Fertility and Infertility Research News Portal

clearly not a pro

This post was originally going to have pictures, but I overestimated my parent’s internet connection. After ten minutes of the computer thinking for ONE photo, I gave up. Another day.

Sorry, Annie

Posted on August 18, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

oh, don’t mind me

The idea is to get my blog all caught up-to-date before I leave for Utah/Idaho tomorrow (for a month!!). And I’m sort of in a hurry (still have stuff to do before I leave!), so enjoy the haphazard compilation of pictures with minimal commentary.

Lianna and me at Ocean View Terrace

Tandy, Hina, and me at Smoke Alley – fun night of friends, music, and dancing

Hina jumping into the picture at the last second

Tandy, me, and Reena

Me, clearly having fun. I never knew I looked so obnoxious when I throw my head back to laugh :/

Tandy, reenacting the best moment of the night – when she screamed and ran away from a local guy trying to creep up on her on the dance floor. TWICE.

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There have also been tons of beach days with this little face that I love:

I’m a huge fan of this sneaky shot that my friend Ally took, even though I look like a crazy person walking out into the water. Or maybe especially because I look like a crazy person walking out into the water. There’s a deposit of broken shells and rocks just beyond the shoreline that requires a balancing act to maneuver.

Yesterday I went snorkeling and saw a HUGE ray (like five feet across) and a rockfish! Right near the shore! I swam right over it and barely realized what it was – it looked JUST like the algae-covered rock next to it. They have poisonous barbs that can cause a lot of pain if you step on it, so it sort of freaked me out.

Anyway, I’m planning on blogging while I’m home, but this is goodbye for at least a few days-ish.

……okay bye.

Posted on August 8, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

they grow up so fast

Love this picture of Pearl watching her guests arrive, taken just after she exclaimed, “I’m so happyyyy!!” Her second birthday was complete with presents, cake, and a bull-shaped pinata.

Posted on August 4, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Two things that are gross

I had this tiny little scab on my elbow – TINY. Like the size of a pin prick. I noticed it a while ago, and finally the other day I scratched it off. No big deal. Except then it started BLEEDING PROFUSELY. Gushing. I’ve never seen anything like it. I ran to the bathroom and by the time I got to the sink, the blood was already down my arm. Jon recovers from the shock in time to wad up some toilet paper and apply pressure, all the while saying, “What did you DO??” I tried to explain that it was a tiny little scab – barely even noticeable – that caused it, but he didn’t believe me until the bleeding stopped and he saw for himself. Can you blame him??

And here it is – the culprit.

Can you see it??

About the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.

Here’s the other thing that’s gross:

Kind of hard to see -we’re stuck using the crappy Powershot ever since I destroyed our other camera – but that’s our bedroom, and that’s the door jamb, and that’s the squished gecko surprise I found the other day.

Posted on August 2, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Camp Vignettes: Episode II

Skit Night always took place on the last evening. One year, someone in our ward hit on the most brilliant skit idea Camp Liahona at Buck’s Lake has ever experienced: Stand for Truth and Righteousness Woman and CTR Girl, played by Christa and her sister Brittany. The premise was simple…put young women in compromising situations then have tie-dye unitard clad Stand for Truth and Righteousness Woman and CTR Girl swoop in to save her from an uncomfortable chat with her bishop. The whole thing kind of spurred somewhat of a cult following in the stake. Girls dressing up as CTR Girl for Halloween dances and whatnot. Then the next year, when Stand for Truth and Righteousness Woman and CTR Girl reprised their appearance at skit night, we had to pause the performance for several minutes until the audience stopped screaming and jumping up and down. You’d have thought David Archuletta was in the house.

Someone orchestrated a YCL (Youth Camp Leader) musical number my final year. A group of maybe ten of us practiced for 20 minutes before standing in front of the entire camp to perform this song, and of course I got landed standing right next to the tone-deaf loudmouth shouting tuneless droning notes directly into my ear as though it were a microphone.

Camp songs! Lots of people hated this part of camp but I personally LOVED it. Especially when the 60-something leader of the Dayton ward would get up in front of everyone to sing her favorite – a rap-inspired version of children’s nursery rhymes called ‘Hump D. Dump’. She’d get so into it and always used a faux gravelly voice and the exact same motions – a border-line obscene pat-and-clap during the verses, followed by a hand on the hip coupled with a swimming fish motion during the chorus.

Camp names! When a girl achieved four years of camp experience, she was bestowed a ‘Camp Name’ by the YCLs. Usually the names were something lame and evocative like “Soothing Note” or “Beautiful Brook”. But MINE was “Hump D. Dump” because of the obnoxious, superbly exaggerated impersonation I’d do of the aforementioned woman. It was legendary – I was told that after my camp days were over, a younger girl from the ward got up in front of everyone and dedicated her performance of “Hump D. Dump” to me, wherever I was. So proud.

Oh gosh, I wasn’t even present for this one. But it hasn’t stopped me from telling the story before, and it certainly won’t now. We had the BEST cooks ever at camp making delicious meals, and every year they served the same classics. My friend Jenny’s favorite camp event each year was stroganoff night. She’d start talking about it weeks before. Well this one year on stroganoff night she was stuck learning how to tie knots, or identify clouds, or something, until after dinner had been served. In a panic, she sprinted to the kitchen as soon as she was able and, breathless, demanded if there was any left. She was in luck, sort of. There were enough noodles stuck to the edges of the empty pans to scrape together a meager plate. So there Jenny is, her beloved stroganoff sitting on her upturned hands, blithely making her way back to our campsite, when she TRIPPED ON A ROOT and her meal fell facedown in the dirt.

