Olympic Opening Ceremonies

 Laura and Jeannette hosted an Olympic Opening Ceremonies party! We decided to set the mood by dressing in our best Americana. :) Complete with the star pin that Laura made for me to wear!
 

I would have to say that the most memorable part of the opening ceremonies had to be when the Queen of England and James Bond parachuted into the stadium. That and when the nurses and doctors were dancing rag time... I would seriously like to incorporate that Olympic feeling into my new job... :)

Wilmington

This weekend was a regional YSA conference in Wilmington! Wilmington is a little coastal town in southern part of the state. Here is a good description of the weekend in photos

You'll never guess who I ran into at the market... I am not sure if you can see it, but Obama creeping behind Ironman... :) I guess their campaign trail overlapped when they heard I was coming into town! North Carolina is a swing state you know!

This is Karen's Cafe for those of you who watched "One Tree Hill". I guess that the whole TV series was shot here in downtown Wilmington.

The Atlantic Ocean!!! I finally got my first face full of salty Atlantic water! I know some of you may be wondering what granola people do in a state where there are no mountains... well they go to the beach.

The USS North Carolina Battleship!

This would be where we danced the night away on the deck :)

I know that some of you may know about me and dancing... sufficeth me to say that I thoroughly enjoyed myself. :)

Working at Last!

Urban Dictionary - Definition for how's "your mom and them?":

a. Your mom - Your mother.
b. (and) them - everybody related to you; everybody related to your mother; any person closely associated with your mother; any neighbor of your mother within 5 blocks; anybody that attends your mother's church; anybody your mother knew from back in the day; two women named Joyce.

Durham Regional Hospital Orientation! Not just another medical education, but a continuation of my southern education. :)

Durham Regional is one of the three hospitals in Duke Medical Health System. It is very distinct from the other two hospitals. It is hard to describe what exactally is different about Durham Regional. The president and CEO of our hospital was an x-ray technician in the hospital and worked his way up. People are just so nice and down to earth and everyone knows everyone. I was walking down the hallway by the cafeteria and a man I was walking past said to me, in all seriousness, "Have a Durham Regional Day!"

 

The first day of orientation they had a huge assembly at Duke University Hospital to welcome all 160 new employees for the entire Duke University and Medical. They did an activity trying to illustrate the diversity of the group. They had us all stand up. They said if you were from right here in Durham/Raleigh area to sit down. Then if you were from North Carolina to sit down. If you were from the east coast, tell where you were from and then sit down.... how many people were left standing after that!?! Oh yours truly and one other man! The speaker looked surprised...

The speaker: "Sir, where are you from?"
The other man: "India"
*audible wow, ooooh, aaaaah's from the crowd*
And then "And mam, where are you?"
Me: "Salt Lake City, Utah."
* audible gasps* small pause
Speaker: "Well, your both from out of the country then..." :)                       

Anyway... diversity aside, I am so excited for my new job! It is in the emergency department and it seems that I will be surrounded by very nice folk!  I am excited to start training on the floor :)

Falls Lake

This weekend was the Durham YSA ward camp out! It was so nice to be outside! It was interesting, last week we had record breaking heat waves and this week we have had lightning and rain storms every day! Some were nervous that the camp out would have less than desirable weather... however there was not a drop of rain and the temperature never raised above 80 degrees! It's another North Carolina miracle!!

I included a map because I was so pleased how close this was to my little home. On the bottom left you can see downtown Durham and then the large lake and forest area in the middle is Falls Lake!

The beautiful morning lake

And look closer into the trees... me and Jeanette in the morning! You can see the lake through the trees. Yes, there were other ward members camping, but no, we did not get any pictures of them. :)

Latest Adventures...

Well, it has been an extremely uneventful week... but I will give you some of the entertaining highlights.

Downtown Durham!

Well, I have driven to downtown Durham several times, but have always thought that I have been missing something. Me and Jeanette went on a search for the historic downtown experience. We were walking along the streets and came across Durham County Fire Station. Young, attractive firemen were all over the yard, so we stopped and asked them if they knew anything! Bahaha! They directed us to the visitors center where we did find a map to what we were seeking. 

 Brightleaf District is the more historic part of town with lots of great eateries and little shops.

This is Jeannette during a part of our discovery! She moved here the same time I did from Nashville and has also been looking for employment. We became fast friends and we have spent a lot of our free time discovering the triangle area together!

Postman Wars...

