Picture Time!!

Here are some pictures from Disney on Ice...

Here is Aimee meeting Flounder...

Ryan's very flattering picture of me...

I think this is 1 of 3 pictures we've ever managed to get of Cheryl!!

I think Lee may have had the best time out of any of us!

Here's What You've Missed...

Ok, so here's what you have missed since I went on a little blogging hiatus! This is gonna be long, so sit back and relax!

1. I still really enjoy my job in the clinic! I've been grumbling lately because they (management) decided to take us to a hospital-based clinic which means that we have to do about twice as much work and were introduced to a few new computer systems, which anyone knows is not all that fun! It doesn't help that I don't personally see any real value to the employees or the patients and the new computer systems are WAY less efficient/easy to use than our older ones! Surprising, I know. Nonetheless, I still love where I work and what I do.

2. I took the GRE (did decently...but not fantastic) and applied to PA (physician assistant) school! Yay! It's just a waiting game now, so I'd really appreciate your prayers and support until we find out if I get in or not.

3. Ryan was working for Gold's Gym...then he got laid off, BOO! We could kind-of see it coming about 2 weeks out, so we did our very best to prepare mentally and financially. We know this is for a reason that we just can't see right now and truly think it is for the best. In the meantime, he has been working on his golf game (more to come on that...and it's GOOD news!!) and he's also been volunteering through the church. He has certainly been keeping busy between all this and looking for a job!

4. Ryan played in a second Golf Channel Tour tournament and placed 3rd again which I think it royally unfair because he's the only guy whose golf cart broke down and had to carry is 50-pound bag for the whole tournament! The first two guys tied and were only 1 stroke better, so I really think that if he hadn't had to carry that stupid bag, he could have tied or beat them! Then, he registered for a 3rd tournament on this amateur tour, but obviously this is just not for him...the course closed the tournament after he had already played 16 (of 18) holes because they didn't plan very well and had another tournament that was supposed to start at that time. All of the players were completely disqualified after spending their money and a whole day out there, which just bites. After that incident, we dropped the Golf Channel Tour...can you blame us??

5. We celebrated Tom's (Ryan's dad) 60th birthday! He didn't want to do much, so we just went out to eat with the whole family, and all had a great time.

6. GREAT news! We got a good rate to renew our lease...we don't have to move! Thanks again to all those who helped us move in a year ago...you must be just as happy as we are!

7. Mom, Dad, Lee, Cheryl, Aimee, Ryan, and I all went to Disney on Ice! We had a blast and acted so NOT our ages! It was very good...much better than I expected it to be. The best part is that we got this crazy hat in the shape of Flounder from the Little Mermaid and he is now our own traveling gnome-we're taking him everywhere and taking pictures with him! You can think it's crazy, but we're having fun.

8. Ashley and Belle came to town and were introduced to Don Pablos (one of my favorite restaurants ever!). I also found out that Belle knows how to scream...thanks Ashley. Love ya!

9. I still volunteer at Rocky Top every Saturday and absolutely LOVE it! It's awesome to have that relationship with the kids and to get to see them improve so much every week. It doesn't hurt that I get to play with the horses every weekend, too. We had our volunteer appreciation party and participated in the equestrian events of Special Olympics. I think this is a really good place for me right now and couldn't be happier...it's for such a good cause!

10. A new experience...I am letting my dermatologist (yes, the one that electricuted me, if you'll remember...) use laser treatment to help a place on my cheek. It used to be a beauty mark/mole until I picked it to death. Then it started to bleed every time I washed my face. This is crazy new for me, but it's really helping. Kinda feels like little bitty rubber bands popping (only 3 times) but doesn't quite hurt that bad. The mole gets mad right afterwards and turns a darker color, then turns back to normal color and starts to just disappear! Kinda creepy, but really cool.

11. Our family friends Dani and Tim Robinette celebrated their son's birthday with a party at Alley Cats where we all got to bowl and play games together. One of the kids won a jackpot on one of the games and won an RIDICULOUS amount of tickets! He could barely spend them all! Afterwards, the girls headed to the mall and had a great time while the boys went to an array of random places...place that sells pool tables/hot tubs, wood carving shop, etc...strange boys. It was great to have that time with everyone and we all kinda let loose!

12. Occupational Health at UT lost my entire medical record...that's says good things.

13. I celebrated my one year anniversary at UTSW! Maybe all not in one place, but that's ok!

14. Stan and Natalie had their second baby...Clayton Joe! He was about a month early, but everyone is healthy. Congrats guys!

All right...I think that's about all that you have missed out on. I'll try to get some pics up here soon and I have a few more stories on the way, but you needed to be caught up first! Thanks for reading!!

I Confess...

Ok guys, I have to confess that I stopped updating here for a while because I thought nobody was reading! I have since been notified otherwise, so I promise to get everyone up to date, then to do a better job of updating you regularly! Look for more posts coming soon...it's nap time for now!

Your Weekly Update...