There was an obstacle course one year with the most ill-conceived contest in the history of church camps. It involved flesh-colored panty hose tied around the waist with a large potato down each leg, and lots of pelvic thrusting. The point was to move an object around the course by standing over it and swinging the oh gosh does it really matter? The point is, it was hilarious, and someone obviously didn’t think it through before setting us loose on it. I’ve never laughed to the point of throwing up, but I’m sure that’s the closest I’ve ever come.

My final year of camp, I chose not to shower. It started as an accident, then became a camp-wide joke to see how long I could hold out for. And I somehow didn’t smell nasty (or so everyone assured me). My hair even looked the same as it always did at camp. I think the dirt must have absorbed the greeze. Finally I had to cave in on day six, but only because I was the member of a skit that required extreme hair teasing and the only way to deal with the aftermath was abundant conditioner.

There was an overly devout, holier-than-thou girl at camp that was just BEGGING to be pranked. She was the “I’m better than you because I don’t eat chocolate because we’re not supposed to drink coffee and coffee has caffeine and so does chocolate” type. Obnoxious. So the week before (yes it was totally premeditated, don’t hate me mom) I went out and bought a thong – not even a sexy thong, just a regular white cotton one – and wrote this girl’s name on the tag. Then I planted it on the picnic table right next to the meal lineup. Every single girl in the entire camp saw it there while waiting for breakfast the next morning, arranged perfectly with the tag prominently displayed. It worked so much better than I ever thought it could have. She ended up that night in front of the entire camp – and there were a LOT of us girls – swearing the thong was NOT hers, she would NEVER wear something so disgusting and immoral, and whoever did it ought to be ASHAMED. It was my crowning Girl’s Camp achievement.

The end.

Posted on July 25, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Camp Vignettes: Episode I

The first time I talked to my friend Christa after she returned from her mission, she mentioned she’s going to our old Girl’s Camp as a leader this August. Instant nostalgia. We were the queens of Girl’s Camp. She and I went every year together (two as Youth Camp Leaders, aka YCLs) and those were some of the happiest weeks of my entire life. I’d start packing for camp weeks in advance, and lay wide awake in excited anticipation the whole night before. So I’m thinking about all that, and a plan begins to form in my head. Don’t get too excited though. Before it even got close to hatching, the leaders in charge dashed my hopes. Wouldn’t you think they’d be HAPPY to take a willing volunteer?? Well they turned me down. Their loss. Jerks.

Anyway, of course it got me reminiscing. This is where the Girl’s Camp stories begin.

The adventure always started in the church parking lot in the wee hours of the morning. The four hour trip to Buck’s Lake, CA required a bathroom/snack break at Hallelujah Junction, the world’s slimiest truck stop where we mingled with mutants and Death Eaters while waiting our turn to use the single-stall poop-smeared women’s bathroom. On one occasion a desperate middle-aged woman ran to the restrooms, let out a distressed moan when she saw the lineup, rounded on the empty men’s room and yelled, “THANK GOODNESS” as she darted inside. She was in there for several minutes, during which time a man arrived, tested the door, and then resigned himself to the wait. My friends and I were dying to see the look on his face when a woman walked out of there, and sure enough, he didn’t disappoint – he jumped back, then cast around completely bewildered, wondering if he was in the wrong line. Of course we girls all dissolved into uncontrollable giggling, but the woman in front of us was not amused. She kept shooting us daggers until finally I felt the need to let her in on the joke. “I know”, she countered haughtily, “that was my sister”.

Each year we’d get an earful about Hanta virus. Don’t catch rodents. Don’t eat food that fell on the ground. Don’t breathe the dust when you’re sweeping the trails. I’m pretty sure the Young Men didn’t have to sweep any trails at Scout camp, or neatly line them with rocks for that matter.

There was a huge tree right next to the kitchen where the meal lineup began that smelled just like puke. We called it the Puke Tree.

My fourth year of camp, the leadership decided to ditch Buck’s Lake and try a new place. There was a lot of criticism, but they stuck to their guns. The fourth year girls were scheduled to do an overnight hike, beginning the first day at the new camp. Packing in and packing out. It was brutal…one of the hardest hikes I’ve ever done (okay I haven’t done many, but it was tough). My friend Jenny and I collapsed in a heap as soon as it was over, and hadn’t even begun thinking about setting up our tents when a breathless forest ranger came jogging down the path, shouting that the whole mountain was on fire and we had to evacuate. So after having just completed a difficult, several-mile long hike, we had to turn right back around and do it all over again only this time with a massive forest fire on our heels. It was intense. By the time we made it back to the main group (they cheered for us!), darkness was setting in and I was the most exhausted I’ve ever been. Because many of the vans that dropped us at camp that morning had turned right around and gone home, we all had to leave our belongings behind and pack like sardines into the remaining vehicles. There were 10 in the Dodge Caravan I was assigned to – a couple of us had to sit on the floor. When I was dropped at home, my sisters were sitting on the front porch. We all walked in together, hoping to freak out my mom who wasn’t expecting to see me for a week, but she just quickly glanced up then continued washing dishes. It took a few moments of us grinning and coaxing her before shock finally registered on her face. Anyway, long story short, our belongings were rescued just minutes before the roads were officially closed, and the very next day camp was back on – at Buck’s Lake, just like God always intended it to be.

One year there was a girl in our group who was constantly trying to massage us with her enormous hands. We, of course, called her Man Hands. It got more and more difficult to evade her probing fingers. Christa emailed me some ideas for this blog post, and she has an update on Man Hands that you’re bound to enjoy at least half as much as I did: “Guess what? I saw her like 2 weeks ago and she’s married with a kid and was honestly like crushing him in her giant hands!!”

