The Mehlbox

Beat the Winter Blues

2011-03-16T07:32:00.003-06:00

I'm sick of winter. I'm sick of the cold, sick of the wind, and sick of the overcast skies. In an effort to brighten my day, I have turned to a tube of red lipstick to inject some color in to my cold, dreary life. These are the results. Enjoy.

My Apologies and other Random musings.....

2011-02-15T15:26:00.004-07:00

My apologies. Yes, it's true, it has been over a year since I have officially posted. I feel sorry for the pain I have caused you of not waking up to a post of mine every day. I know, i know. The burdens you have had to bear, my many, many followers. I'm so sorry for the pain I have caused you. (Insert sarcasm here, if you couldn't tell...)

I have been stressed this past year, to say the least, and I've let many things give way because of it. I guess I've been in a survival mode of sorts, just doing the things I need to do and not much of anything else. Anyway, I happened to look at my blog a few weeks ago, and I had fun reading over some of the things that I had posted and just remembering things that I haven't thought about in a while. Mind you, I have never been one to post very often, and I know my posts aren't particularly funny or witty or important, but it was so nice to look back on some of good times I have had with my little fam. I was sad when I finished reading because I realized I haven't taken the time that I should to record some of the cute and fun daily memories I have. So, I have a new goal: To post a little something, hopefully every day, so I have a journal of sorts for my family. Something I can look back on in a few years and feel that same feeling of joy I had as I remembered crazy birthday parties, dance recitals, little family vacations and just silly and random daily happenings.

Plus, who wouldn't want to know more about this super attractive bunch?

Lake of Ozarks Vol. 4

2010-04-22T19:12:00.002-06:00

Here are the girls at dinner hamming it up for the camera!!

Lake of Ozarks Vol. 4

2010-04-22T17:39:00.002-06:00

More girls at pool.

Lake of the Ozarks Vol 3

2010-04-22T15:12:00.002-06:00

Here are the girls at the pool.

Lake of Ozarks Video Log Vol. 2

2010-04-22T14:53:00.002-06:00

Here are the girls at the arcade.

Video Log Lake of Ozarks Vol. 1

2010-04-22T14:09:00.002-06:00

Becky is back in Utah to see her sister graduate from BYU, so it's been me and the girls hanging out. We decided to spend two days at the Lake of the Ozarks for some daddy-daughter fun. Since Becky isn't here we are posting some video so that she can see what we are up too. So here is goes.....

The OTHER Dr. Mehl

2010-01-18T10:33:00.009-07:00

So, I got a call from Camie's school this morning. It went something like this:

Mrs. Mehl: Hello!

Secretary: Hi Mrs. Mehl. We have a problem with Camie. She has been rubbing her eye a lot today. The skin around her eye is red, but her eye is not. What can you tell me about it?

Mrs. Mehl: I didn't notice anything.

Secretary: OK......

(silence)

Mrs. Mehl: Does she have pinkeye?

(more silence)

Secretary: Well, we don't know. Can you come look at her?

Mrs. Mehl: (Me wondering, "Why are you calling me if you don't know?...) Sure, I can come if you need me too. Do you think she has pinkeye?

(strained silence)

Secretary: We would like you to come check her eye out and tell us what you think.

Mrs. Mehl: (Me wondering, "Why do you think that I am more capable of a diagnosis than a school nurse?) OK, that's fine. What do YOU think it looks like?(Some information please...)

Secretary: I was just told to have you come to the office.

(silence)

Mrs. Mehl: (Realizing that logic is not part of this discussion...) Um, OK, I'll be there soon. Bye.

I then used the skills that ALL of my medical training gave me and made my diagnosis even before I went to go pick up my patient. I deduced that my patient didn't need to have people looking at her like she was diseased all day, which would happen if I left her at school. I picked up my ecstatic patient and we are headed off to McDonald's for lunch and an afternoon of shoe shopping and Easy-Bake oven-ing. Later.

P.S. I was right, she didn't have pinkeye. Maybe I am a medical professional after all

Amazing Gift

2009-08-19T19:59:00.003-06:00

We were surprised on Sunday when Sister Wilson from our branch stopped by our house. She said that she had stopped by to give us something from Sister Marciniak, a former branch member who had moved a few months ago. She then she presented us with this beautiful painting of Kaitlin on her baptism day.

We couldn't believe it! Sister Marciniak had asked me for a picture of Kaitlin on her baptism day months ago, but I didn't think anything of it. I only thought that she wanted to see a picture of Kaitlin in her dress since she wasn't able to make it to the baptism. I had no idea that she was planning a gift for us. We were amazed and really touched by her thoughtfulness. Thank you Sis. Marciniak!!

Our Midwest Summer

2009-08-16T20:09:00.014-06:00

The highlight of our summer was of course going to Utah and spending time with family and friends, but we also had some fun here in the good old midwest. Here's a sampling of some of the things that we have done in the past few weeks.

Here are some pictures of the girls out at Pittsfield lake that is about 3 miles from our house.

We went to Nauvoo to see the pageant just before it closed for the year. They had a lot of pioneer crafts and games to do before the pageant which the kids loved. Since we are in such a small branch, it was great to be with a large number of Saints. We had the chance to talk to members that were volunteering at the pageant from all over the country. The pageant was great as well. If anyone wants to see it next year, you can come stay at our house, we have plenty of room! Here's a picture of the girls in front of a statue of Joseph.

At the pageant, like at General Conference, there are people there trying to take save us from our "mistakes". Have you ever pondered this question? (Joke, don't go to this ridiculous website).

Next, it was off to Mark Twain Lake in Missouri. It is only about 40 minutes from our house. I grew up going to the lake or at the beach, so all of my family vacations involved water. Becky does not share my love for water but she came anyway. (What a wonderful wife I have). She does admit now that she had fun though. We stayed at a campground that had a waterpark, miniature golf, go carts, etc. After doing all of that, we went down to the lake and rented a Sea-Doo. It was a blast. The lake is right next to Hannibal so we went to the Mark Twain Cave. Mark Twain based some of his books on the cave.

Yesterday we went to the Illinois state fair. It was our first experience at a state fair. It was huge. It's basically like one large amusement park with animals. The kids enjoyed feeding the camels, sheep and goats.

This is the famous butter cow. The whole display was made out of butter. The longest line at the fair was to see the butter cow. Only in the midwest baby!

Kaitlin is getting big enough to enjoy some of the rides that you have to pay an arm and a leg for.

And finally, what would a midwest state fair be without milking a cow. The girls actually thought it was cool and were not grossed out by it.

It has been a good summer, too bad it has to end.