Well yet another week has just flown by! This was my first week moving over to the clinics from my research lab, and things went very well. I only spent Monday and Friday in the actual clinic because I had to spend the rest of the week in training, but nonetheless, the week went very smoothly. I think that this setting will fit me much better than the lab did and that I will be much happier! Other than that, our week was relatively calm...surprising, I know! This weekend, Ryan competed in his first golf tournament of the season on his Golf Channel Tour. He was not very happy with how he played because he shot an 81 (9 over par), but he still placed 3rd in the most competitive round. I think he did great! The bad news is that he probably sprained wrist. It is probably something he did a while ago, but we've never treated it, so it just kinda keeps getting worse. The lady he takes lessons from suggested that we treat it with ice twice a day, wrap it to immobilize it during the day, and that he take some advil to reduce any inflammation. He needs to do this for about a week and not touch a golf club at all, which he is not looking forward to! If it's not any better after that, we'll have to get a doctor to take a look and probably do some scans. Good thing his next tournament isn't for 2 weeks! After his tournament, we met mom, dad, and Grandma and Grandpa for dinner and ran into Aunt Doris (my dad's sister). It was so nice to see everyone and we had a wonderful, relaxing dinner!
On a related note, Grandma Hill started radiation therapy this week. She has to go every weekday for about 6 weeks, but the good news is that her sessions are only like 3-5 minutes, so each visit only takes about 10 minutes total! She spends more time driving to the facility than she spends actually there! She's a little tired so far, but seems to be holding up very well. We're praying for the very best! With Brittany, we haven't heard any more news. She is still just being treated for her symptoms as best they can, which still leaves her in pain most of the time and pretty uncomfortable...not a very happy situation at all.
Well, that's about it for this week! Hope everyone has a good week!

Celebrating One Year...

Last weekend (March 1 to be exact!), Ryan and I celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary! Can you believe it? We certainly can't believe that it has actually been a whole year since our wedding! To celebrate, we decided to spend Saturday and Sunday out in Dallas...just the two of us. We started with a stay at Hotel ZaZa, a couples massage on Saturday afternoon, then a fantastic dinner at Capital City Grille. We attempted to eat pieces of the top tier of our wedding cake (a common tradition...right?), but I'd like to emphasize "attempted". It was simply a giant sugar cube, and it completely fell apart when we tried to thaw it from it's year-long residence in our freezer. The day was absolutely perfect! On Sunday, we ordered room-service for breakfast, ate, then went back to sleep! It was awesome... Then we got cleaned up and packed up, then went to the Dallas Zoo. It was pretty chilly, so there weren't very many people out, which was really a good thing. We spent the whole afternoon at the Zoo just admiring the animals and watching them play. We even got to see one of the handler's hand-feed a rhino his lunch! After the zoo, we headed home to spend some quality time with the pups and have a nice, relaxing evening together.
In celebration, we have decided to start a scrapbook that we can add to every year on our anniversary. We're going to start it with some pictures of us leaving the wedding reception, then add some pics from our honeymoon at Disney World, then add some pictures and things from our anniversary celebration this weekend. We can add to it every year and keep it forever so that we can always look back! Cool, huh? And yes, we finally placed the order for our wedding albums, so hopefully we can get those in the next month or two. We have really had a full, fantastic first year of marriage and are looking forward to year two! Here are some pics from our weekend...we DID take a picture with both of us in it, but it wasn't on our camera! The restaurant took it and we just got a print-out. Anyways, Enjoy!

Here is a picture of the suite we stayed in...it was the Samuel L. Jackson suite!

Here is our poor, destroyed top tier of the wedding cake...it's been through so much!Here is our rhino buddy!

Bad Little Blogger...

