Warning: This Post Contains...

...Pictures of horses. Kim--proceed with caution.

As usual, no one has posted on this blog for about 10 years. We could make up all kinds of ridiculous and lame excuses, like "I've been really busy studying for my board exams," or "I had to work a lot of emergency shifts in the hospital," and "I've been in Omaha for 3 weeks," but we all know that eventually you run out of excuses and just have to write a post when you're finally on vacation.

So, in the past 8 months I have been busy studying for my board exams (which I passed, in case you haven't heard), working a lot of emergency shifts in the hospital and recently I have returned from 3 weeks in Omaha (which is fired, by the way--everything we tried to do there was super lame). I spent a little time in December and January visiting some friends from high school and my family in Minnesota. I have been through rotations including Anesthesia, Necropsy, Pet Health, Orthopedic surgery, Advanced Feedlot medicine, Lab Animal medicine, Equine surgery and medicine, Small Animal Internal medicine, and 3 weeks of externships in Omaha. Now the only thing I have left is Food Animal...and finding a job.

In any event, here are a few of the pictures I have from the past few months.

This was a really big horse called "Mike," whom I cleverly referred to as "Big Mike."

One day he decided he was tired of being in the stall and tried to run at the gate like he was going to jump it. Fortunately he couldn't get up enough speed to make it over. He settled for kicking the gate instead. I think the horrendously loud noise that made hurt his ears, because after 2 kicks he stopped.

On Feedlot Medicine we spent a lot of time in a school van driving across Kansas. I would have posted a picture of that, but you would probably fall asleep just looking at it. I managed to avoid any serious problems with car sickness (with a little help from my friend Dramamine).

Kansas is the #2 beef cattle producing state...after Texas, which wouldn't be #1 if it weren't so big.

Laura and I had a lot of fun riding in the front of the van, mostly sleeping so we wouldn't get sick. We never did stop for our "Wind Farm Souvenirs." I'm sad.

This is a feed mill at one of the feedlots we visited. You don't even want to know how much grain they process there every day. It takes a lot to feed 10,000 head of cattle.

We have been through a busy year with a lot of challenges. I know I am really looking forward to graduation (May 15th!) and a nice trip to Kodiak, Alaska. Wish me luck in my last 6 weeks of school and give me a shout if you know of a veterinarian who's hiring!

Wish They All Could Be California...

This is the view from the balcony of our condo on Mission Bay. Thanks for the digs Grandma!

So, Bobby and I got a chance to visit San Diego for my cousin's wedding. The wedding was great and we decided make it a regular vacation by taking in a few sights while we were there. We took too many pictures to post, but here are the main highlights!

We had a real blast cruising around in our pimpin' rental ride. It was only slightly embarrassing.

Our first stop was the San Diego Zoo (well, our first stop was actually Taco Bell, but I didn't take any pictures of that). We got up early to see the Pandas...apparently there can be long lines. It was interesting to compare the SD Zoo to the one in Kansas City. KC has about half the animals on a gazillion times the land--it's a long walk. We still got tired walking around (Bobby fell asleep on the bus tour).

Hippos were my favorite!

After the zoo ("if the zoo wants you...") we went to SeaWorld. If any of you know the story of the last time I was at SeaWorld you'll be happy to know there wasn't a repeat of the Infamous Cheesecake Incident.

The Manatee resue was closed, but we kept trying...We didn't see any real manatees, but we saw a lot of other shows.

Sadly none of the Shamu pictures turned out well. But it was kind of a hokey show anyway.

This was my favorite show Cirque de la Mer. It was pretty cool with the crazy circus acrobatics and the goofy alien mime people. I laughed a lot.

Then the wedding festivities kicked off with the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at the Padres ball park. We were only slightly delayed by a trip to the hospital. I only missed the first 3 innings.

The wedding was in the Japanese Friendship garden in Balboa Park. It was a very nice ceremony, but it was pretty hot that day!

As part of a Puerto Rican tradition Rocket was the "coin bearer" instead of the ring bearer. The coins represent qualities of a good marriage like harmony, joy, etc. My favorite quote of the trip was "Give us the money, Rocket". After the ceremony Rocket was looking for his money.

The day-after-the-wedding brunch on the beach was followed by a trip to the boats in the harbor. They have a couple of boats (or ships?) that you can tour. Bobby was very excited to see the boat from Dirty Jobs where Mike cleans out the boiler. Sadly, that boat made me seasick.

Here we are on the deck of the boat that was filmed in the movie Master and Commander. I heard one of the bicycle taxi men say it was only a replica.

I had to take a picture of this pirate man. I'm still not sure what he was doing.
We also toured the Midway, an aircraft carrier that is now a museum. It reminded me of the TV show JAG. It was very big, and not much better for me since I was still seasick.

They have an audiotour that you take through the ship. You listen to a man tell you all about the different parts of the ship as you walk through. Of course you have to carry around the little radio thing and wear those fancy headphones the whole time, too.