Girl’s Camp was always a place for injuries. Not helping the matter was the notorious floating dock of Buck’s Lake. I’m almost certain they’ve banned the thing by now (if not, who’s in charge of this place???) because every year at least one girl ended up going home early because of it. I might be wrong, but I think the usual function of a floating dock is for peaceful sunbathing. Not the case at Camp Liahona. It was repurposed into a topsy turvy death trap. We’d get a big group of us, anywhere from ten to thirty girls on there, and all flock to different corners until our combined weight caused the entire thing to rise into the air Titanic-style. The last person to be dumped over the edge won. It was covered in moldy carpeting, so rug burns were the typical wounds (also: elbows to faces and other stampede-related injuries), but one year some genius decided to attach a two-step ladder on one end and that thing broke a couple of ankles before it was removed.

Speaking of injuries, as YCLs Christa and I served all the girls in our group boiling hot chocolate in wax paper cups. Fifteen seconds later they were all screaming, “Our hands are mellllttttinnnggg!!!!!!!!!!!” The cups were imploding and dripping hot wax. Turns out Styrofoam works much better for that sort of thing. Live and learn.

To be continued…
[Soon, I promise. I’ve already written it all. But it was too long for one post. Kthxbai]

Posted on July 24, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

my lot in life

Last night, when we finally made it home safely from Darcy and Lianna’s, I collapsed on the couch and demanded a foot massage from Jon. I deserved it, after what I’d been through. He obliged (though he made me put socks on first).

I spent the day at their house because Jon was pulling another all-day study session in preparation for his upcoming exams. He came to retrieve me around 10, and we gathered our things to leave. Jon walked out the house before me, jarring awake the ENORMOUS spider sleeping on the outside of the door. I was the first to see it and screamed all sorts of incoherent sentence fragments to draw everyone’s attention to it. It was huge, and a species we’ve previously observed to be lightning fast. So Darcy grabbed a flip flop and positioned himself on the porch for a successful murder. But the spider suspected something and leapt – LEAPT – directly at Jon. It barely missed him and went scuttling into the night, but Jon didn’t know that – he thought it was ON him. So he’s hollering and jumping and spinning in circles until Darcy assured him that he saw it disappear down the stairs.

But that wasn’t nearly the scariest thing that happened last night. After the boys searched the porch steps and surrounding area and promised me the spider was long gone, Jon and I attempted to leave their house again. Because of the pandemonium, we forgot to bring Darcy’s giant LED flashlight that we always use for our trek home – instead we had two smallish ones that barely illuminate what’s directly in front of you. We also forgot to bring our laptop bag, which probably was a good thing because it might have slowed us down when we were RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES five minutes later.

Because this is another bull story. By the time our flashlights caused their eyes to gleam, we were only yards away. There were two of them – one brown, one black. We froze.

They turned to face us.
Jon put his arm across me.
The black one lowered his head.
We began walking backwards.

He charged.

The last thing I saw before turning to run were his eyes getting closer and closer. There was nowhere to go on the narrow, overgrown road but forward into the pitch black. Jon was shouting for me to give him the bag I was carrying. I didn’t…I was too busy STAYING ALIVE.

And then… [deep breath] it was over. I had a partial meltdown once we knew for sure he wasn’t chasing us anymore, and then we turned to go back to Darcy and Lianna’s to call a cab. But, silly us! This is Statia! Cab drivers don’t answer their phones! We called all six numbers to no avail (just like the last time we needed a cab). And there’s only one way home from their house, so we were stuck there unless/until the bulls made their way to an intersection and went another way. So Jon, Darcy, and Lianna, armed with the Maglite, their landlady’s dog, and a broom, went out to wrangle bulls while I stayed inside, tried to control my breathing, and updated my Facebook status. Fifteen minutes later they returned victorious – the coast was clear for our walk home. This was at least our third negative encounter with this same black bull (see here and here) and possibly our fourth (see here). And don’t forget about this encounter with the brown one.

On our way home we ran into some neighbors and informed them of our saga. The man told us that a few years back, a black bull was causing trouble and worrying the general public. It finally got to the point that the police decided to do away with it. They lassoed him and shot at point blank range, MISSED, and he made off with nothing more than a broken-off horn. Now the locals all fear a one-horned black bull.

BUT HORNS GROW BACK. So maybe it’s the same one? We’ll just say it is. Sounds better that way. The same man also reminded us that you’re not supposed to run from a charging bull (I’d like to see what he’d have done in our position, with nowhere to dodge and almost zero visibility), and asked specifically what it looked like. I told him, “It was black and it had very shiny eyes”.

Posted on July 19, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Epiphany of the Day

You know when sometimes you burp and a little bit of vomit hitches a ride? It happens to everyone. But how come there isn’t a concise, descriptive term for that phenomenon?? “I just burped and threw up a little” is so wordy.

Well you don’t even need to worry about it anymore, because I just solved the problem: Barp. As in, burp and barf together (ie “Ew, I just barped” or “Barping is the WORST”).

You’re welcome.

Posted on July 16, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

hope you’re sitting down

Oh gosh. I can’t believe I’m even posting this. I probably shouldn’t. But I have to. Lianna and I were perfecting our ugliest faces the other day, and I pretty much nailed it – the ugliest picture OF ALL TIME. Nothing will ever top it.

EVERRRRRRRR.

It’s no exaggeration to say that it is so disturbingly revolting, so shockingly grotesque, that you may never sleep again.

Scroll down and see for yourself.

(Lianna thinks I need to post a good picture of myself as a palate cleanser. I promise I’m not deformed. Here’s a decent representation of me, in case you’re new to the blog.)