Birthdays, Baptisms and More

2009-04-06T16:41:00.006-06:00

Yes we are slackers and have not blogged for a long time. Things have been pretty busy with work, school, birthdays, church and a baptism. Kaitlin turned 8 years old at the end of January. We can't believe how fast she is growing up. For her birthday we went down to St. Louis and spent the day. The first stop was at Build-A-Bear Workshop to get her birthday stuffed animal. Kaitlin loves monkeys so this is the one that she picked.

Later in the day we went to a restaurant called Fitz's. They bottle their own root beer and soda there and you can watch them do it. Pretty cool place. They brought out the kids' food in old Chevy classic car boxes. The girls thought they were pretty cool.

Of course turning 8 years old meant that Kaitlin could be baptized. Kaitlin was very ready and exicted to be baptized. She gave a talk in Church about baptism a few months ago and everyone was very impressed by what she said and how grown up she is. The day after her baptism she was asked to talk about her baptism. We wanted her to think about her feelings and talk about them, so we did not help her with the talk. She bore her testimony and did a wonderful job. Here she is in her beautiful baptism dress.

3 days later was Camie's 5th birthday. Since there is not much to do in the little town of Pittsfield, we again spent the day in St. Louis. The first stop again was Build-A-Bear Workshop for Camie to get her birthday bear.

That evening we ate at the Elephant Bar Restaurant. They brought out a big sundae for Camie and her eyes were huge. It was a fun day. When we got home, Camie was happy to open her presents! Camie is also growing up fast. Like Mom and Kaitlin she is in love with reading books. She is only in pre-K but is reading at a 1st grade level. She reads all day long. At school they have her go in with the 1st grade class to read. We are blessed with two girls who are very smart and sweet.

Well, it has been a busy few months. We are off to Chicago for our first experience in the "big city." We have a lot of fun stuff planned so we should have plenty to blog about towards the end of the week.

Crazy? You tell me...

2008-12-18T09:36:00.003-07:00

Growing up in Utah, I never once dealt with cancelled school. I always wished for it, of course, because who wouldn't want a day off from school? Every little kid's dream, for sure. I remember that we could get two feet of snow and still have to get up and go to school the next day.

Kaitlin and Camie's school district is just a little bit different than what I am used to. They have had me pick up the kids early because the school was too hot inside.... several times. They have had me pick them up early because there was too much rain and thunder. On Tuesday they had me pick them up early because it snowed two inches. And today (which at the moment is 25 degrees and slightly overcast) I just got a phone call to pick up Kaitlin because of impending bad weather. So, let me get this straight. I need to go pick up my child from school for bad weather that hasn't even happened yet? Um, yeah.....

I Heart Nauvoo

2008-11-25T17:38:00.003-07:00

Recently, we had two members of our branch go through the temple for the first time. They wanted all of the members of the branch to be there, so our fam made a trek up to Nauvoo to go support them. It's really exciting when stuff like this happens because our branch is so small and poorly attended. I remember how shocked I was our first Sunday in Illinois because about 15 people showed up to church. I spent 3 hrs trying to hold back my tears because our branch was so small and there were no other young couples to be friends with. Kaitlin and Camie were also the only kids in primary. Quite a change from Utah, for sure.

Anyway, we couldn't both attend the session since we haven't found any babysitter we trust, especially for 7+ hours, so Rob attended while the kids and I wandered downtown Nauvoo. We went to all of the little shops, looked for souveniers and tried to soak in all things LDS since we don't get to experience it all around us anymore.

Here's a pic of Kait and Cam in the darling little pioneer bonnets I bought them. They thought I was a loser for buying them, but I didn't really care and I made them wear them for my own personal enjoyment.

Here's a gorgeous pic of the Nauvoo Temple. There's really nothing like a clear autumn day to help you take an awesome picture.

Here's a close up of a sunstone, which I LOVE!!! I think that they are so beautiful. I bought a heavy marble carving of one to put somewhere in my house. It's still in it's box right now because I have not bought any furniture yet to put it on. Curse-ed backwoods Illinois....

Finally, here are my sweet little munchkins in front of a fabulous backdrop.

I honestly can't get enough of Nauvoo!!

I love yardwork?

2008-11-07T08:25:00.005-07:00

I am so-o-o-o-o not used to doing yardwork. We have spent 10 years living in apartments, condos and townhomes and as a result, we have been spoiled. In times past, we have waved to the passing workmen as they've mowed our lawn and pruned our bushes. We've asked them to spray for bugs and to remove the bird's nests and beehives in our eaves. In all, we have hardly had to lift a finger to care for our green surroundings. Awesomeness, I know....

Anyway, our time for laziness has come to an end now that we have our own property to care for.

I spent an hour on Tuesday sweeping up leaves on my deck and on the back portion of my driveway. It was a lot of work, and I didn't get very far.

It's sad that this is what I still have waiting for me in my front yard.

This is what I have waiting for me in my backyard.

Oh yeah, and here are the kids destroying all of my hard work.

To top it off, these are some of the leaves I am going to have to take care of in the future.

I've got five more trees full of leaves in the front yard and seven in the back. All just waiting to fall and torture me with endless work. Now I'm wondering why I even bothered in the first place...

Halloween, here we come!!

2008-10-30T22:11:00.003-06:00

I just can't get enough of these girls!! They are so cute!

Presenting Kaitlin as Princess Aurora, long blond locks and all. Making this costume robbed me of a week of my life (that doesn't sound bitter, does it?) but the effort was well worth it.

Here's Cam as her current fave, Tinkerbell. Thank goodness I didn't have to make this costume!! She received it for her Tinkerbell inspired 4th b-day party and I was so proud of finding it because I got an $80 costume for $20!!!

We are definitely ready for Halloween tomorrow, are you?

Tagged again!

2008-10-23T20:40:00.002-06:00

Kristy tagged me forever ago, but I didn't know it because we haven't blogged for so long. Sorry Kristy, I promise that I wasn't ignoring you!! Anyway, here goes...

How to play this game of tag:
Post these rules on your blog.
Name 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections and 3 random surprising facts about yourself.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names.
Let them know that you have tagged them by leaving a comment on their blog.

3 Joys: My family, My church and apple jolly ranchers
3 Fears: Spiders, untimely death by choking or drowning, uncovered windows at night
3 Goals: Be completely organized, finish renovating my house, get rid of my fat butt, etc.
3 Current Obsessions/Collections: Finding current and pretty furnishings for my home in the the middle of podunk Illinois (almost impossible, by the way, as evidenced by the fact that I have not found one single item to buy in 3 months.), perusing anthroplogie.com, and finishing the girls halloween costumes in time, which is not looking very promising at this point.
3 Random Surprising Facts About Myself: I can play the bagpipes, I was on Orrin Hatch's senate youth advisory committee in high school, and I can make my upper lip touch my nose without using my hands.

