Ricardo & Kylie

Shockingly enough, I am writing and it is not the end of the semester! I was planning on updating our blog when Christmas break rolled around. However, I have a three-day weekend and no tests until next Friday, so I figured now's as good a time as any. Life is crazy, but perfect. This semester we've been able to head up to Orlando more often to see our families, which has been really fun. So convenient that our parents are from the same city (kind of). We especially enjoy hanging out with our niece and nephews and are excited to have another niece on the way very soon! Ricardo's sister is due around Christmastime with baby #4! School is going well for me. It's been more intense this semester than it was in the summer, but in a good way. Sometimes I think about the fact that I'll be on rotations next summer and it freaks me out because I really don't feel like I know enough! But other times I take a step back and notice just how much I have learned. One thing is ...

Well, it is officially September so I suppose that means summer is over. I never really noticed it was here! I guess it really flew by fast because the second we moved here I started school and Ricardo started working A LOT. I had a 10 day break between semesters last week and that was the first time I really noticed how hot it gets here! Turns out I have led a very sheltered life since arriving in Ft. Lauderdale. Ricardo didn't get a 10 day vacation from work so he is still more sheltered than me. :) The BIG news of late is that my little brother came home from his mission! Elder Wood is no longer Elder Wood. He came home August 11th and my parents immediately whisked him away on a family vacation to Maryland to visit my sister and her family. I had finals that week so we sadly missed the reunion, but luckily everyone is coming home for Christmas! We were able to drive up to Orlando when they got home and be there for his homecoming talk, which was really fun. That weekend also h...

Life has been crazy since Easter I guess, since that's the last time I updated our blog! That's really not a good excuse, but luckily we have great friends who are more on top of things than we are, so I'm going to cross-reference a few other blogs in this entry. Since April A LOT has happened! First, in April I ran my first half marathon and Ricardo ran his first marathon. Ricardo ran the race with my dad and I ran with our good friends Carrie and Andrew and Sam. We had a really great time! There's something about running in the race atmosphere that's just so fun. Ricardo couldn't quite catch my dad (he's speedy!), but he is more motivated now to run again FASTER and I may be running another half with some friends from PA school in November! See Carrie's blog for pictures of the race! P.S. Carrie and Andrew will always be our favorite running partners. We miss them! http://http//thetoolsons.blogspot.com/2010/04/we-did-it.html The next weekend, the rest...

Happy Easter!! We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend. We thought we'd take this time to update on the last few holidays, since it's been awhile. :) For Valentine's Day we made fondue for dinner. My family always has this for Christmas Eve, so we thought we'd keep up the tradition, just a little late. We had cheese for dinner and chocolate for dessert and it was YUMMY. We had a great time spending the day together and taking a little break from our busy life. For St. Patrick's Day we wore green (so hard for Kylie :), made Shepherd's Pie, and green pistachio cake for dessert. I made that cake two years ago with my good friend Lindsey for St. Patrick's Day and I remembered it so fondly that I thought my husband deserved to have it too. He is quickly beginning to love all of my holiday festivities, because it always means good food! Today we celebrated Easter by attending General Conference, making my mom's Easter rolls, and dying Easter eggs. Ric...

I really thought that after I graduated I'd have so much free time and I'd update our blog all the time. That hasn't really happened! Turns out that real life is just as busy as school! TONS has happened since Christmas...so I will try to keep this concise. 1. We MOVED! We are officially living in Salt Lake City! At first it was really strange to not be living in Provo, but we're pretty used to our new life now. We do miss our friends in Provo, but luckily the trek there isn't too far! Ricardo is finishing up his dental school prerequisites at the University of Utah and I am working at Watson Pharmaceuticals in their research lab. We are living right downtown, a few blocks east of Trolley Square. We couldn't have asked for a better location. It takes us five minutes to get to school and work and neither of us has ever lived so close to the freeway ever (especially Ricardo). Despite that, our neighborhood is really quiet. It doesn't really feel like we live d...

We can't believe Christmas is over and that our whole apartment is now packed up in boxes. We move to Salt Lake in 3 days, so our New Years was spent packing and preparing for the big move. Details on our new place when we move in! Our Christmas was wonderful! Neither of us has had a white Christmas for a long time, so it definitely felt different, but we had fun nonetheless. On Christmas Eve we cooked up a big dinner of Cornish hens and potatoes. We wanted turkey, but one turkey was way too much for the two of us, so we got the hens instead. They were delicious! Our big feast: On Christmas Eve we made up lots of traditions we hope to keep up in the future. Basically, whatever we were doing we made into a tradition. So one of our new traditions is wearing pajamas for Christmas Eve dinner: Here is our acclaimed Christmas tree. By the time Christmas rolled around it was kind of wilting, but we loved it anyway: I told my mom and sister that Ricardo needed socks for Christmas. He ended...