FNCE!

This past week I had the wonderful experience of going to the annual Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo (FNCE) in Denver. The school paid for us six interns to go and then the junior and senior dietetic students were able to pay and go as well. All in all there was about 40 of us total.

Saturday morning at 5:15 we jumped on the bus and headed down to Denver. While I was dreading the bus ride (I get car sick easily), it turned out to be a pretty fun adventure. Between the bus ride there and back we had a sandra bullock movie marathon, held a Miss FNCE pageant, and told our most embarrassing stories. Needless to say, I am sure the bus driver was thrilled to be done with us by the end of it.

The conference was held in the down town Denver convention center and went from Sunday-Tuesday. There were a ton of classes to choose from throughout the day, but a few of my favorites were the class on omega fatty acids (we are kinda into that right now and Adam swears by his supplements) and the class on anti-inflammatory cooking. The key note speakers were from MSNBC and CNN and were awesome.

Besides classes, there was also and expo which had every food vender imaginable. Everyday at lunch time we just headed up to the expo for all the free food we wanted. A few of my favorite stops were the dryers ice cream booth, coke, and the noodle company. It was really fun to see all the new products that are coming out and how they are making them healthier. The venders were also giving out TONS of free stuff and so each day I went back to the hotel with a new bag of swag.

Although we were sent to the conference to learn, we definitely made time for some fun. Saturday night we went to the cheese cake factory for dinner. Sunday we went out for pizza followed by a devotional by Sister Michell and Sister Duncan. On Monday we ate at Dave and Busters and then went to the movies to see Whip it followed by some synchronized swimming. Finally on Tuesday we rounded out our week of fun by going to see Wicked at the theater. This was probably the highlight of the week.

While I was gone for 5 days Adam was holding down the fort at home and probably loving his time off from chores ha ha. He did get pretty lonely by the end of it and I was happy to get back home to him, but I am already planning my trip to FNCE next year in Boston!

Fence, Family, and Birthay!

We have been so busy lately! My family planned a trip to come visit us over October 9-11 for a pre-birthday celebration, so of course Adam and I had to just get one more project done before they came. Adam (with the help of our great neighbors) worked so hard to finish the rest of our fence before the family arrived. We installed it ourselves and put in a 12 ft. gate to accommodate the samurai, which means YES the samurai is finally out of the garage! We are so excited to have our last big yard project done so now we can just focus on adding some landscaping here and there.

Mom, dad, and Ashlyn arrived on October 9th and came straight down to visit me at BYU while I was finishing up teaching my weight loss class. We spent most of the day Friday and Saturday shopping. They got me some great boots, which I can't wait to wear, as well as some jeans and internship appropriate shirts.

Friday night we had a birthday dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, The Happy Sumo. On Saturday night we went to the BYU girls volleyball game, followed by dinner at the brick oven with my cousins. Finally on Sunday, my mom made one of my favorite meals (pork chops and homemade mac and cheese) and then we had some delicious ice cream cake from baskin robins! Our neighbors, Patrick and Shyla, stopped by for some birthday cake and brought me a beautiful cross stitch of Christ that she had made. It was such a thoughtful gift and I can't wait to hang it in our house. My family had to take off Sunday night, which always breaks my heart a little bit, but we were so happy that they came to see us.

As if I haven't been spoiled enough, Adam took me out to dinner on my actual birthday (Oct. 16) to Iggy's. It was nice to spend some time as just the two of us, as life has been so crazy lately and to make it worse I was about to leave for Denver for 5 days. For my birthday Adam gave me the new T-mobile mytouch. It is really the coolest little phone and we have been having so much fun playing with it. All in all it has just been a great few weeks spending time with family and friends and makes me realize how lucky I am to have all these wonderful people in my life.

Concrete

This weekend we took on the task of pouring a concrete pad on the side of our house. We have a ridiculous amount of room on our side yards (about 30 ft. on each side), and as a result the concrete serves two functions: a space for the samurai to sit and one less area that I have to weed.

Adam prepped the area this past week and on Saturday morning we poured it. Patrick and Derek (our neighbors) came over to help Adam pour and finish the pad. They were a huge help. I have come to really appreciated that Adam knows how to do concrete. We save a ton of money by doing these projects ourselves and it is really gratifying to see our hard work pay off.

The pad is about 15 x 17 ft and has a 3 ft wide walkway running off of it to the back yard. I cannot wait to put the samurai out there so that my car can get back into the warm garage (especially since winter is coming).

Next weekend we will be taking on the fence...but for now, we are one step closer to having a finished yard.

On My Way to Becoming an RD

This week I started my Dietetic Internship at BYU. As most of you know, I graduated in Dietetics but in order to become an RD I need to complete an internship. It has definitely been an adjustment this week as I am getting use to waking up at 6:30am each day, but I am so excited about this new adventure.

I am starting out with a clinical rotation at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center (UVRMC), which will go through October 15. During my time at UVRMC, I will work in a different unit each week. My first rotation will be Medical 3B. This is the catch all floor in the hospital where I will see all different types of patients. After that, each week I will work in a different area of the hospital with a different dietitian. The different rotations are:

• Outpatient/Renal/Pediatrics
• Diabetes Clinic
• Telemetry (cardio)
• ICU
• Rehab/Surgery/Psych

I am really excited for this portion of the internship, since I will be getting a lot of great experience in a lot of different areas. In addition to these rotations, each Thursday I will do a management rotation at UVRMC and each Friday I will be teaching a dietetics class at BYU, as well as a weight loss seminar for the BYU Wellness Program.

I will keep my blog updated with all the new things I am doing in my internship, but one of the other interns has also created a BYU Dietetic Internship Blog at http://byudieteticinternship2009-2010.blogspot.com

Our House

So here are a few pictures of our house. Some of the pictures are pretty old and things have changed since. These are the roman shades I made as well as the upholstered valance boxes. I really love how they turned out.

The red table Adam made for me for Christmas. He did a great job and I love how the color.

Finally there is the picture of our backyard. We built the deck ourselves with the help of Adam's dad. We were so grateful for him working through the rain to help us get it done. Once it was built, Adam and I stained and sealed it.

In May we put in our sprinklers and sod. Thankfully, one of our neighbors has a gator which we used to remove all the rocks and to carry the sod to the backyard. Prepping the dirt for the sod was the most time consuming part of the project. Our neighbors were a big help during this part. Each night they were outside with us weeding and removing rocks.

We still have the side yards to work on, but for now we really enjoy sitting out on our deck to eat dinner.

As far as advice to anyone who is thinking about landscaping....just buy a house that is already landscaped ha ha. In all seriousness, a fully landscaped yard will be high on my list for our next house. If you do decide to landscape yourself, make sure you think through the process before you begin. For instance, we really appreciated the fact that our fence was not in before. This allowed us to drive a bobcat back to tear out the weeds and level the ground. My other piece of advice would be to rent any equipment you need. We rented a trencher which saved us countless hours.

So I finally started a blog after our neighbor (Shyla) and several other people have bugged me about it. I am not quite sure our lives are interesting enough for a blog, but ya never know.

To give everyone an update on us, we are living in Lehi, UT. We bought our first house just over a year ago and love our neighborhood. We have really great neighbors and friends, which has made it awesome. We have basically spent the past year working on our house. It has been really fun decorating and kind of exhausting putting in the yard, but it is all coming together and I feel like I have learned so much through the process.

Both of our handy skills have really increased. Adam has made me several pieces of furniture and I am currently working on making some roman shades and valance boxes for our windows.