Posted on July 13, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

spare me

Here’s another apology for the lack of content lately. I don’t know what my deal is. Writer’s block. Or maybe it has more to do with my uninteresting life and my broken camera. For what it’s worth, here’s an update.

My favorite part of the entire past two weeks was when my friend Christa (now home from her mission) outed the prehistoric choir director from our home ward as one of the three Nephites. My least favorite part was when our water went out – AGAIN. Have I complained about this on my blog yet?? I usually try to keep my complaints in check because how many times have we all rolled our eyes at someone else’s broadcasted HUGE PROBLEM (“UGH, I just got the worst pedicure ever!” “I can’t decide what luxury car to buy!!”), but in this case, it really is a big deal. We have water issues. Everything that could have caused us to have no water access, shy of actually running out of water, has happened. Clogged filters and rusted out heaters have left us waterless for WEEKS at a time. By waterless I mean we have a full cistern but no way to utilize it, and in the past that meant showering with our emergency supply of bottled water and flushing the toilet only when Jon’s carried a bucket of water a mile uphill. Can you believe I’m even saying this??? This time around it was our water compressor that broke. Luckily, with Darcy and Lianna here now, we always have a place to shower and toilets to flush when this sort of thing happens. They’ve been blessed with a great landlady who, you know, cares about stuff. Our landlady, on the other hand, is literally the oldest person on the island (I’m still not convinced she’s not the oldest in the world) and prides herself on saving money by making everything work at the absolute minimum (presumably because she won’t live long enough to see the benefit of good quality materials). But much more on her at a later date.

The water situation couldn’t ruin our entire weekend though. We celebrated both Canada Day and the 4th of July on Saturday at the pool – WHICH IS NICE. It was our first time there and I was SHOCKED. It was comparable to any public pool in the US. AMSA, a student organization at the school, put on the event. [Sidenote: Jon inexplicably ended up being nominated for and voted in as the AMSA treasurer, even though the first A stands for ‘American’.][He’s Canadian.] The next day we celebrated the 4th with a smaller group of friends and laughed for hours straight.

Pictures from the weekend: (I stole these from other people, hope they don’t mind)

Jon manning the makeshift grill

Anh Thu and Hina

Faisa, me, Reena

Tandy and Derrick creating our bounteous feast

Pearl the celebrity

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In conclusion, here’s a video in which I say the word ‘vagina’ (it was warranted).

Posted on July 9, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Tender Moments with Jon

Posted on June 26, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

tick, tick, tick…

[A glimpse into the final days of my camera's life]

Sad, soggy, folded-over ice cream cone

….BOOM

Posted on June 17, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

the opposite of ‘couth’

1)  I DID THE WORST THING EVER YESTERDAY.  It was morning, we were at the beach, Jon took a picture.  So he goes to hand the camera back to me… I had it in my grip – butterfingers – and it landed, LENS OPEN, face-down in the sand.  So basically it’s ruined forever.  I have a sliver of hope that it can be fixed when we’re in Idaho, but who knows what they’ll charge?  What if it ends up costing more than the camera’s worth??  Or what if they charge us 200 bucks just to open it up and say, “We can’t fix this”???  I have some anxiety concerning it.  But luckily Jon stayed my hand when I tried to throw away the old Canon Powershot A520 after buying the fancy Panasonic (less than a year ago!!  Blast my clumsy phalanges!!!!) so we’ve at least got back-up.  But, also, uggghhhhhhhh.

Posted on June 14, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Happenings

Well maybe the best news of all – there’s a NEW STORE. And not just any store – a store on our side of town. Hallelujah!!! Up until now, whenever we needed anything, be it toilet paper or ultrapasteurized shelf milk, we had to hike down to the town center and hit up the World’s Nastiest Grocery Store. Always smelly, always filled with rude people who look you right in the face then cut in front of you in line (who does that??), always selling bug-infested cereals and cake mixes. And the walk back home from there is a mile uphill. Not a great overall experience. I give it a D minus. But now, oh sweet mercy, a brand new shop has opened up only five minutes’ walking distance from our house. The world is glorious! They seem to have everything we might ever need, including fresh rolls from our favorite bakery and ICE CREAM BY THE SCOOP. You don’t understand how beautiful of a thing this is. Let me explain. The gross grocery store turns off their freezers each night. Just imagine the gummy, freezer-burned result of ice cream that’s been frozen and melted and frozen again every day since it first made its debut on Statia. We made the mistake of buying a carton our first month here, and oh gahhhhhh. Ice cream is the number one thing I’ve missed since being here. I pined for it. I talked about it with everyone I knew. My mom bought me a Cold Stone gift card as part of my birthday present last year. The most memorable parts of my trip to Florida in April were when my sister-in-law Serena and I got double-scoops of Edy’s ice cream in Epcot and when Corinne, Kyle and I hit up the Baskin Robbins in Pompano Beach. And NOW, for a mere two guilders ($1.14) I can buy a vanilla, chocolate, Neapolitan, or butterscotch ice cream cone. They load it up fairly well, too, and actually smash the ice cream down inside – it’s not just a tiny blob perched on top. Our first day there, I had two. I’m so happy.

Also kind of exciting – I saw another iguana! This time Eagle Eyes Jon was with me and spotted it sitting on top of a vine-covered tree. It had never occurred to me to search the tree tops, but there it was, and there we were, WITH NO CAMERA. We watched it for a while before continuing our trek to Darcy and Lianna’s, where Jon did a pivot turn and left the house with their camera in hand. The minutes ticked by. The next thing I knew it had been AN HOUR since he left, and I’d just barely determined that he was for sure dead when he showed up, soaked with sweat. Darcy was with him – he’d encountered Jon CLIMBING THE TREE on his way home from class.

