Koen Evan Smith

Everyone, meet Koen Evan Smith. He was born on August 30th at about 4:40 am. He was 3 weeks early and he is perfect! Welcome to the world Koen! You were born into a strange family but we're fun and we sure do love you!

5 Years

Today was our anniversary. We've been married for 5 years and while sometimes it's been hard and life hasn't turned out how we planned, it's been a great 5 years. So at the risk of sounding cheesy, thanks Zach. You're the best and I love you.

One Year

Our fake family photo. We took a similar one last year with Jude.

I recently had my white coat pinning ceremony. The actual pinning doesn't mean very much except that I've made it through my first year of PA school. Probably the hardest year of my life and hopefully one day I will be able to say it was worth it. Now if I can just make it through one more!

Happy Father's Day

This is my dad.  He's a superhero.  Now, not everyone is lucky enough to have a superhero for a dad.  I am.  Since today is Father's Day, I thought I'd take the time to tell everyone a little bit about him.

Squareknot has many super powers:

Life Saving.  Squareknot worked very hard and sacrificed much to develop this power.  As a child I remember Squareknot ripping the ears off my stuffed bunny so he could practice sewing them back on.  This is the level of commitment he has shown to his super power of life saving.  I hope one day to be as good at saving lives as he is.  

Teaching.  This may seem like a strange super power but that is because it is so rare these days.  Being a teacher is one of SK's greatest powers.  He is always teaching.  Growing up I sometimes didn't appreciate being woken up at 6:00 am on a Saturday etc. but I now know that Squareknot was using his superpower to help me learn important lessons.  

Defying Death. Squareknot has defied death many times.  Just ask him.  He's been in snowstorms on the top of a mountain and almost died...but didn't.  He's gone on an 18 mile hike with a  98% blocked artery in his heart and almost died...but didn't.  I highly encourage anyone to ask Squareknot about his superpower of defying death; just make sure you have lots of time to listen.  I'm glad I've had the chance to witness some of these events because it has given me a love of adventure!

These are just 3 of Squareknot's superpowers.  A few others are cooking, knot tying, working, knowledge, wisdom, story telling, encouraging and the list goes on and on.  If you want to learn more, check out his super hero tutorial.

 Happy Father's Day Squareknot!  You sure are my hero!

Providencia

A few years ago Zach and I hiked the Inca trail.  While on the hike a couple told us of a small Colombian island off the coast of Nicaragua called Providencia.  It's the third largest reef in the world next to Australia and Beliz.  This year when trying to decide where to go on vacation we remembered their suggestion and decided to go.  It was quite the adventure.  We ended up having an island pretty much all to ourselves for a week.

It took 4 plane rides to get there, the last of which was in this tiny little thing.  I was terrified but it was actually not too bad.

This is the place we stayed.  We had made reservations at another place but it was very far from town, pretty much everything so we went here instead.  It was awesome.  We had a room on the third floor that overlooked the beach.  Did I mention there is not a single shower with hot water in all the hotels on the island.   

This was my favorite beach, Southwest Bay.  We spent most of our afternoons here.  There were times when we literally were the only people on this beach.  That was a little weird at first and definitely took some getting use to.

Our second day we took a boat tour of the island.  One of the stops was a tiny island called Crab Caye.  It had beautiful views from the top and we got to snorkel all around it.  

One of the days we hiked around a small island connected to Providencia by a makeshift bridge called Santa Catelina.  It is famous for being the place that Pirate Morgan had landed and hidden treasure.  You can see the cannons etc.  There's a rock formation that they call Morgan's head that we snorkeled out to.  

Another fun thing we did was hike to the top of the Peak.  It's the highest point on the island and ended up being about 8 miles round trip.  We had a native guide who spoke very broken English but was so friendly and so much fun.  He knew everything and even opened a coconut up for us to drink and eat on the way down.  This is a view from the top.

The next day we did another hike around the Lagoons of the island.  This was my favorite hike.  It had great views of the reef and the water.  These island are the 3 Brothers Caye.  No one is allowed near them because of some birds that live on them.  While hiking by the water we also saw some turtles and a huge sting ray.  Our guide was a local guy they call Nino.  He was very rasta.  

This island is famous for their crabs.  Every year starting now the crabs come down from the mountains to the beach, leave their eggs and head back up to the mountains.  There are crabs everywhere and when I say everywhere, that's what I mean.  They are all over the road, walls, trees...everything!  This pic barely gives you the idea of what it is really like.  NUTS!

Our last day on the island we rented a scooter and went all around.  There is only one road on the island and it goes all the way around.  Zach drove and I got to tell him to stop wherever I wanted so I could take way to many pictures.  Most people on the island get around by moto so there are a thousand scooters on the road.  

It rained on the island almost every day we were there.  That was a little frustrating but we managed just fine.  The one thing I was disappointed about was that there was no sunset when it rained.  I love sunsets and wanted to see one.  Thankfully, it cleared up on the last day we were there and there was a spectacular sunset!

