Yesterday was my Birthday...

So happy birthday to me! I woke up at 6 am to the smell of maple syrup and sausage! Mmmmmm yummy. Brandt made me breakfast in bed for my birthday. I've never had breakfast in bed before so I felt pretty special. Waffles, hashbrowns, sausage, eggs, "Parley" juice (orange juice made with ice water - the only way OJ should be made), and a rose (not to eat-just to look at :) Brandt even made the eggs without braking the yoke which is quite the challenge for him! It sure was yummy. Yes, I do believe my husband is the greatest. A bunch of my family called later that day to wish me a happy birthday and I got to watch American Idol while Brandt was at class so that was all fun. Then when he got home he made my favorite brownies with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. Yum!Altogether I'd say it was a pretty good day. This is my scrumptious breakfast. I made sure Brandt cut me out of the picture; it's quite scary that early in the morning.

Special Olympics

I had the opportunity this past week to spend two days at the International Special Olympics in Boise with the rest of the dental hygiene crew. They have a program called Healthy Athletes where all of the athletes can come and receive free care. The Healthy Athletes Initiative is made up of seven disciplines including Fit Feet, FUNfitness, Healthy Hearing, Health Promotion, Opening Eyes®, MedFest and Special Smiles®. It's great because the athletes get everything they need free of charge including free eye glasses, hearing aids, emergency dental care, tennis shoes, etc. We helped out at the Special Smiles venue (of course) doing screenings, giving education, providing fluoride treatments, and making mouthguards. I had a blast. On the first day my job was to greet the teams as they came in and escort an athlete to the first station where they were screened for tooth decay, pain, missing teeth, etc. If they were in pain we tried to get them downstairs where they had a bus set up for emergency fillings and extractions. I spent most of the second day at the education station.This is Jenn, me, Alisa, Heidi, and Michelle all waiting for Vice President Joe Biden to complete his tour of Healthy Athletes. We all had to wait downstairs for security purposes. We were hoping he would come to the top of the stairs and at least wave to all of us, but he snuck out the back. So we just saw him and his entourage of twenty police cars driving away. It was still kind of cool though. The scarves we are wearing came from the scarf project. They had a goal to collect 5000 homemade scarves to give to the athletes to help welcome them to Idaho and the winter Olympic games. They had such a great response from people around the US and they ended up with over 55,000 scarves, so we all got to pick one out for keeps.
These are my hygiene girls (minus two). Monday through Friday, 8-5, this is who I spend my time with. As happy as I am to be graduating soon, I will miss all of the great friends I've made in this program.Alicia, M'Lisa, Kylee, me, Jenn, and one of the athletes at the education station. We would use the stuffed animals to show them how they should be brushing and flossing. The language barrier made this a little bit interesting with some of the athletes. It was funny how we would show them how to brush their tongue and some of them thought that was the most hilarious thing they had ever seen and refused to do it.
We went to watch some of the floor hockey games on Friday morning. This is Italy vs. Cyprus. It was a lot of fun to see some of the athletes in action. They are so talented in what they do. I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to participate. I met so many wonderfully kind people from around the world. Even amongst the intellectual challenges that they face, they were all so happy and grateful for what they have. I really appreciate the professors that went to bat for us against the other professors to make sure we were able to participate.

This is why, this is why, this is why I'm (and Dani are moving somewhere) hot!!

So we apologize it has been a long time since we last posted anything. Dani and I have found ourselves busy in school and work. Dani did write a nice Christmas post but couldn't get the video to load and then our computer went on the fritz. So, I have been summoned once again to write a message to the masses. Here it goes.
So I had an interesting experience the other day. Any of you who have had the joy (or shame) of calling themselves a Bengal, or at the lease have toured our campus, know of a certain hill between the hospital and the College of Tech. It is a steep hill and can be risky if traveling up it in the snow. Well, I had always wondered what would happen if it was slick enough that your car actually slid back down the hill. I am proud to say that I no longer have to wonder anymore. I have looked that situation dead in the eye and emerged victorious! But first I must start at the beginning of my day.This is how it went down. (No pun intended)

