up to IKEA and got ourselves a couch! Thanks SOOO much to my parent's contribution to a present that really made my Sydney's birthday great!

Don't mind the mess on the table (mostly instructions from putting the couch together - gotta love IKEA!). We'll take a better picture later. Just Syd taking a Sunday nap on her new couch.

The best Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake ever!

A helmet for her moped. We'll do a photo-shoot later.

Elijah's Baptism!

2011-03-30T06:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was awesome! Elijah (one of my young men) decided to get baptized. Sorry the picture is a little blurry. I'll get a better one from the elders. And I got after Eli for not smiling. :) And Raul is giving the camera quite the face. Love these kids.

Left to Right: Elders Zobrist & Duke, Raul, Elijah, Yusu, Tay, and me.

Elijah has been coming to church every week since before Christmas. He is always the first one ready when I go to pickup, and he was a force to be reckoned with in church basketball. He is a great kid and we're so excited to have him "officially" a member of our quorum.

My wonderful Aunt Claudia sent us a gift card in the mail for one of our favorite restaurants "The Black Sheep." Not sure what the occasion was, but we took her there when she stayed with us for a few days back in the Fall. We appreciated it!

Sydney looks disapprovingly at what is leftover from my sandwich. YUM!

This is one of my new favorite faces from Fizgig.

Please play with me.

Also, we will likely be moving in the next month. We've loved living in our house, but are thinking we're going to try and save some money this next year. We've found an awesome apartment. It is a lot closer to where the YM and YW live (right now we live close to the church, so we drive out 15 minutes to pickup youth, and back 20 minutes to the church), and it really has about everything we need. There's a backyard, a dishwasher (which we don't have now), and lots of stuff! Not only that, but when Sydney was talking to the leasing company, they decided to give us $25 off a month because of the work we do with the youth. Yeah! Go Richmond Branch!

Bad picture of the outside. See the slideshow here.

Some may say I'm addicted to change. Sydney would agree. She would also agree that the desire for change is contagious!

How About VCU?

2011-03-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

I literally can't say enough about my VCU Rams dominating the NCAA tournament right now! I'm so glad that we took my young men to a game in January this year. We got to take all our boys to see the best team in the Final Four for $8 a ticket!

My studying has suffered this week. But it's all be worth it. I can hardly wait for Saturday. I've watched a few of the Butler games, and I really like the match-up. It should be an awesome game!

Not a lot of blogging going on lately. We've been busy. The countdown to Step 1 has really put a lot of pressure on me, and I'm shaking in my boots. I take the test June 24th. Had a meeting with one of our school counselors to set up my study schedule for the month before the test. It consists of 34 straight days of 11 hour study days. Barf! At least I know that historically, it works.

Just to finish it all, I love seeing these videos. Can't get enough of these analysts dogging on VCU. Final Four BABY! (Looks like Rosanne Barr is about to win the beauty pageant!)

The Skeksi

2011-03-08T07:42:00.000-08:00

I thought I would introduce the newest member of our family. She is affectionately known as "Skeksi." She scoffs at $3.50 gas prices. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

I will admit, I was more excited about putting Fiz in the basket than he was.

The weather was so nice last week we decided to take a nice walk in the park. Fizgig was definitely on his A game. Can you say "America's Next Top Dog Model?"

Definitely full of "smizing!"

This photo makes me feel so many different emotions.

We clearly have some work to do to compete with his prowess.

Also, we can only hope that this release date will hold. I need me some more Dark Crystal!

Spicy Night

2011-02-27T15:35:00.000-08:00

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.

It's Official

2011-02-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

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 and his girlfriend Betty. They're in puppy love.

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?

Couldn't Be Prouder

2011-02-08T20:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Team Vector!

2011-02-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

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?

Cardio is DONE!

2011-01-30T13:44:00.000-08:00

So...we were in the car this morning picking up Young Men for church. I had just about rounded up all of them, when Rakiyat (one of Yusu's sister's) came running out of his house and up to our car. I rolled down the window and she informed me that the power is out at the church building and that church has been cancelled. :(

It was even worse because 2 of my young men (Tay and Yusu) were to be giving talks in sacrament meeting today. What did we do? We didn't get all dressed up for church for nothing. We headed over to our house and cooked up some delicious food and had our own "church." The menu? FRIED.

French Fries

Fried Chicken Strips

CHURROS!!!!

After we ate, we had Yusu and Tay give their talks to us. The topic was Forgiveness. Then we had a great discussion. I'm so impressed with the spirituality and maturity of these boys.

It's nice to be done with another block of school. Free weekends are a blessing. I love not having anything I "have" to study. I guess there's always boards that I could be studying for. Cardiology wasn't too bad of a course though. The test was pretty fair, which is always nice.

Our poor car has decided to be a crap-face lately. I've replaced: a control arm, a wheel bearing, a tie rod, 4 brand new tires (we got a flat and it was really about time for new ones) and now I just found a large crack in our radiator yesterday. Barf! I'll be getting up tomorrow morning to rush and get a new radiator and hurry and throw it in before Sydney has to get to her dog visits. Should be exciting!

For those of you who may follow this blog, the answer to last weeks question is F. Aortic stenosis in his sixties. So don't worry, there will be plenty more blog posts before you're rid of me. :)

Churro Churro Churro!

2011-01-27T07:24:00.001-08:00

This week for our young men's activity we did another one of our famous cooking nights. The boys like learning how to cook and it's always fun to eat good food. This time it was Mexican food night. Total menu items: a huge pot of 4 pounds of shredded pork (they ate it all), chicken fajitas, Tay has a special nacho/meat/sauce dish he calls Ro-Tel, lime-cilantro rice, black beans, chips, homemade salsa, YUM!

