Home Means Nevada

I love Fallon. I love it even more now that I have lost the major reason for returning as mom and dad have moved to UT. I now get to choose to remember the best things about Fallon and have sweet sentiments of a place where I spent my formative years.

Some of my favorite things about Fallon are:

Tumbleweed Road. I mean, c'mon! Is there anything which screams dusty small desert town more than a dirt road named "Tumbleweed"? I recall a neighbor of ours making a 'tumbleweed' man one winter for Christmas when Fallon had no snow.

The view from the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. Really I just get a kick that something like this can be called a 'mountain'. I have spent many hours up here just staring out onto Fallon. Sometimes the view is more picturesque than other times, depending on the time of year.

Historic Maine Street. From my recollection, Fallon's main street is one of very few in the nation spelled "Maine". I'm not sure why, exactly. Perhaps everyone just really liked lobster. Anyhow, I love the theater and going there with my friends for midnight screenings of the newest release and wondering why the theater didn't look like the pictures of the historic theater they had on the walls.

Lizards. There were always lizards on the back wall of the house if you knew where to find them. This one was really easy to find once everything was out of the way. He was a big one, too: about 6-7" long head to tail.

Most of all . . .

I loved home in Fallon.

However, there are some things I won't miss about Fallon:

The cartoon high school mascot. (I think I can joke about this for a lifetime)

Rotten-egg water. Enough showering in essence of sulfur.

Burn-my retina-and melt-my-hair hot August sun. I know we get this just about everywhere, but sometimes it seemed especially bad in NV.

Smoking and mini-casinos in every business. I'll never forget the old Raley's and Safeway markets when we first moved in and needing to hold my breath to get through the doors on the way in and out because of the fog of cigarette smoke. (Now I get to ruin my lungs with the blessed inversions every winter instead!) It caught me off guard again last weekend to see slot machines and video poker in the airport and the gas stations. I had forgotten about them.

Oh well, despite all this, I will miss you, Fallon.

Poetry Corner

In light of all this Paris Hilton media frenzie, I found a poem that I can sympathize with:

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you—Nobody—Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise—you know!

How dreary—to be—Somebody!
How public—like a Frog—
To tell one's name—the livelong June—
To an admiring Bog!

-Emily Dickinson

curly2/curly + straight

Scott has been growing out his hair because he can, but now he's getting sick of it and wants to buzz it all. Before the big buzz, though, we asked Sarah if she would straighten it for him just for a night. Here is the before picture:


Now please vote on your favorite after picture. This isn't a very good angle, but this is the Kevin Bacon Do (it really looked like Kevin Bacon's hair from Footloose):


This is the Christian Bale do:


This is the Boarder Do:

A Good Hike

Today Scott and I went on our first hike in a long time. We went on a trail we'd never been on or even heard of. It started on a very steep uphill. The path was really fine dust and was surrounded by mountain oak that looked like old bony arms reaching towards the sky. Slowly the landscape started changing until we were mostly surrounded by aspens with a grassy floor. It was a very pretty trail. Here the path was a little more rocky, not as dusty, and we saw several wildflowers. These little orange butterflies were everywhere.


Suddenly the aspens opened up into the large meadow in the first picture. There was a little creek to the east running parallel with the trail. It was pretty cool. On our way back we took a different fork of the trail and found ourselves surrounded by tall pines.


I think my very favorite part of the whole trip was the head of the trail. We parked by this little reservoir, which was very crowded with eager fishermen, but very charming. I want to go back again tomorrow. I think I've found my favorite place in Utah.

Sisters, sisters, never were there such devoted sisters

I feel so spoiled this month because I got to see all my sisters. First, my parents came to Utah for my nephew's baptism, so Scott and I went out to visit, too, seeing my parents and my sister's family.


Then I went to MD to visit Amber. Here we are singing to calm down Sofie, who was sick and tired.


Then last weekend, my oldest sister Kali flew in for the weekend, so Tauna drove out and we spent some time together. With everyone spread out all over the country, I really revel in the time that we do get to spend together. Now if there's some way to see my brothers before the end of the month, I'd have everyone covered...

