Our Easter in North Carolina

We had a wonderful trip home for Easter! I hadn't been home for Easter since I went to college. I absolutely love NC in the spring. Especially home. It's so beautiful, and Mom and Dad work so hard in their HUGE yard to make it that way. While we were home Burke and I did a teeny bit of yard work and it was great! It brought back those memories of the bane of mine and my siblings' summer breaks--yard work. An hour every day. Now that we've lived in apartments for several years we really miss the pleasure of weeding, mowing, and enjoying a beautiful yard. Mom made tons of food, like usual, including her traditional Easter bunny cake.

On Saturday much of my dad's side of the family came over to our house for an Easter get-together. It was lots of fun! I hadn't seen lots of them in a long time, but some people never change! There aren't any small kids around anymore, except for the kids of one of my cousins, and they are all growing up! I couldn't believe it.

On Monday Dillon had to go back to school but Daddy took off work and Burke, Mom, Dad, and I all went hiking at Stone Mountain. I love the green/blue mountains and the rhododendrons!

We enjoyed playing and relaxing at home with my parents and Dillon and seeing some of my favorite people. It was a great way to spend a break from school!

Today feels really good...

...but not as good as a year from now will feel! Or even 2 years from now.... now THAT will feel good!

Today I finished my last final of my first semester of PA school! Hallelujah! It has definitely been a rough week. To be honest though, not much different than finals were at BYU. I mean some are harder than others, some take more studying than others, and regardless of what grade I "need" to get on the test to get "what I need" in the class, I always stress out. I woke up really early this morning to study more for my 10am final and developed a splitting headache. It got better after a while but not before I went back to bed for 45 minutes. So much for the last-minute cramming! Anyway, the test went ok, I did great in my classes, and for a week and a half I am a FREE woman! (Minus the fact that I told Burke I'd be all his, after all the neglect he's dealt with in the last week or two!)

In retrospect, it was a good semester. I learned LOTS and loved it. I am very excited but nervous about getting into more clinical skills classes. One of my favorite things I did this semester was a couple of weeks ago when the medical school put on a community health fair at a local high school. The PA program manned booths for kids: balloon animals, an obstacle course, a nutrition station, a safety station (why you should ride a bike helmet) etc. I jumped in with the group teaching about why you shouldn't smoke. We had some plastinated lungs from the gross anatomy lab for demonstration: two normal lungs, a black lung from a smoker, and a lung from someone with lung cancer.

Normal healthy lungs

Smoker lung in the guy's hand

It was a most effective visual aid! These kids could hold the heavy, black, rubbery smoker lung in their hand and recognize that this is a big problem. I LOVED teaching young children, high schoolers, and even adults (some who were even prior and current smokers) how important it is to take care of our lungs. I hope we were able to encourage resolve to "never, ever smoke" in many and resolve to try again to quit in others. I really want to make sure I continually get involved in community outreach, education, and prevention. Preventive medicine is KEY.

All of these folks signed a pledge that they would never smoke.

Our (almost) Free Friday Date

Burke and I had a real nice date night last night, and it was almost free!!

Almost, because I bought a "livingsocial" coupon for a Mexican restaurant. So we paid $12 a few weeks ago and had a $25 coupon to spend on dinner. So, it felt free....until we paid tax and tip anyway. Ha.

The hockey game, however, was free because a guy in our ward had some extra tickets and offered them to us yesterday. So in this case, we actually did go for free. (Thanks, Dave!)

So the Mexican restaurant we went to turned out to be FANTASTIC. Great food. With a big dance floor. And salsa lessons on Wednesday nights. ;) But it was awesome.

And the game? So we all stand up for the national anthem and the lady behind us says excitedly, "Oh, I hope it's the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!" What? And sure enough, MoTab pops up on the screen singing the national anthem. It was beautiful and I loved it, but really? How did she call that? Do they use that recording often or something? Very surprising. (I realized later that they must be using it to advertise for the concert that the Choir will be doing in June at that very arena.)

