R & R

     Well I survived another quarter, only 3 more to go! And Ryan finished another 4 week rotation in sports medicine.  Ryan headed home to Idaho to do his sports medicine rotation with the doctor for 4 weeks, lucky guy.  I had to stay in AZ for the first 2 weeks to finish the Fall quarter.  It was the longest 2 weeks ever being away from Ryan, but we survived with many Facetime chats, phone calls, and luckily we have been blessed with amazing friends who are practically our family down here that took me in.

     After a long week of finals, I flew up to Idaho to go and celebrate my 2 weeks of Thanksgiving break with our families.  We have been blessed to only have our families live 30 miles apart, even though it makes for a lot of back and forth traveling.  Our first stop was to see The Anderson clan to meet baby Gentri D. Anderson, the newest addition.  It was snowing when I flew into SLC and yes, I had been praying all day for the snow.  It snowed a foot that night, it was AWESOME.

     On the way to Idaho from Utah we met up with one of my old friends from American Falls and caught up over some great food.  It was so good to see Angie and her hubby Jacob.  It is crazy to think that we have been gone for 2.5 years, time flies when you are having fun!

     Ryan was still working Monday thru Thursday 7-3 so I had the days to hit the road and visit more family.  Next stop was to go and see the other new addition in The Twiss clan!  I got to meet Hunter Ann Twiss, play with Gunner and play some basketball with my sister's high school JV team. 

     Next was some quality parental time at the good ole Tres Hermanos.  NOTHING in AZ can beat this quality Mexican food.  

     We also took Tanner out on a cold winter ride with the horses.  It was actually perfect weather, no wind just cold, my favorite kind of ride.  Pretty sure I have 100% convinced Ryan we WILL have horses.  One step at a time making this city boy into a full COUNTRY boy.

     I headed back down to Utah for 2 days to help my sister out and luckily they still had snow.  So Harper and I played in it, ate it, and colored the snow!  It was so much fun.  I love the winter and will use any excuse to be outside.

     Then it was time for the annual Christmas tree hunt!  Someday we will be able to actually participate and bring a tree home, but we just help entertain, pick out trees, and carry kids for now.  There wasn't as much snow as in past years, but there was still plenty to play in.  Jonathan decided to start a new tradition of not "sawing" the tree down, but to use a hatchet instead, sometimes you just go with things and nod.

     Ryan and Papa Finn were lucky enough to get to put up the Christmas lights in decent weather.

     We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Finn clan the sunday before since we were headed to Sundance with the Hess Honey's.  After dinner we made some ornaments for Jordy to hang on his homemade Christmas tree.  Ryan made Jordy smiling while being a missionary and I made him on a horse and posing as an Abercrombie model like his senior pictures.  One thing about my brother-in-laws is they don't like clothes???  Pretty sure I have seen then more with their shirts off then on.

     We were lucky to be in Idaho when they rededicated the Boise Temple.  It was a beautiful dedication.  We are so lucky to have temples all over the world and to do the wonderful work inside of them.  This dedication was such a testimony builder for Ryan and I.

     And before you know it, your two weeks of fun is over!  It was such a fun trip for the both of us.  I think Ryan got some good family time being in Idaho for 4 weeks.  We are now back hitting the books and enjoying the winter weather in Arizona, 80 degrees.

Stayin' Busy

     Well it has been awhile since we have made a post, but to be honest nothing new or that exciting has happened until this last week.  The past three weeks have occurred as the following: Kali is just rockin' out to school with lots of studying and tests and Ryan finished up his Pediatrics rotation and loved it!  He was with a great doctor and learned tons.  If he had to go into a primary care position, he said he would rather do Peds instead of general family practice.  He did get to do a circumcision (poor lil' guy) and play with a lot of kids.
   
And for the good stuff:

1)  Ryan started his cardiology rotation and is loving it.  His doctor is an Interventional Cardiologist aka they do procedures where they go through your veins in your groins and clear plaque build up or put in stents and more fun stuff like that, less invasive that surgery.  He is loving the dress code this rotation, no shirt and tie for this guy....

2)  I have decided to follow in my husband's footsteps in school and made the Pharmacy Rho Chi Honor Society, Top 20% in my class.

Sometimes you just need a great friend to help you survive and keep you sane

3)  Ryan and I have a goal to try and make it to the temple once a month.  Usually we are pretty successful, but lately we have had different schedules so we didn't make it in August, but we were able to have a great Friday night date night to the Mesa Temple in September and celebrate with some Costa Vida sweet pork meals.  We probably over indulged, but who is counting calories, right??

One happy boy with his sweet pork burrito

4)  The weather has started to cool down a little bit, low 100's to mid 90's so that means I can finally study outside again without sweating to death while Ryan goes and plays a round of golf with the boys aka "studying".

5) I love running, biking, or anything outside and if anyone knows me I love a challenge.  I have ran a few races and have decided to step up my game and conquer the Full Marathon.  I need a challenge besides school.  I signed up for the Sedona Marathon on Feb. 2, 2013!  Super excited and ready for this challenge.  Training starts on Monday....wooohooo!  I did try to get Ryan to run it with me, but fortunately for him he planned to have some of the worst rotations two months before (OBGYN and Surgery (will be out of town)) so he couldn't really commit to it.  Oh well he will just be my running cheerleader (I always wanted my own cheerleader).