I was cracking up how much of a hard time the boys were having cutting up the onions for the fajitas. That's why we're practicing right? Their eyes were all watering and they were complaining like they were dying. So funny! It looked like an onion had exploded all over the table and cutting boards where they where chopping.

Initially, we had also planned to make churros for dessert, but we were all too full and ran out of time. So, Sydney and I made churros ourselves last night. As I often do when cooking, I sang a beautiful churro song that sounded more Indian than Hispanic.

Even though they look like worms, they were delicious!

I've got a cardiology test tomorrow that I'm procrastinating studying for by updating the blog. (Caution...medical content ahead)

So, I was doing some Step 1 questions the other day, and I got this one.

A Caucasian male neonate dies shortly after being born. Autopsy shows a bicuspid aortic valve. Had he survived, the patient would most likely have experienced:

A. Ventricular arrhythmia at school age
B. Aortic stenosis in infancy
C. Overwhelming infection in his twenties
D. Leaking aortic aneurysm in his thirties
E. Atrial fibrillation in his forties
F. Aortic stenosis in his sixties

Some background information. I happen to HAVE a bicuspid aortic valve, so this question woke me up a little from my studying coma since I AM still alive. This question is about me! It felt like I was reading some magical Step 1 Ouija board, and the answer I chose would decide my fate.

Anyone know the answer?

This is how I found my wife and dog after studying for a long time downstairs. Too cute.

When you spend a lot of time at home studying, you get bored and take a lot of pictures of your only friend while your wife is at work. Your dog.

YM basketball had a tough loss last Saturday. Same score as the week before (32-30), but we were the 30 this time. It's okay. They're all looking forward to this week.

It's also about that time to start planning something awesome for Spring Break. Sydney's parents came and visited us last year. We don't have any plans yet for this year. Any suggestions?

The First Richmond Branch Basketball Team!

2011-01-17T09:10:00.000-08:00

With all the growth we've been having in the branch, we have enough boys this year to form our own YM basketball team. It has been so much fun, and we have been having practice with the boys every week on Thursday nights. They've been working hard and played awesome this Saturday. We picked up our first win of the season against Mechanicsville in a nail-biting 32-30 victory.

Eric just dominated down low.

Notice how Nat is about a foot and half taller than me.

Sydney and I hand-painted the boys jerseys. We let them put a nickname on the back. Malik IS BIG MAC!

Raul chose OOLIE BEAR. You'll just have to ask him.

Elijah on a fast break. Tay is open!

Raul had some tough calls and fouled out halfway through the 4th quarter.

Naturally, Eric is Big E!

Yusu is Y.B.I. (His initials).

So grateful for all the help my counselors have given me. The boys love coming to basketball and really appreciate it. It's been an incredible tool in helping re-activate some of our less active boys.

Driving home from a Stake Standards night activity last night, we were talking in the car about how our team needs a mascot. They boys suggested we be the Lakers which I quickly nixed. After some discussion, Yusu suggested that we should be the Richmond Kaniya's, after Kaniya (a young woman in the branch) because she's always so funny. I was laughing so hard. Something to consider. The Kaniya's would be a force to be reckoned with.

I love these guys. Hopefully we'll have many more wins to come.

Our first year in Richmond!

2011-01-10T19:23:00.000-08:00

I promised a "highlights of 2010" post, so here it is! If you've been following our blog, these won't be too surprising for you. There's only so much exciting stuff to write about in our life.

- January -

Sydney and I took the plunge and decided to buy our first set of furniture together. We shopped for awhile and found some that we really liked. With the help of a homeless man, we got them up to our 3rd floor apartment in exchange for a few hamburgers at Carl's Jr.

Don't worry. These couches only lasted about 2 months before we decided to sell them on craigslist (for what we paid for them), and pick up some more interesting pieces like our current green couch.

- February -

We bought a motorcycle, since I sold my other bike before we moved to Richmond. I was trying to use this fact as leverage with Sydney, but she was all for us getting another bike.

- March -

During Spring Break, Sydney's parent's came and visited us. We went all over the place and had a very nice break from school.

- April -

We left our 1-bedroom downtown apartment for a 3-bedroom house we rent about 3 miles outside of downtown Richmond. We also got the cutest puppy in the world (Fizgig)!

He continues to sleep in this position.

- May -

I finished my first year of Medical School and was so ready for a nice long summer break. I did some pig research, and Sydney walked dogs. We really just took some time to take it easy.

Hard at work waiting for the pig to live or die. At least I didn't look like this, no offense Dane!

- June -

Sydney's brother Scott came and visited us. It was a lot of fun. Hooray for summer!

- July-

It was a packed month. My parents and Katelyn came and visited us. We went up to New York, D.C., Virginia Beach, and all the usual Richmond sites. Then Sydney and I got to go to Youth Conference in Palmyra. That was a lot of fun. My 2 young men who came (Raul & Eric) had just been baptized that year.

- August -

School actually started July 26th, but I'm including it in August. Also, Sydney and I participated in the Ride for Jim bike ride and rode from Richmond to Yorktown for Cancer Research fundraising. It was lots of fun, and we plan on doing it again this year.

- September -

Sydney spent the last year walking dogs for Kat French and River City Rover, but Kat was going to be closing the business, so Sydney started her own. She's pretty awesome isn't she?

- October -

The only thing I can remember from October is the Branch Halloween party where my young men made a spook alley/maze that rivaled the best ones I've ever been too. We should charge tickets for next year.

- November -

An awesome Thanksgiving, sleeping in the back of our Volvo down in Florida! We swam with dolphins, sat at the beach, saw awesome stuff at SeaWorld, and ate some good food. What more could you ask for?

- December -

We went home to Utah for Christmas. I became 1 & 1/2 a Doctor.

I ran out of gas there at the end for finding pictures. Just look at our latest posts. I know...I'm lazy. 2010 was a good year. I'm very grateful for all the blessings that Sydney and I get. We live a wonderful life and we are so thankful for it.

