Summer Happenings

This week has been full of sleeping late, watching movies, hanging out with friends, and trying to keep my parents from crying about Kacie moving. It's hard work :)

Daniel and I took a little vacation to NW Arkansas to visit family and friends. It was semi-relaxing, and a lot of fun! We got to see a dear friend for the first time in a LONG time, spend some time in the sun on the lake, drive around in a super cool car, and hang out with college friends that deserted us for NW Arkansas. (We are still a little bitter that so many of our friends moved).

I have been enjoying my 2 weeks as a stay-at-home-wife. Don't call me crazy, please. The rest of this year has been so full of studying that I rush around in "maintenance" mode when it comes to house stuff. But for the last 2 weeks I have been able to keep up with cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, weeding the flower beds- ya know.

We have also been doing a lot of walking together. Daniel doesn't particularly like walking, but I do (and I need the exercise!) so he goes anyway :)

We painted the front door red- and the shutters get painted black-ish tomorrow. I liked the green, but since the new roof is gray it just didn't work. Thus the red.

Now, the BIG thing in my life- we bought a new camera!!!! It's a really big deal for me since I haven't ever had a really nice camera. We have been saving up for it for awhile now, and I kind of wanted a Nikon d5000 but it was more than we were going to spend so I had my mind set on a d3000 (tmi, I know). We WERE NOT going to get it until we had all of the money for it. Anyway, yesterday morning we woke up and he told me to hurry up and get ready because he had a surprise for me :) He drove me to Bedford camera in LR and we looked at a few cameras and he first surprised me by telling me we were going home with one THAT DAY! I thought it was going to be at least 2 more weeks. I finally decided on the d3000. About that time, the salesman pulled out the fancy-schmancy d5000 from behind the counter- already bought and paid for with "Beal" on the side. My sneaky husband had bought it in advance. Is he amazing or what?

No photo labels today- just a few snapshots from this week. Part are from the old camera, and part are form the new. I think it is pretty obvious which ones are from the new one.... :D

Free Time!

I have been out of school for 8 days now- most of which were spent following my sister Kacie around in preparation for her wedding. We did bridal portraits, hair, nails, entertained lots of family, ate lunch, made my mom cry- ya know, the usual wedding stuff.

But since I haven't blogged in awhile, I have a LOT to catch up on!

During the last week of school I did a health fair at a nearby elementary school. I focused on convincing the kids to never ever smoke. We showed statistics of what they could buy if they weren't buying cigarettes (i.e- 10 Wii systems a year...), showed nasty pictures of lung and mouth and throat cancer, and even had REAL SMOKER lungs (set in plastic) for them to see!!!! How cool is that?

May 8 was Kacie's graduation

I think my Dad's glasses look really funny in that picture.

May 9 was mother's Day AND our anniversary...I already blogged about that, but here is our annual "Mother & Daughters" picture.

School wrapped up on May 14 with a HORRENDOUS neuroscience exam. I don't have my grades yet, but I have had an entire week to become very indifferent. I know I passed, and that

is what matters. At this point, I really don't care if it is an A, B, or C

We saw our dear friend Cara get married on May 14, also... and don't have pictures. I am really, really bad at remembering my camera. I'm a work in progress.

I hosted a baby shower for a friend in NW Arkansas on May 15. And on May 15 I decided that married girls without babies SHOULD NOT EVEN BE ALLOWED to go to baby showers. It's for the same reason that you don't take children to pet stores. And no, I am not comparing babies to puppies. I think you all understand.

So wedding weekend was great...and insane...and exhausting. However, Kacie and Michael are married and in Cancun for the next 6 days :) Mom and Dad are home alone crying about not having to turn the air down and stuff like that, and Daniel and I are enjoying a clean and quiet house.

Here are a few wedding reception photos- we don't really have any of the wedding itself yet.

Cutting the cake...

Don't they look beautiful? Her dress was just made for her :) My friend Cara (the one who got married a whole 7 days before Kacie) made that stunning cake.

