Doug, Katie and Paige Clark

Canadians

2012-01-29T17:56:00.010-07:00

Our house was infiltrated by Canadians this week and it was awesome. My mom and three younger sisters all visited us from Toronto this week during their break from school. It is always so fun to see them. Most of our activities revolved around playing with Paige. We also went out to dinner, played games, watched movies, and went downtown in Ann Arbor. As a bonus, Kristen brought her new camera and took some cute pictures of our little girl.

Paige chewing on her binky (as usual).

Note the big blue eyes.

Hanging out with Grandma Homer.

Note the bald spot.

Playing with mom and dad.

Sucking on her toes.

Big smiles.

It was a fun visit and luckily we don't have to wait very long until we see them again. This Friday we are off to Hawaii for a Homer family vacation with my whole family and my grandparents. We are SO excited. Taking a trip in the middle of the semester and missing a week of school has meant late nights studying to get ahead, some fatigue, and a substantial amount of stress but it will all be worth it this Friday!!

Christmas Recap

2012-01-08T08:45:00.012-07:00

Our Christmas Break was full of fun family visits and lots of traveling. At the end of finals, we drove to Toronto for an early Christmas with the Homers. Two days later, we headed back to Ann Arbor so Doug could take his last test.

This is probably Paige's favorite Christmas present - she spends at least two hours a day bouncing around in it.

Right after his test, we went to the airport and flew to SLC. Every member of the Clark family was present for Christmas this year. It was quite the full house. We had fun playing ping pong, foosball, Wii, soccer, basketball, and lots of other games. It was fun to be there for the Christmas Eve fondue and other Clark family Christmas traditions.

Paige enjoying her first Christmas morning:

The Christmas morning mayhem:

We also went to see the lights at Temple Square...

and we got to see Doug's best friends in Salem.

We came home to Ann Arbor and then drove to Big Rapids the next day. We will be moving to Big Rapids for optometry school this summer so we took a trip there to visit the branch (yes, branch, not ward) and look at housing options.

Back in Ann Arbor, we have just finished our first week in school. My mom drove down to watch Paige while we figured out our schedules and how we're going to balance everything this semester. It was so fun to have her here and to see her play with Paige. We've got a rough semester ahead of us so posting may be sparse until April.

So Close

2011-12-14T07:15:00.008-07:00

Yesterday was our last day attending classes in 2011. Doug has one more test and I have two more projects. We're getting so close. We have enjoyed and learned a lot from most of our classes this semester.

While we were growing academically, Paige has been growing physically. Sorry for the cheesy transition, but I didn't know how else to get to the pictures of Paige. She jumped from the 10th percentile in weight to the 44th in two months!

She loves to exercise her leg muscles so Doug takes advantage of that and leans her up against things and takes a quick picture before she starts to fall. Doesn't she look like she's in a fighting stance in this picture?

She's starting to get tired here. And note four fingers in her mouth - quite the accomplishment.

This picture serves two purposes. First, Paige NEVER snuggles like that but she had just gotten her shots and was a little worn out. Second, you can see our cute Christmas tree.

Fatigue

2011-12-10T09:15:00.005-07:00

It's setting in. Between finals, an almost-four-month-old baby, and Christmas prep we are pretty worn out around here these days. Paige isn't worn out because she gets lots of naps during the day - our work time. Doug and I have each finished one class - final and all. It's such a relief! Only four to go (not super encouraging but it's the truth).

This time next week we will be in Toronto for a little pre-Christmas time with the Homers. We'll come back to Ann Arbor for about one day so Doug can take his last final and then it's off to Salem to spend Christmas with the Clark family. We can't wait for a little break and a lot of fun family time.

Here are some pictures of Paige in case that is all you wanted to see from this post.

Paige rockin' the leg warmers

Doug and Paige at the ward Christmas party - Doug was a wiseman

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T19:11:00.006-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our blog readers! I am finishing up last assignments before taking off for Toronto tomorrow (yay!) but I wanted to take a minute to write a few things that I am feeling particularly grateful for at this time.

I am grateful that I am able to pursue an education in public health. I have come to love this field and while this semester has been exhausting and incredibly challenging, I really am grateful that I am one step closer to getting my MPH.

I am grateful for Doug. He is the most supportive, understanding, self-sacrificing, hard-working, and kind person and I love him so much. On Mondays and Wednesdays I come home for 1 hour between classes while Doug is in a different class. This gives me barely enough time to feed Paige, review my readings and head back out the door. I rarely eat lunch - even though my break is from 11:30 - 1:00. Yesterday I came home to this in the fridge:

I am grateful for bath time. Paige recently started loving baths - so sometimes we give her multiple baths a day. This works out well because she is often in need of multiple baths a day. She is so adorable and just smiles, giggles, and talks nonsense the whole time.

I am grateful for Paige. She is such a good baby. I love watching her grow and learn. Seriously, isn't this the most beautiful baby you've ever seen?

Also I'm grateful for Mary for being such an awesome photographer and catching pictures like this for us!

Smiling

2011-11-13T17:35:00.000-07:00

It's still hard to get pictures of her smiling, but every now and again we'll get lucky.

She's getting pretty good at sitting up in her Bumbo chair.

Wiggle Worm

2011-11-01T12:59:00.002-06:00

This is what Paige does for about 20 minutes after we take her out of her swaddle in the morning. It's one of my favorite moments of the day. You don't have to watch the whole video because I realize that most of you aren't as entertained by this as I am.

Probably this blog is going to become overloaded with Paige-related videos and pictures because she's just so adorable. If you're really curious about us, we are enjoying school and learning a lot but we're also very ready and excited for graduation in April. Also Doug has already been accepted to two Optometry Schools: Ohio State University and Indiana College of Optometry. We're waiting to hear back from two others that he had interviews with and then we'll make THE DECISION. Our decision won't be as highly publicized as Lebron James's big decision a while back, but it feels just as big to us.

Our Little Pumpkin

2011-10-31T15:51:00.006-06:00

Happy Halloween!

Homer is Home

2011-10-14T10:38:00.002-06:00

I love my little wife, Katie. She's a foxy lady. We drove through Homer, Michigan (Katie's maiden name is Homer) on our way back from Bloomington, Indiana.

I also love my little daughter, Paige. She is probably like Katie in a lot of ways, but she sleeps like me.

I think she's just practicing a scary face for her first Halloween.

Walk Time

2011-10-10T15:25:00.004-06:00

We recently got a new stroller as a present from my parents. It is AWESOME! Since Paige calms down the second we take her outside, we spend a lot of time in this stroller.

Proof that Paige loves it as much as we do:

We are loving these smiles - she's the cutest!

Neglect

2011-09-22T14:21:00.007-06:00

This blog is likely to be neglected over the next eight months until we graduate in April. I'm guessing that I'll average about a post or two a month. Don't worry - I'm keeping track of Paige's life in other ways besides updates on this blog. Here are a bunch of pictures of Paige and other family members:

Paige on the day of her baby blessing - my mom made this dress out of her wedding dress - such a special dress and a special day for our family. I made the headband a few days before because it was so hard to find a headband that matched her dress.

Doug and my mom cooking the post-blessing meal

Anne and Rob testing out the Model T at the Ford Museum

Cute Paige at one month old

The whole fam - this picture was taken on my computer since we don't have many pictures of the whole family together yet.

Pretty Paige

2011-08-23T12:21:00.007-06:00

On Sunday, our good friends in the ward had us over for dinner. While we were there my talented friend, Janel, snapped a few pictures of Paige. She edited them and sent them back to me the next day! I love them and look at them all the time. Here they are:

It's pretty hard to catch her with her eyes open these days.

The same one in color - you can see her dark blue eyes.

So sweet.

I think this one might be my favorite - such a cute little yawn.

Thanks again Janel - we love these!

Visitors!

2011-08-23T11:51:00.005-06:00

My mom and my sister Lindsey came to visit this past week. It was SO nice to have them here while I was learning how to have a newborn baby at home with me. We even got out of the house every now and then, which was great. Paige was approved to be off of her blanket for the jaundice while they were here so after that point we were able to get out more. We went fishing (I mostly protected Paige from mosquitoes the whole time) and to the Farmer's Market.

Here are some pictures of the visit:

My mom holding Paige at Gallup Park

Lindsey holding Paige at home

Doug with his fish

I feel so lucky to have my mom so close at this time in my life. She was able to drive down right when Paige was born, go back home, and drive to Ann Arbor with Lindsey a few days later. I am also lucky to have a sister that is willing to fly four hours and then drive four more to visit us. We love having visitors and look forward to having more for the baby blessing in a few weeks!

Lil Miss Paige

2011-08-17T15:44:00.000-06:00

She gots da beat!

My daughter is starting her new rapping career. Make sure you watch all the way to the end to see her grand finale.

Try the youtube link if the video below doesn't work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiLEj2mhUuk

As Per Request(s)

2011-08-17T07:57:00.000-06:00

Here are a few more pictures of our little gal.

Paige in her tanning bed

Dressed up for the prom

Me bottle-feeding Paige (my milk still hasn't come in yet!)

Tongue-Sticking-Out Competitions (I usually win)

And a full body shot

enjoy,
doug

Paige Elizabeth Clark

2011-08-13T04:05:00.000-06:00

She was born August 12, 2011 at about 10:30am. Weighs 6 lbs. 1 oz.
Here are a few pictures of her. Katie is doing well. Paige is too, but has a little jaundice issue (see picture with glowing alien-baby). We're doing lights and supplementing the nursing with a little formula. Paige is a good eater so far, which we're also pleased with. The delivery was long, but went very smoothly.

We hope to call you all soon and talk with you individually, but for now we hope you'll be happy with this post and mass emails/texts. Thank you all for the prayers and well-wishes. We know that they were answered.

Love,
Doug, Katie and Paige

Canoe Trip

2011-08-07T11:27:00.004-06:00

Have I mentioned that I need to distract myself these days? Hence the many blog posts and pictures. Yesterday afternoon Doug and I canoed down the Huron River. The weather was perfect and we had a lot of fun being together, being outside, and spending time in such a pretty place. Aside from hitting a rock when we tried to ride the "rapids" and getting too close to some low-hanging trees, it was the perfect activity.

My life jacket looked pretty ridiculous on my 39 week pregnant self, but at least we were safe, right?

Gone Fishin'

2011-08-06T07:09:00.006-06:00

Doug's interest in fishing has continued to grow since we moved to Michigan. I love going too mostly because it's nice to be outside on these summer nights and it's always fun to see him so excited when he catches a fish. So last night we gathered up all of the gear and went to Gallup Park. I got him some waders for his birthday last month, so here are some pictures of Doug sporting his waders and catching a fish:

And here's the pretty sunset. I'm not a photographer but I still wanted to snap some pictures.

Get this

2011-08-03T14:13:00.001-06:00

After I ate a bowl of Crispix for lunch today I was rushing out the door to a meeting when Katie stops me and says, "You have a Crispic on your face."

