And then we became a family of THREE!

Ask my parents, almost everyday I have been alive I've asked for a dog. Unfortunately for Collin, that constant reminder fell on him when we got married. I've been drooling over puppy classifieds online and sent him TONS of pictures of puppies that I want...trying to be as subtle as I could possibly handle. He's also wanted a dog, but tends to be more rational in his thinking and was waiting for a time in our lives when a dog would be easier to handle.

SO I graduated and I just couldn't take it anymore. I waited long enough. I NEEDED a puppy. So I started looking around and calling people to make appointments for a visit. Coincidentally, one of my best friend's parent's labs had just had a HUGE litter of puppies the exact same day I was about to go look at a couple of puppies. I called her and told her to put us down for 1 male chocolate lab! Then I told Collin we were getting a puppy haha Luckily he was just as excited as I was!

Also by coincidence, we got to pick him up on my birthday! BEST birthday present ever! (Thank you Isaacson's!) So without further ado, I will introduce MOWGLI!

 Mowgli at 6 weeks

 He sleeps ALL the time

 Seriously falls asleep anywhere

 A little blurry only because once he's awake, he doesn't stop moving

 A size comparison (That's Collin's slipper)

 Mowgli at 7 weeks

Stretching? No, still sleeping....comfortably I suppose

He is the best dog in the world and we absolutely love him more than words can describe! (Especially since he started sleeping through the night after the first week!)

I'm sure there will be many more posts to come that mainly revolve around him... Don't be surprised!

kelsi

Olympic Triathlon SURVIVORS

So last weekend we met up with the Barber's in St. George for a little R&R....kinda. We also decided it might be "fun" to do an olympic triathlon while we were there!

For those of you unfamiliar with what an olympic triathlon is, it consists of a 1500m swim, 20 mile bike, and a 10 k. Needless to say, our week of hard training a week before the race didn't secure our first place positions (weird, I know). But we had "fun" and it was a good learning experience! Now we know what to do for the next one...like maybe train hard for 2 weeks instead of 1 ;) 

But out of the whole triathlon experience, there are two things I can remember that made the whole 3 hours worthwhile....

1. Collin and I started at different times and when we crossed paths I noticed something "different" with his biking shorts. When we finished and I finally got to check him out, he had his biking shorts on backwards!! He biked and ran with the bigger part of the butt padding in the front! I couldn't stop laughing. He said "I was wondering why there was so much room". 

2. Collin then goes on to tell me that after his bike ride, he was so hot that he poured his entire water bottle over his head....only it wasn't water- He grabbed the water bottle with gatorade in it! He ran the 10 k drenched in a sticky mess! 

Oh Collin, you make me laugh.

 Collin- making it look easy...

Me- incredibly happy the swim was over

The rest of the trip consisted of golfing, shopping, eating, pooling, shuffle boarding, birthday celebrating (Val is the big 2-1 now!), girlfriend meeting (Ms. Katrina), and movie watching! We had so much fun with the whole family there. It was exactly what we needed before having to get serious with school again! Thanks Melissa and Greg!

Just Checking In...

We're just a couple of months late for our every 6 month blogging appointment (I'll try to do better in the future).... Life has been busy, busy lately but I am on my 21 day break so I figured I would take some time to give a little update....

So like I said, I am on a BREAK! Believe it or not, we were given a very gracious break before our LAST semester of NURSING SCHOOL! The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter, but so surreal... I'm afraid any mention of graduating could jinx the entire thing- "knock on wood"...

Collin is HALF WAY THROUGH MEDICAL SCHOOL!! He has done so well and has really enjoyed it so far. His third year will consist of following doctors of various specialties around at different hospitals... This  is when med school starts getting good. He'll get to spend the entire year in the hospital setting while putting to practice what he's been learning! Then fourth year will be some time in the hospital but mostly applying and interviewing for RESIDENCY programs! (Where does the time go??) Then he graduates and we start planning for a new adventure!

Right now Collin has a strict and strenuous studying schedule that will prepare him to take the Step 1 (the first half of the boards).... So from early in the morning to late at night, Collin is at the school....studying. I'm really so proud of him though. There's a reason why he signed up for this med school thing and I didn't... There's no way I'd be able to hang!

Well another reason I'm blogging is because I need to waste time before we go to my first midnight showing to The Avengers! It's going to be awesome... We've been so pumped for this movie to come out! 