Also, you should know that Kacie borrowed my necklace. (It's a "sister rule" that when one of us borrows something from the other one, that it must be acknowledged as the rightful owner's property.)

My dad eating the cake... (probably my favorite picture of the entire wedding). He says that he LOVES wedding cake, but we will see how he feels about it after he eat the leftover bottom layer over the next 2 weeks.

The rest of the menu included some amazing spring rolls, fruit kabobs, teriyaki beef skewers, crab rangoon, and sushi! We had a lot of leftover sushi, so I ate it the next day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I am sushi-ed out.

The Father-Daughter Dance was to "Kung-Fu Fighting", which is VERY appropriate if you know my dad and sister. They even choreographed it!

Dancing with Dad

Kacie and Michael leaving

The next day my piano students gave a lovely recital pieces by Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, and Scarlatti. I am always so pleased with my students' effort.

And now, I start my LAST EVER summer vacation! I made a to-do list a month ago, but can't find it now. I guess that means that I don't have to do anything:)

Anniversary... and a Glimpse of the First Year

Today is our 1st wedding anniversary, and I can't believe it has been an entire year since our wedding! I will be honest- there were some adjustments and compromises that we both had to make, and there have been a few days when I wanted to shoot darts out of my eyes in his general direction, but this has definitely been the most wonderful, exciting year of my life. Daniel is THE most patient, even-tempered, thoughtful man I have ever met, and I am so blessed to be married to him.

One year ago today...

A few days later, we left for our honeymoon to Jamaica, where we sat around on a beach and I gained 5 pounds that I think I will NEVER again be able to lose. (We also kayaked, snorkeled, and he tried to wind surf)

Then, after a summer of hard work we got to spend a few days exploring

Chicago!

A few more days later med school started- and our lives were never the same again...

In December, Daniel graduated

.... and then started right back to school.

This was our first (married) Christmas. He got me a pair of super cute cowboy boots (which I am not wearing in this picture because he hadn't given them to me yet) and I got him a drill press. I don't have a clue what it does, but he had been wanting it for a LONG time.

It snowed so much that we BOTH got a snow day (he got several, actually), so we headed out to mom and dad's to abuse the four-wheelers.

We had SO much fun that day in the snow that we decided we wanted to go snowskiing, so over spring break we went to Red River, NM and pretty much had the whole mountain to ourselves.

That brings us to today! We ate lunch with my mom and took a walk together (with Cooper), then worked on the bedroom re-do. As our present, we "gave" each other a queen size mattress and new bedroom stuff. I am very pleased with how it turned out, but I don't know how well my camera captures stuff. The room is gray, furniture is black, and bedding is white and green. Come over if you want to see it, because I am VERY proud of it :)

This evening, we went to Mike's Place for dinner (that's where Daniel proposed). You can't see my feet, but I wore the boots he gave me for Christmas because they are his favorite.

And now, I need to go eat the top layer of my year-old wedding cake :)

Kingdoms and Creativity

It's been another stressful week, but I know that is what I signed up for so I am trying to not gripe too much! We got our Gross Anatomy grades back and I was pleased with mine. I am so grateful for God's strength and guidance- many of my classmates will have to repeat this year, but thankfully I will NOT be repeating. Well, unless I fail Neuroscience. I don't think that is going to happen, though.

My Uncle Lloyd has been in the hospital all week having his aortic valve and aorta replaced. I have such a wonderful family that has taken over every aspect of his care since he is not married and his kids aren't really around. My mom, grandma, aunt, and cousin have been sacrificing a lot for him. Things still don't look great, but his surgery was fairly successful so there is still hope.

There are still 2-ish weeks of hard- core studying going on, so here is my kingdom:

Daniel is done with school, so his kingdom (outside) will hopefully get mowed tomorrow :)

Speaking of Daniel, he is such a thoughtful guy- this is what I came home to today!

Also, I went to Hobby Lobby this week. It's a pretty dangerous place! We need a new wreath, and I had a lot of fun making one for Christmas, so here is what we ended up bringing home (minus the cat- she was already here):

I will post another picture when I am done- the only problem is that I can't find my hot glue gun anywhere! Sophie jumped in the picture at the last second. She is such a weird little creature.

