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.

Med School Update

The week after my trip to Virginia I interviewed at the University of Utah. Some things about their school are a little annoying, but overall it's a good school with good facilities. This past Monday, the 15th was the first day school's could start accepting people. On Tuesday I heard from Eastern Virginia and was told that I'd been accepted. It's nice to know that I'm actually in somewhere so no matter what I'm going to medical school somewhere. On Thursday I got a letter from the University of Virginia telling me that I've been put on the alternate list. There's still a chance I could get in, but the odds aren't good, and even if I do it won't be until spring. At first I was pretty disappointed because I really liked the school and wanted to have it as one of my options, but after I thought about it for a little bit I really felt ok with it. I know that whatever is supposed to happen will work out. It helped that earlier in the day on Thursday I had received an email inviting me to interview at the University of Colorado on November 26th. Colorado was actually one of my top school when I was originally applying, but I hadn't thought too much about them because I hadn't heard from them. They have a big focus on primary care, and they also have a Rural medicine track that I'm interested in. I emailed the student in charge of the Student Host program, so the first night I'm in Denver I will be staying with a former BYU student whose now in the Med school there. I also have an interview with the University of Maryland, but I'm not exactly sure when. Originally it was scheduled for Nov. 28th, the I can't do interviews on Mon. and Wed. of the same week since that's when most of my classes are. I haven't heard back from them on another date. As far as interviews go, the only schools I still haven't heard from are the school in Oregon, George Washington in DC, and Johns Hopkins. I'm still waiting to hear from Baylor and the University of Utah as far as acceptance. The U doesn't tell anyone until April so I have a while to wait. Baylor tells a few people each week, so it's hard to say when I'll hear anything from them.

Virginia

I finished my third medical school interview today at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. Right now I'm sitting in the lobby of my junky motel because that's the only place with internet access. I flew in to Norfolk Wednesday night at 12:30 then drove almost three hours to Charlottesville, Virginia. I arrived at my hotel in Charlottesville at 4am. On Thursday morning I interviewed at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. The interview seemed to go well and I really enjoyed the campus and the city. Charlottesville is a smaller city with about 200,000 people in the area, 40,000 within the city limits. (http://www.charlottesville.org) It's located about 45 miles south of Culpeper. The campus is old style red brick buildings. (http://www.virginia.edu/uvatours/slideshow/index.html) After my interview I visited the walking mall in historic downtown

and drove a few miles north up Rt. 29 towards Culpeper. I header back to Norfolk a little after 6pm and arrived at about 9. It took me almost an hour to find my motel because the mapquest was wrong and the lady I called at the front desk "doesn't know the area"...very helpful. Both motels in Charlottesville and Norfolk and pretty crappy, but they work. This morning I had my interview at EVMS. The interview went well, but I definitely am more interested in UVa. Norfolk seems to be an ok city, but nothing like Charlottesville. My flight leaves at 6am tomorrow and I get back to Utah around 11am. On the plane ride here, from Dallas, I sat by a really nice lady from Arkansas who was on her way to see her son graduate from military helicopter mechanic training. We talked most of the way and eventually she asked a few things about the church so I was able to share a few things and give her the church's website. Her and her husband are big fans of Mitt Romney so she was excited when I told her he's a member. It was a really nice experience since I don't get many missionary experiences in Provo.

School and Medical School interviews

School started again this past Tuesday, but I only had a two day week because yesterday after class I flew down to Houston for an interview at Baylor Medical School. My interview is Friday, but I came down early to visit Amy and her family and I'll be staying until Sunday morning. Luckily I worked my schedule out so I don't have any classes Thursday and only two on Friday. I'll be missing Thursday and Friday again in two weeks when I have interviews at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va and Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Va. I also just got an invitation for an interview from the University of Utah today. That looks like it will either be next Thursday, the 13th, the 27th, or Oct. 4th.

I'm still doing BYU EMS, but this year I will be a duty supervisor. Basically I will be available all day every Tuesday to make sure shifts are covered and help out if needed, especially when new EMT's are running shifts and when someone is being transported by Provo Fire and Rescue. I will also be in charge of a few new EMT's making sure they get their requirements passed off. BYU EMS has a few things new EMT's have to go over and demonstrate to make sure they know how our system works.

Rest of EFY

This slide show is pictures from my first three weeks of EFY in Provo, San Antonio, and Boise.


This is pictures from my fourth week in Rexburg.


My final week was in Nauvoo. Myself and the other Health Counselor in Nauvoo had quite an interesting trip. We flew out of Salt Lake on Sunday morning, but our plane was an hour late leaving because of "bad weather in Chicago", even though the other airline's flights to Chicago left on time. We only had a short layover in Chicago before we were supposed to fly to Peoria and drive to Nauvoo from there. Since our flight from Salt Lake was late we missed our connection at 12:15pm. We were put on standby for a 2:30pm flight, which we missed but our bags made. We were next put on standby for a 4:30pm flight but that was canceled at around 2:30pm because there was a "40% chance of thundershowers..." Yep, that's really what they said, they canceled the flight two hours early for a 40% chance of rain. Our next choice was to stay the night in Chicago and fly to Peoria in the morning. Our travel person got us a new rental car pickup in Chicago and we drove to Nauvoo from there instead...but we had to drive through Peoria first to get our bags. We finally got to Nauvoo at 1am. The other twist is that we were actually supposed to be driving from Peoria to St. Louis to help with the participant buses Sunday night and Monday morning but since we couldn't make it they had to send some other counselors who were already in Nauvoo.