Distractions

2011-08-03T08:28:00.016-06:00

Since I am 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant, I am constantly trying to distract myself from the fact that I could have a baby any minute. As a result of those efforts, here is a post about our new place. We are finally settled, so I figured I'd post some before and after pictures. So here we go with a lot of pictures:

Living room/dining room/electronics area (this room has a lot of different purposes):

BEFORE

AFTER

This is my favorite wall from this area:

Kitchen (no before and after for this one)

Mainly we want to show you our new best friend, the portable air conditioner. It has seriously saved our lives this month. It was SO hot and humid in here we could barely handle it - like seriously we would hide from the heat in the basement - but we finally got the unit in here and it feels great!

The basement

BEFORE

AFTER

It is so nice to have so much storage space and to have our own washer and dryer. We got the carpet from a family in our ward as they were moving out - it makes it so much less scary down there even if it doesn't match and we had to cut and staple carpet segments together to cover the whole floor.

Our room

BEFORE

AFTER

Baby Paige's room:

BEFORE

AFTER

She's got a lot of furniture and clothing! I think most people that read this blog know that we're pretty set on the name Paige. So set on it that I made these frames like four months ago - hopefully she looks like a Paige to us when she is born because we've eliminated almost everything else!

So that's everything. Maybe there will be some more posts this week as I make more attempts to distract myself.

Lucky

2011-07-26T06:55:00.004-06:00

We have been so lucky to have one of my best friends, Anne, come visit us for the past two years. Last year she came to Provo to visit us after her spring break in Arizona and this year she included us in her pre-working travels. We had so much fun together while she was here.

She is getting married next September so we spent a lot of time looking at wedding dresses and talking through wedding things. I am so excited for Anne and Adam and happy to be part of their special day! We also went to the art fair and explored downtown Ann Arbor a little more while she was here.

We are improving in our picture-taking abilities - meaning that last year we didn't take any but this year we caught this one before we left to take Anne to the airport.

I really hate taking pictures when I'm this pregnant but I'm glad we documented the visit. Again, it was so great to have her here! I am excited to have an excuse to be able to go visit her next summer/fall in preparation for the wedding.

In other news, the stache is coming back. Just thought I'd let everyone know.

Visits!

2011-07-22T06:19:00.006-06:00

My mom came to Ann Arbor this week. The second she got here, she hopped out of the car and we went right to work organizing the basement. It was so helpful to have her here to get our house baby-ready.

Although we did not know it would happen when the trip was planned, my mom also got to come to an ultrasound with me and Doug. I have been measuring small this whole pregnancy and my weight gain has slowed, or stopped, in the past few weeks. I'm close to my due date now so a slow or stop in weight gain is not really a warning sign at this point. Doctors were still slightly concerned so we went in for another fetal growth ultrasound. She's still growing and we're both healthy. She's just a little baby (so they tell me) and I am alright with that. Here is me and my mom at the ultrasound (blurry picture, sorry).

My mom and I spent a lot of time sifting through this little girl's many outfits, organizing them, and putting them away. It was a good activity because we learned that I had zero newborn clothes. She would probably be fine with living only in a diaper for the first month of her life (August) but I thought it would be best to have some tiny, little clothes for her when she is tiny and little at first.

I am kind of turned off by the pink/princess themes that are prevalent through baby girl outfits, blankets, sheets, bottles, etc. I was even tempted to buy the boy option many times because it looked cuter to me. I came out with some good options though. Here is my favorite (also probably Laura Bean's favorite):

It was a short visit, but it was so helpful to have her here! We'll miss her, but she'll be back soon when the baby is born. Now onto the next visitor!

Here is a picture of me and Doug with my mom at Macaroni Grill. It's not my best picture, but please keep in mind that I am about 38 weeks pregnant and that it was about 100 degrees outside plus super, super humid. Doug looks cute though, and it was his birthday celebration.

The Big 2-5

2011-07-20T07:55:00.003-06:00

Even though most people still label us to be about 18 years old, Doug turned 25 on Monday!

It was impossible to get at the right angle for this picture, but it's supposed to look like he's wearing the hat.

Due to the lack of air conditioning in our apartment and the close-to-100-degree temperatures we have been experiencing, Doug came with me while I prepared for his birthday festivities. We went to Target to run a few errands (again grateful for the AC in there) and then headed over to the mall so I could get his present. He brought a book, sat in an armchair and fell asleep. Even though that sounds kind of lame, it's a pretty good present for him to get a nap these days.

After "opening" his present in the mall, we headed to downtown Ann Arbor for a birthday dinner celebration. They have a lot of great deals around here on birthdays so we were able to get our meal for half off! We went to an Italian restaurant (of course) and it was really delicious so we're glad we tried it.

This is the fourth birthday of Doug's that we have celebrated together - each time in a different state or country. 22, I was in DC and he was in Utah. 23, we were newly married and living in Provo (had a BBQ on the hottest day of the summer, thanks to all the guests that came despite the heat that year). 24, we were traveling the world with the Clarks. 25, here in Ann Arbor. 26 - who knows where we'll be. I love celebrating Doug's birthday because he's a pretty awesome guy - in case you haven't noticed.

Thank you for all the cards, phone calls and emails that he received that day. It was a great birthday!

Just as a side note: my mom is coming into town today (yay!) and my friend Anne is coming to visit the day she leaves (yay again!) so hopefully we'll have some pictures to share after their trips.

Wedding Update

2011-07-15T13:58:00.007-06:00

My older sister, Lindsey, got married to Jared Carpenter on July 1st. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful ceremony and we are so happy that we could be there to celebrate with them and all of our friends and family. Aren't they the cutest couple?

I have been lucky enough to be best friends with my sister since we were teenagers. Yes, we fought over clothes and other things but for the most part we were different enough that we got along and liked spending time together. I thought I would be fine as I watched Lindsey and Jared get married, but once they were standing together at the front of the crowd I started to tear up. That morning was hectic, as you can probably imagine. We were fixing hair, doing make-up, moving the dress around, making sure everything was set up, making sure Lindsey ate, getting Linds into her dress (which took a while), and keeping everything on track. I didn't really have time to feel emotional until later that morning after I'd taken my place at the front. In an effort not to go on too long, I will just say I am so happy for my sister and move on.

The whole weekend in Park City was so fun! We got to hang out with these girls:

We went swimming, ate delicious food, played games, and attended my baby shower thrown by my sweet cousin, Elise. It was a great weekend!

Just a quick shout-out to this cute boy:

He has been such a trooper this summer. Even though his job is pretty exhausting, he gets home and does anything we need to get our place ready for when our little girl arrives. Love him.

Branson

2011-06-26T16:46:00.002-06:00

I (Doug) went to Branson, Missouri last week for my family reunion. It was a lot of fun and here are a few of the highlights.

Dave and I drove down together and slept (for a few hours) in his car on the side of the road.

I met my nephew Scott for the first time.

My mom whipped out her shower cap for the log ride. Classy.

Sarah was the most fun to ride with. She was honestly scared for her life each time.

Other highlights include the Gospel Rock session before church on Sunday, SIX, the New Shanghai Acrobats Show, playing choku and other games, and just being with my siblings and their families. Big families like ours know how hard it is to get together, but they also know how much fun it is when they do. I love my family.

Loved

2011-06-14T06:15:00.006-06:00

We are lucky to have two very talented women that love our little girl already.

Anne sent us this quilt a few weeks ago:

My mom crocheted this blanket and gave it to us last week:

Like I said, both my mother and mother-in-law are very talented and I feel pretty lucky to be able to learn (and receive gifts) from both of them.

Controlled Chaos

2011-06-14T05:37:00.011-06:00

That seems to be what we are living in these days. We are preparing to move in a few weeks and our apartment is becoming less and less homey. The place that we are moving to is all wood floors, so we have slowly been accumulating carpet and rugs from ward members and my parents. When you live in an already-carpeted one bedroom apartment, carpet quickly crowds everything.

Like I said, we do our best to control it but it's still pretty crazy. In addition to the carpet mound we are growing, we have been joining the masses at the garage sales this summer. There are so many in the neighborhoods around our apartment! Last Saturday while I was helping with a work event, Doug found a crib, a rocking chair, a stroller, and a baby carrier all within an hour or so. This is great and we love all of the things we got (and their prices) but again we have no place to put them right now.

On the crib, we had to repair a few scratches and Doug impaired the drop-side feature. I am going to hold off posting a picture of the crib because in all of the ones I have, it has blue tape all over it for painting and other repairs. Anyway, I spent FOREVER cleaning the rocking chair cushions. There were a few stains on both sides of the seat, so I basically had to wash the cover and the foam inside to clean it. My arm muscles were so tired from wringing out the water! Clearly, my arms are not prepared to be carrying a baby all hours of the day at this point.

Doug also took apart our kitchen chairs to make them easier to move. As he was doing this one day, I came out to find this scene on our floor:

Updates

2011-06-02T05:35:00.009-06:00

Just some updates and pictures from us.

First, Doug took the OAT yesterday and he did great! He would never say that, so I have to do it for him. He has been studying so hard this month and it really paid off. Thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers that were sent his way yesterday. Now he is moving onto a research job and enjoying not spending every day at the library.

I am still working at my internship and developing some new public health skills, which is really exciting to me. I don't love every minute of it, but overall I am happy I chose this position. I am also growing more and more every day. It feels like I go through periods where I won't grow at all but she continues to and then one day, suddenly, I pop out even more. Here is a picture from Doug:

He gets such a kick out of how much I am growing and loves to make me try things like this. I wasn't too thrilled about it because when I get home from work I usually take about an hour to wake up - I get so sleepy while I am there.

We have also started doing projects at nights. Recently we finished covering some bins that go in the change table of our little girl's room (once she has one). We got the change table from some friends in our ward and we are so grateful for it - so cute! Anyway, here are the bins:

It was a fun project to do together. We're excited for the day when all of her furniture and clothing does not sit at the foot or side of our bed.

Lastly, we survived our first tornado warning. I think it was on Sunday that we heard the siren and then watched the news to see that our county was under a warning. While I survived many tornado warnings living in Minnesota, this was the first one where there were no other adults to be in charge. We grabbed our emergency kit backpacks and headed to the basement of our building. We sat there for about an hour, peeking to see how the sky was changing, and I had to take a bathroom break during the warning of course. None of the tornadoes touched down that day so it was fine, but it was interesting to respond to an "emergency" situation. We were more prepared than I thought we would be, but we can also make some improvements.

Here is our bright orange emergency backpack from the health department.

Anyway, that's all from us. June marks a month of trips and family visits so I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures soon.

Mackinac Island

2011-05-22T15:21:00.012-06:00

Pronounced ma-cki-naw, is one of the prettiest places we have ever been! Doug set this weekend trip up in celebration of our two-year anniversary. I didn't even know where we were going until Wednesday and we left Friday morning.

Anyway, we love each other and are so happy to be married to each other, but I won't spend too much time talking about that. We had such a blast together in Mackinaw City and on Mackinac Island, here are the pictures of this beautiful place/narration of the trip.

We left early on Friday morning and drove four hours to the city. When we got out of the car, we went straight to the shore.

We were there for about two minutes and then Doug decided to wade through the FREEZING cold water to the rock in the lake.