Speaking of wild animals, this happened:

This is the same bull from the video. These local guys had him all lassoed – to what end I’m uncertain. But he was angry, and we had to walk right past him to get home. Once we were at a safe distance I snapped a couple of pictures. This is the last shot I got…

…because I was running for my life as I took this. He’d bolted, and snapped one of the ropes. We scrammed out of there.

ALSO EXCITING – we’re going home during Jon’s August break. We’ve got our flights and everything. I’m going to Idaho early, as usual, so Jon can be less distracted for finals, then he’ll join me. We’ll spend a few days in Alberta too. Jon needs to sort out some student loan stuff and also get his EYE LANCED. He’s had this infection in it ever since Christmas. A sty I guess you call it. A sty! Anyway, sterility is an issue on the island, so it’ll just have to wait.

And lastly, this is my favorite church ever:

Really, who hasn’t had this happen to them at some point or another? Of course, when it happened to me, I started my posterboard project over. These guys just shrugged.

Posted on June 10, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

redo

Sorry for the haphazard post yesterday. I was short on time and internet bandwidth, so I compressed the video as small as I could and included little to no commentary. So let’s try it again. This version should be better quality (I hope) so you can actually see what’s happening.

This happened right outside of Darcy and Lianna’s house. Lianna and I were chatting in the living room when we heard the dreadful bellowing of an angry bull. We ran outside just in time to see him (the brown one) lumbering up the road past the house, roaring. But then he abruptly quit and became boring, so we went back inside.

Twenty minutes later there was a ruckus outside. We sprinted out the door, camera ready, to see what was happening. Just a few more yards up the road, he’d encountered the black bull and was about to get his sirloin handed to him. That’s where the movie begins.

After the camera stopped rolling, Lianna and I were in mid-panic (or maybe it was just me) and headed inside (I might have been running). But Lianna glanced back to see that the bulls, now both inside the fenced yard, were casually grazing side-by-side in this newly discovered lush paradise. Bffs, you might say. So we watched for another few minutes as they completely destroyed the yard…pawing up the lawn, pulling entire branches off the mango tree, having a grand old time.

The property owners, unfortunately, were off-island at the time. I almost felt sorry for them until I realized it’s their own fault for having a flimsy fence and leaving the island for months at a time with no one left behind to watch their property. Dummies.

Posted on June 3, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

bully

Did this work? I really hope so, because it was awesommme. Probably the craziest/scariest thing that’s happened our entire time here, and we GOT IT ON VIDEO.

Someone with normal internet please let me know if you can view it.

Posted on June 2, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

ketchup

1) A week of firsts! To begin, there are these creatures here called ‘land crabs’. They’re CRABS that live on the LAND, which I don’t really agree with. And they’re enormous. We’d never seen a live one, then all of a sudden there were TWO, on the side of the road, on our way home from Darcy and Lianna’s one night. Some students go on crab hunts and actually EAT them. I personally don’t believe you should ever eat seafood that didn’t come from the sea.

The other first was even more exciting. I. SAW. AN IGUANA. The Lesser Antillean variety is an endangered species here and it seemed like we were the only people on the island who’d never seen one. Then Lianna and I were walking home from the beach and one materialized right there on the wall of the Slave Path. No one is more angry that we didn’t get a picture than Jon. But the second Lianna got her camera out he lept over the side and disappeared into the underbrush.

2) Pearl is hilarious. I’ve already taught her to say ‘o hai’ and we’re working on ‘kthxbai’. And last week, TWICE, she counted to ten like this: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, orange’. Best day ever. Also, Jon taught her to say “I’ma burn your face off!” (don’t even ask). Now she randomly says it in her sweet little high-pitched voice and it makes my life complete.

3) Conversation between Jon and me:

Me: Quit pretending that you’re asleep.
Jon: I’m not pretending that I’m asleep, I’m pretending that I’m dead.

4) If you’re waiting for a certain video from the beginning-of-term party…sorry. It won’t upload! Don’t blame me, blame the school’s internet. To everyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about, too bad. Something awesome happened, and you weren’t there.

5) Some pictures from the last 8-10 days (ish):

(He hates weddings)

Someone started the rumor amongst the first termers that Murad (second from left) is one of the kings of Syria, and at least one guy swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Apparently their official introduction was epic. I wish I’d seen it. BEST. RUMOR. EVER.

Lianna pushing the stroller up the Slave Path after a day at the beach. Another month and she’ll be ready for the World’s Strongest Woman competition!

6) Okay, I’ll tell you. The video had to do with this nasssssty nast drunk couple that danced scandalously–slash-outrageously the entire night. I loved every second of it. Maybe it’ll upload another day :/

kthxbai

Posted on May 24, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

me needy you

So my mom got a new horse, which means it needs a name, which means I’ve been thinking of horse names nonstop the past week. Naming things is my one true joy in life. Anyway, we’ve come up with the following top choices – please vote for your favorite: (oh gosh I hope this poll works.)

What should my mom name her new horse?online survey

Further information – it’s a Quarter Horse dun gelding (non-intact male). I suggested to my mom she name him “Dun dun dunnnn!”, so when she’s going out to take care of the horses she can say “I’m going to feed Quincy and Dun dun dunnnn!” and it’ll be like a cliff-hanger every night. She didn’t go for it. I can’t imagine why.

EDIT: Jon doesn’t know what “dun” means. It refers to his coloring. Here’s a picture:

Thanksssss.