This week I worked toward resolving some of the disagreements between me and my postman. Right when I moved here I changed my address on the United States Postal Service website and thought that would get my mail to me. But weeks went by and I received no mail. There was a little paper at the bottom of the mail box with the girls last names on it. So I crossed out the girl who moved out and wrote "CRANE" on the paper. The next day I got a letter from our mailman in red ink and frequently in all capital letters. He told me that I was not to write on the paper in the mail box, and that any time there was a change he was to be notified immediately! Well, it made sense and I was remorseful for not having written to him. :) So I filled out the paper with my current roommate and my information. But still no mail! I got another notice a few days ago with the same form to fill out and written around the boarders:

"WHO MOVED IT!? WHO MOVED OUT?!? FINAL NOTICE!"

Final notice? What was he going to do? I was confused! I called my local post office and asked them if they could do anything. After about 10 minutes on the phone, the attendant unsympathetically told me there was nothing he could do to get my mail to me. He literally told me to keep filling out the forms until the post man noticed them. So bizarre, there must be some real world lessons I am learning here, that the Ogden postmen never thought to teach me! I am hopeful that I will receive mail in the future...

The Banana graveyard...

I had some time today, so I was cleaning our house and discovered this bananan graveyard in my freezer. I don't think this banana bread is going to turn out okay...

Reconnected with an old friend Matt Wertz!

This may not be news to anyone else, but I discovered Matt Wertz has a new CD! Jamie came across him late one night while working at the Statesmen Newspaper (Utah State University). We fell in love with his music! His last CD that I was aware of became the soundtrack of my first year at college :) Yes, its been a while! 

But it feels as though we have never been apart! His new CD will be the summer soundtrack for my first year at Duke University. Love you Matty!

Independence Day

Oh happy Fourth of July from the capital city!

Michelle and I went to the Smithsonian folk life festival were there were a number of universities on the national mall. 

 The world made out of plastic bags! This was our "MTC" picture. Please recycle! :)
 

 Me laughing after I had been offered a scholarship at the University of Mississippi, they said they were seriously impressed by my natural ability for milking.  :)

Going up north for the Fourth of July made me realize how much pride I have in my new North Carolina home! I was actually really excited to leave the city and head back down south after a long week.

And certainly not least, the fireworks!!

I had re-confirmation by some of our blanket neighbors that my doppelganger definitely is Willie Nelson...

 

I don't know if any of you remember my previous claims to the title... :)

Anyway... we set up camp at the Iwo Jima Memorial to watch the fireworks from afar.

This is the view behind where we set up...
 

And a few hours later this was the view in front...
Across the river you can see the Washington monument lit up.
 

The lawn was packed by this time and after there was a mad rush to the Roslyn metro stop! Here is a snapshot of the streets of DC flooded with people!

It was so crowded I did not attempt to photograph the mass that funneled into the underground metro station. As each train car came, it was shoved full of people, body to body! When out turn finally came, the train car that stopped in front of us did not have any lights on. That was odd, as all other cars on this train did have power. The doors open and people poured out saying "enter at your own risk!" We were no stranger to power outages by this time, so we hastily packed on the train car - like sardines into a small can.

The doors closed behind us and whew! It literally felt like someone had just dumped water over the hot coals in this sauna! We were dripping sweat from the ends of our noses and down our backs!! The couple by the train door had a large cooler and said "Hey! we still have plenty of cold beer to go around!" Cheering and drinking commenced! Metro rules prohibits food or beverage of any kind on the trains. But not this night and not on this electricity-less and lawless train! There was an middle-eastern man who was grabbing every third beer that was held up by the couple. Once they noticed he just smiled and said with slurred speech "I drink to your health!" :)

 

Our victory faces once we made it off the metro and back to the private parking garage. If you could touch this picture... it would be soaking wet! :)

Welcome to Washington DC

Welcome indeed! As I was driving into town, I was puzzled why all of the traffic lights would be out. I pulled into Michelle's apartment where she greets me and said "Our power has been off all day!" So the adventure starts! 

This is us running through Georgetown! We took the metro and walked from the closest stop... two miles away. We really wanted to try this amazing Indian restaurant, but it was too far away and driving/parking in Georgetown this day was out of the question. There were several severe heat advisories this day... so walking more was not advisable.

Solution... call and order delivery Indian food!

We gave the delivery man an address for a random spot along the Potomac River in Georgetown! I know it doesn't sound that funny, but we thought we were hilarious having Indian food delivered to the middle of the street in Georgetown where we were standing.

Michelle is her ward mission leader, so we went to a teaching appointment with the sister missionaries at the homeless shelter in Virginia.

We also participated in a worldwide church event where members around the globe had a goal to index 5 million names in 24 hours. We made it our Sunday activity and indexed names online from the Pennsylvania and Virgina 1940 census. The goal was actually surpassed and 10 million names were indexed that day!

It was such a fun weekend! Full of adventure and heat stroke... :)