Monday, May 25, 2009
Friday, May 08, 2009
Congrats to My Mom
My mom graduated yesterday with her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree...Congrats to her for this great accomplishment!
And look at my beautiful niece...she is getting so big...and she LOVES her daddy!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Jake & His Friends
We gathered today to say goodbye to one of my classmates/our friends with other friends from church as they prepare to move to Pennsylvania/Delaware for Residency. As we were celebrating their move for Residency, the party was medically themed and we all dressed up in scrubs...Clint & Jake borrowed some of mine...Jake wore Christmas Cookie Monster & Clint wore lovely pink flowers...I think pink is a good color for him :)
Monday, April 20, 2009
Spring
We have had an uncharacteristically Spring-like Spring season here in Houston...with very nice weather...but its all too quickly coming to an end. This year I convinced Jake to build a planter for me to plant zucchini in; I also received an Earth Box for my birthday, which is supposed to grow fabulous tomatoes.
Then when my mom was here I convinced her to help me plant everything :) We planted tomatoes, green peppers, basil & zucchini...and now the zucchini has sprouted, so hopefully it will grow well in its new planter.
And a few pictures of the dogs looking at me quizzically as I talk to them from behind the camera
Sunday, April 12, 2009
NASA x2
This week I had the opportunity to go to NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) twice. On Wednesday I went as a chaperone on an exclusive tour with Baylor's Saturday Morning Science program--a program Baylor sponsors each spring for middle & high school students from the lower income Houston schools--to encourage their interest in science. We listened to talks about what projects are currently underway at JSC and were able to meet a few astronauts and get up close tours of an area where the astronauts train and the different Mission Control areas. It was very interesting, especially getting to see it all up-close. Then my mom came into town for the weekend and had never been...so we went on the traditional NASA JSC tours.
Full-size Shuttle Mock-up on the training floor.
An Astronaut showing us the inside of a shuttle mock-up & the TINY living area where 7 astronauts live for 2 weeks on shuttle missions. Behind him are the sleeping hammocks where they strap themselves into sleep.
The shuttle toilet...apparently both men & women stand to urinate in space...and each are assigned a personal funnel.
My mom in front of a plaque for the Apollo Mission Control Center.
As part of the exclusive tour we were able to go into the Historic Apollo Mission Control Center...from where all the Apollo Missions to the moon were controlled. Here I am sitting at the desk Apollo 11 & 13 (as well as many others) Flight Director Gene Kranz sat at during those missions.
My mom in front of the Orion at the JSC Visitor's Center- the next spacecraft that will take man back to the moon
The Orion Mock-up on the astronaut training floor
International Space Station (ISS) Mission control--with live pictures of ISS on the screens.
with former NASA astronaut General Charles Bolden...who incidentally will also be the speaker at my graduation in May.
An Astronaut showing us the inside of a shuttle mock-up & the TINY living area where 7 astronauts live for 2 weeks on shuttle missions. Behind him are the sleeping hammocks where they strap themselves into sleep.The shuttle toilet...apparently both men & women stand to urinate in space...and each are assigned a personal funnel.My mom in front of a plaque for the Apollo Mission Control Center.As part of the exclusive tour we were able to go into the Historic Apollo Mission Control Center...from where all the Apollo Missions to the moon were controlled. Here I am sitting at the desk Apollo 11 & 13 (as well as many others) Flight Director Gene Kranz sat at during those missions.
My mom in front of the Orion at the JSC Visitor's Center- the next spacecraft that will take man back to the moon The Orion Mock-up on the astronaut training floor International Space Station (ISS) Mission control--with live pictures of ISS on the screens.
with former NASA astronaut General Charles Bolden...who incidentally will also be the speaker at my graduation in May.Thursday, March 19, 2009
Match Day
It's finally official...I matched...I will be doing residency in
Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children's Hospital!
Here are a few pictures of the festivities:
Tearing the paper off the board to reveal The Match results at 11am
Everyone searching for the envelope that holds their future...
Lori & I with our Match Results.She is headed to Baylor in Dallas for Pathology...just as she wanted :)
Jake & I with my Match 
The Matthews' Family with their 1st choice Match in Emergency Medicine in Delaware
With Luke & John- 2 of my classmates with Utah connections (both BYU grads...boo!), and nearly the only 2 Mormons I know in Texas,a very strange thought, being from Utah...
(and now they are both leaving)
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
Erin and I have just returned from our first ever trip to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
The HLSR happens for a month every year - it's time for big hair and big belt-buckles....
Whenever the rodeo is in town, the population density of trucks increases exponentially.