Posted on May 18, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

they’re gross and I hate them

One of the major trepidations I had about moving to the Caribbean was BUGS, and having now lived here for 8 months I can say it was definitely a legitimate concern. Granted, we don’t have it as bad as some, but we’ve had our share of spiders (various sizes) and cockroaches (always HUGE) in the house.

Enter Bop. It’s a pesticide manufactured in the Caribbean that’s FOR SURE banned in the US. It probably should be banned from earth, actually. But it works, so we use it. This stuff is ridiculous – you spray a line of it around your house and anything that walks across it (including small children, probably) dies immediately. Roaches included. AND that’s not all. It will keep killing for OVER A MONTH. A roach walks across your Bop line six weeks after you’ve sprayed and it’s dead. And it doesn’t just kill them clean…no. They die a nasty Bop-induced death complete with seizing, writhing, diarrhea, and vomiting. And you thought there was nothing grosser than a huge dead roach. Just imagine THAT mess around it. Now go take four showers.

Spiders seem to be less affected by Bop than roaches, though a direct spray will strike one down. We see more live spiders in our house than roaches. Most are little spindly legged guys that stay in their webs and mind their own business. We murder them with slightly less malice than the other kinds – the big ugly fast ones that live forever in my nightmares. Jon does his best to keep me from having to mentally deal with those. One day when we were sitting in front of the TV, Jon suddenly stood up, grabbed my hand, and hauled me into the bedroom (this story is not as sexy as that sentence implies). He told me that it was urgent I stay right there until he called me out, then left and shut the door. Fifteen seconds later I hear him Bopping something in the living room. It’s a very distinct sound – sort of like a blowtorch, or a fire extinguisher. Anyway, apparently a good-sized spider had been hanging out in the curtains, right in front of us IN PLAIN VIEW, for who knows how long. He never did tell me how big it was – each time I asked he just shuddered. I guess I don’t really want to know anyway.

But the worst spider event happened in our first month here. Oh gosh, here come the heebie jeebies. So Jon’s in class, and I’m five minutes away from leaving to meet him for lunch. I’d just packed up the laptop and was starting to collect my things – chapstick, keys, etc – when I glanced up at the living room ceiling. Interjection: We’ve got these ridiculously high, beamed ceilings that have always crept me out. I’ve known since day 1 that if there was ever going to be anything truly frightening in our home, that’s where it would be. It quickly became habit to glance up each time I enter a room.

AND THERE IT WAS.

A huge, dark, hairy spider. Literally as big as my hand. And I have really long fingers. I allow myself to panic a few moments, then suppress the dry heaves while coming up with a plan. The ceiling is too high to just blowtorch him with Bop – not like I’d attempt that anyway. And Jon was expecting me at noon… what if I left to go get him and when he got home IT WAS GONE??? But really, I had no choice. I booked it to the school, photographic evidence in hand so Jon would understand the gravity of the situation, OH – and the thing’s EYES ARE GLOWING in the picture. Portals straight into hell. I’m not posting the photo because it’s THAT awful and no one will ever want to visit me here (not like anyone was actually planning on it when they said ‘OMG I’M COMING TO VISIT YOU’, and you know who you are, because it was all of you). So anyway, when I get to the school I pull up the picture, Jon’s eyeballs pop out of his head, and he sprints away.

The rest of this story is all second-hand, because I stayed at the school while he dealt with the beast. But this is what happened. Mercifully, it hadn’t moved an inch. Jon dragged over a chair which gave him the extra height required for proper Bopping. As soon as the spray hit, the spider began to slowly drop. He had to lean away from it as it went past his face. Finally it landed on Jon’s bike pedal (yes there’s a bike in our front room) THEN THE PEDAL TURNED OVER. As in, the weight of the spider caused the pedal to turn, and it got dumped onto the floor. Up until this point, Jon thought it was dead, because it hadn’t moved or anything. But the moment it hit the floor, it took off running, FAST. Jon’s going after it with the broom, swatting, and it jumps on and starts running up the handle towards him. So he has to drop it. This went on two more times before he finally got it outside and managed to crush the life out of it. OR SO HE THOUGHT. Because it’s lying there on its back in classic dead spider position, hooked legs and everything. Then, when he reached out his foot to probe it – OH YES HE DID – it suddenly flipped over on top of his shoe, clinging on for dear life. Of COURSE it did…was there any other possible outcome?? That’s why you don’t ever touch anything you think is dead. EVER. But he did, and it leapt on him, so there he is hopping and kicking and yelping, on the porch, in full view of the road. He’s aware of at least one car full of people driving slowly by, staring at him.

He finally managed to rid himself of it and kill it for reals, but the WORST part of the story came when we sat down to brainstorm HOW the thing got into our house in the first place. It came down to this. I’d brought in a load of laundry off the line about an hour before I saw it up there on the ceiling. It was the only explanation. I CARRIED IT IN. IT WAS IN MY ARMS. Maybe it rode around the house on my shoulder for a while before making a break for the ceiling. IT’S A POSSIBILITY.

So basically, I’ve been cringing ever since. Carefully poking my head into a room and surveying every corner before entering. Flipping out and swatting wildly if I feel so much as a hair tickling the back of my arm. You would, too.

Posted on May 13, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

They’re heeeeere!

Omg, it’s been like a year. With Jon on break, plus the arrival of his brother and family (!!!), we’ve been off our routine. Here are some pictures to catch you up to speed.

We found this gem on the bulletin board at the airport while waiting for Darcy and Lianna’s plane to get in:

Their plane!

