Third Year!!

Well, I have a few posts and pictures that are overdue as always, but I had to do a quick one to let you know that this week marks something VERY exciting! Colby started his THIRD year of medical school! Whoohoo! As you saw in the last post, he has finished Step 1 of his boards (though he won't get results for awhile) and started out in in his family medicine rotation. In case you aren't familiar, med school is set up with the first 2 years of "book work" and lots of studying and then the 2nd two years are clinical rotations where they rotate through all sorts of areas and see real patients and have a different kind of studying-more related to what do I do now? So, he still has reading, quizzes, and shelf exams, but this is where the fun starts and he gets to start learning the clinician side to build on the background he's been establishing over the last 2 LONG years!

I wanted to post some fun inspiring quote that contained either the word three or third. So I googled it and surprisingly there were a whole lot of quotes, just none that really applied. But the one that I did find was from Abbott and Costello. "Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third." This actually made me laugh out loud because I too have been in a pediatrician's office this summer and am seeing kiddos on my own and presenting them to my preceptor with what I have found and Colby and I have joked at the number of times that "I don't know" is said in a day! HA! So it's getting better, but this was pretty fitting for both of us.

We had the pleasure of getting to spend the weekend with Colby's family and watch Kaylan, one of his little sisters, and Austin get married. We just love these two and really have felt like Austin was part of the family years ago. We are so excited to see what God has planned for these two!

Since then Colby's been golfing it up, watching tons of World Cup, went on a kayaking trip, and the lake over the last 3 weeks of his summer and unfortunately I'm in the craziest summer semester of my program, but it's all a season and I've enjoyed having my "house-husband" to go to the grocery store for me, clean the shower, laundry, etc. Well, test on Saturday so back to studies and I probably won't be back on until August after this crazy month is over. Hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying their summer!

This cutie bug and her mama came and visited for some shopping-Our precious niece Callyn Joy

Mr. & Mrs. Austin Yocham
Rehearsal evening
The Whole "Brownlee" FamSisters!Love these two! Have literally hundreds of photos, but that'll be an Aug. project. :)

Lakehouse weekend 2010

Don't know what I'd do without these girls!

Here's us at the "Boot Party" saying goodbye to the first 2 years of school and on to the next!

Colby with his compadresEveryone stay well...haha :) Thanks to everyone that has helped us get to where we are- For your patience with our crazy schedules and MIAness, prayers and encouragement, and for loving us and getting us through days that seem too chaotic to handle, love you!

May, where did you go?

Well, I must admit, I've been in a bit of a blogging funk lately. Haven't felt like posting, haven't been reading them, but don't know why!? I guess things have been really crazy lately and I've been soaking up all the down time as much as possible. I finished up my classes for the Spring semester and have been on a little school break. So it's been awesome just having to work and "wife" and not having school in the mix. However I start my summer semester on Monday...boo. And it will be a VERY busy summer with work, class, papers, projects, and seeing patients in a pediatrician office. I'm looking forward to the office setting so I can further narrow down what I want to do. So I better take full advantage of this week of freedom!!!

Here's what we've been up to the last month and 1/2 or so! You'll notice the whole middle section involves a lot of me and the girls and not much of Colby. This has been the busiest, most intense month of his med school career (and life in general!), as he's been studying relentlessly for his Step 1 medical boards. Yikes! I'm so proud of him and all his hard work, so big prayers from everyone over these last 2 weeks would be much appreciated as this is important for licensing to practice and also scores for applying to residency programs. He'll have a break after these 2 tests before starting rotations. But sadly, that's when I'll be the busiest with summer school. Too bad our breaks didn't work together! :(

Saying goodbye to Ellie the Elantra

As promised, Tres, my new (to me) car!Dinner at Yucatan with The Grady's. Love these two!

Kickball with our Small GroupWe, that's right, WE played in a scramble golf tournament benefiting Candlelighters- and organization that helps support families going through childhood cancer, and are amazing at our hospital too!Showing off the hole where we used MY drive! Wahoo! :)Crohn's and Colitis walk with my SommerRoommate Reunion weekend in Austin! LOVED seeing my girls! We live all over the place now, so coordinating is often hard, but so worth it when we finally make it all together!And this guy too! Can't believe how big Mason is! Our weekend was filled with a whole lot of this....Laughed til my face hurt!1905!Pedicures with my FW gals and fellow med school wives. We gotta stick together!Pretty toes and an afternoon by the pool!

Then I got to steal Colb away from studies for an evening to celebrate our 5th wedding Anniversary! I can't believe it's been 5 years of marriage! That sounds like a really long time but sure hasn't felt like it. I'm amazed when I think back to all that we've been through together. So blessed by my Colby! He had a great surprise evening planned and honestly the best part was just getting to be with him with his undivided attention for the WHOLE evening! We needed this evening with these last 2 weeks of crunchtime ahead of us. Love him so much and so glad God chose him for me!

