Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! This is a particularly special friday because it is the END OF TEST BLOCK!!! The end of test block is simply the best time ever! I get to be with Jeffrey and whatever we do, if it is something or nothing, we just do it together and it is perfectly fabulous! I don't know about you, but for me it has been a loooong week.

Isn't Jeff just the prettiest when he is sleeping!?! I don't know if he minds that I took this picture (on a trip years ago) or if he minds that I posted it. But he is just so beautiful, I had to share. Isn't he the cutest! I foresee a lot of sleep happening over the next few days and better yet, lots and lots of cuddling!

It is only hours away and I simply can't wait!!!

picking colors

I have blogged before about our second living room with the lime green carpet. Well, I am soon-to-be renovating that room and...I am thinking about doing the walls purple. So the room would look kinda like this picture. It would be one of the 3 rooms that I used a non-white color in. I don't know. I am still thinking; but I think it would be fun. Maybe even with a subtle pattern or design in the paint job (i.e. matte/gloss design, or hue/tint design). Who knows, however, I have picked out the color scheme for that room and I am excited about it! It (well, the plan for it) is the only room that will embrace mine and Jeff's funky, fun, bright, cheery styles. This may very well be my favorite room of the house when we are all done!!

ALSO, what do you think of this chair? I haven't decided. For now, I just say "...interesting."

ice cream, oh my!

Well,...today we made magic in the kitchen. (And no, I was not being dirty for you dirty minds out there). We created a new ice cream delicacy, that was healthy, fat-free, sugar-free, and tasted sinful. Believe me, you wish you had something that tastes this good in your mouth. WOW!

Anyway, let me just say, we both had the hardest time not eating the whole batch (I had to keep saying "but don't you want to save some so we can have something that tastes this good tomorrow")...we almost ate it anyway. Oh,...it was cookies and cream by the way...YUMMY-in-my-tummy!!!!!!

What a Merry Christmas!

Ok, well it is time to finally get back into the swing of things.

To catch you up, we had a truly wonderful Christmas! AND for our first married Christmas, we had a perfect, beautiful, white, snowing Christmas. I have never seen this much snow in Oklahoma in my life. And oh, cuddling up by the fireplace with Jeffrey made it the absolute best!

Isn't our little home absolutely precious!?!

year-in-review

Well, it is that time...to reminisce and think of the future.

We have had simply the BEST year. I can't tell you how perfect it has been...it sounds like a fairytale. Jeffrey and I have been so blessed!

First, I finished my last semester of college! CRAZY!!! I graduated May 16th, and we were married one week later...it was a whirlwind of a May.

May 23rd was simply the best day! Everything was PERFECT, absolutely perfect (and the things that weren't just made our day more unique and special). I married my BEST friend and I could not contain my joy at doing so...I ruined all my pictures by smiling too much, but that is ok, we were happy. (He was SOOOO cute too!) I couldn't wait to see him/talk to him...I missed him so much, which is silly because I was only away from him for a day. But the moment I saw him....OHHH, I was so excited! Let me tell you about the butterflies...all I can say is we are lucky I didn't skip all the way down the aisle. I haven't seen the video yet, but apparently my "I do's" were funny. Our minister almost forgot to have him kiss the bride, but after my sister, Jeff AND the entire audience tried to "whisper" it to him, he finally realized his error. And oh, what a good kiss! I thought I would plan how we would kiss and I forgot to until right before. But it was perfect. And he was perfect in every way! Then we had a perfect reception and we were off for a perfect night in the Presidential Suite of the Sheridan downtown, and then back to OUR NEW HOME to hide away a pretend we knew no one around. What a glorious week!

