Christmas Decorating!

Christmas is finally here and Luke and I are excited for our first Christmas together as a married couple. The day after Thanksgiving we went out and bought Christmas tree decorations and lights. Later that night we went out and got a little Christmas tree. I was especially excited to get a real tree this year since my mom stopped buying real ones when I was about five.  I love the way it smells!

Here is our little tree with a scary looking angel on top, which I was inspired to buy because of my dad. My mom and dad bought a 75 cent angel for their tree when they were first married. My dad is very sentimental and refused to ever get rid of it. So 30 + years later my parents are still putting that raggedy looking angel on the top of the tree. I figure this can be that scary angel on top of the tree for my kids. 

 

In order to fit the tree in our small apartment we had to do some rearranging. Here are some before and after shots:

                           Before                                       

                          and   

 

                                     After

                

                            

            

                                 Before                                     

                         and      

                                   After

                  

                                 Before                                     

                        and       

                                   After

                 

I really like the new arrangement. I think we'll keep it this way even after the tree is gone. What do you think?

        

Bluetongue Encounters of a Third Kind

Did you see it on the local news?

An alien sighting!

On a brisk Alaska night in Logan, a picture was taken capturing this alleged extra-terrestrial. Eye witnesses said that the alien attempted to communicate with them, but the language was strange and archaic.  The alien figure resulted to grunts and rudimentary hand gestures that worked surprisingly well.  This alien pictured below was said to have admitted to performing research on Earth's biosphere, in particular the Bluetongue virus. After a brief encounter, the figure quickly wrapped up, sampled the subway sandwiches and punch at a nearby buffet, and then went on it's way. 

The extra-terrestrial's location and motives are still unknown, despite his hours of powerpoint presentation editing and preparation.

Thanks Mel and Haley for coming to my research symposium!  And thanks Haley for snapping this pic where I appear to be something from either the black lagoon or an episode of x-files!

Crazy 8's

8 Favorite Restaurants

1. Costa Vida

2. Cafe Sabor

3. Olive Garden

5. The Blue Bird

6. Wok on Wheels

7. Hamilton's

8. La Beaus

8 Favorite T.V. Shows

1. The office

2. So you think you can dance? Season 2

3. Gilmore Girls

4. So you think you can dance? Season 3

5. Heroes

6. So you think you can dance? Season 4

7. Pete and Pete

8. Freaks and Geeks

8 Things I did yesterday

1. Brushed my teeth

2. Went to 2nd grade

3. Watched a really embarrassing assembly featuring Sky View high school's concert choir

4. Ate a hot dog for lunch

5. Received a bizarro phone call from someone who didn't really know who I was

6. Read a conference talk

7. Watched the end of "Bruce and LLoyd: Out of Control"

8. Cleaned my messy apartment

8 Things I'm looking Forward too

1. The Nutcracker 

2. The end of this semester!!!

3. The end of me and Luke being sick

4. Thanksgiving

5. Christmas

6. Knowing where I will be living in 8 months

7. Student Teaching

8. Holiday food

8 Wishes

1. The U would make up their minds faster

2. I had not gotten Luke sick

3. School was over 

4. I had a dishwasher

5. There was no such thing as money and bills and debt...

6. I had a puppy

7. Spider's didn't get in my house

8. I had more time to read

Wiki quick fix...

A comment I made on Monica's blog sort of annoyed me. The fact that I'm a leech when it comes to wikipedia is so true. I am to lazy and uneducated to contribute to one of my main sources of information (don't tell my research professor that). Wikipedia is a great tool! So I took it upon myself to edit the vasovagal syncope page of wikipedia. Well, I only changed two things... The treatment of the phobia. It was easy, and I took some web pics with the cool apple-shift-3 key-stroke on lappy. In case any of you are dissapointed with any particular article on the famous wiki here are some quick steps to counter the flasification of information:

1) make an account (cause you don't want people tracing your grammer errors back to your computer's invisible bread crumbs).

2) find the page that is in need of repair (Check George W's, it gets fixed daily).

3) make the revision (basically I just used the other guys format and cut out their words. I love cut and paste).

4) save it!

Easy as pie.

Here is my new and improved vasovagal entry in wikipedia. I'm going to ask my acedemic advisor if I can add this to my resume!

One Down...!

Here's the big blog post every one was waiting for....

