Indiana

So some of my friends and family have been asking what I have been doing the last few weeks. As most of you know, we move to different places in the summer for Dave's work, some are more exciting than others. :) This year we are in Indiana. Dave came out the end of April and then we both drove out to Indiana together the day after my brother's wedding.


There is not a ton of things to do in the city we live in but there are some things fairly close by, there is a beach for Lake Michigan about a 1/2 hour away, Chicago is 1 1/2 hours away, and Dave's family is about 2 hours away. The only problem is that Dave works Monday thru Thursday from noon-10:30 or so at night and Saturdays from 9:00-10:30 or so, which leaves me at home all the time. When I first got here 2 weeks ago I was so bored and felt so guilty for not being more productive since I never had time to breath the last little while. Well, that soon changed, I love being lazy!! So here are a few things I have done in my short time here.....

-Watched season 1 through 4 of Gossip Girl (Don't judge, it grew on me and is a good show. :) ) That took up a lot of my time, not sure what I will do now. I miss it!!

-Hung out with some of the other wives a few times.

-Made Sunday dinner. Dave suprised me and finished it and set the table so nice while I took a nap.
-Read a novel, "Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart"

-Drove around Michigan City on a Sunday

-Visited Dave's family for Father's day

-Walked a mile most mornings with Dave (that is a lot for me), and then read while Dave ran for 2 miles :)

-Updated my blog more in the last 2 weeks than in the last year

-Made dinner almost every night

-Slept

-Went to dinner with Dave's friends that he grew up with

-Ate at Gino's East-One of the best pizza places ever!

-Endured a night at Buffalo Wild Wings for the office's wing eating contest.... Dave ate 57 wings and then threw up..alot. It was sick. The next day he wanted to go back for wings... I really dislike this place. :) Dave's goal seems to be to get as messy as he can every year.


Things I am looking forward to doing this summer
-I leave to go to Hawaii tomorrow for a week with my grandma, cousin, and aunt
-Watch the broadway play Peter Pan on July 2nd with Dave's parents
-Go to the Taste of Chicago
-Go back to Utah from my sister Mckell's wedding
-Have my parents come out
-Go to the broadway West Side Story
-Go to some of the museums in Chicago
-Hopefully go to the Nauvoo pageant
-Finding out who wins on the Bachelorette :)

I think this summer will be really fun and relaxing. I may not be ready to go back to work in August!

Dallin and Amanda's wedding

Dave was able to fly in Friday morning for the wedding. His flight was supposed to get in at 9:45 and the wedding ceremony began at 10:30 at the Bountiful temple. I was so worried he wouldn't make it but his plane was 15 minutes early and we arrived at the temple with time to spare! The ceremony was very nice and Dallin and Amanda are so happy.

It took a bit for them to come out of the temple and it was very cold, so we took some pictures to keep us entertained and to try to be busy to keep warm.

Mindy, Oakland, Mom, me, and Mckell

Grams and I
Mckell, Mindy, and I
J, Dad, and Ryan having races. J was not super excited about being told what to do. :)

Racin'
The happy couple. (I can't believe this is the only pic I got of them the whole day!! I will have to steal some of Amanda's)
Me and my second grandma, Nola.
Whit and I
Uncle Dale was feeling left out!
My cute cousins Alexis and Ashlyn
Dave and I

I am so happy for Dallin and Amanda! It will be so fun having Amanda in the family.

Happenings in May

Dave left the end of April to work for the summer. I was lucky this year to have Mindy, Nate, and Oakland living with us to keep me busy. I also spent time catching up with friends. I am not the best at taking pictures, I really want to be better. I will just post the pictures I have.

I had some of my younger cousins over for our annual girls night and sleepover. We had a blast. They are such cute girls. We ate at the Yogurt Factory, played games, and watched a movie.

Mindy and Maddi

Me, Ashlyn, and Maddi playing Sorry
Oh ya, Nate hung out with us, ha ha. Not sure what he thought of our girl night! Nate, Mindy, and the 2 older girls played Apples to Apples.

Me and Maddi playing Clue
Maddi and Ashlyn.
Don't I have the cutest cousins ever!

