It's a Boy!

Yesterday we had our long-awaited ultrasound to find out the baby's gender. He's a he! We have had names picked out for a long time and our boy name is Brinton Nicholas Bishop, so I guess I can start using his name now. Brinton was very cute yesterday. He sort of yawned and made sleepy gestures with his little arms. It was fun to watch (not just hear) his heart beating. Being a parent is a very special blessing. Brinton already makes us very happy and he hasn't even been born!

Thanksgiving 2009

I am really enjoying school, but Thanksgiving (as always) seems like sort of a cruel teaser for the Christmas break that is right around the corner. This year we went to Henderson, NV to be with Christina's family for Thanksgiving. We have had a really great time catching up with family and enjoying the time together. Here's a picture of everyone who was there.

Many of Chrissy's siblings were with their respective in-laws this year. Thanksgiving was a little smaller and quieter, but very nice.

Here's a picture of just one of the delicious pies we devoured.

It is a perfect pecan pie, that happens to have been made by Christina! She never liked nut pie until she had my mom's walnut pie, so she made it for her family with pecans instead. Yum!

Last night we saw The Blind Side, which EVERYONE should see. It's easily the best movie I've seen in a while. Today we are going to the Las Vegas Temple and tomorrow Chrissy is singing O Holy Night in her home ward, which is a Christmas tradition for them. Tomorrow night we go back home and back to real life. I am thankful for Thanksgiving!

Introducing Bishop NH

My first scientific paper is available online at the website of the Journal of Cellular Physiology!!! Click here to see it. My name is still not showing up on PubMed (a major database of scholarly research), but I imagine that will come soon. Here's one of my favorite images from the paper:

Sperry, R.B.*, Bishop N.H.*, Bramwell, J.J., Brodeur, M.N., Carter, M.J., Fowler, B.T., Lewis, Z.T., Maxfield, S.D., Staley, D.M., Vellinga., R.M., Hansen, M.D.H. 2010. Zyxin controls migration in epithilial-mesenchymal transition by mediating actin-membrane linkages at cell-cell junctions. Journal of Cellular Physiology. Early view. Published online November 19, 2009.

*Sperry RB and Bishop NH contributed equally to this work.

Since I copied this figure from the journal webpage, and since I can, I thought I'd better be the first to cite the paper. :-)

Kantorei!

Christina and I were accepted into a local community choir called Kantorei! We are very excited and feel like everything has worked out miraculously. Both of us had been missing Singers a lot recently. A friend of mine joined a choir and was looking at her performance schedule online. I recognized Kantorei on the list of choirs singing at the same venue, because Dr. Staheli had mentioned the group when we told him we were moving to Denver. We both signed up to be notified for auditions, but didn't expect to hear anything till next season, since the only advertised openings were for second bass and first tenor.

Monday we got an e-mail announcing special auditions by invitation only. I auditioned for first tenor and Christina auditioned for an alto spot that opened up unexpectedly. We met the directors last night at our audition and were impressed with their friendliness and flexibility. Since we weren't expecting anything until August, we were worried that Chrissy's pregnancy might prevent her from performing with the group. Drs. Larson and Pohlenz assured us that many of women in the group have children. Some of them choose to keep singing and others take a break. Whatever we decide will be acceptable.

We've actually never heard the group sing, but we feel like it is a good one. Dr. Staheli did mention them, which is definitely a good sign. Several alumni of Singers have been in the group. We love the repertoire they choose. They have been invited to sing at the South West American Choral Directors Association meeting in Denver this February. And lastly, they liked us, so they must have good taste. :-)

We are very excited to be a part of a high quality choral group again and feel so blessed that everything worked out okay.

SNOWY HALLOWEEN!!!

That's right, today is a SNOW DAY! It has snowed about a foot and campus is closed as of yesterday at 1:00 pm. It may even be closed tomorrow. Here's a picture of the snow drift in front of our door before I shoveled it:

Here's the snow piled up on our newly stained deck. Glad we got it stained before the weather hit!

I am grateful for the snow. We have had fun together at home today. All the time I think of things I would like to blog about, but I don't usually find the time to do it. Perhaps someday you will get to hear my thoughts on cadaver dissection, my excitement about a lab I may rotate through, my experiences with my new clinical preceptor, or my gratitude toward our excellent ward. But not today. Instead of trying to catch up with everything, I am just going to start where I am, and cover those topics if I can.

So for the Head and Neck unit of Anatomy, several guys from class vowed not to shave their heads or necks for the three week unit and have a beard-off. Here is mine (the day after our test, with my neck shaved).