Some of my other favorite things about the trip

1. FOOD!  The food was amazing!  Fresh fish, crab, shrimp, lobster...you name it, they had it and it was fabulous!

2. Language.  The island has 3 languages: English, Spanish, and an English Creole mix. It was amazing to hear the natives speak this language.  I couldn't understand a word.

This was a great trip!  I remembered how much I love adventure.  I'm already starting to plan our next big one!

Birthweek

Yesterday was my birthday.  It was a great day but the great thing about it was that it was the end of about a week long celebration.

Last Thursday Mom and Dad, Tessa and Zach surprised me with a trip to the Melting Pot.  I've always wanted to go there.  It was amazing!  We spent almost 3 hours eating.  Who could ask for anything better?

We started with 2 kinds of cheese and breads and veggies and chips.  Then we moved on to the main course.    This is Zach with his tempura battered broccoli.  

Mumsy and Papi at the end of the dinner portion.  They look like they are in a food coma because they are.

I got 5 chocolate covered strawberries that were as big as my head.  They went great with the white chocolate fondu and the smores fondu.  It was awesome!!!

On Saturday Zach's mom and dad came down and took us out to dinner.  We went to a little burger joint in Scottsdale called Delux.  It was awesome.  The chi was amazing and they had some of the best french fries I've ever had!

Monday night Tessa came over and read me Dr. Seuss's happy birthday story.  All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not 3 baked potatoes.

Tuesday morning Zach woke me up with breakfast in bed.  He made cottage cheese pancakes!  I spent a day at school.  My school friends took me out to lunch.  Then for dinner we did the traditional Joe's restaurant trifecta starting at Joe's Farm Grill.  

Desert of Salt River bars at Liberty Market.

And dinner for today at Joe's BBQ.

It was a great birthweek.  What more can a girl ask for?

12 Years!

Wednesday we celebrated Preston's 12 year anniversary of his heart transplant.  I think it's been a great 12 years.  The party consisted of good people, gourmet soda and Tessa red velvet cake.  I think those 3 things are perfect for a party celebrating Preston's life.  

Here's to another 12 + years better than the last.

Mindi and Jude.  Jude was way to into his cookie to smile.

The red velvet cake complete with Zelbie decor.  Yes, the fox is giving the owl his heart. (The cake was amazing by the way.)

Do you think this could be Preston's son?

And this pretty much sums it up!

Easter

Easter was pretty laid back this year.  The easter bunny visited our house early in the morning and brought us some candy and socks.  At church we had a good/interesting musical sacrament meeting.  Then we had a fun family dinner with some games and that was it.  

Easter is actually my second favorite holiday, next to Christmas.  Not that I need one but I like having a special reason to think about Christ and the resurrection and to be especially grateful for that.  This easter was no exception.    

Here's me with my special Tessa bag basket.  I love it!

 Zach and his basket.  We tried the snickers eggs this year.  They are delicious!

Impromptu Triathlon

A few Saturdays ago, Zach was participating in a sprint triathlon.  He went to check in on Friday evening and when he saw the course decided that I would love it and should participate.  Since I was going anyway (for support) I let myself be convinced.  We had a great time.  I didn't get any pics of Zach since he is waaay faster than me but he was nice enough to take some of me.  It was a short tri, 300 meter swim, 8 mile bike and 2 mile run.  Zach's goal was to finish in 45 minutes and mine was to finish in around 1 hour.  We both did great; Zach finished in 47 minutes and I finished in 1hour and 1 second which was the top 20!  For me that is awesome!  

PLACE PLC/TOT  NO.  NAME          PLC SWIM    PLC   BIKE    PLC   RUN    TIME

16  10/22    149 SHANON BROWN   42  7:54    20   33:37    21   18:30   1:00:01 

Here's Zach and I before the race.

Me on the bike!  My bike's name is Lightening because it's so fast.

Me at the end of the run.  I ran it in 9:15 per mile.  For me, that's super fast!

Both of us at the end.

It really was a great triathlon.  Anyone who really wants to do one but is a little nervous, it's perfect!  There's only 150 people and it's shorter than a normal sprint tri.  It's very chill and the location is great, right through a beautiful neighborhood.  I would highly recommend it!  

Spring Break

As I sit here in pharmacology trying not to get too mad I realized that I hadn't blogged about spring break.  (I needed to go to a happy place in order to calm myself down.) I had such a lovely spring break.  It started with a few crafts, which I will show you in another post but the real fun happened when the Bade's came to visit.  It's been 2 years since we've seen each other and it was great to hang out.

We went to Jesterz!

This is a picture of one of the places we went out to eat.  We also had pasties, Joe's Farm Grill and lots of good homemade food.  I didn't need to eat for a week after.

