A New Year, A new Decade

Hello Friends and Family!!

I know I still owe you all a post about our wonderful Christmas adventures but I thought I'd make a little note about the new year.

To be honest, I'm really excited about beginning a new year and starting a new decade (I know TECHNICALLY it's not a new decade, but that's how I consider it, so here we go!). The last ten years have held so many wonderful surprises, adventures, and changes for me. So much has changed since 2000. In January of 2000, I was in seventh grade. I was just beginning my track career. I was only 13 so my mom wouldn't let me shave my legs ; ) So embarrassing! I remember playing four square for recess every day. I was in the middle school musical of Beauty and the Beast. How I cried after tryouts when I found out I was the menu! I was also rapidly gaining interest in math, science, and geography. 2000 was the year that I learned all the bones in the human body, did a HUGE report on the country of my choice, Australia, and was one of only 2 middle schoolers on the junior high varsity track team. I was happily settled in University Place, WA, so many friends, wonderful school, great soccer team, calling in church, an in the Tacoma Youth Symphony for oboe, and had little idea that I'd be moving to the complete opposite climate in just a year.

But 2001 brought just as much excitement. I moved to El Paso, TX right before starting high school. I dove right in and got involved with student council, multiple sports, and academics. I was awarded Most Optimistic Student at my school that winter. I slowly enlarged my circle of involvement and my friends and happiness grew and grew to where I no longer missed Washington and was able to embrace Texas. High school proved to be a wonderful time for me. I had excellent experiences in my leadership positions, academic clubs, sports teams, church groups, and student organizations. I loved my classes and my teachers. The friends I made during my 4 years there I will treasure always. In May of 2005 I succeeded in graduating in the top 2% of my 600+ class, still having never been kissed, and was ready to head off to BYU in the Fall!

My four years at college ended up being even more wonderful than I could have ever dreamed. My first year landed me in an excellent apartment with amazing roommates that are my best friends and now my family as well. My second year I met my future husband, sent off a missionary (not my future husband...), got into the major program of my choice, and faced some huge "grown-up" issues. My third year I was thick into the nursing program while attempting to make the most difficult decision of my life, mission or marriage. I never imagined that I could love someone as much as I did Dave. I finally realized that I would never find a man as perfect for me or as magnificent as Dave. After an internship in Australia (that's right, I got to visit there after all!!) and another one in Minnesota, we were married summer of 08. Life has been a happy blur since then. Dave and I pushed through our final year of college and moved off to Dallas, TX for medical school, leaving behind our wonderful family and friends in UT after 4 of the most wonderful years of my life. I had experienced such a huge growth of character, spirituality, knowledge, and maturity during those 4 years, it was hard to leave that place full of precious memories behind.

But Dallas has proved to be an adventure as well! We had an eventful summer, full of trips, interesting house-sitting excitement, educational mishaps, and work-related mayhem. Dave is now fully into medical school and I am a full-fledged labor and delivery nurse. I can't believe it!

In just 10 years, my life has changed so very much. It has been such a happy life. I have been incredibly blessed. I truly believe that the next ten years hold plenty of adventure in store, what with kids, rotations, boards, and residency to look forward too. I am excited for all the friendships that will be forged along the way, the people I'll meet and the places I'll go, all that I will learn and experience, for the good that I can make in the world and the good the Lord can make in me. I believe it will be a wonderful decade.

146 miles of awesome!!!!!

Hi everybody! Merry Christmas Break! We just wanted to show you the adventure we had yesterday, from 1:00 to 11:30 PM yesterday. Here it is:

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Need some more information? Well, it's simple, really. Yesterday, we went EXPLORING!!!!!!!!!!!! See, we live halfway inbetween Dallas and Fort Worth, but since Laura and I both work and study in Dallas, and the friends we see the most do too, we don't know much of anything about Fort Worth. So yesterday we decided to check it out. Without looking anything up first!!! We explored downtown, found a really nice church, and then followed signs to the cultural district. Really we were looking for the Historic Fort Worth Stockyards, which we found pretty darn serendipitously, especially since we had no idea where they were. At all. As you can see, though, we drove straight to them (basically)! We went to some cool western shops and watched a longhorn cattle drive happen right in front of us! After that, we explored TCU and its neighborhoods to complete the Fort Worth experience. It was fantastic.

