So maybe...

So maybe I LOVE my life. Megan is here. I love my rotation in my internship... if it were a boy, I would marry it. I went to Yozone with the homegirls. What more could I want?

oh and I made the news...

http://www.ktvb.com/video/featured-videos/The-Great-Polar-Bear-Challenge-at-Lucky-Peak-80477377.html

All for the children...

I participated in the Polar Bear Challenge today - you could either just run into the water with the masses of people in bikinis and speedos or waterski/wakeboard. It was all for the children really... all the money went to Make A Wish Foundation. I am so Christian (or insane)... clearly.


Ideal conditions for skiing: 85-90 degrees, sun shining, your own ski and glassssss.
Today's conditions: 31 degrees, rain/snowing intermittently, Dad's ski, and ICE!


The highlight of starting was that the boots were frozen and my feet were frozen... not the best combination for an attempt to waterski. I do not recommend the double boot for early January skiing! However, I was lucky because Dad hooked me up with his scuba wetsuit... so nice.

She's up:


Another highlight was that I got a little cocky and started waving but totally wrecked... I paid for that biz... my hair got wet and I had to chill (literally) in the water until homeboy could swing the boat around for me!


I love the snowy landscape.


Brought it on in...


I absolutely love this shot... look how red my face is! You might be ridiculous if you are FREEZING and still tell Dad to take a picture:



I had a support crew: Mom and Dad came and helped me get all set up. I think they were colder than me after all was said and done. Jeff, Tam, and James came too!


Larry Gebhart (the face of Boise news) posed with the fam. All the sibs made an appearance too.


All-in-all, the best way to ring in a new decade. I was a LOT warmer than I imagined. I even have feeling in my feet again. A tip for future participants: don't wear crocs walking around in slush. Would I do it again? Heck yes...

Excursion

Lori and I decided that we should go on a little X-Country skiing excursion on Tuesday. Things were fabulous until we actually got to the parking lot of where we were supposed to start skiing - we couldn't get in it. Apparently, a 2 wheel drive Avalon is not meant to go busting through large drifts of snow... who knew? Why would we let this slow us down? I mean really, we drove over an hour to get there... well, fate would have it that Mores Creek Valet Service quickly arrived... no joke, we were sitting there for maybe 30 seconds before this random truck that was driving up the highway pulled over to help us out. I loved it too because one of the men straight up got in the car and started driving it for us. The other one kept driving his truck all over the snow making tracks so that the Avalon could make it. He parked it so that it was already facing down hill and it was as close to the highway as it reasonably could be in hopes that we would be able to get out after the trip. They assured us that they would be driving back by in 2 hours if we needed help. Lori and I were just standing there giggling that this was really happening and repeatedly thanking them because we didn't know what else to do.

Then we went skiing - well, turns out that we picked a route that was straight up hill... a major incline. That is fine... heart healthy really, but have you ever gone down hill in x-country skis?! It is an art - NOTHING like downhill skiing - you have no control. Lori and I both opted for different approaches - I went for the bomber style and Lori went for the snow plow style. Both were effective.

Well, then we had the fateful moment... could we really get the Avalon OUT? Nope, I had to go find some snowmobile-rs to come push the Av back onto the highway! Priceless.

LOVE x-country skiing.

Family: More specifically, MY FAMILY

I remember that right before graduation in April, my professor was apologizing that she wouldn't be at our commencement ceremony and that she was rather upset considering the fact that she likes "to see what spawns [us]." She said things make a lot more sense when she meets our families. I am sure she is still confused about me... good thing I am going to graduate school and she will have the opportunity to meet them at my hooding :)

More recently, another professor asked me, "Emily, I wonder how your mother handled you as a child." Earlier this year she nearly sprinted over to meet my parents at graduation because I think she also was confused as to what spawned me too. She was left further confused because they seemed normal...if only she knew my brothers and sisters.

