June 2012

Current Weather:  104 and sunny (WAY TOO HOT!)
Current Gas Price:  $2.73 (AWESOME!)
Total Cockroach Count:  5

Hello Family!

How are all of you? We felt so happy and blessed to have been able to spend time with all of you this past month! Wes had two weeks off (in which we saw y'all for vacation) and then had two more (and final) weeks of medicine.  We is officially a second year resident at this point (July 2nd)! Hooray!  I have been on summer break and have greatly enjoyed the down time.  I've spent countless hours trying to make our wedding scrapbook...which is feeling like a hopeless endeavor but I am finally finished up to the reception.  I'm hoping to accomplish my goal this week so that I can bring it with me to show you in July.  But we'll see if that actually happens! I've been pretty lazy about starting it today!

June began in an amazing way as I finished my last day of work for the year and we headed to Tennessee for the lake!  We had a great time at the lake with everyone! I think we were all a bit disappointed that it turned out to be fairly cold that weekend but we still braved the wind and went out the boat for a bit.  John and Dad were in the water for decent amount of time (brave men!) and I ventured out for maybe 10-15 minutes before having to retreat to warmer climates...like my towel and the sunshine! We spent a lot of time (probably too much time) shooting beer cans off the back porch with our BB guns.  Wes and John did a little skeet shooting as well....Kim would throw a can off the porch and they'd try to shoot it.  Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful and did not hit a single can.  Here are some pics from the weekend:

Craig, Libby, Wes and me on the boat!

Kim, John, Dad, and Lynn

Dad & me shooting beer cans off the porch...

And some more...

Wes and John 

"Skeet shooting"

All of us on the back porch...haha, we're sort of blocking the lake but it's behind us!

Everyone else had to go back to work on Monday so they all headed home on Sunday afternoon.  Wes and I headed to North Carolina for hiking and camping in Pisgah National Forest.  We had heard about several trails in Pisgah from our "native-Ohio" friends in Greenwood and we thoroughly enjoyed it! Here are some pictures from our little excursion:

Our campsite at Mount Pisgah Campground.

Smartwools and flip flops...I camp in style! :) 

We made shrimp-pineapple fajitas for dinner.  YUM!

Me in this beautiful meadow. 

Wes on top of Sam's Knob. 

We took another trail at the base of Sam's Knob (can't remember what it was called)  but it ran alongside this beautiful creek and kind of took us in a big circle between several several smaller mountains. 

Wesley by the creek. 

Me on top of Black Balsam Knob.  Gorgeous view! 

Wes stoking the fire with his "femur" log.

Next, I enjoyed a few days off while Wes worked a few clinic days.  Then we enjoyed a visit from the Halderman family the following weekend! They came from all over the place to Greenwood! Dana came straight from California where she had been vacationing with Ben (he unfortunately had to work), Brent and his friend Cammie came from Colorado, and Logan/Halderman parentals came from Ohio! We spent a day in Greenwood, doing various things, went to our church on Sunday and then headed for Table Rock in the upstate.  I'll write more about the rest of our trip in the captions!

We took them to Fusion for dinner.  This is one of our favorite restaurants in Greenwood.  

This is us inside Fusion.  They have Thai and Japanese food here as well as sushi.  Wes ordered some sushi for everyone to try! Haha, some people required more persuading to try to the sushi but in the end, everyone tried a piece and liked it at least a little bit :)

We walked around the Festival of Flowers exhibits during the day.   This is an annual event in Greenwood.   Many schools and companies in the community sponsor and put together these flower displays.  We walked around the Uptown and looked at all of the exhibits.  They had this camera, a jeep, a giraffe, a tiger, and a bunch of other things made out of flowers.

Wes making breakfast for all of us before church. 

Getting ready to leave for Table Rock. 

The weather forecast was pretty bleak for our camping trip so we stopped in Greenville so Wes and I could buy this  little tent/cover thing.  We had been wanting to get one and this was the perfect chance...it looked like we were going to need it! 

The weather held up for our first night and we made the world's largest foil pack for dinner.  Haha,  Mom was pretty incredible moving that thing around the fire...it took major skill to maneuver it! 

So while we were sleeping that night...the rain came! It was pretty much pouring down rain  most of the night and Wes and I tent was the only one that remained dry throughout the evening.  Our new tent thing came in handy after all!

Here we are huddled up for breakfast!

The forecast looked even worse the next day so we decided on Plan B ...we'd go to Asheville and possibly try hiking in Pisgah National Forest again!

