Kirksville, Missouri

I have posted this already I thought... This is what Kirksville kinds looks like when I went with my Dad for the interview.

House shopping:

Turns out is costs more to go out to eat in Missouri than it does to own a house.

We have found a few places that really look fun, I love the "room of death" that each house seems to have.

Anyone out there have any spare animal heads? We want to blend in.

http://www.701cottonwood.blogspot.com/

http://www.show-merealty.com/listing%20Sheets/Hayes/Hayes%20Listing.html

http://www.show-merealty.com/listing%20Sheets/ceiling.JPG

I can't find any of the ones with the really country living look now, but you get the idea.

Binki Fairy aka Tinkerbell

Hallie is almost 4 years old and still has her binki at night time. I watched Super Nanny a couple nights ago and she let us know that 4 was too old for a binki. I have always known that but it has been her only thing that she is attached to and I didn't have the heart to take it from her. But Super Nanny gave me hope!!
I told Hallie that there was a binki fairy who comes to get the binkies from girls who are big now and gives them to little babies who need them and then leaves a surprise in return for the binkies. I got an envelop out and told her when she was ready to give up her binki then we would mail them to the binki fairy. She surprised me and ran and got both her binkies and put them right into the envelop. I put the fairies address on it and Hallie put it outside our door. She then watched out the window for the next hour watching for "Tinkerbell" to come get her binkies. I had a neighbor come take the envelop from our door step. She was even more excited when she saw that it was gone.
The excitement got to her and she couldn't wait for Tinkerbell to bring the surprise so we had to call Tinkerbell and find out what she was doing. So we called her (aka Aunt Kensi) ! When Hallie put the phone up to her ear she was so overcome with excitement she had to sit down. It was hilarious. Thanks Kensi for being Tinkerbell for us!
The best part was that it worked. She went to bed without her binki and hasn't even asked for it. Oh, and Tinkerbell did come and leave a surprise for her!

Pay Back

Tyler just left the room so I have to hurry and put this on. If you all recall in previous post, Tyler has been not to kind in some of the pictures that he has posted of me ( butt shot!) so I just thought I would share one of him with everyone!
This is Tyler in his new suit and I just happened to get a butt shot of him! Ha, Ha, Ha!!!

Funny Story

Hallie (and I'm sure all kids) has spurts of being really stubborn about silly things. The other night we were fighting about her not being able to give the full blown good night rigmarole to Mom.

I tried sitting in the corner, taking away marbles (towards a reward), pinches on the bum, etc etc... She became increasingly hysterical with the shaking and clapping and feet stomping and snot running. Finally things escalated into me threatening the binki.

For those of you who know, or don't know, Hallie has to have a binki to go to sleep, and she loves it. I found an extra one (not the only one, I'm not that mean), and got a pair of scissors to make my point. I warned her a few times, then hacked away. She lost it, and Mom came in to do damage control.

(Side note, earlier that day, Bree had printed out a picture of Cinderella, and Hallie had colored it nicely and was very proud of it. She brought it to work when they came to pick me up, and she showed me it a number of times that night.)

After a few minutes of cool-down, Hallie became calm enough to talk again. She told me to put it back on. I tried to explain that it was gone, no coming back. She didn't get it and so Mom said that it was like when you cut up a piece of paper, you can't put it back. She straightened right up from her defeated, crumpled hugging of Mom and leaned across Bree's shoulder and leveled a little finger at me, with a fierce scowl on her face, "Did YOU (little finger jab) cut up my Cinderella picture?!?"

I had to leave I was laughing so hard.

Annie and Hallie Typical Day

Watch Annie sing and dance and be happy to do anything... Except listen to what Hallie says.

Annie B-Day

I know this is late, but I also know that it is funny. This is the way that all little kids act with their birthdays that I have found. They stare, complain, and are so unhappy... Until you get the gifts open. I am uploading another movie here soon too, so don't miss that one either. These are atypically unedited, they are good enough as-is I think.

We're in...

Tyler just got a phone call from the Medical School in Kirksville, Missouri telling him that he was accepted. They also offered him the "Founders Award" which is a one time scholarship of 10,000 dollars. I think this school might want Tyler to come there, what do you think! The lady who called said that she had pushed his stuff to the front of the pile because they knew he had a couple more interviews. It was perfect timing because he leaves tomorrow morning to interview in Arizona. All I can say is that we are both beyond excited! We have been blessed in so many ways and know that this is a great blessing for our family!