Vacation!

What a fun trip! Scott and I spent the third week in May in Maryland and Virginia to visit family and the nation's capital, which neither Scott nor I had visited before.


The first few days were spent in Maryland with my sister and her family. She has two adorable little girls, which none of my pictures do justice to. With them we visited Ellicott City, Annapolis, and the DC temple. I'd been told that when you approach the temple from the freeway belt loop, the temple is striking, but actually seeing it was breathtaking! The freeway is surrounded on both sides with trees that are 40-50 feet high, so you can't see any buildings or houses. For a few miles before you can see the temple, all you see are trees. Then as you reach the top of a gentle slope in the freeway (cue angels singing) the temple is straight in front of you, rising above the trees.



This is my sister with her family on the temple grounds. Scott took a picture of me taking their picture.

We only had one day to spend in DC and we tried to cram as much into that day as our feet would let us.


Before lunch we went around to the monuments. I was amazed at the spirit that was present at every monument. They evoke respect and a sense of national pride. I had never read Lincoln's whole "Four score and seven years..." speech until we visited the Lincoln monument. I was so moved by it I almost want to frame a copy and hang it on my wall.



After lunch, we only had two hours left to visit the Smithsonian museums. We only got to the Natural History and Air and Space Museum at warp speed. Unfortunately, our camera battery died on us, so we didn't get many pictures. The one below is a neat one that Scott took.


For the second half of our trip, we went to Virginia Beach with Scott's family. The first night there we stood on the beach and dipped our feet in the icy ocean water as we watched dozens of dolphins swim just several yards off shore. It was a neat experience. Later than night, the sand was crawling with little and big crabs. The next day was our only really good warm beach day. Scott got to play beach football with his brothers and we both got a little boogie boarding in, despite the cold waters.



It was great to see the whole family. It makes me sad we don't live closer to everyone. But we plan on visiting the DC area again whenever we can.

Fun with photo booth

Food for Thought

My mom sent this video to me and I thought it was very interesting, especially if you have kids, are a student, or are a teacher.

Reasons why I love yoga

1. It makes me stronger


2. I have more control over my thoughts and my body


3. I can push myself farther than I ever thought I could


4. I'm way more flexible than I've ever been after two years of regular yoga (I have never been flexible before)


5. It makes me happy


6. The philosopy of yoga keeps everything in balance, for example, every workout after working your muscles hard, ends with lying on the floor and doing nothing for 5-10 minutes

Catching Helicopter Seeds

Lion vs. Lamb

Whoever came up with the March phrase "in like a lion, out like a lamb" had one thing right. The lion and the lamb both show their faces in March. As for when in the month they come, there is no consistency. Yesterday morning we woke up to a few inches of snow. It inspired me to take pictures of it's beauty and it's springtime contradictions. After looking at the pictures I wonder if the snow is supposed to be the lion or the lamb...

Hoo Hung Woo?

Last Saturday we threw a Chinese murder mystery party. It was a lot of fun to see friends and hang out and eat Chinese food, but I was disappointed with the plot of the game. We've done these parties before, but this one was far too complicated to keep track of. Regardless, it was a fun night. It turned out Scott was the guilty one! Do you think he looks the part?

Tech-regression

Two weeks ago, while at the library, Britta mentioned a problem with our display on the laptop. All the colors would go bad, the graphics would pixelate and we got an error message. It worked fine for a while after we restarted it . . .
But . . .
Not anymore! We are computer-less now, more than ever. (If you count not having internet as being computer-less, it practically is nowadays).
The funny thing is, the day we got the error message, I wondered if we had backed up our files. Now our computer won't even turn on.
Should we fix it? I think we need to get a quote . . .

Finally...

After much grief and headache, I finally have a somewhat respectable website for advertising myself. It's BrittaMarie.com. Much thanks to Brett for hosting me and helping me work out a lot of glitches. Also, I have to thank Scott for dealing with my freak-outs when the digital and computer worlds seemed pitted against me.

p.s. The galleries don't work in Mozilla Firefox.

We made it!!!

