Remember Halloween?

So this is late because I misplaced the USB cord to my camera, but we wanted to show off our costumes anyway. We decided to be citizens of Real America.

Lindsay the hockey mom, complete with hockey stick, generous lipstick, and a badge that says, "My kid can beat up your kid!"

One tag says "Joe's Plumbing", and the other says, "Six-pack."

Lindsay's Sunday Six

Well Dad and Michelle started a new blog idea to have a family member write down six things that made them happy in the past week, so I am going to try it for this week. Maybe I'll get Boyd to post for next week. Here goes:

1. Morgan coming to visit. Morgan came on Thursday night and will leave tomorrow morning back to chilly Chicago. But for the weekend I got to hang out with her! She gives the best shopping advice, which has been sorely lacking for me lately. We got to eat at Beyond Bread, and we got to catch up on her fabulous traveling stories.

2. Cinnamon Donuts at Montana Avenue. In Tucson there is this restaurant at Grant and Tanque Verde that makes a cinnamon donut for dessert. This in not your average donut. Not even your hot Krispy Kreme. This is one upscale pastry. Fresh and hot and dusted in a thick coating of cinnamon sugar with a side of creme fraiche and berry compote for dipping. Who knew heaven on earth was only $8?

3. Voting. It took Boyd and I many nights of deliberating to decide to vote for Obama. We liked his health care plan, his strong family presence, his cool-headedness, and his debate skills among other things. However, although we would have been excited for either candidate to win, we were very passionate about the marriage proposition and were excited to stand up for our faith in traditional marriage. We both woke up early on election day like it was Christmas for adults! It was my first time voting in a real booth and I wore the sticker proudly for the rest of the day. Hooray for democracy (or at least a darn good republic)!

4. Scoring an A on my nervous system test. This test was rumored to be the toughest of the year by the oh-so-wise 2nd year med students. I was excited to see my score and know that I wouldn't have to spend my weekend with Morgan guilty for not studying. The catch with this block is that you can repeat the test (albeit a different and slightly more difficult version) on Monday if you don't score what you want on Friday. It's a tricky way to make us never get a break from studying...so I was happy that I didn't have to!

5. Attending my first Gala. Boyd's company, AGM, contributes to Tucson Medical Center's children's fund and buys a table at the event gala each year. The CEO of the company chooses employees to attend and asked Boyd if we would like to come to the event at La Paloma. We got all gussied up and made a night of it on Wednesday. We ate salmon and filet mignon with whipped mashed potatoes and haricot verts that were to die for! Everything was so elegant and beautiful. They showed us a film of some of the children who had to answer questions like, "How much does it cost to care for children in a hospital," with the most adorable answers like, "20 dollars probably." They had also hired a comedian who had us on the floor laughing. It was like a weeknight date for us!

6. Visiting the cannery. My food storage is off and running! This was only my second time at the cannery and I am happy to report that we now have refried beans, rice, oats, and sugar in our year supply.

Food for thought

This post is for my lovely sister who I found out ate peanut M&Ms for dinner the other day. Right now in medical school we started our nervous system block. We are learning everything neurology and them some. Here is a very important fact I think I will always carry with me:


Estimated amount of glucose used by an adult human brain each day expressed in M&Ms: 250. Here's to our brains. Eat up!

Meh-hi-co

So Boyd and I went on a couples trip to Mexico. Even though we almost died on the way there because I drove us off the road (the Mexican government really needs to add shoulders to its roads), we had a ton of fun!

These are my feet. In sand. I love that feeling!


Those black specks are dolphins. There was a family that came and visited our beach. The mountain behind them is called the goat's teats.

This was a picture of a sand crab, but it turned out more like where's waldo. See if you can find it!

This was all of the couples and us at dinner. Mmmm...Mexican food.

"Monster"

WARNING: Don't read before meals

You really don't want this type of tumor. Called a teratoma (latin = monster) this is one scary cancer (or it can be benign) in my opinion. We had to learn about this today in our lecture on neoplasms (neo=new, plasm=growth). It comes from organs that have the potential to create all the different cells types in our body (think: ovary which can differentiate in to the cells necessary for a baby). The picture above includes lots of hair (the black stuff--bottom left), teeth (the white blob--bottom right), skin, brain tissue, cartilage, fat, and a juicy cyst (the yellow stuff, top left).

Boyd wondered the other day if I thought everything in medicine was sad. Because evidently when I'm studying I say "oh how sad" quite often. Well, I told him no, I think some things are gross. Usually that includes things that people do to themselves when they should know better-- like STDs. Since people cannot help getting a teratoma as far as I understand, I think it is sad. But I have to be honest with myself that I think it is really gross too.

We made it!

I have been guilted into posting more about our semi-interesting lives, so I just wanted to make sure everybody out there knew that we aren't stranded somewhere in the vast midwest. We made it to Tucson in July and here is our cute new place. Some highlights include the new TV (see left hand corner with the Olympics on), a kitchen with a dishwasher (besides Boyd), a walk-in closet (not pictured...) and new carpet! It's amazing what impresses you after living in a 400 sq. ft. studio. But we still miss Boston a lot. Here are some of our favorite things about Massachusetts that we miss dearly:

1. Seeing our beautiful nieces, new nephew and MaryBeth and Andrew on a whim
2. Our amazing jobs at Mass General Hospital
3. The fall leaves at Mt. Auburn Cemetery
4. Christina's ice cream shop (with fresh whipped cream)
5. The T
6. L.A. Burdicks decadent hot chocolate and chocolate mice
7. Harvard sqaure
8. Not having the ice cream melt on the way home from Market Basket
9. The sense of accomplishment that came with knowing the streets all around Boston
10. Biking the minute man trail
11. The wharf
12. Good clam chowda
13. The Patriots, Celtics, and Red Sox (Hmm, no local loyalty)
14. Our intellectual ward (but not always the primary that came with it)
15. Reading a good book in the Public Garden
16. Newbury Street
17. The North End
18. Sailboats, crew, and water sports in general
19. The 4th of July and the Boston Pops

Well, you get the idea. And a few things we don't miss:

1. MIT
2. The blistering cold
3. Bad Mexican food
4. Parking tickets, ridiculous parking laws, and generally being towed

We may end up back in the great east coast, but for now here's to looking forward to rodeo break and 60 degree December weather in Tucson.