I'm nervous for what 2011 has in store. There is an ominous date looming in the future (June 24) where I will be tested to see if I've remembered everything I've ever been taught while here in medical school (not to mention things I most likely have never been taught). I love my calling with the young men. Our next post will be about our basketball team. Those boys are great! Sydney is still working with the chillins in the primary, and they love her to death!

Well, that's all. Cardio is calling me. I will leave you with one question. Is it ECG or EKG?

You Done Got Shrunk 2010!

2011-01-02T16:49:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't understand this post's title, you obviously didn't spend Christmas with the Christiansen Family or you haven't seen Despicable Me. (Both are things you should consider doing before you die.)

2010 is over. It feels good to have a new start. 2010 was a very different year for Sydney and I. Our first full year living outside of Utah. I finished my first year of med school. Sydney started her own business. We both got really really busy with our church callings. It was a good year. Eventually I'll do a post about our 2010 highlights, but this post is about our Christmas trip home to Utah. (Thanks to our wonderful parent's generosity in purchasing our plane tickets)

I'm realizing now that I didn't take very many pictures. Must have been having too much fun.

First, this is the snow storm that happened in Richmond on Thursday morning that cancelled my exam for Friday morning. Yeah, that's right. I had to wait to take my final until...Tuesday, Jan 4. I definitely have had more snow days here in Richmond, then I have ever had my entire life living in Utah.

A casual picture at Sydney's house on Christmas Eve while Jim shared a spiritual message. Those are our feet!

Rachel and my mom put together the best Christmas party ever! It was a bunch of Minute-To-Win-It challenges. Hilarious. Don't know what that is? Neither did I. Spend the next 5 minutes on YouTube and then return. This challenge is my cousin Adrianne and Uncle Wes. They have Vaseline on their noses which they used to pick up little fuzzy balls and transfer to a bowl across the room. The person who moved the most balls in a minute won. Many of the games were quite a treat.

My favorite was a game where you put a cookie on your forehead, lean back or lay on the ground, and then try to eat the cookie using nothing but your face, all within a minute of course. Hilarious!

Tessa was not camera shy at the party!

We got back to Richmond, and have been just preparing for the new year. We celebrated my birthday and Sydney got me some wonderful presents. I got an entire paint set with a million colors and an official painting knife so I can finally create like my great mentor Bob Ross. My artwork will likely make an appearance on this blog.

So far, the tally for free things I've received on my birthday this year is:

-Free Red Robin Burger (Delicious!)

-Free Ruby Tuesday's Burger. (Haven't used yet)

-Free Coldstone (I actually got 2!)

-18 Free Wings, and a Free Dessert to Buffalo Wild Wings.

-Free Shake at Arby's.

-Free Shake at Del Taco.

-Free Dessert at Famous Dave's.

-Free Grand Slam at Denny's.

Finally, to wrap it all up, some beautiful family portraits taken at the Hamilton home on Christmas Eve. Anyone who was there can tell you that my face tells quite a story.

Happy New Year to all! Hope you have a good one.

Puppies and Christmas!

2010-12-12T18:36:00.000-08:00

Yes. We broke down and dressed our dog. Doesn't he look so cute though!?!?! We couldn't resist. Sydney and I swore that we would never become one of those crazy people who puts clothes on their animals, but seriously...he looks so good in his little sweater.

Don't I have the cutest Sydney and Fizgig? Syd and I have spent the weekend at Christmas parties. It's been a lot of fun and we appreciate the good food. We had a party last night at Dr. Johnson's house, my preceptor for the semester. It was a lot of fun and we helped set up their Christmas tree. Then tonight we went to Virginia Pallante's house, my project HEART leader for another wonderful meal. YUM YUM YUM. I think I really like food. So does my belly.

We had to move this week's Thursday basketball practice to Saturday because the building was reserved for a Christmas party on Thursday. So, I reserved the gym for Saturday morning, but when we got there we found a blood drive. :( So we tried another church & found another Christmas party in that gym. So I took the boys (Elijah, Eric, Yusu, Tay, & Raul) back to my house to hang out until the blood drive ended at 1pm. I'm really excited for the boys' basketball season. They are really really improving and are all great players.

Anyway, I wish I had some more pictures to post. I had some pictures of our dog walking activity 2 weeks ago at Appalachian Great Pyrenees Rescue, but I can't find them right now. Another time. I should be studying for my Respiratory test, but have no motivation. Happy Puppy Christmas!

I do want to credit Mr. Aaron Winder for the music selection. A great band. Now that I'm driving the YM around a lot, I'm finding more time for music.

Florida...for Thanksgiving?

2010-11-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

So, Sydney and I really needed a vacation. What better time than Thanksgiving? We don't have any family close by, so we decided to trek on down to Florida and enjoy the beach and some warmer weather. We also decided to go to SeaWorld and Discovery Cove which was awesome!

Our trip started out like this. He was being such a cutie and totally knew what was going on once we started packing things up.

Then we were off. We drove down on Wednesday after I took my test that morning and Sydney finished her dog visits. We got on the road around 3pm. Got to Daytona Beach around 1:30am! Our plan was to sleep in the back of our Volvo station wagon to save on costs for hotels and such so we could spend them on nice eating out and fun activities. It totally worked out great. Our little make-shift bedroom was actually pretty comfortable. We just made sure the strategically place our "campsite" near a Walmart so that we had quick access to bathrooms and groceries! It was actually a lot of fun!
The next morning (Thanksgiving), Syd and I headed to the beach. The weather was so nice. The beach was beautiful. We mostly just slept for hours on our towels and enjoyed our relaxing.

I'm in this picture too!
Sydney will be so happy I put this picture up!

