Goodbye for a while..

Oh my goodness! Has it really almost been 2 months since I last posted??? We have definitely stayed busy the last few months and things are about to really pick up. Clint has just started studying for the COMLEX (the licensing exam for osteopathic doctors) and the USMLE (the licensing exam for medical doctors). The COMLEX allows him to practice as a physician and the USMLE he is taking to hopefully help him get into a good residency program. Another words, very important tests that he must do good on. For the next month he will be studying pretty much all day long. Also, this means my time with the computer (he has the only computer we own) will be very limited so I probably won't be able to update the blog as much as I would like.

Re-cap of the last month and a half:

Blair turned one. She is now walking and saying hi and bye and a few other words.

Easter was spent with my family this year. We went to church and mom made lunch. Once again Blair was the entertainment. It was fun getting to be with everyone and spend time together.

Bobbi had one of her showers and mom and I attended. She got lots of stuff. I'm going to see her on Saturday so I can't wait to see Jax's room.

I joined a book club. We are reading The Help right now. I'm not very far in so I don't know yet if I like it or not. I also read Julie and Julia finally. And I didn't like it. She annoyed me. I did like when she talked about actually cooking but the rest of it just kind of irritated me.

Clint and I still aren't buying meat. When we eat out we will get it but I don't buy it from the grocery store as a rule.

Alright, Clint is booting me off the computer now. So that's it for me. See everyone in about a month!

Road Trip 2010!!

Clint and I headed out of town last Friday to go on our first vacation since he started medical school! We started out at about 4:30 and went down to a small town outside of Bryan called Calvert. We stayed in a bed and breakfast. It was a little weird but fun. The house is a plantation home built in 1900. It was huge by today's standards so I can't imagine what people thought of the house back then! That night we played games and opened a bottle of wine. It was so relaxing and nice just to sit, talk and not worry about a thing. Saturday they had a hot breakfast waiting for us. It was so good!



Then we left for College Station! We stayed in a historic hotel in downtown Bryan Saturday night. During the day we drove around campus. They have added 3 buildings and are still building more. We probably won't recognize it if we don't make trips every few years! Then we went shopping to restock on Aggie gear. In Fort Worth, it is hard to find sometimes. We went back up to campus after that so we could go to the George Bush Library and then we went to Research Park. We had never gone to the library before so that was fun. We learned a lot and the touring exhibit was interesting as well. It was was about the history of wine in America.
Bush was president when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Iraq was oppressing and killing the people of Kuwait and the USA came into help push Iraq back. At the end of the Gulf War, Kuwait presented the US with this door. And why the door? There is an old Kuwait proverb that goes something like this: you give a friend the key to your door and for family you give them the door. Around the door there is gold plates with the names of all the US soldiers that died in the conflict. They also had part of the Berlin Wall and talked about Barbara's work with literacy.


It was an absolutely gorgeous day on Saturday so we spent an hour or so walking and relaxing at the park.

After that we went back to our hotel and got ready to go out that night. Our hotel had complimentary drinks so before we left we did that. Square One is an American Bistro restaurant that we used to go to when we had extra money so we went there Saturday night. They had changed it up some so we were kind of disappointed by that but the food was just as good as ever. We went to Sweet Eugene's to have coffee and dessert after dinner. Clint and I's first date was at Sweet Eugene's so it has a sentimental value plus the coffee is yummy. Sunday we prepared for our camping trip. We drove out to a small town called Richards. We hiked into Sam Houston National Forest about 3 miles and set up our tent there. It was so beautiful and we felt so alone out there. It was scary but a lot of fun too. I was okay until we heard what seemed like 20 coyotes less than a mile away. That was a bit frightening but all in all it was great to hear nothing but the bugs and animals. No cars, no people. We got up the next morning pretty early and started hiking out. We had one scare when we accidentally went off the hiking trail for about 20 minutes but we were able to find it again without any problems. We found our car, got loaded up and headed out late that morning and started back home.


Sunrise...

It was so much fun to get away for a little while.

Check Me Out!

I can't believe I am blogging again in like 1 week! I'm so proud of myself! Anyway, Clint is over at a friends house so I thought I might update the blog while I had the computer. March has been awesome so far! Today it is 75 degrees and not a cloud in the sky! I am loving it!

Not a whole lot is going on right now. Clint and I went to a housewarming party for our friends on Friday. They have actually been there for about 3 months but this is medical school time so things happen much slower than in real life! We had a great time catching up with friends we hadn't seen and also meeting some new people. Sadly the next day I woke up unable to keep anything down all day and Clint woke up on Sunday with a fever so our whole weekend was blown! Sad but it did give us a chance to rest up. This next weekend we will be going on our road trip! We are so excited to get away. We will be going back to our alma mater, Aggieland. We both miss it a lot and I am so looking forward to eating at some of our old haunts, going to church at A&M C.O.C., and maybe seeing a few old friends. We are also going to go camping in Sam Houston State Park so that should be fun, too. I promise to provide pictures!

Well, I guess that is it for now. Oh and a little shout out: congratulations Jenna and Brenton on baby Lane. I am so happy for them!

Lyrics I love

The other day I was listening to my ipod and started thinking how much certain lyrics affect me. So I thought I would post some of my favorite lyrics. Most of these are not because I necessarily agree with what they are saying but more about the images it creates in my mind.