In the beginning...

On my first post, I mentioned that I knew I couldn't be a music teacher when I wrote my "Philosophy of Music Education" paper for a music class I took. So here is the story, from the beginning:

When I was 14, I went on a medical mission trip to Honduras. I actually went as a cook, but ended up in the O.R. helping out for some odd reason. I LOVED it- every minute of it. I thought I wanted to do something medical for sure. Now fast-forward 3 years, and I am practicing piano and harp like a fiend. Somewhere along the road music became so much a part of me that when I was offered a full music scholarship to college I jumped on it without even thinking twice! During the next three years, I developed carpal tunnel but kept going 100 miles an hour to a music degree.

So here I am, a senior in college and writing this paper on my views of music education when I realized that I had a problem. I was supposed to talk about how music education was so important (and it is) and should be a "core curriculum subject" (which it probably should), but it felt fake to me. I didn't have a passion about it like other people did, and believe me- music is NOT something you go into as a profession unless you are EXTREMELY passionate about it. I am so glad that my friends are musicians and music teachers, but that isn't where God wanted me, and it took me a little while to figure it out.

Now, enough of the past- here is my present life!

I went out to Tennessee this week with my mom and grandma to see my cousin K graduate from LPN school. So proud :)

This is K with my Aunt Mary.

Also this week was the Cadaver Ball! And no, there were no cadavers there. That's weird.

This is me and my man at the party. We celebrate our 1st (marriage) anniversary in just 2 more weeks! He's pretty nice and very good looking, so I think I will keep him ;)

In case you want to know, the cadaver ball is basically a big, fancy party we have to celebrate the end of gross anatomy. Next year is the Fungi Formal :)

Bad Week and Brains

Well, I wouldn't say that it is a bad week, but it certainly hasn't been a fun one. After our gross anatomy national board test on Tuesday, I only had Wednesday through Sunday to study for a neuroscience brainstem test. That may sound like a lot of time, but it isn't. I have generally enjoyed my life in med school, despite all of the studying, but this week has just been overwhelming for me.

Example: this is a cross section of your pons (the middle part of your brainstem.) I have 10 cross sections like this with about 20 things a piece to know... and my brain is tired of studying itself!

I actually think it looks more like a frog.

Brains are very incredible- so intricate and perfect and just amazing. I just don't see how anybody could doubt that they were created by a perfect Creator.

A lot of this studying took place at the favorite Starbucks, where the coffee dudes/dudettes give us free samples and stuff like that. We (me and W) probably spend too much time there. We pulled out our brainstem models to study and got some pretty funny looks....

Last week we let M join us for Starbucks studying and he brought his skull along. THAT was very, very disturbing.

This is a picture of my fake brainstem (well, one like mine). I have a real one- other than the one in my head- but I leave it at school.

Non-Gross Anatomy

This is the last week of gross anatomy. Thank you, Jesus. I have actually really enjoyed it the last 7 months, but spending 4 hours every afternoon and sometimes 8 or 9 hours on weekend days in the lab is EXHAUSTING! It also smells bad and is very cold. On the good side, I have discovered that I am pretty good with a scalpel :)

My good friends A, W, and M are my study partners/lab partners and can be thanked for helping me pass med school. We all push each other to stay longer, study harder, jump higher....ya know.

Also, we all REALLY like food. It's kind of our thing. Once a week the four of us have what we call "long lunch". We go out to eat and talk and pretend for an hour or so that we are normal people. It is pretty much the highlight of our week.

This is A and W at Sushi Cafe this week.

Sushi is always followed by a cupcake from Cupcakes on Kavanaugh. It's a rule

Since I am in the small minority of bloggers without kids, I want to show you what I come home to:

This is Sophie. I didn't tell Daniel I was getting her, so he wasn't very happy when a tiny black kitten greeted him at the door one night (he he he). He likes her now, though.

She's a bad cat, though. It's the truth.