Blessings to be Thankful for

This year has been so full of blessings I really feel like I'm walking on sunshine. First off I have been blessed to travel all over this last year. In January I was able to drive with Jon to San Francisco for one of his medical school interviews and had such a fun time exploring the city even if it was just one day. Then in March we took what we thought would be our last big trip before medical school started to Montreal and Quebec City and stayed in an ice hotel. Really a chilly yet awesome, beautiful experience! Then we were surprised and delighted to join the Patterson family in a trip to the tropical paradise of Cancun before making the journey to Kirksville, MO.

Though medical school has been a lot of work for Jon he is putting in the effort and doing fantastic! I was blessed to find a job right away at the school and love it along with the people and students. It is such a fun job! To top it off rent is so cheap we were able to rent a duplex house that makes us feel like we live in a luxury home. We love our ward and the welcoming people they are making us feel like family from the moment we moved in. We have made some great friends that we can have parties or for me girl nights. I have a swim friend to help keep me in shape. Free membership (Its probably in tuition somewhere =P) to a gym where I can take fun classes like zumba, barre, and so much more. I have activities out the wazoo to keep me entertained on weeks when Jon is super studying like cooking club, Book club, Releif  society, project nights with fun cheap decorative crafts, and literally so much more!

The great outdoors are so close here its wonderful! I've gotten to go hiking through autumn leaved forests, Kayaking in a beautiful lake, and experienced my first "Dusting" of snow. I am also playing volleyball again which I love and am playing quite well surprisingly for not having played in years.

Then I had the wonderful opertunity to join Jon to Boston where he had an ER conference to present his masters research in. And now here I sit writing this up in Chicago which is a short and inexpensive train ride from Missouri.

I feel so blessed!!! That's not even the half of it! Yes it has been hard to be away from family that I love so dear, but they have been so supportive and we've kept in touch and I know this is a run on sentence but in just a few weeks I will be back in my beloved desert of Arizona to see them and celebrate the birth of my Savior, Jesus Christ.

I think it Has been a long time since I was this excited for Christmas and am already feeling the spirit of it. I am so thankful for this wonderful gospel and the knowledge that if I live righteously I can be with my family forever as well as my Father in Heaven and Savior. Honestly I can't thank either of them enough for the blessings in my life right now but especially for the atonement and the millions of chances I now have to start over when I've made a mistake. Life is wonderful!

Fun scary and the not so fun

I meant to get this posted last Sunday as the events were fresher in my mind, but things came up and so its happening now. October 1st was the general meeting for the SAA group I'm in and we were meeting at the cemetery for some kind of scavenger hunt. I was a bit skeptical but it turned out to be really fun! The school's historian who runs the museum at the school was there to follow us around to the various destinations and tell us interesting facts about the people of old Kirksville.

We first ventured out to AT Still's grave the founder of Osteopathy medicine and of AT Still University the first DO school. There we saw that his son Fred died on the graduation date of the first graduating class and learned that in memory of him they did not celebrate.

AT Still gravesite

Next we found a giant boulder marking the grave of the second school's president. It was during the time of prohibition and I guess he was throwing a party with alcohol and drunk. When someone asked him how he wasn't worried about rioters or getting caught, I can't quite remember which, he pulled out a hand gun that he would use against them. He dropped the handgun and when he bent down to try and catch the falling gun, it landed on the ground and shot a bullet into his head.

We then found a mass grave with all the soldiers who died during the Battle of Kirksville, the last battle giving the Union control over Missouri. It was also cool to find the grave of Jesse Kirk, the man who Kirksville was named after. After visiting some more interesting places we raced to the finish line in first! Wooo woo, got a cup full of candy =) 

Then we heard a creepy story from the museum curator about an old Jewish women's prayer box and the events that would follow the people who owned it. She had prayed to God in the form of this box I suppose as to the cause of the Holocaust that she had miraculously survived but none of her loved ones had. I suppose the answer to this was in Kirksville. The brother in law of AT Still's daughter had started laws in America sterilizing people deemed unfit to reproduce (had seizures, deaf, were from particular regions of the world, etc). Apparently these laws are what gave Hitler the idea for his genocide in Germany and thus caused the Holocaust. Once this was discovered the hauntings from the box stopped. Definitely an interesting story. Overall it was a fun night learning random facts about the history of Kirksville and enjoying some fantastic rich hot chocolate with friends!

A photo with the curator

A photo with our SAA board member, she is whited out and I look like a pig monster =P

And finally a photo at the entrance of the cemetery! I was told to make my scariest Halloween face, but I guess no one else decided to join in...