We're not what you might call: 'Rodeo Folk.' There's a reason we've been here for almost four years and never attended - in spite of our curiosity. This year however, fortune smiled upon us and we got some free tickets from my work - so we went with a couple of work friends (Sarah and Kellen). In the evening there's your standard rodeo entertainment which consists of all manner of quadriped being ridden by all manner of human with various ropes and spurs thrown in for good measure.
The bull-riding, bronco-riding really freaks me out. I'm 'risk-averse.' There's a fine line between being manly and insanity... for me a bull trying to trample/gore you is on the wrong side of that line. There was this amazing chariot sort of race... a chuck wagon hitched to four horses taking on 2 other similar rigs. The winning chuck wagon finished with only three wheels and while I'm not an aficionado of the chuck wagon/rodeo circuit - I must say that it seemed like quite a feat.
By far the sweetest thing we saw was: Muttin' Bustin'. The concept is genius (potential social service/child labor issues aside). Here's what you do - grab a sheep, put it in a pen, strap a 4-5yr old kid to it's back... and open the hatch. The sheep comes shooting out and the kid is just holding on for dear life. They're not sitting upright on these things mind you... they're clinging bear hug style. Phenomenal. Our children will train on Battlecat and Kelsey until they are old enough to bust their own muttins. The little 5 yr old girl who won was hanging on the side of the sheep for the better part of the length of the stadium. She was interviewed afterwards and asked what she thought about winning to which she replied: I feel Happy.
After watching interviews with the professional rodeo folk - this gal was the most gifted orator of the bunch.
The calf scramble was also something of a spectacle. 28 high school FFA kids, 14 calfs... I guess they were suppose to subdue the calf using various wrestling (wrastlin' in rodeo vernacular) maneuvers and then tie it's head up somehow and drag it into a squared off area where adults would further tame the beast. Winner gets a gift certificate for a calf (who knew?) that they can raise for a year and show at next year's event.
The evening was capped by a performance from every one's favorite Aussie singing sensation: Keith Urban. I'm going to go ahead and admit that I am completely ignorant to all things country (western?). The only thing I knew about this dude was that he is married to Nicole Kidman who was apparently in the house (I'd like to think she'd heard tale of the muttin' bustin'). Anyway Mr. Urban did his thang from a rotating stage. Kellen commented that Urban looked like one of the guys from the Goo Goo Dolls... and one of the backup guitar players looked like the other guy from the Goo Goo Dolls so we may have uncovered a conspiracy.
At the beginning of the show Urban kept asking for the crowd to sing along... and there was silence. It was funny awkward - which is the best kind of funny in that setting. Later he pranced around the stadium switching between guitar and vocals flanked by 17 stage-hands and one dude who for some reason was running around with his mic stand.....I mean... he had a wireless mic... is that necessary? Perhaps Keith has a history of elbow/wrist related injuries... I don't know. Anyway we left during a song that had the lyrics: You can take your cat, just don't take my sweater... or something to that effect. I know I'll be considering the impact of those words for some time.
So the Rodeo.... good times. Looking forward to getting more into muttin' bustin'.
The HLSR happens for a month every year - it's time for big hair and big belt-buckles....
Whenever the rodeo is in town, the population density of trucks increases exponentially.
We're not what you might call: 'Rodeo Folk.' There's a reason we've been here for almost four years and never attended - in spite of our curiosity. This year however, fortune smiled upon us and we got some free tickets from my work - so we went with a couple of work friends (Sarah and Kellen). In the evening there's your standard rodeo entertainment which consists of all manner of quadriped being ridden by all manner of human with various ropes and spurs thrown in for good measure.
The bull-riding, bronco-riding really freaks me out. I'm 'risk-averse.' There's a fine line between being manly and insanity... for me a bull trying to trample/gore you is on the wrong side of that line. There was this amazing chariot sort of race... a chuck wagon hitched to four horses taking on 2 other similar rigs. The winning chuck wagon finished with only three wheels and while I'm not an aficionado of the chuck wagon/rodeo circuit - I must say that it seemed like quite a feat.
By far the sweetest thing we saw was: Muttin' Bustin'. The concept is genius (potential social service/child labor issues aside). Here's what you do - grab a sheep, put it in a pen, strap a 4-5yr old kid to it's back... and open the hatch. The sheep comes shooting out and the kid is just holding on for dear life. They're not sitting upright on these things mind you... they're clinging bear hug style. Phenomenal. Our children will train on Battlecat and Kelsey until they are old enough to bust their own muttins. The little 5 yr old girl who won was hanging on the side of the sheep for the better part of the length of the stadium. She was interviewed afterwards and asked what she thought about winning to which she replied: I feel Happy.
