NYC Bay-Bee

Even though no one will read this beside Irenicus, we wanted to post some pictures of our New York trip.

We had so much fun- New York is cool any time of year, but it's really special at Christmas.

We saw Saks Fifth Avenue and the windows...

...went to Central Park (it was really cold)...

... visited the Guggenheim (designed by FLW)...

... navigated the subway system...

... got real close to a lot of New Yorkers...


...saw the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall (did I mention it was cold?)...

... took a stroll through Times Square...



... and on top of all that, ate great pizza in Little Italy, checked out Rockefeller Center, saw the Statue of Liberty, visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and had the time of our lives.

Peace.

New York

Whew! We just made it back from New York (2:00 am last night), where we had a blast.

For now we'll leave you with a picture of the tree we bought while in town.
More info to come...

December is the new November!

So who ever wanted to read a boring blog post during the month of November? That's what we figured and decided not to write anything until month #12 arrived.

Of course we had to go to California for the annual Turkey Trot.

For the uninitiated, the Turkey Trot is basically like a double marathon conducted under extremely low oxygen conditions. There are only two ways you can qualify to run it:
1) climb Everest or 2) win the Boston Marathon

Rachel during pre-race warm ups. You can tell by her face that the Turkey Trot is all business.



Here we are nearing mile #38. Don't let those ladies in the background fool you. We're all sprinting right now.

Catching our breath after the race!



The next day we played an all-Martin family soccer match.
Jeff (in orange) won the offensive MVP award.
Rachel won the award for the cutest player on the field.



Brian organized a boys vs. girls ginger bread house contest.

Greg and Brianna acted as judges from Provo

The boys hard at work. Brian and Austin didn't get the memo that their team color was orange.

The boys' final product.
Don't ask me about the snowmen in front because I don't know.


The girls putting the finishing touches on their submission.

Guess who won? The boys.

(like it was ever in doubt)

Spooky Dinner!

And here comes our obligatory Halloween post...

We spent Halloween chillaxin' at Greg and Brianna's place.

They made a spooktacular dinner with scary shapes and orange cupcakes.

My favorite part of the evening was giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. Because there were two couples present, each visitor received twice the normal amount of candy.

Of course, what Halloween meal would be complete without grilled pineapple?

Rachel being great, like always.

Woot! Woot!

We were accepted to medical school!! Yay! We were really excited to hear back so soon (this is the first week you start hearing back). So here are the schools we've been accepted to so far...

UT San Antonio

Ohio State

UC San Diego

Another Milestone!

By far the most important event of this past week was our 3-Monthiversary. Every moment since our wedding has been exciting and wonderful. This time has been the happiest of our lives by far.

Houston, Ya'all!

The interview circuit brought me to Houston this past weekend, where I managed to squeeze two schools into one day. I interviewed in the morning at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston (UT Houston) and, in the afternoon, at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM).

My day lasted from 7:30 am until 7:00 pm, and it would have been longer if I hadn't skipped out on the Baylor sponsored gathering at a local pub that night.

UT Houston

Baylor

The two schools are actually located within a two hundred yards of each other. They are both located within the Texas Medical Center- the largest medical district in the world (yes, everything is bigger in Texas). Its 45 medical institutions (among them 13 hospitals and 2 specialty institutions) provide more than enough clinical training opportunities for students of both schools.

The commons buildings, just one of many impressive places at the TMC.

One of the two 65-foot waterfalls flanking the commons building. Behind that you can see MD Anderson, the #1 cancer hospital in the country. Pretty Impressive.

I stayed with the Anthons- friends that used to live in my parents ward in California. They were such gracious hosts, driving me into the city and everywhere I needed to be. Larry (or "Doc") took me out to dinner to celebrate the successful completion of a very busy day of interviewing. Thanks Larry and Susan!