That was the fun scary night, now onto the story of the not so fun scary night. Last Sunday night Jon got a phone call from his mother that his brother Adam got into an accident on his way back up to NAU. Apparently what ended up happening is he saw a giant boulder (the size of the front of a car) coming down the side of the mountain. He slammed on his breaks and swerved but the boulder still hit the side of his truck, popping all four tires with the impact and sending him spinning 70 feet down the road. The car just behind him said that if he hadn't of swerved the boulder would have landed right on the truck cab, which definitely would have killed him. We were both shaken to hear this, especially Jon and immediately said a prayer of thanks to our Heavenly Father for listening to our prayers to keep our family safe. Every night we pray for this and I'm so glad we do! 

We'll be heading out to Boston at the end of the month so stayed tuned for updates on that and the rest of Fall and Halloween funness to come =) 

1st Month in Kirksville

Wow I can't believe its already been a month! We pulled up to the house the night of June 31st, had one kind soul from our ward come help us unload and you know what?? What took about 2 and a half to 3 hours to pack with 9 people only took half an hour to unload with 5. My blessed mother and Jon's dad were troopers enough to help us drive the 24 hours from Phoenix to Kirksville and we honestly couldn't have done it without them! I'm so glad my mom was there with me to talk and laugh and made the days fly by.

We finally reached our hotel the first night at 5AM... slept four hours, ate breakfast, and headed off again. That night after unpacking we headed off to grab a bit to eat at the local McDonald's where my mom's crazy tired side started showing. Now Jon knows where I get it from =P We then went to the local Walmart to get water (you have to turn it on in person here so this way we could drink, use the bathroom, etc until we turned it on the next day), food, and an air mattress for the boys to sleep on. So you want to come visit?? See Nauvoo or other church sites? We are prepared to room you!

Once again with not enough sleep we rolled out of bed and headed off to show the parentals a quick look at the school Jon is attending and sent them off in their rental car to Kansas City to fly back home. This was the hardest goodbye yet and I had been dreading it. Each goodbye back in Arizona brought tears, but my mom was my last tie to back home and I think I cried the hardest because of that. Jon teared up as well having said goodbye to his father. We both just cried together for a while before sucking it up and getting to work. I really think setting up the house saved us from dwelling on our depression.

So we begin our journey in Kirksville!

Our house!

 Sneak peak of the inside, I love my kitchen!!!

The day after our parents left I had a job interview and got the job! I was so blessed to get this position and now I have a name thingy! Never thought I'd have one of those. I work in the microbiology/immunology department at ATSU the school Jon is attending and I love it. Everyone is so nice and fun to work with and I've gotten to do some fun science so far, but I won't bore everyone with that =P

 The town's 4th of July Parade was so fun! Afterwards we wandered around the Saturday morning farmers market they have every week and got a yellow zucchini and some homemade oreos, like legit homemade. The filling I'm pretty sure was from their cow and sugar it was delicious! Oh yeah we have yet to get a picture of it but we have quite a few Mennonite or Amish people who ride carriages pulled by horses next to the freeway. Its pretty fun to drive by them and they are always giving a wave as you pass. 

The town put on quite the awesome firework show! People were packed in this parking lot but we just crossed the street and enjoyed the view on our picnic blanket in the grass, I don't know why more people weren't over there. But hey, more space and enjoyment for us! We made our own hotdogs and watermelon feast for dinner, so all in all I say we had a pretty fun 4th of July.

The week of Jon's orientation we went blueberry picking! Seriously the most delicious blueberries I have ever eaten, even after being frozen and put in cereal, pancakes, or muffins. Mmmm!

So everything just grows in Missouri I guess and we have had a LOT of rain (I guess more than usual though). So here was a strawberry we found growing in the school's medicinal garden and once again it was the most delicious strawberry I have ever eaten! I definitely plan to grow some in my garden next year. We have also had the joy to try out some raspberries and grapes from this garden too and once again they are fantastic! Much smaller than the ones you find at the store but maybe that's why they are so delicious because they pack so much awesome flavor.

 The last day of orientation the school had a giant picnic dinner by the lake. It was gorgeous! They even had pontoon boats you could ride and get a view from all over the lake. We saw deer and lots of geese with their teenager babies. I've never seen a teenager goose before! Then the next day was the white coat ceremony and it all started to feel real that Jon's actually starting medical school! He is rocking his first three weeks, getting 100's on most of his quizzes, but Monday is the first big section test so he is studying away! 

 Wrapping up, last weekend we decided to go to Nauvoo and watch the Nauvoo Pageant to celebrate Pioneer Day remember those saints and the hardships and sacrifices they went through. Its crazy to me to be in the Nauvoo Stake and so close to so much church history! We walked around the gorgeous temple and then went and visited the fudge shop. I guess it was a favorite of Jon and his brother when they did a church tour so we had to make a stop =) The pageant was so fantastic though, I'm so glad we went and next year we plan to do the British Pageant which is about the British converts and their journey to Nauvoo.  

I think we're going to like it here!