Old People are Great

So Julie and I went to the temple this week and after wards, while I was waiting for her in the lobby an old guy approached me and asked if he could sit next to me on the couch I was sitting on, and of course I said "sure."

After he got situated he immediately looked over at me and asked: "you follow whats going on over there in the White House very much?" I told him that I do a little and he then proceeded to get on his soap box.

He said "you know? the national debt is at 12 trillion dollars, they say that by the end of this year its supposed to get upwards of 14 trillion. It doesn't matter to me. I'm old. But it should matter to you, and its definitely going to matter to your kids. You need to write your representative and demand that he explain how he plans on fixing this problem."

I laughed a little, but found his plea sincere. When he got up to leave he told me to "hang in there."

Interviewing for PT Schools

This past week was full of interviews: people looking to see if you have a personality, you’re bright enough to attend their school and nice enough to be around for the next three years. I felt quite nervous about the whole thing not only because I hadn’t been through anything like this before, but because it’s the thing I’ve been working towards for the past year and a half. That, and Julie might beat me up if I don’t get accepted anywhere.

So the first school I went to was the University of Utah. Those who know how big of a BYU fan I am also know how much pride I had to swallow to even apply there. But despite this, it is an excellent program, and it would be an honor to be accepted there. It was a two day process. They received over 577 applicants, interviewed 96 people and are going to accept 45 students. The first day consisted of two one-on-one interviews with two separate faculty members. The second day was one group interview with me, two other applicants and a panel of faculty, current students and local PT professionals. I had an idea of what kinds of questions might be asked, but no matter how prepared you are, you can’t be ready for everything. For example, in the group interview we were asked a question and then asked to present our ideas. The question was: “Define ‘Generation Y’, how you will use technology throughout your career and how you think us as faculty should integrate this technology to teach you?”….ah?! Thank goodness I got that question with the group, because I think I would have fainted had I been asked it in the individual portion. U of U interviews went pretty well, I left thinking that I had done ok, not spectacular, but good enough.

After I was done at Utah I hopped a plane to Denver to interview at Regis University. Regis is a small, private Catholic Jesuit school about 10 minutes outside of Denver. I was really impressed with the campus and the faculty members that I met. They were so nice and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say in the interviews (there were only two one- on- one interviews). They received over 500 applicants, interviewed 216 people and accepted 65 students. After the interviews were finished they took us on a tour of the campus, which took about an hour (and we saw every building on campus!) and let us sit in on a class lecture…which was really cool. After all that they tried to smooshe us a little by feeding us and talking about their program and how great it is. The greatest part was that they let us know three days later if we got accepted or not…and I WAS! Yay!

I flew home for a couple of days and then got on ANOTHER plane to Miami where I interviewed with the University of Miami. I got there on a Thursday afternoon and figured I had the whole rest of the day to go see the town, so I hopped on Miami’s public transit system and headed for the beach. All of you who have taken part of the public transit system in a big city know just how interesting this can be, and I assure you, this experience was no different. The first guy I sat by was singing out loud, another guy LITERALLY smelled like he had taken a poo in his pants (the entire bus smelled like an outhouse) and another guy with a full on mowhawk, rings with spikes on them and tight plaid pants sealed the deal. When I arrived on campus we only had one interview with a faculty member which lasted about an hour. We then took a tour of the Miami campus and a tour of the PT building. There is no doubt Miami has an excellent program; they have a stellar faculty, ties to a lot of pilgrims of the profession and a great reputation. To be accepted there would be a true privilege, but I won’t hear back from them for about a month.

All in all, a really great experience, but the number one school of choice’s interview doesn’t happen until the end of February. We’re crossing our fingers that all goes well there and they like me enough to let me in.

Berry Family Reunion '08

We headed up to Twin Falls for Rick’s family reunion in August. We also hit up his 10 year high school reunion at the same time. It is always fun when everybody gets together, especially all of the kids. The highlight was the family talent show. Each family performed a talent including Rick and I. Good times. I also went on a walk one day with Patrice and her girls down to a little pond. It was fun to watch Meagan throwing stuff into the water.

We also checked out Dianna and Legrand’s new house. Very nice! It even came with this sweet blue toilet. That is a one of a kind throne if I do say so myself.