Tif, Brit, Sarah, and I at a Mexican restaurant in Layton.
Once a month I get together for lunch with my best friends from high school. It has been so much fun. I really needed to get out and be social again. These girls are amazing and it is so fun!!

2 of my good friends from college got married this month. A few of the girls threw them a shower. It was so fun to get together and catch up on each others lives and play crazy games in a restaurant! I was so lucky to make and keep in contact with such good friends from college. It sure made going through the SPED program fun.

3 year anniversary

April 11th Dave and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary! Dave took me out to the Prairie Schooner for dinner. We had never been and loved the atmosphere




In the last 3 years...
I graduated from college and have taught for 2 years
Dave is about to graduate and apply for medical school
We have lived in Logan, Perry, Florida, New York, West Virginia, and Indiana.
We bought a house
Dave learned how to fix up a house
Been to Puerta Vallarta, Cancun, a Caribbean cruise, and Vegas
Drove from coast to coast
Survived! :)

It is crazy to think about the changes and things that have happened in the last 3 years, can't wait for all the years to come. Dave keeps me on my toes.

Yahoo article about St. Maarten's beach

I was looking on Yahoo today and they had an article and pictures of the beach I talked about in the post about our cruise. It shows better the planes landing. The waves are nonexistent which is crazy because they were so insane when we were there.

Hopefully this link works. It is pretty amazing! (Copy and paste this link)

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/photos/maho-beach-1308165446-slideshow/

Africa

Dave and his brother Dan went to Africa for a week in March to work in hospitals. It was a great experience for them. Dave felt awkward taking pictures of some of the poorer areas and things he describes in his emails but did get a few of the nicer areas.

This is the taxi boat they had to take from the airport to the city they were staying at. It was supposed to be a 30 minute ride but turned into over an hour because it broke down twice in the ocean as they were traveling.

Some of the beaches off of the coast.

Freetown, the first city they stayed in.



For work, many of the people just have these little stands they sell stuff out of.



Dave would write me emails almost every night so I've cut out a few of things from some of those letters and posted them here:

The first place we worked in was a government owned hospital. All the poor people go there when they need treatment and it was pretty bad. You walk in and its really dark, there's no lights on just whatever sunlight comes in through the few windows. There's a rickety desk just inside the door which goes right into a large room with a bunch of dirty beds and patients laying there. The hospital was very different than anything you'd see in the states. There was hardly any running water in a lot of it and the rooms were very tiny and dirty. The delivery room was smaller than our bedroom. it consisted of about 2 beds and a small end table and that was it. there was an operating room that was a little bigger and had a few lights and instruments. then there were a couple other patient rooms with just dirty beds all in a row and that's about it. So anyway, we went back and got our scrubs on and grabbed gloves and everything like that and went back to the hospital to start. They asked us what we wanted to do and we were like whatever you need us for the most. so they sent dan to help with the 5 and under (which was pretty much that front room) and the people who came in complaining of minor things. They sent me to the labor room though. that was where it got crazy. so there was this woman in there that was several hours away from giving birth and another woman that they were prepping for a procedure. Turns out she had an incomplete abortion that they were going to complete. so we all had to put on caps and masks and stuff and go into the OR and watch this procedure. Needless to say, it was very graphic and much more than anything I had any desire to see. i don't know if she had actually miscarried and that's what they call it or if she did the abortion herself and then had to go to the hospital to fix things, but it took a very strong stomach. anyway, after that there was pelvic exams and then more pregnant women with girl problems. i don't know how i got stuck with all the girl stuff today. dan's stuff wasn't nearly as crazy, the craziest thing they did was give a baby a spinal tap.

(This is a picture of the hospital)

anyway, after all that at the hospital, while we were waiting to get picked up, all these little kids would come up to us smiling and laughing but very timid, probably their first time seeing white people in person. they would get really close until we'd start talking to them and then they'd scream and laugh and run away and hide, and then come back a few minutes later and do the same thing. Sometimes a couple of them would get brave and sit on the bench we were waiting on next to us and then run away again. Dan and I were debating walking home so I went to a pay phone to call the driver to tell him if he hadn't already left to not worry about us. I went in the booth and all the kids crowded around and watched me. I was trying to put money into the slots but I guess it was for cards only so it didn't fit and I couldn't get it to work and they all just laughed hysterically at this dumb white guy trying to figure out a pay phone. It was pretty funny. we met up with the rest of the group at the hotel and then drove to some of the outskirts. then we went to eat at this cool place on the beach. the food was interesting. I thought i'd play it safe so I ordered a cheeseburger with fries. they brought out a mayo and swiss sandwich with about 5 fries between the meat and bun ha ha. not very yummy. So now I'm home and am eating pop tarts.

