Still Sick...

Ok, so it's been a week since Maria started taking antibiotics for her ear infection, and things haven't seemed to get much better.  In fact, her throat started hurting significantly this afternoon, and lately she's been getting a lot of blood out of her sinuses when blowing her nose.  If you ask me, these symptoms are a step backwards.

Anyway, hopefully she'll be able to sleep better tonight.  Last night wasn't too hot.

In other news, tomorrow is New Year's Eve!  What do normal people do for this holiday?  I mean, besides get drunk.  I'll be at work all day like usual, but then what?  

On another side note, you all have just 5 more days to shop for my birthday.  4 if you want to respect the sabbath.  Get to the store, people!  Gifts don't buy themselves!

(please see the sarcasm in that, and don't think i'm a greedy bugger)

Christmas week

Weston has an interview at the UofKentucky!!! They scheduled it for him... luckily it was on a day that we think he can do.

On our flight back from Ashley's wedding there were 2 couples that were flying home for Christmas that were med. students at the UofToledo (another place where Weston has an interview)! So Weston got to talk to them and they were really nice and they said they LOVE it there at the school and only have good things to say about it, so that was positive! They are also going to get him a place to stay while he interviews, so he doesn't have to pay for a hotel! : )

I haven't done too well this week. I woke up on Sunday feeling feverish and it's only gotten worse since. I have an ear infection and on Tuesday morning at midnight I woke up to the worst pain I can ever remember having (which doesn't mean that it's the worst pain in the world or anything but it hurt really really bad). The pain has subsided somewhat but it still hurts pretty bad and it's constantly there. oh well I guess, it figures that when we finally don't have school to worry about I get pretty sick. Well, just wanted to tell everyone the good news about Weston and if you get this before tomorrow.... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

So, this week has been WONDERFUL! At least parts of it. I've taken my outdoor rec final and my temple final already! Other parts have been intensely stressful... I'm trying not to think about those. (They include writing a paper, doing presentations, lots of other school stuff, then doing an interview of Stouffers, meeting with an extension agent, having a doctor's appointment, figuring out what we're doing when we go out to KY, and then STUDYING for a stupid food chem final). The wonderful things included: last Friday we went to our ward Christmas party and we gave a coat to a girl from a family in need (before Thanksgiving we had gone to Burlington Coat Factory to pick one out and it felt good to give something nice to someone in need), I finished all my projects and felt like I did an ok job on all of them, I did better about stressing out and was nice to Weston most of the week, yesterday we went to the family ward Christmas party and got to talk with a lot of people from there and it felt good to know people, and then the best of all.... hopefully we're making new friends! On Thursday and Friday night we talked with a girl from my major and her husband for several hours! It felt really good to feel like we connected with someone and to feel like we can maybe start making friends again. It also felt good to feel like I was doing something irresponsible and not studying when I probably needed to! It's been awhile since I did something irresponsible and I miss it.

Anyway... long enough post. 2 more horrible days coming up and then this semester will be completely done!!!! Oh yeah! Weston and I are going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Friday with my sister and her fiancee (the night before they get married) so that will be fun! That's all.

An attempt to overwhelm you with pictures!

So, we updated finally! Here are pictures from this last fall. There are a lot! Then there's 2 new posts that we added before all the pictures (at the bottom... keep scrolling!) And make sure to look at the link I added of the Christmas song just off to the right of this post!

It's getting close to Christmas!!

Finished tree and nativity scene.

Putting up Christmas decorations!
Weston did the colorful side of the roof!
I did the side with all the ivy!

let me out : (

Fall 2008 Pictures- Here in Utah again

On our walk on one Sunday morning we went to an elementary school's playground : )

Fall 2008 Pictures- Here in Utah

Tasters at Sam's Club Sat. morning : ) yum!

Sunday mornings... breakfast anyone?

Pretty mountains on our Sunday walk.
This was the most GORGEOUS morning!!!! I was on one of my few runs this semester and I hurried home to get the camera, I barely got a picture before it was no longer all soft and beautiful! The pictures don't really do it justice.

