Dog Sitting!

I'm up in Huntsville dog/house sitting for a very nice couple while they're in Europe. It's so nice and peaceful here with my new friend Bear (the German Shepherd, not my dog...) It's most interesting learning to cook all the new fancy, organic-style foods they left me and even more unusual to adapt to life without a MICROWAVE! I never knew it was possible to live without a microwave and honestly, I'm still skeptical and think I just haven't found it yet... how can they simply not have one??? I know they're into healthy and organic but wow! Oh well, I've been getting pretty creative with the gas stove and the wide assortment of pans that come with it and all without the aid of my number one seasoning: garlic salt. I never thought I could do it but this experience has opened my eyes. Culinary school here I come!!!

Relay for Life

So last night, I participated in the Relay for Life at Weber State. It started at 7:00PM and went until 7:00AM. There was supposed to be someone walking around the duck pond at all times from each team. My ward had two teams: CNA's Rock Steady, and The "Perfect" 10.


The bishop came with his big camper and grill and made hamburgers and hot dogs and set out some great snacks to keep us all going.


Tony, Shelly and I went to the nearby football field and played softball for a bit and I learned that my hands are way too weak to hit a softball. Then Colby came by for a bit and let me keep his jacket because even though I thought enough to bring some blankets, I totally forgot to bring any kind of a jacket!


After Colby left there was a big ceremony to honor those whose lives have been altered by cancer and then we walked around a bit more. Back at the camper I started up some chinese wrestling with Tony, Bry, Ryan and Britney so of course today I'm terribly sore! Then Chelsey, Mo, Brent, Tony, and Jon Cannon went exploring around the campus taking funny pictures with me.


We seriously had a blast goofing off all around WSU (Jon was being crazy... he even rang the big bell in the Football Stadium at 2:00 AM. Just after 2, we had to run back down to the camper to retrieve our stuff because the big group was going home for the night but it was our stupid goal to make it until seven.


We were going to have breakfast on the roundabout but that didn't happen. We went to Brent's house to get some more blankets and we ended up staying there to watch The Office and play card games.


We all ended up falling asleep for a little bit so we eventually gave up by 6:00AM and I got home just before 7:00 and fell asleep until 2:00PM today (except for the moment that my mom called me at 8:00AM!)

My Awesome Easter!

Well, even though my family left me for Mesquite all weekend I still had a blast over Easter. It was great but I am incredibly deprived of sleep... On Friday I spent most of the day at school helping seniors and professors set up and navigate Second Life. I actually had a pretty funny experience, I was making fun of one of the male professors whose avatar was a fox wearing a hawaiian shirt and a skirt that he claimed was a lavalava. I gave him a hard time until he finally admitted that it looked like a skirt and decided to change it. I was giving him some clothing and when he was changing his outfit, it revealed that somehow he had been wearing a bikini underneath that already funny outfit. I was laughing histarically, it was so awesome! Afterwards, Professor Hansen informed me that the man I was teasing was the Vice President of Information Technology here at Weber State University. They are trying to convince to stay and help us with the project by showing him the relevance and usefulness of the program!!! Oops! That night, I hung out with Colby until 11 and at 1AM, Brit and her old roommate Mckell woke me up to watch Seven Pounds with me...well Brit watched the movie while McKell and I slept. The movie ended at 3:30 and Brit was still wide awake and somehow I had woken up as well so I stayed up past 4:30 to talk to her. Finally, I went to sleep only to wake up aroun 6:30 to get ready for the MS Walk in Salt Lake at 8:00 on Saturday.
The MS Walk was a lot of fun, the free breakfast wasn't so good since it was just a bunch of donuts, bad muffins, and poptarts. I did get a free waterbottle, a fan, and a few t-shirts and I finished the walk. I don't know how long the walk was but I know it had to be longer than a 5k because 5k usually takes me about 45 minutes and this took 1 hour and 15 minutes and today I'm pretty sore as lame as that is! Later that night, I went over to Colby's again and we played backgammon (I won!) and talked for a while before watching Bed Time Stories which was pretty cute, cheesy, but I liked it a lot.
Easter, I just went to church then came home and napped with my puppy before going to a big family dinner with the Crowns. It was pretty fun, I played Baci Ball with all of them (minus Colby because he's still healing), his cousin Heather was on my team and we were awful the first game but then we got six points the second game (we played to 8) We probably could have won but I got cold so I gave my spot to someone else and went inside. Then began the backgammon tournament... Colby's dad taught us how to really play and at first Colby was winning but I pulled through in the end (I was rolling all the luckiest rolls: double 4's, 5's, and 6's.) Then his dad wanted to take me on because he was so good at it and with my awesome luck, (definitely not skill) I beat him in five minutes! Before I left, Nicole and Jason gave me a card for Easter and it totally made my day. They are seriously so awesome and fun to be around, and Nicole has helped me through so much she's amazing! Thank you!!!

