Optometry

Geoff took his Optometry Admissions Test a couple of weeks ago, and did sooooo well!! I'm a proud mama... And so he has started the applying process to the many many different schools in the US (and the 1 in Canada). 
While he is making his list, I decided that 4 years is a freaken long time to live somewhere, and that I also get a say... 
So here is the list of schools and my thoughts of them:

• ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
  Chicago, Illinois  - Yes please. I think this is #3 for me! If you google maps it, it is about 4 blocks-ish from the beach! sounds dreamy. But i may come back fat... that time the Smyth's and I ate the deep dish pizza?? Wow... heavenly. And the bean with the Smyths and Stones? Such great memories of Chicago. The only sucky thing... I can no longer go and watch a live episode of Oprah... Sad...
• INDIANA UNIVERSITY
  Bloomington, Indiana  - no thoughts on this one. sure, why not.
• INTER AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO

         Bayamon, Puerto Rico   - yes, you read it right... puerto rico. would be fun to visit, but i think if we moved there i would have to come back as a drug dealer. just the way it would go... veto'd!

• MASSACHUSETTS COLLEGE OF PHARMACY AND HEALTH SCIENCES 
  Worcester, MA - Also no thoughts on this one

• MICHIGAN COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY AT FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY
  Big Rapids, Michigan  - Population of 10,695. and in the middle of NOWHERE. I definitely veto'd this one!! If Lethbridge is too small for me, how will i be able to stand this one? Noooo way.
• MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY - ARIZONA COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
  Glendale, Arizona  - MY # 1!!! i want this one sooo bad. not only do i LOVE Arizona, but i think people would come visit me here. which, lets be honest, is the most important thing to me. Geoff may disagree, but he isn't the one writing the post. lol. And Kari might live there too! Let the desperate housewives begin...
• NEW ENGLAND COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
  Boston, Massachusetts  - sure, why not? Geoff likes the idea of this one. i like the idea of a city.
• NORTHEASTERN STATE UNIVERSITY - OKLAHOMA COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
  Tahlequah, Oklahoma  - This one I also veto'd. the population is only 16,000 and also in the middle of nowhere. ...not interested.
• NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
  Ft. Lauderdale, Florida   - this one sounds like fun! isn't it where all the cruises dock? haha. as if we will be going on a cruise while Geoff is in school... 
• THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
  Columbus, Ohio   - Meh
• PACIFIC UNIVERSITY 
  Forest Grove, Oregon   - i think this is one of Geoff's top picks. this one for me is probably #4. it is still pretty close to Canada, and is supposedly beautiful!! The only bad thing is that it is super hard to get into...
• PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY AT SALUS UNIVERSITY
  Elkins Park, Pennsylvania   - this one sounds like a ton of fun!! first of all, Bill Cosby has once lived there, so how can it not be awesome? second, over 25% of the people that live in this area has an income of over $100,000. 25% of the people have a bachelors degree, and 25% have a degree that's even higher than that. sounds like it would be an interesting place to live! now, how would we live in such a rich area? no idea... but still sounds epic
• SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
  Fullerton, California   - this one is in orange county, so my little girl dreams of watching OC on tv makes this one a top choice. and it is only 25 miles from Los Angeles! 
• SOUTHERN COLLEGE OF OPTOMETRY
  Memphis, Tennessee  - one word: Elvis.
•   -STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
  New York, New York      -new york people!! i could live my dreams of being a sex in the city character with my high fashion and fabulous shoes!! plus, it's new york people!!
• UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
  Birmingham, Alabama   - meh
• UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY
  Berkeley, California    - Berkeley. what to say about such a wonderful dream. this is probably # 1 on both Geoff's and I's dream list. man, it would be sooo great to go to Berkeley. the most expensive school on the list, but the most beautiful. ...probably... plus, maybe ill meet Ryan Atwood out there - all you OC fans...
• UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT ST. LOUIS
  St. Louis, Missouri   - lets just discuss the fact that the first sentence of the description of this area is that "it lies in the hotbed of tornado alley". So heck no. i veto'd that one right away. I don't need any yellow brick road stories running through my life. 
• UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
  Houston, Texas    - i do not have any plans to move back to Texas. i found the humid heat to be deathly. i hated the fact that i couldn't go for a walk, EVER in the summer because i would die of heat. I tried multiple times to go for a walk while i was there, and would end up almost passed out because of the heat. and yes, that was just from a walk. and not even a very long one!! so no thank you. if i have to live somewhere for 4 years, i had better be able to get myself outside all the time and go for walks. this is a must. It works for some people, just not me. 

