New Blog...

Hey everyone,

I am setting up a new blog with me and Michael together. Here is the link!

http://mikeandmelissajohnson.blogspot.com/2010/11/best-things-in-life-are-free.html

Something Funny...

During this super busy week of two exams and a ortho project due I found soemthing that made me laugh when I grabbed a copy of the Daily Trojan (USC's school newspaper).

 

It was listed that the female driver hit the accelerator instead of the break....um yeah she it is hard enough to make it over the concrete barrier (you can see near the back tire). I guess the fence didn't help much either. ha ha ha. So sad by so funny.

Update: We are married.

Michael and I were married August 20th 2010 in the Salt Lake Temple. After a quick honeymoon in Seattle we made it back to Los Angeles just in time for me to start up dental school again. 

Now we have spent the last month and 16 days setting up house (thanks to all the giftcards and wedding gifts) and keeping pace with dental school and medical school applications. 

Michael's most recent endeavor has been to teach me how to drive his stick shift mini cooper. We live right next to a free school shuttle, and two cars are expensive. So, we are getting rid of my car and keeping his....this means I finally have to really learn how to drive a stick shift. Our most recent rules: Melissa will not drive during rush hour or at night. So far that has limited me to driving to institute, church, school (sometimes) and a store (if we go early enough in the day). I have stopped crying when I become overwhelmed and have less freak outs. I think I might one day get the hang of this. Well, some fun posts coming soon-just thought I would catch everyone up :)

Ta ta for now.

Time Lines

In 2/12 hours I will be taking my Head and Neck Anatomy midterm

In 4 days I will be taking an Amalgam midterm.

In 6 days Michael and I will start are lease on our future apartment.

In 11 days Michael will move out to Los Angeles.

In 21 days I will start finals week.

In 25 days I will officially have finished my freshman year of dental school.

In 32 days Michael and I will be married in the Salt Lake Temple.

I can't wait for the start of a new adventure with my sweetheart.

Ta ta for now.

Midterms & Michael

So I just noticed that I had posted a title of my last post and no commentary! Wow-midterms must have racked my brain ha ha ha. Here was my set up for my occlusion midterm. Yes that is an artificial mouth (typodont) on my text book. During midterms week I was so lost in preparing and taking my exams that one night I was nearing my door and started pushing the 'unlock' button on my car keys...it took me a while to realize that my car keys infact would not unlock my front door no matter how many times I pushed that button. Luckily no one else was in the hallway.

For my birthday my grandma came down and took Michael and me to Disneyland. If anyone knows my Grandma you'll know that her favorite part of any trip is pictures! Love her. Here are some of our favorites.

I was so excited to see Minnie! I think Minnie was more interested in Michael. To the right is what happens when Michael tries PDA in the line to the Peter Pan ride ha ha ha. I mostly just think Michael is adorable.

Some of our final moments with grandma where last minute pictures. You can't miss the institute Melissa was blessed in. Good thing it was right down the street from my dental school. We bought these glasses on a trip out at Venice Beach. Michael loves his and wears them all the time like they are a perscription. I've decided I only whip mine out on special occasions ha ha ha. I'll stick with the contacts. I hope to post more soon.

Ta ta for now.

Engagement Photos

So I have a lot to catch up on. I finally bought a car back in February with the bonus I got with the military. I than got in a car crash 30 days later and totaled my 2009 mazda 3 :(

I went home for break just a week after my wreck, found out that my car was totaled and was reimbursed my the insurance company. Amazingly, I got $300 more than what I paid for the car even after the deductible ha ha. So Michael's dad was kind enough to lend my an extra car he had, so I could have a little more time to reevaluate my car situation. So I am now the proud driver of a hunter green boneville. Oh yes my friends I can sit six seat-belted people in my sedan. Ha ha ha. Hey I'm grateful I'm not down here without a car.