Last week I interviewed at Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, KCOM.  For those that don't know whereabouts the US Kirksville is located, it's in Missouri.... About 3.5 hours away from any town.  The interview must have gone well, because on wednesday morning they called and accepted me!!!  Wahoo!  Thanks for all your prays and support.  Although it's the first of several schools I hope be accepted to, life is a lot less stressful knowing we have one choice thus far.  The school was really exciting!  And I hope that if Mel and I decide to be relocated there, Aleesha won't be hatin'... Gotta love yo.  Plus, KCOM's program is really cool.  We'd spend two years in Kirksville, I'd be hitting the books year round, then we will go to some clinical position for two years!  There are many clinical positions here in Utah, so we'd be back for sure.

Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine

Now, Leesh, if that doesn't make you feel any better about us moving, check this out:  Next friday, I'm interviewing at the University of Utah's School of Medicine!  Both Mel and I are excited for either school.  We'll keep you updated!!!

University of Utah School of Medicine

Historic Locker (2004)

Its been awhile since I blogged. With school and medical school applications and interviews, life has been getting a little crazy. I just wanted to send a shout out to all you Napoleon Dynamite fans out there! I was in Preston Idaho for a USU Openhouse, and I had the fortune of standing in the hall and next to the very locker Napolean was pushed into! I snapped a quick pic and went back to recruiting.

This marks a moment to be remembered in history!

You'd think that going without a new post for this long, I'd have something grand... well, if a trip down dynamite lane didn't get your bag of chips rattling, then just wait for what were mustering up for the next blog post!

AAHHHHH!!!!

Some of you might know about the show put on by Odessy Dance Theatre called "Thriller". I've gone to the show every Halloween for about three years, but this was Luke's first time. We really enjoyed the show...especially the pre-show ghoul's growling and hissing in our faces! Before the show starts the dancers always crawl around in creepy costumes scaring vulnerable people. It's a lot of fun...for most people.





Here are just a few of the many zombie-dancers stalking the audience.










If this one seems like it's really close to me...that's because it is. They literelly crawled over the seats and loomed over peoples heads!











This one was the scariest for me...those are some nasty teeth!

Here is an example of the "looming" I spoke of before. Can you see the fear in Luke's eye?



I wasn't brave enough to get as close as Luke did.



Happy Halloween!!!

Double Double Toil and Trouble!

Halloween is around the corner, so Luke and I decided to join in the festivities. We started out by carving some great pumpkins with some of our friends. Luke is the mastermind behind our spooky haunted village. Take a look...

Here is Luke getting ready to fire up the Jack-o-Lanterns!



This is the haunted village! I like the bat and the ghost in the doorways. All hand carved I might add.

Mystery Man Revealed

In case you missed the presidential debate last night, the candidates capitalized on the use of one man's economic situation to discuss taxation. Curious if this man, Joe the Plumber, was real, I decided to google him (as I do with most philistine things). I found that he does exist, and that there is even footage of this man meeting Obama! Take a look at Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher and Barack!

The Living Necklace

As many or all of you know I am an elementary education major. As part of my program I attend a lot of workshops and seminars that give great ideas and resources to teachers. One such workshop I attended called 'Ag in the Classroom' was all about teaching students about farms and agriculture and how to bring that into the classroom. One of the many activities I did as this workshop involved creating a "living necklace". How this works is you take a cotton ball and get it wet, stick a seed on it, and put it in a tiny plastic baggy. Then you punch a hole in the baggy, tie some string around it and wear it around your neck! like this:

Here is me sporting my living necklace... or at least here is my torso.

The idea and point of the living necklace is that it give kids the opportunity to see how a seed sprouts and grows roots. They get to watch the whole process day by day. Cool, right?!

  Luke and I were really surprised at how well my Indian Corn seed sprouted. It even has a leaf!

Look at all those roots! All with a cotton ball and a little water. Who knew??

Donette do this at home!

