Christmas Music

I always love the Sunday before Christmas because there is always a special program with lots of Christmas music. Today was no different. I love Christmas music. I grew up with it being a huge part of Christmas, thanks to my mother. There is one song that I heard several years ago that has become my favorite. It's called Breath of Heaven and my favorite version is by Amy Grant. Well, some member of the church, being the creative people we are, put the music to the Nativity movie the church put out. It's a very moving little production and I thought I'd share it with you today.



Merry Christmas everyone!

Texas, Here I Come!!

I'm going to Texas. I got my first interview for PA school at Texas Tech in Midland, TX. Yes, I know that the main campus of Texas Tech is in Lubbock but the PT school is in Midland. I know it's just an interview and I'm not accepted but I didn't even expect to get an interview with Texas Tech so I'm very excited. The blessed event will be on January 6th and it's an all day thing. My mom has kindly offered to go with me. (I still can't figure out when in the heck I got old enough to do this stuff by myself.)

This is the letter:

December 8, 2008

Dear Prospective Student:

Congratulations! Your application to the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, School of Allied Health Sciences, Physician Assistant Program has been processed and reviewed. We are pleased to invite you to participate in an interview to select candidates for admittance into the class that will matriculate in May 2009.

Interviews are being conducted on Tuesday, January 6, 2008 at the TTUHSC Physician Assistant Program on the campus of Midland College in Midland, Texas. Orientation will begin promptly at 8:30 AM and interviews will be held throughout the day from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM in the Dorothy and Todd Aaron Medical Sciences Building. You are expected to be present for orientation and assignment of your interview times. You will sit through 3, one-on-one interviews with PA faculty members. Each interview will last no longer than 15 minutes.

Current students will be on hand to answer questions, give tours, etc. Light refreshments will be served and there are several restaurants in close proximity for lunch.

It is important that you RSVP to this invitation by 12:00 p.m. Friday, December 19, 2008 by calling or replying by email to:

dawn.jankowski@ttuhsc.edu

If you have any updated transcripts, please send them to:

TTUHSC SOAHS

3601 4th St MS 6294

Lubbock TX 79430

Attached to this email you will find a list of local hotels and restaurants as well as directions from the Midland International Airport to the Midland College Campus.

Congratulations! We look forward to meeting you on January 6th!

On a funny note, upon hearing that I had an interview in Midland, my father contacted a real estate agent the very next day and had her email him a listing of about 25 houses that are for sale in the area! Oh how I love my father!

On a serious note, I'm actually scared to death so any little prayers would greatly help.

Here's to life and it's little victories! Yay Texas!

Christmas Tree

This last Friday I went Christmas tree hunting with my parents. It was a very fun experience and Zach and I got our 3rd tree. There are no pictures of the actual cutting of the trees for reasons I can't explain right now but the rest of the trip is documented.

We start with the where's Lynn picture. Squareknot knows how to blend in.

We almost had some pictures of Dad and I dragging the tree to the car but Mom had the camera on video sooooo, no pictures. (It's really ok Mom. The trip is well documented:))

Here we have the trees on the car. You'll notice the branch sticking through the window. Mom was sitting in the back seat and had a rather interesting time getting in the car.

We drove all the way from Payson with the car like this. Dad and I were in my car and Mom was following us on the highway. I could always tell which car was her because it looked like the car had horns on it. It was funny.

This is the tree before the trimming. It quite literally took up half of my living room. It didn't look that big in the wilderness! Zach didn't want to cut anymore off but it had to be done.

The finished product is much better. Not up to Sandra Smith standards but it's getting there.

Yay for Christmas!!

A Christmas Weekend

This last weekend was the Smith Christmas Weekend. Every year sometime in December my family comes down to Phoenix and we play around for the weekend. This year was a great one! It started, for me, on Friday. I took the day off to go Christmas tree hunting with my mom and dad (more on that later). We went up by Payson to find our tree. It was a very nice day with a few weird twists. One of which was seeing Santa Clause get pulled over for speeding. Anyway, the road we took was right along the Mogollon Rim. Beautiful!



If you look closely you can see my father's head peeking out from behind the rock. Mom and I tried to get him to stay away from the edge but Squareknot can't shy away from adventure!

