Linzi and I got to visit Creches and Carols this afternoon. It is such a fun tradition here in St. Louis where they display hundreds and hundreds of nativity scenes at one of the nearby ward buildings, and have different performers performing Christmas music as you look at all the creches. We couldn't take any pictures, but definitely admired all the different depictions (ranging from VeggieTales to a miniature city of Jerusalem taking up a quarter of the gym) of this important moment in the history of the world. I love this time of year, and especially events like this (or the First Presidency Christmas Devotional later tonight) that help to focus our attention on the true importance of this season. This type of event and the spirit it brings, more than the presents or hot chocolate, is what makes Christmastime so wonderful.
Also, check out our newest Christmas decoration. We got a sweet deal on Craigslist a few weeks ago and were able to get this Nativity scene that we've wanted for years. Thanks Craig.
Thanksgiving 2010 will go down as one of the most perfect ever (minus the fact that I had to go into work that night).
-Chris got up and played mud football in the cold, wet, rain with the boys, I stayed home by my space heater and made some rolls and pie
-We headed over to the Allen's for an incredible meal made by Jackie and Natalie (two of the most incredible woman that I have the opportunity to be friends with).
-As we were sitting down to eat, Jackie went to open the door to let some cool air in and it was snowing. Beautiful, large flakes, just enough to cover the ground. The kids went crazy.
-We ate and chatted about the past few years and what the future holds for each of our families.
Check out the beautiful table (see if you can find creepy chris)
The "fun" table
These are the place cards I made
Future mr and mrs Allen's
This is Vivian. She calls me Linzi Brown. I love her.
-I am thankful for opportunities that come our way, when we least want them to (like moving here away from family and friends) but without that, we would not be who we are today because our lives have been enriched by the friends we have met. I am thankful for the knowledge that I am going to be a mom. I am thankful for my parents who make me want to be a better person. I am thankful for sisters who are strong and brave and beautiful in their own ways. I am thankful for Chris and for the way he can make me laugh. I am thankful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was a great day. It makes me think I need to be thankful more often.
This is the blog of stephanienielsonnieniedialogues.blogspot.com. She recently came and spoke at a fireside here in st. louis and a girl at my church told me about her blog. You may have heard of her, she and her husband were in a private plane crash about two years ago and she was burned over 80% of her body and survived. I read it for hours, crying, laughing, feeling inspired to be a better person. It made me more aware of how fragile life is and how grateful I am for the knowledge that I am a daughter of God. If you have time, you should check it out. I promise you won't be disappointed.
So I was talking to Chris on the phone last night (he was in some hotel in Springfield, IL for an interview) and he said, "what should I say if they ask me what 3 things set me apart from the other applicants?" I, of course, being the great wife I am sat there and thought and thought and muttered something really stupid like you are a good guy. I guess I just got caught off guard because I know there are tons of things that make Chris Chris. Upon thinking more about it, I came up with these:
#1 He is truly the most caring person (which I think any patient/program would appreciate). For example, when I thought I was going to die at the beginning of this pregnancy, it was Chris who came out of nowhere night after night at absurd hours to hold up my hair and rub my back as I gracefully vomiting my guts out. #2 He has what I call "Chris Hope". This is the hope that comes out when he learns of any contest/cool prize he could win and he is positive that he could win even if his chance is one in a million. It is humorous at times, but I think this could benefit future patients who have poor diagnosis. "Chris hope" usually doesn't win anything, but it is the fact that he is willing to see the best of what could happen, having hope that anything is possible. He is truly an optimist. #3 He has the most amazing/patient/precise hands. Whether he is carving pumpkins or fruit, playing the piano, or etch-a-sketching, the guy can do/create some pretty awesome stuff out of mundane things. I even think his patriarchal blessing talks about his "gifted hands" (although, I am not sure that is something to bring up in an interview) I can see how this will benefit his future surgical career.
exhibit A (cat out of clay in minutes)
#4 He makes NO decisions without thoroughly investigating his choices. He will search the Internet for months and months just to find the best deal for the best product even if it is something silly like a game. He would never start a treatment or surgery without knowing it is the best choice with the best outcome. #5 He has a quiet confidence about him. He doesn't pretend to be the smartest and knows he will not be a world-renowned anything, but he is okay with that. He just wants to help people with the knowledge he has gained and will continue to gain.