After watching interviews with the professional rodeo folk - this gal was the most gifted orator of the bunch.
The calf scramble was also something of a spectacle. 28 high school FFA kids, 14 calfs... I guess they were suppose to subdue the calf using various wrestling (wrastlin' in rodeo vernacular) maneuvers and then tie it's head up somehow and drag it into a squared off area where adults would further tame the beast. Winner gets a gift certificate for a calf (who knew?) that they can raise for a year and show at next year's event.
The evening was capped by a performance from every one's favorite Aussie singing sensation: Keith Urban. I'm going to go ahead and admit that I am completely ignorant to all things country (western?). The only thing I knew about this dude was that he is married to Nicole Kidman who was apparently in the house (I'd like to think she'd heard tale of the muttin' bustin'). Anyway Mr. Urban did his thang from a rotating stage. Kellen commented that Urban looked like one of the guys from the Goo Goo Dolls... and one of the backup guitar players looked like the other guy from the Goo Goo Dolls so we may have uncovered a conspiracy.
At the beginning of the show Urban kept asking for the crowd to sing along... and there was silence. It was funny awkward - which is the best kind of funny in that setting. Later he pranced around the stadium switching between guitar and vocals flanked by 17 stage-hands and one dude who for some reason was running around with his mic stand.....I mean... he had a wireless mic... is that necessary? Perhaps Keith has a history of elbow/wrist related injuries... I don't know. Anyway we left during a song that had the lyrics: You can take your cat, just don't take my sweater... or something to that effect. I know I'll be considering the impact of those words for some time.
So the Rodeo.... good times. Looking forward to getting more into muttin' bustin'.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Just in Case You Didn't Know
This month I am back to sitting in the classroom all day, 5 days/week, which after 2 years of not being in the classroom, is very hard to do, even if the material is interesting. I am taking an elective called "Intensive Course in Tropical Medicine" towards completion of the international health track here at Baylor...and have been learning more about all kinds of diseases we rarely see in the US (though we do see some of them here in Houston, where we take care of a large immigrant population) & looking at stool samples under the microscope for parasites! Nematodes, Cestodes, Flukes, Spirochetes, Rickettsia...Fun, huh?
At least its my 2nd to last rotation of medical school!
On a mostly unrelated note, we were at a friend's birthday party the other night...and several of our friends like to ask me medical-related questions, so I was answering some question which somehow lead to a discussion of how locating the urethra in women can sometimes be difficult...which lead to me providing 2 examples in which this is especially true...one of which was a story my friend Jenni recently shared with me...which I won't share here, to spare the faint-of-heart readers of this blog the details...to which one of the boys responded, "What? Girls don't have prostates?" Much to my amusement :)
Then a later that evening, all this was being relayed again to another guy who also seriously responded, "What? Girls don't have prostates?"
So just in case you didn't know...Girls don't have prostates.
At least its my 2nd to last rotation of medical school!
On a mostly unrelated note, we were at a friend's birthday party the other night...and several of our friends like to ask me medical-related questions, so I was answering some question which somehow lead to a discussion of how locating the urethra in women can sometimes be difficult...which lead to me providing 2 examples in which this is especially true...one of which was a story my friend Jenni recently shared with me...which I won't share here, to spare the faint-of-heart readers of this blog the details...to which one of the boys responded, "What? Girls don't have prostates?" Much to my amusement :)
Then a later that evening, all this was being relayed again to another guy who also seriously responded, "What? Girls don't have prostates?"
So just in case you didn't know...Girls don't have prostates.
Our 5th Anniversary
Jake and I celebrated our 5th Anniversary recently! We were able to go to Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country, spend some time exploring 2 Texas State Parks/Natural Areas--Pedernales Falls & Enchanted Rock--and stay at a beautiful B&B: http://www.absolutecharm.com/2Sstrs_ShnnnsSteMain.html
Below are some pictures:
Pedernales Falls--which as Jake so kindly pointed out in his sermon, though pretty, it cannot begin to compare to the falls of Iguazu :)
Enchanted Rock- a huge pink granite dome
And of course we took time out to watch our Utes dominate in the Sugar Bowl!
In other happy news, I passed Step 2 CK!
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Playing in the Snow
We had beautiful weather and a lot of fun playing in the snow
Jake crashing down a hill
Me crashing down a hill
Snowshoeing in Mill Creek Canyon on the Pipeline trail
My mom's dogs Alli (& Aspen) love to play in the snow with us
My mom's dogs Alli (& Aspen) love to play in the snow with usCross-Country Skiing
My mom, Aunt Marian & I
Jake crashing down a hillMe crashing down a hill
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