A very cool stump we found.

We got back into town in the early evening and Tessa was already here. We sat around for a while and contemplated how the tree we had cut for me took up half of my living room (again, more on that later). Then we met up with Preston, Mindi and Homer for dinner at the George and Dragon or, as Preston calls it, the Georgian Dragon. It had some traditional English food. I had the pasty. It was gooooood!

After the Dragon it was back to our house for ice cream and the typical Smith conversation. Zach fell asleep pretty early on. He's still getting the hang of our amazing ability to talk for hours on end.

The next morning was a blast as well. Zach got a call during dinner on Friday from the ward exective secretary wanting to know if we could come to tithing settlement at 8:30 AM and he actually agreed to it. It turned out to be a good thing because we got up and going early. As soon as we were done with that, Dad, Tessa and I headed to Target for some Mt Graham Family Practice Christmas party auction shopping. It was great! 5 carts, $2000, and a target credit card debacle later we were out of there. It was very intersting as we checked out to see that each of our carts reflected our own personalities. Just imagine what was in Lynn's cart!

Once that was over we headed to Costco for some sample tasting and jelly bean buying. There were some good samples on Saturday!


This is us at lunch at Rubios after Costco. We convinced Preston to let us eat at a chain restaurant. He may not appreciate me posting the evidence of that on my blog but I like the picture so there you go.

Our next stop was Tempe Marketplace for the annual $5 gift search. I'd go in to a little more detail but you can see the evidence below. I think I got the coolest gift!

We were all pretty tired by then but it wasn't over yet! We had a slideshow of Preston and Mindi's trip to Ireland and let's just say that I'm jelous and now want to go to Ireland. We ordered pizza for dinner and my good friends Richie and Ashley came over so that they could go to Jesterz with us. It was a great show! Preston was in rare form. Those of you who weren't there really missed out because all of us got to see Preston with a tooshey! (If you want more details, ask me later.)

Sunday was a good day as well. Tessa stayed and hung out with us. We made peanut blossom cookies with lots of different kinds of Hershey Kisses. I recommend the hot cocoa or cheescake kinds. They went the best. We had a good game of Scattergories and Clue.

The last part of the day was a trip to see the Mesa Temple lights. They were gorgeous, as usual.

Isn't she gorgeous!

So that's my very long post about my amazing weekend. It was such fun and really put me in the Christmas spirit! Thanks family of mine for everything and Merry Christmas everyone!

The Best Thanksgiving Ever

This Thanksgiving was the first Thanksgiving I've had with my family in 4 years. I was so excited about it beforehand I could hardly stand it. I'd been dreaming of my mom's rolls and mashed potatoes and gravy! There is always a chance that you're memories are better than the actual food but this year did not disappoint. Everything was amazing. Our cousins the Detlors were down as well and we all had a blast. There were lots of games, movies, shopping, solving the world's problems and sleeping. You can't get better than that.

Dad carved the turkey.

Mom and Mary did everything else.

It was sooooo goooood!

This was dessert. This isn't even all of the pies.

This is what was left after just the first round.

There were several funny moments this weekend. During dinner I asked who wrote the song "Blowin in the wind." Tessa responded, "Bob Dylan slash Robert Zimmerman." Dad then responded, "They wrote it together?"

Keenan was also very entertaining. He really wanted to play Pit. At one point he was very frustrated that no one would play with him and proceeded to shout, "I want to play Pit, JANET!" Only he didn't really say Janet but something that sounded similar. Keenan is 6. We asked him after what he had said and he swore that he said Janet. We still have our doubts.

During one of our 12:30 AM Rook marathons, Zach was having quite a hard time focusing and decided he needed some brain food. He went and got some cranberry muffins with the special cranberry muffin sauce. The sauce is made of butter, cream and sugar. It's called celestial sauce. After finishing the muffins, Zach proceeded to tell me that I needed to learn to make the sauce because he's very excited about the many things he can put it on: pancakes, quesadillas. . .


We were surprised by a visit from my very good friends Ashley and Richie. I haven't seen them in quite a while so I was very excited that they were down for Thanksgiving and came over. We had a great time reminiscing.


This was the sunset on the way home on Sunday. It was such a fun weekend that I didn't even mind going back to work today! And that's saying something.