As soon as we got home, we took off again to pick up our friend Jake. Then it was down to South Dallas and Grand Prairie to see the Grand Prairie Lights show, where you pay a bunch of money to drive at 0.00001 mph behind the car in front of you to see a bunch of Christmas lights in a cool park. It was awesome!! We got awesomely lost on the way home looking for some ice cream, but we finally made it, way after our bedtime. It was a great day.

I love exploring. My thought is, if you never go the wrong way once in a while, you'll never know where it leads! In the words of somebody famous, "Every way's the right way to somewhere!" (That somebody famous is probably the Cheshire Cat, but I can't be sure.) We had a great time yesterday, and I feel a lot more familiar with the DFW area now that I've wandered through a lot more of it than usual. I'll put up some pictures, but you should just take my word for it: it was awesome.

Thanksgiving Update from Two Healthcare Junkies

Hi everybody! Here's an update on life lately:

Laura graduated from her Nurse Residency last week! I don't have any pictures, but I got to go up to the floor and watch as they had a short ceremony for the seven girls who made it through all six months. They did a good job of congratulating them and welcoming them "to the family," and afterwards, there was delicious cake. Mmm cake yum. Laura gave me a tour of the three floors she works on minus the C-section operating rooms. Now she's a full-fledged labor and delivery nurse and gets to do everything by herself every day. Hooray!

School's been going well for me lately. It's been interesting getting used to just studying a few subjects at a time, never having homework, and yet being expected to know everything about everything. It kinda makes my life really calm yet really focused. I know what I need to be learning and need to put in my hours to get it learned, but the only "deadlines" are the two or three tests for the entire subject, so it's not usually a stressful thing.

I'm studying Anatomy right now, for example, and we had one midterm covering the back, arm, neck, and head. Now, for our final, all I have to learn is absolutely everything about the chest cavity, lungs, heart, abdomen, GI track, pelvis, and leg! Easy stuff!! I'll be spending a lot of time in the lab this week, but like I said, it's not stressful. Just stuff to get done!

Fig 1. Showing awesomeness.

Now, for the fun stuff! We've been staying busy but having fun too. Our most recent acquisition of awesomeness is this game right here:

Fig 2. Showing (blue sinister) Awesomeness

KILLER BUNNIES!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that's right. Our awesome friends the Schuetzlers (@TheSchuetzlers: you are awesome) introduced us to this card game last year. Now we own it too. If you've never heard of it, you should go play it right now.

And another awesome thing, we got "free" tickets to the Dallas Stars and took our friends the Stokes to see the Stars fight the Calgary Flames. It was the first professional hockey game Laura'd been to, and my first hockey game period, so we had a fun time learning. Hockey is an amazing sport, except when we lose in sudden death overtime. That part was not so fun. Here's some pictures:

Fig 3. Showing (halftime slingshot and sled human bowling) awesomeness

Fig 4. Showing (frothy hockey) awesomeness

Fig 5. Showing (The Stokes who actually know everything about hockey and were really nice to teach us) awesomeness

Fig 6. Showing (life is good) awesomeness.

So, in summary, life is pretty stinking awesome. Also, BYU is going to spank Utah today. Hope that you all are well. Thanks for keeping in touch!

White Coat Ceremony and Blacktober!

Hello friends and family! Here's some pictures of my White Coat Ceremony, the part of med school where they let you pretend you're a doctor already. At most medical schools, the white coat ceremony is at the beginning of the year, but at UT Southwestern, they wait until the end of October. Why? Well, they've never really given us a straight answer. During the ceremony the M.C. joked about them needing to space out the times they give us lots of food to make sure we're getting good nutrition throughout the year. Other times they've said we have to "earn it" by getting through all the October tests. I think maybe they just need time to order and embroider names on two hundred white coats. Whatever the reason, it was an awesome day. I was glad to have Dad there so he could meet some of my professors and see the differences between my school and his. Things can't have changed too much, I guess, because I use his textbooks!

