Let us rejoice

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Chris's extended fam. We are so grateful to be around so much family and loved ones, all of which are amazing cooks! I love this time of year, and now that Thanksgiving is officially over...I am finally allowed to listen to CHRISTMAS Music! I put some of my fave Christmas tunes on the right ---> for your listening pleasure. Anyone have any favorite Christmas songs I should add to the list?

Why we don't shop at Wal*Mart

'Cause people get killed. Yup. Today on the holy black Friday, a worker was killed in Long Island, NY as crazed shoppers trampled him to death on their way to shoppers haven. I sure hope their cheap crap was worth it.

This article pretty much states how I feel about it. Good thing Wal*Mart would rather have a photo op where hundreds of people are shown crammed outside of their doors rather than creating some sort of order/line for the craze.

Also a testiment to why I don't do black Friday. The madness I tell ya.

Oh happy day...

Exciting news! Chris got in to Penn State Medical School! We just found out today, and couldn't be more excited. He got into the MD-Phd combined biomedical engineering program, which is what we were shooting for, yay. 

We are still waiting to hear from other med schools, and we are still going to apply to Phd only schools for bioengineering, so we've still got a long way to go in the decision process...but at least we now have ONE viable option! Now if PA were only a little closer to UT we'd be set. 

Evidence.

Karlee, this is mainly for you ;). My friend Becca put out a quite hilarious post the other day, and anyone that doesn't believe I had a chubby phase should go to her blog. And no, that wasn't my chubbyness peak (thankfully we have hidden such documentation). If you don't want to be scared, or forever see me as grotesque, don't go to the link. haha. Good times.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!!

It's Amy's birthday. I thought I'd write a post about her. If you've had the chance to get to know Amy, you know that she is simply the best. She's very fun to be around and has a great sense of humor. I'm so lucky to have her as a wife. She's my best friend. So, I thought I'd share some things about Amy in pictures, if she doesn't mind . . .

Amy loves to travel and have adventures. If you've kept up with our blog, you've probably noticed.

Snorkeling in Cancun

Delicate Arch

Chichen Itza

Amy loves kids (and kids love her. She's going to be a great mom)
Amy loves freedom

and Halloween (all holidays for that matter - especially the 4th of July and Christmas)

and bears

and I can't keep her away from teepees
and she won't shy away from making a silly face with Becca

Amy is the joy of my life. She has made my life a lot easier. She has been really supportive in my educational endevours. When I get discouraged or frustrated, she cheers me up and keeps me going. She is very patient and understanding. I'm lucky to have such a supportive wife and I'm sure all her friends would agree that they are lucky to have her as a friend. Happy birthday, Amy!

Ode to November

I love November! Though it does have the increasing fridgidness factor, there are many great aspects of November. Reasons firstly being that my birthday is in November (always exciting), then of course Thanksgiving = lots of delicious food, and we get to VOTE! Election day is typically on my birthday, but this year it isn't! This year I had the opportunity to vote EARLY which was awesome! On Thursday I went across the street from my work to the Administration building to vote, but the line was so long that people were saying it would be an HOUR and a HALF wait! Not being a typically overly patient person, I promptly left and went back to work. Then on Halloween, they had moved the voting to my work building (the Health and Justice Building) in order to accommodate the masses, and so I was able to assess the line and see when would be the best time to jump in. This is what it looked like for most of the day.And that wasn't even the longest line they had! The best part was that a lot of people in line had halloween costumes...we had many witches and jokers voting this year. Once I finally braved the line length, it actually went pretty fast. It only took me about 25min to get up, and back down the hallway and curve around to the voting booths! I am so amazed at how many came out to vote early! Word on the street is if people come out to vote at this high of a percentage on Nov. 4th, we'll have 80% of voters in Utah actually coming out to vote! I think that is truly great. I even got to add my little "I Voted" sticker to my crashing stockmarket halloween costume, what a treat!

Though Friday technically was October 31st, and can't technically be included in an Ode to November, I just have to mention one great thing. Friday I went as both Dow and Jones, and Chris did a spontaneous costume change. We went and raided my Dad's closet and dressed Chris as Jim Kelly. Being the car washing maniac that my Dad is, the best part of the costume was definitely the bucket and towell.
Oh the cowboy lasso shirt, white tennies, and fitovers.. gotta love it.