Scott's Magic Tricks

"Want to see a magic trick?"

"Say what?"

"Do you want to see my new magic trick?" Scott asked as I was chatting poolside with my parents at their new home in Medford.

" Of course I do, hon. Show me your magic trick." Sometimes I feel like my mothering skills are already in use.

He showed it to me, just as he did in the video below, and then on the ploy that I wanted to record it for his nieces and nefews, I asked him to do it again on video.




Don't you love how enthusastic my parents are about my blog? The kiddos in the video are friends from church. You can also hear that my mom was Scott's biggest fan, though the kids did give his dive an 8 out of 10 finger rating.

Oh, but then Scott discovered he knows TWO diving magic tricks! The second one is way more complicated and hilarious because of Scott's t-rex arm swinging.

Med School Update: Summer Shadowing

Before school let out in June, Scott and I had researched summer opportunities to build on his first year of courses. Lucky for Scott I am playing the role of provider, working full-time, which gives him the freedom to spend his summer volunteering or shadowing to make his free time more meaningful. Scott applied for the Oregon SEARCH program, but found out quickly that we would not get a response from their HR department who were all on vacation. Also lucky for Scott, we have a myriad medical connections. Friends and family provided recommendations of local doctors who would be more than willing to have a medical student shadow their practice.

So Scott has spent the last three weeks in Medford with my family having an amazing time. Besides visiting with his favorite in-laws by their home pool, Scott has shadowed two family doctors (one DO and one MD), one pediatrician (MD), and one physiatrist (DO). In addition to shadowing regular check-ups and physicals when permitted, Scott conducted a patient history solo, assisted with a disgruntled patient, vasectomy, and circumcision.

When he wasn't shadowing doctors, Scott was studying for boards next year with this book. He also played plenty of basketball and even claims to have read a non-medically themed book! It is now safe to say that Scott has had a productive summer.

Where Do Sponsors Come From?

I watched this video today on NASA's Atronomy Picture of the Day website with people dancing all around the world with a man named Matt. NASA's site had a direct link to Matt's blog/webpage talking about how he has made a living traveling around the world dancing. Now, I'm not talking about professional, company-type dancing. I'm talking random hoe down moves with some basic choreography at times.

There has to be a secret to getting amazing opportunities like this! Oh, right... it's called YouTube, which is fairly unpredictable. You can read about Matt's spontaneous YouTube success and eventual corporate sponsorship on his "About" page. The video below describes how he was able to coordinate so many visits and crowds of enthusiastic dancers in his most recent video sensation.


Just to be clear, MY dance moves and world traveling may also be sponsored with the right offer.

Gathering Together Farm - Philomath

I've wanted to visit Gathering Together Farm since a colleague recommended it last summer. I LOVE the concept of farm to table, and that is exactly what Gathering Together is - a farm and restaurant. In fact, they even have their fresh produce for sale inside.

The Gathering Together Farm Restaurant is only open for lunch on week days. So I pulled Morgan along with me for a summer lunch. The restaurant was really busy, as evident by the fact that they asked us if we had a reservation when we arrived. We had planned to take our lunch to go anyway, which I think is a bit unorthodox to ask for from a farm to fork establishment. They obliged, nonetheless.

Morgan and I decided to share a margherita pizza. At the counter where we order our pizza, we noticed a case of their fresh baked pastries, including these potato donuts. Of course we chose chocolate glaze and it was so lovely! The perfect finish too after our pizza lunch.

While we waited, we decided to take a seat inside. It was refreshing to sit next to the produce area and take in the smells of freshly picked herbs and veggies. We were hoping that they would have berries we could purchase, since Oregon is berry country. Gathering Together did have some strawberries for purchase, but the only other fruit we saw for sale that day was pears. According to their blog, Gathering Together grows berries. So we'll just have to keep an eye on their weekly menu or farmstand reports to see if we can grab some before they fly off the shelves.

The pizza was a bit small for sharing, but it actually turned out to be the perfect size lunch for us (including our dessert, of course). I really enjoyed my lunch and am anxious to take my family to Gathering Together Farm, as I know they would really enjoy the gourmet farm atmosphere and eats.

No Hats for Scott

Scott has an obsession withs hats! All sorts of hats. He loves to try hats on whenever we are shopping for clothes. Fedoras, newsie caps, beach hats, stylish twennie caps... the list goes on. He likes them al so much, and he thinks he looks good in them. That thought may also come from the fact that he receives a lot of compliments on his hats.

