My Last Final!!

Okay, it's probably not my last final ever, but it was my last final at BYU! I took my take home final on Monday night, and this morning I took my evolutionary biology final. Yeah, it was an easy finals week for me. Before the exam, my professor got us all pumped up with an inspiring pep talk while he played The Eye of the Tiger in the background. It was very funny, and actually a great way to start a final exam. I feel like it went pretty well. We'll see when grades are posted.

So, I'm done! Spencer's not. He has 2 exams and a paper left. Poor guy. He'll be done on Friday though, so we're close.

I have a busy week of not school planned out now. Between visiting teaching, getting things ready for Christmas, finding an outfit for James and Miranda's wedding, and our Anniversary, I'll stay busy. I am SO excited for everyone to come to town for the wedding, and then we're off to Texas to see the rest of our family! Plus, Patrick got home from his mission yesterday! So that's very exciting. I know Spencer's really excited to spend some time with him, and It'll be fun to actually get to know him now that he's been my brother-in-law for two years.

That's all for now. :)

A Weekend Away and Other News

Last weekend we went to Washington! It was great.

First, the week leading up to our little trip was crazy. We were both so busy that neither of us really thought about our trip much until the morning of. But we made it through, and we took our homework with us when we went. Spencer's Aunt Sandy used to work for Alaska Airlines, so they hooked us up with transportation. Her husband, John, was so kind to fly down to Salt Lake, so we could fly for free as his companions. On our way back we got standby tickets through her, so they were cheap (and Dad covered them for us. Thanks, Dad!).

We went there for Spencer's Grandpa's 80th birthday. We both worked and Spencer had class on Friday, so we flew out Friday night and got to Grandma and Grandpa Thornock's house later that evening. We had some yummy dinner and had a really nice time talking and hanging out with everyone. Josh, Katy, and Carrina were there, along with Dad and two of his sisters. It was so good to see family and to meet some, too!

On Saturday most of them went to the Seattle Temple, and I got to spend some time with one of my best friends in the whole world! JUDI!! I haven't seen her for 3 years, I think, so I was really excited to go to Seattle so I could see her. It was so good to catch up and talk and just to see her again. We went to a cute little restaurant for breakfast and then did a little bit of shopping at the mall. After that, we went back to the house and had a little party for Grandpa. We ate a big ham lunch and then had cake and ice cream. We spent the afternoon playing card games and chasing Carrina around, and trying to squeeze some studying in where we could without too much away from our family time. I only took a couple of pictures, but I'll add them when I upload them from my camera.

At our wedding, Grandma had offered a Kitchenaid stand mixer to us if we ever were up in Washington and could get it. I had completely forgotten about that, but she didn't! She gave it to us and we managed to squeeze it into my carry-on and take it back with us! Haha. It was funny to see my suitcase go through the scanner thing at the airport. And a little embarrassing. The security guy promised it's not even close to the strangest thing he's seen go through. I've always wanted one, and I'm so happy to have it! I made some chocolate pies with it last night. :-) So, thanks Grandma! I want to try out some more bread recipes and things with it now.

We flew back home early Sunday morning. The afternoon flight was looking pretty full, so we took the 7 am one to be sure to get home that day. Josh and Katy flew with us, so we got to play with Carrina on the plane. She got a little stir-crazy, but was good. She loves Spencer. We were sad to leave Washington, but we're excited to see Dad again in just a couple of weeks, along with everyone else! We're going to try to take another trip up to Washington before we move out of Utah, too. It was such a nice weekend away, and even though we were worried out our midterms, we needed a break.

I had a midterm on Monday, and Spencer had one on Tuesday. We survived them, though neither of us have scores back yet. On Wednesday (yesterday), I had my dreaded Mammalogy Lab final. I studied on the plane, and over the weekend, and for about 4 hours Monday night, and 2.5 hours on Tuesday night before I hit a wall. Then I just kind of lost all of my motivation. I reviewed some more things on Wednesday before I had it, but I was mostly feeling resigned to my fate. I think it went alright, but I'm SO happy that it's over! I don't have a final in that class, either, so I'm totally done! Phew. That class has been a marathon of memorization. So, last night I got to take a break from studying. I made some french silk pies for a Christmas party in Spencer's office, caught up on some dishes, and bought and set up a little Christmas tree! I was listening to Darwin's Origin of Species on audio book while I did all of that. I have to finish that book before I can take my philosophy of biology final, as it's a requirement for the course. So, it was a productive, and really great night. Plus, having a Christmas tree in our apartment just makes me happy. I could only find 2 decorations and some candy canes for it though, so we might have to have a crafty night soon.

