New family = New blog

Tara and I were married on June 13, 2008 in the Salt Lake Temple. Obviously I have not done a good job of keeping this blog updated. We have decided to make a new blog for the two of us. The address is http://tajudd.blogspot.com/
Hopefully between the two of us we can do a better job of keeping it up to date.

It's amazing what can happen in a month

Well, this is taking a lot longer to post than I expected. Tara and I started this post a couple weeks ago. I finally finished it yesterday, but when I tried to post it, it deleted a bunch of it and totally messed up the rest. As a result, I'm going to rewrite a shorter version.

The month of February was amazing! During the month I had an amazing Valentines date, went skiing for the first time, and even got engaged! For Valentines I made dinner for Tara and I at my apartment. After dinner we played pool, had dessert, and went for a drive. I'm sure Tara will add in some details later.

Over President's day weekend Tara and I visited her brother, Tim, in Tooele. On the way to his house on Saturday we stopped in Salt Lake and did a session at the Temple. Most of Tara's family came for the weekend and we had an official President's day party, complete with a parade march for the kids. It was a lot of fun to be with her family, and meet her parents...again. On Monday, Tara, her dad, brother, nephew, and I went skiing at Alta. It was the first time I'd ever been skiing, and despite all of your predictions I survived without injury.

Tara also met the family at Sunday dinner, and still stuck around, so I decided it was about time to talk to her dad and get a ring. I talked to her sister, Tiffany, who told me that her parent's were coming to Provo on Tuesday the 26th and set it up so I could come to her house to talk to her dad. While I was there talking to them they told me that they hadn't even told Tara they were coming out. This was perfect because I wanted the actual proposal to be a surprise, even though she knew it was coming eventually. Her parents were also coming out that weekend so I told Tara I was going to talk to her dad then so she wouldn't suspect anything. Her dad makes rings, so the weekend of the 22nd we went to a couple jewelry stores so Tara could get an idea of what she would want her dad to make. At the time we went ring shopping I knew I was going to be talking to her dad the following Tuesday, but I didn't know how the rest of it would work out. I decided that I wanted to propose sooner than her dad would be able to make a ring, but I also wanted to have a ring for her to wear, so the day after we went ring shopping I went back to one of the stores where my friend works and picked out a diamond and a simple solitair band for Tara to wear in the mean time. I picked the ring up on Wednesday, the day after I'd talked to her dad.

I decided to propose on Friday the 29th so I planned a date. We went to dinner at a little Italian place in Provo called Gloria's Little Italy. Tara loved it because they have pretty authentic food, and she loved hearing the Italian people who were there speaking in Italian. After dinner we brought our dessert back to my apartment. Tara had asked about mission pictures before, so I told her that I had a disk with some on it from my old computer. That night I told her I had found the disk and asked if she wanted to see them. I had actually put a few mission pictures on a DVD together with some other random pictures. After the pictures of me I put pictures of the two of us in high school, and some from recently. After the pictures I put a few slides of words asking her to marry me. While we were watching the DVD, before the pictures of us started, I said I'd be right back and went back into my bedroom. I got the ring, flowers, and personalized M&M's and waited until the slides with words came up before going back into the living room and kneeling down and asking Tara to marry me. It all went perfectly and she was completely surprised. One of the first things she said was, "did you already ask my dad?". I told her they had been out earlier that week and she couldn't believe they hadn't told her. I still can't believe everything has worked out the way it has. I feel so lucky and blessed to have found such an amazing girl. I'm not sure how I tricked her into liking me, but I'm extremely grateful that it worked. I love you, Tara!

Phi Kappa Phi

Here are a few pictures from the Phi Kappa Phi honor society induction banquet on Feb. 6th with Mom and Tara.

Update so Amy doesn't get mad at me :)

Since the last post I interviewed at the University of Colorado and the University of Maryland. When I went to Colorado I stayed with a former BYU student, who is a first year med student, and his wife. They were very nice and helpful with getting me to and from the airport and my interview and allowing me to stay in their home. The school has a brand new campus outside of Denver. That's where we had our interviews, but the medical students didn't start having classes over there until January.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked Maryland. I really didn't know a lot about it, but it is probably my favorite school so far. They have good facilities and the students and staff were extremely helpful and friendly. I also liked how their curriculum is set up. They have shortened the amount of time spent in lecture to allow more time for studying, and a lot of flexibility to pursue outside clinical or research interests.

The school is in Baltimore near the Inner Harbor. I flew in to BWI and stayed in a hotel just a couple blocks from the school. After my interview I drove down to Alexandria, Virginia to visit a couple friends who used to live in my ward. The family of one of my friends, Jason Blickenstaff, used to live in Amy & Heath's ward in Texas. That night we drove north of DC to see the Christmas lights on the Temple, which were extra pretty because it had been snowing all day. The next morning I visited Jim Gullotta, a friend from my mission. He lives just south of Alexandria. My flight left in the afternoon from Dulles so I didn't have to drive back up to Baltimore.

At the moment I am in the beginning of my last semester at BYU and will graduate on April 24th. Last week I was accepted to the University of Maryland, and rejected from the University of Utah. I am very excited about getting into Maryland, but would have liked having Utah as an option. I am still waiting to hear from Colorado and Baylor.