I passed!

Our internet has been down this week so we haven't been able to post more of our fun adventure and let everyone know that I passed my boards part I! It was an eight hour test (I take forever taking tests so it took me almost 7 hours) full of Anatomy, Neuroanatomy, Biochemistry, Physiology, Dental Anatomy, Microbiology, Pathology and clinical case questions. It was the toughest and most exhausting test I've taken. Thanks for all of your prayers. I couldn't have passed and done as well as I did without them. Now I'm not only going to class, but seeing patients as well. I think some of them might know that they are one of my first patients though. If they ask, I just tell them that I've done the procedure many times before, but I just don't tell them that it was on a mannequin head. It's just a small detail I don't think they need to know :). I've been having so much fun in clinic! There are some very interesting people who live out here in Philly and some very crazy mouths.
The pictures I posted are from the Ichiro section of the Hall of Fame. Ted can tell you what the Japanese sign says. We were looking for Ted, but I guess the Hall of Fame couldn't afford his price.

HALL OF FAME

I've never spent so much time at a Museum, but the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown was an exception. The day started out with Ash and I driving from Sharon Springs down a beautiful lake that reminded me of Lake Cushman. We arrived in Cooperstown, parked and took a trolley down into the city. It was a nice little town and the Hall of Fame was amazing. We took a million pictures and so I'll show you a few. We ended up staying for like 6 hours. Ashley was awesome and loved it almost as much as I did. I even caught her sneaking a kiss with Ted Williams. I'm so glad I married her. We had the best day ever and stayed last night in a nice little hotel in Syracuse. Also check out a video we took of the main Hall of Fame room. CLICK HERE for the video. We spent a long time in this room. Its a little long, but you'll get to see some Hall of Famers on the wall. I'll post more later about the day but I don't have time right now.

Trip to New York (Not the City)

Yesterday we started our adventure to upstate New York. We left around lunchtime and started the drive North. We had a fun little drive through PA and even hit our new favorite city: Scranton, PA. Unfortunately, we hit Scranton right when the biggest Thunderstorm of all time hit and so we didn't decide to stick around too long to explore and find Michael Scott, Dwight, Jim, Pam, or the rest of the Office gang. We did take a picture of where they probably went to High School (If you look closely at the picture you will see the sideways rain we were driving in), and we thought this might be the church that they show in the opening with the music, but you guys will have to tell us. Ash and I even jumped out of our car in the pouring rain to film a short clip of me doing my best Dwight Schrute impression, but something happened and our camera didn't work too well. So, we got soaked for nothing.

Eventually, we got back on the road and made our way up towards Cooperstown. The drive was awesome. Little rolling hills and lots of trees and rivers. Reminded me a little of the Northwest. Eventually, we pulled up that night to our hotel and were shocked to see how terrible it was (See the Budget Inn Pictures). I knew it wasn't going to be great because I bought it online and it was a lot cheaper than most of the hotels around Cooperstown, but it was pretty brutal. We killed about 20 bugs in our room during our time there and the bed was not too comfortable. But we enjoyed it and chalked it up as a "Daventure." There was one bonus to where we stayed; right down the street was a little sports bar that we went to and ate the best New York-style pizza ever while we watched the All-Star game. It was definitely worth the bad hotel.

Say a Prayer for Ashley

This was about as close as we got to seeing any fireworks yesterday, but Happy 4th of July to everyone. It was a good day to reflect on all the great men that fought for our freedoms. We weren't able to do much because Ash is studying for her Dental Boards that she is taking tomorrow. If you can, pray for her to do well because it is a huge test. We are excited for her to be done with it so that we can go up to New York next week.

Hanging up the Spikes, Looking for a Job

The title of this post pretty much tells the story. After another attempt at pitching and having my legs shake so bad the entire time that I couldn't throw strikes, I have decided that my awesome nerve disease is forcing me to retire once again from real baseball. It felt good to get back on the mound again, but the legs just can't take it. It's the weirdest feeling in the world to not be able to feel your feet or legs (Mom, I know I can get an "Amen" to that, right?). Sad day again to have to stop playing the game I love.