Personally I don't think his head is made for anything but a baseball cap, and I especially like it when the cap is backwards (sorry, Papa Bukey!). So when people give my husband a present like this one above, and then someone else compliments it as "the best barbecuing hat ever", I find that I have less power to keep any kind of hat out of his closet.

If anyone should be utilizing those hats, it's obviously me!

Pinteresting Weekend

I LOVE Pinterest! I've tracked favorite links on the internet for as long as I've had email. Pinterest should receive an award for organizing my links with photos! Every good idea some else had that I want to copy is so much easier to find when on my Pinterest boards.

It's not unusual for me to try out one of my favorite Pinterest finds from a week of browsing on that coming Saturday. This weekend I tried out a few, but these Smores brownies were the most photogenic.

Uh yeah - they are as fattening and delectable as they look. Do you see the graham cracker crust? Can you tell that the brownie center is completely from scratch, requiring me to melt chocolate in buttery goodness? Probably not, because those crispity marshmallows are so flirtatious!

Try making these for a girls night, and maybe you'll be as lucky as me and it will only end up being a party of two. I'll either be ten pounds fatter by tomorrow, or need to find hungry friends.

A Whole Family Vacation

Phew! We just returned from a most fabulous family vacation! I've wanted to visit the Chandlers (Scott's older brother and his awesome family) in Visalia, California for awhile. They live on a garden of eatin' property and they are so much fun to be around.  So Scott and I had penciled in our calendars a trip to visit the Fresno area around the 4th of July. Somehow everyone of Scott's family members (minus Steve-o who was busy advertising himself for a career, excuse granted) decided Independence Day was also a good time for them to travel to Visalia. Oh! And did I mention that most of my family happened to be there as well. Coincidence? No. We are the favorites! Or maybe Steve Chandler is the favorite, even with my family. It's a possibility.

In any case we had so much fun! The last time I saw my cutie nieces was New Years Day 2011, so they were more grown up and sassy than I remembered. Meghan is so talented and obedient. Mackenzie is kind and a chatter box. And Oh, Casey! She has so much energy, sometimes you can't channel it all!

I loved seeing my brother and his wife again, as well. It was especially neat seeing the amazing parents they have become! I didn't know Matt paid attention in science classes! He could answer every one of the girls questions about why the sky was blue, bubbles are round, and mountains are cold even though they are closer to the sun. Annie chimed into the conversation with her mad home decorating/DIY skills. That girl is impressive!

Adorable! How we managed to not take one picture of swimming, playing, or telling stories with these little sun kissed chicas during our time together blows my mind! Good thing Annie always has excellent pictures to spare like this one.

I wised up and brought my camera out for some Chandler annual family video material.







Luckily when I add that slip and slide video to the Christmas DVD it wont have any sound, so my cackle is only documented here. It's weird, I know! Scott did ask me several times if I wanted a picture taken of myself, but I'm counting on Sara to make my bad hair days look good with digital film magic.

Nice knowing you vacation! I'll miss the warm sun on my face, family stories told in person, giggles all around, and copious amounts of delicious food. Now its back to the  9-to-5 grind!

Brew Station - Corvallis

Brew Station was recommended to me last summer when I first began working on the Oregon State campus. I was told all their food was made from scratch daily and was delicious. As I am neither a coffee nor alcohol consumer, I ignored comments that involved beer, beans, or micro, and didn't end up visiting the Brew Station until this Spring.

You might notice that the Brew Station shares this lovely yellow rambler (located across the street from the current College of Business building on campus) with a tanning salon. Yes, the smell of coconut tanning oil can be distracting when you are eating a delicious bacon cheese burger. Though, the smell along with the constant drip of rain outside, made me dream of tanning beds and crazy eye goggles. Probably intentional placement from their marketing peeps.

Everything was delicious, tasted homemade, and priced resonably, which makes the Brew Station a great option for a quick bite when running to or from campus. Not to mention there plethora of options for eccentric people watching, which is always fun!

*The Brew Station closed in 2013.

Goodness in the World

What?!
You've seen this already?
Too bad!

It's a fantastic example of awesome advertising trying to promote corporate social responsibility.... or maybe just worldwide personal responsibility.

Happy Independence Day!

Big River - Corvallis

Two months ago I took my friend to Big River for a birthday lunch celebration. Big River in Corvallis has a $10, three-course lunch special, which sounded perfectly fancy and delicious.

Morgan and I both chose to have a salad as our first course, mini pizza as entree, and brownie for dessert. Our waiter brought out warm bread and olive oil for us to snack on as we waited, which saved the day, as the service was really slow for a practically empty dining area and business lunch hour.

Not as fancy as the three-course French meal I had imagined, but still very tasty.