Holiday Card

Merry Christmas everyone! Its been a busy year for us and I'm sure its the same for most of you! We feel like this year went super fast which was ok with us cause we are looking forward to graduation for Steve this June. We can't wait for Steve to officially be able to put that M.D. behind Smith. Some highlights from this year are; Steve decided what kind of doctor he wants to be and has applied to the Radiology program. We have already matched for our first year of residency down in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Its actually one of the nicest areas of Detroit so we're excited for that move. I landed 2 different jobs this year. For the summer I worked for Mosquito Control and then the director hired me to stay during the day with his handicapped daughter. Its definitely been helpful to have an income this year. 

We got a few fun trips in this year. One and probably the most fun was our trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan. We hiked between a series of waterfalls and camped right next to the Mackinac Bridge. Another fun trip was to Syracuse New York where Steve had an interview. We were able to visit Palmyra briefly on the way back and see the hill Cumorah and the Sacred Grove. We also had some fun family events this year. We had a family reunion in Colorado in which we also celebrated Steve's parents 50th anniversary. We were also able to go to Utah for Thanksgiving to see family. 

We feel very blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family and are grateful to share our lives with so many wonderful people. We hope you all have an amazing christmas as we celebrate the birth of our saviour. 

Love Tamara and Stephen Smith.

The sky keeps falling

So now back to real life again. I work and work and work and work (which is really code for falls asleep in uncomfortable places, my indian name) seriously this is the first job, no wait second, that i fall asleep at. At least its sort of acceptable at this one. The last one was an office job and data entry couldn't be any more boring. This time there just isn't anything to do and its so boring.

So for the last few weeks steve had a break so he could do interviews clean the house an catch up on sleep. Why is it that i'm fine when i stay up late and he goes to bed early but when he's the one staying up late i have this need to stay up too even though it means i'll be a zombie tomorrow. Me and no sleep equals banging head on wall and other assorted objects laying around. I once banged my head on the roof of my car. I think it was for a cause though. Probably fast food.

Steve has now done 3 of the 4 radiology interviews he got i personally want Syracuse but my desperate desire to live somewhere people would be motivated to visit plays a huge part in that. Also it would just be so cool. Fyi the pictures with this post are of our trip there for the interview. Pretty much all at the sacred grove and hill comorah.

Steve has given the most positive feed back on the flint program he interviewed with. They were awesome i guess. One of the perks for him and reservations for me is that there's a lot of crime in flint. Great! Which means he'll very experienced after its over. I'm not too worried if we end up there cause we can live in grand blanc and be safe. And i guess being in radiology is much safer than being in the flint er so its not bad and could actually be a really great residency. The place in detroit he interviewed at was the moat encouraging toward us but its hard to say where we'll be so. I'm trying not to think about it. Which you can totally tell from this post. So thats where we are. Good luck deciphering this.

Next Year

So I just wanted to let everyone know how excited we are about next year. Steve is interviewing right now and he has to do interviews for two separate residencies because radiology requires you to do a preliminary year in something. We chose Internal Medicine. Anyway Steve's first interview was a couple weeks ago and he pre-matched to do a residency with them. Its down in Gross Pointe. Which is on the southern section of Detroit on the Eastern side. So it hugs Lake Huron. Its supposed to be a really nice area. Which is nice cause it means we won't be in a scary area, but we're hoping it doesn't mean expensive housing. 

For Halloween I was a gypsy and Steve is Mayhem from Allstate.

For those of you who don't know what it means to Pre-match I'll explain as best I can. Most residencies you'll interview with afterwards you rate them and they rate you and then in March they match up who liked who best and thats where you go for residency. To Pre-match its like you only rating them and them only rating you so that there's no guess work. Except you also sign a contract so neither of you can duck out and give them the shaft. So thats what we've done! 


Anyway its nice knowing where we will live next year and that we don't have to move far, plus we can still visit all the people we love in Saginaw! Now Steve is just interviewing for the four years after that in Radiology. He has a couple interviews in Detroit in January and one in Syracuse NY. Out of those options I think NY would be awesome. I really want to live in New England so we can travel on his time off and see all the amazing things there are. I'm still hoping he'll interview in Connecticut cause I so want to be a Gilmore Girl. (Yes I know how silly that is. You should see peoples faces when I say that to them. They don't know whether to laugh or call the therapist.) Anyway I just want to see the east coast. 

This is Mayhem Steve with our friend Jessica aka Flo from Progressive.

That's where we are right now. We'd also like to thank everyone who supports us during the Medical School ups and downs. We have the greatest families ever! 

Yay For Pumpkin Season

So we did our yearly trip to Johnson's Giant Pumpkin patch for the 2nd time. Such a great ancient tradition for us. I invited everyone I know in Saginaw to come so that we could share the fun. Mmmm if you haven't had apple cider donuts on a cool crisp day than you haven't lived. Of course this wasn't a cool crisp day. This was our indian summer day that we all got sunburned on.