Today was another interesting day. We left in the morning to go to a village near Bo. It was pretty far away and we drove along these rugged dirt paths pretty much the whole way. It was super dusty and bumpy and the air conditioner would stop working randomly, but it was really interesting to pass through all the little villages. I thought Freetown was bad, but some of the places we passed were even worse. Many of the houses are just mud huts with straw for roofs that are falling apart. There’s just holes for windows and doors and they don’t have electricity or plumbing. The people carry buckets and jugs of water on their heads. In the more populated villages sometimes they’d have electricity in a couple of the shacks but that was about it. Sometimes we’d stop to stretch for a minute or to try and find a place that had cold drinks for sale, and again, everyone was just fascinated to see white people. They all rush up to the cars too and try to sell bananas or coconuts or whatever they have. Its really sad too because some people will also just beg you for money. Even when we were driving down the road, some kids would yell out to the car and the escorts would throw their unfinished bottles of water out the window onto the side of the road and the kids would run like crazy to them and snatch them up.

When we got to the village, Dan and I were taken to the local hospital. I was very surprised that it was so much nicer than the one in Freetown. Still very much third world and not good by any means, but better than the last at least. It was also much bigger and wasn’t as dark and dreary and the people seemed to be in better spirits. They also had bigger rooms, even though they were still just rooms lined up with dirty beds with sick people in them. There was even a maternity ward rather than just a two-bed delivery room. There was quite a few new-born babies in there and several sets of twins. Anyway, we met with a bunch of doctors and staff members and met with a few of the patients briefly, but didn’t get to do much there because by that time the place was shutting down. Its weird, and it was kind of the same at Freetown, but the hospitals are open from about 7-4 usually and after that they just close everything and if there’s a problem it has to wait until the next day. I’m sure they probably keep a nurse or 2 there with the patients but not much happens there at all after 4. So Danny and I are actually gonna go back tomorrow at 7 and just work there all day. It should be pretty good, they have an appendectomy and a hernia surgery scheduled for tomorrow so hopefully we can assist with that.

After the hospital we started heading to the village that we’re staying in tonight and grabbed some African food on the way there. I had goat meat soup and rice. I pretty much just ate the rice, the goat meat was disgusting. People sell monkey meat here too, I just might have to try that while I’m here. We went to the other village a bit away but a little closer to Bo. It is very very small with this big lodge in the middle that is like condos. It was actually kind of nice (by comparison), like the one we were in in Freetown. This one even has a little water heater in each room so that there are hot showers which was very nice for a change. There’s also a little restaurant area at the lodge where we ate at. They killed a bunch of chickens and grilled them up and made us french fries. We ate and now its about 10:15 so I’m having to go to bed now because we’re getting up at 5 tomorrow to go to the hospital. Everyone is going back to Freetown tomorrow evening but Dan and I may stay another day up here if the work at the hospital is good. I guess we could go back to Freetown but I don’t really want to go back to that other hospital and finding a new one would be kind of a pain. So we’ll see.

Today was pretty cool. we got up at 5 this morning and had some breakfast and left Tyama (not sure how its spelled) and headed to the village I told you about yesterday (myomba). We got to the hospital and they put Dan in the pediatric ward and me in the male ward. We mostly spent the morning taking patients' vitals (blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, etc.) looking over their charts and treatment plans. Its really weird, if a patient has a temperature or cough, they immediately assume malaria and are usually correct. Same for if a patient comes in with trouble breathing or chest pains, its usually pneumonia. It was fun working there but with the accent and the different dialect it is super hard to understand what the patients and other doctors or nurses are saying. Everybody is very friendly though. After that they had us both go work with the babies. They basically just had a flow chart of questions for us to ask the mothers and things to check on the baby and it narrowed it down to a couple different things but mostly malaria and pneumonia again. Then we'd have to write everything in their charts and prescribe a certain medication based on what they had and their age and stuff. After that we got to watch 3 surgeries in a row. They let us stand right there at the operating table and watch the entire things, it was really cool. The first one was a girl that needed an appendectomy and the next 2 were guys with inguinal hernias. It was sweet. After the surgeries we headed back to Freetown.On the way home we made a few stops in some of the really rural villages cuz the driver had few things he needed to buy. Whenever we'd stop the people would see white people in the car and run up to the windows and just stare at us, not even trying to hide it and not really saying anything, just surrounding the car with their fruit baskets on their heads and just standing as close to the car as they could and staring ha ha.