Fall 2008 Pictures- Arizona Interviews still

Weston hard at... med school apps. Notice how I like to sit on the cushions on the floor....

It fit!
Grace and Layne (our nieces)
Rian (their sister)
Me in Grandpa's mustang!

Fall 2008 Pictures- Arizona Interviews

Grandpa Coltrin's mustang. mmm...

About to wait for Weston to finish his interview's while I cram for my Food Chem test.
Weston getting ready for interviewing.

After eating birthday cake with blue icing. Grandpa's trying to hide.

Last Halloween picture. Like the crown?

Fall 2008 Pictures- Halloween Still

Fall 2008 Pictures- Halloween

Brian and Becca Pendleton

Tiffany and Jason Hale

ME!

Weston's Pumpkin... preparing for our Halloween Party as seen above
My pumpkin

Halloween 2008

Hiccups are not a laughing matter

Some people don't seem to realize that irregular firing of the phrenic nerve is no reason to chuckle. I'm certainly not lau-hic-ghing.

hic.

So, in an ef-hic-fort to eventually build up a large amount o-hic-f christmas stuff, we we-hic-nt out to buy lights this week. hic. Luckily Rite-aid had strings of 100 on hic sale for $2.-hic-50. Which is way better than any-hic-thing we saw at Sam's Club.

hic.

hic. This really is where i'm hiccuping. Just so you know. hic. It's really that bad.

Mari-hic-a is still laughing.

We posted 2 pictures, one with a flash (ca-hic-n't really see the glowiness of the lights), and hic another one with hic out the flash, which is blurry. Just hic imagine a combination of the two. hic

Almost finals

So, life has been pretty stressful lately. Hence the lack of posts. But we have some pictures we are going to put up! 1 1/2 more weeks till school is over and we go to Ashley's wedding!!!

Weston has the hiccups. It's funny : )

One more thing down

So, this week I got a little closer to being done with all the assignments due this semester! I finished my food chem paper and that was a big load off my shoulders. I'm so sick of writing papers. I didn't even get this sick of it when I was taking english last semester!! I still have a 1 more big paper to do... we'll see how that one goes.

Today Weston and I also gave talks. They actually turned out ok I think. I was nervous before... as usual. It was on the happiness, guidance, and protection found through the words of modern day prophets and apostles. I struggled a lot with writing it simply because I was sooo sick of writing things! (meaning that I stood up and paced back and forth alot before I could sit back down and write another sentence or two... it's a long process to write things when my mind is rebelling).

We also walked home from church today. It was nice! It took us 50 minutes though. It's quite a long way away, at least compared to most churchs in Utah, we have to drive 10 min. up state street by Costco. It was nice to spend some quality time with Weston though (and get some quality blisters on my feet).

well, that's the news here. We're just trying to get through this next week and a half and looking forward to the thanksgiving break where we are going to relax mentally.

Oh, and Weston did really well this week and wrote several essay for more med school! (and on sat. I edited 3 of them! so we'll be able to get some more out this next week when I can find some more time the edit the rest)

have a good week, those of you that read this.

Pumpkin!

I made lots and lots of pumpkin things this afternoon and Weston helped!! It was fun to experiment and we used up all of the pumpkin guts from those that we carved for Halloween! (we've been saving them). Pumpkin seeds are really yummy! (so are cookies and bread and cake and this weird "roll" thing).

Day before my birthday!

So, Weston gave me a WONDERFUL surprise Bday present today! He wrote me a song (words and chords) on the guitar and sang it for me! I had no idea! I actually cried! -I rarely cry from being happy-

Also, we got a calling!!! and I have a visiting teaching assignment! : )

We also get to go to AZ tomorrow! (I get to go with him while he goes out for his interview and get to really meet his brother's family). We're excited! : ) I'm going on vacation in the middle of the semester and it's glorious! : )

This Halloween was good : ) we went reverse trick-or-treating : ) but only for a short time because we didn't get home from campus till 7 and we had a party (a small one) at 8.

Today we experimented with dinner and made up a chicken lasagna recipe. it was yummy. I also made several pumpkin things! some failed but some were really really good! it was fun. :)

i know i've done lots of smiley faces. sorry. i'm just really happy right now : )

Well, i hope you all start off your November well! and that you start being grateful for everything!

