Thanksgiving

Dan and I had a great Thanksgiving weekend that was spent together with family and friends.

It started on Tuesday, which was my birthday. I sat home most of the day by myself because Dan was at work, but I was able to get some things done which was nice. Tuesday night we went to dinner and rented "The Proposal" to watch together at home. Overall it was a nice, relaxing birthday, which was exactly what I needed after such a hectic couple of weeks at school.

Wednesday evening we drove to Mesa, where we stayed for Thanksgiving. My step dad's father has finally arrived from Mexico with is visa, and spent Thanksgiving at my mom's also. It was fun to be able to visit with him a little bit, and I was grateful for my husband's spanish speaking so that he could hold conversations with Leo's dad and help him feel included.

Thursday, our Thanksgiving started at my mom's house. We ate there around 11:30, with my grandparents and my step dad's father. I always enjoy getting together with them since we really only see them on holidays. We also always celebrate birthday's together on Thanksgiving since my birthday is the 24th, my brother's is the 29th and my grandma's is the 30th. We had a nice ice cream cake together, and were able to exchange gifts and everything.

We then moved on to Dan's grandparents house, where his family attends Thanksgiving each year with all of his aunts, uncles and cousins. This year many of the cousins were not there, since a lot of them have moved out of state recently. We were there for 45 min. or so, and then had to move on to our next stop.

We went to my Dad's house next, for another full Thanksgiving meal. It was nice to be able to visit with my step sister, her boyfriend, and my step brother. My dad graced us with the presence of his "trivia", which is apparently the new holiday "tradition". He comes up with the most random questions and goes around the table asking each of us our own question. It's always complete with prizes and everything. It is actually quite entertaining, and often the 5 of us kids end up roaring in laughter by the end. We celebrated my birthday again there with cake and gifts.

Thursday night, we picked up Marie, and came back to Tucson since Dan had to work on Friday. Marie and I looked through the Black Friday ads, deciding where all we wanted to go, and what we wanted to look for. We ended up getting home to Tucson around 11:30, going to bed around 12:30, and Marie and I got up at 2:30 am to be at Old Navy when they opened at 3 am.

It was crazy at Old Navy, and I was very much taken off guard by the line of people 3 stores long waiting to get into Old Navy at 3 am. We went to Old Navy, then Kohls where we got most of our stuff and waited in line for almost 2 hours. We also visited Wal Mart, Sports Authority, Target, Sears, K-Mart, Ulta, and McDonalds at 4 am for breakfast.

Marie and I finished up shopping and came home around 11am, and took a nap until about 1:30pm. We then got up and went to see NEW MOON!!! I've been waiting for Thankgiving weekend to see it with Marie, since my husband refused to go with me. It was SO good! We LOVED it, and also loved the fact that we walked up to the ticket office 5 minutes before the movie started, got our tickets, got into the theatre and got great middle seats all before the movie started.

We took Marie home Friday night after Dan got home from work. We stayed the night in Mesa again on Friday night, and were able to watch most of the ASU vs. UA football game on Saturday. This game is always a hot topic around the house since we are definitely a house divided. Saturday night my mom and sister Annie came to visit while my step dad and brother took his dad back to Sahuarita to stay with my step dad's sister. It was nice to be able to visit with my mom for a while while Dan set up the rest of the Christmas lights out front.

Overall, it was a great weekend spent with many of our friends and family. We are so very grateful for our families and all that they unknowingly do for us all the time. They are very much a blessing in our life. We are also grateful for great friends that enrich our lives also. We have been so blessed and enjoy reflecting on all of the things we have been given.

TGIF!

I am very excited that it's Friday, and even though I do have to work off and on throughout the weekend, I'm so glad to be able to have a few days off from school.
(The weather, and the fact that I slept until 11, may be helping my wonderful mood)

Work is really simple and doesn't require much from me mentally.

I'm going to take the dogs to the park today before work.

Tonight is Dan and my date night...Not sure where we'll go or what we'll do yet, but it's sure to be an enjoyable and relaxing time with my husband!

Tomorrow morning I have to work but only for an hour or 2. I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow either, but I would bet it will have something to do with setting up more Christmas stuff. I know my husband way to well to assume it would be anything else. Although he did say he wanted to go to the temple tomorrow...maybe we'll do that instead of Christmas?
(We set up our 3 christmas trees on Wednesday night, the big one has lights, but the other 2 are bare, and there are no ornaments being brought out yet)

I hope to clean up the backyard tomorrow as well as give the dogs a bath, and maybe take them to the park again tomorrow (not in that order).

I also need to prepare a lesson for primary on Sunday. I haven't even looked at what it's about...

Sunday will be a wonderful Sabbath day. Dan wants me to help him with Stake Choir rehearsal at 4, and then I have to work from 6:30-11.