Anyhow, there are the top 5 I came up Chris. I just wanted you to know that I am very much so aware that you are not just any guy. You are Chris Brown. Nough said.
ps if all else fails, just start to dance...I am sure your awesome moves will win them over!
I've been meaning to write about some things for a while, but just haven't taken the time to do so, so this will be a smorgasbord of little observations and stories.
Back when I was doing a rotation at Wash U, I noticed these signs around the corner from the OR:
Needless to say, I was quite intrigued and wondered what they meant. Did they really have robots roaming the halls...and if so, what would they do to me if they found me? Well, the day that we go Squishy's first ultrasound, as I was going back to the hospital, I finally met the robot. It was meandering down the hall, and I'll have to admit that I was a little disappointed (my imagination had come up with something a little different). Apparently it is used to deliver stuff (not sure exactly what) between different departments. But it has a sensor on the front that causes it to stop if it detects somebody in front of it, so the mayhem that I imagined might happen when meeting it in a dark hallway is pretty much nonexistent. Anyhoo, robots roaming the halls does nothing but help Wash U in my eyes.
I've been traveling around the country over the last few weeks for residency interviews. I feel like I've become a pretty good traveler...able to pack my bag in minutes, and have come up with outfits that enable me to zip through security lines at the airport. I've also had the chance to drive quite a few different rental cars over this time. I feel like I could almost start a car review blog. My favorites include the new Toyota Camry, whatever the Chevy model is to the left, and the awesome Dodge Grand Caravan below to the right. The best part is that for all of these I ordered a compact or economy car, but due to some reason or another these were the ones I got. I think the smaller cars (Chevy Cobalt, Civic) I've driven are lower on my list because I had to hunch over and duck down to see out the windshield.
On one of my drives up to Chicago, a very strange thing happened. I had been driving for about 2 hours with nothing exciting going on (I'm sure that anyone that has made this drive before would agree that there's really nothing exciting the entire way). All of a sudden, a fairly good sized spider ran down my windshield...the inside of my windshield! I don't know where he had been hiding, or why he decided like this was the moment to make his move, but it startled me. I was even more startled when he fell off the windshield as I was trying to squash him with a Nutri-Grain wrapper. I was finally able to take care of him without crashing or swerving or anything like that. I guess that's a good thing about the minimal traffic on the Illinois highways (outside of Chicago at least). So any of you making long drives this holiday season...watch out for Spiders!!
I also got to visit the University of Minnesota. While I was killing some time before my flight I made a stop at the Mall of America. It....was....big. It had 4-5 stories, and many stores had 2-3 locations in the mall. It was a bit confusing to walk by a store multiple times on different levels...I was proud to only kind of get lost a couple times. I was tempted to ride the log flume and other roller coasters in the center of the mall, but decided instead to wander around and look for any interesting stores (which they did have...my favorite was the magic store where the workers were dressed up like knights and peasants and jesters and wizards...I wanted to go inside and just take it all in and see what these people were like, but instead I chose to admire it from afar...I didn't want to embarrass Linzi). Anyhoo, I also found a delicious crepe stand and treated myself to a fresh Nutella crepe...delicious!
I also came across a photography store (actually, I don't know what the store was...I just saw the picture below). Those of you that know Linzi knows that she has a secret desire to do a maternity photo shoot...how much do you think we'd have to pay her to take some photos like this?
Finally, I just wanted to share with all of you my favorite commercial of the last couple months. I don't know if it's that Dimwit reminds me of Kip from Napoleon Dynamite, or if it's because he calls the crab "Lady", or if I just want to try a griddle stick, but I think it's hilarious. Anyhoo, thanks for sticking around to the end.