San Diego gets 2 thumbs up from me! If you ever get a chance, you should definitely visit. We didn't see everything, but we saw a lot! And it's a good thing, too, since I think this vacation will have to tide me over until after graduation! It is almost back to the grindstone for me! Wish me luck on Anesthesia!

So what if it's been 92 years...

As always, we wait forever to post anything. I personally haven't posted anything in about 92 years, but whatever. We've had a few things happen since the last post.

Lindsey hit a milestone in Vet School. She passed her third year and at the end of the third year they have the "Whitecoat Ceremony" which is like a graduation from bookwork to clinical work. Some old guy gives a speech and all of the students walk across a stage and receive their white coat (instead of a diploma).

Since then she has started her rotations. Each rotation is three weeks long, typically. The first one she had was radiology. Here is a picture of her with her radiology textbook.
She has since moved on to her next rotation, soft tissue surgery. Now, from that name, I deduced that there must be a hard tissue surgery, but I was obviously wrong. Anyway, today she gets to do a surgery - I think it is on a dog - to remove an abscess from its prostate. In fact, I believe she just started the surgery. I know she is looking forward to her next rotation, which is one of three vacation rotations, and we are going to San Diego for her cousin's wedding (and staying a few extra days for fun).

Out in the Little Apple, we've seen a lot of rain recently and even some hail. Our neighborhood doesn't have storm drains, though we have some pumps that move the water to get it out, it isn't anything but ideal. Here is a picture from earlier this week of our driveway:
Part of it would be to about my knees, so probably not a good idea to drive in it if you have my car. These next few pictures are from last night. We got a lot of rain then as well. Sorry the pictures are hard to see because it was dark. The first one is the back yard and most of the water is in our neighbor's yard (lucky for us, not for them).


This is from the morning after (this morning) and the water has receded a lot because the pump has been working all night. We happen to have a pump at the corner of our lot. You'd think that was a good thing, but all it means is that a lot of water flows to it, thus to our yard. I'll have to make sure these pictures disappear when we sell the house one day.

We'll try to let you know what Lindsey is doing on her rotations, but let's be honest, we'll probably fall of that track in a matter of minutes after this post. What's more likely is that we'll have one from our trip to San Diego, but you won't see it for three months. Talk to you then.

Where have we been?

Where has the time gone? It has been such a long time since we posted, so I thought I would just try "the last five months in pictures." I'll give you a few comments to get you up to speed on our lives since our last post.

October- Bobby buys a robot. There are just too many comments we could make. I will resist.

December - Ice Storm. During finals week. Here I am studying with my mouse-killer head lamp and all the candles in the house.

This tree normally stands up straight. We recovered power in our house after about 4 days.Christmas vacation - Ann flew down from Alaska, so we got to spend a few days with her at our house and at the farm.A Christmas vacation is never complete without snow sledding fun. Bobby and I rode down on the same tube a couple times and managed to avoid any serious injury.

Here we are at my aunt and uncle's house, opening lots of presents!


January - I was happy to chop off about 10 inches of my hair to donate to Locks of Love. It had been almost 7 years since I cut off so much hair at once.

February - My dad and I tied for the Biggest Losers of the Big Loser Football Pool with my family. My aunt wrote a funny poem about Bobby's BLFP season (something about "when his wife wins he'll be crabby").March - Carolyn and I celebrated Easter with some old-time egg-dipping fun!
There is, of course, a bit of a twist. Not just any egg kit will do for me!

I tried to think of all sorts of clever names for our Star Wars egg characters, but "Yolkda" and "Egg-2 D2" were the best of my sad attempt. Sorry to pain you.

The epic battle of good versus evil wages on... I'll leave you with a few pictures of our chubby kitty. Hopefully it won't take so long to post the next set of adventures. Take care!

Not For Sissies!

Bobby and I had a great time on our canoe trip to northern Minnesota this summer. We spent about a week camping in the woods with my parents, my brother and our friend Cherry. This was no trip for the faint of heart (or short of breath). We spent a whole day paddling across Sawbill Lake (that's a big one) and then portaging and paddling on to Cherokee Lake (not as big). It was a lot of work and it was HOT! I know you're thinking, "Minnesota? How hot can it get?" But let me tell you, it was hot. Here we are at my parent's house packing all our gear. Bobby would tell you this consisted mostly of food.
Here I am double-packing in the livingroom, which I never even tried on the trip.
Some of those packs are really heavy. We took 3 canoes and six packs. Here we are unlaoding so we can put in at the launch on Sawbill Lake.
Here are Stuart and Cherry paddling over a beaver dam. This one wasn't as bad as the one when we had to get out in the mud and carry the canoe over.

This is on our way out to Cherokee Lake. We decided to canoe through Cherokee Creek instead of carry all our gear on the super long portage.
Bobby and I got along really well when we shared a canoe. He really liked all of my helpful advice.
Here I am in the front of our canoe. I don't like to be in the back of the canoe. Never do that when my dad is in the front. He likes to race.