I'm kinda feeling like school is over, but it's not quite yet. I have two finals left and Spencer's got quite a bit of stuff to finish tonight, and then several finals. We're almost there, and I can't wait for break!

Oh, I almost forgot. I finally got my student teaching assignment! I'll be teaching 7th grade at a school just 2 miles north of campus, which is awesome because we share a car. I'll have 6 periods of 7th grade biology, with about 200 students total. Yikes. But, it's just one lesson to plan each day, so that's good. I'm excited. 7th graders are fun/crazy. My first day there will be January 7th.

Spencer's still waiting to hear from more medical schools. University of Michigan emailed him to let him know that, while they can't offer him an interview at this time, his application is still open. They might invite him to go interview in the future, but maybe not. So, that's that. It's not bad news, but it's like being on a wait list for interviews. So, we wait. And someday we'll know something.

Tonight we're going to the midnight showing of the Hobbit with James and Miranda. I can't wait!

Thanksgiving Break

Thanksgiving break was so wonderful! We had to work on Wednesday morning, so we had our car all packed up and hit the road around 12:30. We drove down to Arizona to spend the week with AnnaMarie and the Ferrell family! We went through Flagstaff, AZ and hit a closed road. We called Tyler and 40 miles later we were back on track. We finally got there around 11:15. It's a long drive, and since it gets dark so early the last half of it felt like an eternity. We stayed up and chatted with AnnaMarie and Tyler for a while then went to bed.

Oh, and Spencer got an email from Wayne state before we left on Wednesday. He's been placed in the alternate category, but we don't know where in that category he is ranked. Hopefully we'll hear better news from them in the future. We're hoping for a couple more interview offers from other schools this month. So, we're disappointed, but still hopeful.

On Thursday when I got up, Katie and Jane were SO excited to see me! They were really excited to see Spencer when he got up, too. The boys warmed up to us pretty quickly and we had a nice day of playing with the kiddos and feeling useless because apparently there was nothing we could help with. Thanksgiving lunch was fantastic, and we all ate way too much. Tyler and his brother deep fried a turkey for us AND his parents roasted one. I think there were like 15 pounds of leftover turkey.

Spencer went shooting with all the boys on Friday in the morning, and then the girls went out for our own outing. We went to a little bakery for a treat, then we decide to do a little bit of shopping for student teaching clothes for me! It was really successful, and that's fantastic. I got 4 skirts, 2 cardigans, and a couple tops. Now all I need to get for student teaching is a couple pairs of good shoes and a few more blouses. We spent lots of time playing with the kids on Friday, too. It was really nice.

We all went to the temple on Saturday morning, and that was so good. It's been a while since Spencer and I have gone. Plus, I found out that my temple recommend expired at the end of November (I thought it was December), so I need to set up some interview appointments before James and Miranda's wedding. Anyway, the rest of Saturday was just spent hanging out and eating. We went to lunch at Red Lobster, and later we went to dinner at a BBQ place that was really good.

We left on Sunday morning, finally getting back into Provo around 8pm. We weren't awesome about doing homework over break, so we are both kind of paying for that this week. It was worth it, though. It was so much fun to see AnnaMarie and Tyler and the kids are hilarious. The twins were a blast, and Aiden especially loved Spencer. The girls are fun, and they pretty much just do their own thing now. Jane would sometimes sit with me and jabber about stuff. That's fun.

So, we're back. One week of class left, not counting today. I think I'm done with all my homework assignments and papers. I just have quizzes and finals left! So, that's it for now. I didn't take any pictures over break, but I might add some from AnnaMarie at some point.

I have a paper to write, so I'll update my blog first.

Alright, it's true that I'm mostly updating the blog so I can procrastinate working on my paper, but it's about time for an update anyway! 

First, the good news! We're going to Arizona for Thanksgiving! Yay! I can't wait to spend some quality time with AnnaMarie, and it'll be fun to see the kids, too. :) It'll be nice to get out of Provo for a little bit, but we won't be getting away from the homework. I'll have to do some studying and I have a (different) 5 page paper due right after break. 

