Adventure in Chicago

I just finished my first year of dental school, and had a week break between the spring and summer quarters. This just happened to be the time that Shawn's brother, Ryan, and his mom were coming out to Chicago to visit Ryan's mission (which he returned home from in April). We decided it would be fun to drive to Chicago to meet them and spend a couple of days with them. We had a lot of fun walking through Chicago with someone who knew where he was going. The first day we were there, we walked along the shore of Lake Michigan, and when we got to the end of the little peninsula, we could see the whole skyline of Chicago. It was beautiful! The next day, we decided to go to the top of the Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower). It was a beautiful clear day, and the visibility was wonderful when we got to the top. As we were looking out, we could see the shadow of a dark cloud in the distance.
The tower has these clear glass boxes sticking out from the building that you can step onto and see all the way down, and all the way up. Shawn and I sat in one, and we could see the river and all 103 stories beneath us. It was spectacular! This is the picture of us sitting in this box. It felt like we were suspended in mid air!


As we were standing there in the 103rd floor, looking out, we could see the distant cloud rolling in. Along with this cloud came thunder and lightening, and lots of wind. Pretty soon, the cloud had surrounded the building, and we could see lightening in all directions striking the buildings around us! It was a very magnificent sight. As we stood still, we could feel the building swaying under us. The people there said it was designed to be able to sway 3 feet! We could definitely feel it as the wind picked up. This picture was taken from the adjacent view box as the rain was pounding down around us. You can see the blurry raindrops on the glass, and in the background, you can see where the glass jets out from the building.



Just as were we ready to go back down to the ground, the elevators were shut down. We were told that it was normal procedure for them to shut them down during a storm, and they would be running again in a few minutes. After waiting for about a half an hour, they allowed us to go down 4 flights of stairs to level 99. Here, we waited in line for the elevator again for about 10 minutes before they said that we could either wait longer for the elevator or take the stairs the rest of the way down. We decided to wait for 20 more minutes, and if the elevators were still not working, we would take the stairs the 99 flights to the bottom. This is us waiting for the elevator!
Finally, we decided to take the stairs down to the bottom. After running down 27 more flights, the door was open to a Law Firm on the 72nd floor, and a guy said that we could take the elevator from there. He was just one of the guys working on that floor, and I'm not even sure he knew what had been going on up at the 103rd and 99th floors. When we got to the bottom, we were quickly rushed outside because they were having a mandatory evacuation. Apparently (as we learned from one of the firefighters outside), there had been some falling glass. The wind from the storm had blown out a couple windows, and they couldn't let anybody inside until they were fixed. We were more than happy to be leaving! They were blocking of the street and sidewalk outside the building we just came out of. We made our way through an adjacent building in order to get to Giordano's, where we wanted to eat. from the street outside Giordano's, we could see the missing windows!

We made it home safely on Father's Day! It actually took us about half an hour less time to get home because we went around Chicago and Indianapolis instead of going through the cities and getting stuck in traffic, like we did on the way there!

Thanksgiving in West Virginia

First of all, here is the finished "OHIO" with all the letters put together. You saw the "O" in an earlier post. That is the letter I am in. Sorry that it has been a while since we posted anything. We both have been very busy.

We went to Jacob and Jennifer's house in West Virginia a couple weeks ago for Thanksgiving. We were also there to see baby Victoria, our brand new niece, come home from the hospital. Shawn's birthday happened to fall on the day of Thanksgiving, and we also celebrated Jennifer's birthday on Saturday, November 28th before we left to come back to Columbus. So we had a lot of things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

William was helping me fix my scrubs that my mom made for me so that they would fit me.
Here are some pictures of me with the newly altered scrubs on. I think my mom and I made some pretty sweet scrubs!









William became my little buddy during the whole Thanksgiving break. He always wanted to be right there with me whenever I did anything. It was so much fun to play with him, and I'm so glad that we live close enough to Jacob and Jennifer now that we can see them more.

I'm not really sure how to get this formatted right, but these are some of the pictures we took while we were at Jacob and Jennifer's house.












Here are some more pictures of Shawn and me playing with our cute nephew!

MOLARS!

This is the video that Dr. Weiss (our awesome Oral Anatomy teacher) used today to start off our discussion about molars!

White Coat Ceremony

Laura's White Coat ceremony was Monday the 21st of September and it was a nice night. For all of you who insist on pictures and blog updates, here you go.

Top 10 Things We Love About Our Apartment in Ohio!

We love Ohio. Here are some of the reasons why: (these are in no particular order)

10: The weather here is not too much different from Utah, except for the humidity. So far, we don't think the humidity is too bad: we put on chapstick less and don't use nearly as much lotion! (Although we look really sweaty when we go outside, but I guess it could be worse!)

9: We love our apartment! The front room is one of the favorites. We haven't put anything on the walls yet, so they will look better when we do so :) We saw the couches while we were running one morning out on the sidewalk in front of a house. The guy who lived there said they were moving and we could have them, only problem was that they were soaked because it had rained the night before. We borrowed someone's SUV to go pick them up, let them dry out most of the way outside, then completely dry under the air conditioning inside. Once we bought covers and pillows for them, they turned out pretty nice, says us!


8: We have grass in the front yard and grass in the backyard. The backyard also has a playground where kids from around the complex play. There is also a pool! This is a picture of the front of the apartment. Ours is the green door on the left. That brings us to number 7...
7: The apartment number is clearly visible from the front of the apartment (although I don't think you can see it in this picture) Haha


6: We found somewhere to put every kitchen item in the kitchen, although the kitchen is very small! Here is a picture of the kitchen in Cedar City (left) compared with the kitchen here (right):
I really don't know how we fit everything in it!













This kitchen table was at JC Penney Furniture Outlet. We got it for a really good price!!

5: We love having the extra bathroom,


the extra bedroom (the office for me to study in and Shawn to work in until he finds an office in Columbus),















and the extra balcony to store our bikes between rides:

4: Our neighbors are wonderful! Actually, we have not met anyone yet who has been less than loving. Our apartment complex is full of LDS dental students, so we fit in great. Our ward is wonderful...everyone we have met has been more than willing to help us out in any way possible! The moving committee in the Elders Quorum had our moving truck unloaded in ten minutes flat. It was wonderful to have so much help!









3: The temple is really close! It is one of the smaller ones, but very beautiful. We drove to it and around it on Sunday after dinner, so now we know where it is!



2: Having a dishwasher, air conditioning, washer and dryer has been so nice! We feel so spoiled!




























1: Our bedroom is a lot bigger in this apartment than it was in either of our other apartments! We actually have two sides of the bed, which allows the bed to be made much easier! Check out the comparison:


















We have a balcony that can be entered from our bedroom. We have been throwing all our empty boxes out there as we unpack.








We love the fact that our bedroom is a true master bedroom with a bathroom and walk-in closet. The shower head in our shower is actually high enough! I hate it when they are so low, I have to bend over just to get my hair wet!