A Little View of OKC

This is our neighborhood.

 And here is the building where we live.

The following are a few pictures of the OU Children's Hospital where I work.

Then I walked around to get some pictures of campus.

This is part of the library on campus.

Outside of the library on campus.

This is a view of the whole medical complex. The VA you can barely see on the left, the Children's Hospital is the big one in the center. The one on the right (behind the trees) is the main OU Medical Center.

State Capitol Park Pictures

(we live very close to here)

It says 'Oklahoma Historical Center', but in front it says something about the Judicial Center.

Judicial Center thing again.

If I remember correctly from our tour, he's called 'the Protector'. I don't know why he faces South though.

View to the West

Better view to the West

This is a tribute to all of the Indian Nations living in Oklahoma. It is North of the Capitol.

View to the North. You can barely see some tall buildings way out there.

Located on the North side of the Capitol

View to the East

Another view to the West

View to the South. That one tall building downtown is the only way I can orient myself.

Veteran's Memorial, North of the Judicial Center building thing.

 This is the sidewalk to the Capitol that I use for my running route. (but from this view the Capitol is behind me)

And then the bugs (I don't know what else it would be) make weird noises in the trees that scared me the first time I heard it while I was running.

ZOO DAY!

A few weeks ago Spencer donated blood and they gave him free admission for 2 to the Oklahoma City Zoo. Since we both have Tuesdays off we made it a date. I usually teach 4 piano lessons and 1 guitar lesson on Tuesdays, but most of my students are gone this week so I moved my remaining 2 lessons to Wednesday so we could have a day at the Zoo.

I tried to get a picture with us and the Tortoise, but I cut off Spencer's head...

then the Tortoise started getting away from me.

Sorry Casey. We later learned that this sign actually means the giraffes aren't in their exhibit at all. But we did learn that a baby giraffe was born at the Zoo a few weeks ago. 

The Okapi. Kinda hard to see. But it was the COOLEST and CRAZIEST thing I have ever seen in my life! It's like a cross between a giraffe and a horse, but with hind legs like a zebra.

These were everywhere. Just running around.

I took a picture because the puppies share Aaron's birthday :)

This Peahen walked right up to us at the picnic tables.

Little did it know, we didn't have any food.

I laughed so much because in the middle of this exhibit was a windmill. HA! There were some deer too, but the windmill cracked me up.

We fed the ducks.. and the turtles.. and the fish.

They all basically fight over the food. The poor turtles were generally too slow. Either the ducks or swarm of fish would beat them to the food.. unless you practically dropped it in their mouths.

It was so super hot all day. We had a fun 5 hours in the heat though. The down side is that we were basically soaked by the time we got home. But we stopped for ice-cream at Braum's first before heading home. (As a side note: I couldn't find Braum's on the gps because I kept trying to spell it like the composer, Brahms.)

Exploring Oklahoma - Stillwater/Tulsa

Finally updating the blog with some pictures from our Stillwater/Tulsa trip. It was a gorgeous drive! I should have stopped to take some pictures of the landscape because it was really awesome. We found a few things to entertain us though.

Unfortunately the rose garden we visited at Woodward Park was suffering from some disease so we didn't really get any good pictures there. The Victorian style house we visited while there was super cool though.

Conference/Easter Weekend

My dad got tickets for us to go to the Saturday morning session of Conference. Neither my siblings or I had ever been to actually see conference. It was really cool. Cache couldn't believe how huge the Conference Center was. Mom and Dad watched it from the cushy seats in the Joseph Smith Memorial Legacy Theater.

Cache went with us after Conference. We made him wear a MUSS shirt..

..he wasn't happy about it.

We then, of course, had our annual Easter Egg Extravaganza! This year's theme was "myths and legends".

My eggs, left to right - John Wayne, Mozart, and a Princess :)

Spencer's Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox

Spencer Is Going To Grad School

Spencer started applying to graduate schools in January. He applied to 5 schools and got called back for interviews at 3 of them. All of these programs were duel degree programs for PharmD/PhD, one was PharmD/Masters. Spencer wants to get his Pharmacy degree but his plan is to go on to get a Masters/PhD so he can do pharmaceutical research and drug development. He has been working really hard and I am very proud of him. 
He almost immediately got accepted to the University of Oklahoma. The University of Connecticut  quickly followed. We waited a while to see what the University of Utah would say but Spencer has ultimately decided on going to Oklahoma. Yeah! So proud of him.

Last weekend we made a trip to Oklahoma City to check out the area and some apartments. We left Salt Lake City at noon on Friday, drove all night long and arrived in Oklahoma City at 6:00am Saturday morning. I drove the first 8 hours, then Spencer drove while I slept for 4, and we switched again somewhere in Kansas and I drove the rest of the 5 hours there. We had plenty of time to spend in Oklahoma City and got to check out quite a bit.

We visited the Oklahoma City Temple

Spencer showed me the Pharmacy school..

...and then we learned that they test the tornado sirens every Saturday at noon.

 

Reflecting on 2014

This year has been a pretty good one. However, both of the school semesters were really hard. Fall semester was the hardest yet for Spencer. He worked and studied a lot and did well in his classes.

It all turned out well in the end, but it sure was difficult!  Most importantly my grades are still where my scholarship will cover my last semester, so that takes a load off.  Graduate school applications have been pretty rigorous as well, but I am hoping for some interviews soon.  If not, I plan to take a few more classes to better qualify myself, then try it again.  I am optimistic though.

I have been student teaching this year and I absolutely loved it! Working with those kids was a lot of fun, and I will really miss the opportunity I had to work with Dr. Clark. I learned a lot from him and from the kids. I have also been teaching elementary orchestra after school. That is an.... interesting experience. I do not think I will teach elementary ever again. But you know, never say never.

We are both very excited to be in our last semester of undergrad at the U. I will be done once I get my bachelors. Spencer is going on to get a PharmD/PhD. He has already applied to graduate schools and we are just waiting to see where he gets accepted. We are hoping that he gets in at the U so we don't have to move and leave our ward, but we know that things will work out for the best. I'm just hoping I will be able to find a teaching job wherever we end up.

It has been very exciting though. The end is near! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it is very much welcomed and anticipated. The future seems scary and exciting all at the same time. It is fun to talk about what might happen if we end up in different places. Planning and talking together has been the highlight of my New Years.

I am so grateful to both of our families for all they do for us. We got spoiled over Christmas. By all of our families. Grandpa B cooked two prime ribs and a ham on Christmas Eve! Spencer has never eaten so much meat at one time. It was great. We also got some awesome gifts from Tanner and Nate. Spencer now has 7 pairs of cuff links. He quite likes them. And I think my dad is not so hinting at wanting to go camping with us because we got a tent last year and now we got sleeping bags, a lantern, and he gave us a giant cooler. Allen and Carrie spoiled us too. They got us a Costco membership and rented a cabin in Eden for New Years. We enjoyed that time with all the Wallaces this week.

It has been a great year, but I am really really looking forward to this next one.