Thanksgiving dinner was at Hog Heaven, Real Pit Bar-B-Q (http://hogheavendaytona.com/). Delicious! The evening was spend in the Volvo with a movie on a laptop. Doesn't get much better for vacation.

The next morning was going to be a half day in Daytona and then we were off to SeaWorld! Once we got to SeaWorld though, it was raining mucho. Luckily it wasn't cold until we sat in all the splash zones and the FREEZING tank water cooled us down. It was tons of fun though and Sydney's first time. The shows were great and we got to see the brand new baby killer whale.

Rainy McRain!

The Manta Ray exhibit was freaking awesome. Little did we know that the next day we'd be swimming in the same tank as ones even bigger than this guy.
Sydney can speak to the animals.

The next morning we were scheduled for our day of luxury at Discovery Cove. It was so much fun! We swam with dolphins, snorkeled with giant sting rays/manta rays, fed exotic birds, lounged around, and basically had a blast! Very much a lot of fun!

Where we swam with the dolphins. Sorry folks...no cameras, and the pictures we take for you will be 1 million dollars. I expected as much. (actually I did, since I read about it before hand)

This little guy was a treat. We had little ID cards that got us all the stuff for free at the resort, and one of the birds in the aviary decided that I looked like a nice place to land and discovered the lanyard around my neck. Best perch EVER!

But his weight started to pull the lanyard down my neck. Didn't stop him. He had a good spot and he was staying there.
He promptly went to sleep.

I thought this little guy was going to be my new best friend. He probably stayed on my back like that for at least 15 minutes. When he finally decided his nap was over, he climbed to my shoulder and started nuzzling up to my face. I thought it was so cute, but then he took a dumb on my shoulder and flew off. Yeah....I know.

So, after our day at Discovery Cove, we ran back over to SeaWorld to see the dolphin show we missed the day before and then drove back home. It was a very fun and much needed vacation that was too short like always. We can't wait for Christmas, although our destination will be much less warm.

Jump Into FALL!!!!

2010-11-15T15:13:00.000-08:00

I know. CUTE!

Like always there's been a lot going on lately. Our dog is getting cuter by the day. I'm getting really sick of school, and Sydney is working a lot. We could really use a vacation. We can't wait until Christmas break when we're coming home to Utah for a week. Also, we're trying to figure something out so we can get out of here the week of Thanksgiving. I want to drive down to Florida!

We had a great Halloween! Sydney and I had orange and green waffles. She had orange juice and I drank purple milk. We really got into the spirit of Halloween.

At the branch Trunk or Treat, the YM were in charge of a spook alley/haunted maze. This is it with the lights on. They made a huge maze that you had to crawl through out of old stage curtains and tables and chairs. It was a hit & everyone there loved it. Some of these boys have a future career working at haunted houses.

Leftover coffin from Oliver Sykes. We decided to put it to good use.

I made Sydney watch a SCARY movie! Hehe! This picture is priceless.

We also took care of our friend Morgan's dog, Kimber. She was a handful, but we had a lot of fun together, while he was enjoying himself in San Diego.
This picture is just to showcase how soft our doggie can get right after a bath and a brushing!
We made some caramel apples too! Sydney made M&M and I used Skor! YUM!

The best thing about this picture is that there is a hole in these jeans that the stick from my apple is conveniently covering up. :)

Last week we had a surprise visit from my aunt Claudia. She is travelling across the U.S. house sitter for people in some exotic locations and she decided to stop by on her way through Richmond. We were happy to haver her here and ate out at some awesome restaurants. This was at The Black Sheep. Easily one of our favorite places here. Those are Brussels sprouts that she is holding.

Sydney had a big sandwich! I had a fried bologna sandwich. They were all DELICIOUS!

All in all, it's been a good end of October/beginning of November. I can hardly believe that the year is almost over. Time is flying by. I registered for Step 1 of the boards that I will take this summer. YIKES! It makes me nervous!

Virginia HATES Pumpkins!

2010-10-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

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?

2010-10-17T20:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

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?

If only you could understand the cuteness...

2010-09-28T08:13:00.000-07:00

The other day we were just sitting, & Fizgig decided to have a glamor shoot! I don't know what kind of mood he was in, but the pictures turned out FABULOUS!

Yeah. He's a cutie!

I've had enough of this studying! Play with me.

ALSO, This is quite cute!

The Times...They Are A Changin'

2010-09-20T15:53:00.001-07:00

Sorry for no updates for awhile. I've been super busy with school & a little class from Hades called Microbiology. Man, is it a tough class. Glad it will be over this week on Friday, but not excited about the cumulative Shelf Exam we get to take on Friday. We'll see how that goes. Sydney has been equally busy, as she is taking over the dog walking business that she is working for, as her boss is getting a different job. It's been a lot of work, but should be exciting for Syd.

In recent news, we got a new car over the summer and parted ways with our beloved Honda, Rober the Bruce. He was a great car, but we decided to upgrade.

We've decided to return to my Swedish roots & drive a Volvo! We love it & I've already gotten some quality time with it changing brakes & parts & such! So much fun. We love it, since it's got serious sex appeal & I installed a 3rd row rear facing seat in the back.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Great for hauling around Young Men.

Other interesting happenings. After my last Micro test, Syd & I finished a project we've been wanting to do for awhile. We made a bench for our table so we can have lots of people over. Previously we only had 4 chairs which made it tough. This ups our seating capacity to 7. All made by Sydney and Josh craftsmanship & carpentry skills. I think we did a pretty good job!

Fizgig approves!

Also, while Sydney was away in Utah attending Mindy and Perry's wedding, I started a surprise project for her. We had been talking about getting her a moped to do dog walks with in order to save money on gas & have a 2nd mode of transportation (now that the motorcycle is gone, a story for another post). Have any of you seen Overhaulin'? It's a TLC show where they pretend to steal someone's car & then fix it up all sweet & surprise them. I pretended it was like that for Sydney, although I'm not as professional & didn't get it all finished before she got back. (I only had 4 days.) Either way, here is a picture of what I started with.

