Spring Break

Well, it's Spring Break here, only I don't really get a break. I am here at work, trying to pass the time. It is so slow around here when the students are gone. It's a nice chance to catch up, but it gets really boring, too. Consequently, I have lots of time to blog. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything exciting to tell you about.

My parents did come up over the weekend. That was lots of fun. We ate out, played cards, and did a little shopping. My mom has been having back trouble, so it's been a while since they have been able to come up. It was really great to see them! I know it's a long trip; we really appreciate you guys coming!

It was so nice here yesterday. Ben even got to go hunting yesterday. He has a friend who has some private land down in Macon County. Plus he has a connection with a guy who owns one of those hunting lodges. I guess that they released 500 pheasants for a private hunt on Saturday. So yesterday, Ben and the guy went down to "clean up." They didn't get a ton, but he had a great time and felt spoiled to be pheasant hunting in March!Thankfully, the other guy took the pheasant. The last thing we need is more of that in our freezer! Benj also saw lots of deer. He said there were hundreds of them. Unfortunately, Blogger is being dumb and I can't get those pictures to upload, so you'll just have to take his word for it.

Spring Cleaning

Ben and I have been trying to so some spring cleaning this week. We live in a small apartment, so every once in a while we have to go through our stuff and purge. We actually kind of enjoy it. I don't know why, but it's so liberating to throw things away. Anyway, Ben decided it was time to toss all of his notes from the first two years of medical school. I couldn't believe how much he had. It's no wonder medical students spend all of their time studying. How could you not when you are supposed to learn all the stuff that's in here??

That's 21 notebooks worth of class notes--oh, and he did keep one of his notebooks from anesthesia class. Benj was so funny looking through these. He'd say things like, "Oh, physiology that was a pretty good class," or "neurology......blech!" or "this was a really good diagram." He has a lot of memories here. He spent many nights studying these notes with Michael (his good friend from 1st and 2nd years). We emptied out each notebook and then we had to take the papers to a recycling bin--I mean seriously, we probably have a whole forest worth of trees here. They had to be recycled. It took both of us to carry this tub to the school and get rid of it. I feel bad for the janitor who has to empty that recycling bin! If I knew who he/she was I would bring them a special treat. They'll deserve it after this load.

I'm a member!

Yesterday, our friends Lauren and Erick and I all joined the Methodist Church here. We have been talking about it for awhile, and since Benj and I are going to be here for his residency, I decided to go ahead and join. You would think that it wouldn't have taken me four years to get around to it, but whatever. It is nice that I have found a church home and hopefully, I can get a little more involved here. I am already doing a Bible study and I have really enjoyed getting to know those girls better. I am so glad that the Schuermann's were there with me; it made the whole experince less scary...Who wants to go stand up in front of the whole church?? We were all just transferring our membership, so it was really no big deal, but several of our friends did come to see us! Here's a fun picture of Lauren, me Laura, and Elsie.

And here we are shaking hands after church. It was like a wedding reception line. The whole church filed past and welcomed us into the congregation.

Phantom of the Opera

Ben and I went up to Omaha to spend the weekend with our good friends Matt and Megan. Josh and Wendy came along too, so that they could do some house shopping. We started out our weekend by going out to eat at a Japanese Steakhouse--one of those places where they cook for you right at your table. We had a great time and the food was delicious!

The highlight of the weekend was definitely going to the theater on Saturday night, because we have been planning to go to see Phantom of the Opera since November and we were so excited that it was finally here! It was a little bit of a splurge for Benj and I, but we thought that it was so worth it!

Here we are all dressed up and ready to go!

They don't let you take pictures during the show, so I took some of the actual theater, which was beautiful!

The show did not disappoint, either. It was fabulous! The singing was amazing and the stage props and costumes were wonderful. Ben and I have never been to anything like this before and we absolutely loved it! If you are familiar with the story, the opening scene was really cool where they raised the chandelier. My favorite, though, I think was the scene where the phantom takes Christine on the boat in the water. They filled the stage with the theater fog and candles moved in and out of the floor and it looked so real. The fog swirled as the boat moved to make it look just like water. It was truly an amazing experience.

The weekend was just perfect! We spent time with great friends and loved every minute!

PS...I hope you enjoy the Phantom music! It's special to us. Ben and I had "All I Ask of You" sang at our wedding, and the priest even sang "Music of the Night" during his message. What he didn't know was that it is one of my favorite songs and the one that Ben had playing when he proposed to me!

Cold Weather Car Trouble

I seem to have all the luck when it comes to weird car trouble in the winter.

Yesterday evening, Ben and I got in the car to go somewhere and my passenger side door opened fine, but then I couldn't get it closed. It wasn't frozen or anything, it just wouldn't latch. Great...so it's snowing, freezing cold (was that redundant?), and of course, too dark to figure out what was going on. So, what do we do? We decide that we should drive to a friend's house who has a garage. I have to hold the door shut, but every bump we hit our dome light comes on and the car beeps at us for having the door open. Plus around every corner I had to get a death grip on the door just to keep it from flying open. Really, I think we must have looked completely ridiculous. Thankfully, our friends, Todd and Lisa, have a nice big garage so we could get out of the cold and snow and look at the door in the light. Todd just played around with the latch for us and it seems to be working now! Yay! I was starting to wonder what the heck we were going to do with a car whose door wouldn't close.

After we got our little problem fixed yesterday I started thinking about other things that have happened to my car in the winter.
I remember in high school my front windshield was frosted over one morning and I got the bright idea to use some of that de-icer that comes in a can. I sprayed it all over my front windshield and got in my car to drive to school. Well, turns out that it had fogged up the glass so badly that I couldn't see a thing. So, I got to drive the mile or so to school that morning with my head hanging out my window! Boy, was I ever cold when I got there. I thought my face would freeze off!
The other story I can recall also happened during my high school years. We had a big snowstorm and school was canceled for the day. I don't remember why I felt the need to go somewhere that day, but I did. As my luck would have it, I got my car stuck in the alley behind our house in all the snow. My Dad tells me that we just need a little weight in the back end to give the car more traction. And, what do you think his idea for more weight was? That's right....ME--I'm the extra weight! He had me crawl into the trunk and lay in there holding the trunk lid open. Fortunately, it worked and we did get out of the alley, but instead of going straight back home, he decides we might as well warm up the car while we are out. So, I'm laying in the trunk with snowing falling while my Dad drives around the neighborhood. The next day one of my classmates finds me and asks what I was doing in the trunk of my car! Seriously....how embarrassing!

So, it seems to me like I have an unusual amount of strange car trouble in the cold weather. Do these things happen to anyone else??