Ok, so I admit it...I'm a bad little blogger! We have been so busy lately that I nearly forgot about this thing! So for the few of you that actually keep up with our blog, I'm sorry. Here's what we've been up to since last post:
Wednesday, Feb 11
We almost got hit by the tornado. Those bad storms that came through had our power out and the tornado sirens going off like crazy, so we're all (me, ry, tigger, mav, and goosey) in our bathroom covering ourselves with the dogbeds. The mattress was just too bulky to get into the bathroom :). My parents are calling going "TAKE COVER!", Ryan is intermittently going to the window and balcony to see if he can catch a glimpse of the tornado, and Ryan's parents had no clue that a tornado was near. It was all terribly fun. That was followed by a night of very little sleep since Ryan was still excited about the tornado and poor Mav was about to jump out of his own skin in fear of the storm.
Thursday, Feb 12
Long day at work due to the tornado incident, followed by the Mavs vs. Celtics game that evening. It was a great game, but they ended up losing it in the 4th quarter. We didn't get home until almost 1 am!
Friday, Feb 13
VERY long day at work! Then, we both got to witness the highway being shut down due to accidents on our way home from work. We were so tired that evening that we could barely order pizza to be delivered!
Saturday, Feb 14
Happy Valentine's Day! Ry golfed that morning while I took the cat to the vet for his annual visit. Everyone kinda makes fun of Tig for being "fluffy"...well it's official he's very "fluffy"-almost 20 pounds! Everything else looked great and he got his vaccines, which he obviously was not a fan of. I dropped him back off at home and headed to Rocky Top to help with the last class of the day. Ryan and I met back at the apartment to get cleaned up, then we came by my lab to run a quick procedure. We ended the day with dinner with my parents at MaMa's Pizza and a movie-Pink Panther 2. The movie was very funny, but pretty much the same as the first. Nonetheless, it lightened your mood and made you laugh. Ryan and I don't really do much "just the 2 of us" for Valentine's Day since our wedding anniversary is in 2 weeks.
Sunday, Feb 15
More visits to the lab to work for a little while, then lunch out in Terrell with a college friend, Stefanie. I couldn't wait to see her...I haven't seen her since we graduate in April and she's due to have her first baby this June. We ate at Boomer Jack's and had a great time catching up! We took her some furniture and gifts for the little one...a crib, swing, high chair, walker, a few toys, and a few new outfits. Afterwards, Ry went back to the golf course while I headed back to the lab. We got home just in time to eat some quick dinner and pass out.
Monday, Feb 16
Presidents' Day! That means I got the day off work, right? Right! But I still had plenty to catch up on around the apartment. Ryan still had to work and I also met my mom for lunch. I also got to go for my first long jog since my surgery! Yay! Oh I was so happy...
Wednesday, Feb18
Ryan comes down with the flu and strep very early this morning, I get the flu this evening despite my efforts to disinfect the house with lysol and bleach. We both headed to an urgent care clinic to get some meds and to CVS for any form of relief...FYI, there is no "relief" from the flu. I don't care what the boxes say, this product that provides relief does not exist. However, anything that just knocks you out so that you sleep for days on end is the best alternative. Thanks much to our parents who brought us all kinds of food and medicines to help us get better, we are so very grateful!
Thursday and Friday, Feb 19 and 20
Ryan and I both stayed home in absolute misery! Again, that you mom and dad for bringing us food and meds...
Saturday and Sunday, Feb 21 and 22
Ryan and I were finally starting to feel a little better, but not well enough to actually do anything. Really, we just felt well enough to be awake and be annoyed with each other. We managed to take the dogs to the park to potty and to run for a little while, so I'm sure they appreciated that!
There you have it...you are caught up with the terribly interesting lives we lead! Sorry for the world's longest blog! Hopefully I will be keeping up with my updates a little better now :)
Hope everyone has a great week!

Time Flies...

Wow, I absolutely cannot believe that it's already February 8th! We have just been keeping so busy all this month, and the time has just gotten away from us. Ryan has been working very hard at his golf (and doing very well, I might add!). I have still been recovering from my surgery-sleeping has been my last obstacle. I'm finally back in my own bed, so hopefully this phase is wrapping up. It's driving me so nutty that I still cannot see my scar! It's been 2 weeks since my surgery, and the stinkin' Steri-Strips are still on. My doctor said that they should fall off sometime around now (and to leave them on until they willingly fall off), but until then...I'm left in suspense. I tried putting some vaseline around the edges to loosen them :). I'm so impatient!
We went to the Dallas Stars game on Thursday, and that was such a blast! They won, so that made it even more fun.
This weekend, Ryan shot a 61 (11 under par) at Trophy Club and tied the course record! Also this weekend, I started volunteering at this equestrian physical therapy place called Rocky Top Therapy Center. It's a ranch that boards horses and operates a few different rehabilitation programs. One program (Hippotherapy) is designed for disabled children and adults who get to have riding sessions to improve physical disabilities under the direction of a physical therapist. Another program (Trail Blazers) is for people with behavioral disorders. They also have a cowboy challenge course and host a variety of events including birthday parties. All of their proceeds keep the ranch financially afloat and enable them to keep up the therapy programs. I really had a great time (I love horses to begin with!) and think that this is something I will really enjoy doing for a long time. They said that these feelings will only intensify once I begin to build bonds with the riders and get to know their situations. Saturday night we went out bowling with mom, dad, Aimee, Anson, Sonya, and Olivia. We had so much fun! Today, we went to church then to the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo...note to self for next year: don't wait until the last day to go to the Stock Show! It was kinda fun, but most of the livestock was already gone. They still had a petting zoo, Elsie the Borden Milk mascot, pony rides and pictures (too bad Ryan and I are too big for this one...), and the Midway, but we weren't really big fans of the Midway. While we were there, they had a cow auction and a horse jumping show, so we watched a little of each of those. I have now decided that Ryan, Aimee, and I all need a horse of our own!
Grandma has also been recovering from her second surgery and this week, her twin sister (my Aunt Pat) came in to visit. Aunt Pat has also had a mastectomy, so I'm sure this gave Grandma an opportunity to talk to someone who really understands her situation. She had a follow-up visit with the surgeon this week and had a CT scan of her chest, abdomen, and pelvis. Once the oncologist reviews those results with her, she and the doctors will be able to devise a treatment plan suitable for her individual situation.
We haven't heard much else on Brittany's situation, so please keep her in your prayers as she and the doctors devise the best plan to treat her condition.
Mom seems to be doing better since she got a few days to rest, so we're all very grateful for that.
So that's what we've been up to lately...hope things are going well for you! Have a good week!