We decided to hike Black Balsam Knob again since we had enjoyed so much the previous weekend.  Unfortunately, you could not see anything from the top besides giant rain clouds all around you! So, the view was kind of disappointing.  And as we began our decent down the mountain it, of course, started to pour down rain again! Haha, honestly though, I thought it made it way more fun! We had a great time! 

Wes and Brent ran ahead of us, got the cars from the parking lot and came around to pick us up.  We were prepared with our hitchhiking thumbs though...just in case they didn't recognize us :) 

Wes and Brent picking us up!

After hiking we had worked up an appetite!  Wes and I took them to our favorite restaurant in Asheville, Tupelo Honey Cafe.  It has "modern southern" food and it is delicious! 

This is us in the hotel on our last morning together.  Wes and  I had to head back a day early because he had to work the next day.  Everyone else stayed in Asheville for another day and enjoyed the local "sights." 

 After our two mini-vacations were over we settled down into a day to day routine.  Wes started back at work and I began my relaxing vacation day to day routine :)   The new interns began orientation on July 13th or something like that so there were several get togethers for them.  We enjoyed the annual Skit Night at Dr. Smith's house.  Last year, we didn't really know anyone so the skits were not that funny but this year we enjoyed them a lot more.  The intern class has to make fun of the second year class and vice versa.  You can view the intern class video below.  Wes is at the very end so if you want to scroll ahead that'd be good.  It's not that funny when you don't know anyone...but you can see all of his fellow interns if you're interested! The second years teased Wes for hanging out with his wife so much...haha so we took that as a compliment! You can view the video here: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGWxP53CIR8) 

 Wes also got a weekend off in which we went to Greenville and road on the bike trail for a while.   This was my first time riding a road bike so I was super wobbly at first and I was pretty nervous about running someone over on the trail but I got used to it and managed to not hit anyone! Here are some pics!

We were very disappointed to find out that our bike rack works on the 2007 Honda Fit but not the 2007 Honda Fit Sport...which is what we have.  So we had to take Wes' Accord to Greenville instead.

We rode around Furman University for a while too! 

We took a little break to see their famous clock tower.  There were so many turtles in this little lake!  I counted at least 10 but I know there were more! They had really pretty gardens and landscaping on campus! Very nice! 

So, that's about it! We are headed to Peru on Monday, July 9th...so one week from today! We are getting excited about it and pray that we will be useful there! Haha, maybe I'm concerned about being useful more than Wes...I'm pretty sure he'll be useful! And then we'll see y'all in late July! Can't wait! Love you all! 

May 2012

Current Weather: 88 and partly cloudy
Current Gas Price: $2.98 per gallon
Total Cockroach Count: 5 (late-night sighting in our bathroom...he got away!)

Hey Fam! Well, you're getting two posts on the same day because it took me so long to get the April post working.  But, that's okay because this one will be incredibly short.  Basically, May was one of the busiest months we've had since moving here.  Wes was on his 5th block of Medicine (out of 5.5) so he was pretty much working, eating, and sleeping for most of the month.  I was in the peak of my IEP season and stayed late at work most evenings.  Because Wes worked every weekend (except one) we didn't really make too many plans on the weekends and I spent most of my weekends working as well.   So, I honestly don't have much else to write about....boring, I know! I am now on summer break and Wes starts his last .5 Medicine block tomorrow.  SO, in two weeks Wes will have officially completed his first year of residency, WAHOO!! BUT, I will reflect on that in the next blog...I can't get ahead of myself here!

The only fun thing that we did in the month of May was attend a "wine tasting/class" at our friend Payton's Foust house.  Payton used to work for a bunch of classy restaurants in Charleston and he had to attend weekly wine tastings as a part of his job.  He therefore knows a ton about wine and so he held a little class to teach all of us some new info about wine.  It was a really fun evening as lots of the resident's and their wives came.  Here are some pics:

Payton & Clory.  Payton had 8 wines that he'd picked out for our tasting.

Dave & Tammy Johnston (on left) and Payton.  Payton is explaining how to use a corkscrew that doesn't have "wings" on it.  Dave is trying his luck with it.  Haha, as you can see, we were all pretty much amateurs. 

Wesley and me at the wine tasting. 

Ok, well, sorry that was so boring.  More to come in the June blog!