Annddd then tomorrow I leave for Palm Desert for Girl's Week with my Mom, Grandma, and Aunts! It is an annual thing they have been doing for years and I've become an official part of the fun! Poor Collin gets left behind but hopefully he can be super productive with his studying without having me here to distract him... I'll be sure to bring something home for him!

 Tough Mudder 2012

 Phoenix Open Golf Tour

 Our BFF's, Jason and Dana, in Tucson for BANFF and some road biking

 Biking in Oro Valley

 Best place on earth...

Jason and Collin getting burritos before they passed out from being so HUNGRY at the Tucson 4th Ave Street Fair

we are STUDENTS.

So it has been forever since I've posted anything...mostly because I have no idea how to make our "blog" look fun so out of frustration I avoid adding anything. If anyone is willing to teach me, I will happily accept.

It seems like the last time we posted anything was around a year ago-ish so here are some updates:

- I got into ASU's Accelerated Nursing Program (Thank you Greg and Melissa for the surprise celebration dinner to Mimi's!). I started May 2011 and graduate August 2012. Yes, in a total of 16 months I will receive my BSN and my RN after I take the NCLEX (and pass!). How do we get to be done so quickly you ask? It is simple. We get no breaks! In fact, when we do get a day off our teachers schedule a test the day after so we spend our "day off" studying. If I'm socially inept when you see me again August 2012, you'll know why.
We started clinicals at the Phoenix VA for adult health. I have really loved being able to do the hands-on, real life nursing stuff. Half way through the semester we'll switch to mental health. Then next semester is peds, OB/ maternity, and community. Then our last semester is in the ICU. ( I can NOT wait!)
Other than school, I'm still in Young Women's and working at a home healthcare company. I kinda feel like I'm suffocating due to the lack of adventure we've been able to experience lately. But hopefully with it sort of cooling down now we'll be able to bike more and get out. Yes, we very much so miss Utah.

- Collin is doing wonderfully! He has started to feel the pressure of narrowing down his choices in what specialty he would like to pursue. We made a pros/ cons list of his top 3. After an opportunity to shadow Dr. Klatt (a peds ortho surgeon at Primary Children's), his top choice as of now is orthopedics. This means he has to study, study, study to do extremely well on his boards. Ortho is a very competitive residency, but it fits his personality. All they do is talk about sports during their surgeries (Needless to say he LOVED it!- Thanks Dr. Klatt!)
Collin is also busy working for Kaplan, coaching an inner city basketball team just because they needed coaches (heart of gold that man), 1st co. in the Elder's Quorum, and the man keeps me from frequent melt downs.
(You're asking if we ever get to see each other. The answer is usually sometime after 5pm.)

- Other news:

   - Collin got in-state tuition! YESS!

   - We had our 1 yr. anniversary in June... It still feels like we're dating. Thank you mom and dad for the gift certificate to Cheesecake Factory! (Otherwise we were finally going to be able to use our gift card to Chili's!)

   - Collin and I got to go to Utah to see Chelsey and Parry Cutler get married. Then a month later, Collin got to go see Scotty and Kaylee Anderson get married.

I think that about sums up the past few months. Overall, we have been very, very blessed and grateful for all the opportunties we've been able to take advantage of.

FREE Babysitting

Our ward here in Phoenix is awesome! We've built close relationships with other young couples and have really been able to feel more at home. Our callings in the Elders Quorum Presidency and the Young Woman have kept us busy, but we've enjoyed the opportunity to be so involved and the blessings associated with the service. Our testimonies have truly been strengthened. The best part about our ward is there are TONS of cute babies and if anyone knows us, they know we love babies. So naturally, we frequently offer our free babysitting services to anyone with a kid.
We recently were able to watch our close friends' little girl, Matti. She is the CUTEST little girl and really knows how to melt your heart with her big, blue eyes. I've tried really hard to make me her favorite, but she seems to have a thing for Collin... I guess I can't blame her. But here are some pictures of our day together at our apartment:

 Outfit change...

 I liked all of our stuff on the floor anyway...

 Backyardigans... I was singing the theme song the rest of the week

 And this is my favorite. She loves him!