         

 

We also got to see the launching of pumpkins with the trebuchet. I know that everyone is wondering where I learned that word. And no nobody had to tell me that this launching machine was called that. Everytime I say trebuchet I remind myself that I'm a bit of a fantasy geek. But seriously this macine is awesome it launches a pumpkin which hits the ground so hard that its shrapnel looks like it would hurt. We saw it at least 3 times that day. (We kept coming back to watch with our friends cause they kept showing up.)

 I particularly enjoy the wood carvings that a man does with his chain saw. Such a random skill. I wonder if its on his resume?

 I ♥ the Mystery Machine. Maybe someday I'll have one of my own!

 This year the walk through the christmas tree bird walk was free so we got to see some cool birds. The duck in a wig cracked me up. My mind keeps getting fried trying to sort out all the dumb movie quotes that would make fun of this. All I can say is I keep coming back to the phrase pig in a wig which doesn't fit at all but still funny! See if you can come to something better.

I Hate Hate Hate Spiders

So I feel very cursed when it comes to certain things. For Example, spiders. So I think it all started in about 7th grade when I did a halloween sleepover at a friends house. We slept in their partially finished basement that had all sorts of halloween decorations up including fake black spiders all over. That was just fine, but then of course we watched "Arachnophobia". Its Halloween so of course I can understand us wanting to watch a scarier movie but it was so freaky that I've had nightmares about it and the paranoia is quite annoying. 


So anyway about a week after watching that movie with the deathly jumping spider invasion, I was taking a shower and when I stepped out there were baby spiders descending from the ceiling all over the whole bathroom and I'm pretty sure they heard me screaming in china. I fact if any of you happen to remember a faint rumbling of the earth around 1997 a little after halloween then that was me so no worries I had a wee meltdown. 

If you've seen the movie you can probably sympathize with me cause its pretty freaky. Anyway I'm not so good with spiders. I am fine if they keep their distance or are outside, but when they get too close forget about it. 


So this week I was getting ready for work in the morning and What looked like a dandelion fluff floated in front of my eyes and my first instinct was to blow it away but I'm glad I didn't seeing as it would have swung back in my face and was actually a big big spider descending about 2 inches from my face. What the heck. Do all the spiders in the world have a vendetta against me. I haven't killed that many and I just need a hula hoops amount of distance for comfort. 

I did have this funny flash in my mind of the scene on mega mind with the speeider arachnisdeathicus blown into his face, but then reality kicked in and the spider almost claimed ownership of the bathroom. Then again maybe all this spider stuff started before "Arachnophobia". I remember when I was probably about 8 my sister told me that a spider had crawled into my hair and I couldn't tell if she was joking or not and so I kept trying to shake it off and I'm still not sure if there was one or not, but she gave me an excellent case of the heebie jeebies. Anyone else have weird stuff like this in their life?

What's Up Doc!

All righty, here's a quick update on life here. Steve is doing his surgery rotation in West Branch still. He finishes the last week of October and we are looking forward to it a lot a lot. Its getting really tiring him being gone all the time. and He is bored of his new reclusive life, plus there isn't much going on at the hospital most days so that makes it even harder to be so far away. It's about an hours drive. After that he is going to start an Emergency Medicine rotation.


He has decided to do Radiology now but since this rotation is already scheduled we figured he might as well stick with it. He applied the first week of September for residencies and we are now just anxiously waiting for everyone to notice how awesome Steve is and set up interviews. He already has a couple of interviews down in Detroit so thats hopeful. He is doing his calling at church with the 11 year old scouts and loving that. This next week we are looking forward to doing a fun game night with some couples in the ward and going to a local pumpkin patch where they launch pumpkins and sell amazing apple cider!

I was working at the mosquito control until labor day and then I started my new job. The mosquito control director offered e a job at his home staying with his daughter during the day. She is 25 and in a wheel chair and I just hang out with her get her up and ready in the morning and some diaper care. It a pretty nice job. She is pretty much a normal 25 year old with a few minor differences that she has from when she was hit by a car at the age of two. I like working so that I feel like I have something to plan the other things I need to do around. Its also fun cause I get to do crafts with her during the day.


Steve and I are planning on probably staying in Saginaw for Christmas so that we can have time in January for him to schedule and travel to interviews. Then in March we find out if he matches to a residency program and then graduation on June 8th. So this year is mostly just getting through it and making plans for the start of residency which we can't really plan much for since we haven't the slightest clue where we'll be. Anyway those are the highlights and I guess we're doing good. Michigan isn't so bad in the fall. Kinda pretty!

Fall Camping

Steve and I finally made a trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan. We drove up friday night and camped right by the Mackinac bridge. Then we drove up another 2 hours to Tahquamenon Falls. It was so beautiful on the road with all the leaves changing colors. We hiked from the lower water falls to the upper falls which was about 4 hours round trip. Sadly that is a bit out of our comfort zone right now since we are getting super lazy and don't know many good hiking places close by. But we still did it and have our aching feet ect. to prove we did it. Sophie loved being out in the woods and it was a blast to just go out and be mountain men. 

Orchard Family

We the Grandkids