With Pennsylvania being one of the top paying states in the nation for teachers, it is extremely saturated and difficult to find a teaching job. Especially for brand new Social Studies teachers. I have now applied to every district within about an hour drive of where I live. We're praying someone will give me a chance. Like everything, though, it seems like it is more about who you know than how qualified you are.

In the Exciting News front, Ashley and I are continuing to work on our "Things to do" checklist and have planned our summer vacation in a couple weeks. We will be going to New York, but not the city. Our first stop will be Cooperstown for the Baseball Hall of Fame. After that we will be going to Palmyra for the Hill Cumorah Pageant and the Sacred Grove, etc. After that, we will be going up to Niagara Falls. Sounds like a pretty good trip, huh? We will definitely put pics up when we do that.

One more thing, how cool was it to see my favorite all-time baseball player back in Seattle tonight? Junior is the best. I wish the M's never traded him.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

I'm not sure if the card I sent made it there in time, but we wanted to say Happy Father's Day to everyone. Ash and I were given a speaking assignment for church on a Father's role in the Gospel. This topic made me think of all the great lessons my dad has taught me about the gospel. I decided to make a list of them to use in my talk. This is just an outline of my talk because I obviously didn't write out every word. It is kind of a "top 10" List:

1. Eternal Marriage: Loving Marriage to my Mother: LA Temple on May 5^th, 1979- Happily Married and very much in love. PARTNERS.

• D & C 131 – New and everlasting covenant of Marriage required to reach highest degree of Celestial Kingdom
• Strong Marriages, even in the church, increasingly rare- James E Faust says,

Speaking in general conference some years ago, President Stephen L. Richards (1879–1959), First Counselor in the First Presidency, quoted from an article, written by a veteran criminal court judge, titled “Nine

President Richards continued: “For generations we as a Church have been endeavoring to do just what the judge advocates—to put and keep Father at the head of the family, and with all our might we have been trying to make him fit for that high and heavy responsibility.”1 Since the primary purpose of the Church is to help the family and its members, how well the father functions in his responsibility is of utmost importance.

More recently I read in the paper: “Social scientists across the political spectrum tell us that father absence is a stronger predictor of criminal behavior than family income, education, or … race.

• “And while individual youngsters can manage life without father reasonably well in many cases, few are able to come unscathed through fatherless communities.”

2. Testimony of the Gospel- Not afraid to bear his testimony to his children

3. Gospel Basics- Scripture Study/ Family Prayer/Family Meetings/FHE- Every Morning before school / (Powwows) - Everyone left spiritually uplifted, planned, things went a lot smoother.

4. Priesthood Blessings- At least every beginning of the school year or when needed. (Difficulty with my vision).

- Brigham Young said that all priesthood holders should live their lives so that they are worthy to give a priesthood blessing at all times.

5. Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy- Became Little League Baseball President, scheduled no games on Sunday for my teams.

- Travels all around the world and always tells us about going to Church in new places. (Church is always the same).

6. Importance of quietness/ Meditation/Patience- Never seemed angry, always calm, no matter what happens.

- Always had radio turned off, always thinking.
- Always made us turn off the TV, Nintendo, etc.

7. Family Fun- Games, Swimming, trips, etc.

- Famous Quote by Harmon Killebrew “My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys."

- Dad used to mow base path in backyard for wiffleball games.

8. Importance of Free Agency- Dad always let us decide what we wanted to do. Never forced us to do anything. Always asked "Do you really want to play baseball? Told us to pray about things."

- Also, a father should guide his family with humility and kindness rather than with force or cruelty. The scriptures teach that those who hold the priesthood should lead others by persuasion, gentleness, love, and kindness. M. Russell Ballard

- In giving time to his children, a father should be able to demonstrate that he has enough love for them to command as well as discipline them. Children want and need discipline. As they approach some dangers, they are silently pleading, “Don’t let me do it.” President David O. McKay (1873–1970) said that if we do not adequately discipline our children, society will discipline them in a way we may not like.4 Wise discipline reinforces the dimensions of eternal love. This reinforcement will bring great security and stability into their lives.

9. Importance of going on a Mission- Possible opportunity to get drafted out of high school, Knew I wanted to serve a mission.

(Went to BYU and met my wife)

-Dad is great example of being a missionary today. Everyone knows he is Mormon, always is a good example of what a member of the church is. Lots of non-member friends, acquaintances.

