Do One Nice Thing

For those of you wanting to do a nice act, here it it! Click here for the address of where to send a small package of school supplies to a child in Iraq or Afghanistan to help promote literacy. It's the easiest and cheapest way to do a nice thing. As Dr. Laura would put it, "now go do the right thing."

Colorado Trip

Our CO trip this past weekend was very good. We found our dream condo (sounds funny, I know), visited the parents, family and Eric's aunt and uncle, and maybe most importantly I interviewed at Regis' School of Pharmacy.

Our trip started out rough. Our flight was supposed to come in at 9:30pm (4/15/2009), but was of course delayed until 10:30pm. We got into CO late and had trouble finding our way to my parents home (my parents always pick me up from the airport so I don't know how to drive home on my own, sad huh). We got a rental car which turned out to be an awesome Toyota Prius!

It was a struggle first learning how to operate it because we didn't get any instructions from the rental center. For example, it doesn't have a normal key, you press a power button to turn it on, it has a funky gear shifting mechanism, and you have to have your foot on the brake to turn it on. Sheesh.

We got home and were in bed by 2am but had to wake up at 5:45am to get to my interview. I was so tired the next morning I felt sick and terrible. We were on the road at 6:30am, and good thing too because we got lost finding the dang school. We drove 50 blocks past where we were supposed to turn, but had time to get there and still be early.

The interview was 7 hours long (7:45am-3pm)! But I pretty much rocked it and felt very confident about it. After the interviews two of the interviewers came up to me and told me they were very impressed with some of my answers. I felt so happy after they told me that I wanted to jump and shout, literally. I was probably the happiest person there.

I'll find out this week to see if I got in. Wouldn't that be perfect- Eric and I both getting into our dream professions! My fingers are crossed big time.

We did a lot of real estate searching after my interview (Saturday through Monday) and found the perfect 3rd story condo that backs into a beautiful field with a path that runs to the Cherry Creek shopping areas as well as Downtown Denver. The person who lived at the condo had a vision and went with it, but ran out of money and so the construction he had started is at a standstill because he got foreclosed on. It'll take about $10k to finish his projects (because right not it's not livable), but the condo price is really low because of it. It also includes a garage, work out area, pool access, and a club house area.

So many new changes are coming up for us and we feel so blessed and excited. Thanks to everyone who is looking out for us and supporting us!

Bear Lake 5/8 - 5/11

Ryan Openshaw (Eric's brother-in-law) was able to reserve his company's condo in Bear lake for the weekend and invited us to come up with them.
In total we had: Amanda and Ryan, Eric's parents, and us.
Everything was closed and deserted but we still had a lot of fun.
We did a lot of lounging, hanging out and eating out. We rented bikes and took a not-so-specatularly viewed bike ride. Amanda's bike chain kept coming out, we saw lots of animal bones, and rode for 1hr on a strict time limit! It was funny to think back about it but memorable and pretty fun.
We played some fun rounds of Heck Down, sat in the incredibly hot hot tub, made creme brule, and watched movies (I fell asleep through every one) and Do It Yourself (t.v. show). We walked along the lake, played frisbee and soccer, and went up into the Idaho part of Bear Lake to find the hot springs- sadly it was a hot tub that was so misleading and closed. So instead we snuck into the Idaho tabernacle and explored.
There were a lot of rules in the condo. It was basically not a kid-friendly condo. But we obeyed the rules for fear of the secret video cameras (that weren't there but we still pretended they were).
Rule #1: No food on the carpet, so what does everyone do?
They eat their pizza standing up on the kitchen tile while entrapped by the tv:

Graduation- April 2009

Eric graduated in Psychology and was pre-med. He got into Rocky Vista University (Osteopathic Med School) in Parker, CO.
I graduated in Exercise Science and was pre-pharmacy. I got into Temple University's School of Pharmacy in Philadelphia, PA.
My parents came down for the weekend from Colorado. It was fun. Our two families had dinner at a delicious Thai restaurant in SLC on Thursday evening, then my family and Eric and I went for a stroll around temple square. We listened to the end of MoTab practicing in the tabernacle. That was quite impressive.
Friday was the day full of graduation ceremonies.Eric graduated at 11am and hugged D. Todd Christofferson. He sat with Andy B., his friend in the economics college.
My ceremony was at 2pm and I sat by Kelson and Broody, two buds of mine. The speakers spoke for too long but there was a cool story one speaker told us:
There was this one professor who was notorious for making it IMPOSSIBLE to get an A in his class. He taught a class about birds. Well, this one kid thought he would show this professor and work extra hard to obtain an A. He studied hard and worked hard all semester and was sitting on an A going into the final. He studied his books, notes and did extra research at the library. He knew all that there was to know about birds. On the day of the final the professor pulls out three stuffed birds with plastic bags over their heads so all you could see was their feet.
The final consisted of naming the species of bird and their phylum all from seeing their feet! As the students grumbled out of frustration and shock they turned in their guesses hoping to get some type of partial credit. The one student who studied his butt off wrote down his answers, knowing they were wrong, and stomped up to the professor. He angrily told the professor the final was a joke and that he was the worst teacher he had ever had. The professor got upset with the student and asked what his name was so he could punish him.
The student lifted his leg, plopped it on the table, lifted up his pant exposing his hairy leg and said, "you tell me!"