He made it out to the rock and was pretty excited about it. Look how blue and clear the water is!

After surviving that adventure (and the bugs that were swarming us on the shore), we wandered the town. It's a small, tourist town so it was cute and fun to just hang out. Doug heard many of the phrases that he grew up with, such as, "I seen a shooting star."

The next day we walked to the ferry (about a mile from our hotel), to find out that parking was free. It was a nice walk in the morning, but it turns out it was unnecessary. We got on the ferry and headed over to the island. Below are some pictures as we were entering the harbor. The first picture is of the Mackinac Bridge, which connects the Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is the third longest suspension bridge in the world - longer than San Francisco but much harder to get to.

Within ten minutes of being on the island we had rented, and were touring the island, on a cute tandem bike. It was so fun to ride a bike together - especially in this place. There are no cars allowed on the island - the roads are only for bikes and horse-drawn carriages. You may notice in the picture below that it was REALLY sunny but it was still chilly. With that combination, neither of us wore sunscreen and we ended up with sunburns that outline our sunglasses perfectly.

We stopped at landmarks along the way, like this arch:

and Devil's Kitchen:

We biked around the whole island - about eight miles - and then walked around the town. We saw the Grand Hotel which has the longest porch in the world. That's not really a huge deal, but the grounds are beautiful. After 6:00 pm, men have to wear shirt and tie and women are not allowed to wear pants. Good thing we were there before the cutoff, because we were both wearing flannel shirts and jeans.

It was such a great weekend - and a great idea from Doug! I can't believe he kept it a secret for so long - he booked it months ago. We have loved these two years as a married couple. We have learned a lot together. We are looking forward to the next years to come and are so excited to welcome a little baby girl into our family in about three months!

The Process

2011-05-15T13:36:00.001-06:00

I'm glad people liked the video. It makes me laugh so hard every time I watch it. Here are some pictures of the planning and plotting.

Here is the box-building process:

The baby wrapping paper was the cheapest so that's what we got.

This is just a picture of Doug with a gallon of water in the baby carrier. He does this sometimes and I think it's so funny and cute.

Here I am with the finished product:

Here is a picture of me and my mom on Mother's Day It can also be a pregnant picture if you want to see how much I'm growing. (Thanks to Mary for all of my maternity clothes, including this dress):

It was so fun to see my whole family last weekend and Doug is the greatest husband for being willing to drive eight hours in a two-day period for a quick visit. It was a great weekend and fun to be with my wonderful mother on Mother's Day.

Mother's Day Surprise!

2011-05-10T07:15:00.003-06:00

This weekend Doug and I surprised my mom by visiting her for Mother's Day. Before we left Saturday morning, we constructed and wrapped a box that would be big enough for both of us to hide under. I will post more pictures of how the box was made and our pictures while we were in Canada, but first everyone needs to watch this video.

How could you not love someone that is this excited to see you?

Just a Good Day

2011-04-20T09:00:00.004-06:00

Yesterday Doug and I officially finished our first year (of classes) in graduate school. We still have a few finals to trudge through but I wanted to write about this small step. We both have a policy class that finished at 1:00 yesterday. Usually I have to go to work and Doug has a lab that night, but those were both canceled due to finals week. So after doing a few finals prep things at school, we came home, ate some ice cream and watched Tangled at 3:00 in the afternoon. It was awesome! Then we went back to studying, Doug went to the library and I studied for Epidemiology at home.

It was just nice to take an afternoon break between our last class and our finals. That's all. Doug is done this Friday and I am not officially done until the 27th. Don't worry though, I won't be studying while we're in Cleveland with Matt and Mary. I'm studying a lot for that test this week so I don't have to be buried in books and practice problems all weekend.

Now all we need is for Michigan weather to actually act like it is summer and we're all set!

Patience

2011-04-17T14:09:00.007-06:00

So in the past week, collectively, Doug and I have received about eight requests for a picture of me. I am still pregnant and still growing, don't worry. To be honest until about two weeks ago there wasn't really much to see. I feel like this week she has been growing so fast! I'm not sure my muscles can change at that pace (though they are certainly trying).

Since you have all been so patient (kind of) here is a picture of me at about 24 weeks. Ignore the open closet in the background.

I am surprised by how much I dislike taking these. It's awkward to take picture by yourself anyway, let alone sideways and with an emphasis on how much your waist is growing...I'm just saying.

Have a good Sunday. Next Sunday we will be with Matt, Mary, Luke, and Devin in Cleveland and we are super excited to see them!

I Miss Running

2011-03-30T09:24:00.004-06:00

I have started a lot of posts in the last few weeks but Doug's post was just so adorable that I liked it to be the first thing people saw when they came to our blog. I guess it's time to move on now.

A small baby update: no we don't have the name picked out yet but we do have a list of names that we agree on (finally), our MPH schedules are matching up pretty well for next semester (only one overlap on Fridays!), and we are trying to decide which apartment to move to in July. I have taken some pictures since I am starting to show a little bit but they're not loaded on my computer and I'm writing this at school so you'll have to wait for those.

Anyway, I am writing this post because, as the title indicates, I miss running. I have been running every morning (except for Sundays) for the past five years. With the unsafe (read: icy) Michigan sidewalks, my changing stomach muscles (that make me feel like I have a hernia at least ten times a day), my ever-present fatigue, and the fact that I have to go to the bathroom every ten minutes, my ability to run long distances has significantly decreased since November. I still make it out to go a mile or two but that's about as far as I can go. I have found other ways to exercise at home but none of them result in the same energy and fulfillment that running always have for me.

I know this sounds cheesy and maybe really strange to most of you, but it's just how I've been feeling lately. Running in the mornings helped me feel strong and accomplished before the day had even really started. I am 21 weeks into this pregnancy now, which means I have more energy, I can wake up earlier without feeling like a zombie, and my stomach muscles are starting to adjust to their new positions. The weather is also improving so I am venturing outside more and hope to return to my old habits.

This post was probably long and tedious to read but I think it will stop me from attacking every runner I see. I told Doug last night that I felt like they were all out there just to spite me, so clearly I was in need of some release of emotions about this subject.

Dad, Redefined

2011-03-14T12:07:00.018-06:00

As you know, I will soon be a dad. Some dads are mean, boring, and/or just not cool. Since I want to be a hip dad I have decided to list some of the things that cool dads do and give you picture proof that I am ready for the Awesome Dad Competition.

Cool dads:

Sew University of Michigan diaper covers for their babies

Shave with shaving cream and a razor, not one of those whimpy electric things

Have food storage that includes formula

Shoot guns

Force their children, early in life, to love soccer and soccer-related brands

As you can see, all I need now is a daughter.

Spring Break

2011-03-07T20:16:00.003-07:00

I know you're all probably dying to hear about our trip to Utah because it was awesome! Unfortunately, this post is about something else. This will probably come as a HUGE surprise to most of you, but we're having a baby! I know that most of you were already aware of that. I was waiting to make the official announcement until we heard the heart beat and saw our healthy little baby and then Doug wanted to tell Jared and Travis in person so we waited for that. Today we saw our baby and "it" was healthy in every way, measured perfectly on target and while "it" was a little shy to show "its" face we finally got everything we needed.

Alright, enough with the suspense. We did find out what we are having today, and...

IT'S A GIRL!

I am due August 9th and we are thrilled. I will post pictures of baby, my (tiny) pregnant self, and more information about everything later. Right now I have to finish an assignment for my epidemiology class.

Just thought we'd put it up here so you could all start following the progress online.

Did I mention that we are beyond excited?

Some Pictures

2011-02-23T10:08:00.005-07:00

This is the first time in my entire college career that I have had spring break to look forward to...spring break!! Doug and I are leaving for Utah this Friday. A couple in our ward was nice enough to agree to drive us to and pick us up from the airport. They are awesome! Lots of exclamation marks in this post because we are ready for a break(!).

So since we are going to be very busy hanging with the Clark family and friends we haven't seen for way too long, eating at Cafe Rio (I have actually had dreams about this), watching Jimmer on TV because we CAN, and other fun Utah things, I will not be updating the blog for at least a week. It is likely that when we get back from Utah we will play catch up for a week or so...so it will probably be longer than a week. Anticipating this predicament and the lack-of-blogging-guilt that I often experience, I am putting some random pictures up here that are fun to look at.

This is a picture from my birthday. Doug hid 23 balloons throughout our apartment and then laughed at me as I tried to find them all (a present for me or him?). We kept the balloons as long as possible and with the streamers that Doug also put up in the apartment, we played balloon volleyball every night for about 20 minutes until all of the balloons popped.

We played in the snow two weeks ago - made snow angels, buried each other, and tried to build a snowman but the snow was too fluffy. The next week we watched all of this snow melt and then this Sunday we watched it all come back (NINE inches in one day).

Doug made himself a sleeping mask and used the fabric left over from a scarf I made him for Christmas - so it is U of M themed - which makes it even more awesome.

Doog

2011-02-16T09:58:00.002-07:00

Doug went to work at an immunization clinic in Washtenaw County yesterday as part of one of his classes. He was basically observing how the clinic is run and which groups of people get which shots. One of the nurses took on the responsibility of introducing Doug to everyone in the clinic. She introduced him as "Doog the nursing student." She had a thick Russian accent so Doug didn't quite understand the pronunciation or the affiliation he was given. He finally was able to correct her on "Doug" but was considered a nursing student for the remainder of the day.

This experience reminded me of the summer I spent working at the ASB at BYU. One of other employees in that building somehow got the idea that my name was Wendy, not Katie. I corrected her once at the very beginning of the summer but was too embarrassed to correct her every day after that. So, I was known as Wendy to one person for an entire three month period. I probably should have been more forward but it just wasn't that big of a deal to me.

Just some funny stories about Doog the nursing student and Wendy the receptionist.

Snow Day!

2011-02-02T09:12:00.009-07:00

It's a Snow Day in Ann Arbor. Well, technically Doug has a class tonight, but the majority of our classes were cancelled due to the blizzard that came through last night. There is a lot of snow on the ground but the worst part is the wind and low temperatures. Doug and I are cooped up inside doing homework like good students, but we will take a break to play in this snow today. I thought I'd update the blog with a few things we've been up to lately.

This is the sweet message I woke up to one morning when Doug left for classes. It really is nice, just kind of threatening.

My mom and sisters came to visit us last weekend. Their school holds exams for a week and then gives them a week off. They drove down and back in under 24 hours but it was still so fun to see them. Our apartment is kind of small so they all slept on the floor but it seemed to work.

My mom brought her electric pump for their air mattresses - which was accidentally turned on for the whole drive and was, consequently, no longer functioning. Doug fashioned a pump out of cardboard, electric tape, and a garbage bag. We were all a little hesitant but it actually worked really well!

We played Scattergories for like three hours, didn't even make it to the stack of movies we got from the library, and fell asleep late that night. It was so fun to have them here. Of course we went to Target the morning before they left because my family LOVES Target and they don't have that chain in Canada.

Also Doug installed some shelves in our house a few weeks ago. He got some tools for Christmas and loves any excuse to break them out. Here are some pictures of him in action and the finished product. I wish I were better at taking before and after pictures but just imagine a totally blank wall where the shelf is now and you'll be able to tell what it was like before.

