An inspiring story.......

This is the blog of stephanie nielson nieniedialogues.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.

Here is her Mormon message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHDvxPjsm8E

the things that set us apart.......

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!

Hodge Podge (robots, minivans and stealthy spiders)

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.

3 brothers......

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?

Half way there.....

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!

Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video: 2nd Attempt

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.

The best two years?

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!