I know the toothbrushing is sort of weird, but it's the best picture I have of the beard. During the week, my beard shrank to a goatee, a mustache (for five minutes) and then to nothing in preparation for our Halloween costume: Edward and Bella from Twilight. If you look closely in the first picture, you can even see my sparkly skin.

Here's a picture of some food we brought to a Halloween party with some med school friends. There was supposed to be a contest for the spookiest food, so we brought eyeballs served on cross-sections of arms.

Also for Halloween, my parents came in town for a night and we saw Wicked downtown. It was even better than I imagined it. I'm glad they made it out of Denver before the worst of the storm.

Well, I guess that's all for now. Happy Halloween to everyone!

Vail

This weekend Chrissy and I went to a retreat in Vail for the Cell Biology, Stem Cells, and Development (CSD) Graduate Program retreat. It is beautiful there and the pictures I will post do not really do it justice. We both enjoyed the talks and I am particularly excited about potentially rotating through the lab of one of the speakers. Chrissy and I ditched one of the talks to drive up to Vail Village, which is where all the condos and shopping areas are in Vail. We had fun just walking around and enjoying the scenery.

We have also enjoyed watching the semi-annual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints yesterday and today. Hurray for live online streaming (we don't own a TV). We missed being with our friends and family for the conference but we also enjoyed the time together.

-Nick

Terrorists in da 'hood

So if you haven't heard, one of our neighbors is a terrorist (or at least a suspected terrorist). He's a young airport shuttle driver who is being tried for being involved in a terrorist plot. I'm pretty sure he was my shuttle driver when I came to interview. I had no cash so, as a tip, I offered him a card to receive a free video from the Church, but he seemed offended and informed me curtly that he was Muslim. Anyway, it may or may not have been him, but it's crazy to think about it.

Yesterday on the bus, I didn't notice anyone I thought was a terrorist, but I did fear for my iTouch, my Macbook, and my life (just a little). When I boarded the bus, two guys were talking about how many of their friends from jail they had seen on the busses that day. They were talking pretty fast in Ebonics, so it was difficult to understand--it really is like another language. Anyway, I heard gang names dropped and talk of illegitimate children, drugs, etc. Then another guy came on the bus, who I am pretty sure was under the influence of something. He sparked a debate with the first two about who was the best rapper in the history of the world--50-cent or Tupac. The debate became quite heated and people from the back of the bus started to weigh in as well. I was in the middle of what I was afraid would become a physical brawl. The first two men got off the bus and then, after they calmed down a bit, the remaining debaters discussed the inconvenience of having to take public transportation after they lost their licenses for DUIs.

I'm not in Utah anymore...

My new addictions!

Completing my very intense, very fulfilling masters degree and diving right into--well--nothing, particularly, has been a bit of a struggle. School gives every day meaning and purpose: there is always something to be done for classes, some test to prepare for, some concert program (in my case) to be polishing, etc. etc. etc.

So, after 20 years of being a student, I landed with a thud in this thing we call "free time," and I had no idea what to do with it. At first I wandered aimlessly around our new house and checked my email too many times a day, but as the weeks have passed, I have slowly rediscovered SO MANY things that I love to do--so many things I have a passion for. Here is a quick rundown of what I do to occupy my time these days:


Cooking! Well, when I have enough first-trimester energy for it :) I already posted about my cookbook-reading craze, but I just had to reiterate what a joy it is for me to cook right now! Fast forward 7, 8, 9 months, and I know this enthusiasm will be greatly diminished by the brand new baby that will demand so much time and energy. But right now in this brief season of pure self improvement and indulgence, I am loving it. And I especially like it when Nick comes home to a nice warm meal and tells me how much he loves it.

Reading! I unpacked our books a few weeks ago and decided it was high time I read the many classics I placed on the back burner for all these years while textbooks and music took over my life. I can't even begin to count the number of times I had this thought: "Wow, I wish I had time to read for fun." Happily, the time is finally here! I learned that my Ward Book Group was reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and I eagerly consumed it in a matter of days. I have since started reading Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (oops, I was definitely going to read that before going to South Africa 2 years ago!), but even that has taken a backseat to my newest addiction...