We went and saw the new Harry Potter at the Moolah theater on Saturday. They have these awesome couches you can sit in and actually be comfortable for the show. I love it there. My favorite thing is when Chris continually leans over to me asking me if such and such happened in the book when he knows his harry potter memory is 10x better than mine. I kept telling him I didn't know. He kept asking. I was saying on the way home, "why is it always the 3rd brother who makes the wisest choices?" (referring to the story of the deathly hollows in the movie) Then I said, "you know, like in the 3 little pigs."
Chris said, "The 3 little pigs? I thought you were talking about me!" (he is the youngest of 3 brothers).
What do you think? Is the youngest always the wisest?
Both my sisters keep asking me to post a pregnancy picture. So Kylee and Shayla, here you go, a few awkward profile shots just for you: 8 weeks 20 weeks Yeah, I am pretty much at the point where I don't look pregnant but look as thought I might be putting on some pounds around the ole waist line. I am feeling great now though. My biggest complaint is the fact that I pee every 1/2 hour and want to eat nearly as often. Chocolate is my friend again- and for that I am very thankful!
So I recently interviewed at Case Western in Cleveland, OH. And honestly, aside from the whole LeBron saga, I didn't know too much about the town before visiting. Thankfully, I was able to find this very educational video produced by their tourism department. After watching it, I don't know how I could rank them anything but #1. Enjoy ;)
Sorry, it won't play in the blog...you'll have to follow the link to watch it on YouTube.
Chris has been out of town a lot the past few weeks for his residency interviews so I decided it was a perfect time to start scanning my dad's mission slides. Last Christmas he purchased himself a slide converter (because all of his mission pics are slides) where you can scan the slide onto your computer to convert it to a photo but never got around to actually doing it so I said I would do it. It has been really fun to see him in his glory days. He went to Guatemala and was there during a huge earthquake. He lived in a tent for most of his mission and wore jeans a lot of the time. He learned Spanish in the LTM, but then had to learn a bunch of Indian dialects straight from the people without any previous exposure. Here are a few of my favorite pics so far:
I am pretty sure that this is where he gained his great love of the great outdoors and sleeping in tents and working hard....all things that even over 30 years later he still enjoys!
So Linzi had to work this weekend, making for a less-exciting Halloween weekend than we both would have liked. Kind of lame cuz I finally had a free weekend, being done with my urology rotations, and having taken Step 2 CK on Friday (what a long day). So instead of just watching football all day, I decided to carve another pumpkin while watching football all day. Admittedly, it took a little bit longer than I had planned, but I think it turned out pretty well. I swear that it looks better in person. I guess that you could consider this our costume for this year...a jack-o-lantern. Happy Halloween Everyone!
Time to announce the winner(s) of the Pumpkin Throwdown 2010. We had to disqualify one of the sets of votes due to conflict of interest (even with them you still wouldn't have won Kathryn), but we thank everyone who put in their two cents. By my tally on 10/30/10, the public has spoken in favor of the pirate and the spider, each receiving 5 votes to tie for the win!!
tie 3. Dave Dodds (creator of #3 and #5, 4 votes total) tie 3. Kathryn Dodds (creator of #1 and #6, 4 votes total) tie 1. Chris Brown (creatorrhhhrgghrhr of #2, 5 votes) tie 1. Linzi Brown (creator of #4, 5 votes)
Thanks to everyone who voted...it's nice to see that the public agrees with what Linzi and I have seen all along....don't mess with us in a Pumpkin Throwdown! It's been a fun tradition during med school.
*Note: the voting was not influenced in any way by this blogger. Of note, even his own mother and father voted for the Dodds...ouch!
It was our 4th annual Dodds vs Browns carving contest. Many different techniques were used this year, some cheated by using punch stencils while others free-handed their designs. There are also 6 pumpkins instead of 4 because a few of us got super excited and carved both sides!
This year we thought we would let you be the judge. Which pumpkin do you think deserves the title of coolest pumpkin 2010?
We enjoy eating at Ruby Tuesday. We went there last night and these are the two things we ordered.....
As you can see, one dish was a steak the other was salmon. Which one do you think they tried to give to me first? Which one do you think was really the one I ordered? This is not the first time our meals have been confused. Sometimes it makes me laugh being married to a man who orders things like cobb salad, fish, and chicken. Do you think the waiters are judging me after they realize the truth?