Eh, so the Norfolk Admirals are not so great. They lost 6 to 3. "MoTab Fan" behind us screamed the whole game long, "Charge the net! You've got to shoot it, for pete's sake! Quit being such idiots!" and several other lovely phrases. It was actually pretty funny, albeit annoying, but at least she wasn't cussing. Hockey fans are in general a little harsher than most other fans I've seen. Everything was negative the whole game long. (Of course, we were losing.) Not to mention the violence. At least this game had quite a bit less fighting than the other hockey game we've been to.

(By the way, I hope our kids don't ask to play hockey.)

So, it's not my favorite sport, but I had a great time going and hanging out with my best friend. And it was free. :)

Thanks for the great date, babe!

We LOVE Visitors!!!

Burke and I had a wonderful weekend+ with his mom, dad, and little sister who came to visit from Wisconsin while on Spring Break. It was so so fun to see them and so nice to have them here. Here's a little recap.

On Friday afternoon Burke and I drove up to Gettysburg, PA, where Burke's fam was staying the night also. The next morning we went to the Visitor's Center and watched a lovely video about the Battle of Gettysburg and then we had an awesome bus tour of the battlefield. It was neat cause you could actually get a feel for what happened there. It made me pretty sad though.


In the afternoon we drove back to our place (it's about 4 hours). We hung out here for a bit, and then we drove down to Virginia Beach. That was my first peek at Chix Beach. From what I could tell (it was night), that's a dang nice beach! Ours is nice, but it doesn't quite have the white sand and big waves of VA Beach.

On Sunday and Monday night Burke's fam stayed in a big downtown hotel with a gorgeous view. We walked down to the Battleship Wisconsin which is berthed right there downtown. The museum was closed but it was still neat to see it. (I like that it's called Wisconsin... of course they had to go see it.)


On Monday after I got out of my morning class we all drove up to Colonial Williamsburg. Burke's Mom hadn't realized how close it was to where we lived but she had always wanted to see it. We didn't buy the outrageous tickets but we just walked around the town to see what we could see. The weather cleared up and warmed up so it was a really nice afternoon. It's a beautiful place! We were too late to see Jamestown and Yorktown, but it's neat to realize how much history was right here in this area.

The Governor's Mansion in Colonial Williamsburg

Monday night they topped off their vacation with a visit to AW Shucks. Actually, they were too busy and too small to seat us, so we got our food to-go. It was worth it though. My friend had recommended it as a great place for seafood, and oh-my-goodness it was awesome! I've never been a big seafood person, but I'm trying to get past that and try stuff. I loved my crabcake sandwich and everything else I tried! (Except the hushpuppies, but that's just me... not a big fan in general.)

Norfolk has mermaids all over it. I guess it's like the symbol of the city. They are on all of the neighborhood signs, on top of flag posts, decorating all sorts of buildings--everywhere. I finally read, in the tourist magazine from their hotel, that over 100 10-foot mermaids were made by various sculptors and sold at auction as a fundraiser. They call it "Mermaids on Parade."
Burke's family headed back to Wisconsin yesterday morning. We loved their visit, and hope that they did too! After they came I actually found that I like this city more than I thought I did. I have a lot of complaints, but it's neat in a lot of ways too. Their visit gave us an excuse to do some more exploring that we haven't gotten around to yet.

So basically what I'm trying to say is if you come and visit us we'll show you a good time. (If we can get out of school and work....)

Thanks Kathy, Curtis, and Bonnie for coming so far! (And thanks to you too, Ryan and Kaylynn, for your visit!) We LOVE visitors!!!

Three things we love

Here are three of life's little joys that have been getting us through the day lately:

Jake Shimabukuro


Burke introduced me to this ukulele-playing master a long time ago, and recently I have rediscovered his genius through Pandora. My Jake station is my most used study music, selecting from instrumental-only albums (all uke and acoustic guitar) with feel-good titles like "Everything Under The Sun," "Not All Who Wander Are Lost," and "Good Day Sunshine." For a while there I would write down song titles I wanted to buy on i-tunes, but they just kept coming! So usually I just listen to Pandora, and love every minute. I'm pretty sure I've never "thumbs-downed" any song that came up, which is a pretty good record if you ask me. I love that Burke introduced me to this music that makes my heart happy. Some of our favorites are Jake's "Crazy G (live)," his "Beat of My Heart," "Be Still My Soul" by Paul Johnson, and "Canon" by Trace Bundy (thanks to Clark!).