I tag Kimmie, Stephanie, Tammy, Teresa and Farrah!!

Yes, We Are Still Alive

2008-10-19T15:49:00.019-06:00

We have not posted for so long that some people may be wondering if we are still alive. Yes, we are surviving here in Illinois. Things have been a little crazy over the last few months as we have been trying to get situated here. It rained a lot last month here in Illinois which we are not used to. It rained for about 3 days straight. When I say rain, I don't mean the sprinkles that we have out west, I mean pouring rain. Anyways, the ground was so saturated that everybody's basement began to flood, including ours. Luckily we don't have anything too important in the basement. Our food storage is down there but it managed to stayed dry. Our basement is concrete and has a drain in it so we didn't have to use a pump to get all of the water out. I took about 2 days to drain. Here is a picture of the "wonderful rain."

Owning a house is good, but a lot of work. The old house that we have is sure pretty on the outside, but it being old we have found a lot of problems. About 1 week after the basement flooding, Becky was working on the computer and all of the sudden she drips of water coming form the ceiling. After a few minutes, it began pouring water from the ceiling and part of the ceiling fell down.

This happend the night before General Conference and when I was watching the BYU football game. I was so ticked. I did not want to call a plumber because it would be very expensive on the weekend. I found the leak in the upstairs bathroom. In order to get to the leak, I had to take out part of the wall as you can see. Luckily, this is in the bathroom closet so we can hide it well.. After working on it for most of Saturday, I was able to fix the leak. Besides all of the house repairs, I have been busy with work and with my church calling. Becky has been busy taking the girls to dance, gymnastics, school and working around the house. She is also busy practicing the piano as she is the only person in the branch that can play the piano. She has been putting a Primary Program together basically all by herself. None of the other ladies in the branch were ever in Primary so they do not know what to do. Becky is putting the program together and she has to play the piano for all of the songs. She is amazing. Even doing all of this she still has time to do fun things for us. She likes having a bigger kitchen where she can make stuff easier. One night I came home from work and she had a wonderful dinner prepared for us. For all of you who know Becky, presentation is very important. Here is a picture of the dinner table all ready. As you can tell, Kaitlin is very excited.Becky had prepared a full four course meal, all of it from scratch. Here is the broccolli salad.The garnishes for the salad and the sandwiches.The sandwich on homemade froccia (sp?) bread. You can see the dessert on the first picture. Becky is amazing and she always has so many creative and fun ideas. I don't know how she does it all, but I'm very glad that I have her.

Kaitlin is staying busy with school, gymnastics and dance. She is doing very well in gymnastics and likes it the best. She has gotten 100% on every spelling test this year. She is a smarty pants. Besides that, she is focusing a lot of her energies on trying to grow some teeth!
Camie is busy just being cute and funny. She is the clown of the family and can always make us laugh. She is loving pre-K. Sorry that this is so long, but we will update you guys on some other things that we have done. Living close to St. Louis is fun because there is lots to do. There are a lot of free things to do there. Last month we went to Grant's Farm. It is actually owned by Anheiser Busch. It is free to get in. First you ride on a tram through a wild animal park, then you go around and see different animals. Of course, there are the famous Clydesdale horses there. This is one of the young Clydesdale horses, if you can see, this horse is trained well as it looks like it is smiling for the picture. You can buy bottles of milk to feed the baby goats. This was the highlight of the girls' day.

Since it is fall, it is the perfect time to break out the kites. Camie was quite the pro at kite flying and she kept hers up in the air the longest. Kaitlin just wanted hers to fall so that she could catch it. I was trying to take pictures of the trees while I was trying to fly my kite. Here is one of the pictures that I took. While I was taking the picture, I wasn't paying attention to the kite and it got tangled with Becky's kite. She was ticked off. She said that I don't know anything about Kite "etiquette". I didn't know there was an etiquette to kite flying. In Brazil, the goal was to knock down other people's kites. Oh well.Well, I know that was long and definitely not as witty as Becky's posts, but at least you can see what we have been up to. I will get Becky to post soon.

Camie's First Day of School!!

2008-08-27T21:02:00.002-06:00

I can't believe that my baby is old enough to go to preschool!!

Camie started on Monday and she loves it! I was a little bit worried about her because she is my tender/sometimes shy little one. In fact, when we went to go sign her up for preschool and get her picture taken a couple weeks ago, she was in tears and didn't want to leave my side. So, of course, I geared up for an upset little girl and a tear-filled parting on Monday. I was so wrong!! She was ecstatic to be at preschool: to meet new friends, get her locker, play games, etc. etc. She honestly couldn't get rid of me fast enough (tiny ego blow, by the way...) but I am glad that she was so happy!!

Here she is on the first day of school!! I had her dressed in the cutest little outfit that morning until we reviewed over the preschool papers, which said that she had to wear her preschool t-shirt on the first day of school. She was very upset because the t-shirt was huge and ugly. We solved some of the problem by tying up her sleeves with little bits of ribbon that matched the bow in her hair. She wasn't terribly happy, but she still looked cute, no matter what she was wearing!

Here she is in her classroom. Her teacher in Miss Davies and she is very young, probably fresh out of school. She is incredibly nice and sweet and I already love her. When we got to school, Camie sat right down and got to work. She made a new friend right away.

Here is the outfit that she should have worn on the first day of school, but what can you do? She wore it on the second day of school instead and she looked fabulous, dahling.

It is so weird to have two kids in school and even weirder to have 3 hours to myself every day for the first time in seven years. I almost feel guilty....

Kaitlin's First Day of School!!

2008-08-21T20:25:00.002-06:00

Here's my baby on her first day of 2nd grade!!

She slept with her hair in curlers last night so she could have beautiful curly hair for school in the morning. She wanted the small sponge rollers so her hair would be extra-extra curly. Mom vetoed that idea immediately and chose the biggest rollers so she could have soft waves instead of a 'fro.

Here she is at her table in her new classroom. Her teacher is Mrs. Heafner (pronounced Hefner, as in Hugh) and she seems really nice. She sits at a table with 6 other kids, so hopefully she'll get to know some more kids asap.

Hopefully this is the start of a great school year!!!

Happy Anniversary to us!!

2008-08-13T21:48:00.004-06:00

August 8th was our 10th anniversary! (Which is not today!) On our actual anniversary, I had intended to post some loving comments about my wonderful husband and gush about the 10 fabulous years that we have had together. However, in typical Becky fashion, I didn't get around to posting it when I should have and now you get to see my too late, sorry attempt at celebrating our time together. I apologize in advance...