And this is the restoration so far. Still waiting on some parts to come in the mail, but should have it all together by the weekend! Yehaw!

That's right! Check out that paint job! First time I've ever tried that & I think it turned out pretty good! Not to mention Sydney's favorite color. All just a couple of cans of spray paint from Lowe's. It's all in the technique.

She'll definitely be topping out over 25 mph once I put on the new exhaust. Yeah...behold it's glory.

D0n't worry, we'll definitely be posting a video of it's maiden voyage & some pictures of the finished product. Hopefully it won't result in a major fail!

Well, that's all for now folks. Hope you enjoy. Sorry it's laiden with purchases & projects. That's pretty much what we do around here. Mixed in with a lot of studying.

A Challenge!

2010-09-06T10:16:00.001-07:00

This is for all you who don't have the privilege of living in such a culturally diverse area. See if you can follow the following conversation.

If you're in need of translation...I think I can decipher most of it. Pink girl is talking to Blue guy who is friends with a lot of my YM & comes to activities and church a lot. He's a great kid. Pink girl is having a tough time with English. Please enjoy her own language's awesome-ness.

Isn't Facebook awesome? Vowels are apparently unimportant to most teenagers. Of the 25ish "words" she typed, she spelled 7 or 8 correct, depending on how you count. (2 were me and 2 were ok.)

I love it.

Ride For Jim!

2010-08-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

First. What is the Ride for Jim? Well, four years ago a doctor at MCV lost one of his good friends, who also happened to be a doctor (Jim), to cancer. A year later the first Doctor decided he was going to ride his bicycle from the West coast of the United States to the East in order to raise money for cancer research. In the years following others have continued the ride for Jim by cycling the roughly two and a half month trek across the Country. There was also an event created where those who may not be able to do the full ride, can still participate and help raise money by finishing the last 70 miles with the coast to coast riders.

So less than a week before the 70 mile event Josh asked me if I would do it with him. I still don't know what it was that convinced me to do it since I probably hadn't ridden a bike in six years. However, the following Sunday morning we were in downtown Richmond with about 100 other EXPERIENCED riders, maybe 10 inexperienced ones, with a borrowed mountain bike and road bike, waiting to get started on our 70 mile adventure. (Sadly, we only started documenting our 70 mile adventure about 55 miles into it. Hence, the pictures are what they are.)

This was the second pit stop of the trip. The first break was just to stop for a few minutes and refill on water. This second one was a stop at a restaurant in Williamsburg to grab some lunch and a few minutes rest from one of the toughest parts of the ride. (You can clearly see from the picture how tiring and hot the last 15 minutes were before we got to stop for lunch. Just going to say now, never been so sweaty in my entire life.)... and we're sporting our "Ride for Jim" Tattoos. :)

After filling up on lunch and relaxing in the nice air conditioned building we headed back out to finish our epic adventure, but not before snapping a few awesome pictures.

Gearing back up. (We felt so awesome with our equipment, which is funny because I never thought I would feel cool putting a helmet on.)

The last 15 miles. (My attitude had done a 180 degree flip from the beginning of the ride, all thanks to a great hubby who offered to take the cursed mountain bike off my hands after a little less than half way. I never would have finished if he hadn't.)

(I have no explanations for the scream at the end of this video. We survived though, so it couldn't have been too bad.)

WE MADE IT!!! 51/2 hours on our bikes, and not the last ones in! (That was my main fear, other than not finishing.) We were thrilled with our accomplishment, and some refreshing watermelon to finish off the day wasn't bad either.

At the end of the ride they do a ceremonious "Tire Dip." When the riders began their cross country ride they started by dipping their back tire in the Pacific Ocean, and then when they finish the trip they dip their front one in the Atlantic Ocean. It would be an awesome thing to say you'd done. Josh and I still want to do it one day...

Josh, and his fellow M2's who rode.

We were tired and VERY sweaty, but we had fun and can't wait to do it again next year. ...we're thinking we'll train a little more next time, and NOT borrow a mountain bike.

Urban Camping - It's All the Rage!

2010-08-10T11:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I took my first test of the second year of medical school. It was a tough 2 weeks of Pharmacological madness, but my brain held onto some of the millions of drug names and I did pretty well. That evening, we had planned a camp out for my young men. We originally had planned to go to Pocahontas State Park, but when I called to reserve our campsite a few days before, I found out that there was a 6 person limit per campsite. We were going to have 8 people, so we needed 2 sites. Total cost - $63. To camp. I couldn't believe it.

Basically, if we chose to go, we would wipe our budget completely & it's only August. So, I came up with a great solution. We camped out in my backyard.

We dug a fire pit & had a fire building contest. Brother Sykes was the team leader for Eric & Tay and Brother Rainey was the team leader for Raul & Yusu. Raul & Yusu went first & went for almost 5 minutes with the flint & steel with no success. They tried again for another 5 minutes with a lot of matches & were still unsuccessful. (I will mention that we had a large rainstorm the night before & it was difficult finding dry wood).

Team Sykes then took the stage & Tay basically stepped up & showed us all he is a professional outdoors-man. 2 minutes & 38 seconds & the string above the pit was burnt. Pretty impressive Tay.

We made Tin-Foil dinners after getting the fire made & the boys all made their own. It started to rain as we were wrapping up, so we just headed inside for a Rock Band session! My favorite part about it all is how everyone sings along.

We then made some smores on the stove top, since the rain had soaked our campfire & wood. It was nice to enjoy the comforts of the indoors. I was going to take a picture of Raul cooking his Mallow, when it erupted in flames! I guess according to the Sandlot, he cooked it just right. Then SCARF!

