Random selections of summer

Wellsville, UT tour. 
Grandma Allen has long wanted to take my mom and Morgan and I to Wellsville to show us memorable places from her growing up years. Sites that we visited included the cemetery, grandmas childhood home, church, baseball field, and other locations. It turned out to be a fun day that ended in Logan with Aggie ice cream and a search for Peter Maughns' grave and statue. The search for the statue took awhile because we had no idea what we were looking for. Luckily someone had posted a picture of it on the internet and that helped narrow our search in the enormous cemetery. It turned out to not be a statue but more of a plaque. See the pictures below. Grandma had us take notes so that in the future we will remember the things we saw and will be able to find them again.

Great grandma and grandpa Murray's headstone

Aggie Icecream!!

The Wellsville cemetery

Plaque stating the founders of Wellsville including Peter Maughn

Grandmas church in Wellsville

The Peter Maughn grave site memorial

close up of the plaque

Yellowstone
In mid August our family went on our summer trip to Yellowstone. We had a great time observing wildlife, hiking to waterfalls, watching geysers go off, and just enjoying each others company. We saw a lot of wildlife in the park including elk, bison, a coyote, and a wolf. A nearby grizzly and wolf reserve also provided a lot of entertainment. There you can watch them hide food for the bears and then watch the bears effortlessly turn over logs and boulders as they search for the hidden food. We also got to hear a pack of wolves howl while we were there. That was neat! On the way home we went to Bear World, a drive through park with bears and other animals as well as a petting zoo that included goats and deer.

Fairy Falls

Old Faithful

Elk in the river. The first animals we spotted on the trip.

Petting zoo at Bear World

The Deck: an ongoing project 
All summer we've been working on the deck. The latest project was staining the underside of it to protect the wood. My grandpa and grandma Campbell came up to help out. It was a lot of work to get the stain in every little crevice. No all the deck is lacking is a railing. I probably wont be here to see the finished product but it sure looks nice now and I look forward to seeing it all done at christmas time. 

Hogel Zoo

Morgan and I went to the zoo earlier this summer to see the new Rocky Shores exhibits. They've redone the whole bear exhibits and added some sea lions and seals as well as otters. I was really impressed by the exhibit and I loved seeing the polar bear dive into the water! All the bears sure seemed really happy in there new homes. We were also treated to seeing a tiger swim and bask in the water, something I've always wanted to see.

Morgan and her monkey friend

Scout
In July Scout turned 6 years old. He's been having some skin issues the past month and he's so itchy that he's even chewed part of his foot pads off. Ouch! He's had steroid injections and antibiotics along with booties and the "cone of shame" to try to get him back to normal. It looks like we'll have to pursue a cure in Oregon since he and I journey back there later this week. Poor little guy has had a rough time the past few weeks and there's not a lot that can be done to relieve his itchiness. It seems that he's developed an allergy to something and hopefully a state change will help him get back to normal. If not, I'm lucky to have a vet school full of awesome vets and perhaps a vet dermatologist to help sort it all out.

Cone of Shame

Summer, Subway, and other Super things!

We kicked off the summer with a visit from my aunt, uncle and cousins from Minnesota. They met us a midst our camping trip at Camelot. It was sure fun to have them out there as it has been many years since we've all been together and since they've got to go camping with us. We took many  four wheeler/jeep rides together and had a blast on a swing that went over the river. It was a great trip and we took many great pictures and videos.

 

 

Next, we headed down to St. George for our adventure of the summer. We were lucky enough to be invited to hike Subway canyon in Zion's National Park. A family friend was lucky enough to get a permit to hike it and gave our family 6 of the 12 available slots. So, this added up to my dad, Morgan, and me plus my uncle Gary and his two girls. At the last minute we found out that there would be two more slots available which made it possible from my mom and aunt to join us on the hike. My mom was a little apprehensive but we are so glad that she and my aunt decided to go because it was so neat to have our whole family there. (plus they added some comic relief)

The hike was beautiful. It was about 9 miles long and included hiking on slick rock, repelling down rocks, swimming in cold water through narrow chasms of the canyon, etc. Most of the hike was downhill until the very end which was a fairly steep uphill climb. Lucky for us, the weather was nearly perfect. It was overcast and only in the 80s which made the parts where we were wet a little chilly but also we were never dying of heat either. Just a few days later the temperature got into the 100s. We were sure glad to have our guide, Chad who has hiked the Subway more than 30 times.Check out some of the pictures below.

Hiking down into the Subway canyon

We had to swim under this stone ball and log as part of the hike. This swim was probably the longest one.