Confession

2011-01-26T09:49:00.005-07:00

My sister-in-law often posts her "Tuesday Confessions", although they don't always fall on Tuesday, I always enjoy reading them. I don't think this will become a habit for me, but I do have something to confess today. Doug and I watch The Bachelor on Hulu every Tuesday night. I know, it's a shallow show but we have so much fun watching it. We printed off pictures of all of the girls that are on the show and we vote every week on who is going home. We cross off the girls that leave and then pull the pictures out again the next week. It's a very secret voting process and then whoever loses has to do the dishes from dinner, or whatever the terms of the bet for that week were. We only saw the first part from last night so we don't know who went home yet and are yet to cast our votes so don't tell us!

Due to our new-found interest in this show we have started quoting The Bachelor, Brad Womack, in all of his sincerity.

"Please, will you accept this rose, please?"

"I love it."

"I want to get to know you so badly, so badly."

He has this weird way of enunciating his words that makes all of these phrases much funnier, in addition to the fact that he seriously says one of these phrases every minute. Doug loves how dramatic everyone is and how often the girls cry about a man they hardly know and I just love trying to guess what will happen each week. I'm not even sure how this habit started, except that we don't have cable so we have to go based on what we can find on Hulu when we take TV breaks from homework. At first I thought it was lucky that we didn't like many shows - but now it seems that we are just getting caught up in new ones. Oh well.

Love

2011-01-15T09:27:00.018-07:00

It's not our anniversary or anything but while organizing my pictures today I found a lot of photographic proof of why I love my husband so much. Hopefully this isn't too mushy and just holds a lot of fun Doug pictures.

1. He was the best boyfriend ever. Now I realize this is a weird one but I feel a need to give credit to how great he was even before we got married. We did so many fun things together even though we were both very busy.

2. He married me in the temple.

3. He does cool things with me even if they're a little scary.

4. He's great with kids. Even when he convinces them I have candy in my socks or back pockets so they chase me around the house until they discover I don't. (This has happened MANY times).

5. He's thoughtful. This is from my 22nd Birthday celebration.

6. He's goofy. There are a lot of pictures to demonstrate this one.

7. He's talented (at more than just singing but this is a cool picture at the recording studio).

8. He's smart.

9. He works hard. This is a picture of the morning of one of Doug's finals. He woke up at 4.45 that morning to study until he left. You can see he just opened the blanket and took off. This is kind of a two-in-one because he is also considerate. He studies with that lamp in our kitchen when he gets up early even though (I think) it's still pretty hard to see.

10. He plays hard. The infamous fishing day.

11. He supports me in doing hard things. Doug ran the last bit of the marathon with me. Not only that, he woke up super early to drive me and my dad to the starting line and then drove down to Provo to meet us later.

12. He's handsome.

13. He loves his friends.

14. He loves his family.

15. For the sake of all of those not married to Doug I think I will stop here. Lately we have been reading one of Doug's mission letters every night. They are both hilarious and spiritually uplifting so the last reason I love Doug this week is that he was (and still is) a great missionary and he lives the gospel.

Obligated

2011-01-15T08:47:00.005-07:00

Sometimes I feel obligated to update this blog even if I don't have anything to say. When I'm studying or at school I would way rather take a break by looking at someone else's adorable pictures or reading their funny anecdotes than writing about the current health behavior innovation. Then I start to feel like I should update our blog in case anyone else is looking for the same momentary relief from school, work, children, or whatever else it may be.

So the biggest update I have right now is that Doug and I got a grown-up bed. Well, we didn't really get a new bed but a comforter and cover. I don't know why I associate this with being grown-ups, but I do. So far in the freezing still of Michigan nights we have just layered our bed with blanket after blanket. The problem with this approach is that the covers get very heavy and I wasn't able to pull them up if they slipped down, which would cause me to follow the covers wherever they migrated in the night. Last weekend we went to Ikea (for fun) and to see what deals we could find. Little did we know, Ikea was having a huge sale. We found ourselves following herds of people through the store. Seriously, I have never seen this many people there. We didn't find what we needed until we were in the warehouse on our way to the checkouts but we found it and I was SO excited. Doug was more excited once he slept under the comforter. He kept saying, "wow it's so light but I am so warm!"

With that long explanation, here is our "grown-up" bed:

The lighting makes the headboard look like it's a weird orangey color, but it's not - it's red.

This Christmas

2011-01-04T07:32:00.007-07:00

We had a fantastic Christmas this year! After I finished my dreaded final on the 22nd Doug picked me up right outside the school with the car packed and we drove to Burlington. We got to the house at around 6:00 and Lindsey and Jared arrived shortly after that. The boys quickly ate dinner and left for the Raptors game. The Raptors are terrible and lost at home but they said the game was still entertaining.

The next day we worked at a Food Bank helping to organize and package foods that would be placed in appropriate family size bins to distribute as needed. It was fun to do something like that so close to Christmas and a good reminder of where the focus of the season should be. We watched some movies together and played basketball in the time remaining until Christmas Eve. That night we drove around looking at Christmas lights in our new pajamas as we do every year. Here are all of the kids in their PJs.

The next morning we did not get up until 8:00. That is seriously the latest my family has slept in on Christmas morning. EVER. A sign that we are all growing up? It was a fun morning. One highlight was my little sister Erin getting the present that Doug gave/made for her. She is a HUGE Harry Potter fan and Doug drew her name this year. Here she is with the whole thing:

We gave her one of our graduation robes as her "dress robes", wrote a personalized and authenticated accepted letter from Hogwarts, Doug carved a wand for her and gave her a Hogwarts t-shirt. She was so excited and attempted to cast spells for the remainder of the vacation. We had a lot of fun making it too. All the information was online and we braved Hot Topic to find the t-shirt. That gift was a definite success.

We called the Clark family later that day. We are so grateful for video chat options. It makes everything so much more fun and memorable. It was great to see the Clark home on Christmas day and see everyone hanging out post-Christmas morning.

We also played laser tag over the break. It was seriously the best game we've ever played! The guns were so accurate - my team (me, my dad, and Doug) won both rounds. We went to see Harry Potter 7 and answered my moms questions like "wait so why did Snipe kill that one guy?" Doug and I also got to cook quite a bit which was fun because we actually had the time to do it. We made Squash soup, rolls and salad one night and then Doug headed up the Gnocchi operation where we made the pasta, pesto, and some other yummy Italian things. Doug and I both received this outfit for Christmas to help with our cooking efforts:

Some other highlights were attending the Leafs game with Jared and Lindsey (and Doug of course). We had great seats!

We also played A LOT of Wii fit and Wii sports. It was so fun and hilarious to try out new games and see everyone try to do the hula hoop game (especially Lindsey). This is a picture of Doug's feet on the Wii balance board - he got some new socks for Christmas.

We stayed for New Year's Eve with Kristen, her friend Tessa, and Steven. My parents and the twins were at an overnight retreat for the youth at church and Lindsey and Jared had left that morning for Utah. It was a fun night but we were all exhausted and fell asleep in our midnight movie. We had such a great time and loved every minute. Now back to the regular routine tomorrow. It is nice to be back to school and responsibility but it's always a rough transition.

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It has been so fun to see all of your Christmas pictures and updates.

Best and Worst

2010-12-18T14:22:00.004-07:00

This semester I have had the best and the worst finals schedule. For the majority of this week I have felt like it is the best but today i'm starting to shift. I had three finals due on the 9th of December. Classes ended on the 13th and now I have one final left on the 22nd. It has been awesome this week because it is way to early to be studying for the 22nd so I have focused on making Christmas presents for my family and making treats for our friends and neighbors. Today I am starting to hate this schedule. All of my BYU buddies are done and feeling free and my husband will be with that camp on Monday afternoon. I however, am stuck in the phase of dreading this biostatistics final and trying to prepare for it when Christmas is only THREE days after it. Yuck. All I want is to be finished....I would have been ready sooner if I could have taken it sooner. Oh well, it is what it is and I'll just have to live with it. But just for the record I am not happy about it.

Here is a funny story as a side note and to make this a happier post. The wind chill here in Ann Arbor frequently causes the temperatures to fall below zero. It's manageable but it has been harder for me to get out and go running when the wind goes through my whole body. There is a gym in our apartment complex so I have been opting to go there instead of braving the cold. When I say gym I mean it has about four pieces of equipment, but not many people go there so it works for us. The other day I was in there by myself on the bike. The gym is an annex of the main office. While I was on the bike they were setting up for a Christmas party. Through the window I could see them setting out cupcakes, cookies, hot chocolate, muffins, cream puffs...you name it and it was there. I think both parties felt awkward about it. Who wants to eat junk food when there's a sweaty exerciser right through the door and who wants to be that sweaty exerciser?

We're off to Burlington the minute my test ends next week. We're super excited but also a little nervous for the drive. Last week the snow storms shut down one of the highways we use for 36 HOURS. We're packing some extra emergency supplies in case we run into a similar predicament.

You probably won't hear from us until we get back unless Doug gets on a blogging kick once his finals are over. Merry Christmas!

(Photo courtesy of our talented sister-in-law Mary Clark)

Taking a Breather

2010-12-13T09:38:00.002-07:00

I had three finals last week. Two were papers and one was a test. It was very stressful and busy busy but things are calming down for me. Doug on the other hand had one last week and has three to go. I have one left but it is not until next week - December 22 - so lame. Lame because it is so late in December but kind of nice to have time to relax before my hardest test.

Not many updates here. We've just been studying a whole lot. We did manage to find some time to decorate our apartment for Christmas. We also had a big snow storm yesterday. So beautiful. I can say that because I do not have a driveway to shovel and I ride the bus almost everywhere I go. It was freezing preparing to drive to and from church yesterday but this morning everything has settled and looks like Christmas time. Doug and I decided that it is a tradition (this year at least) to drink hot chocolate on our balcony during the first major snow. It feel so much better to drink it in the cold than inside watching the snow fall.

Last week we went to Ontario to stay with my siblings while my parents were out of town. It was fun to see them - and the dogs were happy to see Doug. Doug, the only one that didn't grow up with pets. Seriously, when he was younger if an animal died (like they forgot it outside and it froze to death) their dad just threw it in the garbage can. Needless to say this was very different from my experience. But both of the dogs love Doug and he is learning to like them too.

We are getting very excited for Christmas break! The whole family will be there for Christmas this year and it is going to be great. We were also lucky to b able to spend Thanksgiving with Doug's WHOLE family this year AND we won't need to fly for holidays at all this year. (Note: Doug's "whole" family is much bigger than my "whole" family). It's been so fun to see everyone preparing for Christmas via their blogs. Such an exciting time of year.

Hopefully I will have pictures for the next blog update, but our many readers will just have to do with text for now.

Good Morning

2010-11-17T17:56:00.003-07:00

A few days ago I woke up to this:

I laughed out loud almost as soon as I opened my eyes, woke Doug up and then had to apologize both for waking him up and for laughing at him. His hair stuck out like that ALL day - even when we cleaned the church with other families - just because he thought it was so funny.