Family history work! Oh my gosh, if you haven't checked out the new family search website, you NEED TO!! It is so awesome. I used to be a family history consultant, and I knew this database was coming down the pipe. But until I got on the website myself, I didn't realize how much it really offers. In a nutshell, it combines everything from the old website, and I get to streamline the information into my very own family line that all my relatives can see and work with (it was a serious headache to share pedigree information before). Best of all, it is very easy to see what temple work needs to be done. Awesome! Check it out if you haven't already: https://new.familysearch.org/

Blogging! Okay, that's obvious! But it has to do with something else I have been terrible at for a long, long time: keeping in touch with people. I have written more letters to missionaries in the past 2 months than I have in the rest of my life combined (sorry to all my older brothers!!). I have also called and emailed people with our baby news, and I have enjoyed renewing past connections with old friends. I am going to see an old BYU friend tomorrow, and I didn't even realize she was here in Colorado until last week! I also have high hopes of sending out a Christmas Letter for the first time this year. We'll see how that one goes!

These are the jewels I have rediscovered and reconnected with. "Free time" is not as bad as it seemed initially, and I know that it will be hard to come by as my life is filled with new responsibilities and purpose (particularly next April).

For now, I can't get enough of it!

Big news!

We are pleased to announce that we are expecting a baby! The due date is April 15, and we can't even begin to express how excited we are.

I have been feeling great, overall. A bit nauseous occasionally, but it never gets too overbearing. And I haven't thrown up yet--unless accidentally gagging myself with my toothbrush last week counts :)

We are so excited to be parents!!! We'll keep you posted as the baby grows (and as I grow) over the next 6.5 months.

Accepted at last!!!

In all the stress of medical and graduate school, I had sort of forgotten about the manuscript I had been trying to get published for the last year. Dr. Hansen said he would take care of continuing to revise and resubmit, so I quit worrying about it. Well, on Friday I checked my e-mail in the dissection lab and was surprised to see that our manuscript has finally been accepted! I was so excited I couldn't focus on the dissection for probably a half hour afterwards. It feels like I'm a real scientist now that I'm actually going to have a publication. I'm not sure when it will actually be published, because the acceptance is pending minor revisions. Also, I think they plan the issues months in advance--the November edition of the journal is already available online. But anyway, I'll be sure to post a link when it is available so you can all see my pretty pictures. :-)

How to post a comment...

For all you readers of our blog (and I know you're out there) I thought I'd figure out how you can post without an account on any of the sites listed in the drop-down menu for comments. Just select "Name/URL," from the menu, type your name in the "Name" section, and leave the URL blank. Type your comment and click "Post comment." You will be asked to type the warped text to make sure you're a real person. And you're done! Hope this helps.

-Nick

After the first month...

Everything is going very well for us. We are enjoying making new friends as well. Last week, we had Sunday dinner with a nice couple from church and they invited Chrissy to go boating the next day (I was invited too but had to study). This Friday we went to the Colorado Ballet with some of my medical school friends to see Copland's Rodeo. It was a lot of fun. Tomorrow, we have a dinner with a group of LDS medical students. I guess the second-years started a dinner group last year and they wanted to include the LDS students from this year. It will be fun to get to know them better. Since we didn't join my med school friends for their debauchery after the last test, we decided it might be nice to have a few of them (my MSTP class) over for dessert and games a week from today.

School has been good so far. I just finished my first major round of medical school tests and I think I did well enough. I'll find out my score sometime this week. I am really enjoying the mixture of medical school and graduate school. I am trying to already practice the type of interdisciplinary thinking I hope to do each day as a physician-scientist. This week we had my favorite dissection so far--the thoracic cavity. Not only was it much easier than our other dissections, it was so amazing to touch the lungs and uncover the heart that kept a body alive for 95 years. It was much more awe-inspiring than anything we had done before, at least for me.

Despite our otherwise wonderful week, a few traumatic things have happened:

1) While swinging my backpack off my shoulder, I lost my grip and it fell to the ground, inflicting a dent on my otherwise pristine Macbook. Good thing it was an aluminum one, or it probably would have shattered.

2) I bought a used bike on Craig's List that broke the second day I rode it to school, just when I was really getting motivated to actually ride to school each day. I haven't had time to fix it yet.

3) Penelope (the pitcher plant we introduced you to last week) almost died, but we revived her.

4) Jake and Molly moved out after they closed on their house. The house feels lonelier for Chrissy, but at least they only live a few blocks away. We feel lucky to have gotten to know them so well while they were here. Jake and Jamie (their kids) refer to us now as their Aunt and Uncle.

That's about it for last week. The end.

-Nick

"Chrissy, we're living the dream...

...We own a house AND a pitcher plant!"