To My Valentine

Six years today Tyler and I met for the first time. We were set up on a blind date by our parents and Tyler was brave enough to ask me out for Valentines Day. I know you hear people say this all the time but it truly has been the best six years of my life. I found out quickly that life would never be boring with Tyler around. It has been one adventure after another with him and each one has given me that much more love for him. He is an amazing person and I am so excited to see what each new day brings with our life together. Here are some of the things that we have done in the past six years.....

* Got Married!
* Moved into our first apartment above my brother and his wife
* Worked together at my mom's store
* Had our first baby
* Got smart and realized Dixie college wasn't cutting it for us
* Moved to Salt Lake City
* Lived in the smallest apartment in the world (not kidding one bit)
* Got smart and moved to student housing on campus
* Had our second child
* Bought our first Van together ( hopefully it won't be our last)
* Learned that we love to run together
* Learned that we will have family wherever we are
* Learned our favorite date night is watching a movie together on our couch
* Learned that 4 days is way to long to be apart from each other
* Tyler graduated with his Bachelors of Science from the UoU
* Applied to Medical School together
* Want to have a 3rd child soon (no we are not pregnant!)
* Learned that this man next to me is mine for eternity and that makes me giggle just thinking about it.

I love you Honey. Thank you for picking me and bringing me along on this adventure that you have planned. I couldn't be more Happy than I am right now!

Words of nothingness...

I have nothing to post on but I thought we better update before everyone quits reading our blog. Tyler had a wonderful weekend in Missouri and the interview went really well. They will let him know in the next week or two. He felt very confident in the whole interview and it really help him prepare for the following two interviews. He loved the school and even like the town that it was in. The only downfall was the weather. It got to -10 and that didn't go well with Tyler. He is really wanting to get away from the cold so that we can be around sunshine again. If Tyler had it his way, we would be in Hawaii and lately that is not sounding like a bad idea. Who knows we could become islanders in the next year! Guess I would never have to worry about the winter blues.
While Tyler was gone my parents came to stay with us. Jessica and Chris came to and we loved every minute of it. Annie wouldn't let Grandma out of her site and made her carry her every where. Poor Grandma, I am sure her back hurt by the time she went home but you never heard her complaining. Isn't this what Grandma's are made for, giving all the love a child needs! Hallie loved having everyone here and especially loved it when someone sat by her in the back of the van. She talked the whole time to each person and was quite grown up about it too. Thank you for coming and being with us. It would have been a long weekend without you.

I live... again

So here I sit in Kansas City Missouri. Got done with the interview and everything went just fine. I have been videoing everything so I will get you all up to speed, hopefully before I leave for the next one in Phoenix.

Stay tuned...

Happy Birthday Annie

Annie's Birthday was last Friday, February 1st, and boy did I get a new look on birthdays. First off, I love birthdays and love to do everything I can to make that day the best ever. Which includes favorite foods and treats, no cleaning, special privileges, and whatever else they want to happen! Annie through me for a loop by not wanting you to even mention the word birthday. Every time someone sang to her she would burst out in tears and if you tried to tell her she was two she would yell no and run off. Yes, my adorable little two year old does not like birthdays. Let's hope this changes by next year. She did like the presents she got but only after they where taken out of the boxes and total unwrapped. She loved the clothes though! (Now that is my daughter!) We have a video of her morning present opening but believe me as the day went on the more she didn't like it. Hallie and I made her a cake and that was the one part that she loved. Oh, she also loved eating the Pizza with Jon and Amy! Anyway, it was a wonderful day and I love the fact that Annie has so much personality. She really is a joy to have and never leaves a minute left. Tyler will be posting a couple of videos of Annie soon.

Here are a few things that make us smile about Annie:
* she gives the best hugs anybody can give (ask anyone)
* she can eat a whole pizza in one sitting
* she thinks that magnets go in the fridge
* she loves to point to everything and ask "was dis"
* when she doesn't know the answer to something she yells "I no"
* she loves her crib and every time you walk in her room she yells "my bed" even if it is not bedtime.
* she yells all the time
* she is the best to put down at night and requests the temple song to be sung to her
* she dances wherever she is
* she is a great entertainer for everyone in church
* she tries really hard to talk and is getting a lot better at it
* as always been in the above average category in weight!
* did I mention she is the best hugger!