10. Importance of Service- White Envelope, Generosity to children

I'd love to hear any other good things we learned from Dad about being a Father in the Gospel. Let me know what you think. Dad, Thanks for being so great! Love you. Happy Father's Day!

This is why we moved out of our old apartment and into our condo!

If you can actually believe it...bugs like this lived in our old apartment last year, except they were even bigger than the size you are actually seeing! I saw this bug on one of our friend's blog and had to share it with all of you because I used to complain about them last year and now you know why! I have had a smoosh mark of about 5 inches on my wall from one of these critters. Supposedly they eat spiders, but we had those in our apartment as well so who knows if that is really true. Anyway, these bugs are actually pretty smart because one day, I turned away from the bug (like when you used to play red-light, green-light when you were a kid) and he scurried across the wall (and they are the fastest bugs you have ever seen!) until I turned and faced him; then he froze. I repeated this until he disappeared into a crack. The only problem is that when you go to squash them, they unfreeze and run a billion miles per hour. I have only successfully killed one. So luckily we haven't seen one of these in our Condo yet. I hope it stays that way.-Ashley

Casey in the New Pool

Casey Going down the Water Slide

Casey jumping off the Rock

Casey's Second Birthday

We got to have a party down here in Arizona on Monday to celebrate Casey's Birthday. He got a new slide. I took a bunch of video of him sliding. Click HERE for a good one of him going down backwards. He was awesome at it. The second video (HERE) is Casey on his slide with the Birthday card Ashley and I bought him. He says "Big Tractor" because that was on the card. It was a lot of fun.

Ashley's White Coat Ceremony

A couple of weeks ago, Ashley finished her second year of Dental School. This means that she finished up her work on the dummies and will now get her own patients. As the students move from the pre-clinic to the actual clinic, they have a White Coat Ceremony. Ash's family came into town and the whole thing was really nice. Ashley has been doing amazingly well at Dental School. She is going to be an awesome dentist. She is very excited to start working on real patients.

I sang at the Academy of Music!

Today was graduation day for the dental class of 2007 and I was able to sing in the program! At the beginning of this year the deen of Admissions at my school decided to put together a group of dental school student singers. We practiced during lunch once every other week. We finally were able to sing a week ago at my White coat ceremony (I'll blog about that later). I thought it was cooler that we were able to sing today at the Academy of Music so that's why I blogged about this first. The Academy of Music is the oldest grand opera house in the United States, remains one of the busiest halls in the world and is where performances by The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Opera Company of Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania Ballet take place. "Wicked" (the musical) is playing there right now as well. So It is so cool to sing in such an amazing place with great acoustics. I included two videos of us singing our two songs, but I don't think our free, oh so great, but not-so-high-quality Martha Stewart video camera really recorded them that well. I'm the second from the right (if ya can't tell :) ) and singing alto (the lower part).
As for other news, Tyler is done with his student teaching as of last week! He is starting to sub again for right now and has an interview tomorrow for a summer baseball camp job. He will also be going to AZ next week and working with the fam. (but we all know that there is much more fun that goes on in AZ than work). I am going to Utah for a family reunion in Southern Utah and get to see my dad's place in mesquite, NV and watch him play some golf with some old pro's. So we should both have a fun time! Oh, and I receive my first patients next Thursday! I'm super excited and nervous... Two More Years to Go! Well that's all for now-Ashley

For the two videos of Ashley singing, click HERE or HERE.

Summer Baseball!

I have some good blogs, coming--including Ashley's Whitecoat Ceremony Pics, but in the meantime check out the website of the Hardball league I'm gonna play in this summer. It's pretty big time. I'm on the Gabelsville Owls.

http://www.tricountyleague.com/

NYC Pics

Me with a couple Gray's Papaya hot dogs. You might have heard of them, and they really are the best. Two dogs and a Papaya drink for $3.00. Can't beat that.
Ash and I with our Gray's Papaya drinks in hand
Street performer in front of the NYC Library. There was a whole group of these guys dancing like this.
Ash with our friends Brandon and Amy on the subway to Queens to watch the Mets game. Might be the only time I've seen an empty subway car like this. By the time we got there, the whole thing was packed with Mets fans. Shea stadium has very few parking spots because everyone just hops on the subway that goes right to the entrance.
We went down to a pizza place for dinner after the game in the Village (best pizza ever). While we were walking there, we ran into this huge gathering of people protesting. It took a while, but we found out that they were Armenians protesting the cruelty of the Turkish gov't to the Armenians. It was pretty cool.