This is our friend Reed getting his. Definitely better pictures from the stage. What a cool dude.

Hooray! It was a fun day.

New Beginnings!

So, I thought today I would do a blog about all the fabulous things I have been doing in my free time lately. When I was in school, I NEVER had free time but now that all I do is work I've been able to expand my talents! : ) It's just been small steps but I've enjoyed it so far!

I've worked on 3 main things: Food storage, Home Improvement, and Using My Talents To Bless The Lives Of Others. It's been so fun! Back in September I went to a ward Emergency Preparedness Day where I learned all about storing food, cooking with food storage, emergency papers, and water usage. It was very motivational! I decided to cook one meal a week using food storage items. Of course, this meant having to BUY food storage stuff, research how to cook it, and THEN try to find a good recipe! So now my little pantry has the happy makings of the beginning of food storage. Using our Make-A-Mix cookbook, Dave and I made ready-to-use taco seasoning, chili seasoning, and spaghetti/italian seasonings. I learned how to soak beans overnight to make delicious minestrone and taco soups! I have experimented with wild rice and even tried to use some barley! We've also had some whole wheat bread bowls, whole wheat scones, cranberry and walnut oatmeal cookies. One day when I was feeling terribly productive I even compiled an excel sheet comparing the online food storage companies with their prices and products! Anyways, I'm making progress!

As for home improvement, I'm been decorating!!! : ) I've included some picture of my beautiful bathroom, wall frames, and flower arrangements. I also have my beautiful fresh herbs pot, my laundry rack (okay, maybe not a home beautifying thing but definitely an improvement!), and the desk that Dave and I bought at Walmart and spent 3 of our after work evenings together building! Anyways, it's been so fun living in such a beautiful apartment and having the change to add to its beauty.

Last but not least, using my talents to serve!!! I've made 3 baby quilts since September! Turns out everyone I know is having babies! I still have 2 to make! : ) They have all been adorable, if I say so myself! Dave and I have also made certain goals on temple attendance and have definitely felt the rewards! We have also been called to be sunday school teachers for the 17-18 year olds at our church! So daunting! But what a special opportunity to make a difference.

So there you go! These have been some of my little joys over the last few months. Expanding your knowledge, your talents, and your heart really provides for some great returns!

Pictures! In our new apartment we don't get a $2 fee whenever we drive a nail in the wall!

My new fall flower arrangements! I did them myself! : )

Pantry!!! Small but it's doing the trick for now!

The BROWN sign. I made it : )

Laundry rack.... Turns out our dryer doesn't actually dry well, just provide lots of humidity...

Our desk. We spent SO long putting it together. It was actually really fun! Dave made me retake the picture with a skull on the desk, just to make it look more med-schooly : )

Our guest bathroom counter. Notice the carefully folded towels and the coordinating soap. The ribbon was my touch ; )

Here's a closer view of the diffuser I created. My own ribbon, bought the wooden plate, filled it with pretty rock, oh, I'm so proud : )

And, of course, the pretty shower curtain. I love it!! Too bad this is my guest bathroom!

Oh! I tried to add a picture of my herb garden but for some reason my computer just won't let me upload it! It has my happy little Welcome garden gnome in it : )

BYU Game!!

So, one of the highlights of our Dallas experience so far was going to the BYU v. OU game in September in the Cowboys stadium. We had totally forgotten that we had applied for tickets in the end of March and were thrilled when we got some in the mail! It was an AMAZING experience.

Dave and I had been super pumped for the game.We weren't expecting BYU to do well, but we wanted to have bragging right of saying we were there just in case they happened to pull through after all ; ) In celebration of the game, I spend the morning making the famous BYU Creamery Mint Brownies from the authentic recipe to take to the big tailgate party. They looked and smelled SO good. When we arrived at the stadium there was no tailgate to be found! We made a complete circle around the stadium (it took 30 minutes!) but there was NOTHING! In the end, we just started offering them to BYU fans we saw along the way. Believe it or not, lots of people trusted us and ate one! This older Oklahoma couple asked for one so we said "Sure, if you'll vote for BYU!" Well, they were the most complimentary out of everyone that tried them actually! They just kept saying how good they were ; ) We also met the aunt of this clan in El Paso, the Hatch's, so that was a treat, and a good family friend, Sister Marilyn Watts, met us in the stadium to give us some official game day t-shirts. Thanks!!