April 2012

***Ok, so I wrote this post in May and then right when I was ready to post it the Picasa album with all of our pictures from Charleston something messed up (or I did something wrong) and I couldn't access them anymore.  SO...sorry this post is so late but May was so busy that we just finally got to fixing the Picasa album issue...thanks to Wes for fixing it! ***




Current Weather: 83 degrees and sunny
Current Gas Price: $3.51 per gallon
Total Cockroach Count: 4

Whew! April was a blur! It was also a very unusual month for both of us.  Wes was on community medicine so besides clinic, online tests/modules, and visits to medical professionals in the community Wes had the month off!  He finished his STEP III! YAY! I know what you're thinking, "when is he going to be done taking huge (and expensive) tests?"  Well, the answer is never.  BUT! STEP III was the last "general test" he has to take and now he just has one more at the end of residency to be a "board certified" physician.  Then he only has to take a huge-expensive test every 10 years after that.  Are you thinking about becoming a doctor? How about now?  Haha,  just kidding! We've enjoyed the process but like to laugh about it once in a while!

I had a total of 9 days off during the 20 day work month...so it was weird (but awesome) to only work 11 days during the month.  Definitely an interesting month...how about I start at the beginning?  Good idea!

The month began with a visit from G & G Haldy (Jim & Opal).  They were headed back to Ohio from spending the winter in Florida.  We were especially glad to see Jim as he had just recently had surgery to remove suspicious masses from his colon.  It was a major surgery and we were so happy to see him looking so good and healthy! He is doing much better now and I guess we're still not sure for sure whether or not the masses were cancerous?  They treated us to dinner at Red Lobster and then came to our place for breakfast the next morning before continuing on their journey north! I had not been to Red Lobster in like forever and can I just say how much fun it is to crack crab legs? If you have not experienced a good "crab leg cracking" you are definitely missing out on one of God's little pleasures in life! Haha, good times! Wes was hit twice by some "fly away crab"...so see...it's fun for the whole family!

Wes & I with G & G Haldy

Next, I enjoyed some Easter fun with my friends Clory and Carly.  We colored eggs and attempted to make flower cookies (like Clory saw on Pinterest) but they didn't turn out quite like we had planned.  I always enjoy girl time though so it was fun to just hang out with them! Here are some pictures from our "Easter Fun" night.

Our egg decorating supplies :)

Posing with my finished eggs.

Clory dying one of her eggs. 

Carly was a champ at making the flower cookies.  Haha, Clory and I attempted to help her but I just got stressed trying to do it...so I gave up! Haha, they did a much better job than me and the cookies were delicious, despite not looking much like flowers. 

That was during my last week of work before spring break!  Best part about working at an elementary school is taking an entire day to goof off and dress silly.  Haha, this was the Friday before spring break and it was our "Literacy Alive" Celebration.  All the teachers dressed like pirates and there were activities all over the school for the kids to do.  It was a big party to celebrate the kids reading so many books! Haha, they hired two "pirate actors" and the kids were scared of them so you could hear kids screaming sporadically throughout the day...it was pretty funny!

Here I am in my pirate outfit. 

My room was transformed into the "Buried Treasure" room.  The kids took turns digging for buried treasure in the pools and they were allowed to keep a prize of their choice.  My job was simply to explain the rules and re-bury the treasure before the next class came in.  Haha, it was pretty entertaining. 

After that, it was time for spring break! WAHOO!! Wes and I went to Charleston for a week and we were so excited that Libby & Craig and John & Kim came with us for the first few days! We kicked the vacation off with Libby & Craig coming over that Friday night and having a Just Dance competition.  I had a an absolute blast! That game is so much fun and it makes me want to buy a Wii just to play it! But, I'm going to avoid that purchase for as long as possible.  Here is a video of Libs and I's first dance (we're just getting warmed up!) which is pretty funny.  I thought I was pretty much kicking butt until I was defeated by...it's true...my husband.  NO! Haha, Wes beat me at this Indian dance.  I blame my bum shoulders but it could also be Wes' inner-Indian coming out.  I've always known he has one.  Haha, no worries, I'm taking him on again in Norris Lake.  ;)

Anyway, here is the video and all of our Charleston pictures can be viewed at the provided link.  We had an absolutely WONDERFUL time in Charleston and truly enjoyed some extended time with family.  We miss you guys!

LINK TO CHARLESTON PICTURES:
https://picasaweb.google.com/112941531646652866716/CharlestonVacation?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCP_A6LL6mt39_QE&feat=directlink

Honestly, April ended up being a month in which we saw all of our family members, even if only for a brief moment! The weekend after we got back from Charleston we enjoyed a visit from Dad & Lynn.  We really appreciated them coming to see us as it turned out that they were only able to come for one day but they still made the trek down here! Thanks again guys! We gave them the ole' tour of the Emerald City and went to Abbeville for dinner at the Village Grill.  Lynn has been training for a half marathon so we spent some time during the day running/walking.  Haha, Lynn was running and the rest of us were walking! But it was nice to get out and be active! The weather was great and we had a good appetite for the Village Grill afterward!

