Living it up in New England

Hello Everyone from beautiful Maine--

I just finished my first exams in Physiology, Anatomy, Histology, Embryology, and Osteopathic Principles and it feels great. They weren't too bad. In Med school, well in most schools, you don't receive letter grades. You pass, high pass or you fail. I'm pretty sure I passed everything, and am hoping for high pass. Wynn was kind enough to take care of me all week while studying.

To celebrate...Saturday morning we woke up and drove to Manchester NH to attend a Barack Obama rally. The real deal. We saw and heard Barack Hussein Obama. It was amazing. It was good to hear him in person.

He talked about education...paying teachers more and getting more Americans into college. He talked about energy and oil, the fact that the US has an estimated 3% of the worlds oil (including ANWR) but consumes 25% so all this talk about independence from foreign oil is not possible, but alternative forms of energy are the answer. (Take a gander at Tom Friedman's new book if you have a doubt). He talked about how it is becoming a debate of personality rather than the issues..."They're going to talk about pigs, and they're going to talk about lipstick; they're going to talk about Paris Hilton, they're going to talk about Britney Spears. They will try to distort my record, and they will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats intend to do..."

(Some fellow supporters)



Last night we took a stroll through downtown Portland. It is a great downtown, right on the ocean. It's full of fun shops, old historic buildings, cobblestone streets, and last night a special treat--ocean fog. I bought Wynn some Scandinavian licorice (the salty potent kind) and some bubble tea and we just walked around for an hour or so. Wynn says it reminds her a lot of Denmark and Sweden.

We had stake conference today which was good because Wynn was able to make some delicious cinnamon rolls before church. Our stake president is a pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeon--seems like a great guy. For dinner, Wynn made some homemade pesto from our little herb garden which was scrum-diddily-umptious.

The weather has been great this week...its cooling off a bit and some of the trees are starting to change color, but the peak of fall foliage is still about a month away. We're heading up to Acadia this coming weekend for Wynn's b-day party to put our new tent to use, should be beautiful up there.

This is my favorite view from Hills Beach Road (100 yards down from where we live). I slow down on my bike every morning to take in the view. I often see white egrets, and an occasional great blue heron. This is just morning fog:


Here are some pics I thought quintessential to New England: