Friday, July 11, 2008

BiRTHDAY

I am officially 22 years old. Most of my birthday celebrations was at home with my family, but Jeff did surprise me with roses on July 7th, my real Birthday. He is such a sweetheart. We also went out to dinner, shopped for a new outfit and got ice cream at the Barrel of Fun. (this is my favorite place for ice cream and it is just 1 mile away from our house)
In Utah my family had cake and homemade ice cream. I got a few exciting gifts and I am so excited about my new ice cream maker, I think we will be using it very soon! Mom and Dad also gave me a few new shirts and running clothes. I had such a fun time. Thanks everybody!

HoMe

I was missing home desperately and when a sudden two week break sprung upon us we decided to pack up the car and take a road trip home. After I took my pathophysiology test we began our 23 hour trek to Utah. With no kids, the night owl Jeff, and early riser me, we made it with minimal stops to gas up and grab some grub. We listened to Twilight and talked and talked. I would drive a couple hours before it got dark and Jeff would take a nap. He is such a trooper to drive through the night, and when the sun started to come up he would wake me up to finish.
Here we are at one of our gas stops. "Boog" our greenish bluish Toyota was getting awesome gas mileage 36-40 mpg!
St. Louis was a scary drive, we thought a tornado was going to hit.
We saw so many windmills I think they are somewhere in the middle of Nebraska???


Once we were home we rested up and played with our families. My family was pretty chill as usual and we spent time geocaching, at the lake, bowling, swimming, watching movies, golfing and shopping. Jeff's family had their annual family reunion. We had a blast hanging up in the cool canyon and playing with all the nieces and nephews. Jeff had only one disappointment, POISON IVY! I would feel bad, but the boys went golf ball hunting down the creek with shorts on...Silly boys. However they did find over 600 balls. Jeff says it was totally worth the poison ivy, which has still failed to disappear. Unfortunately, all the picture taking was on my parents camera and I have not yet got the email with them. Here are a few I stole of my aunts blog. Thanks Brand!

Jeff, Mason (my cousin) and I. We had a fun afternoon swimming with the family!

The BOYS! Trace(left), Chad my sisters BF(climbing out) and my youngest bro Burke(right)

I just love Mason! He is a little fishy!

I ALMOST FORGOT.... we had a near death experience on the Fourth of July. We were driving back to Louisville, almost to Iowa and I was the lucky driver. It was dusk so my driving time was about up when we came over a hill and a deer was in the middle of the highway. I swerved to the right and thought I had dodged it, but then it ran towards the car and I have no idea how it did not hit us. Jeff was sleeping until my screaming and swerving came. His eyes were so big when he darted up:) He just kept telling me "you did so good, you didn't over correct." I was so uptight and my hands were sore from gripping the wheel so hard. Luckily we made it safe and so did "Boog."

Monday, June 16, 2008

PASS

Jeff passed his part 1 Dental Boards! We are so excited to be half way done with dental school!

Friday, June 13, 2008

AwARneSs

During my last pathophysiology class our teacher who is a NP, emphasized doing our monthly examinations. The focal point was that not only do women need to be doing breast exams monthly, but men need to be doing testicular examinations. The average age for testicular cancer is 15-34!

Our teacher was very concerned because she recently diagnosed a 24 year old with metastatic testicular cancer, meaning it has already moved to other areas of the body. She said his prognosis isn't very good and his only symptom was an aching lowing abdomen. Monthly examinations could have helped him find his grape sized lump a little earlier :)

The testicular exam is very similar to the breast exam, look for a FROZEN PEA... Here are a couple of links with more information for both exams.

Women
http://www.breastcancer.org/symptoms/testing/self_exam/bse_steps.jsp

Men
http://health.rutgers.edu/factsheets/testicular.htm

Monday, June 9, 2008

Comparing

LAST SUMMER







...THIS SUMMER





ALL I HAVE TO SAY IS :(

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Jam

On Tuesday Summer, Glenys (Jeff's Mom) and I made jam! Strawberry, raspberry, and peach- strawberry...YUM. We had a really fun time and my PB&J was delicious today!

RaCEs, RaIN & ExciTEmEnT!

Derby was such a fun time this year. Jeff's parents and my dad were in town and we were at Churchill Downs ALOT! Our first races were with the Perrero family. A patient of Summer's is a big guy down there and he took us on an awesome tour and gave us free tickets for the Spring Meet.
Oaks day started out so beautiful and we had awesome seats as shown in the picture. My dad's friend Layne knew a trainer who got us very pricey tickets for FREE! We had a great time until the rain began. The headlines the next day described it perfectly, "SOAKED AT THE OAKS." It was really funny to look onto the paddock before and after the rain, I don't know where all the people went.??




After an exhausting rainy Oaks Day, we were hoping for a gorgeous sunny Derby. The forecasts were not great but the sunshine came through. Again we sat in the grandstands with tickets worth $260 a piece. (These weren't even box seats, more like isle and walking space tickets.) We had an enjoyable day watching races, hats, and all the rich horse owners sitting by us.
We took a trip to the infield and found girls in the mud and some of Jeff's dental school friends. WOW it was crazy out there:) My favorite part of the day were the hats. I could not believe how crazy some of the hats were!
When the Derby race came it was so exciting. Everybody stood for about 30 minutes pre-race. The owner of Big Brown and his family sat right by our standing area and they were so shaky and nervous before the big race. When Big Brown won they rushed down to the field in tears.







Thanks Layne and Dad for making a very fun Derby day for Jeff and I.