Surprise camera attack:

First day at the beach! Pearl trying to pawn her egg salad sandwich off on dad:

Kite flying and other merriment at Zeelandia:

Jon taking Pearl for a walk:

CANNOT look at this picture without laughing:

Sunset at Ft. Oranje:

Jon starts class again on Tuesday. Sometimes I think time here couldn’t go any more slowly, then I realize he’s starting his THIRD SEMESTER already. Crazy! Anyway, there’s a quick update. Sorry it was so long coming.

Posted on May 9, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

A1A Beachfront Avenue, just kidding just kidding

So the day everyone else left for home, Corinne, Kyle and I headed down to Ft Lauderdale. Ada tagged along, too. Jon had wanted me gone until he finished his finals, and Corinne and Kyle wanted a beach vacation, and their friend’s parents have a condo there, so it was the perfect thing.

The place was on A1A, right on the beach. “A1A” meant nothing to me prior to this trip, but apparently Vanilla Ice rapped about it once, so…… everyone who’s anyone has heard of it.

Ada’s first time seeing the ocean!

It was a little bit stormy our first day there, so we took a roadtrip to the Everglades. I petitioned heavily for an airboat tour but was ultimately vetoed. (Think of the pictures we could have taken! The hair flying! The lips flapping in the wind!)

Instead we spent about thirty minutes at the very first viewing platform we could find, and guess what?? ALLIGATORS! Right there! From the very first second we arrived!

Baby alligator:

So pretty:

An alligator named Gunsie:

wtf:

On our way back we stopped at this roadside fruit stand for milkshakes. Sooooo goooood. I got mango, but check out the menu – I could have gotten a sapodilla one! What the what!?

Best nap hair ever:

Aaaand, the next day at the beach:

This picture isn’t a fair representation, because Corinne was in the sun and I was in the shade, but it’s the best one we got:

Kyle flying a kite in the background. I FLEW A KITE! It was my first time. Sort of. I’ve always thought I’ve never flown a kite, but then a few years ago my mom dug up a picture of me flying one when I was like two. Does not count.

It’s overrrr!

Posted on April 26, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Disney World Picture Overload

Okay. Disney World. In two words: AWESOME and exhausting. I ate good food. I rode rides. I laughed until it hurt. I bombed many a photo. It was nonstop action from 7 in the morning until midnight each night, and I feel like I’m still trying to unwind and catch up on sleep (though it might have more to do with the cold I caught a couple of days ago). But it was SO MUCH FUN.

First things first. We were lucky enough to follow this chick into Epcot on Day 1. Best skirt ever:

Broom + dustpan full of water + best janitor ever = disappearing Mickey art on the sidewalk.

On ‘It’s a Small World’ – this picture cracks me up, because that was Ada’s expression for the first twenty minutes of that ride. Eyes and mouth wide open. In high school I used to babysit a little boy her age whose parents swore by Baby Mozart…he wore that exact same expression each time I pressed ‘play’. “It’s a Small World” is just as mind-numbing. By the end of the ride, I looked just like Ada.

Near the end of our first day, my brother’s wife Serena arrived. Jake couldn’t make the trip from Iraq, so she came without him. With the rest of the husbands missing, this trip was more of an “all-girls plus The General” thing. Here we are the morning of our second day (which we spent in Animal Kingdom, which was awesome).

This was in the shuttle we took each morning. At first I was confused. I am NOT gratitude is appreciated. Then I figured it out, and from then on I was sure to thank him warmly each time I exited.

Corinne and Serena before the Bug’s Life 3-D show (which I HATE, btw.) This was right before the announcement to cease taking flash pictures in the waiting room.

I rode it five times.

Posted on April 25, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

NAMES 2009!

Welcome to the third annual BABY NAMES spectacular. The newspaper insert was waiting for me when I came home from Disney World. It had a longer way to come this year than previously. Having parents that live in Southeastern Idaho is fun! Special thanks to my mom for mailing it, and to the Rexburg Standard Journal for offering this glimpse into last year’s Idaho (and Utah) naming trends.

[Previous installments here and here]

Let’s bear in mind that each of the following names represents an actual child. Moment of silence. Now let’s jump right in to the carnage.

The “To-Be-Expecteds”:
Brycen
Taylee
Taedyn
Jaidin
Maylie
Kambree (x2)
Braedon
Kayven
Maeley
Kynsley
Kinzley (I couldn’t decide which was worse, so I included both)

The “Spelling Abominations”:
Adysann
Brodee
Ayvree
Blaikly
Izabella
Dylynn (a boy!)
Pyper
Bekett
Izak
Raigen

Weird Hybrids:
Jayston
Jaxton
Karston
Maxton

Inspired by Sarah Palin:
Triptyn
Brystol Tyhler (I love how they made them even worse than the originals! I didn’t think it was possible, but apparently it is.)

Inspired by ‘The Incredibles’:
Dash

Inspired by ‘Saturday’s Warrior’:
Kessler

Aaaaaaand, the “WHAT THE EFF??!?’s”

Payette
Brookelle
Cason (Possibly a typo)
Bentley Bostun
Raleigh (a girl, and of all the cities in the world…really?)
Drayden
Kissera
Crymson Rayne (you should have seen the disgusted look on my husband’s face when I showed him this one)
Rayce
Oakleigh
Shyanne
Fynch (a boy, not like it really matters)
Starleigh
Treygan
MaKynLee
Twins: Macall and Avri (tell me that’s not supposed to be pronounced “Avery”!)
Scottland Presley

A couple of notes: Last year’s ever-popular “Ryker” appears to be losing steam (there were only two this year), though there was a “Ryken” so maybe it’s just evolving. The most abundant boy’s name this year by far was Jackson/Jaxon/Jakson. For girls, Madison remains among the most plentiful, which I find FASCINATING given that these children were all born in Madison County, at the Madison Memorial Hospital.

