My husband, the baby.

A couple of Sunday’s ago the Sacrament talk was about keeping journals. Every time I hear a talk about record keeping I form this new goal to be a diligent journal writer. I always start writing in my journal again for a couple day and then stop until I hear the next Journal writing talk. This talk was different for me, though, because the speaker said that record keeping doesn’t have to be in a traditional bound book. I realized that was completely true in my case. I way more diligent at posting our happenings on my blog than I am in my journal. I know not very many people look at this little family blog, and I think it is nice for family members to see what's new in our lives, but I also think that I would love to look back on this 10 years down the road and see everything we experienced. I know it can get kind of boring for other people to look at a post on a personal or family blog that has no pictures, but I just thought I should write even when I don’t have a picture to go along with a story. In the past I have only posted if I have pictures to go along. I don’t want to leave anything about our experiences in Ohio out, even though there is no accompanying picture. So from now on I will be including little posts about things that happen to us and musings about life, even if there isn’t a picture. So to start, I want to tell you a funny little story.

--The other night Benj and I were laying in bed trying to fall asleep. It was about 11:00 and for some reason, neither of us could fall asleep. We weren’t talking, we were just laying there. We had our window open because it was a rare cool night. Just as I started to hear Benjamin’s breathing get heavy and right as I started drifting off, we hear a group of women talk and laughing really loudly from out side in the parking lot. They were extremely loud and obnoxious, so I leaned over and shut the window. We could still hear them with the window shut, and it was starting to get hot and stuffy, so I just opened up the window again. They woke us both up so we just laid there waiting for the ladies to leave. But they just kept talking and laughing really loudly.

We talked out asking them to be quite, but we didn’t really want to just yell out the window. We didn’t really want to go out to the parking lot and ask them to be quiet, either. You might think its weak, but we are both a little bit non-confrontational. We would have eventually said something, but I think we were both just hoping they would leave soon. So I said to Benj, “I know! I will tell them out the window that my baby is trying to sleep and they are waking him up.” And Benj said, “But you don’t have a baby. I’ll be the baby.” And then out of the blue, Benj lets out this loud wail that sounded just like a crying baby. And he did it over and over and it was so loud. I was shaking the bed, I was laughing so hard! I wish you could have heard it. It was hilarious. He just kept doing it and I just laid there laughing. After a few minutes, he stopped to catch his breath and we heard the ladies in the parking lot say, “I think we are talking to loud. I think we are waking up a baby.” It was hilarious. It worked!!! They went into their houses and got in their cars and left and we just laid there laughing. I know it’s a silly little story, but its kind of how our life works right now. We come up on a road block or disturbance, and we find a way to laugh and grow closer together. Life is good.

Hawk

The other day as Benj and I walked out from our house, we saw a big hawk, or some sort of large bird just sitting there hanging out on the lawn.

Benj got really close to it before it flew to a bush and then to a tree.

I hope our new friend comes back an catches some of the million little chipmunks that are eating my tomato plants.

Hayden Falls

Every once in a while we find little gems that make us love Columbus. We heard that there was a waterfall off the side of Bethel Rd. We didn’t believe that there could be a legit waterfall off the side of a busy bustling road like Bethel, but sure enough there is a little hidden staircase that turns into a path and leads to a beautiful waterfall shooting out of the rock.

We took this stair case down off the side of the road…

…And followed the path as it winded through the trees.'

We were surrounded by rocky cliffs and lots of plants and trees.

With a pretty little stream flowing next to the path.

 

You could also see the Scioto River peeping through the trees at one point.

Once we got back up on the road, we walked over the River as the sun was setting.

I love this picture of my hair flying in the wind.

Just another reason why we love Columbus!

White Coat Ceremony

Yesterday Benjamin started medical school!!! He has orientation all week and this coming Monday he starts actual lectures. I attended his White Coat Ceremony. The new dean gave a really good and encouraging talk about how medicine is changing for the better. He compared old medicine to Captain Kirk and new medicine to Captain Picard. Thirsty years ago, they were training doctors to be more than human, to be superhero’s who tried everything to save everyone and never slept or took breaks. Thirty years ago a med student would never be able to ask the attending physician questions on rounds without getting told, “that is just the way we do it and have always done it. Don’t ask any more questions!” Now, things are more systematic, allowing less room for mistakes, because doctor’s, after all, are humans. Decisions are made as groups of physicians. Doctor’s and med students aren’t being worked to death without any sleep. Questions are encouraged, rather than banned. Instead of being told to look to their left and right and one of those people will not make it to the end, they were told that they would almost all make it. It was very encouraging and exciting.

Then each of the 264 new medical students was called by name to walk across the stage and receive their first white coat. Then everyone recited the Ohio State University Physician’s Oath.

Here they are placing the coat on him. It was hard to get good pictures from up in the balcony.