Why the canyon is called The Subway -at times it resembles of subway tunnel

I was unsuccessful in acquiring a job this summer but that has turned out to be okay for the most part as I have been able to do some other things that I might not have done other wise. Some other highlights of my summer include: Cat trapping with grandma, listening to everyone's memories of great grandma Murray at the family reunion, doing melted crayon art with Morgan, helping my dad and grandpa build our deck, and just spending time with my family.

Working on the deck

Crayon art project - picking the crayons was easy, taking the paper off the crayons was not!

Putting the crayons on with hot glue

Silhouettes were put on with Mod Podge. This is Morgans

This is mine

Melted the crayons with a hair dryer. The sun helped speed up the process.

Finished projects.

At the family reunion

Mom with the cousins at the family reunion

School, Wildlife Safari, and the Beach!

This term has been different than the previous ones due to the increased hand on laboratories that go along with the classes I am in. We are starting to learn more things that will be directly applicable to working in a vet clinic rather than the strict memorizing type classes that I've had in the past. For example, this term I am in introductory surgery and anesthesia classes and the labs are more hand on. In surgery lab we have done things like learn suture patterns, bandaging and casting, surgical gowning and gloving, scrubbing in for surgery, learning the names and uses of surgical instruments, and doing abdominal surgery on carpet model simulators. This week I will take my practical lab exam which will include showing actual surgeons that I am proficient in these various skills. I'm a little nervous for it but I'm also excited and hope that I will do well. In a couple weeks for my anesthesia lab, we will be anesthetizing dogs for spay/neuter surgeries in small groups. These labs are meant to help get us ready for next year where we will be responsible for both anesthetizing and performing spay/neuter surgery on shelter dogs/cats. Check out some pics below of some of these things!

Suture Practice Model

Rubber leg with a cast that I applied and then got to remove

On the weekends I've had the opportunity to do some cool things as part of the Zoo, Wildlife, Exotics club that I'm a member of. We've gone on trips to the Oregon Zoo and to a drive through park called Wildlife Safari. Both were fun experiences. We toured the new vet clinic at the zoo which was really nice and at Wildlife Safari, the highlight for me besides seeing some really cool animals roaming around, was that I got to talk one on one with the veterinarian at the park and ask him questions about being a zoo vet. He gave me some good advice should I choose this career path...

10 week old Cheetah cub at Wildlife Safari

I finally was able to take Scout to the beach this past Friday after class. I've been looking forward to doing this all year! It was so much fun seeing his first experience with the ocean. He loved the water and took off right into it first thing. The best part was that he suddenly decided that after all these years of not being interested in fetching that he would fetch now. I threw that ball for him for an hour straight and had a fabulous time with my dog on the beach. (:

Earlier in the month was the schools annual Pet Day event. It's put on every year by the 1st and 2nd year students for the community. Proceeds go to helping us pay for graduation as well as other school expenses. I had fun once again painting faces. This year I did the 5k Fun Run with Scout which was a blast and then Scout stayed around and watched me paint faces and made friends with the students and kids at our booth.

5k Fun Run as part of Pet Day

Pet Day at the Vet School. I was in the committee that had games for kids and I painted faces

Pet Day

Update on Life (:

It's been awhile since my last post because...... I'm a busy vet student! I'm just beginning the third and final term of my 2nd year of school. It's pretty exciting because the classes that I am in are starting to transition into clinical classes with more hands on application. For example, I am taking Intro to surgery, principles of anesthesia, and general medicine among other classes like public health, ethics, epidemiology, and toxicology. Yes, it's going to be a crazy busy term! Last term I enjoyed my class on learning to interpret radiographs (x-rays) and ultrasounds.

I went home last week for Spring break and it was a nice time to relax and visit with my family before school picked up again. The weather was pretty good, especially compared to Oregon, and I went running a lot and we went on a family hike (see pics). My plans for this summer are to return home but I'm not sure what I'll be doing exactly. It's technically my last "summer" because next year classes go right through summer and the years after I'll hopefully have a job as a vet somewhere. I'm trying to figure out something cool to do this summer. I can't believe how fasts it's all going.

On a different note, I've been asked a quite a few dates this school year. Its weird but fun I guess. It's hard because I'm so busy with school but I try to make time for other things to balance the studying out. I enjoy having a dog with me this year as it forces me to get out of my apartment more and take him on walks and to the pet store and such.

That's all I can think of that's particularly interesting in my life right now. I will try to be better at updating my blog and hopefully take some cool pictures of school and spring in Oregon.