So as you all figured out I am back in Los Angeles going to school starting in on my sophomore perio block and restorations classes! I'm so excited to get started into some real dental work. At least on back mouths with rubber cheeks and extracted teeth for now ;)

But, the most exciting part was that I got my engagement photos! Here are a few of them, most of my favorites are when we aren't looking at the camera. I really like my photographer, Jessica Kettle (Jenni thanks for the suggestion). Her style is great!

If you are interested in seeing all our shots send me an e-mail and I'll forward you the link!

Ta ta for now!

I'm ENGAGED!

Dearest Married Friends!

I am engaged! Michael proposed on Easter Sunday with the cutest Easter basket!

[Pictures can't upload right now I will try again later!]

In it were objects representing our past year dating! We had Kung Fu Panda-the first night we hung out together. A yoga DVD representing our friendship blossoming in our yoga class at BYU. The eight ball-our first date going to play pool. T-shirts representing a date where we made matching shirts and then went to our college graduation party together. Three CDs (Margo and the Nuclear So and So's, Iron and Wine, and Manchester Orchestra) concerts we went to. Two symphony bars representing the symphony I took him to, floaty-our multiple trips down to California, sizzors ( He is know giving me full control of his hair!) and down at the bottom of the basket was a little box with my ring! It was so cute. He is such a sweetheart and I love him to pieces :)

Pretty Little Things

So I have been puttering around etsy and other blogs and I have found so many pretty little things that I thought I would share. Being a dancer in my younger years I have still maintained my love of the tutu. I still want to wear one.

I have had a recent obsession with clutches since I bought mine last semester for $12 at Nordstom (steal of a deal I should have bought 2) Isn't this so romantic! I love.

I also greatly appreciate the beauty in Jcrew's recent homepage. Love the wild flowers surrounding this model.
Love the pinks and reds with these blue plates.
SO Love the printed table swatch below these blue vases and pink flowers.
/My all time favorite blouse. So flowy and romantic. I found this randomly while looking for a hair cut. Love Keira, love her blouse more.
Well those are just a few pretty things I have found.

Ta ta for now.

A Lovely Weekend and My Hill billy cast

Midterms were last week and after three horrendous days I finished them up on Wednesday in time to go get Michael from the airport. We borrowed his brothers car and drove down to Riverside to purchase me a car! Ah! Finally, I have a car. It is wonderful. I got a great deal on a Mazda 3 (2009) with 20,000 miles on it. Hertz is selling some of their cars. I got my little red mazda for $2,000 below Kelly blue book. Couldn't be more excited about that!

Michael and I had a weekend with a car. It was great. We went to Venice Beach and flew a kite, went through the Museum of Art in downtown LA, caught Alice in Wonderland at LA Live, and enjoyed kabobs in Little Tokyo, toured the UCLA Medical Campus, and saw Elder Anderson speak! It was so great to have him down here.

Well, I sent him back on Sunday-I got to get back to work ha ha. Today in lab we had to turn in our cast (a ceramic model of a mouth) with the wax ups of # 7, 14 and 30. Well right before class started I dropped my cast and knocked its central, lateral and canine out! (Atleast they weren't any of the teeth I had waxed up). When my professor came to check off my work I had only managed to repair the damage to the central and lateral teeth. I handed over my "hill billy" cast with an apology. He laughed that I called it a hill billy and checked off my work. Phew-good thing that wasn't a patient right?

Ta ta for now

Valentines Day

I have always loved and celebrated Valentines whether I had a boyfriend or not. It might have had to do with the fact that for many years my favorite color was pink, I have a deep love for flowers and chocolate, and I love making valentines (or buying them Papyrus anyone) with lots of sparkles! But this year was I think the best Valentines day I have ever had! I got to celebrate with my love! I can't imagine loving someone more than I love Michael.

I flew into Utah to celebrate the long weekend with him and my family. On Saturday night we had our own little Valentines celebration. Both of us our lovers of sushi so that had to be the main course of the evening but their was a delightful twist! Michael had painted a sushi plate like a checker board in a ceramic class forever ago-so we played sushi checkers! Michael's spider rolls and spicy tuna rolls against my california rolls and citrus rolls.