• UNIVERSITY OF THE INCARNATE WORD
  San Antonio, Texas   -  Texas again. veto'd.
   
• WESTERN UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES 
  Pomona, California    - another California school!! how could i say no to any school in California. I'm in!

• University of Waterloo

          Waterloo, Ontario     - The only Canadian Optometry school. The price is about half as much as the US schools... The school also offers a masters in Social Work if I wanted that option... and is in Canada, and i could work. So this is Geoff's #1. My... #2? It is super hard to get into though. So I'm not holding my breath.

So there you have it folks. my detailed thought process about the schools that are offered for optometry. we are applying soon, and will have a bill of over $800 just to apply. and then we have to pay more to send his OAT score, and more to send his Uni of Leth transcripts! it is going to be a super fun and exciting next couple of months. I sure am looking forward to this next stage in our lives. Go Geoff!

Rainbow Cake

Okay! 

Kristine has always been the one to make all the creative birthday cakes, and they always turn out marvellous! But I was excited when I saw a rainbow cake recipe (on what else... pinterest), at this website: 

http://www.omnomicon.com/rainbowcake . She even gives the recipe to be able to do it for diet cake which seems great, but not for a 2 year olds birthday. Anyways, Kristine said I could to try and make Tessa's birthday cake this year. I was pretty excited about it, but was quick to learn how difficult it was... Both doing the actual cake, and being creative enough to live up to Kristine's previous standard. Yikes. 

So this is what I did.

I was able to find neon food colouring! It made the cake so bright and fun!

I used vanilla cake mix out of a box, and just added food colouring. easy!

I then split each colour into 2, and took turns putting them into the cake pans. Making it opposite so when you put the cakes on top of each other, it actually rainbows. 

This picture looks so cool I think. I love the way the rainbow looks! sooo pretty. 

The dishes were not as fun

This picture makes me laugh, because that cake does not look delicious. Oh the joy of icing and being able to hide it. 

So at our summer cabin in BC we have a sand hill. Tessa just loves it there and could spend all day at it. So I built the sandhill out of rice crispies. Haha. you can't see it, but Geoffs contribution was adding a blueberry to look like a beach ball. Haha. Kristine said I should make a baby (because Tessa loves babies), until she realized we would then have to eat the baby... bad idea... haha.

Ps, I do not understand how to do icing. I always fail at it. I was lucky that my design was water, and it was okay to have it dripping all over the place. 

It was so fun when Kristine cut into it. All the kids went "wwooooowwww". haha. Exactly the reaction i wanted. 

The end product! The only mistake I made (okay, let's be serious... i made way more than one mistake...), is that when i put in the dye, it was put in the cake pan as it should have been if the cake was round. for a rectangle cake i should have had the colours in a line in the middle of the pan to make it more like a rainbow so all the colours could be seen in each piece. Oh well. 

So that was my attempt at another pinterest craft! And this one was easy, everyone should try it!

Family Photos

My family is doing family photos this August long weekend. We have only recently made the decision on colours, and have been sent out to find navy shirts. It has proven to be a little difficult since long sleeves is a necessity. This is the email I sent out to the fam one evening:






Okay! We were able to find some outfits for the picture! Super cheap, and pretty nice looking too!
The only problem is we don't really know if it is what you want, so we are sending out pictures.

#1 We don't own any other navy shirts for Geoff, but that would be okay because we thought he could just wear it with nothing else underneath. The only thing wrong with this one is that it is a little snug.

#2 For Geoff this is probably the winner! And then we don't have to worry about finding him jeans either!! He will have a whole navy outfit, and it actually fits him rather well.

And then for me. We really liked this one. The only thing is that it was rather expensive, so we wouldn't be able to buy anything to wear underneath. But i figure that would be okay since then Geoff and i would match a little more if he chose #1 with our skin colour.  ...Becasue skin colour is one of the options right?

Just let us know if you need to know where we got these fabulous outfits if you would like to go and buy one for yourself!

Crayon Art

So, have we all seen those fun melted crayon pictures on the internet? I have, and I love them! So I got this fantastic idea to try to make some for myself! 

These are some of the pictures of my little craft! I first made some for my Smyth babies. I want to make some for my Stone babies, but I have not yet figured out how they will take them to Turks and Caicos...

 So these are the 3 together. I took pictures off the internet and coloured them on the canvas with a Sharpie marker.

 This one is for my little Tessa

 This one is for Tayla

 And this one is for Tyson

 I then hot glue gunned all the crayons onto the canvas. Tayla's was the first one I did, and I thought it would be cute to have 3 bunches of crayons all mixed together.

Tyson's is supposed to look like the bike is riding in the rain, so I had no rhyme or reason and just glued random blues with some random colours mixed in there.

 But this is the canvas that I copied from online. The colours are organized more into a rainbow.

This was the end results of my crayon art! Again, Tayla's was my first one, so there were a couple things I learned from it. For example, not to use the blow dryer on high. That was a silly mistake... The crayons melted way to fast that way, and I couldn't keep up. But I do still love this one with all those colours.

Doesn't it look like he is riding in the rain? Haha.

 Tessa's. It was the last one I did, and has been nominated as many people's favourite. 

The three of them together. So cute I think.

Now I just need to finish the one that I have ready for my own home. I'm pretty excited about them, and that turned out so well. 

...take that pinterest...

Optometry

So I have decided... Going to further schooling past an undergrad, is totally overrated. Well... I guess I should wait until after doing it to see if I still agree... BUT as for now, it feels like way more stress than needed.
We have first started the process by applying to take the Optometry Admissions Test (OAT). Yes, you have to apply to take the test. Not only that, but it cost us $220US just to take the thing. Not horrible, people pay that to take tests all the time. But then we were looking into taking a prep class for it, and could only find an online thing through KAPLAN. Guess how much that was? $1400. Yes, to take a prep class. Is it worth it? We haven't decided yet...
Not only that, but we have been told that most people don't get accepted their first year of applying to schools, so there is more money that we have to waste just applying to a bunch of schools, twice maybe. And, then we will have to fly to the schools in order to do the interviews with the schools. Bah. All while being starving students.
So much stress...
Is it worth all of this to become an optometrist? Who knows people... who knows...


...some days you just need to complain...

Smith Photo Shoot

My girl Kari did a fun photo shoot for Geoff's and I one day. It was a fabulous time, and turned out some awesome pictures! 

Her blog is karijeannephotography.blogspot.ca if you want to go check things out.

I could only post my few favorite, but I loved them all! It was so hard to choose... 

Just love them!

Thank you Kari!

Oops

Soooo...

I feel sooo ridiculous...

BUT, I mean... I thought conference would be the first weekend of April, like it always is. And didn't even THINK to look at what weekend it actually was! I planned our fun weekend for the April 6th weekend... And conference is on March 31st/April 1st! Oh snap.

That is quite a mistake!! And I was rather sad about it. But I have had a couple days to let it soak in, and decide if we wanted to try and change our hotel to the real weekend, and have Geoff skip a class or two of school. But we decided to just leave it the way it is.

So now Geoff and I are going to Salt Lake for no real reason. Haha.