L. Ell. Bean

2010-11-16T13:42:00.004-07:00

Warning: this post is filled with stories from BYU about one of my roommates. If you know Laura you'll probably love it but if not it might still be fun to read about her - she's pretty cool.

Last week was the birthday of one of my best friends. I missed the birthday wishing period by so much that I decided to write a blog post about how great Laura Ellen (Warner) Bean is. First of all, to explain the title of this post, Laura tried to get L.L. Bean to sponsor her wedding since her married name was so close to their brand name - no luck.

Laura and I were freshman roommates at BYU and lived together until I got married. Since we both started at BYU in January and came from Australia, people often asked "how did you meet" instead of "how do you know each other". It was always a little weird because it sounded like we were telling a love story, "we met when her parents came to visit my parents and we both didn't really know anyone...and then we just moved in together and now we're really happy we did."

We got to know the Cannon Center, campus, the dorms, and singles wards at BYU together. Most important, we got to know these girls:

In order from the left: Laura, me, Sariah, Elizabeth, and Krista. We hung out with these girls all the time. Elizabeth dated like crazy and we had fun teasing her about all of her love drama - also she loved Gilmore Girls and let us watch it with her which was great. Sariah and Krista were roommates and sponsored a lot of fun in our dorm rooms (including setting off the fire alarms a few times). I could probably write stories about adventures with these girls for a long time, but I'll save that for another day.

This is the moment that Laura and I probably laughed (and cried) the hardest of the whole time we lived at BYU: when Laura got her long blonde hair stuck on a boy's belt and he couldn't figure out what was going on so he kept swinging around trying to see what was pulling at his pants. As a result, Laura was swung around with him. She finally pulled free and bolted around the corner where it took about fifteen minutes to tell me the whole story (through sobs and giggles simultaneously). OR the time that I locked Erica out of our apartment when she was only wearing a towel - hilarious (to me).

Our freshman semester ended and we moved into Heritage Halls the next fall. Enter: Andrew Bean. They met and fell in love (for real) and then he left on his mission and the next year (in the infamous Liberty Square ward) I met Doug. Laura and I moved to DC for three months to do internships and then came back to Utah that fall. She put up with nightly hour-long phone calls to Doug for the ENTIRE time. When Doug and I got engaged I made a big scrapbook for Laura of all of our memories because she had been my family when our families were so far away - it seemed weird to NOT be living with her. Anyway, Laura is great and I hope she had a wonderful birthday. I'm sad we live so far apart but my current roommate is pretty great too so I can't really complain.

Here is a picture of me and Laura at the bridal shower she threw for me:

Hail to the Victors

2010-11-07T17:20:00.004-07:00

My dad and my younger sister, Kristen, came to visit this weekend. It was so fun to have them here. Kris loves any visits to the United States because she can eat at all of her favorite restaurants. We went to Panera on Friday night and then walked around Dowtown Ann Arbor. It was really cold but still fun. We watched Get Smart that night. My dad and I fell asleep after like thirty minutes but Doug and Kristen stayed up to finish the movie.

The next morning we went to the University of Michigan vs. Illinois football game. Michigan won 67 to 65. It was a record high-scoring game that went into triple overtime! It was a really fun game to watch and a fun crowd to be around.

Here are some pictures of all of us in our University of Michigan gear:

Check out the crowd - around 111,000 people! So huge and so fun.

Thanks dad and Kristen for making the drive down here and sleeping on our floor. We loved having you here!

Can't wait to visit more family for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Updates from Ann Arbor

2010-11-03T17:36:00.007-06:00

Here are some things that have been going on around our house lately:

We made some cookies for our neighbors/ward members. They were supposed to look like spiderwebs. Doug had a blast making them because I frosted them black and then he got to fling white frosting everywhere. It was a mess but I think they turned out pretty well.

Doug created a permanent seat. Our chairs have these pads on them and he kept walking around with it attached around his waist. Pretty funny guy I'm living with.

Thanks to Laura and Andrew Bean, Doug and I won second place at our ward Halloween contest. We were a double stuff Oreo. I texted Laura about an hour before the party for ideas and she had the perfect one. Thanks for keeping me from being Rory Gilmore for Halloween again, Laur, everyone thinks that one's pretty lame - plus I don't think Doug would make a very convincing Lorelai.

So it's winter in Ann Arbor. It's been pretty chilly the last few days. The frost-on-the-ground-when-I-walk-to-the-bus-in-the-mornings kind of cold. We have not yet turned the heater on so it gets chilly in our apartment too. Doug has resorted to warming his hands over this candle when he gets the shivers.

Measurement

2010-10-23T20:25:00.010-06:00

That last post was Bayes' Rule. It's just a stats thing we've been doing in class and it looks really hard when it's not broken down into pieces. I just wanted everyone to sympathize with what my brain has been doing lately, but really I know you're all capable of doing this stuff. Anyway, in stats we're all about finding accurate ways to measure things. Sometimes people try to trick us with statistics and we've been learning how to accurately interpret those pitches.

Needless to say it's been a bit stressful the past few weeks. Doug had three tests and an interview in Utah in the middle of those. I had to write a paper that was 40% of my grade - talk about pressure - and take two tests. I've found a very accurate way to measure the level of stress we are feeling in our little family.

This new measurement tool is: the amount of clothing NOT in Doug's closet.

Here is a picture of Doug's side of the bed from last week before the interview:

In our last apartment, Doug would hide these clothes under the bed so I was often unaware of the quantified level of stress in our home. I'm going to consider myself lucky that I can now measure the levels.

No posts

2010-10-12T14:41:00.004-06:00

I know there are probably a lot of readers out there disappointed in my blogging, or lack thereof, lately. Actually, I know most of you are completely fine. In case you're wondering, the lack of posts is due to this:

which Doug and I have both been doing far too much of lately. It should calm down in about two weeks. (Hopefully).

Ann Arbor

2010-09-19T19:03:00.015-06:00

So we've had a lot of people request additional pictures of our apartment and Ann Arbor. Sorry to say that the pictures we posted of our apartment are pretty much it - it's a small place but we really like it. We tried to take some pictures around Ann Arbor so people could get a feel for what it is like here.

Here are a few stories before the pictures. We take the bus to and from school and it has been an exposure to some interesting people but we're not complaining because it's free for UM students. We both have some Asian professors which creates some interesting interpretation games in class. I have learned that toms = terms and warrabo = variable and khantitive = quantitative and syro = thyroid. Doug and I have a fun time every class talking about the new words we discover in lecture.

We are both enjoying our classes and feeling more prepared to address some of the health concerns in our nation and internationally. I haven't taken any pictures of our school building, but trust me it's cool. We'll try to get some pictures of that up later.

So here are some pictures:

This is us after we got our housewarming gift from my dad - so exciting!

So we found a free "TV stand" on the street. Really it is an old dresser but we took it and put our TV on it and I made - like sewed - this cover. It has a flap at the front so we can get to our DVD player and DVDs and stuff. It took me like six hours or something because I just made it up and I made a lot of mistakes because I'm still learning to sew. I'm actually enjoying it though.

Ann Arbor is INSANE on game day. Like we thought BYU fans were intense but we were wrong. I suppose the presence of alcohol does make a difference. This was taken on game day at 8.30 AM - yes college kids actually wake up early to get drunk before games. There are parties like this going on the whole way to the stadium. Just one after the other. It's pretty entertaining to see.

This is my cute husband at Jimmy John's. We haven't actually eaten there yet but people talk about it ALL the time so we will eat there one day.

Here he is again at an alley in downtown Ann Arbor.

This is me in front of the Michigan Theater. It's like an old school theater that was renovated (but still looks vintage and cool). They play older films. One of our teachers got free tickets for the whole class so we went with our neighbors this weekend. We had a lot of fun and we saw a French film and that was cool.

When we were wandering around downtown we found this graffiti alleyway. This picture is of a gum wall - which I thought was totally disgusting. I only stood by it long enough to get the picture and then we booked it out of there.

So those are some pictures of Ann Arbor. After about two months here we are finally starting to feel really comfortable and settled in Michigan!

For Your Enjoyment

2010-09-18T10:32:00.003-06:00

I was going through some old pictures from my mission and ran across this amazing video. It's a video of a street performer in Venice playing Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from the Nutcracker- probably Tchaichovsyk's most popular song though, ironically, one of his least favorite. Anyways, the incredible thing about this performer is that he plays the song on crystal glasses with his fingers! Watch and admire.

Early Morning Classes

2010-09-09T11:46:00.003-06:00

Despite the fact that as a graduate student I feel that early morning classes are beneath me, I have given in and enrolled in classes that start at 8 or 8:30 four days a week. In all honesty though, I have probably felt "above" morning classes since high school simply because I loath waking up early. Anyways, I recently discovered a new reason to hate morning classes, and it goes like this:

"Hhhhhhhhhhhhiii, mhhhhhy naaaame is Gina." And that's how I got my first real whiff of coffee breath today, yuck. Don't really remember what she looks like, but that doesn't matter. I know I could find this classmate in a crowd of a million with my eyes closed.

We Went to Canada

2010-08-29T08:56:00.009-06:00

As new Michigan residents we live about 3.5 hours away from my family in Burlington, ON. Last Sunday after church we took off to visit them. The drive wasn't too bad (minus the hour we had to wait in line at the border - yuck). We were only there for like three days, but we had a very fun time. On Monday my mom let me have full reign of her sewing machine so that I could sew a few things for our house and also hem some pants. Doug helped my dad fix a banister in our house an the ping pong table that has been out of use for a few months. We also watched some movies, stayed up until midnight to try Emily's peach dessert, and heard some hilarious stories about my little sisters' experiences at theater camp at BYU this summer.

Doug started getting along with the dogs. In fact, they followed him everywhere and Max wouldn't let Doug put him down. Here is a picture of Doug and Molly bonding:

Kristen is getting ready to try out for her basketball team this fall, so Monday and Tuesday morning I went with her and my dad to the church gym to practice some skills. It's fun to see her work so hard - she is getting so good! We can't wait to go watch her play in some games.

On Tuesday morning we left for London, Ontario to go to the Shakespeare festival held at Stratford-upon-Avon. We saw the play Evita. The lead in the play was a bit aggressive for the role of the adored Argentine politician, but she wasn't terrible. There were a few too many screams in songs that should have been more beautiful, but it was all compensated for by the talent of Che, the narrator. His voice was really amazing and it made the whole play very entertaining. Here are some pictures in front of the theater:

That night we stayed in a hotel in London with my family while the girls got ready for Leadership - which is like the Canadian EFY. I should mention that they also spent the majority of the day on Tuesday packing their outfits. Kristen used one of the monster suitcases we used to move to Australia and she was still sitting on it to make sure it would close. Leadership was five days long. They did have to wear like three outfits each day for the different events, but still.

Here are some pictures of the girls getting ready for leadership with face masks. I think they look like those Mexican wrestling masks.

Brog

2010-08-21T09:18:00.018-06:00

A Brog is when you have a blog only to brag about how awesome you are. I (Doug) am now going to brog about how awesome my wife is and how she designed/decorated our awesome apartment. We recently moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan and have spent the last week unpacking boxes and getting settled.