It was so much fun-admittedly we only played one game-we ate all the ones we jumped but it was a super fun way to enjoy sushi. Then Michael surprised me with a delightful box of chocolate and the beautiful flower ring up top! Its a flower and sparkly all at the same time! I love it. I found it at Zales back in November and mentioned that I really liked it. He remembered and got it for me for Valentines day! Isn't he the sweetest! I felt really dumb when he opened his gift to find his favorite movie (Big Fish) and a couple other fun little things. He was so tickled that I remembered his favorite movie (and that he had lost his copy). We just had to sit right down and watch it right then. Ha ha ha. I love my boyfriend he is so sweet!

Ta ta for now,

Melissa

Three Day Weekends and 35 million dollars

This last weekend we got Martin Luther King Jr. day off of school. To celebrate, a couple dental students and I went up to St. George (one of the dental students parents live there). We spent the weekend repelling and took a hike in Zions National Park. We just did a small hike called Emerald Pools. It was snowy, and raining, and we loved every minute

We arrived back early Tuesday morning in time to hit up class. Whew-not much sleep that weekend but totally worth it, espcially when Michael came and joined us on Monday for hiking!

Yesterday (wednesday). Dean Sadan (dean of the dental school), closed down all classes and had us attend a special event. All students had been guessing over the past 2 weeks what would be so important as to cancel classes. Some of the speculations were announcing the renovation of our clinic (which will be done when I hit the clinic floor! Yiphee!), announcing a new curriculum (which is going to be implemented next fall) or a large donation. Well-it was the last. A wealthy man named Herman Ostrow graduated from USC School of Dentistry in 1945. After practicing for 17 years he stepped into real estate and construction-making big money. He donated 35 million dollars to my school yesterday and so now we are known as the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry at USC.

Christmas Time

Hello Everyone,

So I successfully finished my first semester in dental school on December 11th and was out on the 12th to Utah! I got to spend a wonderful time with my friends, family and....fia-ha ha ha jk boyfriend Michael. Some of the highlights included attending New Moon with my mother, younger sister, Michael and Matthew (18 year old brother). Matthew wanted to go only so he could squeal as loud as he could when he saw a half naked Jacob. Ha ha ha he and Michael didn't disappoint when Jacob came on screen. I think they were the most excited little girls. But my favorite part of New Moon was when Jacob (werewolf) runs up the side of Bella's house, jumps on a tree and then through her window. As he lands on her floor Ulia without realizing is says out loud, "Parkour BABY!" AH ha ha ha ha. Everyone around us started laughing. Love watching movies with that girl.

I also enjoyed spending Christmas morning with Michael's family. They have this insane tradition that the first kid to get up insanely early (no alarm clocks allowed) wakes the rest, and then they all jump on mom and dad's bed wake them and go open presents. I thought early meant like 8 and I was nervous because we had to be back in Farmington at 9am to talk to my brother in Brazil. Michael assured me we would be fine. At 5:17am I woke up to Michael coming into the guest room says, "It's Christmas morning sweetie!"

"What time is it?"

"......5:18am"

"WHAT! You woke up this early on your own?"

"C'mon baby lets go get everyone else up."

It took some serious coaxing to get me out of that bed at 5:18am, I think he ended up coming up to the side of the bed and picking me up out of it. Next, he ran upstairs and jumped on his sisters bed, stole his other sisters comforter, and made a enough racket to wake up his brother. Love is child like heart ha ha ha. Best part. They were all conspiring how they were going to wake up mom and dad, while Angelea (his sister) yelled MOM incessantly. Sis. Johnson finally came out of her room in her pjs, squinting at the light. Her husband followed, fully dressed in slacks and a button up shirts! Ha ha ha ha. It was so funny to see. Anyway-I'm back in the land of the temperate climates. Starting school again tomorrow. Hope everyone is doing well. I enjoy reading about all your lives girls.

Ta ta for Now