We then went to the Bombay House with my parents for a meal we were STARVING for. This is Eric's and my favorite Indian restaurant. There was an annoying kid sitting near our table who kept crying and knocking his food on the ground. I got annoyed at the kid and my mom got annoyed at me because I was annoyed at the kid...
We then drove up to the S. Jordan hospital so my dad could surprise his sister who is the pharmacist there. He surprised her and although it was a bit akward because we really didn't have much to talk about it was good for us to see her.

Videos from the proud parents

Huskie

Our cat story:
I found a skinny, cold and wet kitty outside of our apartment complex one snowy day. She ran up to me as I was walking from our car to our apartment. My heart went out to her and I brought her inside and fed her some bread.

Look at how skinny she was!

I gave her to our neighbors who love cats and told them that if they didn't want her to give her back to me.

The next morning we woke up to a terrible meow outside our door. The neighbors just abandoned her and didn't ring our doorbell to give her back! Idiots.

We kept her and named her Huskie. Eric gave her multiple baths and we fed her back to life.

But since we can't have cats in our apartment and are moving to Colorado in July, we decided (with heavy pressure from Eric) to give her up. We posted ads on Craigs List and KSL (Utah classifieds).

We got a couple bites from potential owners, but they weren't good enough. The first couple we adored but in the end they couldn't take her because they couldn't find an apartment complex that would let them have cats.

The next person was a guy. First lesson learned- don't give cats to male inquirers...at least that's what I learned.
He wanted her for his barn because he had a mice problem. But when I was interviewing him at the Creamery on 9th's parking lot, he sounded too fishy to me (and not to mention that he's a guy-it just doesn't work for me). I told him that Eric had already given her multiple baths, and his reply was, "oh, yea, I'll give her baths too." Yeah flipping right. What guy besides Eric gives a cat a bath. Especially if she's going to be a barn cat! I asked if he had other cats and he had two other cats but they were too fat to catch the mice.

I didn't have a good feeling about this cowboy dude, and so I basically told him he didn't pass my interview and that I wasn't giving Huskie to him. He was under the impression that he was meeting me to take the cat, but boy was he wrong!

Eric drying Huskie after her first bath

We'd put Huskie under a towel by the heater so she could get nice and warm after her baths

A couple days later we had another inquiry from this lady who sounded nice. But when we looked her up on facebook she had a husband who didn't look like he would be so nice to cats and two hell-raising looking boys. I thought they would torment Huskie, so in the end we didn't give our cat to her either (the lady was kind of pissed about this).

In the end, we gave Huskie to Julie, a pharmacist I know and work with. The situation couldn't have worked out better. Julie lets Huskie (they named her Piper) sleep on their bed, which is Piper's dream beyond dreams. They have a big house for her to roam in and lots of toys and people to play with. From what I've heard she loves it there (but it did take about a week for her to stop missing us- she would howl everynight looking for us).

I miss her so much. Eric does too, and he even admits it ;)

She would traverse our 2nd story apt complex and even jump down

You can kind of see her shaved belly here from when we had her neutered (Eric found her doing the wild thing with another ferral cat)

She fell asleep in my lap like this

Eric and his new friend asleep on the couch

Newlyweds

Yesterday Eric and I went to a health store in Orem for dinner. While we were waiting for our wraps to be made, the employee who took our order asked if we were newlyweds. We told her we were married about 1.5 years and she was surprised because we seemed so newly wed and in love. We took that as a great compliment.

We also went to Color Me Mine last night, and holy cow it was so fun! Go on a Saturday after 6pm for a 2 for 1 studio fee ($8 total).

We also saw Wolverine (X-men Origins) at the new University mall theater- pretty good!