Here we are enjoying our yummy dinner at Eddie V's
He's my favorite.

Kinda reminds me of this picture back in our Baylor days when we were dating, Ha..Colby's hair!

Here's to 5 wonderful years!

Blogging trumps Studying

SO behind on my blogging. Have lots of fun photos and stories to tell, yet unfortunately clinicals,work, and studying for finals has consumed my time. Soon I tell you...soon! In the meantime, enjoy the preview of Rocky dog in the Bluebonnets over Easter, a Texas tradition! :)

“Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen…. If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified.”

- Oswald Chambers

Spring "Break"

**WARNING-Picture Overload. Feel free to stop reading at any point, all about the memories! And I do so much better combining mega posts than I do little ones! **
Ahh....Spring!!! I've waited so long for this beauty!
We had a great Spring "Break" week! Colby was truly on Spring Break and had a great week off of class, however spent the week studying for his Step 1 of the medical boards that are this summer. This has proven to be a heck of a semester for him while he studies for all of his regular classes, while also studying for boards on top of that. Poor guy! I was also on Spring Break from school but can you believe that they don't have Spring Break at the hospital?!? Hmph! But I did take a day of PTO so that we could get stuff accomplished! And we surely did! We were originally going to go camping, but we were both so exhausted from our lives that we simply needed to catch up with things around the house and just being able to sit on the couch and watch a movie together. We also got to hang out with friends.

We kicked the week off on Saturday with bowling with the Townsends...and dang, we hadn't been bowling in forever, I was sore the next day..out of shape, what?

Colby bowling it upYours Truly

Daniel, aka The Big Lebowski, laying on the heat with "Black Beauty"

And he sulks in defeat when a shot didn't go as planned

Love these sweet friends!

Daniel pointing out our amazing game scores! Stiff competition!

The order is Daniel, Claire, Colby, and me....all in the 130s!?!

On Sunday we went to celebrate with Meagan and Adam at their wedding. Congrats you two!

Then...you are NEVER going to guess what happened on Mon and Tues!?! I got a NEW (to me) car!!! Whohoo! For those of you that know me well, this is now my 5th well-loved car and by far the greatest I've ever had! I'm queen of hand-me-downs and for once we went car shopping! I will post a tribute to my cars one of these days because there have been some some great ones (3 peetering out at over 200,000 miles). So I appreciate this more than you know and still feel like I'm driving someone else's car! What a blessing! It's amazing and guess what? There's a little thing that goes on my keys and I can push a button and you know what happens? The doors unlock!! Whoa! I'm in heaven! It's a cute silver Mazda 3 and I don't have any pictures of it for some reason, but I'll fix that.

Here's our favorite passenger loving his seat in the new vehicle! Poor guy now has to use a towel b/c the new car is Fancy Nancy.

Wednesday we drove toward New Braunfels to visit my little sister Hope and met up with my mom, Aunt Re, and little bro John Michael. We had a great time seeing them spending a day away. On the way back home we stopped in Austin to visit my roomie Meg and her husband Graeme in their new home! It was fabulous to see them and we can't wait to go back to visit longer and so appreciated getting to see them for lunch.

Hope and I doing our favorite sister activity...nails!

John Michael needs bricks on his head he's growing so fast!Meg and I in her beautiful new home! Love my roomie!

Thursday....Colby's parents, sister Kaylan and her fiancee Austin came to visit for the weekend! We had a blast getting to spend time with them! Colby played golf with his dad, I got to hang out with his mom and Aunt Donna shopping and eating-my 2 favs! I unfortunately had to work while they were here but I still got to meet them at the end of my work days for dinner and rooting on the Baylor Bears. Can I get a Sic 'Em!?!? The only Big 12 school to have both men & women in the elite 8! And now only in the Final Four for the women!!! Of course we had to play some ping pong too!

The dynamic duo at work

We made Colby play left handed for a fair match-up!

Reo was obviously not excited about the opposing A-game coming his way! :)

Austin and Kaylan brought their new puppy Mali and Rocky had a blast meeting his new cousin! Here they are at the first meeting...a little unsure of each other

But in no time they were playing away! Rocky continually layed down to make himself smaller so that Mali would come play

He even shared his toysAnd taught her how to shake them around

So she wanted to try it with her bear too! HahaIt was a fabulous Spring Break and we loved feeling refreshed! And last but not least, I didn't get to post about the wedding we went to a few weeks ago, but I had to post a picture of this beautiful bride! Paige was one of my good friends at Baylor and we were so excited to celebrate with her and Christiaan!