This is a quote from Nick as we were getting ready for church this morning. I laughed pretty hard when he said it. Nick has wanted a pitcher plant our entire marriage, but we never fulfilled the dream until yesterday when we purchased Penelope, the Pitcher Plant, at Lowe's. We also bought another Venus flytrap which we have named Travis II (in loving memory of the one we had back in Provo for a year and a half).

Here are a few pictures:

Penelope

Travis II

We like the red traps!

After the second week...

Here are a few of my thoughts after the first two weeks of medical school.

1. Anatomy here is very different from anatomy at BYU. Before, I had to be able to memorize where a structure was and what it was called. We did everything by system, not by region. Here, I have to know where everything is, where it is in relation to everything around it, what it is called, and what it does. I am grateful for my previous anatomy experience, but this is a whole new way to learn and think about anatomy.

2. I am still figuring out the best way to study. I was mostly independent as an undergrad, with a few study partners/groups. After I got married, I studied less and still did okay. Here I have largely avoided studying after I come home around 6:00 and I didn't really study this weekend either. I think I am going to have to gear up for my first pre-test week and study more than I have been to be prepared for my first round of tests just after Labor Day.

3. I think I will enjoy the clinical things, but right now I still feel more like a scientist. This was evident in our first Problem Based Learning (PBL) Session. We are in small groups with a faculty facilitator and are given a clinical case. We get a few bits of information at a time and are supposed to generate our own questions and answers about the case. A few in our group wanted to triage our discussion to focus on the most acute clinical needs, avoiding the finer details and physiologic principles. As I understand it, that is not the purpose of the session. We are supposed to use the session to generate questions and answer them. We do not have the patient in front of us and there is no right or wrong way to go about discussing the case. Our facilitator was even encouraging our side-tracking to learn more of the details. My curiosity to learn all I could was stifled by those in our group who are more clinically-minded wanted to fix the patient as soon as possible and get out of there (we did end about thirty minutes early). One sort of usurped the authority of the facilitator and took control when he felt we were wasting time in the details. Another threw out all the "right" answers since he has much more experience than the rest of us, but didn't explain his answers to the rest of us. I think we know the right thing now for the patient, but I don't think any of us learned anything. I plan to write our facilitator before the next session requesting an open discussion of our objectives for the PBL sessions--refining clinical judgment, or learning about the issues inherent in the case.

4. Dissecting human cadavers is VERY tedious and difficult, but rewarding.

5. I like Denver a lot!

So there are a few random thoughts. A family from Church has invited us over for dinner, so I've got to go get things ready. There's one more thing I want to write about but Christina already spoke for it so I'll let her...

-Nick

First Mortgage Payment

Today we paid our very first mortgage payment! Though I'm sure we will not be nearly so excited to pay our mortgage in the future, this first one seems to symbolize our fresh new status as home owners. It has been a lot of fun so far.

I will probably look back at this post and laugh :)

I'm In!

Hello all! You may have noticed that Nick has been the only one posting for a while. Well, he sent me an invite to be an administrator, and it expired while I was at Girl's Camp :) But now I'm officially in, and I can post on our bog.

Life is good. I have been called to the Primary Presidency as the secretary in our new ward. I have my first presidency meeting at 1:00 this afternoon, and I will be set apart tonight. I have also taken up a fun new exercise routine called Jazzercize, and it's free if I do 2 hours of babysitting a week. It's been very fun: all I have to do is play with 5-6 kids for an hour before I exercise! And frankly, if I didn't have a prior commitment to wake up and be there to watch the kids, I might not be motivated to go. It's definitely a win/win situation.

I have taken up an old habit of reading cookbooks for an hour or so a day. I had to stifle this desire while I was doing my Masters because it distracted me from doing school work, but now I can do it all I want! I am trying out a new creamy carrot soup tonight for dinner. We'll see how it goes.

I met Nick's new second year "buddy" and his wife yesterday--Brent and Brenna. I love them already! Brenna works at a school nearby and told me she would hand out my information to her students if I made a card advertising music lessons. She works at a school close by, so many of her students likely live in our neighborhood. I am excited to start teaching again.

Tomorrow night we leave for Vegas for to see Daniel's wedding (my little brother). Though we closed on our house July 17th, and moved in the next day, I still have not been home for a full two week stretch. But our little excursions to Utah and Vegas have been very fun.

