Emily & Jake

My cousin Emily got married in June! Boy am I behind! Jason and I got to drive up to Idaho with my family and attend the wedding. It was my first time in the Boise temple. I knew it was going to be pretty, but I did have some hesitation because we were in Idaho... hehe. But the temple was beautiful inside! Way beyond my expectations. Anyways... here are some of my favorite pictures from the reception.
These are my images. Do not steal them.

Graduation...

As you know, Jason graduated in April and we are in the Denver area waiting for school to start for Jason. I am still finishing my last two classes online. When they are over in August I will have more time for blogging, among other things. Although I haven't officially graduated, I did walk at graduation in April and here are some pictures.


Not the best picture ever, but the best we have.

I am just glad to be so close to being finished. I am looking for jobs out here to have something to do during they day when Jason is at school. I hope I can find something that has to do with my major, but I guess anything I do will have something to do with my major so I don't really have to worry about that.

Anyways... It is time for me to do something else.
I'll finish catching up and then give another update on our apartment.

Moving

It has been very busy for us these past couple of weeks! I have been working on my classes and preparing to move. We leave Friday morning to Aurora, CO. From what I've read, it is about a 7 hour drive from Provo. We are both excited for Jason to start medical school. The area we will be moving to will only be a couple of blocks away from Jason's school, close enough to walk (I hope). The apartment we found is probably the thing I am most excited about. It's a 2bedroom 2bath apartment and it should be a little bigger than the place we are in now. Not that the place we are in now is small, but I am excited to have a little extra space. The thing that sold me on this particular apartment is the fact that it has a DISHWASHER and WASHER/DRYER in the apartment! Since we won't be living close to my parents we won't be able to use their washer/dryer, and I don't think it would be fun to go to the laundry-mat and sit there for a couple of hours waiting for our laundry. Anyways... another good thing about the apartment is that there is a Chipotle pretty much on the other side of our apartment complex. (There is also a pizza place, which I will want to try out)

Things I have yet to post about but will do so after the move (in order of occurrence):

Graduation

Emily's wedding

Ronnie's wedding

Our anniversary

Packing/moving/new apartment

Picture post!

Nasty snow storm that took out a ton of tree branches all over! I had to walk through/around those trees to get to class and back to my car, while branches were breaking and falling all around me. I feel very lucky none fell on me!

I made breakfast one day and wrote Jason's name with the olive oil.
We went to a new place called Cafe Paesan. It's like an italian cafe rio. The food is pretty good, and the interior of the building is really quite pretty. If you want to go check it out, it's in the same area as the Panda Express off State Street and Center in Orem.




And this is Mr. Pidge! Jason and I went to my mom's house and as we were walking up to the door Jason told me there was a bird. It took me a little bit to see it, but there he was, and I took a picture. My mom opened the door and said he had been hanging out in front of the house for a couple of days. He had a little number around his ankle so I believed he belonged to someone, so we called animal control and they sent someone over to pick up Mr. Pidge. We thought something might have been wrong with him, because he didn't fly away, but the animal control person said there was probably a bigger bird around trying to eat him. Anyways, here he is looking at his reflection.

The University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine

After much deliberation, we've decided to attend the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine. We received confirmation yesterday that all tuition and fees will be covered. We only need to worry about living expenses for the next four years.

Finals/Graduation/WICHE

Finals are almost over, I have graduation today, it's snowing, and I'm a little stressed out.

Jason got a phone call Wednesday afternoon from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The associate dean of admissions, Dr. Norma Wagoner, offered Jason a scholarship of $120,000 over 4 years. The scholarship still doesn't make UC cheaper than the University of Washington ($92,000 vs. $89,000 over the four years). However, the University of Colorado mentioned that Jason was number one on their WICHE ranking (WICHE is the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education). The WICHE funding would reduce his medical school tuition to the same price as resident tuition. With his tuition at the resident price, the scholarship would cover the remainder of the cost. We would go to medical school for free. The only problem is that we don't know for sure if Jason will get WICHE funding. WICHE only funds 6 Montana students each year, so they use a ranking system to determine who will get aid. Last year, only 2 out of the 5 Montana students that went to UC got WICHE funding. While Jason is currently #1 on UC's WICHE ranking, we won't know if he will receive WICHE funding for sure until possibly May 10-12. May 15th is decision day for future medical students in that they need to narrow down their choice to one school.

The difficult part is making the decision on what we're going to do. Jason has wanted to go to the University of Washington since he was in high school. We would also be near his family, since we'd spend two years in Montana and two years in Seattle. We'd have access to Indian Health Service facilities, so free check-ups and dental. The University of Washington School of Medicine is also one of the best in the country. On the other hand, the University of Colorado offers an excellent education and won't require us to move 4 times in 4 years like UW will. Denver is a nice city with all the amenities that we've come to enjoy in Provo. Jason also said that they had the nicest facilities of all the schools he interviewed at, having spent nearly a billion dollars over the last 5 years.

The prospect of a free medical education without payback (both service or monetary) is huge. However, we may not hear about WICHE funding before May 15th. In that case, we'll need to decide if we stick with the dream school of UW or go with the dream situation of leaving medical school at UC debt free.

Just a quickie...

We went to Date Night last night. It was a pretty funny, although definitely not for children. There were sexual references and it said the F word once. It was not the best movie we have seen, but it also was not the worst.

We also went to Gloria's Little Italy restaurant in Provo. It was not the Olive Garden. Not that the Olive Garden isn't good. I enjoy the Olive Garden, but it is a completely different experience. Cheery walls and personal photographs decorating the walls set the mood as a personal family restaurant. The food was delicious, and made from fresh ingredients! I really enjoyed my lasagna and it was so large bigger than a 3x5 card, and about 2 1/2 inches thick. The taste was so different than the lasagna's I usually eat, but just as good. Jason got Chicken Parmigiana and spaghetti, his was just as delicious.

After dinner we went to the Apple store to play with their Ipads. They are literally a giant version of the ipod touch. It was so neat. We had a lot of fun playing with them.