We got married on August 8, 1998 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. Out ceremony was at 7:20 in the morning, which meant we had to be there at 6am. It was so early that my plan was to get my hair done the day before and sleep with a hairnet, SITTING UP (good plan, I know), so that my hair would be pretty for all of the pictures. Unfortunately, I got into a car accident that day (just a fender bender) and it made me miss my hair appointment. I was so upset over the accident and the thought of my wedding hair being ugly that I cried all the way up to the Inn on Temple Square, where my family was staying the night before the wedding. Rob spent the better part of that evening consoling me over the phone, and I believe that I threw a little tantrum and refused to go to dinner with my family. (Of course I was mature enough to get married....what were you doing thinking otherwise?) I didn't really sleep that night and woke up around 5am to do my own hair, with my mom's help. It took longer than I thought and I was about 15 minutes late to the temple. Rob, remembering how upset I was, honestly thought that I was ditching him when I didn't show up on time. Oh ye of little faith.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch. The ceremony was amazing and it was wonderful to share it with our family and friends. The rest of the day was a whirlwind, with pictures, luncheon, reception, etc. We were tired, but so happy. We had almost everyone that we loved with us that day and we had each other. It was a great day.

Finally...GUSH ALERT: Turn away if this sickens you. Consider yourself warned.

I just wanted to say what an amazing husband I have. I'm so lucky that I was able to marry my best friend. He is kind, loving, supportive, hilarious (bet some of you didn't know that because he is so quiet), etc, etc. The list goes on and on. He is the best husband and father that anyone could ask for and I'm so blessed that he's mine.

Living the Wild Life

2008-08-10T15:46:00.007-06:00

Out here in Illinois we have been able to see a lot of wildlife on our yard. The kids have enjoyed it. We have a squirrel that lives in our backyard and is frequently on our porch. The kids have named him Alvin (squirrels and chipmunks are about the same, right?) We bought him some dried corn and he comes onto the porch and eats it. Here is a picture of him resting on our porch.

We have seen rabbits, frogs, butterflies and fireflies in our yard. The girls love to catch the fireflies and to place them in containers that they call their "lanterns." Also, the other day when I was mowing the lawn a baby deer came running onto our lawn. He went almost up to our house before he got scared and ran off.

We have found a few bugs in our house as well. One was in the laundry and Becky was freaked out when she was folding clothes and it came jumping out of the basket and ran up her front. She was freaking out, jumping and screaming. Ha ha.

Yesterday I went outside to take out the trash and was surprised to see this coming out from under our porch.

No, your eyes do not deceive you, that is a snake. It hid back under the porch when it saw me and so it is still there and we have no idea how to get it out. I know it's not poisonous, but I still had nightmares about Indiana Jones when he is in the pit with the snakes. I will have to go on a snake hunt and will keep you posted on the progress. I went to Farm and Home to see what options there were, but they only sell snake repellant. That doesn't help me now, so I will have to get some of that when he is gone.

We also have some other "wild life" present in our neighborhood. The neighbor on one side of us is a widow, so we never hear much coming from that side. On the other side of us the neighbors seem to have a party every night. They were particularly loud on Friday night. They apparently had a good time as is witnessed by what we found on our side yard on Saturday morning.

At least we aren't bored in our small midwest town!

iFun with iPhone

2008-08-01T23:02:00.003-06:00

Cell phones and I don't have a very good track record together. I got my first cell phone in 1998, one of those huge ones that had a flip-down mouthpiece and 75% of it's size was battery pack. I had it for around 1 1/2 years before I accidentally left if on the roof of my car and drove off, leaving it in pieces on 500 W in Provo. I tried again with a Nokia in 2001, when Kaitlin was a baby, because I needed one for "safety reasons". Ironically, it would have never kept me safe because I was incapable of remembering to charge it. My Kyocera flip phone that I have had for the past five years was a good one, but finally died after having too many cups of water, juice and milk spilled on it in my diaper bag. I constantly drive my husband crazy because I never hear my cell phone when it rings. It is never charged when in needs to be, and I am always losing it and having to call it to find it. "Why do you have a cell phone if you can't even answer it?", is a common question in our home.

We had to buy new cell phones when we got to Illinois because they don't have Verizon in our area, and I ended up picking out one that I love!!

I'm not one who is tech-savvy or cares about electronics, but our new phones are so fun! I watch You-Tube on in, listen to my music and even check my email (which is shocking, because those of you who know me know that I check my email a few times a year). I can actually hear my phone to answer it, just because I have it close to play with it. I'm sure that the novelty will wear off soon, and I'll g0 back to my cell phone abusing ways, but for now I am loving it!!

I've been tagged

2008-07-25T20:46:00.002-06:00

Sara just tagged me with the Husband Tag. I've never done one of these before. We'll see how it goes....

1. What is your husband's name? Robert
2. How long have you guys been together? Our 10th wedding anniversary is on Aug. 8. (Hopefully a good present will come out of this anniversary. We'll see.)
3. How long did you date for? We dated for exactly 2 weeks before we decided to get married. My mom cried for a week afterwards when she heard. I think that she thought I was too young to be throwing my life away.
4. Who eats more? Duh.
5. Who said "I love you" first? He did. He told it to me a week after we started dating and I said, "thank you".
6. Who is taller? He is 3 inches taller than I am. We are pretty much the same height on Sunday when I wear my high heels.
7. Who sings better? Define better. Neither of us will be winning contests for our singing voices anytime soon.
8. Who is smarter? The obvious choice would be Dr. Rob, though I do have to say that I actually did have higher ACT scores than he did and I was recruited by Harvard, Yale and Oxford. However, that was back in the days before I had kids and before my mind atrophied from disuse.
9. Who does the laundry? Me, but he usually helps me fold.
10. Who does the dishes? He unloads the dishwasher and I load.
11. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do. I am always actually on his right side in almost everything we do. When we sleep I have to be on his right side or we can't sleep. If we are holding hands I have to be on his right side or it feels really wierd. When we are at a restaurant in a booth, I am always on his right side, but we hate it because i am left-handed and he is right-handed and we are always bumping elbows.
12. Who pays the bills? I do. He really doesn't care where the $ goes as long as all of the bills are paid and we have a little left over.
13. Who mows the lawn? He does. In Springville we had a little tiny square of lawn that he mowed with a weed whacker because our lawn mower broke. Out here in Illinois we had to buy a new lawn mower, but since he hasn't started working yet, we could only afford a push lawnmower instead of a riding lawn mower. First time he mowed our lawn, it took him two days to get it done!
14. Who cooks dinner? I usually do, but he is really good to step in if I am tired or bitter.
15. Who is more stubborn? That is easy. Me for sure. Rob is the most laid-back person I have ever met.
16. Who kissed who first? He kissed me first.
17.Who asked who out first? I'm not sure about that one. We were just friends and hanging out when we decided that we liked each other. There was really no official dating involved.
18. Who proposed? Well, two weeks after we starting dating we were at Rob's brother's house laying on the trampoline and looking at the stars. The subject somehow got around to marriage and we, in our roundabout ways, said how we finally felt and agreed that's what we were going to do. He officially proposed a few weeks later at Venice Beach. We were down at his parent's house for his niece's blessing and we were walking around the beach looking for seashells. He called me over to come look at a shell that he had found and then he flipped if over and my ring was inside.
19. Who is more sensitive? Me, though I try to deny it.
20. Who has more friends? I do, but he is able to keep his friends longer and his care for his friendships better than I can.
21. Who has more siblings? He does. There are four kids in my family and 5 in his.
22. Who wears the pants in the family? I have the dominant personality, but he wears the pants in the family. When he feels strongly about something, I defer to him and he always gets his way. I don't fuss about this system because he is really laid back and really doesn't care how I run things, so even though I always defer to him when he cares about an issue, I get my way 99.9% of the time.

