Current Gas Price: $2.96 Total Cockroach Count: 4 (saw one in our bedroom! EEK!)
Hello to our dear family! I cannot believe that we are updating our blog already! It seems like just yesterday I was sending out the one for October and now it's already December! Wow! November may have been one of the fastest months we've ever experienced! I'm sure that y'all will love this post though because it is filled with pictures of the most wonderful people we know...YOU! It was so marvelous to see all of you and spend time with you two weeks ago. As we were talking on the ride home (the rainy ride home) we realized that we had, in some ways, been kind of proud that we had not felt homesick since we moved down here...but after spending a week with y'all we realized how much we really do miss you! Whether we're eating delicious Indian food with Dad and Lynn, relaxing/making beeswax candles with all the Haldermans, or making astronauts helmets with Debs at John and Kim's, y'all are wonderful to be around and we truly enjoy each and every one of you! Thank you for a wonderful Thanksgiving vacation!
The month of November was fairly uneventful in the beginning. In fact, I think we were just doing the usual daily grind of working, eating, and sleeping for the first several weeks. I did take a little day trip with a committee that I am a part of at work called SALT (Supportive Assistive Learning Team) to the Washington Center (http://greenville.k12.sc.us/washctr/). The Washington Center, although a part of the Greenville Public School District is a public school specifically serving moderately to severely mentally or physically disabled students. It was SO cool to see some of the things that they do there and it gave us some great ideas!
Then after that, it was time for the birthday celebrations to begin! My friend Clory's birthday is November 10th so we had a birthday dinner with the Fousts and Ringenbergs to celebrate both of our birthdays. We went to this restaurant in Abbeville called "The Village Grill." It's one of the nicer local restaurants around!
Birthday dinner in Greenwood!
After that was an uneventful week of work and we headed to O-H-I-O to see all of you! We began the week with a birthday celebration at John and Kim's house with Libby, Dad and Lynn. Unfortunately, John and Kim were unable to participate in our second "get-together" with Dad and Lynn which took place later that week at our favorite Indian restaurant in Columbus. We used to meet up with Dad and Lynn there about every month before we moved. We miss seeing you and I miss eating Libby's tikka masala! Hee hee!
John's birthday is on December 1st so we had a triple birthday party for Libby, John, and me! Here we are blowing out our candles. Kim made an amazing red velvet cake that was the best I've ever tasted!
See how fresh and rejuvenated we look? It's because the drive from South Carolina is so easy!
You should try it sometime :)
Birthday celebration with Dad & Lynn!
After that we headed to the Halderman farm and enjoyed two days of doing nothing. Although our parents still had to go to work, we really enjoyed simply reading, watching Wes' baby videos, and napping on their couch! We had planned to do some more things outside but the dreary weather just made it that much easier to stay inside and do nothing! After that, we headed back to Columbus for dinner at Aab. After dinner, Wesley went to see J. Edgar at the movies by himself while Libby and I stopped by Bravo for a Lemontini before going to see Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Wes enjoyed his movie and despite being completely grossed out at the vampire-birth scene Libs and I enjoyed Twilight. :)
I finally got to try one of Libby's favorite Lemontinis!
On Wednesday we spent the day catching up with friends in Columbus. I had breakfast with my high school friends and lunch with my college friends while Wes had breakfast with Nate Richards and lunch with Logan. That night we headed out for a night on the town with Wes' friends from high school. Currently, this group consists of people living in Akron, Columbus, Boston, New York City, and Greenwood...so it was a miracle we could all get together! Before going to dinner we went to Middle West Spirits (http://www.middlewestspirits.com/) for a tour and tasting. We had an "okay" time. Even though the tour was informative and the drinks delicious (relatively speaking) we were 30 minutes late for our dinner reservation because the tour took two and half hours! Yikes!
From left: Tom & Sarah Porto, Jayme & Aaron Huber
Wesley and I with Andy Lawler trying our samples of Middle West Spirits.
From left: Ryan & Michelle Bundenthal, Sarah & Tom Porto, at dinner!
Wesley and I at Lindey's.
