Out with the old, in with the new...Year

Happy 2012! My goal this year is to update the blog once a month. We'll see how this pans out. Updates since my last post:

Thanksgiving was a whirlwind, but lots of fun. I was working at an intense pediatrics office at the time and I was told I wouldn't have black Friday off, so we decided not to go home, since it's so far to drive for just one day. At the very end of the day on Wednesday, my doctor said, "Oh, by the way, if you want to take off Friday, that's fine." We packed up and left within an hour. The joy of spontaneity. My mom and sister were very disappointed that I called my dad up to tell him, because they wanted to surprise him. Next time, let me in on the surprise! We spent Thanksgiving at my house and the next day at Ricardo's. We had lots of fun eating and hanging out with the fam.

This picture was actually the week before Thanksgiving I think, but I had to throw it in, because it's a cute one of Ricardo and our nephew. We babysat one night, so Ricardo recruited him to help wash our car.

December 5th was Ricardo's birthday. I made him dinner and an apple pie (my first one ever because I don't like apple pie, but it's his favorite), which turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself. Ricardo liked it too, but he did note that it was the sweetest apple pie he's ever tasted (I added A LOT of sugar so I would actually be motivated to eat some. With some whipped cream

on top, the taste of the actual apples was pretty much disguised.

Ricardo blowing out the one candle that we had:

My prized creation:

I finished my pediatrics rotation at the end of December. Ricardo lived at the library for two weeks before his finals, and when they were over, he took a much-needed vacation to the Everglades with his friend John. They canoed (GPS-less and map-less) through the wilderness for 3.5 days with only the sun as their guide (can you tell he is helping me write this post?). To their disappointment it turns out that some parts of the Everglades don't actually have that much wildlife. They didn't see one alligator the entire trip, although they did see a dolphin, which they thought was pretty cool.

What they did for three days:

Target practice:

Setting up camp:

Pretty view.

Christmas was perfect. We spent 10 days at home, going back and forth between our two houses a few times.

Here we are with my family at the Ritz, checking out the giant gingerbread house:

Our own gingerbread house:

Playing our favorite Christmas Eve game:

Ricardo and Cassidy, best buds.

All of the Fontouras on Christmas Day:

Driving home from church on Christmas to open presents:

On the last day of our trip, we were able to attend the baptism of our oldest nephew, Joseph. It was really great to be able to be there and see him baptized.

Check out the Orlando Temple cake that my mother-in-law made!

When we returned home, I began my surgery rotation, which has been pretty cool. I have been able to help on a bunch of amazing surgeries and even sew some people up. Ricardo has since started his spring semester and is enjoying being back in school. We had a cold front a few weeks ago, which was really rough for us since we are now completely acclimated to Miami weather. Plus, our house is very old, so it has zero insulation and no heater. One morning we were both so miserable getting ready that we turned on the oven and took turns sitting in front of it to get warm. Here I am suffering:

In the biggest news of this entire post, Ricardo was accepted to dental school last week! We heard on Monday that he had been accepted to Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We are thrilled that the waiting game is finally over and we are looking forward to hearing from a few more schools before we make our final decision about where we'll be for the next four years. We celebrated the amazing news by enjoying cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory.

Hope you all are enjoying 2012. It's shaping up to be a great year!