I think I always suspected that my family was weird/different... good weird (we all like to think that at least). I am clearly a product of something. We have traditions and conversation topics that require years of being together to understand. I have been home for a little over twenty-four hours and the banter has been constant. To follow are some unique Vaterli things:

- Around Halloween, I recall a lot of my friends talking about what cute costumes their nieces and nephews had. Some were princesses, others were fairies... you know your family ROCKS when you are SO proud that your niece and nephew were Kiss and they actually knew the words "I wanna rock all night long..." and loved sticking out their tongues and fake breaking their guitars.

- We have discussed in depth how each of the original six kids rank as conservative (this had subtopics: spending money, making life decisions, etc) and how we are rank as practical. Dating and the type of person we will have to marry is a common conversation thread. Mitch: "Emily, let's be honest, you need someone that you can boss around, you won't be happy unless you do..." It is not at all uncommon to discuss whose favorite we are and why - clearly, I am both my parents' favorite and there is a lot of jealousy among the siblings related to this :). Nothing will ever be forgotten either, 6 kids with minds like mental traps - you say one stupid thing and BAM, ingrained in someone's head forever, available to be pulled out at the most opportune/inopportune (depending on who you are) times. My littlest brother Max is oft quoted with: "I am a little concerned..." - once this summer, my little niece was not sitting modestly and Max was honestly upset that LauriAnn was not rectifying the situation and making sure she was at the highest level of modesty. Max was 17. Really?

- We walk through stores like little ducks (4 of us ranging from 20 to 26 years old) in a line behind our dad and relish in the awkward comments that people say to us. "Is this a train?" Another favorite conversation recently -

Random Woman: "do you all have the same mom?"
Emily: "yes, and as far as we know we have the same father too."

What should I say in that situation? Really? It is even a little funnier now that we are all young adults and most of us have Peter Pan complexes that result in our never really growing up, just getting more credentials... we all look close enough in age and big enough that it is hard to believe one tiny woman birthed us all.

- We have an exchange brother from Germany... I wonder if he can differentiate between America and Vaterli. For instance, we went to IHOP today after the Santa Claus race... Mitch somehow convinced Patrick (exchange brother) that IHOP was a discotheque and that we go to shake what our Mama gave us there...

- Each year we have different rules for Christmas gifts among the siblings - last year the rule was you HAD to spend AT LEAST 50 bucks on the sibling you drew. This year you HAVE to spend less than 20 bucks and MAKE the gift. There is discussion that next year we will buy that we would want for ourselves and have to give it to a sibling... further evidence of our weirdness.

- We love taking pictures on stairs standing in birth order. LauriAnn always initiates this. She LOVES it. In fact, she is CRYING because she doesn't get to spend all of her holiday time with us since she grew up and started her own family.

It's good to be home... SO FUN.

Case Study

I gave a case study presentation today... It required A TON of time to prepare for - I had to go through a million charts at the hospital and take notes, come back and figure out what they all meant and then attempt to make them all make sense somehow in order to explain it all to dietetics faculty and students today in 30 minutes. A little anticlimactic. I feel like I am best friends with my patient despite the fact we only spent 15 minutes actually conversing. The funny thing is how fast the stress response disappears - one minute I was sweating, chewing gum like a psycho, sick to my stomach, listening to loud/angry music as I finished preparing and then BAM, all done and happy as can be! Chill. LOVE IT.

A description of the following pictures:

1) Where I have been sitting 96% of the time I was not at the hospital or Yozone this week (T or F: We did a double header at Yozone this week?).
2) The interns had to get all tricked out in professional garb and we all gave presentations today - 3 of us did clinical case studies and the other three rocked our worlds with a management presentation from their Pen Court experience.
3) My best friends - text books have never been more essential to my life! Those boys are heavy.





Here comes Christmas break!!!!

Done and Done-ish

I finished my first clinical rotation! All I have left is my case study presentation and then teach a weight loss class... back in Boise by Friday night! I love having a Christmas break! One reason to never grow up!