It’s the Holiday Season

After spending a month in Utah, I flew back to Portland for just a few days, then headed home to AZ for a week.  I wasn’t planning on coming back to AZ for Christmas since I had just spent 3 months there and my mom was working that whole week I was home, but I’m sure glad I did!  I love coming home.  I met up with my friend Sariah at In N Out on the way back to Thatcher and then my mom and I stopped to look at the temple lights.  While home, I had a whole list of things to get done, but instead I watched a Christmas movie every day and made several batches of toffee and cookies to take to the neighbors.  I went running in the desert almost every day and met up with a few different friends to eat some delicious Mexican food :)

The Friday before Christmas, my mom and I flew out to Denver to meet my dad and spend Christmas at my brother’s house.  I’d never been to Denver and hadn’t seen my brother and his family for almost 9 months (way too long).  Super glad I went!  It was so great to see them again, catch up and play with my niece, who is absolutely adorable.  My favorite quote from her: “It’s Kristina time!”  Not to mention she even preferred to hold my hand over her daddy’s hand in the store one day (oh yeah!).  We had a great time together and I’ll have to go back soon to visit!  We even went to a hockey game (seems to be a favorite winter activity of my brother and dad) and took a driving tour of the city.  And…..I got to experience my first white Christmas ever!  It snowed all night just before Christmas, perfect timing!  It was super fun to have Christmas with a 2 year old around and share in her delight over the new toys Santa had brought her and have a helper in opening all of my gifts :) Thanks Ryan and Maranda for letting us come visit!  I loved it!

Rotation #5 Graduate Project

Originally, the plan was to spend the whole 6 weeks back in Portland since I had just spent the last 3 months close to home in Arizona.  I had gotten my fill and was ready to get back to friends and a social life.  Well, after the first 2 weeks in Portland I went to Utah to spend Thanksgiving with family (see previous posts) and kind of just ended up staying for 3 extra weeks.  Why, you ask?  Well, I could work on my graduate project from any location, I could be close to my sister and her family (my adorable little niece!), hang out w/ UT friends, and enjoy a more moderate climate without rain.  Ok, ok, a boy may or may not have had anything to do with it… Let’s just say I met someone while I was there and decided I wanted to spend more time with him :)

While in Utah I got to eat at all my favorite places, do all my favorite things and see all my favorite people.  It’s always great catching up with friends over a delectable lunch.  Not to mention, I got to see my niece practically every day and see her actually grow and learn new things.  I also went to a couple of my girls’ basketball games at Maeser.  I miss coaching them, but it’s amazing to see their progress over the last 2 years since I’ve been gone.  And yes, I take full credit for their amazing talent now :)

As for the graduate project, it was a systematic review I wrote taking several different studies over the last few years to answer a clinical question I came up with: In patients with a patent foramen ovale (PFO) and migraine headache refractory to medical treatment, does percutaneous closure of the PFO reduce the frequency, duration, and intensity of migraine headaches?  Basically… In patients with a heart defect causing blood to bypass the lungs and thus cause migraine headaches, does fixing the heart defect decrease migraine headaches?  It’s an interesting topic that I enjoyed researching, analyzing and writing about, but I am also extremely glad that I finished it and can now focus again on seeing and treating patients.  Five rotations down and only five more to go before I graduate!

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving.  The only pressure of the holiday is the pressure you feel on your belt buckle after eating three times as much as you normally do.  And then comes pie, so make that four times as much.  You get to spend time with your family and lounge about.  One of the better holidays.  There can be some back breaking labor involved though... Elise and I spent literally the whole day previous making desserts - pumpkin gingerbread trifle, pomegranate jello salad, apple pie, chocolate pie and gluten-free cookies & bread for my Pops (don't worry, there were pumpkin and pecan pies purchased from Costco to add to the variety).  Basically, I have never made a pie before and it took three crusts to finally get it right.  I took pictures of all three, but apparently I deleted them already....let's just say "third time's the charm" definitely holds true.

