Rick is Da Man!

Monday, I got a phone call from Rick while he was at school. He was in calculus class and stepped out to tell me the good news...he got accepted to NAU's Pysical Thereapy program! We are so excited! He just had his interviews the previous Friday and he wasn't too sure about one of his interviews. He thought his interview with a practicing PT went well, but his interview with a faculty member was the one he wasn't too sure about. I guess they liked him though! (really, who doesn't like Rick?...not surprising to me or anyone else that knows him) Rick has worked so hard and been so humble about everything with school, but I like to brag! He is a smarty-pants! We are so blessed to have gotten into this program and we recognize the Lord's hand in it. We will be somewhat close to family and the in-state tuition is amazing.

Flagstaff here we come!!

Go Lumberjacks!!

Pictures of the little guy

We had some pictures taken of Truman when he was a day old. He is officially a model, and Julie and I had no idea we were going to be asked to get our pictures taken too, so just prepare yourself for a couple scary ones.

Here's a sneak peek...this one's my favorite.


Here's the link: www.firstdayphotogalleries.com/pickpic/gallery/splash.php?gallery_id=4521
the pass code is: AZS022510aTruman

The Birth of Our Very Own Baby Truman

Julie gave birth to our first born on 2/23/10 at 2:37 am. Her water broke at around 3:00 pm on the 22nd while doing sit-ups at family workout! We got everything together and headed to the hospital. They checked us into the triage to make sure her water broke and to analyze where she was dilation wise. She was at 4 cm so they checked us into our room.

To get things going, Julie opted to go a little more natural and walk her way through the process instead of taking pitocin (which speeds up the process). So we literally walked the halls for about 2.5 hours trying to get things going. At about 10 pm she got some pitocin, which seemed to help speed it up a little.

At midnight however, she got really tired and just wanted to sleep, so she asked for an epidural. At this point the nurse said she was dilated to 8 or 9 cm, so she made it a really long ways without any anesthesia (she was a real trooper).

An hour later she really started feeling the urge to push, so we let the games begin. The doctor showed up just in time, because she only had to push through three contractions before our bundle of joy arrived. He weighed in at 7 lbs 15.5 oz and was measured at 20.5 in. He is super healthy and is eating very well.

We already love him so much and feel so blessed to have him here with us.

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.