Reeder and Neumann family pictures

Before Christmas my parents had our family pics taken. I think they turned out so cute. I love my family!!

Dave and I
My siblings. Dallin, me, Mindy, and Mckell
My parents and us kids
The whole famdamily. Amanda, Dallin, Dave, Me, Nate, Oakland, Mindy, Mckell, Dad, Jarrett, and Mom
After Christmas when we were in Chicago we got family pics. This is a rare occasion to have all the kids together so we took advantage of it.
Dave and his familyCory, Dave, me, Dan, Kierstin, Phillip, mom, dad, Dalton, James, and LydiaUs and Dave's dog Otis.....

Christmas- Cruise and Chicago

For Christmas this year we went on a cruise with Dave's parents and brothers. It was different to not have a traditional Christmas but it was a lot of fun. We took off out of Florida and went to the Princess Cays, Bahamas, St. Maarten, St. Thomas, and The Grand Turks. It was the first cruise I have ever been on. The food was AMAZING and the ship was beautiful. We did have some pretty high waves for a few days and I got a little sea sick but I have forgotten about that now and am ready for my next cruise!! :)

We spent 3 days in Florida before our cruise. We had a lot of fun eating at some of our favorite restaurants from when we lived there a few summers ago. There are so many yummy places there! It was pretty chilly out but we were able to hang out at the beach a few of the days.

(Not sure why it is underlining now, oh well) There wasn't a port in the Bahamas where we went so the cruise ship stayed a bit from shore and we took a small boat to the island....let me just say this was freaky!! Dave thought it was so fun of course.

The Princess Cays, Bahamas. The Princess cruise line owns this island. There wasn't any shopping or anything but the beach was pretty and relaxing. The ship catered a BBQ on the beach so it was free and yummy!

This was my favorite thing to do in the evenings, "Movies Under the Stars." It was on the top level of the ship and you could just watch it under the stars. They had different movies playing each night. Some were lame but who cares! The pizza and ice cream shop was right around the corner, how much better can that get!!
Getting ready for the movie to start, I was already done with my ice cream and ready for another!

Formal night
Dave's parents, my awesome in-laws!

This is in St. Maarten's. We heard about this beach and thought we would try it out. We are standing at the top of the beach which is not too long before you get to the ocean. Right behind us is a 2 lane road and behind the fence is the airport. We saw this sign and thought it was funny and got a picture by it... well, little did we know that there was a good reason for this sign. When the big jets are about to take off they turn right by this fence and when they gun the engine, the force is sooo powerful and loud. When the first one took off I don't think anyone knew what to expect, little kids were blown into the ocean (at the beach these waves were huge, probably 7 feet or so high right when they hit the sand, and very powerful. Dave's brother Danny has messed up his back there and there isn't anything the doctors can do for him), the powerful waves were pushed back, and someone held on the the fence for dear life. I haven't ever seen anything like it. Of course the guys thought it was the coolest thing ever!

Dave's parents rented these dune buggies as our Christmas present to explore St. Maarten. It was a lot of fun.
In St. Thomas we took a tour and this is one of the stops.
Dan and CoryAfter our cruise we spent a few days in Chicago. This is Dave and Opa.
Dave and Oma. I love Oma and Opa!!
I had a princess party with Dave's mom, sister, and niece Lydia.
Lydia knows all the princess rules and made sure we did things correctly. We dressed up, read a princess book, frosted cupcakes and drank rootbeer like princesses. I am lucky to have married into such an amazing family who accepts me and is so much fun to be around!