Last Thursday started off well enough. By noon, I had already taken two midterms and I was walking down the stairs by the USU patio when I saw my good friend Carrie Milligan getting ready to participate in a "Open You Mouth Against Abuse" doughnut eating contest. On the table next to her where 7 more 24-packs of Hostess minidoughnuts. It didn't take much persuading for Carrie to coerce me into joining the contest. In fact, there wasn't any need for skillful presuasion... free doughnuts was all that was needed!
Like I said, there were 24 doughnuts total in my bag. When the master of ceremonies gave us the ready... set.... go, my life turned into a blur. 19 doughnuts later I couldn't breath. The chocolatly goodness clogged my laryx preventing oxygen intake in my lungs. I wasn't the only dude stuggling. The guy to my right started to laugh becuase he hit the wall too. The only thing is, when you laugh with more than 10 doughnuts in your mouth, it sounds more like retching. I thought the poor sap was going to blow. This made the gag reflex in me start up. Albeit, I didn't ralph, but I sadly didn't take first.

The next day, my doughnut eating abilites made it onto the front page of the USU Statesman!!!! What an accomplishment! Check it out, I think this is the exact spot where I almost threw up. Can you see the vein protruding on my forehead?

I love doughnuts!

Rugby Land

If you didn't already know, I'm an ambassador for USU. (Go Aggies!!!). One of my responsibilities is to oversee recruitment at Highland high school in eastern SLC. Monday night, I decided to step up my involvement in recruitment at Highland and attended their homecoming parade. Thanks to some great friends in the admissions office, we had a great time as an entry in the parade.

Check out the great float... Thanks Carrie for letting us decorate your truck.

I also found out that the new rugby movie Forever Strong is actually filmed at Highland. The story comes from Highland's 14 year nationally ranked #1 Rugby Team. Check out the trailer, it comes out on the 26th of September or visit the Rugby website. It looks great!

New chef's on the block

Alright you guys, I'm not often one with great culinary art skills (although I can make an awesome spaghetti sauce), but this week, I invented something great. I must first say, that I credit Hamilton's for the inspiration. Okay, follow the recipe for a delicious treat:

1 pan of Beef stroganoff over noodles

Mom's home canned raspberry jam!

Now smother the jam to taste over the stoganoff, for a crazy zip of deliciousness! Also, while doing so, take a listen to the Old New Kids (not chefs) on the Block Smash Hit! yeah you heard me, they're back... aren't they like 40 now? Might as well have brought back Sinatra!

Cut Me Mick!

Throughout history, there have been many great hits to the face. To site a few, Rocky in every Rocky movie sustains enough face trauma to keep a surgical team busy round the clock.
Heck, even last week I was kneed in the face at my USU Ambassador Retreat.
And yes, we were dressed up like a crew from the 50's for a dance routine. I was kneed in the face while attempting to lift my friend Eric. I thought I did pretty good, I mean, his knee got clear up to my eye, right? I ended up with a pretty good bloody and swollen eye under that ice pack.And now, who can forget this guy. Now the most famous kick in the face right now... The weenie Cuban goes down in history for being the worst Olympic athlete in history. After being disqualified for taking too much time on the floor due to an injury he kicked the ref in the head! Someone needs to enroll him in anger management.
Bytheway, if you want to see video footage of this kick, think again. All the clips were taken off youtube and I can't find it anywhere now. I have seen it though, it's just been taken off - can anyone say Fairness Doctrine?!

Clubin' in the SLC

I never would have dreamed that I would be clubin' with Mel in SLC after I we got hitched, but Saturday we did.  Maria was in town and in celebration of her visit we decided to go shake our Bon Bons at Studio 600.  We were all so excited that we left early and upon arrival the lights were on and there were salsa lessons in session.  Bummed that the laser show hadn't started yet, and the place looked more or less like a warehouse, Mel and I rehearsed some salsa momentarily while Monica and Maria quickly dodged a philandering 17 year old boy.

After some awesome karaoke we made our way back to the dance floor where our impersonations of Kevin Bacon and Mary Murphy will always be remembered by the underage thugs that were popin' all 'round our biz-nass.

Word.

The Best Pioneer Day Ever

If you have ever wondered what it takes to have the perfect Pioneer Day celebration, take a look and see how Melanie and I celebrate...


Anyone want to start a mini-Sundance film festival?

What happens when you have too much weed

A few months ago, Luke and I decided that we wanted to plant a garden.  The flowers grew and were really pretty, but we let the weeds get out of control.  So we decided to get all the weeds and this is the pile that resulted!

Here's luke with the bulk of the weeds.

Yes the pile was so high that it came up to my waist!

Ah, that's so much nicer.  You should always keep the garden weeded.

To tweeze or not to tweeze... I did!