After that, it was officially THANKSGIVING! We started our Thanksgiving festivities at John and Kim's house in Cincinnati. We celebrated with Kim's family, the Pienings, and I must say that our families seem to fit together like peas and carrots! Perhaps it's because Libby and I are girls and Kim is one of four sisters (so there are a lot of girls) but I just feel like I've known them for years! John was up to his usual ways in the kitchen and he and Kim made an amazing meal for us! John was also up to his usual ways when he informed us that we'd be making astronaut helmets to win our dessert! This needs some explanation: Libby's boyfriend, Craig, works for NASA and this was his first time meeting us. So naturally, John asked him if he could bring some astronaut ice cream for dessert. Then John told us that we all had to make astronaut helmets out of household products to try and win the ice cream...and Craig had to chose a winner and a loser. This may sound silly to you but John has a gift for making people get excited about dumb ideas and before you know it we were all taping foil around our heads! Haha, it was an enjoyable evening activity!
Ready to eat our turkey!
Libby and Craig (before he realized he'd be judging the helmet contest!)
Video of us making our astronaut helmets! Enjoy!
Our astronaut helmets.
All of us wearing our astronaut helmets. Winner: Trish Piening (on my right), Loser: Kim
Later that evening, we sadly said our goodbyes and headed back to Dayton for Thanksgiving with the Haldermans. This Thanksgiving proved to be just as eventful as we ate more than we should, had a "boat" race in a creek, attempted to make beeswax candles, and played touch-walking football.
Turkey Day! Nice Ben...
Dana and I walking in Shawnee Prairie Preserve.
Wes has told me before about how he and his family used to have "boat" races when they would go to parks and stuff but this was my first time actually participating! Basically, everyone picks out something that they want to "race" with and they launch them at some point along a creek and everyone cheers on their "boat" until someone wins. Haha, it was so cute and totally want to do this with our kids! Unfortunately, I lost...big time! Enjoy!
Discussing my "winning" boat.
Our boat race. Unfortunately, Logan fell in the creek while he was launching some of the boats. It was not a comfortable walk back to the car for him!
Logan's muddy pants and soaking boots :(
Enjoy this video of us making our beeswax candles!
Our beeswax candles! Unfortunately, they didn't turn out because we think there was still too much honey left in them or something. So we're going to try it again another day!
After that, it was time to head back to South Carolina, which by now seemed very far away! But we did it! We tore ourselves from all of you, our dear loved ones, and are now simply looking forward to when we will see you again! Luckily, its not that far away!
Current Weather: 60 degrees and sunny Current Gas Price: $3.10 per gallon Total Cockroach Count: 3
Hello family! How are y'all doing? We are so excited to see you soon and can't want to visit for the holidays! This has been an exciting month for us and we feel like it FLEW by! Wesley finished up his Peds block and is now in Block 5 (Medicine)...it's hard to believe that he's already 1/3 of the way done with his intern year! Way to go Wesley! In two weeks, he will move to Block 6 (Sports Medicine) and he won't have ANY call! YAY! And obviously we'll be taking a nice long vacation to come and see y'all! Wes has been holding up like a champ these days but I've started to notice a little more of the "intern behavior" that the older doctor's wives were telling me about. The other day I woke Wes up from a nap before a night shift on peds and the first thing he said was, "How's the baby?" And then just last week I tried to wake him up again by saying his name and he wouldn't wake up, so I gently rubbed his face...still nothing, so I put my whole hand on his face and rubbed it (with a decent amount of pressure) and he STILL didn't wake up (didn't even stir), then I started shaking him screaming, "COCKADOODLE DOO BOB!" and he finally woke up! Haha, I made that last part up but you'd find it funny if you've seen "What about Bob?"
*Wesley made a new delicious dinner the other day and we thought some of you may enjoy trying it! Let us know what you think if you make it!
*** We only used half the squash for this recipe but we cook/chop the whole thing and freeze the remaining half and make it again the next week. You can always double everything else and use the whole squash but you'll have a lot of leftovers! ***
Directions
Preheat oven to 375. First, cut the squash in half (lengthwise) and set one half aside. Brush the squash flesh with olive oil and place face down on a roasting pan. Roast for 35 to 45 minutes (or until soft and yields to the touch). Remove and let sit for about 20 minutes. While the first half is roasting, take the other half of the squash and chop it up into very small pieces.
Put chicken stock in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Reduce to low heat and cover to keep the stock hot.
Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute (add garlic when almost translucent) and continue cooking until translucent. Add the rice and stir well for about 30 seconds. Add the wine and simmer, stirring constantly, until liquid is absorbed. Add 1/2 cup of hot stock and stir until stock is absorbed. Keep adding stock and stirring until absorbed until all the stock is gone. (Maybe about 25-30 minutes). While doing all this, get a large frying pan and saute HALF of the chopped up squash with some olive oil (freeze the other half). Once the risotto is all done, immediately add HALF of the roasted squash (freeze the other half) and the remaining sauteed squash to the risotto and stir until blended. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg. Dish up and enjoy! *We sometimes put some Parmesan cheese on top just because we like it but it's up to you!
