Is there a way to have mysql store dates as MM/DD/YYYY instead of YYYY-MM-DD?

You are confusing the way that dates display with the way that they are stored. yyyy-mm-dd is closer to how they are stored than mm/dd/yyyy is, but only a little bit. You probably need to review the Date and Time Functions, specifically the DATE_FORMAT function to see how to get what you'd like.

-PatP