I hope they call me on a mission...

Rachel's brother, Derek, reported to the MTC this past Wednesday! He will be going to the Colorado Springs Mission. We picked him up from the airport on Tuesday night and then we all (Rachel, Austin, Greg, and Brianna) took him to the MTC the next day. Here he is pre-MTC:

Two suitcases for 2 years...wow, they must be heavy.



Derek's favorite phrase on a cake.



We took him to breakfast (his last supper) at Kneaders the morning before he reported.



Here we are walking to the MTC from Wymount. It's faster to walk there than to drive. It's crazy how close he is to us right now!



Here's Derek in the MTC, looking very official with his name badge. We loved the orange "celestial dot" they give you on your first day (aka. "dork dot").

Good luck Elder Martin! Have fun in Colorado!

Prostaglandin Endoperoxide Synthase

Guess who's submitting their undergraduate thesis tomorrow? The title alone is long enough to make me bored:

"Posttranslational Modification of an Intron-1 Retaining Cyclooxygenase-1 Splice Variant in Rat Spleen and its Effects on Enzyme Activity"

January

What's cooler than visiting New York City? Why, being visited by Derek and Jeff of course!

Jeff came up to try out the Utah snow- he had ski resorts in mind, but we took him tubing at Rock Canyon Park!

He ended up snowboarding at Sundance and Canyons too

Austin timed this throw perfectly to meet Jeff as he hit the first bump- heh heh heh.


We had a lot of fun with the guys over the MLK Jr. Holiday and were really sorry to see them go.


This past week also marked our 6-MONTH-IVERSARY, or our first "semi-anniversary"!

We celebrated with some gourmet cuisine...


... then saw BYU's production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. It was fabulous!

Did you know that it was first performed at the La Jolla Playhouse at UCSD?
Coincidence?

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.