*Our first big adventure in the month of October was a trip to the beach! We've learned a lot from the locals down here about going to the beach. First, you DO NOT go to Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head (those are for tourists). Second, you go to one of the following beaches: Folly Beach, Isle of Palms, Edisto Island, Hunting Island, etc. Third, you go in October when no tourists are and it isn't so hot. We wanted to go to Edisto because we have heard so much about it and it seems like we'd really enjoy it but the campground was all full so we ended up going to Hunting Island (which is right next to Edisto). Turns out Hunting Island supposedly has the best State Park in South Carolina and Wesley snagged us a camping spot there! It apparently is a great place for bird watchers because it has a ton of varieties and eagles and stuff. We enjoyed our drive there (took four hours? I can't remember) and we loved driving through the countryside. We only saw 1 corn field, which was very disappointing but we did see....COTTON fields! Oh man, we are in the South! Haha, I've never seen a cotton field before in my life and its weird looking stuff too! It was too good to pass up so we stopped to get a picture!
That machine in the back left is what collects it all and does something...haha Wes isn't home to give me the farming terms...dang it! On our drive back we saw this huge block of cotton sitting in the field. Like really big...probably bigger than our living room!
We didn't get there until 9:00 or so and turns out we had to walk to our campsite...so that was an adventure carrying all of our things back and forth to our campsite in the dark! We were surprised to wake up and see what our campsite actually looked like. It was very different from anything we were used to with all of the palms trees and stuff. Haha, I woke up to a strange noise outside the tent that sounded like a low growling throat noise that was surprisingly coming from a tiny red bird. Haha, very interesting. Later on, while we were eating breakfast, a huge bird of prey (don't know what kind) flew on the branch really close to us and took off after one of those little red growling birds...poor guy.
Soon we headed off to the beach! Unfortunately, it was actually really cold (the locals lied to us!) and we wore our jackets the whole day. Well, at least I did. It really was made worse by the fact that it was so incredibly windy that we could hardly face in that direction. (You know that feeling when it's so windy that you can't breath when you're facing it?) Please enjoy this video that gives a great example of how windy it was!
Enjoying his weekend off!
Do you like my $5 sunglasses from Walmart with a diamond "A" on them? I broke my favorite sunglasses days before we left so I had to grab something quick...I'm all about diamond monogrammed stuff :)
Did you feel cold watching it? I did. After sitting for a while, we finally decided to go put our stuff back at the campground and just walk along the beach. It was a lot better that way and we got to see more of the island! The lighthouse on the island is one of the oldest in South Carolina and it was pretty cool to go inside.
It was super windy up there but gave a great view!
We really enjoyed being away together! And we just really missed camping! This is the only time in 2011 that we've been able to go! Haha, we went like 5 times in 2010! Well, times are just crazy right now but we know that camping will be a big part of our lives so we'll just have to wait until life settles down!
*The following weekend we went to a "Wedding Crashers Party" at the cheif resident's house. She throws great parties and we enjoyed it a lot! Dana, you'll be happy to know that I won the award for "Best Reusable Bridesmaid Dress" wearing your bridesmaid dress! You have such classy style :)
*The weekend after that was a very exciting one because we made our first journey back to Ohio for my cousin Ashley's wedding. Although we were in Ohio for less than 48 hours, we had so much fun seeing John & Kim, Libby, and Mom and the rest of my extended family! We were happy we could be there to support my them on such an exciting day! Her wedding was absolutely gorgeous and we had a great time! It was, unfortunately, cut short though because the groom's dad ended passing out after partying too hard and Dr. Wesley had to come to the rescue at yet another family wedding. Everyone was really scared though because no one knew what was going on so I think people thought it was more serious than it was, myself included! Haha, he is doing well though! Here are some pics from the wedding:
I got three feathers put in my hair and I totally love them (although I'm cheap and won't pay to get more once they fall out) but I was disappointed to hear (from Libby) that "only college girls have them in Ohio." Haha, that was mildly embarrassing as lots of people get them down here. There are a bunch of teachers at my school who have them so I was really excited to show off my feathers...but I guess I'll just have to be cool here and not in Ohio :(
Wes dancing the dollar dance with my cousin Ashley. She looked absolutely beautiful!