So we thought it would be fun to post the videos that we took of the skits from the family reunion. We both had a great time with everybody and it was really fun for me to get to know everyone a little bit better. It's my first time posting video, so we'll see how it turns out! Sorry about the wierd stuff on Patrice's video and our video.

Thanksgiving '09

We had Thanksgiving this year at my oldest sister Alicia's place in Saratoga Springs, UT, sort of the middle ground for my whole family. We're in AZ, my parents and younger sister Diana are in ID and Patrice and Alicia are in UT.

Ted, Stef, Julie and I all drove together and had a surprisingly fast/enjoyable ride. I thought the 10 hour drive each way was going to be arduous but Ted brought along a couple of books on tape which made for a good time.

When we arrived in UT our oldest nephew Isaac had a basketball game that we got to see. His dad Ben is the coach, so it was great to see them down on the court working together. Isaac is their star player, and did great...although if you're reading this Isaac, keep workin' on that defense and on those rebounds.

The next day, Julie and I went up to my grandparents house in SLC. My grandma had recently gotten out of the hospital so we wanted to see how she was doing, and you know? for an 89 year old woman who had just been released from the hospital, she was doing quite well. My grandpa, who is currently suffering from dimensia seemed to have one of his better days while we were there. There were a couple of funny things, like when we got there he asked: "hey, have you guys talked to Rick? he said he's coming over" (I had talked to him on the phone on our way there). He obviously didn't recognize me, which is kinda sad, but then again, he doesn't really recognize his own kids a lot of the times either. That's okay grandpa, I won't remember you as you are right now, I'll always remember you as the hip, outgoing, hard-working grandpa you always were.

When we got back to Alicia's everyone had showed up to the house. It's always a bit surprising to see just how much kids grow in a matter of months. We lounged around, visited and ate food. The next day was Thanksgiving. So the morning was pretty crazy, everyone getting ready, making their dishes (Julie and I were in charge of the mashed potatoes, green beans and Julie's aunts famous pumpkin gooey cake...delish!) When everything was ready we sat down to a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was very nice.




After dinner, everyone wanted to follow tradition and take a nap. But I asked that we start a new family tradition instead. I asked them, "why don't we go on a family walk instead?" Everyone was very hesitant at first, but after a few people agreed to it, most everyone followed suite. It was awesome, probably my favorite part of the trip. We walked up to a park by the house, where they had to coolest playground I've ever been on. I don't know who had more fun, the kids or the adults. It was great!

On Friday, Dave, Patrice, Ben, Alicia and their families, along with Julie and I went to the Christmas lights at Temple Square. That's always a good time.


To top things off to a great weekend, BYU beat Utah. Does life get better than this? I submit that it does not.

Triathlon!

Rick and I decided that we wanted to train for something together and somehow I talked him into doing an off-road triathlon with me at the beginning of May. I had done one in 2007 and figured I could do another one especially if I had a training buddy. So we printed off a training schedule we found online and put it up on the fridge.

Then, we started looking for an event to sign up for. I just figured we would do the same one I had done a couple of years before, which was at Saguaro Lake, so we wouldn't have to travel anywhere. Well, it turns out that one wasn't being held this year, so we looked for the next closest venue...Vegas! Perfect it was a Saturday event (most are held on Sundays)! We even have some fabulous friends that would let us stay with them for the weekend. So we went ahead and signed up.

Yeah, perfect until the course description and all of that was posted a couple of weeks later... First off, it was the Western Cup Championship Race for off-road triathlons. Great tons of pros competing in it...and as time went on that was their big advertising ploy, naming all of the INTERNATIONAL pros that were signed up for the race. I'm talking ex-Olympians, former professional mountain bikers, the winner of Ironman Canada...the list goes on. Then comes the course map and description...with parts labeled things like "dangerous descent". Ok, so our goal by now is just to finish the thing. I was thinking of setting a goal time, but that flew out the window when we started getting all of this fantastic information.

We trained for a few months, nothing super-duper strict, but made sure we did a couple of swims a weeks, got a good ride in every week and did some running. This was an Olympic distance race, which means it was about a mile swim, 17 mile mountain bike and 10K trail run.