So there it is, my first post! Now, how about I invite some people to get on here and read it.... :)

Denver Botanical Gardens

So after the Family Day at the medical school, we went to the Denver Botanical Gardens. I didn't really know what to expect, but I must say they exceeded my expectations. Here are a few of my favorite pictures:








-Nick

White Coat Weekend

After a week of orientation, retreat, and mingling with new classmates, it was time to be inducted to the medical profession. Christina, my mother, father, mother-in-law, and grandmother-in-law came to my White Coat Ceremony on Thursday. I enjoyed the speakers, particularly the keynote speaker who talked about the art of medicine, the responsibility of being entrusted with patients' health, and maintaining your sense-of-self as a doctor, among other things. After listening to a few speeches and the presentation of some other awards, I was presented with my white coat and stethoscope.

As I sat through the rest of the ceremony I specifically noticed the weight of the stethoscope around my neck. It made me think of the weight of the medical profession. I will decisions every day that change lives. I will be my patients' advocate. I will be entrusted with intimate details of my patients' lives. I will have to break bad news to families in a sensitive, appropriate way. I will be obligated to weigh in on policy decisions at a national and institutional level. I will be required to stay abreast of new developments to offer my patients the best care available. Most of all, I will have to sacrifice precious time with family to serve others. I am sure I am not even aware of all the demands and challenges of medicine, but I am confident I will find my career exciting and rewarding.


Yesterday was Family Day at the medical school. They brought out the good food for the parents (better than most of what we had been eating at other Orientation week activities), and then treated us to a round of entertaining, informative lectures from some popular faculty members. Then we had a student panel who responded to questions about how to survive the first year, how to balance school with family, etc.


We loved the time with family and appreciate their support of us during this phase of our lives. When I have a few extra minutes, I will post about what we did after Family Day at the Denver Botanical Gardens. Until next time...

Our Impromptu Adventure

At the suggestion of Chrissy's father, we decided to take a detour to Arches National Park on our way home from a funeral in Las Vegas. We are so glad he had the idea, because we loved exploring all the beautiful formations in the park. Taking random get-away trips may be a little more difficult when I am busy with school and when we have kids. It was great to take advantage of such a golden opportunity. Here are some our our favorite pictures:

Me and Chrissy at Arches

Me and Chrissy at Delicate Arch

Chrissy and the parched earth

Chrissy and me in front of the Fiery Furnace.

Here we are in front of the Balanced Rock formation.


I thought the Balanced Rock needed a little help balancing.

There are so many incredible things to see in this world and many of them are very close by. I am excited to explore the mountains in Colorado and take more detours to see the parks in Utah when we travel to visit family.

Tomorrow I start my medical school orientation week. I am not sure exactly what is going on tomorrow, except that we are taking pictures for our ID badges. The goatee you see me sporting in these pictures will be gone tomorrow. It was only intended as a surprise for Chrissy after she came home from a week in Utah, but it "grew on me." Still, I decided to shave it off for my official picture. Maybe it will return in the future... Anyway, Tuesday and Wednesday we have a retreat at a resort called Winter Park. Thursday we have course orientation and a White Coat Ceremony. Friday is mini-Med School where they bring in the best lecturers and teach our families. Last year the families even had to take a test. We'll see how much Dad remembers!

I am excited for this new phase in our lives. I know we are where we are supposed to be and I know we have wonderful experiences ahead of us.

The beginning of my MD/PhD career

Last weekend I went to the 24th annual MD/PhD student conference in Keystone, Colorado. It was a great way to start my training as a physician scientist and meet my new classmates who will probably be my friends and colleagues for life. The conference consisted of talks and poster presentations from other MD/PhD students from all around the country. A few featured speakers were invited also, as well as practicing physician-scientists who held a career panel and chaired break-out sessions on topics such as time and stress management, grant writing, negotiating jobs, etc.

This was different from other conferences I have attended because the science presented came from all different fields, including medical genetics, pharmacology, bioengineering, molecular biology, and cell biology. This exposed me to new areas I may wish to explore further when choosing which labs to rotate in, and ultimately what my own research will involve. I also appreciated the advice and examples of seasoned physician-scientists who spoke at the conference. Most of them described at least one unexpected twist or hurdle they had to overcome in their career and most were not where they thought they would be twenty years earlier. They were very encouraging and suggested that we not pigeon-hole ourselves too soon into what we think we want to do. This was good for me to hear, because sometimes I wish I had a better idea of exactly what I wanted to study and what kind of doctor I wanted to be. It is comforting to know that I have plenty of time to feel everything out and make my decisions. Also, should I decide to make a career shift later in life, as it seems many physician-scientists do, I will be well trained for a variety of different options as an MD/PhD. Interestingly, all of the panelists were married, except one, and all had kids. They gave excellent advice about prioritizing family needs first, sacrificing for family, and balancing their lives. I value their examples as very successful scientists who also seem to succeed in life, including family life.

