23rd first day of school!

It's our first day of Fall semester 2010. Ok, so our first day was a week ago, but still. Aaron's classes are pretty tough. He's taking Immunobiology, Pathophysiology, Physics 1 (For pharmacy school prereqs), and the upper level anatomy class. On top of that, he is the TA for 2 general chemistry labs. I haven't seen him much since school started. I am taking Stream ecology, Animal Anatomy and Physiology, Genetics, Evolution, horsemanship, and senior seminar.

Stream ecology wont be too challenging. I took limnology a few semesters ago. It is the study of lakes and their ecosystems. Every day we would learn a concept and my teacher would say, "And the same thing applies to streams, but brother Stricklan will get mad at me if I tell you about it." So needless to say, Stream Eco. will not be a complete challenge. Animal anatomy and physiology is interesting too. I took human anat. and phys. during the 7-week break. So, this class has been easy thus far. I almost hope this class will bring on a challenge. Genetics will be my most challenging class. Nuff said.

Evolution is really awesome so far. We've spent the 1st 3 days talking about the church's stand on evolution. It's been really cool. Basically, we've established that Adam IS our common ancestor. God created Adam and he WAS the FIRST human on the earth. MY theory is that the early hominids were "human-like" creatures that did not have agency, thus not human. But there is still much to be explored in this class. It's really cool to hear everyone's opinions and my teacher's opinion as well. It's important to have an open mind on such a sensitive subject.

Horsemanship is AWESOME! We've spent the 1st class period learning about how to gain trust and friendship with our horse. My horse thinks I'm boring. I'll have to work on that. the 2nd day, we were assigned horses, haltered them, brushed them, cleaned their hooves and took them in the arena and "played". My horse is really pushy and he keeps getting all up in my space no matter how much I push him away. He'll be a tough little cookie.

Senior seminar is in place of my internship. It's a 1 credit class, and I can't exactly fit it into my schedule this semester or next (or even last semester for that matter). So my teacher just added me in and is letting me take it online. I am basically going to write a lot of papers.

On top of ALL that, I am now a lab TA for the botany labs. There are 3 labs a week (about 7 hours a week) I sit in on the classes (about 3 hours a week) and I clean up the lab materials and set up lab. He also wants me to do a study group every week for an hour or so. Soooo I am the TA, the stockroom assistant, and the Tutor. It's fun and it will let me quit the testing center. FINALLY!!!!!!

Well that is our lives thus far. I'll post picctures of the JON SCHMIDT concert we went to as well as the ABBA-MANIA concert we will go to.

We love life, we love each other, and we love you!