We painted the nightstands which were actually white crates that we got on sale somewhere. And we made the headboard with a lot of duct tape, fabric from Joann Fabric, and some foam boards from a dollar store.

Our bathroom wall with some cool shelves from Ikea.

Dining area with a green wall hanging thing that Katie made. Also, I'd like to take a minute to brog about my small contribution: the green bowl. I put rocks and candles in it and used only a little duct tape.

If you're sick of pictures now, you're in luck. Joke time: Adam said to Eve, "I'll wear the plants in this family!"

Now more pictures.

Some cool wall hangings and a rock-glass thing by Katie. (I'm running out of ways to describe the different displays and wall hangings).

Our TV wall.

I saved the best for last.

This is our new couch that we got at an antique store. When we first saw the couch it didn't have a price tag yet because it was new. We figured it would go for four or five hundred so we almost left, but then the lady priced it at $150. We immediately took the tag and bought it. It's in super great condition and made of brown suede.

For those of you who aren't that interested in decorating apartments I've decided to include a bonus feature because you had to suffer through a lot of pictures. This is Katie playing the Wii Bird Flying game.

Europe

2010-08-18T10:23:00.027-06:00

I don't know what else to call this post - I just know that if we don't record all this stuff soon it's going to leave my head.

For the benefit of all traveling with us on the trip (and anyone interested in reading the highlights of what we did every day):

Day 1: Czech Republic, Prague, Old Town Square, Astronomical Clock, Tyn Church
Day 2: Czech Republic, Prague, Hradcanny castle/cathedral, tour of the city, The Dancing House
Day 3: Czech Republic, Terezin (the Germans are mean)
Day 4: Travel to Vienna, Austria, St. Stephen's Platz, break dancers in square
Day 5: Austria, Vienna, Climbed steps at St. Stephen's Cathedral, tour of city, Hofburg palace, treasury, Kuntzhistoriche art museum
Day 6: Schonbrunn palace (gardens) and church
Day 7: Travel to Salzburg, fortress that kept city safe until Napoleon, Mozart's home and history, staying with Helga
Day 8: Drove to Interlaken, Switzerland - stopped to visit Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau
Day 9: Hiked in the alps (Muren, three peaks: Yung Frau, Eiger, and Monch)
Day 10: Hiked in the alps, played badminton at Eurocamp
Day 11: Drive to Paris
Day 12: Meet Dave and Meg, Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triomphe, shopping (Meg got in trouble from some of the sales people)
Day 14: Versailles, Musee D'Orsay, Sacrament meeting in French
Day 15: Louvre, shopping and eating gyros, Saint Chappell, soccer game with French kids
Day 16: Drive to Germany (Koblenz), Berg Eltz Castle
Day 17: Castles along the Rhine, Rheinfelts exploration, Rhine river cruise
Day 18: Eschelbronn and Doudenselle, shopping in Heilbronn, Doug finished reading Hunger Games
Day 19: Rothenburg, drive to Frankfurt
Day 20: Return to USA

We had a great time. Doug's favorite was the Rhine river cruise and Rheinfelts because he liked seeing all the castles that had been preserved over time. I think my favorite city was Prague. It was so interesting to learn about the history in relation to World War II and when they were considered a free nation - 1989. There was an interesting combination of old and new architecture and structure throughout the city. I also enjoyed France because I was able to use some of the language I spent time learning in high school and college.

Other highlights include: Rob thinking he got pick-pocketed only to discover his supposedly stolen money in the middle of a lecture, Doug turning 24, Cam saying "got it" in response to his mother's requests for him to take a picture when most of the time he was sleeping, washing our laundry in hotel room sinks, eating German chocolate, our French pizza-eating date, Black light theater in Prague, and relying on Rick Steve's for every decision.

Here are some pictures from the trip. I'll try to put some good captions, but we are also in the middle of moving into our new apartment in MICHIGAN because that's where we live now.

Me and Doug in Prague before the rest of the Clark family arrived

The revolution statue in Prague - it is made of keys because people all stood in this square and jingled their keys while protesting for their freedom

Doug and me on the Charles Bridge in Prague

Doug writing "I love Katie" on the Lenin Wall - the Beatles were a big part of their freedom movement

The work camp in Terezin - the sign says "Work Makes Free"

Doug in front of his favorite painting at the Kuntzhistoriche

Cam when he fell asleep in the car and Doug put a piece of chocolate in his mouth

Me and Doug at the fortress in Salzburg

Doug and Cam being cool in Salzburg

Me and Doug at Neuschwanstein

Me standing and then Doug jumping on the highest point we climbed to in the Alps

Me inside and Doug outside of the Notre Dame Cathedral

The whole family (minus Rob who was the photographer)

Me at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles

Sarah actually got stuck in the stocks at Rheinfelts - she was originally posing for a picture but then she actually got stuck and it was funny so I had to include it even though I am tired of posting pictures

Doug and one of his favorite castles

I think we'll finish with this one - Doug drying his socks by hanging them on his ears and reading the Hunger Games intently. He did finish the book along with me, Cam, and Adrienne, during this trip.

Here and There

2010-08-06T10:21:00.003-06:00

We have been in and out of the country, and therefore in and out of blogging world, for the past few weeks. Well...we were just out of the country and are now back in it but soon to be relocating. Our trip to Europe deserves its own post which will come whenever we get the pictures loaded (really hard to say when that will be). We had a great time and are so lucky that we could go at this point in our lives.

So, updates. Doug and I were finally reunited in Nauvoo. It was so fun to see him perform every night and to see how much the people there loved, and were touched by, their music. While Vocal Point has been a major time commitment for the past twelve months, I will miss seeing Doug perform and he will miss being able to sing with such talented people.

After Nauvoo, we flew back to Utah on Sunday and after a week of submitting secondary medical school applications, researching health insurance options, finding an apartment, signing a contract, making sure Doug finished his Independent Study class, and figuring out some important Ann Arbor info (yes it was exhausting), we left for Europe with the Clarks. Again, the Europe trip gets its own post and unfortunately it is not this post.

We are now back in Salem for five more days before we take off for Ann Arbor. We are doing some more applications, making final moving preparations, and saying goodbye to friends and family that we will not see as frequently for a few years. Currently, we have taped off a 5X8 section of the Clark's basement to do a test run of packing our Uhaul trailer. We spent a good part of the day yesterday taking apart chairs and tables and figuring out the most efficient use of our space.

Next time we (I) update the blog, it will most likely be from Ann Arbor, Michigan! It's hard to believe we are going to pack up a car and trailer, drive for a few days and then unpack in our new home. We are excited but also apprehensive for a new school, ward, and climate.

Separated

2010-06-26T09:27:00.002-06:00

Doug is in Nauvoo and I am in Toronto. This is the longest we have been apart since we were engaged - really since I came back from DC when we started dating to be completely honest. I has only been five days but it is still hard on us. We are trying to make the most of our time right now, though. Here are some updates:

Doug is having a good time with Vocal Point in Nauvoo. His voice is tired, the climate is hot and humid, and he lives with nine boys but he loves singing and is having a great time. I know he will have a lot to write about once he gets back. I have snippets of stories here and there from our phone conversations, but really it would be best if you heard it from him.

I am enjoying my time with my family. Everyone is home (minus Doug obviously) and we are having a great time. I'll update with pictures and a few fun stories when I get home as well.

Just wanted to let you know that we are doing well and that blog posts will be sporadic for a while. That's just how summer goes in the blogging world I've decided.

He finally did it.

2010-06-05T13:47:00.011-06:00

Doug caught a fish today.

It was probably March when Doug started to talk openly about his new-found love for fishing. So I tried to appease him with this activity:

It was enough for the time being, but he wanted to catch a real fish. June 5, 2010 was Utah's free fishing day. You didn't need a license to fish today.

So, Doug planned a camping trip. The Beans, our newly married friends, came with us. It was so fun to have them there! We were happy that Sarah and Adrienne could make time to camp as well, because they're so much fun.

After a fun night around the campfire we went to sleep. Then, Doug and I woke up at about 5:00 this morning due to the chirping birds. I love nature, but sometimes I wish it would sleep in with me. Anyway, my first instinct was to build a fire because I was freezing so I set about collecting any dry wood I could find. Doug, on the other hand, was already excited about fishing when I rolled over in my sleeping bag. The first words out of his mouth this morning were, "I'm gonna catch me a fish today!".

He walked through the camp site turning over logs and rocks to find worms that we could use for bait.

It was only Doug's third cast into the lake when he came out with this:

It was a pretty exciting moment for all of us. He took the hook out and put the fish back because we weren't planning to eat it. He was the only one to catch a fish all day. I did have two close calls but didn't manage to get one out of the water.

It was a very fun trip. Thanks to everyone who came and helped get it together!

Yes, Adrienne, you made it into the picture. Yes, everyone, Doug does have a slight mustache.

Spring Break?

2010-05-27T17:18:00.002-06:00

Doug and I are moving to Michigan - in case you haven't heard yet. I was looking at our academic calendar today trying to figure out breaks, family visits, and so on. I saw a break scheduled in the Winter Semester from February 27 - March 8. I pointed it out to Doug and said, "It looks like they schedule this random mid-semester break."

Doug replied, "You mean Spring Break?"

We haven't had one for so long that I totally forgot Spring Breaks even existed. I'm not complaining, but it was still a pretty big surprise.

One Whole Year

2010-05-26T10:21:00.007-06:00

We have been married (over) one whole year! This picture is of us at the Festival of Colors in Salem. This was our first date, well, this picture is actually from when we went as an engaged couple one year after our first date. We don't feel like it has been a year when we sit down and think about it, but when we measure out all of the things we have done between May 22, 2009 and May 22, 2010 it becomes more believable.

We still love each other. We are excited to move to Michigan and go to school together. While the whole experience is intimidating on many levels, we are moving forward and we feel like we are a good team through all of this.

Here is a very recent story to illustrate:

Doug has a test this morning - he is taking it right now. I have been sick since yesterday morning. Nothing major - just a sore throat, cold, and stomach bug. Anyway while Doug is cramming for his test he finds the time to make sure I stop working on perfecting his medical school application essay and go to bed early. He reads with me, says prayers with me, and then goes back to study while I sleep. Then, my medicine wore off at about 5:00 this morning. Doug was up getting me some new medicine before I could even get the covers off. Although, I think some of his motivation for giving me the medicine may be the face I make when I take it (it's really gross). He woke up to study and convinced me not to go running, to stay in Provo for work today, and to sleep in a bit longer. He may be one of the few people able to convince me to do all of those things. Anyway, he is great and I love him.

I could probably say a lot more mushy, lovey things but I will spare you from reading all of those.