After that, we were blessed to go to Italy for over 2 weeks!!! This was our absolute DREAM, I never thought it would happen, but last minute (I mean, two days before we left the country) we got a great deal, grabbed our bags, and were off. We didn't have any time to properly plan a trip, so we winged it and it could not have been more perfect! I will always look back on that time with the very highest of affection. Oh my goodness! I can't even begin to explain the utter joy and amazement... We spent HOURS in museums...we both love ancient culture, and both took two years of Latin. Jeff is so into history, geography, and art. I took lots of "classics" courses, got a minor in art history, and was a fine arts major. All of these reached their zenith in Italy, so...needless to say we were having the best time of our lives. I came back inspired, exhausted, and sore in ways that I didn't even know was possible, but I wasn't going to waste one second of valuable time...and I wouldn't change any of it! It truly was the trip of a lifetime! It would take me days to even describe all the wonderful, amazing things we saw and did...I can't even pick just a few things to highlight. AMAZING!

We wound up having a honeymoon summer. We got our week staying in together, then our time in Italy, then the full month it took us to recover, and the rest of the summer we just spent together being sublimely happy! We will probably never get to do that again, but we sure did make the very most of it. He is my best friend and I love him with all my heart. So, you can only imagine how wonderful everything was.

Sadly, this bliss had to come to an end...well, not an end. We started another chapter. And that chapter is a continuation of all our joy, love, and growth. Jeff started med school at OU. It was certainly an adjustment; and we don't really know where our lives are going, but as long as they go together anything will be simply wonderful. I can see God directing our lives. I know He has a wonderful plan for us and I can't wait to see what it is.

Jeff is doing tremendously in school. He has started shadowing some doctors, doing rotations, and he dissected a human body. I really freaked Caleb, his 11 year old cousin, out when I told him about it at Christmas. That was funny. Jeff has a natural gift for working with patients and good bedside manner. He often does whatever examination he has recently learned on me. We practice doing patient history and background...he says I am a terrible patient! :) Oh well, I try. Jeff played intramural football as quarterback for his team. And now he is gearing up to play intramural basketball, he is the captain. We have made so many lovely friends in med school. We often have small med school parties at our house and I do things for Jeff's mod, like plan birthday parties, make goodies,...that sort of thing. I enjoy doing it, I finally have someone to make desserts for. You know, I love making them, hate eating them, and Jeff eats healthy, so of course he doesn't eat them either.

I have been keeping myself busy while Jeff is at school/studying with renovating our home, cleaning, organizing, and mostly with design. I have been working as a freelance designer, which though that wasn't what I had originally intended on doing, it has been quite nice to have a flexible lifestyle. So, in the precious little time Jeff has to sit, eat, rest, and enjoy things I can be there with him. I am also on the executive board for the Medical Student Spouse Alliance, which has introduced me to many new friends. And, we are still the sunday school teachers for our youth group. I really enjoy that time.

It took a little while to adjust to our new med-school lifestyle, but we have finally gotten into the swing of things...let me tell you though, I was certainly looking forward to Christmas break, and of course, the night of his last exam, I got really sick...perfect! Yeah, I was so mad at myself, but we still had the best time--full of sleep, cuddling, watching movies, going on dates, and doing a ton of other things that time wouldn't amply allow during school. At first, our "over Christmas break, we'll do..." list was full of things we needed to get done (i.e. fixing the house, painting, finishing the bathroom....) but as time progressed, those things were shoved aside for fun things, like just being together.

Now we are having to go back to the non-routine med-school routine, but now we, or at least I am more prepared for what is in store. I can't wait for the next break. I am selfish, but I just want to spend every moment with him. I am hopeful for all that our future holds and enjoying the ride in the meantime.

I will never have any right to complain for I have been far too blessed. (don't worry, I am very thankful) I have constantly been saying, "Oh, look our first..." fill in the blank, engaged Easter, married OU/TX game, married OU home game, married fall stroll in Norman, married Christmas, time to grill on our new wedding grill...I hope we never run out of "firsts"! It has been 7+ years so far, and I think we never will. I celebrate the little things, and let me tell you, it makes life so much more fun! I look forward to all our firsts and the continuation of all our long-standing traditions.

