Victory

As sporty as we are, this is not a title describing an athletic feat, but rather a financial accomplishment. A pat on the back goes to me for making my last payment on my BYU undergrad student loans last month! Woohoo!! Now we just have Daniel's med school debt to deal with :)

10 things worse than losing a camera

These past couple of months have been busy. Daniel went back to school in August (although doing radiology research full time over the summer wasn't much of a vacation), I went to San Clemente with the Sisters (in-law :) for a weekend in September, and for the first two weekends in October we've been out of town. October 2-5 we went on a cruise to Ensenada, Mexico. (We promise we didn't realize it was during General Conference until a couple of weeks before our cruise!). It was LOADS of fun and we indulged in our much needed R&R. Okay, others may have needed it more than us, but we enjoyed it nonetheless....up until the part where we lost our camera!! On our last day at sea, we took our camera up to the deck and laid out in the sun. Then we headed back to our cabin and didn't realize until hours later that we left our camera out on the deck! We traced all our footsteps and filed a "lost item" report with the customer service desk before leaving the next morning, but unfortunately our loss was not recovered.

To cheer myself up, I decided to count my blessings and understand that there are much, MUCH worse things in life than losing a camera:

1. Being left behind in Mexico...or having a medical accident there. Our cruise ship could have very well left us behind, or we could have gotten food poisoning. My dear 'ol Pa (my dad's dad) was vacationing in Mexico a few years ago and dislocated his hip! He had to get rushed to the U.S. for treatment. Not a very happy experience and definitely worse than losing a camera.

2. Losing all your money in a cruise casino. Good thing we don't gamble.

3. The cruciatus curse (see previous blog post)

4. Christmas being canceled

5. Losing a limb....I'd much rather lose a camera

6. Getting robbed. Not only would someone have stolen our camera, but also our wallets, phones, etc. Okay, Daniel just told me to put "getting BEATEN and robbed". There ya go--even worse.

7. WW III

8. The banishment of soccer playing. Not that this would ever happen, but if it did, a part of me would die.

9. A major earthquake. Crossing my fingers as I write this....

10. Losing a more expensive camera. The one we lost had cost us about $175, so (as I've been saying) it could have been worse...we could have bought a pricier one to begin with.

There. I feel better now :)

Officially a Fan

Okay, so I won't lie...I had always somewhat prided myself on never having read the Harry Potter books. I mean, they were just about a boy with magical powers, right? What could be so amazing about that? Hadn't I graduated from reading fantasy books when I left Jr. High? I HAD at least seen a couple of the movies, geez...

Daniel was shocked when soon after we had begun dating he discovered that I had never read the series. Whenever "Harry Potter" would come up in media publicity, Daniel would remind me that I "have to read the books!". "Well", I protested, "maybe I've never had the chance to read them even if I wanted to". It's not like I had an endless amount of free time in my college career to casually read fiction novels checked out from the Lee Library on campus. And my family back in Oregon had never purchased the books or been hyped up about HP. So, this past summer we decided to splurge and buy the paperback box set. This, of course, was after we had just watched the 6th movie in the theater. I know, I know, I was prematurely exposed to certain dramatic events without having read the series first--but that's okay.

So, in the middle of August I apparated into Harry Potter land, until this past week when I finished the series. I will say that I have had an advantage to reading the books this late in the game...I've been able to read one book after another instead of waiting a whole year until the next one comes out! Although, as a consequence of that...I fear that I'm experiencing what my friend Ashley calls "Harry Potter withdrawals". After a month and a half of eating, sleeping, and breathing Harry Potter...the story ends. What do I do with my life now? Just kidding, I'm not that hopeless. But it has been an adventure--a nerdy one at that. In fact, this may be the nerdiest post that will ever fill my virtual blog pages, and I am not ashamed.

The Difference...

I'm sorry- another jogging story. When it comes down to things I write about, it encompasses: work (nothing to mention, I'd like to keep my job--we ensure patient confidentiality), vacations, and apparently...exercising. And so the lot has fallen on another exercising tale.