Once the Bades left (insert tears) it was time to hang with the fam.  We took Jude swimming.  He loved it but he mostly loved hanging out by the railings in the 7 foot deep area.  You can imagine how this would be a problem since I am only 5'6".  

These are the g parents.  They were down for a few days and it sure was great to hang out with them!  Love these two.  They are truly one of a kind. (Each of them separately is one of a kind and both of them together is one of a kind too!)

All in all it was a great spring break and much needed.  I'm now 2 weeks back at the grindstone and getting closer and closer to the end.  Yay!

Birthdays and Unbirthdays!

Now that finals are over, I can actually take a breath and hopefully catch up on blogging. Not a lot has been going on with all the studying but I did miss blogging about Mindi's birthday. She turned 31 on Valentine's Day. We had a little party with good dinner and dessert! I made a chocolate chip cookie pie. It was pretty good. Anyway, happy unbirthday today to Mindi but here are pictures of her real birthday!

This was Mindi's birthday banner.  Can you tell I do not have her or Tessa's craftiness ability.  This was the best I could come up with.

Mindi opening her presents.

Happy Mindi!

Jude putting Mindi's presents on his head.  It was sooo cute!

Ethan's Run

Today I ran my first "official" 10K.  It was awesome!  It wasn't the fastest I've ever run a 10K but it was half uphill and it wasn't my slowest time either.  I was pretty happy with my results.
The actual run was only part of the awesomeness of this race.  It was the cause that made it even more awesome.  Ethan's Run was set up to benefit children with congenital heart defects so it hit very close to home.  Zach and I debated doing it because of the money until I heard that a couple in my old ward had just lost their first baby to one of these defects.  Well, that broke my heart and I wanted to do something to help.  In these situations, there really isn't much to do but at least I could pay a little bit of money to help someone similar to them.  The atmosphere at the run was amazing.  There were tons of families all wearing shirts supporting their little kiddo with heart problems.
While I was walking around before the race I ran into an old Sunday school teacher of mine.  She told me that she had recently lost her little girl.  I was amazed at how strong these families who had lost their little ones were.  Not that they weren't sad or having a hard time but they were out helping others.  I really don't think I would be able to do that.  It was very overwhelming to me.  I am so grateful to know that families can be together forever and that these little children aren't lost.  They are with a loving Heavenly Father waiting for their earthly parents to come to them.  

Birthdays and Brothers

This is Jude and he's my nephew. He is the best baby I've ever known, always happy and smiling and glad to see you. Just look at that face! Yesterday was his first birthday!

He got owl cupcakes for his birthday.  I think he liked them.  Just look at him stare those crazy owls down!

He even got to eat one all by himself. We were slightly worried when he stuck a whole half of an oreo in his mouth but he handled that cookie like a champ. Do you think he came to the right family?

Jude also got another surpirse for his birthday. He is going to be a big brother! That means that I get to be an aunt again and I am soooo excited!

Happy birthday Jude! I don't know what we ever did without you!

Good Day

Today was a good day at PA school. You don't very often have great days at school (it's really hard) but today was one of them. It was my first day of ACLS training and it was awesome! We learned how to intubate a patient (stick that metal thing into their throat and a tube down their trachea) and how to run a code on a non-responsive patient. (That means the patient was dead on the table and my team and I brought him back to life.) I have been very nervous about this part of training for a long time and I was even more nervous after our instructor told us he's made people cry before. It turned out great. It was a blast intubating and I did pretty darn good when it was my turn to run the code. Thank heaven! It's nice to have days like today occasionally that remind you why you are putting yourself through all of this. Today I'm excited about being a PA!

On a funny side note. I was talking to Zach about all of this and he asked, "were you doing all of this on people?" I responded, "oh no, it was on mannequins," to which he said, "Oh good, I was thinking you were going to have to practice all of that on me!" This boy really must love me if he was willing to let me practice intubating on him! Maybe someday I'll take him up on that. :)

The Big 26!

My little Zachary is 26 now. It was a quiet day for us. We did the Joe's birthday trifecta, which consists of eating at each of the 3 Joe's restaurants. They give you $10 toward your bill so the whole experience cost us about $25. We tried to do a little triathlon but that epically failed when I crashed on my bike. So we ran 7.5 miles instead. The rest of the day we chilled with Tessa and played the Wii and watched some shows. It was a good day.

Breakfast at Joe's Farm Grill. I would highly recommend their breakfasts to anyone!

Zachary and his spoils. Yes, that is a Yoda desk protector and and R2D2 USB port.

Lunch at Liberty Market. Zach was very hungry. Yes that is a shirt that detects if there is WiFi around.

Dinner at Joe's BBQ!

The day ended with amazing Texas sheet cake at Preston and Mindi's and the movie "How to Train Your Dragon." Highly recommended.

Happy birthday Zachary! You are my favorite of all the peoples!