We had a great time dancing as they had a live band playing lots of big band music! Wesley was leading me all over the dance floor with our foxtrot step! I thought we were pretty cool until Wes started dancing with my mom and she totally showed me up by twirling all over the dance floor! Haha, she was at least gracious about it and showed me how to do the twirls so that after that I could twirl around the floor myself.
BUT, the big dance moment of the evening was doing the Bombshell Stomp with my cousins. Ashley (the bride) had emailed Mom, Libs, and I (along with all my cousins) and asked if we could learn the steps to the Bombshell Stomp. Haha, I have NO experience doing line dancing but I thought I'd give it a try because Ashley was dancing around like crazy at my wedding and I wanted to support her! Haha, needless to say it was pretty shaky but we pulled it out! Haha, Libby, Kim and I were practicing that morning trying to remember all the steps but it turned out pretty well! Enjoy!
*Next was Halloween! Haha, despite celebrating it ALL week long at work we went to the residency's Annual Halloween Party. Wes and I are not super big into Halloween and we did not have costumes as of 30 minutes before the party so we had to improvise with things we had around the house. It was shockingly easy to find nerdy things around our house...hmmm?
Does it look natural? Hee hee...
This is Joseph and Trish Hall. Trish is an intern with Wes and Joseph is in the Army...so they switched places for Halloween. Wes and I had had that idea originally but speech therapists are unfortunately difficult to identify... Check out Joseph's bicep that barely fit in the extra large scrubs...haha we were all laughing about that!
This is Leanne and Trent Kline. They are fellow OSU grads and Leanne is an intern with Wes also. Trent is a stay-at-home dad currently because apparently Greenwood and neighboring areas are not too into fitness so he can't find a job (but the hospitals are full of unhealthy people for Wes and Leanne to take care of). They have a 7 month old girl named Harper Gray (as in Scarlet and Gray).
*We continue to really enjoy our church! We are learning more and more every week and have met a lot of wonderful people there! Haha, turns out that the entire intern class (minus Matt Haldeman) go to Northside Baptist church! AND they even had a guest celebrity visit last week...Justin Timberlake! Haha, just kidding! But check out this guy that is in their worship band...we all call him JT cause from our seats he looks like Justin Timberlake. (Wesley got some interesting looks taking this video during church...yikes!)
Ok y'all...I think that may be it! We are so excited to see you all very soon! Please let us know if we should bring anything or do anything to help out for the holidays! WE LOVE YOU!
Current Weather: 85 and sunny! Current Gas Price: $3.03 per gallon Total Cockroaches seen: 3 (whew!)
Hi Fam! How are y'all doing? We are SO excited to be seeing you all soon! We are about 95% sure that we'll be coming to Ohio on November 19th (yay for Libs and my birthday!) and leaving on Sunday, the 27th. So we'll have plenty of time to come and visit with y'all. Although we are very much enjoying the sunshine and warm weather, it is bittersweet because it really does not feel like fall here. I was talking with Debs on the phone this morning and she said that all the leaves are turning up there and its nice and chilly and everyone has pumpkins out. I haven't seen anyone with a pumpkin out on their porch (probably because it would bake in the heat). It seems that fall and spring are pretty short here while summer lasts most of the year and winter is the second longest season.
Well, I know we told you that August was characterized by work but I lied...SEPTEMBER is characterized by work instead! Wesley finished his 8 weeks of medicine and is happily enjoying his Peds block (block 4) before beginning another medicine block in late October. We are both looking forward to going to the beach next weekend!
*I got the results of my heart ECHO and event monitor and it seems like my ole' ticker is ticking just fine! They think that my heart palpitations are a result of stress (and or caffeine)...but it has to be stress because I drink the same amount of caffeine every day but have the palpitations at sporadic intervals. The palpitations were really bad last May and early June (when our lives were ridiculously busy and changing a lot) and they calmed down in July and kicked back up (a little bit) in August when I started working. But it has honestly been a long time since I've had one. SO...we're both glad to know that everything is all right and that I can relieve my symptoms by stress relieving techniques...which I'm not sure what those are but...yeah...