The next morning the boys cooked waffles, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast, & it was a good breakfast. We then headed out to our favorite Pony Pastures for a float down the rapids.

I have to give Yusu & Eric some credit because they both admitted to not being very good swimmers, but still dared to ride down the rapids. Luckily Tay was a strong swimmer & ready to catch them. This next picture is my favorite. You can see our safety chain to catch Eric as he sits up above the rapid deciding whether or not to go.

What a blast we had with these guys! Thanks to my counselors for the help!

Virginia Hurricane!!!!

2010-07-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

Don't worry. We all survived. :) Okay so we didn't really experience a hurricane, but it sure looked and felt like one. Yesterday just after Josh had left to go help a new couple in the branch move in, and just as I was leaving to go pick up some sister missionaries a storm attacked. The power was cutting in and out as I was walking out the door and limbs and leaves were whipping me as I ran out to the car. On the way out of town I was passed by about 3 cop cars, 2 fire trucks, and one ambulance. It was crazy. The drive out to the sisters was interesting in itself, as I went the whole way driving 20 on the freeway. It was pretty exciting. However, it wasn't until I got back into town and was heading over to help Josh finish up the move that I noticed how much damage the storm had done. GIANT trees had been blown over. (I tried to take pictures as I was driving. These were the best I got.) The picture of the biggest tree is actually just around the corner from our house. It was amazing that it didn't hit any of the expensive houses it was growing next to. These were just a few of the trees that fell. Others blocked off streets entirely and there were many poor cars that had suffered giant limbs falling on them. I'm so glad ours was not one of them.

Hi!

2010-07-28T08:03:00.001-07:00

Youth Conference - Palmyra 2010

2010-07-18T14:43:00.000-07:00

This last weekend, Sydney and I had the wonderful opportunity of going to Palmyra, NY for our stake youth conference. Sydney is in the primary, but since there weren't any of the young women leaders who were able to go, I talked them into letting Sydney come with me & take their place. Eric & Raul, 2 of my young men, were able to go. The journey started at 5:20am when we picked up Raul, Eric, & Rinda (one of the young women) from their houses. The buses left the Stake Center at 6:30am on Thursday morning & it was a long drive up to Palmyra.

Thursday was dedicated completely to driving. We had 4 giant buses filled to the gills with youth & leaders. We were lucky enough to have a bus that was equipped with Wi-fi, so the ride up was much more tolerable.

We arrived sometime around 5pm & got settled into the dorms at Hobart College. As you can see from the pictures, the campus was beautiful! After some pizza, it was off to a short devotional & a rockin' dance!

Raul & Eric were both great on the dance floor. Rinda earned the nickname "Dance Machine," because she did not leave the dance floor once during the 2 1/2 hour dance. Raul proudly danced with 11 different girls!

After the dance we headed off to bed to rest for a fun filled Friday touring church sites. On Friday we visited; The Smith Farm, The Sacred Grove, The Grandin Printing Press, The Hill Cumorah, & saw the wonderful Hill Cumorah Pageant.

As I said before, the night ended with the Hill Cumorah Pageant which was SOOOO good! They do such a great job. We hiked up to the top of the Hill Cumorah & really just had a wonderful time there. Rinda Deju, on of our young women who came on the youth conference got to see here older brother there who is currently on his mission. He is in the Rochester, NY mission & has been working at the visitor's center. Not too many people get to visit their brothers on their mission, but things worked out just right. Rinda was so excited to see him. Elder Deju is currently the only missionary serving from the Richmond Branch, so we were also very excited to meet him as well.

After the pageant, we headed back to the dorms to get to bed. Saturday morning we got up bright and early at 5:30am & headed to the Peter Whitmer farm for a testimony meeting. It was at the Peter Whitmer farm where the church was officially organized.

It was a wonderful trip & such a blessing to get to see the actual sites where it all began. The feeling in The Sacred Grove was incredible. It was so quiet & peaceful. Sydney noticed that there were many trees there that were possibly old enough to have been there when Joseph prayed & saw God & Jesus Christ.

I would highly recommend this trip. Having grown up in Utah, I never was really excited about visiting church sites. (I mean...most of my ideas of "church sites" came from the Pioneer Village portion of Lagoon. BORING!) This trip has changed the way I look at the history of the church. It has made it much more real. Much more tangible. The pageant was really spectacular & so well done. You won't be disappointed.

One of the most entertaining parts of the whole trip are the ridiculous Anti-Mormon people who show up almost every night & day to stand on the streets with their signs & megaphones. I could hardly believe it. One guy at the pageant was dressed up in a devil costume. I just don't understand. If they truly believed that we were wrong, that the Mormons were complete frauds & that Joseph Smith just made it all up, why stand there each night & tell us that we're going to hell? Why try to make an awful spectacle & say ridiculous things through a megaphone? Is that what Christ did to those who had gone astray?

We really enjoyed the trip & can't wait to go back. It is absolutely worth it!

Long Time...No Post = LONG POST!

2010-07-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

So, it's been awhile since our last post, & I thought I'd get back into the swing of things. Summer has been so wonderful! It's sad it's almost over. I start school again on July 26th. Too soon for comfort. We had a wonderful visit from my family (Mom, Dad, & Katelyn) in mid-July & we did just about everything. We drove up to NYC to pickup my family from the airport. (the plan was for them to flying to JFK & the fly out of Richmond, allowing us to spend time in both places for cheaper!) We had so much fun.

Syd & I embarked on our journey around 11pm on the night before our visitors arrived in NYC. (They were flying a red-eye & their plane landed at 5:10 am.) It was an awesome drive & we pulled up right as they were getting ready to call us.

Not being able to check into our hotel until 3pm, we started touring NY only to find that there isn't much open at 7:0am. Either way, we walked around & saw a few things. Don't forget Strawberry Fields, John Lennon.