I went in on my own; Cherry got thrown in the lake by my dad.
Cherry and I are experts at pitching our tent. This is the Taj Mahal of tents. We got the privelege of storing Bobby and Stuart's gear since our tent was way bigger than theirs.
We did regular camping-types of activities like cutting firewood...
...and baking muffins (muffin...muffin what?).
And more muffins. And also biscuits.
And yet more muffins. My dad likes to bake muffins on his Coleman stove. We were really sick of muffins by the end of the trip.

Bobby and Stuart went fishing in the cove where are our campsite was. We don't think there were any fish in there.
We were so happy when it rained and cooled down. Too bad we were out on the lake and had to "race" back (that was the day I was in the back of the canoe with my dad. We won). We did all make it back to camp before the downpour.
Butterscotch pudding is the best. I think I hate all the other kinds of pudding.
Hey, we were on vacation. You have to relax sometimes.
I think we have enough memories to last until the next time we attempt a canoe trip with my crazy family!

Adventures in Homeownership

I know what you're thinking, "Two posts in one week!?!!" You thought you knew us...

I'm taking a little break from studying to share with you all a little of the excitement in the life of a new homeowner. Yesterday morning as we were leaving for work/school, Bobby mumbled something and then started tearing stuff off the pantry shelves in an attempt to get at the water heater. This all was happening before breakfast, but I finally understood that he had seen some water near the front door and suspected the water heater was leaking. Long story short, we got a check from the insurance company today and Bobby is this very minute ripping up damaged flooring and cutting out water-logged dry wall. Even though we haven't known our flooring long, we had grown very fond of it and it is still sad to see it go. Not sure how much will need to be replaced. On the plus side, Bobby bought a new water heater, pulled out the old one, and installed the new one in about 2 hours. That's making good time, honey! Here are a few photos of our sad house.


There it is. The new water heater. Hopefully it will treat us better than the old one did.




Not everything is destroyed. Here are a few new photos of the kitchen (no boxes). Isn't it beautiful?

Among Bobby's more obvious talents are hidden skills: nunchuck fighting skills, computer-hacking skills, not to mention under-cabinet lighting installation skills. That's what those white cords are for. Another project testing his project juggling skills. Would you believe our list was getting shorter?
This is my favorite sink. It doesn't scratch, you don't need special cleaners, and it is white!

Our table isn't usually laden with pantry items or positioned at this awkward (what a strange word) angle, but that's what happens when that happens (Bobby, that was for you).

For my next amazing feat, I will post photos of the canoe trip we took in July! Hope you don't find water on/under your floor in the morning!

New House: Day 4+

We are the worst bloggers ever. A lot has happened since our last post, including me forgetting my log-in info. I figured it out today. Here are a bunch of photos from continuing projects on our house. We have done a lot of work, but a few projects are lingering on...

This is in the middle of painting the kitchen cabinets. They were previously a hideous color of beige that blended into the wall color. I think we decided the wall color was some sort of greenish camel. Mostly it looked like vomit.
Bobby really likes the way I spread all my junk out everywhere. He's trying to go into the "basement"--really its the pantry. Though, I'm sure if we had a basement that's how you would get to it. We had to rearrange some of the bottom cabinets to fit in the dishwasher. I think Bobby is pulling out a dead mouse from under this one. In the end, this corner cabinet opens into the living room on the opposite side of the half-wall. The hole for it hadn't been cut yet.
Here's my mom and Cherry painting baseboards. There were a lot of them. In the kitchen you can see the finished cabinets and doors. The picture doesn't show it very well, but the effect of the white cabinets on the horrible wall color was really ugly. My mom made me paint the living room.

So, here's mom on the ladder (wobbly) trying to prime the wall. At this point we might have liked to try harder to get along with the pukey wall color.

Here you can see the handiwork of the geniuses at Home Depot (not my favorite store). They mixed 4 out of 6 cans of paint wrong and we didn't figure it out until around 11pm, when we were starting the second coat. The color on the top half of the wall is correct, the wrong color was almost as ugly as what was already on the wall.

Hooray for Lyle's scaffolding. We didn't have to climb the death ladder anymore!

Here's Kim tiling the laundry room. It was mostly done by the previous owners. They left the extra tiles for us to finish the work ourselves. They did some weird stuff.

These photos are from moving day. You can see the beautiful countertops my dad and Bobby stayed up until 4am installing. They were a little tired.

This is the living room with lots of boxes in it. You can see in the corner where our new game cabinet will be (the hole with blue tape around it).

This is our mostly finished bedroom with a little bit of furniture in it. Don't ask my dad or Kim how many times we rearranged it before I let them put the bed down.

Here's the finished upstairs bathroom. It's so pretty!Here's the downstairs bathroom. It's almost finished. If only I could get the towel bars to stay up...

So, we have a few remaining projects--like painting all the doors, trim and window moldings white. It's amazing how you can't tell the difference between cream and white when you go to buy a house...Until next time.