ORCA grant submitted!

So, this is me trying on a black dress for Ashley's wedding. It's not really a bridesmaid dress but it's the best that we could find that was black without looking for formals. Notice how very very white my chest is from lack of exposure to sun.

This week was all about getting my ORCA grant finished and submitted. It was a lot of work! I hope it gets me something. Dr. Steele seemed pretty positive about it, so that was encouraging. Then the actual experimental stage of my research started on Friday. It was a LONG day of cutting beef into steaks, assigning them treatments and trying to eliminate variables, tenderizing, and vacuum packing with a little vacuum packer from Walmart that is not made to do so many operations at once. It gets tired and has to cooled down.

Weston is gone. : ( But Mindy invited me over to her house so I wouldn't be all alone today : ) It was nice to go somewhere and be able to talk and not focus on doing anything important for a while. : ) Weston arrived safely at the Pendleton's in New Mexico and sounds sufficiently nervous that he'll try to make a good impression in the interview even though it seems that it won't matter anyway. : ( Due to the fact he's not a resident and we found out yesterday that their website says (in an obscure place of course) that non residents can only get in if they filled out the early decision program application (which is pretty much signing a contract that if you get in then you will go there). Of course we didn't do that and they invited him for an interview before they even had a chance to review his application so we just think it's all a scam to get more money from him. Oh well I guess.... good practice right? It's the real thing so you can't get any better practice!

Interviews!!

So, Weston has been asked to 2 interviews!!!!! He has an interview in New Mexico on Oct. 20th and we just got an email today from Arizona inviting him for an interview!!! Yea!!

So, conference this weekend was awesome! For the first time I actually prepared and went to conference with some questions in mind that I had been pondering. Most of them weren't answered or anything but some of them were kind of addressed and I received impressions about a lot of other things that I wouldn't have if I hadn't prepared myself spiritually. I feel like I'm learning to appreciate conference sooo much more than I ever used to.

Other than that the news for this week is that we've been sick and busy trying to stay caught up with things. Hopefully this next week we'll be able to heal up.

Oh, we also got our UofL application sent out! : )

I don't know how to personally respond to comments (rather than just posting my own comment) and don't have the time at the moment to figure it out, so..... help please?

so, this week was kind of rough. Our motivation for working really hard and getting out med school apps kind of diminished and so I also struggled with getting school work done. It doesn't help that the UofK secondary appliation has SEVEN essays!!! it's crazy! we work so hard and it's only on ONE school!!! but, he got them written and i've edited a couple of them so we'll be able to get it out next week we hope. there's just so many!

we went to DI to look for halloween costume stuff this week and we found some awesome stuff for weston! (you don't get to know what he will be yet, i'll send pictures later and have you all guess what we were).

the other big thing happening in our life is that we've officially decided to go to the married student ward. we've been going to our family ward but as hard as we try people don't seem to be willing to reciprocate our friendship. after only being to the student ward 1 1/2 times (we only made it to RS and priesthood today because we went to Miriam's farewell in her ward) people have already talked to us! when we start talking to them they'll actually hold a conversation with us rather than shortly answering our questions! it feels like we might be able to make some friends in the ward there. so we're going to transfer our records.

med school apps....


med school apps....


med school apps....

and guess what.... more med school apps.

Hi, everyone.

This is lunch at my work.

That is all.

~End Transmission

science kool-aid

My Creative Juices are More Like Kool-Aid

Honestly, we sat here for about 15 minutes just trying to come up with a name for the blog. Thanks to Mom Carter's suggestion, most of them involved the dangers inherent in Cutco knives, seeing as though they rather abruptly put an end to our honeymoon and all that.

Anyway, Weston (who is the author of this current post) was pondering how our creative juices really don't exist, and so they're kind of like watery imitation juice.... kool-aid. I mean, that stuff is not even GOOD for you! More like Type II Diabetes-Aid. But it sure does taste good.... Like Mountain Dew! Tasty, but no good for you.

This whole blog thing could prove disastrous for your sanity if I post too much.