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2.25.2010

New Beginnings

I kept on thinking that the last time I had written on here it was a little before Thanksgiving but I can’t believe it was WAYYYYYYY back in September?!? I can’t believe I let it go this long!! What better time than 4:28 a.m. to tell everyone what has been going on... I cannot sleep so I figure I might as well do something productive! Just a warning, this post is REALLY long... hope you can make it through it! The past 5 months have been crazy/exciting/nerve wrecking/every other emotion that you can dream of. So here is what has been keeping us busy! Back in November Brady took a golfing trip with the guys in his family, AKA "Man Trip" but a couple of days before Brady and I took a usual trip to the pet store. Since being married Brady has become practically best friends with my mom’s dog Harley and we knew we would eventually want one of our own. I guess you could call it "window shopping" since we always go and look but never buy... but this time was different! We came across this ADORABLE little puppy who reminded us so much of Harley! He had the same floppy ears and underbite that shows his bottom teeth! We had them pull him out for us and immediately fell in love! He has been such a fun little guy to have around! It’s hard to think back before we had him... what did we do all day!?! Before we bought him, we knew we wouldn’t be able to keep him at our apartment since they don’t allow animals. But for some time before this we had been planning on moving into my dad’s house eventually when he wanted to rent it out. I made it clear that we would move into that house under certain conditions (getting it fixed up) so that’s exactly what we have been doing!!! We have been painting, Brady has been tiling, we textureized the ceilings, got new carpet in, replaced a lot of ceiling and we still have so much to do! I never imagined how much work painting is! It’s one of those moments when I wish I was not a perfectionist because the ceiling is white and the walls are cream and the lines where they meet just drive me insane!! I think I will eventually have to just stop looking up so I don’t have to think about them haha :). We still have the entryway, 1 bathroom, and the kitchen to tile so we are just waiting for Brady to have a break from school to finish that up! I’ve been pretty busy lately with work and all now with it being closer to tax season and Brady has been SUPER busy with his schooling and trying to figure out this whole Dental School Situation! It has been such a blessing for us to have Brady’s brother Greg around who is in his 4th year of Dental School at USC. Brady has been able to go down and participate in several different services, one of which being the Ayuda Clinic. I was lucky to be able to go down with Brady to one of these clinics and it was absolutely amazing and very humbling! There are so many things that are going on in different countries but it is truly incredible how much is going on in our own communities that we aren’t aware of!!! What the Ayuda Clinic does is it allows under privileged children to come in and get some dental work done for free. It was such an amazing experience to go in and be able to help these children understand the importance of taking care of their teeth. There were stations set up where we would show the children the right and wrong way to brush and floss and what was shocking was to hear that some of the children had never even heard of floss before! From when Brady and I have talked he has said that being at those clinics is what has truly made him want to become a Dentist. It’s crazy how much you take for granted and we truly have been blessed with so much! I know that having gone through these experiences it will be such a motivation to help out as many people as we can with the education that Brady will receive! While we were at that Ayuda Clinic we were able to meet one of the Founders, Dr. Done (who actually started up this clinic with one of the 12 apostles... sorry I can’t remember exactly who it was). We didn’t realize at the time but meeting Dr. Done has played such a hand in leading up to this moment since he works at USC once a week and it didn’t hurt that he was particularly fond of me :). When we returned home from that clinic Brady wrote Dr. Done thanking him for being able to participate in the clinic. For the past six months Brady has been corresponding with Dr. Done expressing his determination to get into USC and Dr. Done had told Brady that he would do everything he could to put in a good word for him. On several other occasions these past few months Greg has been able to do some work on Brady’s teeth to get some more experience ( it was free=sign me up anytime). While Brady has been at the school he has been able to meet the Admissions Staff and one of the times when they were on their way out of the school they happened to pass Dr. Abelson, who for some time was the Dean at USC. After they had passed him everything just kind of froze (think of this as slow motion) Greg thought wait, Brady needs to meet this guy! They turned around went after him and were able to speak with him for a few minutes about how Brady is trying to get into their Dental School. After Brady returned home he was able to get in contact with Dr. Abelson regarding what he could do to better his chances to get into their Dental School. He had told us that he would go to the Admissions Staff and speak with them. When we heard back from him he had told us that he had spoken to them about Brady and that his application is under review and that hopefully they would grant us an interview. While we were waiting to hear back from them about an interview, Greg was able to speak with Dr. Abelson about Brady and he had mentioned that when he had gone to the Admissions and reviewed his file he had signed Brady’s application and stuck it on top of the files. Within the next week we received an e-mail from USC granting us an interview!! We were ecstatic!!! We sent Brady out there the next week and he was able to go through their interview process which he says couldn’t have gone better. While he was at his interview the Admissions Staff was present to meet with them and it was nice because they all already knew who Brady was. When we was meeting with one of them he had said "when you get in.." which blew me away! Could this really be happening? Brady interviewed at USC on February 16th and last night (only a week later) we found out that............... WE GOT ACCEPTED!!!! We are so excited!! To be honest I really wasn’t expecting us to get in this year with the combination of Brady’s DAT scores and GPA but it really goes to show you that miracles do happen!! Throughout this whole process I have really tried to stay grounded and have tried to not get my hopes up because I just didn’t want to be let down and have everything that we’ve worked so hard for come crashing down. It’s crazy that you don’t really think of it at the time, but there were so many crucial moments for this to have happened! I think that if Greg hadn’t been at USC, if we hadn’t met Dr. Done, and they hadn’t met Dr. Abelson that afternoon that there is no way that this would have happened. We’re so grateful for this opportunity and I’m so proud of my babe for being so persistent!! I don’t really think that it’s hit me yet that in 6 months, we’re going to be moving to L.A.!! I’m so excited but at the same time I’m scared and nervous! I’ve never lived outside of Utah where I will be away from family, friends and everything I know. Just thinking of driving on the freeway gives me hives, thank goodness for the Garmin (Thanks Mom & Kent!!!!!!). I know that going through these next 4 years will be hard yes, but so good for our marriage! We’ll have to rely just on us and sadly... we’ll have to start cooking our own Sunday dinner! :) To all of you who made it through all of this, I applaud you! We want to thank everyone for all the support, we wouldn’t have been able to do this without you! We love you guys!

-Jamie

8 comments:

  1. Oh Baby ~ we are excited too, along with being nervous and anxius. It's all going to work out for you two! We love you both and are super proud of the two of you :)

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  2. Woohoo!! Congratulations on being accepted!
    Speaking from personal experience, it is hard to be away from family, but it will be a really good thing for the two of you together, relying on each other. Man, this brings back memories for me!

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  3. YAY!!!! Congratulations!! Nick is going to start applying for MED school and I'm soooo not excited!! It's great to hear an update on your life! Best of luck!

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  4. Yeay! We are so proud and happy for you guys!! You will do great, and have such neat experiences, AND you are going to live in such a beautiful place!

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  5. Congratulations to Brady! That's way exciting :) And what a cool experience to be able to participate in those clinics.

    P.S. The line where the wall and ceiling meet drives me absolutely nuts too :)

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  6. YEAH we're going to have family closer than 10 hours away!! And don't worry the freeway doesn't take that long to get used too!

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  7. Yay!!! I remember the night that we pulled into Orange County for grad school. We ate at Wendy's and I had to bite my lip the whole time to keep from bursting into tears! It ended up being such a great experience for us and sometimes we really miss being there! You'll love it!
    Kim :)

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