Here he is walking off the stage looking like a proper doctor!

At the end a little acapella choir sang the Ohio state song and at the end, when everyone sings O-HI-O, the med students all formed the letters with their hands.



Benjamin with his new friend Tyler, who is in our ward and lives in our apartment complex.


I love this picture, even thought Benjamin’s eye’s are closed.

I have a million pictures of Benj, pulling silly faces.

Another silly face.

Yet, another silly face before the ceremony.



I am so proud of my husband for making it this far. I think he will be an amazing doctor someday!

Afterwards, there was an ice cream social. The ice cream was from a shop called Graeter’s. I have been wanting to get ice cream there since we have moved here, but I heard it was kind of expensive. At the ice cream social, they had tons left over, so we each ate two containers and hijacked a bunch more containers. It is delicious ice cream!!! Between the ones we ate there and the ones we brought home we got Peach, Raspberry Sorbet, Chocolate Chunk, Black Raspberry Chip, Mango Sorbet, Buckeye Blitz (chocolate ice cream, chocolate chunks, and peanut butter cookie dough), mint chocolate chip, and strawberry.

Ohio State Fair

Benjamin and I decided to take a day and go to the state fair as a last Hoorah before medical school started. We picked the perfect day to go! It was perfect weather. It seamed like it was going to rain all day, but it never did. It was a welcome relief from the heat wave we had been having.  It was $5 Dollar Day (normally $10 or $12 a person, I think) and if you bought something from O’Reilly Auto Parts, you got a ticket free. So, we picked up something we needed for our car anyway, and got in for a whopping total of $5!!! (Can you tell we are living on a tight budget?)

Even though we saved money getting in, we blew it all on fair food. I think Benj has that look on his face because he is excited to try a funnel cake, but unsure if it is really worth $6 and unsure if he really wants all the calories that come with fried fair food.

It was worth it.

We did refrain from Donut Burgers, though.

…and deep fried Buckeye’s (a Buckeye is a chocolate peanut butter treat that resembles the Ohio Buckeye nut. Click here to see a buckeye recipe on my food blog.) We also got a delicious lamb gyro to share and I got a frozen slice of cheesecake on a stick dipped in chocolate. Yum!

We got to see a giant cow and her calf made entirely out of BUTTER! This cow was huge.

There was also a giant chocolate pig and her little piglets.

There were a lot of really neat carved fruits and vegetables.

I am a sucker for candy. I LOVE candy stores.

I have a funny story to tell you about pies. I love any and every desert. Benjamin loves fruit pies. It’s one of the only desserts he loves. So we saw this sign in the home and craft building that said “Pillsbury Pie Crust Bake-Off: Open Judging” So we went in and sat down. There were nine or ten lovely looking pies set out on the table. We were excited because open judging means the audience gets to taste the pies and cast a vote, right? WRONG! But we found out the hard way. The announcer guy came out and started describing all the pies. Then the professional judges cadm out and introduced themselves. Then they tried all the pies. Then they left and the announcer guy came back out and blabbered on about the pies some more. Then the professional judges came out and tasted them again. And then it hit me: “We don’t get to taste the pies, and every one in the room are people who entered a pie. We are the only ones who are sitting here who haven’t entered a pie!” Then the daughter of one of the contestants leaned over to me and asked me if I entered a pie. I said “No” and so she asked Benj if he entered a pie and he said, “No”. She gave us this look like, “You guys are really weird for sitting here for an hour when you didn’t even enter a pie.” And it had been almost an hour! I mumbled something about how I just wanted to see all the pretty pies and see who wins. But we all know that I didn’t care at all who won or what they looked like. I just wanted to taste those babies! But Benj still didn’t believe that we didn’t get to taste the pies. So he asked the girl if we get to taste them. She said, “No. The winning pies need to go on display, but you can have some of ours if we don’t win.” So we promptly got up and walked out followed by strange looks from everyone else. We felt so dumb for sitting with the pie contestants for an hour and leaving before the winner was even announced. Maybe next year I will enter my own pie!

There was some random pink panther guy that I walked right up to and got a picture with.

There were also lots of interesting people roaming the streets.

There was a cool sand sculpture.

We saw my co-worker Billy at the fair with his wife. He was nice to tell us about all the fun things to do and take some pictures of us together by the OHIO tree.

I guess I am destined to have weird mascots. First Diggers, now Brutus the Buckeye???

I love this picture! Hahaha! You can’t see it, but at the bottom the poster says, “I am a Foodie.”

You can’t forget the animals!

Horses

Sharks!!!

Bunnies

Sheep and Lambs

Chickens and chicks.

I didn’t get any cows or pigs. I just don’t really like cows and pigs. I guess the chocolate pig and the butter cow count.

We were exhausted by the end, but we had a really fun day.