And now for the non-news. Medical schools. We know nothing. We are supposed to hear from Wayne State on Wednesday, though, so we'll keep you all up to date on that when we hear. However, University of Michigan said that they were going to close a bunch of accounts, meaning rejections, this week and I don't think Spencer's was closed... Maybe that's a good sign. Who knows?? 

So, what have we been up to? We have been studying and writing papers a lot. But we've done some nice things, too. 

Last Sunday we had Josh and Katy over for dinner. We made some yummy beef stew and they brought some really good rolls. Carrina was happy. We are going to miss them when they move to Minnesota in a couple of months. We video chatted with Mom and Brigham while they were there. Carrina was totally into it. 

This morning we had the Halls, a couple from our ward, over for breakfast! It was a really nice way to start the day. :) I made some monkey bread and we had a nice chat with them. 

James and Miranda are going to be moving into our ward once they are married, so that will be really fun! They are buying someone's contract who is moving out. 

That's about all the fun things we've been doing. The end of the semester is coming, and it's coming fast. Yesterday I typed up a daily to-do list for my remaining school work, and it's not looking too bad, but I think we'll stay busy. Oh! We bought our tickets for the Hobbit, too! That's good news. :) 

We're busy, but we're happy. I am so blessed to have Spencer around. I feel like he's my anchor. I get stressed out and have my ups and downs, and he's always there: positive, calm, and stable. 

Spencer just finished an exam at the testing center, and he's on his way back home. I guess I should get going on that paper before I decide it's time for a lunch break. :) 

Just Life

Not much exciting has really happened since Spencer's birthday, but I figured I should put a post up anyway. School has been going pretty well. This semester has had a lot of ups and downs. Like, Thursday through Sundays are up and Mondays to Wednesdays are down. Every week. My mammalogy lab quizzes are every Wednesday afternoon. I typically spend about 5 or 6 hours between Monday and Wednesday studying for them and I still go into them just hoping I won't fail. And by fail, I mean get less than a C. Sometimes I get Cs on them. But life goes on. The quiz comes and goes, and then I get to relax a little bit even if it didn't go super well. Good news though! Only 2 more quizzes and the lab final to go! Whooohooo!

Spencer had a couple of exams over the last week, and I've been working on papers and things. We've just been plugging along. School's almost wrapping up now. I have 3 papers to write over the next few weeks. I have a good start on one of them though. Then just a couple more midterms and finals! Is it strange that I actually like finals week? It's so much easier to study for tests when you don't have new material in every class and homework and quizzes to prepare for. Plus, I think I'll just have 2 finals during finals week this semester, and one of them is take-home! Plus, The Hobbit part 2 is coming out at the end of finals week!!

AnnaMarie invited us to go down to Arizona for Thanksgiving with them. That would be a lot of fun, and we're gonna check with our bosses to see if we can manage it. Spencer's grandpa is turning 80 in December, so they want to have a big party for him. His aunt works (worked?) for an airline, so she can fly standby almost for free. She's gonna fly down to Salt Lake and take us with her (so we can fly for almost free) back to Washington the first weekend in December. Hopefully we'll be able to get onto a flight and go. So, we have a couple of potential trips to look forward to. :) Then there's Christmas break, James and Miranda' wedding, and the Thornock family reunion in Texas! This will be a busy month and a half. In a really good way.

That's pretty much it for us. Oh, and I started a new blog! Our stake (regional level of organization in our church) has been focusing on member missionary work, so I decided to make a blog about my beliefs. You can check it out if you want to. http://thingsabbeyknows.blogspot.com/

Only 18 more days of class!

Spencer's 25th

Well, this past Saturday was Spencer's birthday! I love Spencer's birthday. :) Probably more than my own. While he was in Michigan I decided that I wanted to throw him a surprise party this year. His work compadres were supposed to be having a get together and they were gonna celebrate his and someone else's birthday at it. They never ended up planning the party, but that's beside the point.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun planning and setting up the party. I made a piniata last weekend with Kyrie. And it was awesome. I usually spend Fridays at a school observing, and then I go to work for a couple of hours at the end of the day. This week, I went to a school in the morning, then came home to finish the cake and decorate! Now, up to this point, Spencer was completely unaware of all my planning. We were gonna go out to eat and get home around 7:00 and everyone would be home to surprise him! Well, he decided to eat like a pound of cheesy pasta bake for lunch (that's how much was in the tupperware, after all!) and he got a stomach ache. When I told me he didn't feel good enough to go out to eat, I was a little flustered. I couldn't bring him home until 7! So, he was suspicious, but he pretended not to be. That might be because I told him to just go along with whatever I had planned. haha. So here's how it went down.