We all flew in to Utah from four different states: my mom from AZ, my Pops from MD, my little sister from OK and me from OR.  My brother and his family unfortunately weren't able to make it, since he had to work Thanksgiving day.  The day was spent at my uncle's with extended family and friends.

Elise & Erik ran in the traditional Turkey Trot (5k) we started five years or so back.  I sadly couldn't participate this year since I sprained my ankle the week before running (in the dark.  Yes, I know....stupid you say....).

Our big family tradition for Thanksgiving is use pipe cleaners to show what we are grateful for (#interpretivepipecleanerart).  It's usually pretty entertaining to say the least, until my brother-in-law comes along and puts us all to shame with his 3-D masterpiece that stands up on its own.  If a trophy were given out every year for the best creation, he would have a bookcase full of them.

It was a fantastic day.  Talk was casually thrown about of Black Friday shopping.  Everyone had an opinion about going to the new outlets that night at 10 pm.  My sister and I jokingly said we wanted to go.  No one knew that I was actually serious.  If I was planning on doing my first ever Black Friday shopping this year, I wanted it to be legit.  But alas, it did not happen.  So we settled on going the next day for a few hours (too long in my opinion) from 11 am to 1 pm.  I did not buy a single thing, but at least we got a picture of all the girlies and I got to hold this adorable girl.

Goodbye Utah

All of these goodbyes are too much for me. Before leaving Utah I had a Bucket List of things to do, either things I hadn't done before and always wanted to do OR things I loved to do and wanted to do just one last time. It was a pretty good list. I actually was able to do a lot more than I expected, squeezing everything in within the last 3 weeks. Are you ready for the list....? (and in no particular order....):

1. The Living Planet Aquarium

2. Hogle Zoo

3. Hike the Y

4. Eat at Gourmadise - European bakery in downtown SLC

5. Baseball game - UVU will have to do for now....next time, it's the Salt Lake Bees!

6. Drive-in movie theater - loved it so much I went twice in one week!

7. Hill Air Force Base Museum - coolest place EVER!

8. BYU Museum of Art - Carl Bloch exibihit

9. Picnic

10. Salt Lake Temple

11. Mt. Timpanogos Temple

12. Inn & Out

13. J'Dawgs

14. Play croquet

15. Real Salt Lake game

16. Shave Ice

17. Mtn. bike Deer Creek Reservoir

18. Mtn. bike Lambert Park

19. Mtn. bike Provo River Trail

20. Hike Stewart Falls - only attempted (still packed with snow)

Best part is, I get to save the things I DIDN'T get to do when I come back and visit in August:

1. Spanish Fork Reservoir

2. Longboard

3. Moab

4. Antelope Island (mtn. bike)

5. This is the Place - Heritage Park

6. Salt Lake Bees

7. Wakeboarding

8. Hike Ensign Peak

9. Lava Hot Springs

10. Timp Caves

11. Hike Timp

12. Mtn. Bike Big Springs

13. Live Jazz in SLC

14. Comedy Sportz

15. Manti Temple

16. Rodeo

Utah has treated me extremely well over the last seven years (minus the one in Spain). It is an outdoors-(wo)man's paradise! Not to mention summer is the BEST part. There is always so much to do and so much going on. Not to mention all of the individual city festivals that go on all summer long. And I don't even get to enjoy it this year. You all better live it up for me!! Starting with the Scandinavian Festival in Ephraim next weekend. Good thing I had Swedish meatballs at Ikea today to make up for it. Utah, I will miss you dearly!

La Familia

My family was in town for a whole week just recently and I got to hang out with them e-v-e-r-y day. We have so much fun together. This is my little niece Lucy on St. Patrick's Day. She is SO adorable and always so happy and giggly.

We had fun during the week teasing each other, eating out, watching BYU basketball, shopping, bowling, etc. My siblings, minus Maranda & Tyler.....

Just call me Aunty

Well, I am now an aunt and I am super excited. My little baby niece came on September 8 weighing 8 lbs 9 oz with a head full of black hair. She is definitely one of the cutest newborns I have ever seen. I've been to visit her a few times already and plan to do so a lot more. I haven't really been around little kids much growing up so I'm excited for the first one!