Super Bowl 2012

It's official: Indianapolis will host the 2012 Super Bowl.

Who knows if we will be here or not for the big event, but we thought we should be proud Hoosiers and announce the news.
The game will be played in the new Lucas Oil Stadium, a 75,000 seat stadium downtown complete with retractable roof. The stadium was built to replace the RCA dome as home of the Indianapolis Colts and will be complete this coming season.
As the month of Feburary is one of the coldest here (sub zero without wind chill) I think they will be needing more than a retractable roof to keep everyone warm. But warm or not, with the way Hoosiers love their sporting events, I am sure we'll still see that group of a-holes with letters scrawled across their bare chests...

Hump Day 5-17-2008

Today was a special day for us second year students: Hump day! We now officially have two years left of dental school. The 4th years have graduated, and we are awaiting promotion to third year status on June first. To celebrate this memorable day, the LDS guys and gal (Kristin) decided we should get together for a BBQ and pyro technique event, a.k.a. the burning of the scrubs. Now we know what you are thinking; grow up, right? Well, it's tradition, and we wouldn't want to disrupt the delicate balance in the universe by breaking tradition. So Leo Christensen volunteered his house, the date was set, the hamburgers were grilled, and the scrubs went up in flames.



These next few pictures are the photo opportunities provided for our memories just before we symbolically torched our first half of dental school. You can feel the anticipation and excitment radiating from the shaka, the smiles, and the words scrawled across the worn, used, and ready-to-be-retired scrubs.

Here are nearly all of our crazy LDS (and one wannabe LDS) classmates.
From left to right: Josh Erickson (Montana), Aaron Layton (Utah), Kristin/Mark Simkins (Nevada/Utah), Paul Porter (Utah), Bob (not LDS, but we won't hold it against him- Oregon), Sean Morgan (Washington), Ryan Pini (Utah, but to make his wife TJ happy, Arizona), Dan Griffiths (Indiana), Bradley Tew (Washington), and lastly, kneeling in front, Leo Christensen (Arizona)

How much gas did you put on those scrubs, Leo? And TJ, where is the water?

Here is our burnt offering, after Leo managed to slip away from the flames to help TJ pull the hose closer to the fire, thus saving us all from a near disaster. The hose wasn't seriously that hard to control, was it TJ??? It only took a few minutes for Leo's neighbors to come out with an inquisitive look on their faces. They were probably thinking, these are dental students? We let Leo explain, and I am sure after his explanation of "it's our halfway mark," they were thinking: 1. He (Leo) never ceases to surprise us, and 2. Those crazy mormons. Anyway, everyone had a great time, and we are now ready to face our finals week and our promotion from the basement (where all the labs are, and thus where we have spent this entire year) to the third floor (where all the clinics are). We are looking forward to the windows and the change from dentoforms to patients.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Faith In Every Footstep (or something like that)

With the "lovely vez'er vee are 'aving" we have been trying to take any opportunity we can to get outside and away from the bomb shelter basement lab at our school. It has been an extremely long semester, and we are anxiously awaiting our promotion to 3rd year status June 1st. This past week we escaped reality for an afternoon and decided to walk around the city. We found some interesting neighborhoods and sites downtown. We also decided that, since we had the afternoon free, it would be a great chance to enhance our spirituality and catch up on confession and prayers.



First we visited our local cathedral near historic Lockerbie Street. We have to admit that the building is pretty, but it was the cobble stone streets, restored homes, and beautiful weather that made everything that much better. Lockerbie square is the oldest neighborhood in Indy. The area was home to the Indy born poet James Whitcomb Riley and some of the first Hoosiers.



After spending time in Lockerbie square, we walked over to Mass Ave. It is kind of the hippie/artsie area. We found a bakery for our dogs and would have bought them some carrott cake if Starkisha (a.k.a. Beez) wasn't getting so chubby. Instead, we went to a cafe and got ourselves some drinks to quench our thirst and took a few pictures of the Murat Shrine.

Next, we drove through the city to one of the downtown churches. We were lucky enough to find the door open and thought we would go in to reaffirm our faith.