From Sea to Shining Mirage

We finally made it to Tucson! It took us approximately 10 days and about that many side trips, but we are finally here and ready to tackle medical school. But school is boring so let's take you on a trip of what we saw and did during our pilgrimage!


Boyd is demonstrating the ridiculously small size of our last apartment. He could almost touch both walls of our studio. We are proud to say that we doubled our square footage with this move and succeeded in adding a washer/dryer in the apt., a dishwasher, and a closet, but we really miss the charm of Cambridge.

We visited the beautiful sacred grove in Palmyra, NY first. We ate (stole) some sacred raspberries along the way. We hope we are still in good standing up above--those were some heavenly raspberries, let me tell you what!


Our next stop was Niagara Falls. Not too much to say here--it was a big waterfall as promised. This is why people honeymoon here, we realized. We did go on the "Maid of the Mist" boat tour and got sufficiently soaked with Niagara water. I think Niagara would be a good bottled water company name. As long as they don't mention the ridiculous number of seagulls that poop in it.


Next, thanks to Hotwire, we stayed in the beautiful Chicago Hilton Hotel for $89 and lived the high life for one night. We wished we could have stayed with Morgan and Jamie, but they had decided it was a good idea to up and go to Africa while we were coming out to visit them. We're not sure if we forgive them yet. But we still love their city. We saw Jersey Boys and ate Chicago's fabulous Berry Chill yogurt for breakfast. Yum.


Next, we passed through many a field of corn and soybeans to sate our appetite to see South Dakota's famed presidents. For all the history-challenged like me they are (L to R): George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and Boyd Gunnell. We learned they were constructed to bring some tourism to the plain state of South Dakota. Well, it worked.
Yellowstone National Park was the most amazing part of our trip. Right here I'm standing in front of Old Faithful erupting. Nothing I saw will do it justice--you have to see it for yourself. We think we would prefer honeymooning here rather than Niagara. Here is Boyd with a mudpot:


And with a Buffalo:
Our last stop was meeting Dad, uncle Charlie, Bryce, Adam, Clara, and David at Lake Powell where we worked on teaching Boyd to wake board! We don't have any cool pictures--yet. But rest assured that Dad took too many as usual.

Hold onto your seats because there are more exciting posts to come! I will spare you from gross anatomy and biochemistry, at least, but I can't promise that Boyd will spare you from Mechanical Engineering updates.

If you're in Tucson, come and see us in our new--big--place!

Feeling the Love in Portland

Boyd and I decided to check out some of the exotic places around Boston this weekend--namely, Portland, ME. They even list their distances on the highway in kilometers, but I learned that no one says kilometers--much too cumbersome. So we drove 179 "clinks" to discover the following:

1. We tapped into our inner victorian side where the Maine natives were celebrating 150 years of antique bliss at "Victorian Mansion." Very original--named for the British queen herself. They were having the cutest festival with balloons, popcorn, a jazz trio, fan-making, birthday cake, lemonade, fortune-telling, and free tours of the house (normally $12.50!). Thanks, Maine, for saving us $25.00:


































2. We took a long stroll at the wharf. We were going to join a lobstering tour but it was thundering so the boats were scared. We understood. Instead, I got caught in a net and we felt the love crossing the street:


































3. We went to an art gallery and saw the most gorgeous prints that the artist had photographed and then painted in wax. Probably one of those, "you had to be there" effects, but I had to share one of the pictures I sneaked:















4. NOT PICTURED but STILL COOL:

a. We went to a master's cha-cha class! It was a little advanced for us but we were able to glean some moves from it. I still had my latin shoes from BYU that I expertly sported.

b. We ate some of the best fish and chips we've ever had. As opposed to last weekend's floppy flounder, this weekend was full of happy haddock. Mmmm...tartar sauce!

c. I found the cutest cooking store and bought a mini gingerbread man cookie cutter which I have been looking for since my Mom make mini men for her Christmas party. Also added to my cookie cutter collection were: a lobster, a flounder, and an oak leaf. Very North East.

A Brief History of Time: 2007

Here's a quick run-down:

1. We got married




















2. We moved to Boston--brrrrr!















3. We started working...















4. And rowing...
















5. We did arts and crafts with the local flora
















6. We became sand masters at the beach...




















7. We (aka Lindsay) taught fashion to our nieces...


















8. We even got to spend some time together














9. We visited family in Arizona...














10. And some family pets...














11. We celebrated some birthdays...
















12. And our first anniversary!
















13. We did some running (or maybe just watched some)
















14. And made some fabulous homemade bread!













15. Made some friends...Lindsay is holding a knife in honor of her title as murder at this party
















16. And made some very good use of our 400 sq.ft. apartment.














This year is bound to hold more amazing feats. We'll keep you updated!