It's more like an observance, really. The other day, as I jogged alongside the south end of Westwood on my way back to our apartment, I couldn't help but realize I had turned my wedding ring so only the band was showing. Yes, I had absentmindedly--yet intentionally, hid the "bling" so it was facing the inside of my hand. But why?

Well, I can't help but admit that in L.A. I happen to run alongside many a shady-looking fellow...or female, for that matter. When I run with my wedding ring on, I don't know...I think I feel safer/less targeted if I hide my goods. I hate to stereotype, but. . .

Now--back in Utah, this scenario was entirely swapped. I remember being newly wedded jogging up and down the pleasant streets of Provo and intentionally making sure my wedding ring was clearly visible during my run when passing a guy. I didn't make it a huge deal, of course--that would be creepy, but I for some reason remember making it a point to have it on when running. In case I was stalled at a red light with a male runner or something?? I don't know! Like I said, these subtle decisions I make are not a result of much thought...just natural tendency, I guess (depending upon my environment, of course). You fellow BYU/Provo friends know the dating scene in Provo can be a little...what--unpredicable, urgent, and maybe ...extreme? I was just being prepared, that's all. Perhaps part of it was because I was newly wedded and wanted to express my prided married status to the world. But as I ran? Strange, I know.

So, the difference between running in L.A. and Provo? Well, you know how I feel about it.

Life, etc.

So, apparently it is my turn to write a blog (this is Daniel--with Kaitlin's assistance). You see, the difficult thing is there are a grand total of four people that read this: Hope, Kaitlin, my mom, me. Okay, three people. I don't really read it. And neither does Kaitlin (I was just informed). But, to make Hope and my mom pleased with another life update, here it goes....

May
Fantastic month. Hope and I traveled back to Virginia for Jacob's Eagle Court of Honor. He was the 6th boy (of 6) to receive his Eagle Scout award, so we all flew in for it. Zaniness ensued. It really was one of the most fun weekends we've had in a long while. Here is a link to a newspaper article about it: http://www.insidenova.com/isn/news/local/article/a_flock_of_eagles/36281/ We're famous. Requests for autographs can be posted to this blog, but I think you already have our autograph, Mom :)

June
I finished my first year of medical school!!! Here is a picture of me on my last day. Notice my large grin. It is because I was happy to be done for the year :) Well, sort of done. I'm doing research, dissecting cadavers, studying in a review group, and am involved in a couple of student organizations. So, it's actually a very busy summer.

Also in June, we went to Six Flags for the first time ever. Sorry, correction: Hope went once to the same Six Flags when she was 12 years old. It was great. Hope took the day off work and we rode roller coasters all day. The "best" roller coaster in the park had mechanical problems, so we weren't able to ride it. But we found our favorite coaster; it was called "Tatsu" and was almost more fun than this little boy could hold in his body. Here is a picture of Six Flags:


See. we really did go. Or did we just stand outside and take this picture and pretend to go? You may never know the truth.

July
Now to the good stuff. For the 4th of July weekend we went to Morro Bay. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THE WOODHOUSE FAMILY FOR LETTING US USE YOUR BEACH HOUSE. We seriously had the time of our lives. We spent the weekend biking around this beautiful little town on California's central coast. We kayaked in the bay, saw wild sea otters and sea lions, and got burned at the beach! Here are a few pictures from the trip. Hopefully pictures of us kayaking will be coming once we develop them off our disposable camera, but those may not make it until we write again--so most likely in a couple months ;) The picture on top is me looking studly with Morro Bay and Morro Rock in the background. The picture on the bottom is my adorable wife posing on this sweet log/bench thing near the beach. Unbelievable trip--we can't stop talking about how much fun it was. Thanks again to the Woodhouse family!