One of my favorite featured speakers was a psychiatrist and bioengineer named Karl Deisseroth. He was introduced as one of the only people in the world who has integrated these to unlikely disciplines to come up with very exciting potential solutions to neural disorders from narcolepsy to Parikinson's disease. Click here for a brief article on his work. If you have about twenty minutes and want to watch a very cool lecture he gave to a general audience at Stanford, watch this video. He is a model product of an MD/PhD program, uniting cutting-edge research with a clinical specialty to come up with patient-driven solutions. I don't know that I necessarily want to go into psychiatry, neuroscience, or bioengineering, but I admire how he has been able to come up with such clever tools to approach complicated clinical problems in a relatively short period of time.

In addition to serving as a forum for scientific dialoge and career devlopment, the Keystone conference is a social event, particularly for attendees from the University of Colorado. New members of the program are required to attend to meet their class and other members of the program. Mine is the largest MSTP class in the program's history with 10 students. I feel very fortunate to have a wonderful class full of people who are interesting to talk to and easy to get along with. They also care about each member of the group and watch out for eachother already. I look forward to getting to know them even better as the years go by. The upperclassmen from the program were also eager to get to know us new students and to provide helpful tips on how to survive our first year.

Overall the Keystone experience was very rewarding. I feel so blessed to have been given the chance to train both as a medical doctor and a scientist. I hope my education will provide me with skills, experience, and opportunities needed to bridge disparate disciplines to come up with novel solutions to clinical problems as a fulfilling part of a balanced life.

Home Owners!!!

Friday we closed on our house, but not without lots of ups and downs along the way. Thanks to our real estate agent Betty, Chrissy's incredible great Aunt, we closed on time. Every day there were little glitches and things that could potentially have kept the deal from going through on time. Fortunately everything was worked out. Closing was kind of fun...lots of papers to sign. Since Dad wasn't there, I got to sign for him since I had been given limited power of attorney to act on his behalf. This was the sentence I had to sign every time a signature was required on the closing documents: "Clark Thorpe Bishop by Nicholas H. Bishop as his attorney in fact." When initials were required, I got to shorten it to "CTB by NHB as AIF." I almost laughed out loud nearly every time I had to sign it.

Immediately after closing, we drove over to the house to show it to Mom. It was pretty much as we had left it the last time, except the front door locks had been changed and a carbon monoxide detector installed (as per a new law effective July 1). As we were leaving the house, I saw a cute baby snake in our front yard. I was excited, but Chrissy was not amused. Apparently we get them a lot along with rabbits and other wildlife.

Saturday Mom helped us clean the kitchen and unpack a few things from the truck while our new carpet was installed. By the way, it looks great! Then mom helped us get started on our list of home improvement chores by taking me to Home Depot. After our shopping trip, I took her to the Denver International Airport, which is just about 12 miles north of our house. Then I went to pick up our rental piano dolly and arrived back at the house just in time for our Elder's quorum to help me use it. There was a great turnout of about 8 guys who were very nice and helped us get everything either onto the new carpet or into the garage. We put together the bedroom set, returned the piano dolly and the moving van and went to bed! Here's a picture of the beautiful sunset we enjoyed from our porch the first night in our new home:

Church was fantastic yesterday. One of the guys who helped us move is the director of the ward choir, so we showed up 45 minutes early for practice. The couple we sat next to in Sacrament meeting invited us for dinner which was very cool since we weren't exactly put together yet at home. All the members were super friendly and very welcoming. I think we will love our ward. In Elder's quorum, I met one of my classmates named Mike. His wife is just starting a residency in pediatrics and he's just starting med school like me. So I know there will be at least three Mormons in my class, maybe even more.

As we speak they are putting in the laminate wood floor. It looks very nice. When it's all done we'll have to post before and after pictures.

We are so happy in our new home and we feel very blessed that everything has worked out so well thusfar. Now back to all my to-do's...

Welcome to our new blog!

So this is our first adventure as a couple in the world of blogging. Since we are moving next week to Denver we thought we should make a blog to keep in touch with our friends and family. I have nothing profound or witty to say to start off the blog, but I must say I am proud of our blog title. Anyway, welcome to our blog. I hope you enjoy it!