School and Stuff

Here's whats going on around here. We are really excited for the impending vacation, and can't wait to see all our family/friends. School is winding down now... actually, we only have one more full week of school this semester. Yesterday I had a great day at school when my patient came for the final fitting of the transfemoral (below-knee) prosthesis I have been making for him. Everything in this project just clicked, and I had no problems at all. By the time I was done making all the alignment adjustments, he walked better with the prosthesis I made him than with the one his prosthetist made for him (and he said mine was more comfortable too). He wanted to keep the prosthesis, but since I am not yet a certified prosthetist, this would not be kosher. He let me shoot a little video of him walking. Unfortunately, it was the first video I had taken with my new phone that I intended to put online. I didn't know I needed to hold the phone sideways. So to enjoy this video, just tilt your head to the right as if you were eating a hard shell taco!



Now for Emily's question O' the week "What was your best Thanksgiving like? Where were you? What did you do?". I have been thinking about it for an hour or so now, and I can't come up with one Thanksgiving to talk about. Instead, I am going to tell you about what Thanksgiving was like growing up in my family. My mom's sister and her family (the Muhlestein's) would always celebrate Thanksgiving with our family. We would meet in Utah one year, and they would come to Wyoming the next. We would always get together a few days before Thanksgiving for the pre-holiday tailgate party (for lack of a better descriptor). We would always have a couple of huge puzzels and play games like Rummy, and Trivial Prisuit. Pie making was always on Wednesday, but a few of us older kids would make a huge no-bake cheesecake. The 4 of us would hide from our little brothers and just sit around with forks, eating the cheescake right out of the pan. Thanksgiving was always around 2 pm (ish) and after the naps, the men (and boys) would go shoot clay pidgeons at the shooting range. Leftovers, turkey sandwiches, turkey soup etc. would usually carry us through the weekend, and we would just continue to hang out, play games and what not. Thanksgiving rocks.
Branch

Catching up...

I know... it has been a few weeks since I have posted a blog. It seems like I was anti-blog after the competition ended the way it did. Maybe I was burned out. Anyhoo, im feeling better now and I have some stuff to share to catch up.
First off, I need to answer Emily's question of the week (last week) "describe your perfect day". The perfect day would start with Maya sleeping through the night until at least 8 or 8:30 am. Then pancakes for breakfast and then get ready for the day. We would then spend some time with my parents, brother, sister (and her family). And then go over to Emily's moms house for a while. I would then play 9 holes with Emily's dad (and her brother Seth, if he is in town) in the afternoon (I miss this), and have all-you-can-eat crab at the Jumbo Buffet in Salt Lake City. We would then go to a movie before going to bed. Ahhhhhh....
I decided we needed to get some pictures of Maya for Christmas ornaments. So we went to Wal-Mart for some cotton batting, and Emily made her a Santa hat. Here are a few of the pictures we took.
We have some good news for those who were hoping to see us at Christmas time... We had decided that with the fallen gas prices, we could afford to go home if we drove there. Emily got an email today from her sister, telling her about a great deal with Southwest airlines. They are offering 50% plane tickets going into /out of Salt Lake City Utah (which is where we fly through to go home). This deal ends tomorrow, so we cemented our plans and bought tickets today. YEAH!!!!!!
The last thing I wanted to post is a little video of Maya from earlier today. Emily was feeding her a little bit of applesauce and she kept making a cute pucker face. Here you go. Thanks for reading!

Sad... but thankful

We found out this morning that Himaya did not win the contest. She remains (in our opinion) the most kissable baby, but Eli Martin beat her out. He is a really cute kid, and I knew he would go far in the contest from the beginning. Congrats Eli... too bad for us though. We are now attempting to balance things out to decide if it may still be possible for us to go home to Wyoming for Christmas (at least gas is getting cheaper!) Thanks again to all who voted for her... we never could have made it as far as we did without your help.

FREEDOM!!!

Wow... the contest is officially over (as far as the voting is concerned anyway). It seems like the contest took my blog hostage, but I can now move on. We will find out tomorrow whether or not Himaya won -keep your fingers crossed.

On to the question of the week, "What is on your 'bucket list'?"
There are a lot of things I want to do before I kick the bucket, only some of which is likely to actually happen. Here goes:

• Skydiving (at least once)
• World travel (specifically China, Italy, Scotland, Egypt, Africa, and return to the Philippines)
• Invent something of consequence. I want a large population to want/buy whatever it is
• Open my own prosthetics & orthotics practice (after I get some experience)
• Learn to speak Spanish
• Get in shape... and I don't mean round
• Restore a classic car (Emily stole this one from me)
• Convince English teachers that most books do not have symbolism, and are in fact just a story
• Become a muti-millionaire, and use the money to help others
  
• Go body surfing for hours in Maui again (this time WITH sunscreen)

Im sure I could come up with more, but 10 seemed like a nice round number. There are a lot of thing that would have been included in this list 10 years ago, but I have been fortunate enough to have checked them off. What do you want to do before you go?

HOLY CRAP... SHE MADE THE FINAL ROUND!

Not that I doubted her ability to make it, I had just been trying to not get my hopes up. But she made it. PLEASE go vote for her each day. If you have more than one email address, erase the cookies between votes so you get more than one vote. Tell everyone you know to vote for Himaya, and tell them to tell everyone they know to vote for her too. This may seem over the top, but we would really like to be able to visit family for Christmas. Thank you all for your help so far, I appreciate it more than you will ever know. Have a great day, vote, and keep your finger crossed!
GO MAYA!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to tell you about our Halloween. Some of you know about some of our traditions, and you know that every year we dress up in costumes and go to dinner and a movie. This year, after Himaya made what we called her "monkey face" and after she started crawling, climbing and getting into everything, we decided she should be a monkey. Emily and I made some shirts reading "Hunsaker Zoo, Monkey Keeper" and "Our business is monkey business". We went to the theater in the mall, and watched Eagle Eye (which I recommend. It was pretty good). Then we ate at Chick-fil-a in the food court (which I also recommend, cause Chick-fil-a is delicious). About 50-60 people stopped us to tell us how she is just the cutest, and a few people told us that at-first-glance they thought we had a real monkey. Then we came home to put out our pumpkins, and prepare for trick-or-treaters that never showed up. Here are a few pictures. Hope your Halloween was as great as ours!

Branch