First Scarf

Jen, this one is for you.  This is the scarf I recently made with all the knitting stuff my sister Jen (see link on the side of the page to get to her website) gave me for my birthday.  This is my first effort in knitting and I think it turned out pretty good for teaching myself.  It is ribbed and everything.  I have to give credit to Jen for picking out the yarn.  Maybe before too long I will be able to move on to something other than a thin straight strip... Maybe not.  

Gardening

We decided to try our hand at gardening this summer.  The apartments where we live have little garden plots that you can get for the summer.  I waited too long and didn't get a plot because I thought our garden would just die.  Luckily, my friend Catherine got a really big plot and was nice enough to let us plant in what they weren't using.  It actually works out pretty well since between Catherine and her husband Mike and Aaron and I the garden is twice as likely to actually get watered.  We planted a little late, but it seems to be growing pretty well.  I have been delaying posting this because I figured I needed pictures, but I haven't taken any and probably won't.  We actually got our first tomato and a small (as in enough for one person) batch of green beans.  So far we have managed not to kill it in two months.  

Aaron's First Publication

Aaron may not want to brag about himself, but that is what I am for right?  Right.  A few days ago, Aaron was checking up on what Dr. Long, who he used to work for at LDS hospital, was doing in the way of publishing.  Much to his surprise, his paper he had worked on while he was still working with the Artificial Heart Program had finally been published!  Since there are copyright issues with me posting a copy online, you will have to e-mail me if you want to see it.  The title of his paper is: "Improving outcomes with long-term "destination" therapy using left ventricular assist devises."   The basic idea of the paper is how improve surgical outcomes in LVAD patients from the first trials that were reported in the first study.  It also talks about how much better the outcomes (aka survival) are with LVAD therapy compared to medical management of heart failure (using drugs).  (If you read it right after I posted, this is now different, I got it confused with some other research he had done... Oops, oh well.) Yea Aaron!

Trip to the Tetons

After what seemed like eternity Aaron finally finished studying and took his STEP 1 exam for medical school. For those of you who don't know what it is, the STEP 1 is only probably the most important test Aaron will ever take. How well he does determines how competitive he will be applying for residency in a year.  (No, we don't know how he did yet, it takes about 6 weeks to get the score back).  Once Aaron was done, (within 45 minutes- we weren't wasting any time) we drove up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and spent some time in Grand Teton National Park and a day in Yellowstone.  A lot of wild flowers were blooming and it was really pretty despite not seeing as many animals as normal.  Here are a few pictures from the trip.  

These are some of the pictures of flowers in Grand Teton National Park.  I don't even think we were at the peak!

This is a brown bear that was off the side of the road.  No, we weren't dumb enough to get that close to a bear, we were driving by, I was taking the picture out the window.

Here we go...

After being asked repeatedly and told that we should start a blog, I have finally broken down.  This will be my attempt at blogging, but realistically, it probably won't be all that entertaining and it likely won't be updated often (if ever) after the first couple of weeks, I am just being realistic about this.  

Lindsey