*Well it seems that within three months of living here Wes and I were both big enough celebrities to make it into the local paper. Please see below for my debut in the Index Journal. I confess that I'm not thrilled about it because 1) it's a terrible picture of me and 2) I don't appreciate getting undeserved praise. We went to the "event" because the Bocks (Alan and Lynsey who are 2nd years from Ohio) invited us to a "cookout" so we just went to support them and get free food. Then there were these cute little mexican boys who wanted to plant some peppers so Lynsey asked if I would help them. As you can see, I'm wearing a skirt and Wes and I both missed the memo about planting vegetables at the "cookout." But as you can see from the article, I seem like Mother Theresa or something even though I went for the food...yup..enjoy the article though :)
* I have really enjoyed getting involved with the youth group at our church. I lead one of the high school girls small groups (or C-groups as they call them) on Sunday mornings! Early in September I went on their fall retreat to Awanita Christian Retreat Center (http://www.awanita.org/). I had a great time getting to know the girls a little bit better but was slightly disappointed with how busy it was for me. This was my first time being on a retreat as an adult and not one of the kids. I had to be with a group at all times and some girls would want to ride in the paddle boats, some go off the zip line, and others ride the horses. So I spent most of the time just going around to wherever the girls wanted me too. I went off the zip line (one time) and pulled both of my biceps and some muscle that runs horizontally across my back so then I just stuck to the water slide after that. I was in serious pain after my zip line experience...haha, I've even been exercising a lot more and I still hurt myself! Here is a picture of me driving the church van (YES!):
*The morning that I left for Awanita I decided to run the dishwasher...and OH NO! I used the wrong type of soap. It was one of those out of body experiences where you can see yourself using the wrong type of soap and you know whats going to happen but you still put it in the dishwasher and turn it on...yup...that's what I did! The best part? I did this right as I was leaving for work so I had to just clean up what was on the floor and just not run the dishwasher BUT I was leaving for Awanita right after work so I had to leave all that mess for Wesley to clean up (which he did like a champ!). But I felt like a pretty bad wife...yikes!
*Also, check out this spider that I found outside the youth group building! I have NEVER seen a spider this big before but down here they call them "writing spiders" because they are the type of spider that Charlotte's Web was based off of...I guess...I'm not sure how valid this statement is but that's what someone told me.
*We have still been finding time to try out more yummy meals! We still make indian food a lot and we actually made some chicken tikka masala and saag paneer for our small group the other day so that was pretty fun! Last night we made our favorite roast chicken and veggies and this week we're going to make some butternut squash soup again in an effort to bring fall to Greenwood. Wesley tried his luck at gnocchi making the other evening and they turned out to be AMAZING! Here are some pictures of Chef-Wesley making homemade gnocchi.
* We have also tried two new restaurants in Greenwood recently. We went to Pascal's last Friday before going to see Mornings at Seven at the Greenwood Community Theater. Pascal's is kind of Greenwood's local "expensive restaurant." They have a bunch of tapas so we actually ended up getting a bunch of those instead of getting an entree. Everything was delicious expect for that after we ordered we realized that we got a bunch of stuff with cheese in it and so by the end of the meal we were both really stuffed...there such a thing as too much cheese.
We also went to a little hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant called, "El Puerto Chico" with Payton and Clory this week. The woman who own's the restaurant has a daughter who works as a translator at the hospital...so that's how Wes and Payton heard of it. It was definitely a "hole-in-the-wall" restaurant as we were the only white people in there, the menu was in spanish (with one english page) and the owner shouted something in spanish out of the kitchen and then a woman who was sitting at another table came up to us and said, "she wants to know if you want her to make a little bit of everything and bring it out to you to try." Haha, needless to say I don't think we'll be going anywhere else for mexican food because it was DELICIOUS! She brought out four huge plates full of food and it was more than enough to feed all of us and she charged us $20. Haha, we really enjoyed the experience! We'll have to take you all there when you come visit!
*We finally hung some shelves up on that bare wall in the dining room. I still haven't decided what to put on the shelves but I'm getting there. Here are some pics of Wesley putting up the shelves...he is SO good at hanging things on the wall...everything comes out so straight!
*Lastly, I promised I'd send along a picture of Carly and Clory to show all of you! I spend most of time (when not spent with Wes) with these gals and I feel really blessed to have them as friends down here! They have been a real answer to prayer and have made the transition to Greenwood feel very easy! They were not too pleased with the picture of them but I told them they looked great! We took it after church last Sunday...
Clory Foust (left), me, Carly Ringenberg (right)
*We are so very excited to see all of you over the holidays! Much love! - Wes and Abby
P.S. Here are some pictures of our house for those of you who have not been here! Or maybe I sent these out in an email already? Haha, I can't remember! We've added a few adjustments since these pictures were taken though...
