Fall, Fun and Families

The last few months have been nothing but vacations and family excursions (although if you ask Mat he may mention the 15 grad credits he took… minor detail…) But it’s been an adventure.

In October, my mother, sister, and niece Emma came down to see General Conference and we had so much fun having an 8-year-old around. We introduced Emma to Travis and Kelly’s chickens, ate more candy and ice cream than I care to admit to, and had late night sleepovers.

Watching Emma at conference was by far the best part. I was humbled to realize that not everyone gets the experience to ever see a prophet of God, let alone be in the same room as him and hear him speak. Mat held Emma up as the Prophet walked in and it was amazing to see this newly baptized little member of the church light up and feel and see that the Prophet is a real person.

September, October and November brought 7 Medical School interviews for Mat, sufficiently putting a dent in our bank account and our weekends. But it seems that it paid off, as he has been accepted to four of the seven schools and we are still waiting to hear from the other 3. As of now, our top choice is most likely TCOM in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, but we’ll see what the next few months bring.

At Halloween, we spent lots of time with friends, carving pumpkins and doing cornmazes. We even won an award for the scariest pumpkin at our ward party. (I wish I had a picture of it… but alas, it died before I got around to it.)

In November we went down to Vegas for an interview, and to meet our new niece, Teagan Elizabeth Richards. Isn’t she cute?

I also flew to Spokane to spend a weekend with my sisters and mother to shop for Christmas. It was the first time my mom had been with her 3 daughters alone for years—we had a blast. Needless to say, there was much rejoicing in the form of Mexican food, Krispee Kreams and Blizzards.