As of today, I have been accepted to the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine. I can't tell you what a relief it is to finally have an acceptance. I am still waiting to hear back from UNR and a final decision from Touro in Las Vegas, but with this acceptance in hand, at least we have a deadline in front of us as far as transitioning into our next phase of our lives and career. Whew! What a long and anxious wait it has been.

Just a few thoughts about the school . . .
from the website, "KCOM was the first institution of osteopathic education in the world and continues to provide leadership for comprehensive medical education, research, and healthcare. Consistent with the college's mission, KCOM is consistently ranked in U.S. News & World Report as one of the best medical schools in the country for rural and family medicine training."

My impressions: This easily had the best facilities of all the schools I interviewed with and I had the best experience here. In comparision, though UNR is an MD school, the class size there was about half as big as KCOM and the interview process seemed cold and detached to me. I do still hope to be accepted there, as well, to broaden our options, but we'll see.

Tuoro University in Vegas had the worst facilities, but perhaps the most prolific and charismatic staff. I really enjoyed my time there, though I felt as though I was in a warehouse at first.

I'll keep you all up to date as to any other news in this regard.
I know many of you prayed in our behalf and we are both truly grateful. About two and a half weeks ago, when everything was still unknown, I had a great feeling of comfort and peace regarding this decision from the Spirit, which was greatly needed. I am grateful, indeed. We love you all!

Speak Impediment

I have never been one who is good at conversations. In fact, conversing on the phone is one of my all time greatest fears. I credit some of this fear to a mix-up in the wiring of my brain in the vocabulary retrievement department. Sometimes the perfect word to use in a conversation just won't come. I know it exists in my head, and it teases me by sending words that are close, but not really.

Here are some examples. I was cleaning up my house and the next thing to do was vacuum the floors. I told Scott, "I'll just be in the other room; I have to rake the carpet." Just today as we were driving down the street, the sun was glaring off the snow and the wet roads. It was bright, so I pointed to the sunglasses and said, "You can put on those headlights if you want to."

I think this vocabulary retrievement disability was inherited by my mom. One of the examples I remember from her: She was cooking chili and it needed to be stirred to keep from burning, but her hands were busy. She turned to my sister and said, "Amber, can you rub the chili?"

Cousins!

My sister from New York and my sister from Vernal came over yesterday for lunch with their kids. They look so sweet and calm in this picture, but it was wild! I don't think our apartment has ever been so alive! It was lots of fun, though, especially spending time with my sisters. We spent the afternoon at the Bean museum.
When Bryson, 3, saw this amazing display of butterflies on the wall below, he ran up to the glass and pointed to the one little photograph of a butterfly in the bottom right corner and got really excited. "Look, Bitta, look, a butterfie!" I zoomed in the picture so you could see the one butterfly he saw... It was pretty amusing.

Yummm

Scott's Cookies

Valentine Boxes

Isabah (her legal name is Alisia) came over last night to decorate her valentine box for school. Decorating those boxes was one of the highlights of my elementary school years! We liked it so much in our family we used to decorate two boxes, one for home and one for school. Then we would make our own valentines for each sibling.

The trump of all boxes was in fifth grade, my last year making a valentine box. My brother helped me install a few christmas lights that would flicker on every time someone gave me a valentine. It was pretty cool.


Ahh... makes me want to decorate one myself.

Double Dribble! (Deja Vu?)

Two games in one week! Scott's in heaven! I scored some free tickets to the BYU basketball game against UNLV today and it was awesome! I'm such a bigger fan of college sports than of pro. There's just so much more electricity in the air, the fans are more motivated and loyal. It's contagious! Scott and I both wore our "cougar blue" and we beat the #25 ranked UNLV team. No, we whooped them! For over half the game BYU was up by at least 20 points. UNLV didn't have the lead once. Ironically, our seats were at approximately the same angle and height as they were at the Jazz game.

Go Jazz!

We had some friends who hooked us up with discount Jazz tickets on Wednesday night. They played against the Spurs, who have the third best record in the NBA, and won! It was a fun, high energy game. It was also my very first pro basketball game. Pretty cool, eh?