UPDATE!!!! Here are the promised pictures from our kayaking adventures. Oh, and my apologies to all of our blog readers out there that I didn't know existed. Who would've known? Actually, I should have known, because I'm the worst blog-stalker known to man.
This next one is of a sea otter. It looks like a little black dot, but we were actually really close. I call it the "disposable camera effect."Sea lions. Reminded me of puppy dogs with flippers. Again with the whole disposable camera effect thing:Can you believe Hope got this picture with a disposable camera?! Quick reflexes, babe. We're going to have athletic children :) Even with the disposable camera effect, you can tell this sea lion could have bit us.A beautiful afternoon at the beach!
I LOVE THIS NEXT PICTURE. She is cuter than a button. She's cuter than a really cute button. That's pretty darn cute.

Adventures in April

So, there were definitely more exciting things happening in April than nearly being struck by a palm frond (by nearly I mean at least 10 feet away...).

To start, we celebrated the 2nd annual year of the death of Daniel's childhood--age 27 :) Haha, just kidding, hun! His birthday was April 11th, and we celebrated by going to 5 Guys burger joint and following it up by going to The Home Depot Center and watching the L.A. Galaxy play the Chivas USA team. It was a dirty game! Because they are both Los Angeles teams, you could tell there's a decent rivalry between them.

The next day, April 12th, we headed up to Amy's house (Daniel's sister) for Easter Sunday. She and little Addie did a great job making Daniel an Easter Bunny Birthday Cake. So cute! My favorite part of our venture over to Amy's, was the Easter Egg hunt we took Addie on in the backyard. We filled plastic eggs with jelly beans and craisins. When Addie took the treats out of the eggs, she would lick the jelly beans and then put them back!! It was so funny! She was like a little hummingbird. We had a blast, and we're glad we could provide some company to the girls while Dean was off at Firefighting Academy for a few weeks.

The next exciting event in April was my graduation from college!! Daniel and I went back to BYU for me to walk in my graduation ceremony to receive my BS in Exercise Science. It was SO nice to be back in Provo to see our friends and family. While in Utah, we also celebrated our 1-year anniversary at, yes, the Anniversary Inn in Salt Lake City. It's a bed and breakfast with themed rooms, and you better believe that we got the JUNGLE SAFARI room. You can tell by the pictures that it was a lot of fun :) While in Salt Lake City, we even had some time to visit some of Daniel's friends from his mission in New York--the Sheltons.

For my birthday, April 28th, we were back to the grind in good 'ol Los Angeles. After work/school, we went to eat at this Indian restaurant we had been wanting to check out for some time. It was....eh, so-so. BUT--my birthday was made complete when my birthday present from Daniel arrived at our doorstep that day: a paper slicer for my new hobby--card making! It's actually a lot of fun, and I'm always getting lots of creative ideas from the girls in our card-making group.

Well, that's the end of April. May was pretty exciting, too...maybe I can get Daniel to write a post about that one ;)

April (Wind) Showers

Okay, so there really are no "showers" involved here...it has stayed relatively dry in L.A. this month. Now that I have more time after finishing my last college exam last week before graduation on the 24th (Freedom at last!), I've had some spare time on my hands; instead of working 8am-5pm and then studying until bedtime, I've had some time to exercise, make dinners, clean, and the like. It's amazing how we value time the most when we have so little of it, huh?

Back to the weather. So, after getting off work yesterday, I began my jog home from UCLA campus back to our apartment (about 5 miles away). It was VERY windy outside. Windy so much that people were rushing to get out of it. It was an interesting experience because there was no moisture involved--no rain, sleet, snow... or even a sprinkle. In fact, it was pretty sunny outside. After 4 years in snow-storm Utah, I didn't think I would experience a "wind storm" anytime soon.

Continuing on my run, I thought "wow, I hope I don't get hit by a wind-beaten palm tree." Then, sure enough, about 15 minutes later I was waiting for a car to pass at a residential stop sign, when a large dried-out palm frond fell from the sky and hit the back of a car. Of course no damage was done, BUT it was pretty close to hitting me as I ran behind the stopped car. The photo is a tad exaggerated (this picture is from Hurricane Wilma). Anyway, just thought I'd share my adventures outside the work/school routine.