We love you Annie and are excited that you are two now!

Electrowhatscapy?

It is fun to tell people that I am an Electron Microscopy Tech. If they don't have any idea what that means, I just tell them that I am a scientist that makes really small things really big. I will attempt to give a reasonable and understandable (and interesting hopefully) explanation of what I do.

When you go get a tissue biopsy (like on your liver, kidneys, or cancer...) and they say that they are sending in the tissue for testing: that's me. We get the tissue and send it through a process to remove the water and fix the cells in place, then we embed it in little plastic blocks. We cut thin slices of tissue from these blocks on a machine called an ultramicrotome. (looka lika dis:




Just to start with the perspective of how small we are talking here, a hair is about 130 micrometers across. (0.13 cenitmeters, .05 inches, super tiny.) Our thick cuts from this plastic block we take at 1 micron (micrometer). So we could split a hair about 130 times. After deciding what we want, we take the thin cuts. We aim for about 70 nanometers (.07 microns, .0007 centimeters, 0.000273 inches, super teeny tiny). So we could split that old hair about 1857.14 times. Yeah, that many times.

So we put these thin slices on a little copper grid that is about as big as this: o. We stain this with depleted uranium and lead then stick it into the electron microscope. Mine is the model just older than this (if you can believe that):


So then you power it up and shoot what is essentially lighting and radiation through the section, and this is what we see:




Cilia: These are hairs that grow out of small ridges on the surface of cells in your nose, throat and lungs. These are the small things that beat and move the crap back up and out of your body. We look for deformations that are too difficult to explain here. But this picture is at about 200,000 times magnification, and is a cross section through a few. You can see some that are cut across more longways there too. Kinda cool.



We also look at small intestine. The idea behind the grand design of the bowel is to increase surface area. The more you twist and turn the thing, the longer it can be, then you wrinkle it, giving it greater length. On the cellular level, you make the surface of the cells bumpy so you get more area to absorb and trap all the goodies that you want inside the body. On the pink picture on the left, you can see about 200 cells or more and you can see the bumps they collectively form. Then on top of all of those bumps are the neato things that I look for. The technical terms for the bumps are villi and I look for microvilli. So to recap: twist, wrinkle, wrinkle again, then wrinkle that and you get this:


Just a side note, the white spiderwebby looking thing on the left is a goblet cell, it puts out a ton of mucus to slick up the guts. Cool huh? (you can see about 5 cells here.) And the cilia that was up above here is about 1/3 the size of the little microvilli on the top of these cells.





So onto the liver. There it is. You make bile in your liver that helps you digest fat. This is made in individual cells and is gathered until it is all together in a tube that is about as big around as a pen, this goes into the gall bladder where you squirt it onto those fries. You can see in between the cells, a little space where the bile is gathered, helpfully marked by the arrows. The little gray squigglies are where the bile actually comes out of the cell. You can see about 4 cells here. (the dark and light bands across the picture are microscopic vibrations from the diamond blade as we cut the plastic.)

Finally the kidney. I won't go into super detail here, but here is the big part. Your kidneys are giant filter pee makers. The first and biggest filter is the glomerulus. All the blood goes into the "glom" and everything but the red blood cells and big proteins goes out into the filter. Later everything you need gets put back in, leaving out the things you don't that you pee out. A huge glom is about the size of a period here: . And that is huge, most are quite a bit smaller. Here is one under a normal microscope:

So you can see the little holes (the really little ones inside that look kinda pink and are based in the brown parts...) These are the little blood vessels, big enough for one red blood cell to go through at a time. These are capillary loops, we call them loops from now on.

Here is a relatively normal set:

The little dark hair looking fingery things on the outside of the loops are called foot processes and the loops look good and normal thickness.






This is what happens when you take a whole bunch of ibuprofen for a long time. They tell you that it is bad for your kidneys, and this is why. Those little fingers get all pushed together and you can't filter stuff real well, so you get blood and protein in your urine. You can see that the fingers don't poke up here, they are more just a dark band now.


Diabetes and high blood pressure make the loops real thick, which also makes it hard to filter. These loops are about 4 times the thickness they should be.

Some diseases and after bad infections your body tends to just stuff crud where it shouldn't be. The dark spots in the lighter places here are these "deposits." Here are a few to see what I mean. You can see that you can't even tell where the loops are, or what is where. This = sick person.


















Tah-dah