That was fun! I tag Courtney, Katrina and Teresa!

Road Trip!

2008-07-23T23:52:00.004-06:00

It took us three days to arrive here in Illinois. We left on Sunday, July 6 around 9 am. I cried my eyes out as we were driving through Spanish Fork canyon because it hit me how much I was going to miss all of my family and friends. It is always so sad to move on, even if moving on is a good thing. I managed to compose myself around Scofield and the rest of the trip went pretty well.

TRIP AS FOLLOWS:
Here we are in No Name, Colorado (yes, that really is it's name) enjoying the beautiful scenery:

We got stuck in traffic right after we took this picture. The two hour trip from No Name to Denver turned into almost five hours! This is the embroidery I was able to finish in ONE day because we were in the car for so freakin' long. (Not bitter, not bitter at all)

Here is Kaitlin lounging in the car as she watches one of the 20 Disney movies that she watched in 3 days. Notice the stinky foot kicking me in the back of the head. :)

Here are Robbie and I enjoying our ride together.

We stayed in Goodland, Kansas our first night, in a hotel that was gross. We were too tired to care much, so it was OK. The next day we drove 5 hrs to Kansas City. Last time we were there, we passed by a hotel that Rob has been obsessed with ever since. He loves water, as we all know, and this hotel has an indoor waterpark. He booked us a "Kid Kamp Suite", which had a part sectioned off for the kids that resembled a cabin with bunk beds. The girls loved it!

The water park was a blast as well. We checked in at 4 and were at the water park until 9. We ate dinner, went to bed and woke up early to go there again before we had to check out. Even water-hater me had fun.

Here we are on day three as we are about to cross the Mississippi.

The girls were obsessed with sunglasses this trip and wore them every chance that they got. If you see the angry clouds in the background you will see that sunglasses were not necessary in either pic, but they sure looked fabulous!!

These are the angry clouds that greeted us as we reached the Mississippi. This is the point where we wondered if this was a bad omen and if we should turn around and drive home as quickly as possible.

Finally, here is the blinding rain that we hit about 15 mile away from our destination. I was a little freaked out because the clouds were moving in so fast and because they were so angry looking. I was right to be worried because later we found out that the tornado sirens had sounded in our new hometown and also that a tornado had actually touched down between our town and a neighboring town. What a welcome!!

2 1/2 Weeks of Fun?! Part Deux

2008-07-18T20:33:00.003-06:00

We had the movers come and box up our house on July 2. They showed up at 8:30 in the morning and begin pulling boxes out of our crawl space. I am a notorious pack-rat, so I spent the better part of 2 months going through our crawl space and throwing things out. I think that when all was said and done, we had probably gotten rid of half of what was in our crawlspace. I was so proud of myself and my purging abilities UNTIL I saw them keep pulling box after box after box out of our crawlspace. Watching in horror as half the downstairs was filled even BEFORE the rest of the movers came to pack the stuff that we actually NEEDED. By the end of the day, all we had was a little walkway from the front door to the back. Sad I know, but we really do need our 82 1/2 years of food storage, my punch bowl that I have used twice and the glass beer mugs that someone gave us for our wedding and we have never actually opened. They are COMPLETELY necessary.

The next day another set of movers came and put everything in the truck. They were giving each other high-fives and slaps on the back as they pulled up because they were loading such a small place and they were sure they would be done in a few hours. Imagine their shock when they actually saw the houseful of crap that they had to load. Ha Ha!

In the afternoon I felt bad for the guys because it was 100 degrees out, so I offered to go buy them some gatorade. They would like gatorade, they said, but beer would really hit the spot. One of them even offered for me to come party with them afterwards. SWEET! Tempting, I know, but I was shockingly able to resist.

This is a picture of our poor little empty townhome after they were done. We lived here for 5 years, and we had so many good memories here. We will really miss it and all of our good friends and neighbors. We had a wonderful time while we were in Springville, and we will miss it terribly.

After all of the moving, we were lucky enough to be able to go to the Stadium of Fire. It was a blast!!!

I have lived in Utah Valley almost my whole life, but I have never actually made it to Stadium of Fire until this year. Shockingly, I have never felt the need to commune with Brooks and Dunn or the Osmonds on July 4th. Blasphemy, I know.

It was such a treat to be there and we LOVED Miley and the Blue Man group. My favorite part was the fireworks.

2 1/2 Weeks of Fun?! Part One

2008-07-14T23:05:00.002-06:00

Our lives have been COMPLETELY turned upside down in the past 2 1/2 weeks. We have had a graduation, movers boxing up and emptying our little townhome, a Fourth of July celebration, and a trip halfway across the country to our new home all in 2 1/2 weeks. Not much, I know, but I think that I am just a little bit tired. So, where do I begin?

Rob's graduation went very well. as any proud wife would say. After 11 years of continuous education/suckiness, he is finally done!! His ceremony was a sit-down dinner held at the Alpine Arts center. It was beautiful, but you'll just have to take my word for it because as usual I forgot my camera. Who needs to have record of the culmination of 11 years of hard work anyway? Not me!!

Here is a pic of Rob and his graduating class of residents. (Sidenote: Notice the ghetto use of a camera taking a picture of a picture. We're all about class at this blog!)

Every year, each graduating class takes a "funny" picture that only they and people associated with the residency understands.

