The Home Stretch

I am 1 week and 1 day away from finishing my second semester and 1 week, 1 day, and 4 hours away from Smith Family Vaca 2K9. Cannot wait. Matthew and I have been super busy the last couple of weeks and desperately need the vacation, so thanks mom and dad for letting us bum off of you for four days!

I don't think lazy is an appropriate enough word to describe our weekend. Lethargic or comatose better describes how we spent our Saturday. We had grand plans of catching up on some studying, cleaning the apartment, going to look at houses/apartments (for fun mostly), laundry, etc... How much of these chores/tasks were done by 12:00 pm Saturday.... None. Clearly if you know me, you understand that these tasks are not chores to me... they are my stress reliever, so why I felt like I'd rather gouge my eyeballs out as opposed to check them off my ever growing "To Do" List...I am at a loss for words.

Lexi and Daddy resting

Our family of 3! Yes our dog is a poser... she loves having pics taken.

My only excuse is that we were super tired from working late the week beforehand for the UAB medical school. Matthew and I have been pretend patients for the 4th year med students this past week for their Senior Organized Standardized Clinical Exam. We get paid $10 an hour for 6 hours a night, 3 nights a week to be a fake patient... plus free dinner! Not a bad set-up if you ask me. We have great ideas on how to use the money...for you know school loans, tuition and such. Anyway, we don't get out each night until after 10, which is really late if you ask me, and we just lost out on some great sleep.

Friday night Matthew and I took our good friend Barak out to dinner since he is moving this coming week. We are incredibly sad that he is leaving, and we are going to miss him a lot! Barak was Matthew's first friend here in Birmingham and was one of two people who actually drove up from Bham to come to our wedding. Barak wanted to go to Dreamland, the famous barbeque place in downtown Bham, so we gladly obliged since we hadn't been there in a while. We took him around to a few of our (the three of us) favorite places in downtown Bham, went to hear some live music, and wished Barak well as he is heading to Jackson, MS for a job interview that we are praying he gets!

Leaving for Dreamland

We will miss you Barak!

Saturday...well you know what happened there, but Saturday night Matthew and I went to the Barons game (The minor league team here). Amit, one of the MD PhD's in Matthew's lab had bought up a bunch of tickets since it was Cystic Fibrosis night (Matthew's lab works on lung transplantation research for those who don't know) and invited us to come along with him and his wife Shilpa and their adorable two year old Akash. Geoff and Tricia came as well. We absolutely love going to Baron's games, especially on the nights when they have the fireworks show... which was immensely superior to the disaster on July 4th.

Geoff and Tricia

Geoff stole the camera.

Sunday after church we came home and I immediately went to study, since I had procrastinated the day before.... There are many reasons that I love my husband, but I was reminded just how much when he offered to clean the apartment while I studied. BEST HUSBAND EVER. It was a great joy for me to open up the bedroom door and see those beautiful vacuum lines across the carpet and to not see even a hint of dust on the furniture. Not only did he offer to clean...but he did it well! I know that I have high standards when it comes to cleanliness and I even get slightly nervous when I don't do the job myself...but Molly Maid couldn't have impressed me this much.

We had to go back up to church around 3:00, because our class was hosting a baby shower for a couple in our community group...First baby in our Sunday school crew! Daniel and Magen are expecting a boy on September 1st named Elijah Luke. They are also planning on moving to France to be missionaries and they currently have arrangements to move to Chicago in January to finish raising support. We are going to miss them! The shower was a lot of fun, we played some fun games and of course ate a lot. Matthew and our good friend Stephen (his wife is named Ally) are extremely competitive and really got into the games... Ally and I were very entertained by them to say the least.

This was the cake that the hostess LeAnn made... she just started taking cake decorating classes this summer!! I'm so jealous!

Now this isn't as gross as it looks... This was the dirty diaper game, you had to guess what kind of chocolate candy had been melted onto the diaper...this is Stephen.

Matthew smelling the diaper... :)

We are headed to Cinci this weekend for my cousin Katherine's wedding. Unfortunately, nursing school faculty is not that understanding when it comes to missing school. Their protocol for missing class says that the only reason you can miss is if you have a death in the immediate family and your name is listed in the obituary. A little ridiculous. So...I am missing the rehearsal dinner and bridesmaid's luncheon and will be arriving in Cinci about 12 hours before the wedding. Thank you UAB School of Nursing, I will remember this when you come calling me for money in 5 years.

Hope everyone has a great week! Prayers would be appreciated while I am finishing up this semester. 4 tests left....

P.S. I have to put these pictures up from last weekend while we were up in Nashville.... Lexi and Macy are two peas in a pod!