I got the party all ready, Katy dropped by to pick up my key, and I went to campus to pick up Spencer.
I had packed some snacks, bread, and a thermos of hot water. We went to a duck pond to feed the ducks and sip some hot apple cider. :) It was really nice. (I forgot to upload those pictures, so check back for them a little later.) There were so many ducks it was kind of gross. But they ate right out of our hands. We stayed there and watched some other people feed ducks, then we decided to run to Walmart to get some things. And to kill time.

The piniata.

 And the cake before frosting and decorating. It's like a giant ice cream sandwich.

 The house, cleaned and decorated for the party!

Spencer enjoying some hot cider at the duck pond. It was a beautiful day.

 Plus, we saw this afro duck. Could life get any better?

Finally we came home and... SURPRISE! Spencer's just like, "oh, hey guys." haha

We chatted and played a little bit of Balderdash.

Kelly and Eryn

 And we watched Carrina run around.

James and Miranda

Sydney and Ben. Obviously, they're our cool friends.  ;)

Spencer and I

Josh and Katy

 Then we decided to do the piniata.

Carrina kept trying to pick the whole thing up and carry it down the driveway. She managed to pick it up, but she kept tripping and falling on top of it.

 Everyone except James got a couple swings at it, I think. James was taking pictures. :) Spencer went first, but the camera wasn't quite set to take pictures yet.

 Then we had cake! It's an ice cream cake. :) Everyone liked it.

We sang Spencer happy birthday, which he hates, and he blew out all of his candles.

Carrina loved the cake and was sad when she couldn't have any more.

I would have given her more. Just look at that little face!

So, hooray for Spencer's birthday! Every time his birthday comes around I feel so lucky to be the one making his cake. :) I can hardly believe that I've made him 4 now! Oh, and for his birthday he got a new suit from Mom and Dad! He wore the suit to his interview in Detroit and I got him new shoes to go with his new suit. I hate not having a surprise present though, so I got him Jurassic Park! It's probably one of his all-time favorite movies. However, I didn't get to the post office in time to pick it up on Friday, so he didn't get that until Monday. I never even wrapped it. I just drew a bow on the package with a sharpie. Oh, well. Hopefully we'll find some time to watch it together one of these days. 

Wayne State Interview

Spencer left on Friday afternoon for his interview at Wayne State. He stayed with his family for the weekend, and it sounds like he had a good time. They put him to work raking the yard and tearing out their pool and deck, but he said he got to use a sledge hammer, so I think he had fun. I was happy for him to have a little time at home, but not so happy about my Spencer-less weekend. I did get a lot of things done around the apartment while he was gone, though, so that's good. It looks better than it has all semester! On Saturday Kyrie had me over to stay the night and on Monday I went over to visit with Josh, Katy, and Carrina. She's a lot of fun. Oh, and I even started working out this week (two days in a row!!). It's hard to get up early when someone just tells you how nice getting another hour of sleep would be. Hopefully I'll keep it up.

Anyway, today was the big day! He said the interview was pretty much a classic medical school interview. It lasted for about an hour, and he feels pretty good about it. They will let us know one way or the other on November 27th. It's nice that we at least know when we'll know. We're still hoping for a couple more interview offers in the meantime, but it's exciting to have one done. Spencer's flying home today, so I'll go pick him up at the airport later tonight. I'm so excited to see him!

Spencer said on facebook, "Wayne State interview went really well. I think... The interviewer was a cool guy and he said that my previous life experiences match their Mission Statement very well. The campus was great and everything seemed like a pretty good fit. We'll find out on November 27!"

Mammalogy Field Trip

I never wrote about my field trip, so here it goes. I could just give you my field notes, but I'll summarize since you probably don't care about the precise temperatures and GPS coordinates of our traps.