So while it definitely will be a weekend full of things to do, I am so happy for the weekend to be here and to be able to work around my house, spend time with my sweet husband and our dogs who are starved for attention sometimes when school and work get crazy!

Hope all of you enjoy your weekend as well!

Mock Board Disaster

Tonight was my night for Mock Boards.

10% of our semester grade depends on our performance on these mock boards. They also help to get us more familiar with the paperwork and procedures for the real board before we get there in May.

In theory it's a great idea.

The only problem is that we all get so stressed out over it that we get 5 cold sores all at once (one of my friends), and have anxiety attacks over it.

Tonight, my patient just flat out didn't show up...

No call...

Nothing.

I was stressing about him all weekend, because he came in and was screened by one of my friends at school, and was then told he would be a good patient for mock boards.

That night, for the screening, he showed up 20 minutes late for a 40 minute appointment.

Needless to say, I was freaking out.

We told him to be there at 5 even though he didn't need to be there until at least 5:30.

But, he decided to just not show up...period.

I called both his crazy wife who runs his life, and their house phone. Answering machines at both places...

I swear this semester is out to get me.

Now, I have to use one of the 3 clinics I have left to do my mock board again, on top of finishing 2 or 3 more patients, and now finding another mock board patient (after it took me 3 months to find this guy...)

All by November 30th, which is my last clinic for the semester.





May can't come soon enough!

Holiday Wreaths

For our Holiday Fundraiser at school, we are selling these beautiful holiday wreaths and centerpieces. The money from them will help us provide toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, etc. to the community, and will also help fund our pinning ceremony at the Westin La Paloma in May.

These items are made from real live evergreens, and smell wonderful! They last longer than you might think since they are real. Last year the people who bought them said they lasted even past Christmas!




They will be delivered to me the week after Thanksgiving, and I will distribute them as soon as possible to you so you can enjoy them as long as possible.

I would SO much appreciate anyone who is interested in purchasing one. The orders are due by November 2nd though, so let me know ASAP if you're interested so I can take your order and collect the money.

Thanks for reading!

Tough Times

I'm not quite sure why this week is insisting on being so difficult so early...

Last night in clinic I had a pretty big yucky situation arise with one of my instructors and ended up getting written up 3 times by 3 different instructors...all for helping one of my classmates and doing something that we've been encouraged to do and have been doing the entire time we've been in school!

I am still so angry about it a want to scream.

Talk about unprofessional! She chewed me to bits in front of my patient (which happened to be my brother), and then neglected the rest of the students and their patients while she filled out my write up form.

I am SO over school, and just really want to be done already. I am tired and fed up with all of their shananagins and their insecurity. They have to get us in trouble and take points off our grades to make themselves feel better.

My poor brother now has to come back for a second appointment, when it was something that could have all been completed last night if we wouldn't have had everything happen that did.

I have to go to work this afternoon, and then back to clinic tonight and tomorrow night...hopefully nothing else happens because I might just go off on someone if they try to go off on me about anything.

This is so unlike me to feel this way, but last night got under my skin so much, and I can't shake it. Not yet at least. Not until I talk to the head honcho instructors and they tell me that I was right in what I did and agree that it shouldn't have happened the way it did. Hopefully that will make me feel a little better...

Thanks for the vent...

Love is in the air...

A few weeks ago, Dan and I had the opportunity to attend our good friend Heather Richter's wedding in Phoenix at the Desert Botanical Garden. It was an absolutely beautiful ceremony with perfect scenery. Her new husband is from Washington, so having the wedding the Botanical Garden was a perfect setting to introduce his family and friends to where she's from.

We love being able to attend our old friends' weddings and see them so happy. It's always fun to see other old friends and catch up with them also. Here are a few pictures that Dan took at the ceremony & reception...

Longing for Autumn...

I had a thought last week that I want to move to Minneapolis, MN...

Not necessarily because I want to live there specifically, but because I want to actually experience the 4 seasons! I brought out my fall decor last week and was somewhat disheartened because it is still 100 degrees outside and I'm setting up my fall decorations. I want so much for it to be in the 60s and 70s, cooling off. I want to see the leaves change colors and fall to the ground. I want to wear long-sleeved shirts and jeans with maybe even a light jacket. It doesn't feel like autumn outside at all, and for whatever reason it is really bothering me this year.



It's been the same around Thanksgiving & Christmas time the last year or two, and I'm sure it will be this year as well. I want to wear cute sweaters and jeans with cute winter boots. I want to learn how to actually wear a scarf the correct way. I want to wake up in November and December to 40 degree weather and maybe even some snow!


Dan wasn't sold on the idea of moving to Minneapolis. He doesn't want to be that far from family and everything we've known for our entire lives. He's also not as into it because he lived in Philadelphia for 2 years, and got to experience the change in seasons. For me however, Arizona is the only place I've ever lived. Not that I don't like it here, I think AZ is beautiful and I am almost immune to the 110 degree weather 8 months out of the year. I'm just ready for a change...