EXPLANATION OF FUNNY:

Rob and Mark are wearing sombreros and ponchos because most of their patients were Hispanic. They are slapping babies bums because they each delivered many, many, MANY babies. Har. Darren hunts, Jim golfs, Jen was the ad campaign girl for IHC. The two headstones represent Dan and Jonah who left the residency. It is actually very clever and funny to me, and to anyone who knows these guys, but everyone else is meant to be confused.

Finally......

WARNING: PROUD WIFE ALERT!!!! (If gushing bothers you, please turn away!!)

Every year all of the residents of each class get together and vote on the graduating resident who they thought was the best teacher and mentor to all of the residents. It is such an honor, and they voted on Rob to receive the award!!!

I am so proud of him and all of his hard work. All throughout his schooling and residency, people have told me how amazed they are at how much he knows, how high his test and board scores are, how compassionate he is, etc. He has put everything he has into becoming a good doctor and it makes me so happy that he was recognized for it.

I know that Rob was very happy to work with all of the people that he worked with at IHC. He met many amazing friends and mentors while he was there and I know that he'll miss each one of them. We're sad it is over, but, as usual, life moves on.

The Etiquette of Arson

2008-06-26T23:50:00.002-06:00

Kristy and I have been working for weeks on planning an etiquette dinner for our Activity Day girls at church. We have discussed menus, centerpieces, stemware, silverware, etiquette tips, etc, etc, etc. We've made invitations, menus, and placecards. We had it all very carefully planned. Too bad that it all went up in smoke. (Cue ominous music please....and forgive the soon to be obvious pun.)

So, we are at the church, in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on our fabulous dinner that we have been preparing all day. Part of the menu was sauteed green beans with slivered almonds, so we were heating a little bit of olive oil on the stove to quickly saute them.

The oil on the stove started to smoke a little bit (not even a lot, a LITTLE bit) as it was getting hot and it set the dang smole alarm off at the church. Just like out of a movie, the lights dimmed, other lights started flashing and a loudspeaker started shouting "danger, please exit the building." Of course we were freaking out and were running frantically around trying to figure out how to shut if off. I ran to the fire alarm panel and pulled off the cover to see if I could shut if off that way and it started sounding off a different (and even louder) alarm. Luckily I was able to get the cover back on and turn the second alarm off. Mind you, the first alarm is still screeching and the voice is still shouting. This is the point when all of the people start showing up at the church. Talk about embarrassing. We were all talking and trying to decide what to do and I decided that we should call the fire dept. to see if they could tell us how to shut it off. I called them and asked them what we should do. They told me that they were moblilizing a unit to come. I screamed NO!! and told them not to come with a fire engine. Could you imagine that pulling up? I talked them into only sending the fire chief in his SUV to turn in off. They finally made it about 20 min. after the alarm first went off. They came in opened a panel and quickly turned it all off. At this time, a man from the stake came and started to berate us for daring to cook in the kitchen. "Don't you know that you can't cook in the kitchen?" "You should have known that you can't cook in the kitchen!" "Are you guys blind, can't you see that there was a partially obscured sign that says that you can't cook in the kitchen?" Forgive us for assuming that a kitchen was meant to be used. We obviously must be stupid to have come to that assumption. (I don't sound bitter at all, do I?) Anyway, even though we were obviously very flustered, the meal went off pretty well. I think that the girls and their moms enjoyed it and if you give me a week I may decide that I enjoyed it too.

She's Craft-tay!

2008-06-17T23:01:00.004-06:00

As we prepare to move to our new home, I have been frantically going through our things, purging all of the junk and trying to finish all of the unfinished projects that I have had. Here are a few of my finally finished projects in all of their glory.

Here is a quilt that I started at the beginning of last year. I was so gung-ho when I began it that I was almost finished with it in about 5 days. In typical Becky fashion, I got sick of it and didn't touch it again for almost a year and a half. Finally, faced with a deadline to get it quilted at the store before we move, I was forced to finish it. It took me all of two hours to finish. WHAT is my PROBLEM!!

Here is the intricate stitching that some nice lady did for me for the low price of $100!! I almost wet myself when they told me how much it was, but I held my composure and took this low blow with grace and dignity.

Here is the tutu that I promised Kaitlin approx. a year ago. I bought Camie a similar one at the Hobble Creek Barn Boutique and we went the very next day to buy the tulle so we could make Kaitlin one right away!! As usual, other things got in the way and it was continually put on hold until the last second. When I started, it took me 6 hours to gather each layer of tulle and stitch it to the waistband. This I know, because I started A&E's verson of Pride and Prejudice at 8:30pm and did not finish the sewing until I finished the whole entire mini-series at 2:30am. The ribbons, sequins and flowers I glued on with E600 the next day. (Best glue ever, by the way.) Also, I don't know if you can see it, but the skirt is dotted with tons of hand -placed pink and clear Swarovski crystals. I think might have had a glue buzz by the time I was done with all of this.

Finally, here is a cute card that I made with some stampin' up stuff I happened to acquire. I am in love with this stamp set, called Tart and Tangy.

Sad thing is that, after finishing all these projects, I still have tons of other projects left to do!!

Carnival Fun!!

2008-06-17T22:19:00.004-06:00

Once again, last week, the carnival rolled into town!! My kids look forward to this week with anticipation throughout the whole year. They talk about it in the car, they compare carnival ride stories with their friends, they ask continually when the carnival will be back in town so that they can go on all the "super fun" rides. The girls were frantic with glee last week when they finally saw the flashing lights and heard the horrible music beckoning to them. On Saturday, after a week of begging, we finally were able to make it there!! They were able to ride on the merry-go-round, which is always a favorite...

and ride a few of the other kiddie rides as well.

They had a blast as usual, even though Kaitlin is at an age where she is too big to really have tons of fun with kiddie rides, but is too small to go on the bigger rides. These two girls are really able to have fun wherever they go!! Carnivals are not really my thing, but I think that it is wonderful that even though I am only able to see worn out and dirty old rides, my girls are able to see magic in it all. That is an amazing thing.

Dancing Queens

2008-06-04T21:22:00.000-06:00

Once again my little girls had their Charisma Studios dance recital!! It is months of preparation up to this point, with each girl learning one tap and one ballet routine. Camie made it to dance class almost every week, but we kept forgetting to make it to Kaitlin's dance class because it was Friday afternoon at 4:30. Apperently I am not capable of remembering anything that is scheduled once I am in weekend mode. Anyway, we did manage to start making it to class a month and a half before the recital and luckily Kaitlin was able to pick up everything very quickly. Both girls did great at the recital. Camie danced to "Baby Face" and "Rubber Ducky" and Kaitlin danced to "A Spoon Full of Sugar" and "Beauty and the Beast". If I had any technical savvy I would try to post clips of their recital, but since I don't, you will just have to imagine. At the end, Kaitlin received a trophy for attending four years of dance classes. It is her very first actual trophy (t-ball is too cheap and only gives out medals) and she is incredibly proud of it.