Weekend in NYC

Once again, we decided to take a little trip to New York this past weekend. We went with our friends and had a great time. I took a million awesome pics and I want to put them all on here, so maybe I'll just tell you about the trip in installments. One of the items on the list that Ash and I made last week (see previous post) was to visit each of the ballparks on the East Coast and watch at least one game. So, we started on Saturday with a Mets vs. Braves game at Shea Stadium in Queens. We took a subway train from Manhatten out to the ballpark and had a great time. Mets dominated. As you can tell, we were out in the cheap seats, but it was awesome. The Big Apple goes up when a Met hits a homerun.

Ashley Did It!

It's official, my wife made it through the toughest year of Dental School. Now she starts her clinical work and will get her first actual patients in June. It was a tough week, but she is done now. Unfortunately, she still has her written board exams to take this summer. To celebrate, I took Ashley to a Japanese Hibachi restaurant that is just around the corner from our house. It was great. We had never been to one before and it was a lot of fun to have the guy cook all our food in front of us and do all the tricks and everything.

I am down to 3 and 1/2 weeks left until I am officially certified to teach here in PA. Hopefully I can get a job now. I could use some prayers because it is apparently very tough to get a teaching job here.

For our FHE last night, Ash and I went through and made a list of all the places that we want to go and see while we are living here on the East Coast. From what I can tell, we are going to have a lot of fun because our list was really long. We want to go everywhere and see everything, so come out to Philly and help us check off our list!

Busy Days

I realize that everyone is busy, but I was trying to come up with something good to blog about because it has been a while and I couldn't think of anything exciting. Ashley is studying for probably the toughest week of finals in all dental school. I am looking for jobs for the summer and the fall. It was nice for a couple days, but it started to snow again today. Just in time for my 4 day weekend that I have off. Baseball season started this week, so that is exciting. Hopefully the Mariners can pull something out of their bums to have a good season. General Conference was awesome last weekend. I especially liked Elder Holland talk about speaking with kind words. He is one of my favorites. Every conference, I think back to Brother Merrell's seminary class where he challenged us to watch all 5 sessions. I think Trev and I took that challenge and I haven't missed a session since (that's not entirely true, I missed every session while I was in Japan because they didn't get the live feeds yet and I missed a couple of Priesthood sessions while I was at BYU because they scheduled games for right after it ended so we couldn't watch). I am so thankful he challenged us that day because conference weekends have become a great blessing in my life and one of my favorite weekends of the year.
Anyways, I am kind of just sharing my random thoughts now, but I love that I am able to tell my family how my life is going. I love all of you guys.

A Perfect Day to watch some Hoops!

Its the middle of March, and the snow came down a ton yesterday. I got out of school early and in time to watch the second day of March Madness. These are some pics of the snowy weather from our Condo Balcony.

It's Official...My Parents Gave Me a Weird Disease!

I went to the doctor yesterday and my test results were back. Apparently, I have a rare hereditary disease called Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (Look it up if you're like Ashley, she was learning all about it online yesterday :) ). It is a disease that causes nerve damage, which is why my feet and legs have begun to loose feeling. The doc told me that the disease is not serious, and I only have a mild form of it. It is not life threatening at all but is something that I will have to deal with my whole life. One of the things that happens with the disease is that some of the muscles in my legs below the knees are subject to atrophy. So, the doctor told me that exercise will help those muscles stay in shape, but there is no cure, drugs, or anything they can give me to help the numbness. I will be getting one more test from a neurologist to confirm the diagnosis, but they are almost positive that this disease is it (They even said that the mild version of it usually appears in people in their mid 20s!). Anyways, thought I'd let everyone know that Mom or Dad gave me this crazy disease. Maybe some of you will have it too. Weird stuff.

Christmas Pool Ball

Click Here to watch some cold weather action and see Matty dive into some freezing cold water.

Tyler Dropping Bombskys

Click Here