So today I watched an incredibly cute toddler and realized that she and I had many things in common. #1. she likes to read books #2. she trips in her crocs (a lot!) #3. she enjoys crunching through leaves and watching them fall off the trees #4. her lunch consists of things like easy mac, green beans, and mandarin oranges (of which she only ate the later two) #5. she snacked on gold fish, fruit snacks, and pretzels throughout the day #6. she needs a nap every day
After sharing a few of her gold fish and fruit snacks and eating most of her rejected mac and cheese I realized that I indeed enjoy the diet of a toddler and that whole nap thing isn't so bad either!
So you might ask yourself, what is that large stack of papers? Well, it just so happens to be receipts from the past four years. Yes, I didn't know at the time, but I married a receipt hoarder. (I am talking he had receipts from pre-mission people!). It didn't matter the purchase, you save the receipt. I was fine with this because all it required of me was to keep the receipt and put it on the computer desk for Chris to deal with. Well, he finally came around and decided that this was a bit excessive and a few weeks ago he purged. He threw away all of them except for big purchases. It was a big day and I was proud of him.
Then I discovered this when I went to put this jacket on:
The picture doesn't really show it well, but that is a security ink tag still attached. No, I didn't steal it, but apparently I didn't realize that they had not removed it. I got it when we went to Brason months ago. When I started thinking about it, I remember setting off the store alarm, but I thought it was a fluke because they had removed the tags.
Now do you see the problem. I have a jacket with a security tag still in place and no proof of purchase because Chris decided it was time to clean house after so many years. I guess I will have to hope that the Nike store here will have pity on me and take it off.
My mom actually asked me on the phone, "Well, is it in a place where you can't see it? Maybe you can still wear it." Yeah, because that doesn't scream white trash now does it.
Alright, it is time to fess up all you previously pregnant woman out there. They make you take a vow don't they. A vow that you will never tell a newly expectant woman what is truly in store for her until she experiences it for herself. It must be part of the delivery process. Perhaps while you await the birth of the placenta or something. They make you raise your right hand and swear on your newborns life that you will never divulge the true meanings of pregnancy. Am I right??? Because until now, these are the "meanings" I was aware of:
#1 Morning sickness. What a joke. Morning my eye. I used to think that you could solve this one by keeping a stack of crackers in your nightstand. Now I know it has nothing to do with morning, noon, or night. You can be sick all the time anytime. It will make you want to wish food were dead and sometimes even you were dead. It will give you anxiety to set food in a grocery store or even your own kitchen. Sure, I can stuff crackers in until the cows come home but in the end, it always wins. (the other day I was even feeling like Eogo in Aladdin and thinking, "If I eat one more cracker I might hurt someone"). It should be called constant nauseousness with intermittent vomiting... and if you are lucky enough an occasional visit to the EU for some fluids because you are like a two year old and can't even do the simple act of sipping water every hour.
#2 Fatigue. So yeah, I've felt fatigue. I've run long runs and had long days and been tired. But this, oh this is like sleeping 18 hours a day and still being ready for bed. This is waking up at 10:00 am and crawling back into bed for a nap at noon. This is going from working out for 1 1/2 hours everyday to missing the gym for 2 months. This is going from loving being busy to hoping your day consists of one thing: sleep. How about we call it hermit hibernation mode or something like that.
#3 Heartburn. I am lucky. I didn't even know what heartburn felt like. My esophageal sphincter is a peach....until now. Really, do I need to taste bile all day long? Do I need the tiny amount of food I finally got shoved down to sit in my throat all day just waiting to come up? Is it necessary to burp like a beer bellied sailor? Do I really need to sleep with three pillows behind my head and wake up with a kinked neck. I think it should be called burping bile burn with a twist of epigastric pain.
I just want to know the truth. Will I have to take this vow? If so, I am getting this down on paper now so I don't forget next time.