For the sake of recording and not forgetting, here is a list of things we have learned as a married couple:

1. We love to do crossword puzzles together
2. We prefer to redbox a movie over going the dollar theater most of the time and we would never even suggest going to a movie at the "real" theater
3. We like to debate public health issues and teach each other new things that we have learned
4. Soccer is not my sport - I'll play it informally with the Clark family, but in an organized intramural setting I have found that I really do not enjoy it (somehow Doug has managed to get over this fact)
5. We like trying new recipes even if they are not always delicious - I am still learning a lot in this area and hope to slowly improve
6. Doug makes very good chocolate chip cookies (he doesn't claim this as a unique skill in his medical school interviews like Matt did though)
7. We both married into wonderful families and we love spending time with them
8. We like to play tennis and basketball together when we have the time and good weather
9. We do not like 8:00 am classes
10. We love each other - this is probably obvious but I think it is definitely something we have learned as a married couple as we have faced challenges together this year

That's all.

(This is us on our honeymoon in Alaska, our new friend Dave is the guy in the background with the beard)

Something New to Try

2010-05-14T10:39:00.007-06:00

We made a tasty, healthy, filling meal this week. This is sometimes a rare combination because a meal can be healthy but not filling, or tasty but not healthy...you get the idea. Just thought we'd share it in case you wanted to give it a try. Dave and Meg might not be able to try it though because it has a lot of tomatoes and I hear Dave's not a big fan of those.

Mostly it's just a sauce recipe (this makes about four servings):

1/3 C olive oil
1 can (drained) diced tomatoes
1 chopped fresh tomato
Part of an onion chopped in (just a little for flavor)
1 lime (a smaller one)
Some salt and pepper
Some roasted red pepper flakes (depending on how spicy you want it to be)

Let the olive oil warm in the pan (on med-low) for about five minutes. Add the can of tomatoes, the fresh tomato, and the onion (we actually didn't even use onion the first time and it was still really good so you can skip this if you want). Let all of this simmer together for about five minutes. THEN you cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice over the sauce and leave the rest of the lime in the pan with the tomatoes to get any remaining juice out. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes - let it all sit together for another five or ten minutes and then it's ready to go.

It's tangy from the lime and spicy from the pepper flakes and we thought it was pretty good. We put it on whole grain pasta and it was still good. I don't mind whole grains, but Doug says that whole wheat bread/pasta tastes like dirt. Luckily he didn't notice the taste of the pasta much due to the sauce. I'll have to find more tricks like this...

You can probably tell I'm not super savvy when it comes to cooking. I have had my fair share of cooking blunders in our first year of marriage, but I'm learning. We've actually eaten this twice this week because Doug (and I) liked it so much, so I wanted to document its success.

Also I wanted to update our blog so you could see our new picture at the top. It was in second place for engagement photos. On a side note: a week from tomorrow is our one year anniversary. Crazy, seriously, this year has FLOWN by. Between applications to medical and graduate school, staying afloat in our CURRENT school, working, training, and finding some play time here and there we can hardly believe it's been that long. You can look forward to a lovey, mushy post next week some time.

Doug Funny

2010-04-29T11:48:00.012-06:00

So Doug tells me that growing up he didn't love the cartoon character Doug Funny because everyone always associated it with him. However, this morning I am certain that he would have been funny enough to star in a cartoon series. Imagine this: Doug is wearing khakis and a polo shirt, running shoes, and his "cowboy coat" (a puffy plaid jacket). He is going to ride his bike to school since I'm working all day, so he puts on his bike helmet (safety first) with the cowboy coat hood over the helmet. Very attractive. As he is leaving to go out the door he exclaims "I almost forgot!" and starts to rummage through his backpack. Soon he has his MP3 player in his pocket, ear phones in his ears, with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring playing. Awesome.

On a separate note: we graduated last week! Well, technically we both graduate in August but since we won't even be in Utah at that time we decided to walk last week. We are still waiting for pictures from our parents and other family members, but a friend of ours caught this as we were walking out:

It was a great experience to walk together at graduation. The biggest plus was that we got to sit together during the name reading time which can get a bit boring (as I'm sure most of you have already learned). We completed three crossword puzzles while we were waiting for our turn to walk. Mostly we loved being able to spend some time with our family members and not have a million demands on our time.

A Funny Conversation

2010-04-06T13:43:00.002-06:00

Cam, Doug's brother, recently returned from a mission in Mexico. It has been kind of fun to be around him as he re-learns English. When you mix that with my newly discovered love for the Harry Potter series, this is what you get:

Cam: what do you call those moving staircases?

Katie: like the ones in Harry Potter?

Cam: no, like the ones you ride at the mall

Katie: oh...escalators

Update

2010-03-29T20:45:00.005-06:00

Some of you know that I work as a research assistant for a professor at BYU. We are researching cancer survivorship, and currently we are specifically focusing on how women with breast cancer express their fears, thoughts, concerns, joys, etc on blogs. When I need to make "blog" sound fancy I call it an "online journaling community" and I think that works. Anyway, this post will mostly be what we would classify as an "updating" post - no major emotions - just filling everyone in on the latest news.

The latest in the Katie and Doug Clark family is that Doug was accepted to the Hospital and Molecular Epidemiology Master of Public Health Program at the University of Michigan! This is actually kind of a big deal. I was accepted to the Health Behavior and Health Education Program a few months ago, but we just heard about Doug a few days ago. This is not because I was a better applicant, but just that Doug's application went in a few months later than mine. It's actually kind of a miracle because Doug applied once the deadline had passed, but we saw that they were still accepting some applications for the School of Public Health so we submitted his.

Sorry to any of you that were holding out for Albany (which we discovered is pronounced "all-bany" according to the locals), but we're pretty set on Michigan. Doug's program is perfect - or seems like it. He will be doing a lot of laboratory research, taking classes that medical students take (like virology - yikes), and working closely with medical students and professors. Sounds pretty great. Here are some other benefits: I love the program there, the Clarks in Cleveland are only three hours away, and the Homers are only 4.5 hours away. The cost of living is equivalent to Provo since we will be living in the college town Ann Arbor AND I'm excited that fall will probably last longer than the one week stint we get here in Provo. Of course there are cons to this decision - moving away from Salem Clarks and not being as close to the Maryland Clarks, but weighing everything this seems like the best choice. Also, we figure all the Eastern Clarks can meet up in Cleveland pretty frequently.

We can't say that anything is final, but we're feeling really great about this option (I guess there are some emotions in this post). We'll keep you updated. Don't worry we need to make our official decision soon in order to keep our spots, so we'll have finalized plans shortly. Yay!

On a separate note: my cousin is having her first baby in less than two weeks! I am so excited for her and to meet baby Jack.

As most of you already know...

2010-03-19T10:33:00.008-06:00

Doug and I have both been accepted to a MPH program at the University of Albany in New York! We emailed the school last week to ask them when specifically we would know about Doug's application. My applications went in a month before his so I had already heard from a few schools and they wanted my decision ASAP. Albany told us that we would know on Wednesday, March 17 (kind of a little Match Day of our own). We waited all day and finally sent an email right before the office closed. Both of us VERY impatient, we checked Doug's email constantly. I was working in Salt Lake and Doug was on his way to class in Provo. Finally, literally eight minutes before their office closed we got this email:

"Congratulations! Douglas, you have been admitted to the MPH EPI program for Fall 2010."

That was it. Seriously. Just FYI you're in and we'll send you more information soon. By the way, EPI means epidemiology. Doug's program is more statistics-based and mine is the Social Behavior and Community Health Program.

We are still waiting to hear back from the MPH programs in Cleveland and Michigan before we make our final decision, but we are so happy to have this as an option.

Here are the pros of Albany:

- Cost of living is equivalent to the cost of living in Provo

- It is 6.5 hours from Toronto (Homer Family), 6.5 hours from Maryland (Dave, Meg, and McKelle), and 7.5 hours from Cleveland (Matt, Mary, Luke, and child #2)

- The MPH program works closely with the school of medicine - an in for Doug when he applies next round

- It will be an adventure - I haven't moved in 4.5 years and based on my track record I'm long overdue for that

Cons of moving to Albany:

- Obviously, we have to move across the country which will require a lot of work

- We will be moving away from the Clark family (Anne, Rob, Cam, Sarah, and Adrienne), members of the Homer family (Lindsey and Steven), the Allen family (I don't think I need to write their names here because they are the only ones with that last name in this group), and all of our friends here in Utah

- It's a little bit daunting to set off on a new adventure sometimes

All things considered, we are relieved and happy to have this option. We are excited about the prospect of moving, experiencing a new place, and learning more about public health.

We'll probably have to learn how to pronounce the name of the city before we move there. We keep switching between "All-bany" and "Al-bany". Any definitive answers on the correct pronunciation?

Reenactment of Doug hearing the good news.

Dramatization of actual event.

Bangarang Bangs

2010-03-13T15:40:00.005-07:00

Katie got her bangs cut somewhere by some amazing hair stylist the other day. Ever since then all she can talk about is how awesome her bangs are and how great they look. We went to a church activity today and I'm pretty sure that she managed to tell every girl there about her new bangs. They do look great and I'm sure that her hair stylist is very good, but at the same time I feel like she is giving her hair stylist more attention than she's giving me. Take a look at some pictures she had me take.
(Doesn't she look cute with her new bangs?)

Oh, by the way, I cut her bangs.

Not Much

2010-02-27T08:26:00.009-07:00

Not much new going on here. We're still playing the waiting game as far as medical and graduate schools are concerned. We'll let you know when we know what we are doing.

In other news, Doug's big Vocal Point concert is coming up on March 5 - 6 at the Covey Center, yay! These concerts are probably one of my favorite things - ever. It will also be so great to have members of the Clark family here that were not able to make it last time. They will definitely be the Vocal Point fans that traveled the farthest to attend the concert, and we are so excited that they can come. If you need information about the concert you can go to the Covey Center's website. These is one concert the night of the 5th and then two on the 6th. Tickets are going fast so if you are interested in coming, I'd act early.

I just realized that I never posted pictures of my birthday decorations. I may be trying to squeeze too many things into this post, but I feel okay about that. Here they are:

These are the flowers Doug got for me.

I LOVE them and I kept them alive for a

long time - which is an accomplishment for me.

This is our living room with the streamers and balloons. I left them up for quite a while. When we had a plumbing issue a few days later, the plumber came and he was a bit surprised when he entered our apartment. (I think most members of the Clark family will recognize these couches).

Pictures as Promised

2010-02-07T10:31:00.018-07:00

Christmas in February?

I got my camera back yesterday, so here are all of our Christmas pictures.

We made these pretzel, chocolate, carmel, nut treats for ward friends, school friends, and family members for Christmas. This is Doug in action. I was still studying for my last final in my Environmental Health class, so he took over in our mass production effort.

We went to Temple Squre with my brother Steven. Now that I am officially a Utah resident, it doesn't quite feel like Christmas without seeing the lights here. Also - the fact that we both have blue eyes makes red eye occurrences in pictures very frequent and difficult to correct so I apologize for that in advance.

By far one of my favorite pictures of all time. We all get pajamas on Christmas Eve - and this was the boy set. Doug is still wearing the Mr. Grinch set to bed these days so he's a pretty big fan of this tradition.
And...this was the choice (by my mother) for our pajamas. Some of my female family members may be upset with me for posting this on the internet, but it's just too funny. Lindsey wasn't with us yet at this point -but she got the green ones. I just don't have any photo documentation of her in them.

