School, school, and more school

After our trip to Utah, we were ready for some rest. Well, that didn't happen. BYU-I's winter semester starts January 5, which is over a week earlier than Austin Peay State University's spring semester which starts January 14. So of course I ordered my books online (saving over 200 bucks by the way!) and didn't have any of them when school started. Good thing my classes are easy! Michael was smarter than that and was able to buy some books from friends and the rest from the bookstore for a pretty good price. This is my first semester at this school and let me tell you, things are SO different! There's a dress code, no shorts/ capris, no holey jeans, no facial hair, and lots of other things. Pretty much you're supposed to look well groomed and well dressed. There's also an honor code. Since it is a private school and it is a church school, that's to be expected. No lying, cheating, philandering (if you know what I mean). What I got out of it is uphold the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints standards or go to a different school. I had a hard time with this at first. Especially after coming from a public school that was very.... lacking in any kind of rules. But it makes sense. We all have a choice and if you can't do what is asked of you, then pick a different school. It's that easy. But if you can uphold the standards, then your tuition is super cheap. It's 1700 a semester for tuition here, that's about half what I was paying to go to a smaller school in Tennessee. Michael is so smart he gets a full ride tuition scholarship from his grades when he previously attended. He also gets the Idaho grant that if you live in Idaho and stay in Idaho to go to college they give you like 200 bucks a semester. Which is nice. I don't qualify for any of the scholarships yet. As a transfer student, you have to wait 1 semester for them to review your grades from this school and decide whether the grades you received were high enough to get a tuition scholarship. As a sophomore you have to get something like a 3.89 or higher to get a full tuition scholarship.

Enough about that. My schedule is awesome! Here's what it looks like.
Animal Anatomy and Physiology MWF 9-10 Lab M 3-5
Math for the real world MWF 11:30-12:30
Book of Mormon MW 12:45-1:45
Veterinary Medical Terminology TR 9-10
Intro to Lab Animal Science TR 10:15-11:15 Lab T 3-4
Animal Care and Management 1 TR 12:45-1:45 Lab R 3-5

Yea, my classes are awesome, except for my math one. Because it's dumb. Here's Michael's schedule.
Natural Disasters MWF 9-10
Developing World MW 10:15-11:15
Homer to Tolkein: Quest in Arts MWF 11:30-12:30
Energy Issues and Alternatives MWF 12:45-1:45
Intro to Business Management F 7:45-8:45
Intro to Family History TR 10:15-11:15

So far my classes are so much fun. I've learned a lot about animals. I've been able to perform physical examinations, how to do subcutaneous injections, trim nails on dogs and rabbits, and tons about the ethics and  the laws regarding what veterinary technicians can and can't do. I'm also the President of the Student Chapter of the National Association of Veterinary Technicians in America at BYU-I. This is the first semester we've had the club so organizing it is kind of interesting. The vet tech program has only been at BYU-I for 2 semesters. We're not yet accredited and we don't have a technician on staff, so technically we can't join the actual NAVTA yet. We're working on it. All the classes I have on Tuesdays and Thursdays are taught by the same teacher and I've got all the same classmates for those classes. It's a small group about 17 of us. It's nice.  So the good side to the program being so new is the classes aren't as intense as they could be, I get the same teacher for my important classes, and the group is really small. On the other hand, they're in the process of building a veterinary teaching hospital that won't be done til I graduate. We have classes in an old house that's super ghetto. And we don't have as much equipment or animals to work on. Paving the way for the future students is pretty neat though.


Michael likes his classes, for the most part. He always has tons of homework and all his classes want him to work in groups. He had to create his own website for his business class. wmplr.weebly.com It's been pretty crazy. I work Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Michael is on a rotation for weekends and Tuesdays at work. So we don't see each other very often. And when we do, we're doing homework. So the fun of school has already gotten us super stressed out and thinned our wallets more than we thought. That's probably the only down side to having a name at the end of the alphabet, the government FAFSA stuff goes alphabetically so we haven't received our financial aid yet. FUN!

Hope this has been educational. :]

Christmas with the Wamplers

Christmas this year was a totally new experience for me. This being Michael and I's first year as married folk, we spent the holiday with his family. We both were able to get 4 days off in a row for the weekend so we could see as much of his family for as long as we could.  Friday we drove down to Salt Lake City, Utah with Teddy and Chewy. Teddy's not really a fan of the car and whined pretty much the whole time.

 Chewy is a good little dog and slept most of the way... except when he was throwing up. Poor thing.