It is Finished!

It's finally done! Yes, it's true, my PA and PT applications are all done. I've turned in all transcripts, letters of recommendations, GRE scores, applications and supplemental applications. Today I mailed the last ones. I'm quite excited but quite nervous as well. I thought you all might want to know where I applied:

• Albany Medical College - Albany, NY
• Arizona School of Health Sciences - Gilbert, AZ
• Daemon College - Amherst, NY
• Marywood University - Scranton, PA
• Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences - Worcester, MA
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center - Midland, TX
• Northern Arizona University - Flagstaff, AZ
• Touro University - Henderson, NV
• University of St. Francis - Albuquerque, NM
• University of Texas Pan Am - Edinburg, TX

There you have it. Now it's just a waiting game. I don't really expect to hear anything until February or March but I'll be sure to let you know. I really hope something works out but if it doesn't, that's ok too. If anyone has connections for mechanical engineering jobs in these areas, send the word our way.

Being Sentimental

For those of you who don't know, my brother, Preston, is an amazing musician. I am not just saying that because he is my brother. One of my favorite things in the world is to listen to him play and sing. When I was first in Mesa he used to come up to visit his friend Scott and they would both come over and play for my roommates and I and we would cook them dinner (usually french toast). Those are some of my favorite memories.

He isn't the best singer in the world but his songs sure make up for it. He's a very sincere and entertaining performer. Anyway, Tessa was down a few weeks ago and Preston came over to see us. He played for us and I got it on video. This is one of my favorites but I say that about all of the songs he plays. I thought I'd share this with everyone so they can enjoy Preston's talent. This is not a Preston original but it is good anyway.

Zinnias in Bloom

My zinnias have started blooming. Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.









Zach refused to be my model for the pictures today so you all get a shot of me. I highly recommend zinnias for those who are plant challenged. They are very easy and require almost no effort or care and they are beautiful when they bloom.

Zach (Morrison) Brown Music Video

For those who are interested. Here is the video of Zach's concert.

School of Rock

Zach's cousins Brandon and Jennifer have their very own school of rock. They teach guitar, bass, and drum lessons and then put their students into bands and teach them rock songs. Once a year each band has a concert. They really don't have any vocal students so they have Zach and his other cousin, Sterling, come and be the singers. Some of the kids in the bands are as young as 8 years old and they really do a great job. Some of the songs they sang were Day Tripper by the Beatles, Detroit Rock City by Kiss, For Whom the Bell Tolls by Metallica, Woman by Wolfmother, Ace of Spades by Motorhead, Lay Down by Priestess and several others. Here are some pictures and, yes, my husband is the one in the strange wig.







I had a video of Zach singing but I couldn't get it to load so unfortunately you don't get to see it. If you come to my house I'll be glad to show it to you.

Conference Lovliness

I love October conference because it makes me think of cooler weather, which we have been enjoying for the past few days, and it makes me want to make fall deserts. I decided that I would for the first time make cinnamon rolls. They turned out ok but I definitely need to practice more. We also had Tucker here this weekend and in between texts he helped us make our Halloweenees! They were delicious.







So now conference is over for 6 months. It was a wonderful conference and I'm loving President Monson as a prophet more and more. I watched the program on BYU tv about his life and it was wonderful. He has definitely been prepared to lead the church. It was a great and very relaxing weekend and now all I have to say is bring on the holidays.

Gardening Update

This post is mostly for my mom. She's always so good about asking me how my garden is doing so I thought I'd give everyone an update.

This is our coriander.

These are our pansies. They really are pansies because they are taking forever to grow. I'm actually not sure if they are pansies or weeds.
These are cauliflower. They are slowly growing.
These are our carrots. They are popping up all over the place!
These are our broccoli. They are my favorites!
And, these are our zinnias. They're huge!!!!
These are my bougenvillas. When I bought them they had a few flowers on them and looked pretty good but when I brought them home and potted them they immediately lost all of their flowers. I was worried that they were dying but they really have perked up and are just about to go crazy. Yay!

There aren't any pictures of my lettuce or spinach because the didn't come up. I guess it was too hot. We just replanted them so we'll see how it goes.

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.