Here is Camie in all of her fluffy, be-dazzled glory. She loves all of the over the top costumes and will also take any opportunity to be in full make-up. Love the hat, by the way. Do you think that they make them in adult sizes? :)

Here is Kaitlin in one of her "beautiful model" poses that she so desperately loves. Her costume is not nearly as be-dazzled and shiny as Camie's, much to her chagrin, but we made up for it by her elaborate hair-do (I should have taken I picture from the back so you could ooooh and aaaah over my fine work) and her full make-up complete with shimmery glitter and purple lipstick. A little girls dream for sure.

I am very proud of my sweet little girls and I am happy that they have the opportunity to learn new things. I'm also happy that they were able to do something every week that they thoroughly enjoyed. We are very blessed indeed.

Gratuitous Drug Use?

2008-05-30T23:10:00.003-06:00

Well, it has been a while since I have last posted, and for good reason. I have spent the past month fighting off the sinus infection from you know where, which has left me in a prescription drug/antibiotic induced haze.

Fun, I know. Don't be jealous. I can pass it on to you for a very minimal fee. Then you too can have the sensation of sledgehammers smacking you on your skull. I'll also throw in itchy throat, watery eyes and crazy fatigue as well. As a bonus, dizziness and nausea are also included. Ear infections are extra $$, but I do have some to throw around if the price is right. Hurry up and order this wonderful experience before it goes away. Operators are standing by.

Fishing with Dad

2008-05-15T22:40:00.010-06:00

Earlier this week Becky needed a break, so I decided to get out of the house with the girls. I decided to use the fishing license I bought last year and haven't used much. The girls and I packed up and headed up to Spanish Fork Reservoir. It is a great place to go with young kids because it is easy to catch fish and close. We had a blast and each of us caught a fish. Here are the girls holding up some of the fish.

Camie caught the second fish and when I was trying to remove the hook, I got a big suprise. It apparently was a very fertile fish and was full of eggs. The eggs started falling all over the ground. The girls thought it was the coolest thing and they were picking them up. Luckily they are to young to ask any questions and thought that it was cool. Here is a picture of the eggs since I know all of you were wondering what trout eggs look like!

Anyways, we had a great time. Nothing better than spending time with the kids and not having my pager go off.

Come, come ye saints...Please?

2008-04-22T20:38:00.004-06:00

After we found our house, we decided to tour around our soon to be hometown to see what it had to offer. We toured the town square, with the historic county courthouse...

Checked out the beautiful architecture and the amazing stained glass dome...

And decided that we would like to go and find the church that we will be attending in just a few months time.

Oh wait... is that a church or a strip mall? Why it's both!!!

Never in my life did I imagine going to church at the same place where I could buy a slurpee and get my nails done. Sweet. Also, we were told that church attendance is 20-30 people on a good day. I guess you are about to know a relief society teacher/primary chorister/visiting teaching supervisor/ward pianist (who can barely play)/scout leader. Am I missing anything? Can't wait. ;0)

Happy House Hunting!!

2008-04-17T20:00:00.002-06:00

I can't believe that we actually did it, but we bought a house!!!! I seriously thought that this day would never come. Here it is in all of it's glory. It is over one hundred years old, has an acre of land and is around 3,000 square feet. It has such character and I am really excited to be able to get to work on it and make it my own.

This is a picture of our back yard. The present owner did alot of work on it and it has a great pergola and deck in the back. He also planted over 3000 bulbs in the front and back, so in the springtime it will be really beautiful.

This is our front room. I love the window it has and it has really great hardwood floors as well.

This is the dining room. It has the same great hardwood as the living room and a great light fixture .

This is the kitchen. It has amish-made cabinets (shout out to amish) and great appliances. It has carpet in part of it (what they were thinking I will never know), but it is still cute and it will look better once I start ripping things out.

I'll post some more picture next time I blog, hopefully, so you can see some of the upstairs as well. We are so excited about this whole house buying thing and about finally having something to call our own. Hopefully all of the loan process goes smoothly and everything goes as planned.

The Suite Life of Rob and Becky

2008-04-14T22:29:00.009-06:00

We arrived in Illinois today with the goal to pick out our new house!!! We made it here with no problems, except for the fact that we left Rob's briefcase, with his laptop and our camera, sitting on a curb in a St. Louis parking garage. No big deal at all, of course......Yeah......And no big deal that we left it in the most crime ridden city in the nation (just passed up Detriot......congrats St. Louis!) Hmmm, like I said no big deal.

Anyway, despite the fact that we didn't realize it was gone until we had almost reached the Illinois state line and despite the fact that we left it in the ghetto we were blessed and some good samaritan found it and took it straight to the airport police. We were able to pick it up right away and only lost about an hour of travel time.

We made it to our hotel and we were greeted with this in the lobby:

The kids loved it and it made my day too. We were also very happy because they had upgraded our hotel room to a suite!! Last time we stayed at this hotel, we were in a room with water leaking from the roof. We called them and told them about it and asked them for a new room. They just came and just moved our beds and swore up and down that all of their rooms were full. It started leaking more and more throughout the day and by the nightime it was incredibly wet and incredibly loud from all of the dripping. I went to the lobby and threw a fit and miraculously (cue angelic music) they had JUST had a room open up at 2 in the morning. How wonderful. Anyway, long story short, they owed us something for our next trip.

The kids loved taking a bath in the huge whirlpool tub:

And jumping up and down on the two king beds:

And they loved watching TV in the little living room:

It's not much, but it made our day much better because we felt like we go something extra. Score for the Mehls!!!

We'll try to keep you posted on our house hunting advertures during the week, if I am not stricken blind by the overzealous use of faux wood paneling, bad 80's flashback wallpaper and American flag wall borders that seem to abound in these parts. Pray for me.

Sacrifical Peeps

2008-03-23T18:06:00.005-06:00

So we had a pretty good Easter this year. The night before Easter Becky got the easter baskets ready for the kids because I fell asleep. The next morning, the kids brought their baskets up to show us. The first thing that I saw were Peeps on a stick. I had never seen this before and I started laughing like crazy. I asked Becky what they were. She said that she hated touching the Peeps because they are crusty and gooey. To avoid touching them, she put them on the sticks. I told her that they looked like sacrifical Peeps and we laughed together for five minutes. Here are some pictures of the sacrifical Peeps.

The girls had a fun day. We had a easter egg hunt in our backyard and a scavenger hunt for an Easter Prize. The girls got new Easter dresses which is always fun for them since they love princesses and dresses. Here's a picture of them in their dresses. The lighting is not that good but they will only stay clean and with cute hair temporarily, so you have to take pictures as fast as you can.