Once inside, we walked through the stations of the cross. Unfortunately, we didn't have 50 cents to say a short prayer, let alone $3 to say a long one. And as confession was closed, we simply admired Mary's bleeding heart and the stained glass windows. Needless to say, we were compelled to be greatful for the restored gospel and the light it brings into our lives.

Louisville KY

A few months ago we decided it was time to visit the Louisville Slugger bat factory and museum in Louisville, KY. We had a great time looking at all the signature plates used to brand the bats and the thousands of historical bats they have on display. This is Kristin in front of the great Bambino's bat. You could see the notches he carved into the wood to record his homers.

This is the outside of the bat factory. As you can see by the goofy expression on his face, Mark was a little too excited about his free souvineer bat that he got for taking a tour of the factory.

Louisville, KY is an interesting place to visit. It is just a short drive south, about 2 hours, and it is home to the only Dillards around. So even though it is a smaller city than Indy, I guess it has better shopping. We found this local make out point on the Indiana side of the Ohio river and thought it deserved a picture. There were several cars parked, and we got some strange looks when we actually got out of the car to take the picture.

His n' Hers

Hers
Daisy has decided that she is Kristin's dog. She gets so possessive anytime Starkisha comes around. After Kristin, her next love is the sun. Then comes Mark and Starkisha. We went out to the country this past weekend for a picnic and a hike through the woods. Daisy took every chance she could to soak up the sun. At one point Kristin picked her up for a photo, and Daisy was in a shadow under Kristin's chin, so Daisy stretched out and looked right up at the sun, right as I took the shot.

His
Starkisha has been ousted by Daisy and is now Mark's dog. She follows him everywhere and even knows how to ask to be picked up. She gets right up next to Mark and stands on her back feet and jumps until he picks her up. We thought that with two dogs they would depend more on eachother and less on us, but it looks like they just chose sides and still depend equally on us. Maybe someday when we have kids they will learn to get by on their own, but until then they can continue being our babies.

Finally some spring in our steps

It has been a long winter here in Indy, so we are happy to now have it warm enough (50 degrees) to walk outside. On Sunday we went downtown to walk by the canal. It was a rainy day but at least we could feel spring in the air. It won't be long before the cherry blossoms, tulips, and daffodils are in bloom, and we sure are looking forward to that.

The rain in spain stays mainly in the plains

Our latest Chicago adventure brought us to My Fair Lady, where we learned about the rain in Spain, and that with a little bit of luck you can get away with just about anything. After talking with our friends, Ryan Pini and Travis Edwards, Mark has decided that for repayment of his musical lesson he gets to go to a Cubs game this year. So we will have to see if that pans out for him...

We stayed at a pet friendly hotel downtown and were able to walk to the show and the park by the lake. Our only problem was when a power hungry park employee came and said they would not allow our dogs to walk in the park (even on a leash), and we would have to pick them up and vacate the park. I guess there are some pretty strict rules at public parks these days.

Goin' to Zion

For spring break entertainment in St. George we decided to lay down the Benjamins (25 big ones) and visit one of our Nation's treasures... Zion. We both forgot how amazing it is to actually have mountains around. We spent the afternoon walking the trail head to the begining of the famous Zion narrows, and as you can see we played photographer on the way. When we got out of the car the weather was a little chilly, and Carolanne decided she had bragging rights because she was the only one who was prepared with a sweatshirt. She thought she was hot stuff. It turned out, she was hot stuff: once we were two steps into our walk, off came the sweatshirt she was so happy to be carrying the rest of our hike. Of course, it all ended too soon and we found ourselves back in snow-covered Indy the following week.

LOOKING FIFTEEN AGAIN???

Well, it was about time, but I went to get my hair cut today. I decided to do something drastic, and I chopped it all off and dyed it red. Afterward, one of the male hairdressers told me I looked ten years younger. I looked at him and said, "Oh, really. So I look 15 then?" He totally drew a blank and stared. Then I said, "Or do I look 25, which is my age, but when I came in I looked 35." He replied with, "I'm going to just shut up now..." So I guess it was about time for a change. Thanks for telling me I looked 40, everyone.