In conclusion, I’ve given a lot of thought into made-up names – more specifically, the conversation that must take place for a husband and wife to invent and agree on a made-up name. This is the scenario I picture. The husband is watching ESPN, and the very pregnant wife is making up names. Every few minutes she throws out a suggestion – “What about Myzlie? …How about Kamsee?” The husband responds to each name with a distracted grunt. Finally, the wife suggests the name Trayzleigh. The husband pulls a scornful face – “that’s…” – but then, with a look of dawning amazement, he continues – “…the best made-up name I’ve ever heard!!” They then agree that in a hundred years of sitting around making up names, they will never come up with anything better.

Surely that’s how it happens.

Posted on April 23, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

bad dog

I leave tomorrow for Disney World! I’m not planning on doing any posting while there, except for maybe to my Twitter feed. I was hoping to get the Madison Memorial Hospital baby names newspaper insert before I left but that didn’t happen, so it’ll have to wait until I get back. Don’t miss me too much. Put your energy into wishing Jon good luck. He’ll need it for his final exams as well as for healing SINCE HE GOT BITTEN BY A DOG yesterday. Damn thing ran out and grabbed him when we were visiting a property for rent. It’s okay, mom, you’re allowed to swear when your husband GETS BITTEN BY A DOG. And it got him on the skin graft, no less. He was involved in a grain auger accident as a teenager and has this hideous scar where the front of his leg was pulled off then patched up. The skin there is thinner than normal – stretched right across the muscle – and of course that’s where the stupid mutt got him. When he showed the owner (who is also the landlady of the property) what the dog had done, she stared so hard at his scar I thought she was going to pass out. I had to step in and explain that the dog hadn’t done ALL the damage, just the fresh bloody part. And she didn’t even apologize! But she DID give us a ride home, so…..that’s something, I guess :/ Anyway, we won’t be moving into THAT place.

YES OF COURSE I TOOK A PICTURE

A couple of puncture wounds and a tear, but since they’re in the skin graft it’s sort of a big deal. Gahhh. Hopefully it heals up fine with no complications. The good news is there’s no rabies on the island so if Jon starts foaming at the mouth, it’s for something unrelated to the dog bite.

I’m so sorry this is the image I’m leaving you with for the next nine days.

Posted on April 12, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink

Aloha oy-vey

To celebrate the countdown to Disney World (4 days!!!), I thought I’d let you all take a glimpse into a past Sweet Family vacation. To Hawaii. I was 15, Annie was 17, and Corinne was 19. Or something like that. It was ill-fated, to say the least. So ill-fated that on the first try, we never even made it out of the airport. In an attempt to save money, it was somehow decided that we’d take a military hop out of Travis Air Force base in northern California. It would be free, but flights aren’t guaranteed so you just sort of have to go there (a four-hour drive for us) and wait around, hoping that a flight will stop by to drop off cargo or refuel on its way to your desired locale. The General factored in a couple of day’s wait time on either end of our trip to account for the uncertainty. Well. It just so happened that this trip coincided with the conflict in Kosovo, and the only planes stopping by were on their way to blah blah blah Not Hawaii. We waited for three days…THREEEE DAYS….for the flight that never came. Instead, we put our tank tops and capris to good use in the bum-fight district of San Francisco. The hotel was a dump, and Corinne got coughed on by a homeless person. But you know, it ended up being a pretty fun trip, despite the dashed hopes and tuberculosis and all. (tangent: My favorite memory from that vacation came from an old homeless man strumming on a out-of-tune guitar near Ghirardelli Square. His shtick was coming up with rhymes for the word “tip”, then singing little ditties about unaware passers-by to solicit money from on-lookers. I was happily tripping along and hopped a curb with a flourish. Then from across the street, I heard a deep voice sing, “skippity skip, have yo mama gimme a tip”. We were so amused that we stood and watched him a while longer. My personal favorite was when he crooned, “Wipin’ yo lip, gimme a tip” as a man walked by, rubbing his face.) Apparently the most memorable parts of this trip all had to do with homeless people. Thanks, President Reagan!

So the first attempt at a Hawaiian family vacation didn’t go as planned. The second attempt came the next year, and SUCCESS! Kind of! We did make it to Hawaii, but we ended up on a slow, windowless cargo plane and rode the entire 7 hours in seats made of cargo netting (not even kidding) with tanks in our laps (only slightly kidding). And THEN, when we got there, it rained. Really hard. As in record rains that caused flooding and mudslides the whole island over. On our third or fourth day, we explained to a nerdy surfer guy that it had so far rained the entire time we’d been there, and he responded “DUDE, that’s a bummer!” Keep in mind this was ten years past 1991, the last year that “dude” and “bummer” were acceptable vernacular. We still repeat it sometimes when we need a laugh. But all the rain and cloudiness was a joy for Annie, who’s allergic to the sun. Not like she was one of those kids on 60 Minutes playing hopscotch in a NASA space suit or anything, but she has to be careful or else she gets blisters. Poor Annie

Anyway, hopefully we have better weather in Disney World. All the final things are falling into place for this trip. I’ve got my ride to the airport lined up. Corinne has her supply of antibacterial hand gel. Annie’s already packed her turtlenecks and SPF 1,000 sunscreen. And rumor has it The General just bought his first new pair of swim trunks in 15 years, therefore reducing his chance of being arrested for public indecency at the water park. We’re all relieved. (Jon borrowed the old pair once to wear in the hot tub at Christmas and he would have been better off in white underwear. They were ALMOST as scandalous as the mandatory swim trunks for the pool at BYU-Idaho.) Kthxbai.

Posted on April 10, 2010 | Filed under Gynacology News | Permalink