Dog Sitting: My Pseudo-vacation!

Last year I house/dog sat around this same time for my next-door neighbor. It was awesome because I got to be living on my own for two weeks with two dogs whose collective weight was 208 lbs. One of those dogs being my little 8lb Bear, and the other a 200lb Mastiff named Mugsey and they became the very best of friends. It was so much fun, like a little vacation across the street. I'd cook and clean and study and occasionally invite friends over for food or movies or just hanging out with me and my oddly-matched pair of dogs.
I'm doing that again this year but for a different family and a different dog that live right next to Pineview Reservoir. Last night, my mom and I were invited up to dinner at the house that I will be staying at in a couple of weeks. The couple wanted to make sure that my family and I were all comfortable with this house/dog sitting that I will be doing for them. The dinner was absolutely fantastic! They made a salad with the spring mix of greens (not my favorite but alright) then they put some cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and thinly sliced, medium rare, incredibly tender and well seasoned steak on top with some kind of vineagrette. We also had some of that artesan bread from Crumb Brothers on the side and for dessert: fresh strawberries, small pieces of the smoothest dark chocolate, and some home made biscotti. I never used to like biscotti until I worked at the coffee shop and was able to try real, high quality biscotti and this was it!
We talked about their German Shepherd who is also named Bear that they've spoiled like crazy... this dog gets walked twice a day, eats cottage cheese for breakfast, and raw steak and vegetables for dinner! He's a very beautiful dog, he's got such an interesting color and pattern. We also talked about art and Europe since the woman, Alke, paints beautiful paintings and is from Germany. They are going to Europe for sixteen days and right when they get back, I'll be on my way to Spain! Alke was telling me where I need to go and what I need to see when I'm there. She got me so excited for this trip, but then my mom brought up how long I will be gone: 47 days. Wow, that's a seriously long time... at least for the first 16 days I'll be close enough to drive home during the days but that house is still a pretty long ways away, and I'm not going to be able to bring my Bear with me. That'll be a long time to be without my little puppy and an even longer time without Colby, especially with how much I've been seeing him lately since he's been stuck at his parents house until he gets better. I'm trusting it will be alright.

Why I've Been Such a Mess

So after clinic on Monday I went to the hospital to check in on Colby. I skipped out on my SI because I was so worried about him and of course, the first thing he did when I got there was make sure I didn't miss any school trying to come see him. He told me the whole story and oh my, he's really lucky to be alive right now... I feel pretty lucky he's alive right now. His car wasn't stopping at the red light by Kobe and the other cars were already pulling out into the intersection so he swerved to try and miss them and ended up slamming dead on into the stoplight pole going 45-50 mph! He sent the street sign and cross walk pole flying like 50 feet. When the cops arrived they were expecting it to be pretty ugly but someone must have been watching over him because even though his car was totally smashed and all his tools had flown to the front of his car (including a drill kit and saws all...) He was relatively ok. He had been knocked unconcious but he was still alive and the cop was able to wake him up to get some of his information. He walked out of there with and subdural hemmorrhage in his right parietal lobe and a epidural hemmorrhage in his left occipital lobe, pneumothorax, contusions on his kidneys, a splenic puncture, and a broken costal bone in the superior, posterior region of his back. He had to get stitches on his eyebrow and elbow, but other than that and a rather swollen left side of his face and body, he looked pretty good. He doesn't really bruise easily and thank goodness he's in really good shape and was driving a big car so he wasn't in as bad of a condition as could have been expected. The first ct scan also showed a dialated aorta which got me really worried becasue I know how dangerous that can be and how much that could change his entire life but in the second ct it looked normal and they think it was dialated because the first scan must have captured it during ventricular contraction. He'll still be confined to little more than bedrest for the next 8 weeks but at least he's alive and wont be needing surgery so far. I stayed at the hospital pretty much all day after clinic until 10:00PM when he had a four hour window without being woken up by the nurses for vital signs, meds, or anything else like that so I left to avoid disturbing his sleep. I also spent yesterday at the hospital and at his house when he was released at 4PM until 10:00. He's doing well and it's kind of funny to see him on loritab since he rarely even takes ibuprofen so he's a major light weight when it comes to pain meds. As I was leaving yesterday I told him I was going home and he said "me too" so then I told him to drive home safely and he replied "thanks, I'll see you later." I'm really glad he's ok but it still has been getting to me to think of how close I came to losing him this week... I don't know if I'd have been strong enough to handle that, it's already hard enough to be strong when I see him hurting and know that I can't really do anything to help him.