6)  We volunteered to help out with the American Diabetes Association Stop Diabetes Walk in downtown Phoenix.  I think I forgot to mention to Ryan that we had to be there at 5:30 am, so we had to leave by 5 am, which meant 4:30 am wake up time.  This is what I dealt with....

I was just trying to prepare him for when he is in Residency and is going to have to be functional on ZERO hours of sleep

7)  And last but not least, we enjoyed a beautiful weekend of General Conference!!!  It is always great to hear the leaders of our church speak.  We loved Elder Holland's talk and loved seeing all of the b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l fall colors around temple square!  We also enjoyed a great breakfast of blueberry and strawberry crepes.

We are getting so excited for the fall season to come around, which means Holidays are just around the corner and a couple of trips to IDAHO!!!

Playin' and Bakin'

     Well Fall Quarter has begun for me and its my last year of didactics! YAY!  Ryan has currently finished two Family Medicine Rotations.  He learned a lot about what he likes and doesn't like and has figured out he doesn't want to be a Family Practice doctor.  Currently he is in a Pediatrics rotation and is loving it.  I asked him what were some of the things he likes about Peds and he said, "I get to play with kids all day."  Well I guess that sums it up!  He also mentioned that he thinks every soon to be father should have to do a Peds rotation before they have kids so they know what the heck is going on!!!  That would be a perfect world if that happened.

     We have been pretty busy with school and completely different schedules going on in our house but we have been able to have some fun.  Ryan has taken me out to the driving range, trying to get me to like golf.  Pretty sure that sport is the most frustrating sport ever, especially if you played any kind of baseball/softball.  He just laughed at my frustration, but I started to figure it out at the end.

We had perfect weather, 99 degrees with cloud cover (thank you monsoon season).

     We started off our Labor day weekend, by watching the Arizona Cardinals vs Denver Broncos and eating right at the good ole Texas Roadhouse. We had some nose bleed seats, but in the Univ. of Phoenix Stadium, there really is no nose bleed seats, every seat has an awesome view and you can actually see the players!  It was a great way to get both of us ready for the football season.

     We also went to a friends house for a fun BBQ and I was in charge of some dessert, so I tried a new recipe for a triffle.  I am pretty sure you can never make a bad triffle and it was delicious.

Then we made some Almond Joy Cupcakes for our ward party, and seriously these were fantastic, not too rich and tasted just like the candy bar.  Put the coconut frosting on like this....

Then dip it in some chocolate and top with an almond

     Nothing too exciting has been going on with us, just the normal with school.  We are excited for this new year for us, we are getting one step closer to where we want to be.  

Beatin' the Heat

     It has been a pretty hot summer, but what really makes the Arizona summer intolerable is that it NEVER cools down at night!!!  For example in Idaho you may have a 90 degree day, but you at least cool down to like 60 degrees or so at night.  Not AZ, you are in the 100-110's plus during the day and then you get this at 10 o'clock at night.....Not FUN, miserable to be quite honest.

Summer is hard for the both of us because we are used to being active/outdoors all day long.  SO what do we do with this hot weather you might ask?

We still go running in the hills and road biking, we just pack a gallon of water with us, WHEREVER we go and we catch some pretty sunsets over the Phoenix Valley.

     But what we really like to do to beat the heat is take ROAD TRIPS!  Our first fun road trip this summer was up to Jerome, AZ.  It is an old, haunted, copper mining town and is SO MUCH FUN!  I love little towns with so much history.  They have tons of fun shops all around the small town.  A factoid about Jerome is it is literally built into the mountain side at a 30 degree angle.  They have great food, entertaining people to watch, and I loved the old Victorian houses that are HUGE, like 4 stories tall!  Best part of all we were out of the heat.

This is the old Jerome Grand Hotel where people still stay and is supposedly haunted

We went to a kaleidoscope store that was SWEET!  First thing they told us is they do not have a "break it, you buy it rule" so I let Ryan go into the store haha jk but this place had some crazy, expensive, and sweet kaleidoscopes.

Best part about small towns is they always have the best "Hole in the Wall" restaurants that are amazing!  Did our chance of having a heart attack increase after we ate? Sure did but we loved every bit of it!

     Next road trip....SAN DIEGO!  With it only being 6 hours away, I am a little sad to say it has taken us 2 years to go, but I am sure we will make up for lost time in these next 2 years.  I am in love with their weather and how active Californians are.  We saw road bikers EVERYWHERE, speeding by us on their bike feeling the ocean breeze.  Lets just say we have a plan to take our bikes there in the the next 2 years and put some miles on them next to the ocean.  Tons of people run on the beach and I loved seeing that.  Plus the weather is AMAZING and the ocean is so fun too. We spent Saturday at the beach and did a bunch of relaxing, "pleasure" reading, well Ryan did a lot of that while I "People Watched" and enjoyed some beautiful sunsets....

Our Big Blue Friend

Sunday we were good children, went to church, and then took a little road trip to this beauty....

     After the temple we went to historic downtown San Diego and visited the Mormon Battalion building.  It is opened on sundays and they have a bunch of missionaries working there.  It is the cutest little place and they do a video tour of the Mormon Battalion's story.  I would totally recommend it, it is catered to all ages and is a fun family activity for a Sunday.

We over ate at some delicious restaurants and had some great seafood.  I think I could handle 4-5 years of residency by the ocean....why not?  We will be coming back to visit you San Diego!