Seasonal depression

2008-02-23T14:58:00.005-07:00

We haven't posted in a while mainly because most of our family has been sick all week. Becky, Kaitlin and Camie all were sick with Influenza. They were in bed for about 3 days straight. I was the only one to get my flu shot this year, so I was lucky and didn't get it too bad. At this time of year most of us get sick of the snow and the inversion and are ready for spring to come. It has been worse this year due to all of the snow. I know that others have complained about the snow, so I have to also.

Most of the time I love running in the snow. I cannot stand running on the treadmill, so I bundle up and run outside. I must say that I am tired of it this year. There has been so much snow that the sidewalks are not clear. Running on ice is not too fun. You do use muscles that you never thought that you had though. I have only fallen on my face once so far. Here is a picture of me after running a week or two ago. When I left the house the weather wasn't bad and it was not snowing. After I got about 1 mile away, it started snowing like crazy with a strong wind. I could hardly see because of the snow blowing in my eyes.

We have tried to have some fun in the snow. This hill is close to our house so we try to go there and tube every once in a while. Kaitlin and Camie love going on the tubes all by them selves.

Well, hopefully we will have some sun and get out of the seasonal depression soon. Becky will post about Camie's b-day party soon. That's right, if we weren't crazy enough having Kaitlin's birthday party with friends, we had Camie's a few weeks later. I think that Camie and her friends had fun. As for the rest of us, let's just say that everybody became sick the day of the party.

Sugar Rush

2008-02-04T21:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Kaitlin's 7 th birthday party, which we had at Color Me Mine. I decided that after the last birthday party we had for her two years ago, which ended with 10 manic girls beating a poor helpless piniata and grinding jolly ranchers into my carpet, that we would never ever EVER have a birthday party at our poor little townhome again. Instead, in my wisdom, I decided that this year we would escort 12 perfectly behaved children on a short leisurely drive to a very fun location where they would quietly and patiently paint their little works of art until the appropriate time came, and then we would quietly have cake and open presents and head on home. That was my vision. Beautiful, wasn't it. (Moment of silence, please.)

Unfortunately, things never go the way that I envision them. Picture this instead. 12 manic children, high on gummy bears, m & m's and soda running around, screaming at the top of their lungs. Begging for food. Asking for help painting their items. Begging for food. Asking for help making their princess fairy wands and animal puppets. Begging for soda. Running around the store chasing each other and laughing hysterically. Begging for cake. Attacking Kaitlin to try to help her open her presents. Chairs almost knocked over. Begging for treat bags and prizes. Sticky soda and cheeto residue all over the floor. In the car singing the "High School Musical 2" soundtrack at the top of their lungs, interrupted by intermittent shreiking and screaming. Coming home and waiting for parents. Finding three little girls in your bathroom closet standing in a basket of your dirty towels and underwear so they can hear themselves sing the High School Musical 2" soundtrack songs better. Need I say more?

All kidding aside, we had a wonderful day in which we celebrated 7 years with my beautiful baby Kaitlin. We all had fun and her friends were a joy. And the most beautiful part? I didn't have to clean up a thing!

It's all in the details...

2008-01-26T21:41:00.000-07:00

I just received a package that made my day! A while ago I decided that I needed some new comfy shoes and the only place that I could find the ones I wanted was online at piperlime.com.

I ordered them and waited and waited for them to arrive. I was so excited when they finally came, but I have to say that I was more thrilled with the packaging then the actual shoes. This may sound stupid to some, but to the truly obssessive compulsive and anal people just like me, this will make perfect sense.

No more shoe boxes carelessly thrown into a larger box with papers strewn about and inflatable plastic cushioning. Instead, we have an incredibly cute little box printed with limes on the inside. Notice the tissue paper around the shoebox and the adorable little lime sticker on top. Not shown is all of the invoices tucked into a nice little lime green envelope, perfectly organized and easy to find. Joy, my friends, pure joy.

Oh yeah, here are my shoes.

Rob goes to the D.R.

2008-01-09T11:56:00.000-07:00

In November I had the opportunity to go on a humanitarian mission to the Dominican Republic. I went there with an organization called International Aid Serving Kids (IASK). There were about 40 of us in the group and we went for 10 days. There were 3 doctors, 3 dentists, many nurses and students. We were mainly there to provide medications, dental work and treatment for children. We saw about 2000 medical patients during the week. It was a great experience. We were on the eastern side of the island. We mainly went to see the children whose parents worked in the sugar cane fields. Sugar cane is one of the major exports of the Dominican Republic. Most of the people that work in the sugar cane fields are from Haiti. The owners have built "homes" in the sugar cane fields for the workers. These small towns are called "Bateys". The home is 15 ft wide and 15 ft long. It has concrete walls and a roof. They can stay there why they work but once they get too old to work then they have to leave. They get paid about 20 dollars a week. I think that it is basically modern day slavery. There is no electricity in the area. Needless to say, there is a lot of sickness in the area. There are a lot of skin infections, allergies and parasites. Here are some pictures from the trip.

This is a picture of all the people lining up to be seen. It was chaotic sometimes but overall the people were very calm and civil.

Here's a picture of a whole row of the "houses."

Me in action seeing a little girl.

This is the view from our hotel. In the background is a Catholic Basicilica. This is in the town of Higuey.

These guys were so proud of their motorcycle and were begging me to take a picture of them so I did.

We divided up into 2 groups and went to different locations. Here is a picture of my group of doctors, dentists, nurses and support people.

The trip was mostly work but there was some play. On the last day we stayed at a resort near Punta Cana. On the left is a view from my hotel room. The water was clear and very warm. In beauty it is comparable to Hawaii but much cheaper.

Here is a stand close to our hotel. I guess this is the Dominican's version of Viagra. They were selling some type of sausage that is supposed to give you energy. I was not brave enough to try it as the meat was in the open air all day.

Overall this was a great experience. This is the reason that I went into medicine. Hopefully I was able to help some of these kids in the D.R. I look forward to going on many more trips like this in the future.

Welcome to the world of blogs

2007-09-16T18:36:00.000-06:00

Well, we have finally ventured into the world of blogging. After spending time looking at friends blogs and having Becky hounded by her friends for not having a blog, we have finally given in to the pressure. We still are not sure what we are going to put on here, or why people would actually want to read about our lives, but we will do it anyway. We will attempt to put things that are interesting for friends and family to enjoy. Unfortunately, most of the interesting things that I see at work I cannot write about (that would be violating HIPPA privacy laws), but Becky always has things coming up as taking care of two little girls is always interesting.