We had some interesting weather in town. It had snowed, then melted, then rained, then froze, then snowed again. Therefore we had a dangerous combination on our hands. Dani had left for school, or so I thought, and I was still eating breakfast when there was a knock at the door. I peeked through the peep hole (I wasn't exactly decent or fit for the cold weather of that morning) but finding it was my wife I opened the door. She explained how the frost and ice on the car windows was too thick and she needed the assistance of my strong arms to scrape them. Well, as any good husband would, I donned a sweater and shoes and braved the arctic chill in my gym shorts. She wasn't kidding that stuff was a pain to remove. Also it had melted in around the car door and then frozen, which made it quite difficult to open the door. But, we made it and she merrily was on her way to school. I, not having school till later, returned to the warmth of the glowing baseboard heater and resumed with my morning activities, Sleeping. About 10:30 I was ready and prepared to go to school and also ready, or so I thought again, to brave the ice and snow. I had hoped that the sun would ease my clearing of the ice from the blazer window, but all it had done was created a light fog and mist that drifted across my view. I attempted to to open the car door but it was stuck and stuck good. I was able to finally get it open with a lot of effort and hanging onto the door handle so that I wouldn't slip on the icy road. I clambered into the blazer and thought I had better open the passenger door as well, because I was going to pick up my cousin and he usually would quickly jump in as I pulled over to the side of the road. You see, that door usually sticks anyway and so with the ice I thought we would be quite a scene blocking traffic as he attempted to get the door open. In other words, I was thinking ahead. This door proved to be quite a challenge and I had to literally shove my shoulder into it several times in order to break the seal of which the ice had formed around it. I know this was not a wise idea but I was frustrated and already running late for picking up my cousin. Finally, the door came free and I exhaustedly fell into my own seat, but the task was not done. I still had the windows to scrape. This actually didn't prove to be too difficult until I was working on the passenger side windows. You see the blazer was parked on the side of the street and so the passenger side was in the gutter which had been full of water but now frozen and then was camouflaged by the snow, sneaky devil. As you may have guessed I was working on the window when I began to feel myself slip. It is an interesting feeling when you begin to feel yourself fall but can do nothing about it. I, in my mind, slowly slipped with both feet and fell flat on my bottom in the deep drift of snow which had accumulated on the grass behind me. Frustrated, angry, and with numb hands I picked myself up and climbed into the car and drove off. I needn't worry about the snow which covered my butt, it was so cold outside, and in the car itself, that it wouldn't melt and I could just brush it off later. Now we come to the real challenge of the day.

As mentioned, I was picking up my cousin from school and taking him to his house. I was rolling in the Blazer, which was probably my first mistake, but Dani had the car. Well, it had snowed recently and thus the roads where slick. As we were approaching the bottom of the before mentioned hill I had a curious thought, "What if the Blazer couldn't make it up the hill?" I had only heard of such tales in legend, but I also knew the Blazer had limitations. Considering how I had bravely faced the earlier challenges of the day, however, I figured we would have no problem making it up the hill. Well, we did make it up the hill triumphantly and all was well, or so we thought. You see at the top of this hill I had to stop so that traffic could pass. It was then that the beast, which is the hill and ice upon which we were perched, reared its ugly head. The blazer was stuck and wouldn't move! Oh, yes the wheels turned and spun but we couldn't move anywhere. It was then that we started to go backwards down the hill! It was another interesting experience, thinking you should be going forward but actually going backwards! I soon learned that if I held the brakes the car would stop going downhill, crazy I know. However, if I pushed the gas the blazer was released from its hold and would slowly continue its downward path. In a panic I looked at my cousin and looked behind us. There was a car behind us and they weren't happy. My cousin bravely stepped onto the icy tundra (remember my falling experience previously) and waved the car to go around us. He then tried to push me up the hill. I warned him to be careful so that I didn't run him over backwards, yes I said that right, run him over backyards. Well he tried, but to no avail. We only found ourselves going further and further down the hill. All the while he was cussing at the other cars who would get behind us and yell at them to go around. "The dummies!" he would later say, "What?! Did they want to get ran into!?" He offered suggestions and I tried to hear them but communication was limited as the stupid window was frozen much as the door had previously been and thus would not go down. So our communication was limited to lip reading and obscene gestures. Just as I thought we would have to give into the beast of hill and ice and commit to failure by reversing our way back down the hill. A hero and good samaritan appeared from the mist and fog and offered to help my cousin push. I would later learn that this hero (or "stick boy" has my cousin referred to him as) was not your average college student, he had helped out another car earlier that day which had the same problem. Well, apparently, this was the trick the poor blazer needed, as we actually began moving up the hill! I knew what happed last time and I had no plan to stop at the stop sign again. I quickly looked both ways and gunned it, somewhat cutting off a large garbage truck. I then pulled into a nearby parking lot so that my cousin could catch up and we could continue our journey. I never did see the hero who helped us get out of that situation. When I looked back to shout a thank you he had already disappeared into the fog and mist once more. Or did he?
I guess we will never know what happened to the seasoned veteran with his pushing experience that saved us that day. Perhaps he was hit by the garbage truck. (Just kidding, my cousin saw him go back down the hill)

Anyway, I apologize for the long story. If you couldn't tell I like telling stories. But, this is why, this is why, this is why I'm (and Dani are moving somewhere) hot!! After we graduate:) The End.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Family Fun

Brandt and I have the best families and I feel so blessed to have them in my life. I thought I would post some of the things we enjoy doing with my family when we all get together.