 That evening we went to the Pyper Party and saw Bruce and Carolee & company, Shelly and Sean & company, Brian and Kate, Pyper Grands and a few others. We had about 10 people working on one puzzle at a time! And we finished that thing in record time of 30 minutes... ish. At this get-together we had awesome pizza and frozen yogurt, which is actually better than people make it out to be. That night we went back to Chris and Laura's and played games and set up for Christmas.


We also went to Temple Square and got to see the lights and the Nativity scene with narration. 

I've decided I really like negative pictures.

Saturday was Christmas!! Chris and Laura have this rule that no one can go into the living room (where all the presents are) until everyone is awake. That's a little different than what I'm used to, but pretty neat. So once everyone was up, we opened presents, ate lots of candy and each got our own box of cereal! After clean up, all the ladies helped get the Christmas feast together and we ate and ate and ate. It was legendary.








So, all full of food, Michael, Brenda and I decided we wanted to see some snow on Christmas. By the way, this is the first winter I've spent in the west, not a single snow flake on Christmas day, but Clarksville, Tennessee got plenty of snow, for the first time in 17 years!!!! Figures. So we took a trip to the mountains, borrowed snow pants for me and a sled for Brenda and were on our way. We found this place that was actually pretty popular and was loads of fun to sled on. We had pretty good timing too, we got there when it was pretty late in the afternoon, so most of the big crowd had left. All in all, it was awesome!!!

On Sunday, we went to church, hung out, played tons of games, and had another gathering on the Pyper side. Bruce and Carolee invited everyone over for grilled cheese sandwiches and chips and salsa. Grilled cheese with salsa on it is sooo good! There I got to meet Ben for the first time. He's living in Seattle, so he and I connected pretty well. I was born in Tacoma after all.

The Biggs and me, they're just so tall!

Monday was our day to leave. So we went to Ikea, got a new living room and had to eat some Carl's Jr. We also got our teeth cleaned, thanks for the last minute appointment Bruce!
The End

Thanksmas

Since Michael is taking so long on his get to know you part, I'm skipping him. Yea, I'm a line jumper - be scared. 


This is my first time ever being away from my family during any kind of holiday or celebration... So Michael and I took a trip to Tennessee for Thanksgiving and celebrated Christmas there as well. It's just easier not to mail presents. 


Our trip began on Monday November 22 at midnight. We had been following the weather and apparently the earliest, biggest blizzard ever was coming the day we planned on leaving originally (the 23). So I got a replacement for work and we were on our way. The drive to Salt Lake City, that normally takes us 3.5 hours, took us 5 hours that night. Stupid snow. So we stayed at Chris and Laura's (thank you!) and got a couple hours of sleep. Then we picked up Jennie Farley and Rebecca Flake and left for Clarksville. 30 hours, 5 states (Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Misery & Kentucky) and no sleep later, we were finally home! 

After that crazy drive, we were able to get some good rest before having Thanksgiving with my family. We played a lot of rock band, something my dad is totally addicted to.

 We played games, everyone was excited for bananagrams,  flux,  nertz, hand & foot, and especially poker. 

And of course we ate lots and lots of food! I thought it'd be cute to bring some potatoes from Idaho for my mom to cook with, but instead I got red potatoes from Nebraska that I bought in Idaho that we ate in Tennessee, quite a journey!

After dinner we got PRESENTS!!!!! My parents are really good at going overboard, thanks mom and dad! Our new GPS definitely helped us avoid some bad weather on the way back.


My brother took us to an auction, which was awesome! We got a dozen 6 packs of donuts for like 3 dollars! And some other cheap junk that we probably don't need. And we did a whole lot of just hanging out.

On Friday, we did some Black Friday shopping, which is a first for me. We started at midnight with Old Navy $5 comfy pants that are super warm and awesome!! Michael got a PS3 controller, we got a bunch of movies and wandered around aimlessly for a while. Oh, I got to drive Michael's car, which is a manual and killed it 3 or 4 times getting out of the Walmart parking lot. Thank goodness we were late to that sale! You know, that way people didn't run me over :]


Last but not least (well maybe least, they are pretty small), you can't visit the Roney Ranch without mentioning some of the beautiful dogs they have. 

This is Paulie, but I called her Odie cuz she looks like a coyote!

Sasha, Erich's puppy

Chewy, the puppy who snuck home with us!

This is Blondie, the mommy of our little puppy and the oldest.

Our drive back to Idaho was rather exciting. Thanks to my parents, we had a wonderful GPS to tell us the fastest way home... Only we didn't go that way, nor did we go the second fastest. We didn't even do a combination of the two and go the third fastest way. There was a storm in Wyoming, and a storm in Denver, blocking all ways home but the southern one. We went through Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and southern Utah just to get back to Idaho. So much fun! Needless to say, it took us 36 hours to get to Rigby from Clarksville, TN. Next time I think we'll just fly.