Then the drama began. Our hotel decided to play secret police & noticed that we had 5 travellers (max in a room is of course 4). After a lot of drama, I had to pretend that I was going to go stay in another hotel so that they would allow my dad to check in.

The beginning of a long day in an empty Times Square

I believe I love this picture.

We went for a freezing cold swim at the pool at our apartment, since they wouldn't let us check in, but they would let us swim.

Underwater cameras are awesome!

Then it was back on the streets to see Mary Poppins on Broadway! It was so much fun!

Then we went back to the Hotel to sleep! (All 5 of us. Sh...don't tell). The next morning we got up & headed to see the Statue of Liberty & visit Chinatown & such!

For those lucky enough to cram into the back seat, my ingenuity paid rich dividends. I created a beautiful entertainment center for them to enjoy watching movies on. Please revel in my "redneck-ness."

After a day in New York, we headed on out to Washington D.C., where we stayed from free in a sketchy Motel 6, with a free voucher from when Kaylene & Jim (Sydney's parent's) came and visited. There was a mouse in that room, so they rewarded us with a free night's stay. No mice this time.

After all that driving, we just wanted to get something to eat & go to bed. I thought this would be easy, but I was wrong and ended up driving around for almost another hour just looking for somewhere suitable. We finally found Moroni & Brother Pizza Restaurant. We are doing the Book of Mormon Stories dance if you can't tell. The pizza was good too!

The next day we toured all the D.C. monuments & such. It was a lot of fun, but pretty toasty!

Then we finally made it back to Richmond. Our little pup found a new best friend in Katie!

We went to the branch on Sunday & then headed right back out to Virginia Beach for a few days. The weather was wonderful & we all got pretty burned, but it was a blast!

After a jam packed few days, my dad had to go back home for work, we just sat around and took it easy. We ate some good good food. We had a picnic on the James River for Katelyn's birthday (which we somehow forgot to take pictures of). We went to the Virginia State Capital. What didn't we do? It was so much fun. Thanks to my family for coming & visiting & being awesome & fun! It was a great vacation for us. Even though it was ultra hot!

Sorry for the long post, but it's been awhile, & there's nothing like pictures to tell about a vacation.

All The Latest!

2010-06-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

We had our first summer visitor & our first visitor in our new house. Scott, Syd's older brother, decided to come out & visit us. We had a great time, & it was so nice to have beds and rooms for all 3 of us (something the Hamilton's know wasn't possible in our previous place). Here are some photos of the highlights.

We went to King's Dominion on Friday, & it was a pleasure as always. They have a new roller coaster this year called the Intimidator 305. Here's what it's all about.

The tallest and fastest gravity driven roller coaster on the East Coast screams along 5,100 feet of steel track at 92 MPH! At a whopping 305 feet tall, Intimidator is the BIGGEST and BADDEST steel roller coaster in the Mid-Atlantic and on the East Coast!

Then, on Saturday, it was on to D.C. We walked all around & saw the monuments. You have to at least see your nation's capital once, right? In the case of Syd & I, at least once every time someone comes and visits. :) We still enjoy it though. It was blazing hot & there were quite a few people there.

Fizgig was feeling very patriotic. I ended up carrying him most of the time. He's just a little guy, & everyone thought it was so funny. I guess he took me for a walk.

We kinda took Sunday off & just went to the branch & the local Greek Festival. It was awesome. Good food, crazy traditional dancing, & A LOT of people.

On Monday, we headed out to VA beach. The weather was so nice & it was such a beautiful fun day. Once we got there, we could hardly keep Scott out of the water. I think he would have been fine skipping D.C. & just going to the beach everyday.

Finally, on Tuesday we ended up at Pony Pastures. The water was SOOOO warm & nice. It was a great end for the trip. What vacation would be complete without jumping pictures?

It was a very enjoyable time, & we loved having Scott come and visit. Don't you want to visit us too?

A Little Pony Pasture!

2010-06-02T07:56:00.000-07:00

School is finally done...for this year that is! I can hardly believe that I've already made it through my first year of medical school. Very glad to be 1/4 of the way (and truthfully, not even that much if you count residency). I'm sure (actually, I know) that Sydney is also very happy that I'm done with school. We've been trying to live it up ever since my last test on Friday.

Sydney is so great, & when I came home from my test I found this!

It was so great! Yes, our little Fizgig has a balloon tied to his collar. He was so cute & such a good sport.

Since then, it's been non stop fun around here. The weather has been soooooo HOT! We finally got around to visiting a little place by our house called Pony Pastures. It's right on the James River & is a great place to hang out, swim, & lay on the big round rocks.

Got to love that motorcycle tan line!

There were actually quite a few people there, but we waded/swam/stumbled out to the middle of the river where there were some available rocks. We're going to take Scott (Sydney's brother who is visiting next week) and my family tubing down the James river when they come. It should be a lot of fun!

Of course, no Sydney & Josh photo opportunity would be complete without some jumping pictures. Since that was too hard in the river, we decided splashing pictures would suffice.

Syd thinks my face is hilarious in this picture.

I just love Sydney's pose in this one!

So, this is a long post, but a lot has happened. There are no words to describe the cuteness that is our puppy, but I will try. The other day, Sydney & I are sitting down watching something on tv, & it has been a really hot day. We've got the A/C units going & we're just relaxing. I notice that from the kitchen, Fizgig comes sauntering into the dinning room CARRYING his water bowl. The poor little guy was out of water & he just wanted to let us know. He even held still, holding his bowl in his mouth long enough for Sydney to grab the camera and take a picture. He's such a stinking cutie!

He's getting pretty big!

As of Late...

2010-05-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

So, there's been a lot going on as of late. We moved to a new house & have been absolutely loving it. The space is so nice & the backyard is even better! Fizgig has been really appreciating it, instead of a long walk & elevator ride down to the closest patch of grass.