A few weeks ago,  I was using Melanie's tweezers to oust those pesky unibrow follicles that pop up once a month when suddenly the tweezers jumped out of my hand and took a nose dive into the porcelain thrown.  These weren't any old run of the mill Wal-Mart tweezers, they were a pair of Mel's stainless steal LaCross tweezers that go for $5.99 on Amazon!  Because I couldn't bare to loose Mel's beloved pincers or risk a nasty sewage backup, I devised a method to retrieve the "AWOL Tweezers!"   -  Enjoy

Tomatos, Plasmids, and Wheat

I've been thinking of three things lately to blog about.  In attempt to write about all three, I have created this post. First off, I'm writing this blog propped up against a pillow enduring a 24-hour ooey gut.  Yesterday I went with Melanie to a Mosquito Fest on Cannibal road (I know, that explains the stomach ache.)  Anyway, I'm attributing my slight illness to a tomato noodle salad.  Yes you read that right - tomato.  During this FDA deemed tomato contamination I braved the buffet line and delved into a delicious vat of salmonella poisoning.  Now, Mel tends to think I'm a hypochondriac, but I can't figure why?  I mean, I really do think I was inoculated with the Bluetongue  virus when I started working in Dr. Li's laboratory and when I learned that bacteria causes stomach ulcers I came down with them as well. Before you call my mom about my salmonella be warned that whatever stage I am in, I don't think it will progress.  Usually stuff like this just ends up being gas anyway.  But it is tragic about those people that really did contract the disease from tomatoes.  If you haven't seen the news please be forewarned that Red Plum, Red Ramano, and Round Red Tomatoes have been traced by FDA officials to the salmoella outbreaks.  It also sounds like that the FDA needs to investigate the naming of tomatoes.  I think the red on the tomato speaks for  itself.

Secondly, on the subject of bacteria, I thought it would be cool to note that in Dr. Li's lab I have also been playing with e. coli. (Just now it occurred to me that this could also be the origin of my stomach pain.) When I say play, what I mean is facilitate the abduction of round segments of DNA into e. coli.  Afterwards, the e. coli harvests the DNA I send in.  I guess in stead of using 'play' I should say "Farm."  It's pretty much what I'm doing these days. 

Last of all, if you made it down here on the post I congratulate you cause you're in for a treat.  I want to tell you a story that happened to me yesterday while teaching an ATV class.  One of my students, a more aggressive and stout ten year old attempted to show off his general farm knowledge.  Pointing to the ground, he said, "Ah, look! Oats..." 

I watched him reach down gingerly to scoop the oats up with his pudgy hand. "Yep they're oats alright," He repeated defiantly, "But who threw these oats out in this arena?" 

I looked closer at the ground where he stood. His little shoes sifted through sandy green oats.  Wait I thought Oh SNAP! Those oats were remnants of horse poop! I explained quickly that the origins of the oats came from the back side of a horse.  I've never seen such a "tuff" guy so embarrassed.  Man I'd be too if I just scooped up some horse dung.  

Moral of the stories - There's a lot of bacteria out there.  Wash your hands, tomatoes, and oats.

ATV Boot Camp Year Two

So last week I attended an ATV boot camp hosted by 4-H and organized by my incredibly creative husband Luke. Boot camp is actually a family camp and this year three families signed up for the adventure. Unfortunately, it rained a little...well I guess more than a little...we saw the rain more that we saw the sun in those 4 days. But in spite of the weather, camp was loads of fun and I still got to go an a few fun trail rides.    

This is Luke unloading his ATV for the class he was about to teach.  If you didn't know, Luke teaches the children how to ride ATV's safely.

 Here is a picture of me outside our tent.  This was the one beautiful day at Palisades State Park.

Red dust covered every square inch of the entire valley.  Winds howled from the west as the setting sun painted the desert planet's sky.  No this is not the last log from the Mars Odyssey, it's Mel's and my account of MOAB.  I taught an ATV class down there for work.  Mel met some real life cow boy folk and we checked out Arches National Park.  We had never been, so it was really cool to see the sights.  We camped on the Colorado River.  It rained and the tent leaked.  Sorry Mel.  It was the first time I took her camping.  Better luck next time?

Here's one of me that Mel snapped when I was paying at the gate.

Mel and Me on the red planet.  I made the 4-H camo hat!

Ah, beautiful red rock.