Our first Christmas Eve together - so fun.

This is a definite highlight from our trip home. "The Family" got the game Zelda as a Christmas gift. Really this was a present for Erin and Emily - and Doug it turns out. This picture captures a brief glimpse into the intensity of this game. At this point they were trying to jump from tree stump to another and then onto a hill without falling. I think in total it took them about two and a half days to get over that part - and then it turned out to be a dead end. Wow.

We went to the Royal Ontario Museum (the ROM) as a family. They had an entire exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls - very interesting.

Our family chose to eat hot dogs before this culturally enriching experience at the museum. The mystery boy in this picture is Lindsey's boyfriend, Jared, who came home for a few days. The boys have been outnumbered in the Homer family for so long that my dad is always happy when a new one enters the family scene.

Steven, Doug and I celebrated New Year's Eve together - by eating this pizza...

...and these jelly beans. We also played Monopoly. Steven totally creamed us both.

Doug and Steve bowling on the Wii. Doug and I also played a lot of sports games. My arm was sore for a few days after the tennis game. Erin tells me this is because I wasn't doing it right - which is probably true.

This is our bathroom sign. We took this picture for a few reasons. First, Kristen decorated Doug's stocking and wrote his name backwards - resulting in YGUOD. Second, because these chalk dots are awesome - you can peel them off and on the wall super easily. Third, because Matt and Mary's son, Luke, calls me ChiChi - or some version of that. Doug picked up on the nickname and continues to use it.

I had to squeeze a picture of the dogs in here. We have two dogs - Max and Molly. They are adorable and the center of the majority of our family's attention. We think a third will be coming soon since Steven left for college. Lindsey and I are pretty sure that my mom is replacing her children with dogs. Also this picture is great because my mom is probably in heaven - watching a movie with her family, holding the dogs, and eating peanut M&Ms.

Happiest Birthday

2010-02-04T09:13:00.004-07:00

Yes, I am now 22 years old. Yesterday I woke up, was allowed to open one present and then headed to work for eight hours. I was under the impression that my husband was busy working away at school all day. That was mostly true - except when he came back to our apartment to create a few birthday surprises.

When we came home that night, I only had a few minutes before leaving to help set up for a Relief Society activity, and when I opened the door I saw our apartment filled with streamers, balloons, and flowers. I was very surprised. The table was set for dinner and I soon discovered that attached to every balloon was a present for me. Doug cooked dinner while I set up for the activity at the church then we came home and ate together. (He's a pretty great guy - in case you hadn't picked up on that yet.) THEN we watched two of my birthday presents. The first was the Vocal Point video of their Covey Center concert from this past semester. This is a pretty big deal, because I have been surfing youtube every day for the past three months trying to find Doug's solo. Many of the others had been posted, but not Doug's. Now we have it on video and can keep it forever - which is pretty awesome. We watched A League of Their Own after the concert highlights. This is a family favorite that Doug had never seen. Unfortunately, he and my mom had the same idea so now we have two copies - which one of you may get for your next birthday/gift-giving occasion.

The birthday celebration totally made up for a lame day of work/school on my birthday. After the movie we joined our upstairs neighbors for a few minutes because there was a birthday celebration for one of them last night as well. We watched some magic tricks and then hinted that we were going to bed (AKA please be quiet so we can sleep).

Doug is going to Illinois with Vocal Point this weekend so I am leaving the streamers and balloons up. The streamers are hung sort of low so getting around our apartment now is much like that scene from Entrapment where Catherine Zeta Jones has to move through all of the red yarn when she is practicing for the lasers she will later encounter. Also - my camera really is in my birthday package but that package hasn't arrived yet - just one more reason to leave all of the streamers and balloons up for a little longer.

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes via phone call, voice mail, text message, email, e-card, or any other form that I may be forgetting!

Just a Great Day

2010-01-31T09:04:00.009-07:00

Still no camera back from Canada, but I am assured it is in the

birthday package that my family sent me.

Lately, Doug and I have had some stressful times with me working 40 hours a week plus two night classes and Doug working part-time, taking a lot of credits, and being in Vocal Point. There is not a lot of time during the week to take a deep breath and get a handle on things. Despite all of these pressures, we decided to have a fun day yesterday - and we did. This did require us to stay up until midnight on Friday night doing homework, but it was totally worth it.

First we slept in (a must on these types of days). Then after exercising, we went to the temple AND ate lunch in the cafeteria there - something I had never done before. After the temple we decided to go to the Clark family home in Salem to give Doug a much-needed haircut. I swear he must have lost a couple inches of hair. This was also my first experience using the Flowbee (yikes!). I was a little scared at first, but I figured it out eventually. After the haircut we decided we wanted to build a snowman, but the snow was too hard to work with. So instead we played badminton in the snow for about two hours. The real name of the game is probably just "see how many times we can hit it without letting it touch the snow". I think the highest number we reached was about 22. This version of badminton involves a great deal of diving and trying to "think light" on the hard snow so you don't fall through.

After that recreational activity and eating a quick dinner with the Clarks, we hurried back to Provo for the BYU vs. U of U basketball game. We were only 30 minutes early so we had to sit in the top rows of the benches, but we weren't complaining. The rivalry is always intense, but BYU came out with the win! Now, typically after a day like this we would probably head home and see if a movie was playing on TV (and I would fall asleep in about five minutes). But instead, we sprinted from the Marriott Center to our car to beat the rush to Magleby's for a free piece of cake (with our all-sport passes). We got the cake and then decided to go to a dollar movie. We saw Planet 51 - a couple good laughs, but not a favorite movie by any stretch.

During the movie we realized we were exhausted, but we made it through and fell asleep quickly once we came home. It was just a great day so we wanted to document it.

2010

2010-01-04T08:36:00.003-07:00

Yesterday Doug and I returned from Canada after a relaxing break from school. We are happy to be back and hope to get into a regular routine shortly. Unfortunately, this is going to be a picture-less post because I left my camera in Canada. While we wait for it to arrive in the mail, I will just update you on the activities we did so you can look forward to seeing the pictures. Doug had his first Homer family Christmas, meaning he received some festive PJs, we went to the Royal Ontario Museum (after riding the GO train), we also discovered that Doug can handle our hypo-allergenic dogs, played plenty of card games, attended the Burlington ward, and went caroling. We had a lot of time to relax which was nice after our incredibly stressful semester.

This semester will be different for me because I am only taking six academic credits. The rest of my credits are attributed to an internship with the Utah Department of Health. I will be doing that internship, working at my student job and taking classes so I will be plenty busy but I am looking forward to the change of pace. Doug is also looking at a hectic semester as a full-time student, part-time employee and a member of Vocal Point. We are both winding down in our undergraduate years and looking forward to medical and graduate school.

Sorry again for the lack of pictures. They will be up as soon as possible.

Medical School Interview

2009-12-08T15:04:00.003-07:00

I (Doug) had my first medical school interview yesterday and I think it went well. The day started off on the wrong foot when it took me over two hours to drive from Provo to Salt Lake (usually 40 minutes). Despite the anxiety from the weather and traffic delay, I feel like I represented myself well during the two interviews. Now the waiting game begins! I hope to hear from the University of Utah around March or April of next year. If any other medical school admissions offices are following this blog, consider this your official invitation to offer me an interview.

Concert and Other Updates

2009-12-03T22:40:00.009-07:00

So our last post was announcing Vocal Point's Christmas concert. The concert was Doug's first solo since he has been in the group and of course he did a great job! Thanks to everyone who came to support him. I was the photographer, but my excitement prevented me from taking very good or frequent pictures. The photo above is only one of two I managed to take. Doug is the one wearing the Santa hat.

In other news, we recently returned from Arizona where we enjoyed Thanksgiving with the Clark family. The warm weather allowed us to play outside, go hiking, and walk around in jeans and Tshirts for the majority of the weekend.

Doug and I also played with nephews Luke and McKay, meaning that we made a lot of faces like this:

We had a great time and enjoyed being able to relax and take a short break from school, work, and other stressors. Only 15 days until finals are over and then we head to Canada for Christmas!

Doug and me in front of Lake Ontario last Thanksgiving

* In case you're wondering, blog posting is largely dictated by home/work load but I am hoping to get better and be more consistent with time.

2009-11-12T11:47:00.004-07:00

Vocal Point's big Fall Concert is next weekend! I'm really excited for it because it is going to rock. All you Utahans should come watch. Be prepared to be dazzled.
November 20 and 21 starting at 7:30 in the Covey Center. Go to coveycenter.org for tickets.

Vocal Point is Brigham Young University's premiere contemporary a cappella ensemble.

Under the direction of James Stevens, Vocal Point's nine-man vocal firepower propels harmonies far beyond traditional four-part possibilities. With inventive arrangements, humor, and remarkable vocal percussion, Vocal Point continually invigorates audiences and generates fans.

XANGO

2009-10-25T09:43:00.000-06:00

Doug sang with Vocal Point at Xango's national convention in Salt Lake. They sang "Black Balloon" by Goo Goo Dolls and had to dress and act like rockers. He did a great job and they sounded awesome! Following the song, he signed autographs on CDs that our newest fans purchased. Katie spent the day wondering why so many people were obsessed with this dietary supplement and if there was any nutritional value in the drink. She was also an amazing photographer and retail saleswoman.

Doug's best rocker face of the performance

Rocking in the fog

Why would anyone want my autograph? I'm not famous. We are on iTunes though.

The highlight of the day (besides this performance) was most likely this experience: while setting up the Vocal Point CD sales area, the group members looked pretty official because they were wearing all black and had Xango badges around their necks. An elderly (and somewhat frantic) lady approached the group explaining that her sister had fallen and most likely fractured her shoulder, THEN she asked for a cup of Xango juice to alleviate her sister's pain. First, we wondered if she was joking, then we were all a bit stunned when we realized she was definitely not, and then we directed her to the Xango juice samples. WOW. Katie is doing further research to understand the 82% efficacy of the product, which was promoted throughout the conference. Efficacious in what way? They never specified that part.

An Update in Pictures

2009-10-11T09:04:00.000-06:00

I think this is the best (and fastest) way to highlight

important Clark events from the summer and fall.

We got married. . .that is probably the most important.

We went to Alaska on our honeymoon.

We both studied for major tests (MCAT and GRE)

and as you can tell from this picture. . .

sometimes we had to be creative with our methods of study.

We went to Minnesota for our wedding reception #2 (but the highlight of the trip was definitely the tour of General Mills) AND Katie donated about 9 inches of her hair.

Katie went to her first rodeo in Spanish Fork.

Doug's hair almost got long enough to donate. . .okay, not quite, but it was very long.
Also we hiked to Stewart Falls to distract Katie from the GRE.

We went to Bear Lake with some friends right before school started.

Katie ran a half-marathon with her dad.

Doug made Vocal Point - an a cappella group at BYU!

The Official Welcome

2009-10-11T08:57:00.000-06:00

As far as bloggers go, Doug and I are not experienced. We were just messing around this summer, trying to figure things out, as you can tell from our earlier posts. Now we have decided to start posting regularly (whatever that means). So...welcome to our blog (officially)!