1. World Tour!

My brother Sammy brought his XBOX home from college and we had hours of good times on that thing. It was so funny when we were playing, baby Kate would come and sit right on the XBOX so that she could be a part of what we were doing. I should post the video of me singing Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" that way you would all understand why I refused to join ward choir! But since it's my blog, I can post whatever I want, so I will leave that embarassment off :) So instead, enjoy these other pics and video.










This video makes me laugh so hard!





2. Dominoes!

This became a family game several hundred years ago (ok not that long, but it seems like we've played it forever....and to play the game takes...FOREVER!)


Here's Lindsay showing us her horrible domino. Dang, look at all those dots!



And here's Sammy being weird.



All of us enjoying our game.



And here's me, rising victorious after four solid hours of intense dominoes. Don't mind the manic expression on my face...it was a long night.


3. Ticket to Ride!

This is a new family favorite board game. For those of you who haven't played, it is a good time. We got the game for my dad's Christmas present this year and had fun playing it with him on Christmas Eve.






4. Wii!

Another thing we enjoy when we're at my dad's house. You can get a good workout from it! My dad has this game called "Rayman" that is so hilarious. You perform a series of small competitions like washing underwear until it's clean, but if you scrub too hard it shreds. And whoever has the most points at the end wins. It sounds rediculous, I know, but it's really funny.I love our expressions in this picture. We take our Wii very seriously. Below, Brandt and Craig are dukin' it out with boxing. Brandt was sweating hard core after this. Intense!

5. Guesstures!

We LOVE this game. Brandt got it from his aunt as a high school graduation present and since then we have had so much fun with it. Whenever we go on family vacations we make sure to bring it along. Over break we played it with both of our families. Brandt got the word "laxative" and I nearly died. It was so funny because neither me nor his mom (his teammates) could guess the right word. We kept throwing out "constipated!", "diarhhea!", "enema!", but "laxative" just escaped us.




6. Exercise Ball Balance Challenge!

Not a 'tradition' per se, more just really funny. My mom thinks it's fun to see who can balance on her exercise ball the longest, so we have competitions. I know, we are very random people and are very easily entertained. It's kind of dangerous though because in an attempt to stay on longer you don't catch yourself, you just roll right off and you have to be careful not to hit your head.

So that is my list for now; I may add to it later if I think of more.

Book Review (sort of): Midnight Sun manuscript

Midnight Sun (manuscript)

by Stephenie Meyer

I was reading a friend's blog the other day and she mentioned how she had just finished reading Stephenie Meyer's manuscript of Midnight Sun, which is Edward's version of Twilight. I had no idea she was even working on the book - let alone that it was available to read. That's what this program does to me - I have no idea what's going on outside the walls of the dental hygiene buildings. Now that school is out for a few weeks I learn all kinds of neat things!

I guess several months ago the manuscript somehow was leaked and illegally posted on the internet. Stephenie was so upset about it that she put the project on hold indefinitely, yet put the entire manuscript on her website so that her fans could honestly view her work without looking for the illegal version. You can view her feelings about the book on her website. I thought that was really sweet of her to post the manuscript, especially since she really didn't want her fans to view it until it was complete. To respect her feelings, I planned to wait until it was published to read it and only clicked on the link to "look" at the first page or so and see how long it was...and I got sucked in and read the whole dang thing. I'm so sorry Stephenie! I couldn't help myself. I loved it! Even though it's just a rough draft, it's a very good one. At first I didn't think I would like it because it's basically the same story just from someone else's perspective which could get boring; but understanding Edward's point of view just makes the story that much more complete. I hope she decides to finish it someday so I can finish the story and add the book to my Twilight collection.

One thing I kept thinking as I was reading the manuscript is how I wish Stephenie had written the book before they made the movie "Twilight." That way, they could have meshed the two stories together for the movie. I was a little bit disappointed by the movie. I thought it was good...but could have been much better. Edward was always too intense and seemed mad all the time - I think reading Midnight Sun would have helped the actor play the part more convincingly. Hopefully with a new director and new insight plus a bigger budget the next one will be better.

Happy Birthday Kate!

Today is my niece, Katelyn's, first birthday! Party time!! Woot Woot :) I miss this little girl so much (and you too Linds ;) and cannot wait to see her for Christmas! Love you Kate - even though you probably have no idea what's going on, I hope you have a fantastic day!