Cat Power, Silver Stallion

I'm gonna steal a silver stallion
with not a mark upon his silky hide
Teach him he can trust me like a sister,
one day we'll saddle up and ride

And we're gonna ride,
we're gonna ride
Ride like the one eyed jack of diamonds with the devil close behind
We're gonna ride
We're gonna ride

I'm gonna find me a reckless man,
razor blades and dice in his eyes
Just a touch of sadness in his fingers,
thunder and lightening in his thighs

And we're gonna ride,
we're gonna ride
Ride like the one eyed jack of diamonds with the devil close behind
We're gonna ride
We're gonna ride


I'm gonna chase the sky forever,
with the man and the stallion and the wind
The sun is gonna burn into a cinder,
before we ever pass this way again

And we're gonna ride,
we're gonna ride
Ride like the one eyed jack of diamonds with the devil close behind
We're gonna ride
We're gonna ride

Robert Plant and Alison Kraus, Killing The Blues

Leaves were falling, just like embers,
In colors red and gold, they set us on fire
Burning just like moonbeams in our eyes.

[Chorus:]
Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.

There are more lyrics to this song but these are my favorites.

There are lots of other songs I could have put on here but I've been listening to these 2 songs more lately. Maybe next time I will do my favorite worship songs!

Random Things

I figured since I haven't kept up with my blog this year, I would just post about the highlights and the things I have pictures of.

These next two pictures are from this past weekend. We ended up having about a foot of snow fall in about 24 hours. It was so cool to have that much snow fall in our own backyard. I made a baby snowman and an angel! I loved it! Clint and I went out and played in it for an hour. His school was canceled and I didn't have to work either on Friday so it was fun to have a 3 day weekend.



For mom's birthday this year, everyone came up to Fort Worth to celebrate. We had fajitas and homemade banana pudding for lunch (yummy)! Then we went bowling. It was a lot of fun to spend time together. We got mom a digital photo frame which she loved.


I guess the other "big" things that have gone on were finding out that Justin and Kassie are expecting and they find out today the sex. They think she's due early June so that is really exciting. I can't wait to be an aunt again. Also, Bobbi found out she is having a boy so baby Jaxson will be here late June. All these babies! It is so fun, I love it!

Clint is staying busy with school. This semester he also has to study for boards on top of his normal school work but as usual he is handling it all in stride. He scheduled his boards for early June so he will have 2 weeks between 2nd and 3rd year. Yeah!

I am watching kids full time. I have 3 kids: Avery 9 1/2 months, London 7 months and Carter 5 months. As you can imagine they keep me pretty busy but it is so much fun seeing how they are changing and growing. I can also mark off one of my goals that I set for myself last year, I took a knitting class and have started knitting. I am working on my first dishcloth, so watch out!

Well, other than that I have been reading, as usual. I have read this past month:

The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis (our small group is doing a study on this right now)
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer (great, informative book)

(3) Book Blogs

I have been doing a lot of reading. So here goes...

A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren (I think is his last name.) This book was basically talking about how we are transitioning into the Post Modern era and that the church has to respond to that. He (Brian) and his friend talk in this book about what the Post Modern church will look like. This book is pretty progressive I would say but honestly it is nothing I haven't heard or thought about myself. I really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to anyone that is searching for answers about church. Somethings that it addressed was: heaven and how it is not us versus them, that we shouldn't look at people who aren't like us as going to heaven or not, basically that it isn't our place to decide that and we need to stop acting like it. He also talked about how Jesus talks of the Kingdom of Heaven being here now and we need to start acting like it. We need to bring the kindgom to others, especially those that aren't as fortunate as us.

Larry's Kidney by Daniel Asa Rose (again, I think that is his name.) So the synopsis on the front cover is this, and I think it describes the book pretty well: How I ended up in China with my Black Sheep cousin and his Mail Order Bride, to try and get him a kidney transplant to save his life. The book is pretty funny and his cousin is probably one of the worst, bravest, dumbest person I have ever heard of. Good book but just very quirky. Also, in the end, what eventually happens I don't agree with on a moral basis so that was hard to get over as well.

The Lassa Ward by Ross Donaldson, M.D. This was a good book. This book is about Ross (then a medical school student) who goes to Sierra Leone to help in a hospital ward that specializes in Lassa Fever. Lassa Fever is a hemorrhagic fever found in a certain species of rats. If a person eats or comes in contact with the bodily fluid of a rat that is infected, they can contract the disease. It is highly deadly and highly infectious. The people that work in the ward are incredibly brave for doing it especially since the facilities and equipment are outdated and poorly supplied. It was amazing to see the stark difference between medical practices there versus the US. It makes you grateful to live here. Death is a constant figure in their lives. I am very blessed to live here where medicine and health education is so widely distributed.

Whew! So that's it! I just realized how random all these books are! Something for everyone...

Christmas and New Years!

This year, once again, was lots of fun. Clint and I traveled to Corsicana, to see all of his sisters and their husbands and kids. It was great to spend several days with them. We had great food and conversations. I think Christmas Eve, it snowed a little while we were in Corsicana. Clint and I were a little bitter because Fort Worth apparently got a few inches and we totally missed it! Oh well...We also went to Waco and saw my family and cousins. This year, my immediate family Christmas was pretty short. It made me sad, but sometimes that's just what happens. We came back from traveling the Monday after Christmas. I went ahead and took off that week from work to spend more time with Clint before he hit the books again.

New Years was alot of fun. My brother and Lacie, and some of our other friends came over. It was a blast. We talked, played games and then talked some more. It was a great way to bring in the new year.

So here are some pics:


Not a great pic. These are the desserts at mom's house. Yikes!!
Uncle Nathan and his namesake.
Snow! Okay, you have to look closely but I promise it is there.