The stadium was HUGE and filled to capacity. Of course, the majority of the fans wore red but blue represented themselves really well! We made TONS of noise! After only the first quarter my throat ached : ) With each success we just got louder and louder. Once we scored again it was just constant screaming till the end of the game and 10 minutes after. It was an amazing site to see. Here's some pics so you can get a feel for the immensity of it all! SO COOL!!!!!

The GIMONGOUS new Dallas Cowboys Stadium! It can seat 80,000!

BYU!!!! WOOT!!!!!

Poor, nervous, inconsistent Max. Up on a 50 yard wide plasma screen TV.

We won!!!!! My favorite sign of the night: Utes suck. Haha! : )

Bronco showing some emotion : )

Whahoo!!!!!!!

Team doing a victory Haka. Love it!! : )

All in all, it was an AWESOME experience. I can't wait until the next time we get BYU here. Next fall again TCU. We'll be there!!!!!!

Canada!!!!

Hello Friends!

Well, I apologize profusely. It has been ages since our last blog. So much has happened!!! That's probably why you haven't heard about it : )

In the end of August, Dave and I were fortunate enough to go up to Alberta, Canada for my best friend's wedding! Tashina was my roommate since my freshman year at BYU till Dave replaced her! I adore her in every way and therefore being able to get the days off work for 4 days in Canada was a blessing and a half!

Dave and I got to experience/see some wonderful things while there. We stayed at Tashina's grandparents farm/ranch right outside of Cardston/Leavitt. Turns out, so did every one else! At the house we had: Grandpa/Grandma Bevans, Mom/Dad Lowry, Nathan/his wife Lowry, Levi/Melissa Lowry, Tiffany, Kassie and Tashina Lowry, their adopted sister and her little boy, Kassie's boyfriend, Tashina's aunt, Jacob/Clarissa/Emily Beckstead, and Dave and I! Quite a house-full! It was a blast ; )

While there we got to go to the pizza/ice cream parlor (this was when Dave decided it was time to shave off the beard. Ice cream cones and beards = messy!!), buy a family size box of Canadian Corn Pops (so good!), go to the park in Cardston and enjoy the tetertoter, visit the beautiful state park of Waterton and attend church at the "seasonal" ward there, drink milk straight from a cow, sleep in the fanciest camping trailer in the WORLD, teach the "night before the wedding" FHE lesson (eek!!! Too much responsibility!!), drive through a town called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (honest!!!), and ride in BMW worth more than all Dave's med school tuition over 4 years! Best of all though, I got to see my dear friend get sealed in the temple, for time and all eternity, to her sweetheart and see the love and joy in her eyes. It was precious to see. Here's some great pics ; )

Canada! Dave basically ran all the way from the plane to customs. He was REALLY excited : )

Cute Emily Beckstead playing piano while we set up for the wedding luncheon. She is ADORABLE!!!! I played with her every moment I could : )

Beautiful Waterton. One of my favorite places. I'm glad Dave got to see it b/c know he has incentive to return to Alberta: Hiking!!!!

Cute swing. Funny couple ; ) I also learned how to play a blade of grass while at Waterton! Thanks Tashina!

Beautiful lake!!

Dave having fun at the park after church. I love that guy!

The newlyweds!!! Tashina looked GORGEOUS and Todd very happy : )
When they came out of the temple instead of giving a kiss as everyone cheered this is what we got : ) come on!!!!! Haha!

Tashina!

Friends!!! Doesn't Dave's beard look fabulous?! So red!

Temples!!!!

Dave was asked to play piano at the wedding while Brother Lowry sang "Butterfly Kisses" to his little girl all grown up. It was so sweet! How I cried!
Carriage ride! Tied with rolls and raspberry honey butter for best part of the day after the wedding ; )