The Weekend

As many of you may know, I'm applying to graduate school to become either a physician assistant or physical therapist. I'm very excited about both and have spend almost all of my free time looking up schools and getting my application ready. It's a lot harder than you think because there are so many little details that go into an application. I still have lots to do and since it's getting kind of down to the wire I took Friday off work and went down to Safford to get some very important things done. I wasn't able to do all of them but I did get most of them and I even got to shadow my dad while he saw patients. It was great! I can't wait to start school again and learn some of this stuff.

Here are a few highlights of the weekend:

My parents have become avid bike riders and my dad woke me up on Saturday at about 8:30 AM and we went for a 10 mile bike ride!

Mom is in Utah so Dad was in charge of lunch. He made macaroni and cheese. It was amazing!!
This is Tessa's second batch of mint brownies. Yes, they taste as good as they look!
How on earth could you say no to either of these faces. Should I have kids some day I hope they can't do this because I'm done for.

Snape, Snape, Severus Snape

I was introduced to this little video and decided that it must be shared with those I know best. I'm not going to say much about it I just want you to watch it and enjoy. I do have to put a little disclaimer though; if you watch it you will be singing along to it all day! Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, I give you The Harry Potter Puppet Pals in The Mysterious Ticking Noise . . . .

The Raping of the Tress and Other Stuff

It's been a fun week here in the Brown house. Tuesday night Zach and I went to our first time share presentation. It was actually fun. They sure are good salesman and seem to have an answer for everything but in the end we said no and walked away with a $100 gas card and 2 plane tickets to anywhere in the United States including Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Yay!

Wednesday night was Counting Crows! WOW is the best word I have. This was my 4th concert and the only complaint I have is that they didn't have near enough time to play. They are so fun to see live because even if you know all of the words to all of the songs, you're always surprised. Adam always does something new. Below are some pics for those of who who didn't have the privilege of being there live.

Here is the crew that went from left to right: Mindy, Preston, Mamma, Allison, Tessa, Zach and me behind the camera! I actually took another picture right before this one and Preston is making a normal face but it was too dark! Oh well, this one is way more entertaining!




Thursday was a sad day in our house. Gregory McDonald, the man who wrote the "Fletch" novels, died. We celebrated his life by renting and watching Fletch. We laughed our guts out! I highly recommend both Fletch and Fletch Lives to everyone. Here are a few lines that you probably won't find funny until you watch the movie:

Pathologist: Ever seen a spleen that large?
Fletch: No, not since breakfast.

Stanton Boyd: What kind of a name is Poon?
Fletch: Comanche Indian.

Fletch: I'm John.
Gail Stanwyk: Ohhhh, John. John who?
Fletch: John Cock...tos...ton.
Gail Stanwyk: Thats a beautiful name.
Fletch: It's Scotch/Romanian.
Gail Stanwyk: That's an odd combination.
Fletch: So were my parents.

This week has been a beautiful week in Phoenix, which is odd for early September. It's probably been in the mid to high 90s with a nice little breeze all week. That being said, we set out to do a little more yard work. We have a nice big rose bush in our front yard and a different big flowery bush in our back yard. Well no one has really bothered to take care of them so they've kind of grown out of control and really needed to be trimmed. I'd trimmed the rose bush earlier in the summer pretty far back but my dad said that I needed to trim it more. Well since it was such a beautiful day, I decided that today would be the day.
I need to explain that I was taught to trim by my dad. My mom recently told me a story that explains that way he trims and I thought it fit rather nicely. When my parents were younger they were managing some apartments. One day my dad went out and trimmed the trees and bushes in the fall so that they could look good in the spring. The owner drove by, saw what had happened and called my parents saying, "Somebody raped the trees!!" My dad explained that he had done it and not to worry because the trees would look great in the spring. With that story in my head, I set out to rape my trees and rape them I did! Once again, I should have taken a before picture because both bushes were about 6 times the size they are now. I filled an entire big trash can with the trimmings. Here you go Dad! I hope I've made you proud!


This is my rose bush. It's just a bunch of sticks!!! If you look close you can see the zinnias I planted onthe sides of it.
This is the bush in the back yard. It's been so long since it was trimmed that it was just covered in dead stuff. I cleaned all that stuff out. Doesn't it look good!

Well, that was our week. Zach is now in his office doing homework and I'm about to clean something. I hope everyone had a good week!

Gardening

A few months ago our bishop announced that in November we are going to have a ward fair. The catch was that he wanted every family in the ward to bring something to eat to the fair that they had grown in their own garden. Zach and I didn't have a garden so we had to plant one. We decided to start very simple and built a square foot garden. I didn't want to get in too deep because I've never gardened by myself and I certainly am not my parents or grandparents. We planted cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, spinach, coriander and some flowers (zinnias and pansies). We may end up bringing just flowers to our county fair but at least we're trying. Anyway, we do have some sprouts and I am very excited about them. The big sprouts are the zinnias but hey, at least something is growing.

Our garden!

These are the zinnias! They're huge!

If you look hard you can see the broccoli and califlower sprouts.

This is a Where's Waldo. There is one little carrot sprout. Can you find it?

On top of the gardening Zach and I have finally had time to work a little bit on the backyard. A few tennents before us got the great idea of laying some bricks to create a little patio area. The only problem was that they got about half way done and stopped. When we got here everything was overgrown, most of the stones were covered in dirt and there were weeds everywhere. We pulled the weeds and finished laying the stones. I also got to buy some flowers to put on my new patio. I'm very excited about it. I wish I had some before and after pictures but you'll have to settle for after pictures. Those of you who saw it before know that this is a huge improvement.
I've discovered I like gardening and working in the yard. It makes you feel good. We're still not done but at least it looks a lot better than when we got here.