So I've been thinking about Linzi's wardrobe recently, and have decided that she really needs to get some new clothes. She has been gradually upgrading my wardrobe during the last five years, so I thought I'd return the favor. I've done some shopping online, and have come up with the following...I plan on buying them all, but thought I'd gauge public opinion before laying down some serious cash. What do you think...do I have good taste?
In case you didn't catch on from the above, Linzi's 12 weeks along, doing better (I'll let her share whatever details she wants to about how things have gone so far) over the last few days. We just had our first ultrasound on Monday; it is a wonderful experience to see that little alien creature for the first time, moving its arms and legs and seeming to be the most perfect little creature ever. Until yesterday I had the opinion that babies looked weird in ultrasounds and didn't understand the big deal...but my outlook has totally changed...all I can say is that it's just different when it's your own. Anyhoo, we've taken to calling the little thing Squishy, yet somehow I don't think that name will last long once it's outside the womb come April 5, 2011 (or thereabouts).
So I've got a puzzle that needs to be solved, and anybody's invited to take a stab at it, including amateurs and trained professionals like Encyclopedia Brown, Super Sleuth or Robert Langdon.
I recently had someone proofread my personal statement for my residency application. He wrote some comments on the paper, but there's one word that Linzi and I have been unable to decipher. It's standalone, so there's no cues that point to its meaning. Let me know what you think.
(and yes, I know it says CLEAR STORY on the left...it's the other word I'm looking for)
So, after about a month of living 1300 miles apart, Linzi was able to come out to Utah for the last week that I was working out there. It was definitely nice to be together again...we're both big fans of actually being able to live with your spouse. We decided that for the drive home we'd split up the trip, add a few hundred miles to the route and stop by Mt. Rushmore (Linzi for some reason didn't want to do an 18 hour drive like I'd done going out to Utah).
I'll have to admit, our initial glimpse of this monument was rather unimpressive. We were winding up the road to the parking lot and came around a corner and it popped into view. It seemed so small. We both kind of glanced at the other and thought "It better be better up close." And it was...it really was. For those of you who haven't been there, you park, they have a big visitor's center/museum, and an amphitheater in front of the monument where they do a little program each night when they light up the monument. There's also a little walking trail that goes up to the base of the monument that has information on each of the presidents and good spots for pictures. As you might guess, I didn't get to read as much as I would have liked on the path and at the museum, but I think Linzi and I reached a happy medium. Up close you could really appreciate the size of these sculptures (they're scaled at ~450 ft tall), and the difficulty with which they were carved. I'm still perplexed at how something like this could be done (and I wish that they would have been able to finish it according to the original design).
All in all, I'm really glad that we stopped and got to see the monument, something we've both wanted to do for many years. We'd like to go back someday on Linzi's birthday and see all the festivities that go on then.
The only thing that dampened the trip (besides 23 hours driving), was some chipped-tooth police officer in South Dakota with a "state of the art, precise Laser gun" with which he caught me speeding. It was just a few miles from the border too. I guess it was lucky that it was one of my slower moments on the road, so the fine was less than it could have been if I'd been caught elsewhere. I know I was speeding, and did so for the vast majority of the trip...I'm just upset that I got caught...he ruined all the time I'd made up by going so fast. And then after being pulled over, he explained about how his amazing gun had caught me speeding, then made me go back to his car with him while he wrote me my ticket. He didn't catch my hints about being poor students...maybe I should have cried. Linzi tried to take pictures of the event, but none of them turned out. Sorry.
Despite their police force, I would highly recommend driving through South Dakota if you have the chance...very beautiful rolling hills, sunflower fields, quaint farmland...a MUCH better option than Wyoming and Nebraska...SO much better.
We live in Arizona and are doing whatever we can to not become desert rats! Chris is a resident at the university hospital and I am in charge of keeping track of our 2 year old and 5 month old. Hope this blog helps you keep up with our highly exciting life (or perhaps it will just make you feel better about yours!)
The picture doesn't really show it well, but that is a security ink tag still attached. No, I didn't steal it, but apparently I didn't realize that they had not removed it. I got it when we went to Brason months ago. When I started thinking about it, I remember setting off the store alarm, but I thought it was a fluke because they had removed the tags.