We got up to Vegas with no problems and hung out a little with Megan, Carl and baby Aidan and then got up the next morning to pre-ride the course. We did one lap of the bike course (we would have to do 2 laps for the actual race), which turned out to be the most difficult ride either of us had been on. Bad choice. I would have been just fine not knowing what I was getting into on race day and having fresher legs.

Race day arrives, we get all of our things set up in the transition area, get our wetsuits on and head down to the beach of Lake Las Vegas. Rick's group leaves first and then my group leaves about 3 minutes later. Of course it's windy and the water is super choppy...that is always helpful. I love swallowing large amounts of lake water! We finally make it out of the lake. Rick's stuff is still at the transition point, so I figure I must have beat him out of the water (which was expected). We see each other for a brief moment at transition and then I take off on the dreaded bike course. Rick catches me pretty quickly on the bike (also expected), and I figure I won't see him until the finish.

I am hating every second of the bike leg, except for the fact that these pros are passing me (I'm on my first lap and they are on their second) and giving me encouragement! Everyone was so nice out on the course. Pretty cool. Also, it made me feel A LOT better to see the professionals walking up at least 3 of the hills as well (I'm not that big of a wuss after all).

We struggle our way through the bike and I think I had seen Rick not more than a mile a head of me at one point. Now, I head into the barren wasteland known as the run course with hopes of catching up with him, and surprisingly I do! However, when I catch up to Rick he is sitting in the dirt stretching his legs...not the way I wanted to catch him. He had been cramping up for a while. So we end up doing the run together. We walk some and run some and end up going across the finish line holding hands :) I know, super cheesy, but it was fun to hang out and finish together.

How did we place....let's just say that they gave out awards for the top 3 finishers in each age group for both men and women, and the person we finished closest to that actually got an award was a woman in the 65+ age group. (Ouch! haha!)

All-in-all it was really hard, but fun to have the memory and be able to tell our kids one day that we did a triathlon together. Will we do it again? Rick confessed afterwards that he never would have done a triathlon if I hadn't have brought it up and that he hated it and had no desire to do anther one. That is until a couple of weeks later when he told me, "I keep thinking about how bad I did and it makes me want to do another one." haha! So maybe we will do another one someday, but probably not a Championship course and more likely a sprint distance :)

Here are some of our "battle wounds".

The Laughter Club

For my Biology class, our professor provided extra credit opportunities he called "safe activities." One of these safe activities was held at SWIHA (South West Institute of Healing Arts). This place is as hippy-ish as it sounds. It's essentially a school where people can earn really strange certificates and degrees like: western herbilism, hypnotherapy, aromatherapy, Chinese Shamanistic medicine and palm and foot reading. As a part of the school itself, they also offer classes to the public. One of the classes, which was one of these extra credit opportunities was "The Laughter Club." It was taught by this older woman who was a "certified laughter leader" and who also taught "laughter yoga"...awesome.

First off Julie was extremely disinterested in attending the class, she hadn't been feeling well that day, but she finally gave in and came with me...what a sport. Then the craziness began. The instructor started off by explaining how laughter benefits our body...in fact she gave us this sweet little handout:


She then proceeded to use another handout:
to go through exercises we could do in order to use laughter as a stress reducer. Some of the exercises, which we all practiced in class by the way, included laughing as if you were a queen, laughing like you were walking on hot sand and laughing while pretending to be shy.

All of this, as awkward as it was, was exacerbated by the fact that a guy (a white guy I might add) with a turquoise turban showed up and was totally and completely unafraid of making a fool of himself. As ridiculous as he was, it was actually kind of refreshing to see someone not care about what anyone else thought. He must have got this from his mother, who by the way was there too, and who sang a solo at the end of class. All in all, we had a good time and are glad we tried it out.

Baby BOY Berry

We went in for our ultrasound to find out what the gender of the baby was on October 14th. It was just in time so that we could answer all of the "do you know what you're having" questions at Amanda's reception. The result...it's a boy! We are so excited, but I think Rick's dad is the most excited. (Rick is the only boy and needs to "carry on the family name".) Joe gave a big "YEEHAW!" when we called him after the appointment and gave him the news.


I'm glad those ultrasound technichians know what to look for because I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything about this picture!

Now we can move on to names...here are our top 5 at the moment in no particular order:

Maxwell (Max)
Jackson
Cooper
Davis
Truman

Let us know your favorite or send us some new ones!
We are open to suggestions!