Moab Day 2 and 3

We woke up from a cozy night (of which most of the time only half of me was on top of the air mattress) and got everything ready for our bike ride. We met our friends Rachel and Ryan at their camp site and dutch oven omelette and then Rachel's sister drove us up to the trailhead. I had read about the Porcupine trail in a book about Moab's best trails and this one was rated as the most dangerous, complete with steep downhill runs, elevated drops and exposure to cliffs (see picture). Kelsi was absolutely in heaven.

For the first few miles, there was no trouble. Then we came to some steep, slick rock that both Kelsi and I crashed on. We were both okay, but my bike had sustained a critical injury. My back disc brake had bent, so I had to make the decision of a back tire that wouldn't spin, or a loose brake. Only after a few times over the handle bars I realized that it was better to pedal harder than to only have a front brake! On one of the spills Kelsi said I would have done a complete flip if a bush hadn't have been in the way. Instead, it broke my fall and ripped a huge hole in the back of my pants. Good thing mountain biking isn't really about modesty.

My poor wife didn't stay on her bike the whole time either. Somehow she managed to hit a basketball sized rock in the middle of an open trail. As I was riding behind her, I looked up just in time to see her front tire stop moving and her body flip into the air. It look like she was a BMXer in the X Games doing a handstand on the handlebars. She came down on her hip, though and got a gash on her hip.

It was a great ride though and we saw some beautiful views of the canyon. And as long as we stayed on our bikes, there was great terrain. It was also nice to be dropped off at the top of the trail and not have to pedal back up the mountain! Either way it took us about 3 and 1/2 hours!

After the ride all we wanted to do was take a nap, but we had to squeeze in as much fun as possible. We took my parents and Reilly and Val on a hike to a 'hidden waterfall.' Since we had to cross the stream a couple of times, we tried to see who could keep their shoes dry the longest. Towards the end, it was my mom with two dry shoes and me in second place with one dry shoe (the first time Kelsi and I went, I ended up with only one wet shoe too!)

Then it was dinner time, so we went back to the campground to make burgers and s'mores (with plenty of Sandlot references). Reilly and Val set up their own tents next to ours, but by the time we were ready for bed, we didn't want to split up. Luckily Valerie's tent was almost big enough for three people, so we thought we would have no problem squeezing in four! Somehow Valerie got way more room than Reilly at first so we had to divy up the space again. Then to help us fall asleep we sang the national anthem one word at a time and realized we could use some practice.

The next day Kelsi and I took my siblings on a bike ride which turned out to be much harder than we had expected. We decided we'll have to start out a little slower so Val and Reilly will love mountain biking. On the way back, there was a snake on the trail. He was really drawing a crowd and blocking the trail so I let him crawl on my tire and I carried him to the bushes and let him slither off.

It was almost time to go so we had lunch with my family and then said goodbye. They had brought down Kelsi's ski jacket and skis that she had asked them to get from Kelsi's grandpa's house. He ended up sending a whole box of winter clothes and Kelsi's mom's skis! We all had a good laugh. It was such a fun weekend and we were happy to all spend some time together even if it was only a couple of days.

Moab Day 1

It has been about four months and we have missed Utah so much, we were looking for any opportunity to go back. So when we heard some of our friends were heading up to Moab (Kelsi's second favorite place in the world), we immediately looked at our schedules and started to make plans. Since we would in fact be closer to Salt Lake than Phoenix, I invited my brother and sister to come down and meet us there and soon enough, my parents decided to come down.

As the time approached, I realized that I had a test on the same day we had to leave. That meant I would have to go to class and we couldn't leave until about 4 o' clock. It was definitely an interesting 8 hour drive, including:

- passing a hitchhiker in the dark. I thought it could have been a native American skinwalker, but Kelsi called him a skinhead. It would have been scary to pick up either one!

- karaoke in the car. When they are real songs, you have to sing really loud to make up your own lyrics.

- Tuba City fair. We didn't have time to stop at the fair, but got a 12 pack of caffeine to keep us awake.

- Blanding. So apparently in blanding, gas stations aren't open after 10 o' clock so that means you have to get creative taking bathroom breaks.

Finally we got to Moab. We were planning on camping with our friends, but decided that after midnight, we might be somewhat of a nuisance setting up our tent. Additionally, we wanted to go see my family. They were still awake and were starting to get a littly punchy since it was so late. It was so fun to see them and we stayed up laughing and talking for a while before we finally went to bed. The hut was so small that we barely had enough room to fit on the floor and everyone had to step over us to get out the door, but we were happy to be there. What a great start to our vacation!