The field trip was Thursday through Saturday. We got to our campsite at Huntington State Park and set up our tents. I shared my tent with my friend Kyrie and another girl who rode in the same truck as us and needed somewhere to sleep. It's a big enough tent that we weren't too squished together, even with all of our stuff everywhere inside. We got our tent set up and were unpacking some stuff when someone outside yelled "we're gonna leave without you!" Apparently we missed a first announcement, which I was a little annoyed at. Our professor needs a whistle or something. We ran over to listen to directions then got some stuff together really fast. We went about 15 minutes down the road to set some traps. 40 traps per pair. Kyrie and I were a pair and we were in a group of 4 with another pair. We got our traps set up in about an hour and got back to camp before dark. The other groups were a lot slower than us so they showed up just after dark. We had dinner (my professor made chili), and went into our tents to try to warm up. It was in the low 40s all afternoon and the overnight low was a chilly 34. I did not sleep well. My face got so cold, and it's not all that comfortable to sleep in so many layers of clothes. My sleeping bag was pretty warm though. (Thank Mom and Dad!)

Friday morning we didn't have to get up until about 8:00, but I was awake by 6:45 and I was tired of trying to sleep. I just sat in my sleeping bag snacking on rice cakes that I had brought. I finally got out of the tent a little before we were supposed to get up to go use the bathroom the sinks got busy. Thankfully, the sinks had nice, warm water. The site actually had showers, too, but we were planning to stay at a different site (it was closed for the winter) that didn't have showers so I didn't have shower stuff. I was feeling pretty nasty by Saturday. Anyway, they had oatmeal and hot chocolate and bagels and fruit for breakfast, so that was nice. Then we went back to check our trapline. 9 of our 40 traps had little mice and things in them. The first one that I checked that was full kinda freaked me out. I picked it up, but it felt too light to have anything in it so I thought maybe the trap just went off so I started opening the trap door and it hit the mouse inside. I screamed. Then I felt ridiculous. The group we were paired with heard me from their trap line and asked us about it when we met up later. :)

After all the groups had gathered their full traps, we met up as a big group and Dr. Rogers told us what we caught. If any of you care, we caught 7 deer mice, a long-tailed vole, and a harvest mouse. We went back to camp while Dr. Rogers euthanized the little critters and then he showed us how he prepares them to be a museum specimen (skinning and stuffing them, and explaining how they prepare the skeleton). It was interesting, but watching that stuff makes me a little queasy. We had quite a bit of free time during the day, so we had lunch and studied for an exam and took a nap in my tent for a while. It was nice and warm in there when the sun was out.

That evening we went out to reset the traps that we had gathered in the morning. We had left the empty traps out there. We also set some larger traps to try to catch some carnivorous mammals. Then we went back to camp and helped prepare stuff for dinner while the other groups finished their lines. Dinner was tinfoil dinners, so we had some little fires to hang out around that night. It was fun to get to know some of the people in the class. My like 8:30, I was ready for bed. It gets dark so early now. I thought it was at least 10:30. So, I crawled all the way into my sleeping bag, including my head, and tried to stay warm. I slept better that night. Maybe because I actually kept my face in my sleeping bag, but maybe it was just because I was so tired.

Saturday morning we got up at 6:30, ate breakfast, and were ready to leave camp by 7:45 to check our lines and gather all the traps. 10 of our 40 traps were full this time, but none of the larger traps had anything in them. I was kinda happy that they didn't. The whole group met up and we looked at what everyone got again. Then we went back to camp, packed up our tents and hit the road. We were back in Provo by 1:00, and I was so happy to see Spencer. I was also happy to finally take a shower and be warm again. I hate being cold. I spent the rest of the weekend catching up on homework and studying for exams. The trip was actually more fun than I had expected it to be. That was partly because I had low expectations going in, and partly because it didn't rain like the forecast said it would and my group was fast and fun to be around.

The beginning of our trapline

We had a beautiful view at the end of it though!

Me on Thursday. Looks so nice and warm, doesn't it?

Checking traps. There's one in that bush. It was full.

Huntington Creek

Me and Kyrie with our full traps. 

Dr. Rogers telling the class about that little mouse.

More of our trapline.

Me and Kyrie again

I really was beautiful there, and on Saturday it was a little warmer. 

Oh, and we saw this guy (he has a crow in his claws) in parking lot of the campground!