Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Celebrating Dr. B!

At the end of May, we had a huge milestone over at our house. We changed from Mr. and Mrs. to Dr. and Mrs.! Words could not express the excitement and just how proud I am of Colby. He has worked his booty off, really since High School Valedictorian days to prepare for this day. I look back to our long hours studying together in the library at Baylor getting ready for our Cell Physiology tests and am amazed just how far the journey has come. Medical school had its ups and downs. Downs being us only seeing each other for approximately 20 minutes as I dropped off dinner at the library to him on my way in to the hospital working night shift. Or the 3-4 day stretches of him on call at the hospital (for free!) and our only time was watching the other sleep on opposite shifts. And the ups being weeks off after board exams were over, quick getaway trips, and oh our amazing friends and family that we have that have loved us and supported us throughout the journey.

God has taken care of us amazingly and shown us a lot about ourselves and his plan for us. Colby still has many days of overnight shifts and on-call and learning to do over the next 4 years of residency and still more board exams. But somehow it seems that he is really just getting started with career and God will continue to equip him to be able to serve how He sees fit. One of my Baylor friends Casey did a painting for us about half way through medical school and the inspiration I gave her to use was Psalm 1:3. "He shall be like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does shall prosper." This was a verse that God spoke loudly to me about in the midst of our busy medical school and grad school studying because we felt stagnant at times with where our time was dispersed. We felt burdened because we didn't have as much time to be in the word as we would have liked, and weren't able to commit to as many service projects as we would have liked, or financially couldn't do this or that, or time with family/friends, etc. And so you almost want to throw in the towel and take the poor pitiful me approach and be complacent with where you are. But God showed us that we indeed were yielding fruit as we carried Him with us in the patients that we saw and that we needed to continue to be planted firmly in Him so that we would not grow weary or "wither" and that He still had a great work to be done in us. I write about this because I want to remember these times 10 years down the road when we will likely be "busy" with something else. And instead of taking the approach of, "WHEN we get to this point in our lives, we will do _______. We are still called to bear fruit in EVERY season and with God's mighty hand, our small efforts and willingness to serve will prosper.

We had a great celebration with our family and friends and can't thank everyone enough for your prayers and support! So proud of all your hard work love, it's an honor to walk this journey by your side. I'm praising God for His provision that brought us to this special day and can't wait to see what the future holds.
Here goes picture overload! We'll start with the Hooding ceremony which was on Friday afternoon.

We were so blessed for Dr. Ingram to fly in for this occasion. He was been a great mentor to Colby and they have been great family friends. He is an amazing Dr. that does the Lord's work and the reason for Colby to pursue ophthalmology.
 
 Proud wife!
 Proud parents
 With our niece Callyn
 The whole Crew
 With my mamacita
 She was a hoot! So excited to be in all the pictures.
 Couldn't have made it without these ladies and their encouragement as our hubbies were busy bees.
 All the husbands. So blessed for this great group of guys for Colby.
After the hooding was our eyeball themed graduation party for Dr. B! He was very surprised and we were blessed for the many friends and family that traveled and celebrated with us. 
Surprise!
 
  This is the picture I used on the invitation and the cake. It was a picture of Colby when he was probably 6 or 7 years old and dressed up as a doctor for Halloween. He's come a LONG way! :)
The doctor will SEE you now...
Next up is graduation which was on Saturday afternoon. This was a bigger ceremony than the hooding because it involved the whole school. 
 With their diplomas!
 After graduation, we went over to the Townsends for one last cookout!
 My girls...and a little after this the tears commenced... :(
 Found these shirts online a couple of years ago, and knew they needed to make an appearance during graduation weekend. They got some good use and everyone would be blessed to be taken care of by these guys.
The Crew one last time...Love y'all!
And that my friends...was medical school graduation weekend...Whew!

4 comments:

Leah said...

I'm so proud of Colby on perserving through it all and You doing the same thing of studying for school and working hard!! Congrats Brownlees!

Christi said...

Congrats to y'all! It's crazy how long it takes to become a dr, and judging by Colby's childhood pic it's been a long time coming, but I guess it's just that much more rewarding! Great party and decor, fun stuff. Happy summer!

Ashleigh Howlett said...

So proud of the both of you! Y'all have endured and definitely persevered. I hope you know what an inspiration you both are to so many! You have such a beautiful relationship and heart for others. In the midst of all that yall give and pour out at work you still continue to pour out outside of work. Yall are phenomenal people and we are blessed to have yall both as friends. Love yall!

the Jennings secede from the South said...

Y'all did it up right!