We won't be able to move anywhere for another few years at least. Dan still has to finish his Journalism degree at ASU, hopefully by 2011. But I don't think I'm going to be able to just let it go. So, I wonder...

Where else could we move that would satisfy both of our wants? (i.e. somewhat close to AZ, but still has 4 distinct seasons?)

One Last Trip

I have realized that I got way behind in my blogging toward the end of the summer when we go so busy, and then school started and everything just went haywire! So I'm here to catch you up on what we spent the end of our summer break doing...

For Dan's birthday, we went to Minneapolis, MN. We both love to travel so much, and we realized that this would probably be our last chance to have a bigger vacation for a long time, so we decided to take advantage of it.

Dan's aunt Rita works for Alaska Airlines and was able to get us VERY cheap tickets. (She did the same for us when we went to Seattle last summer) She came with us along with Dan's brother Jared. We spent a week there, Monday-Friday and had a great time! We each took a night for dinner and were able to do everything we wanted to do!

Monday we spent mostly traveling. Our flight left Phoenix at 6:15 am and we flew to Seattle for our layover. We ate at a Chilis in the airport for lunch at 10:30 am and then after a quick nap on the floor at the gate, got on another plane to Minneapolis. We got into Minneapolis around 6 pm on Monday night. We were so exhausted by the time we got there that we went to Applebees a few blocks from our hotel for dinner and went to bed.





Tuesday morning we went exploring downtown a little bit, as our hotel was right downtown also. We went to the downtown Target, which is 2 stories and has an escalator exclusively for CARTS!! We were SO amazed, I'm sure all the people shopping there thought we were pretty weird just standing staring at the carts go up and down the escalator. We stood and took pictures and video with our phones for a few minutes before getting what we needed (trying to spend $20 so they would validate our parking and we wouldn't have to pay for the underground parking) and heading back to the hotel.
That afternoon we went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Gardens! Some of us were kind of skeptical about going to a garden full of sculptures, but it ended up being a lot of fun and a great photo op! We also went to drive by the St. Paul Temple to get a picture with all 4 of us there. That evening we went to drop off rental car #1 and came back to eat dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe while watching the crowd assemble for the Rod Stewart Concert that night at the Target Center across the street. We got back to the hotel and played a bunch of games like Battle of the Sexes, where the boys learned what sling back shoes were, Uno, and other fun card games that we bought at Target that day.




















Wednesday was my favorite day! Mall of America Day! We agreed to spend the entire day at Mall of America on Wednesday so we would only have to go 1 day. We got to the mall around 11 am, and stayed until about 6 or 7 pm. We went everywhere, including the American Girl store, where I brought one of my dolls to have her hair re-done and styled back to the way it was when I got her. You truly need 2 or 3 days to be able to go to every store and do everything there. It is 4 stories with an amusement park in the middle, and is shaped like a square. There is probably every store you could ever think of, all in one mall. I was good and didn't go crazy. I did get a few things, including a pair of black sandals from Skechers, a pair of Ralph Lauren sunglasses, a shirt and a pair of earrings from Nordstrom Rack, and a couple shirts from Old Navy. Even Dan shopped a little, getting a pair of jeans and 2 polos from Old Navy with a gift card my grandma had sent for his birthday. We took the light rail/bus back to our hotel and again crashed from shopping all day.





Thursday, Dan and Jared went on a tour of the Metrodome. They walked to the lightrail and got to walk down on the field and through the stands the day after Brett Favre officially signed with the Minnesota Vikings. That afternoon, Dan and I went back to Mall of America to find him a Minnesota Twins hat, since much to his dismay, the Metrodome does not have a team shop. We met Jared and Rita at the airport to pick up rental car #2 before heading out to the temple. Dan, Rita and I were able to go do some work in the St. Paul temple on a very rainy evening. It did rain all day Wednesday and most of Thursday as well, but it was beautiful. Not hot or humid at all, just a light drizzle most of the time. I even walked outside barefoot for a short while because it was such gorgeous weather. We went to the only Texas Roadhouse in Minnesota that night for dinner because Rita had never been, and then came back to the hotel and packed up our suitcases to get ready to fly home on Friday.






Friday again was mostly traveling. Our flight out of Minneapolis was delayed because of the rainy weather on the east coast and midwest. But it turned out ok because we were supposed to have a 3 hour layover in Seattle that ended up only being 2 hours. We got back into Phoenix around 9:30 pm on Friday night and just about crashed as soon as we got back to Mesa.

It was a very successful, fun and relaxing trip. It was a great opportunity to rest up and enjoy some time off before school started again. Minneapolis was a wonderful city, and of all the places we've traveled to, it's one of our favorites! We'll just stick to the summers there though...