Rodney Yee


I was talking to one of my friends at school about yoga and she recommended some videos by Rodney Yee. I went right home and bought two on Amazon, cause I was so anxious to do yoga again and certainly couldn't afford the classes. I started doing AM Yoga, 20 minute sessions "for every day of the week." OK, besides studying the scriptures and praying, I can't think of any better way to start the day. They are lovely. I also got a steal on Rodney's "Power Yoga Collection," which has 3 hour-long sessions. I don't do these as often but when I do I get nice and sore. But I love them.

And the best part is, Burke started doing it with me and now he loves Rodney too. He's so excited about how much improvement he's already seeing in his flexibility!


Blue Bunny Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

Ok it was actually kind of a fluke that we bought this specific ice cream (we usually only buy generic brand!!) and it didn't even last a week, but really it's an almost nightly dose of ice cream in general that's been getting us through. However, mint chocolate chip IS my favorite flavor, and Blue Bunny IS the most delicious brand of it I think I've ever tried. Dee-vine. Really.


Whatever it takes to get you through the day!

Burke's Bakilas

In Burke's 2nd to last semester at BYU he was in a Marketing class. In one of his projects he and his group analyzed the marketing of Vibram Five Fingers. As the researched the product and how it could be marketed, Burke became a believer...and he has wanted a pair of toe-pocket "shoes" ever since.

As a Christmas gift my parents gave him a gift card for a sporting goods store so he could get some if he wanted. Unfortunately, he's got some pretty big feet, and when we went they did not have his size in the style that he thought he wanted. After much patient waiting, Burke bought his Bakilas (the style he wanted) on Friday night.


He was not crazy about the color ("They're blue polka dots! They'll draw more attention!") but he decided to do it anyway rather than wait and see if they got anything else in in their next shipment (whenever that might be!). If I remember correctly, Burke's group determined that one of the major barriers to this product was it's appearance....people think they look weird. But Burke's trying not to let that stop him. He wore them while we ran errands yesterday.

With jeans...

He also wore them running yesterday morning, and he LOVED it. Now all my selfless husband can think about is getting some for me. :)

It'll be March in 2 days...

And in Virginia, March means SPRING! Really, truly, grass turning green, flowers, warmth, and even bare feet on the beach. We've gotten some premature tastes of spring lately but it will really be here soon. And I can't wait!

Life has been pretty crazy lately. School is SO BUSY! I am studying an insane amount but I've been able to do well enough so far. I LOVE my Mechanisms of Diseases class (most of the time). Anatomy has gotten crazy. The head and neck were pretty tortuous. By the time I finished that exam on Tuesday afternoon I felt like it should have been Friday. I was wiped out. On Thursday in lab we opened up the chest cavity and started learning about the lungs. So fun.

On Valentine's day Burke and I celebrated 3 years of knowing each other. After dinner Burke took me to Color Me Mine. Instead of each getting our own pottery to paint we picked one thing and painted it together (that is probably the epitome of our poor student lifestyle!). But actually we had a lot of fun doing it together and we both love how it turned out. Burke wanted to paint mountains, and when he did they reminded me of sweet Provo.





Which is where, on that fateful day 3 years ago, we met in a tent outside the Marriott Center. We feel pretty grateful for our mutual friends and for BYU basketball...what brought us together. Speaking of BYU basketball, I just can't get much studying done when they play. No, we can't watch the games on TV, but we've been finding ways to follow.... and we love it. I miss being at the Marriott Center SO MUCH! We are looking forward to a Cougar-filled NCAA tournament!



We have been doing less "fun stuff" than I figured we would simply because we are busier than we expected and because everything costs more than we expected. (For example, Colonial Williamsburg costs like $40 a person at the least!) This month we are looking forward to a trip to see Aaron in Buena Vista and hopefully a visit from some of Burke's family! I am excited for March.