We fixed up the fence on the side of the house so Fizgig can no longer escape. After may latest Neuro test, I decided to build a swing in the large tree we have in our backyard. I made Sydney pose for some pictures.

Also, our little rat dog has been pretty cute lately.

He's pretty entertaining. I only have 2 more tests till this year is over. It will be a giant relief. I've done really well, but I'm just running out of motivation. Can it really matter that much?

Just Stuff

2010-05-02T18:48:00.000-07:00

Here we have yet another awesome craigslist find. We bought this 6' long table and four chairs for $120 from a sweet French guy named Pierre who was moving back to Paris with his wife. It only took us about 1/2 an hour to tie it to ol' Brucey. :) This is my face saying, "What have I done? We definitely don't have room for this one in our apartment." Good thing we knew how to climb over the walls in the storage area of our building in order to unlock a room to keep it in until our move a few days later. :)

Don't judge the unpacked boxes in the background please. One day they will be gone, I promise.

Then, of course, I had to add more pictures of our precious pup. I made Josh take a picture of us all "sleeping." The sleeping positions of Fizgig are to die for. This is how he usually ends up when he spends the night in bed with us.

Just another fabulous snapshot of the floppiest dog in the world.

During Josh's marathon study session with his classmates, Fizgig found a friend (Rich) who's neck he could borrow as a pillow.

This is Josh teaching his young men how to be awesome chefs for one of their activities. Erik and Raul loved it! They're even planning other cooking lessons in the future. :)

Erik decided it would make a great picture to splatter Raul with flour.

Erik (who is only 14 years old and about 6'3" tall) with his finished master piece.

And Raul with his.

The Newest Christiansen

2010-04-20T15:28:00.000-07:00

He has arrived! Fizgig. Yes I know. Too cute for words. Therefore...pictures will do what they do best.

Primary Acitvity

2010-04-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd post a few pictures of the fun we had for primary this last Saturday. It was one of our quarterly activities for the year, and was pretty entertaining. Crystal Souter, our second councilor in the primary planned the "Primary Carnival, " and the rest of us just helped get everything organized and set up for it. It turned out to be really great and I know the kids had lots of fun. I, lucky me, get to plan the next one :/, and I'm muchly terrified. Crystal set the bar pretty high, and I hope I can do as well as she did when it's my turn.

Since I can't move these pictures around for some reason, they aren't going to be in order of the way they happened... not like it really matters. :)

This was the "cake walk" done at the end of everything. (They didn't win any cakes, but everyone got a small beach ball that said "Walk With Jesus." We thought they were just fabulous.)

The carnival consisted of games that helped the children learn the teachings of Jesus. The kids would win tickets and at the end they got to buy treats with the tickets they won. This game was about the Widow's Mite. (The kids tried to drop pennies into the water and get them to land on a quarter at the bottom.)

I actually don't remember what this one even was, but this is a picture of Jordan. I've mentioned him to some of you. (He's a little hard to handle. :))

Some lovely women taking time to pose for me. (Crystal, second councilor on the far right)

This was the Wise Man/Foolish Man game. The older kids LOVED this one, and the competition was intense to build the highest tower. I LOVE Yusu's face in the back. :)

These are the other lovely women I work with in the primary. (Adrien, secretary, on the left; Jackie, president, on the right with new baby Addy) I'm so glad they're good at what they do.

Liam here is one of my favorites. He is quite possibly one of the fruitiest children I have ever met. He cracks me up! Here he is twirling his hair and "dancing?"

More of the Wise Man/Foolish Man competition.

Some cuties in the branch. (I'm pretty sure our small branch has more insanely cute children than most wards.)

Poor Josh didn't get to join in on all the fun, but don't you worry. He got to have some fun of his own. He was volunteering at the hospital all day long getting ultrasounds. No baby yet, but we'll keep you posted. ;) It was a long day for him, but he said it was really interesting, so we're both glad it was worth the time.

Please, For Your Enjoyment

2010-04-16T18:30:00.001-07:00

I truly wish I could post all of our videos on the blog, but I'm sure you would not find them quite so hilarious as we did. These few however, are some clips of what we did for entertainment during our first day of packing for the new home.

You will notice that in the first clip, although I did not succeed, there are quite substantial finger prints in the foam later on. (It was really hard.)

(After two attempts, I would like to think I helped weaken it.)

Another semi-successful attempt.

Okay... so maybe I will post them all. You really don't have to watch all of them if you don't want to though. This is the final one. We had succeeded in the ultimate goal... to break it down enough that it would fit into our garbage shoot. :)

Craigslist Junkie

2010-04-16T18:23:00.000-07:00

Okay. Whether Josh will admit to it or not, I place all blame upon him. How else would I have become so completely engrossed with craigslist? I find myself searching the listings everyday... for things that we don't even need! Now, as our apartment is slowly running out of room with the recent purchase of a computer desk and our fabulous green sofa, we have found ourselves with not one, but TWO new/old chairs. Combine that with the beginnings of packing boxes for our new home, and we find ourselves with little room for walking. The only way I allow myself to go on is the thought of our new three bedroom home. Oh how I can't wait to fill the dining room and two extra bedrooms with fabulous finds from craigslist. Oh my Josh, what kind of monster have you created?

The two chairs in all their glory. (Rocker on the left)

a house to live in

2010-04-09T19:21:00.000-07:00

So, this is the house we're going to rent next year.

It is in the nicest neighborhood & is pretty cute itself! We are planning on moving in during May. Just wanted to post some pictures. Details to follow. One thing I can say for sure is that we will be getting a puppy!

This blog's title began due to our microscopic apartment in Logan rich after we got married. Although this house is not big by any means, it no longer falls under "small." We're so excited!