Best to you and yours in this new year!!!!

rug-a-licious

So, I am in total decorating mode...finally time to make this place our home. However this is such a long process! At first I was so excited; picturing myself in a cute little apron making our home! Unfortunately, doing it mostly by myself in between working and life, it becomes very daunting. I just keep telling myself, one step at a time. Between decorating our home for our first married Christmas, renovating, moving in, and sorting through stuff,... I am starting to see small victories and it makes me ever so happy!

As one of our wedding presents, one of our dear friends is buying us furniture and a rug. Picking the furniture is a lot harder than we had anticipated. I will show you pictures of that whole process later. But for our big living room, we are getting a rug. Finding a rug we actually like, was difficult. I love this sculptural rug (above) from Gandia Blasco. It would be too small for our space. CLICK HERE to see a few more Blasco rugs I love...not for our house, but still lovely. However, I believe we are going with the rug shown below. We both really like the reverse skin, tan zebra...I never thought I was an "animal skin" person, but as I have been looking for things to decorate our home, I definitely see a zebra theme arising...which reminds me of Kelly.

good day, sunshine

Oh what a beautiful sunrise we had today! So, of course I grabbed my camera, ran outside, and took pictures until my feet were completely frozen. Next time I should grab shoes!
Oh, so lovely! I really can't decide which one is my favorite...you should really look at all of them! Check out more HERE.

wonderful weekend

Oh, wonderful weekend, why are you gone?

Weekends are becoming my favorite time because it is when I get to cuddle with Jeffrey the most!! Sadly, the next test block is next week which means life is crazy at our house again. I really wasn't ready for another one to come along so soon...I think Jeff has hardly recovered from the last one. Oh well. Pray for Jeff if you think of it!!

We had a nice weekend before he crawls back into his study hole. We had a date on Friday, which included mexican food and curling into our fluffy bed with fuzzy blankets to watch a movie. Fantastic! Then we had people over to the house to watch OU play on Saturday. (Aaron, the guy in the stripes, really likes to pose for the camera!!) And Jeff had his last intramural football game of the year Sunday. He was the only player from his team to show up. So he, the refs, and the other team scrimmaged and it was still fun.

rain, rain...

Today it POURED down rain...so, of course I got drenched taking pictures.

so much fun!!! Look how good they came out and these are only a few of them. Then, Jeff scared me when he came up behind me yelling my name. Of course, I was under some plants in our backyard, engrossed in my picture-taking. And to be far, I think I scared him too because the whole house was open, my car was in the driveway and I was nowhere to be found...but clearly, this means I am on an adventure taking pictures in an obscure place. He should know that. And since I was in a picture taking mood and he came outside, I took pictures of him too!

Look how cute my baby is!!

test block 1: OVER!!

Since test block THIS has been Jeff. He is restoring his body with lots of cat naps and loving it!

Test block 1 is over! We celebrated by having some of the MS1's from his mod over to the house, taking naps together, and watching a movie...I didn't realize how much I missed simple things like snuggling under a fuzzy blanket watching a movie with Jeffrey.

In the top picture: Brian, Chad, Jeff, David, Kevin, Cale. Then in the bottom picture, same boys plus me and Callie (Chad's wife). Of course, I had to take a picture and they willing obliged.

decorating

My mind is on decorating, specifically how I can make our new home special. As we renovate and create our home I will periodically update you all on our progress. We want to share our journey with you all. Here are some images that I am finding inspiration in.

We have one room with lime green, shag carpet...it has a lot of character that we want to embrace. I am thinking of doing bright, beautiful colors in there to make it fun and funky.

We would love input if you have ideas, comments, or see anything lovely you would like to share!

exploring the backyard!

Jeff was leaving last night to go back up to school and he said, "hey, look how pretty it is outside." And he was so right! It is beautiful!!! So I had to run out and take some pictures. The colors are so rich and amazing! I love how the leaves are just beginning to turn and all the flowers are still in bloom!