Me, Dad, and Lynn in Abbeville Square.

Haha, our waitress took a pretty awful picture but this is us at Village Grill.  We all ended up getting the same pork chop special, so that was pretty funny.  But it was really delicious and came with root vegetables grown by Parisi Farms (which is our favorite local produce at the farmer's market). 

While we were in Charleston, we learned that Wes' other grandpa (G Miller) was back in the hospital.  He stayed in the hospital for a week or so before he was moved home, on hospice care. He passed away on April 24, 2012 and we headed to Ohio two days later.  He was 92 years old and had lived a wonderful full life.  If you'd like to read his obituary, click here (http://www.jackson-sarver.com/obituaries.aspx?turl=http://hosting-24842.tributes.com/show/russell-miller-93699515).  Unfortunately, our other visit with family was for his funeral.  Although it was a sad reunion, we were really happy to see everyone, and it blessed our hearts to see everyone in our family during the month of April.  (I don't have a picture of it but my mom came and had brunch with us on the Sunday we were in Ohio...so she made it official...we got to see everyone!).

After Grandpa Miller's funeral.  It was really cold and rainy that day so we took this picture as fast as we could.  I was the only person not brave enough to take my coat off.  Haha and Wesley was recovering from a flu-ish type sickness and then I got a cold the next day...bummer! Nasty Ohio weather! 

It was so sad to say goodbye to Grandpa Miller but we felt blessed to see everyone and that all of us were able to stay for several days...so we got some time to just be together!  We even had time for a second fish fry at G & G Halderman's house! 

After that, we headed back to South Carolina and it was suddenly May! Oh my goodness!

March 2012

Current Temperature:  80 degrees with isolated thunderstorms
Current Gas Price:  $3.59 per gallon
Total Cockroach count: 4 (I keep waiting for my first summertime sighting...eek!)

Howdy familial relations!

How are each and every one of you? We miss y'all and have thought about you this week! It's about time we saw you! We're excited that we are going to see most of you pretty soon! Just a couple of months and we'll be together!  :)

So, ok, March.  Well the good news (for y'all anyway) is that March was way more exciting than January and February so you'll actually have some fun things to read/see!  As of now, I am completely finished with my IEP audits and am only one week away from Spring Break! YES!! This month has been filled with working weekends, staying late at work, and crying on Wesley's shoulder but I have survived it and am DONE!! It is a good feeling to finish something and know you put your best effort toward it, isn't it? Now that rewriting the IEPs for this audit is finished, I can now begin my testing and writing the IEPs (again!) for annual reviews.  And there was something else I was supposed to do........hmmm.......oh yeah, therapy! Haha, just kidding! This time of year is pretty crazy for all the speech therapists.  It's especially crazy down here because they do all their IEPs at the end of the year!  But the first thing to go in order to get all this done is your regular therapy schedule.  Interesting...

Wesley is almost finished with his ER block and will begin Block 11 (community medicine) next Thursday.  Community medicine is probably the easiest block of them all so Wesley will have lots of free time in April.  We're going to be in Charleston for vacation of 1/4 weeks of the block and then he really only has a couple more things he needs to do! The rest if free time! The best part is that he will get every weekend off (with the exception of a CME he's doing in Atlanta at the end of April).  Wesley is taking his STEP 3 exam this coming Tuesday and Wednesday (April 3-4) so please keep him in your prayers.   As usual, he is not at all nervous and feels confident that he'll do well on it! Hee hee, so unlike what I think before big tests...but hey, I'm not the doctor!  THANK YOU to all of you for supporting Wes on National Doctor's Day! He felt very loved and appreciated by your kind words!

The most exciting thing that happened this month was the resident retreat, which was early in March.  This is a weekend, sponsored by the hospital, where all the residents go to some retreat location (either beach or mountains) and hang out all weekend.   The attendings are responsible for staffing the hospital and being on-call and all that jazz...so it's a pretty great weekend for the residents! Everyone brings their family and we all just have a great time!   We spent the weekend at the Ridges Resort (http://www.theridgesresort.com/) in Georgia.  Our villa ended up being the "party house" and everyone came over to our place to hang out! Which was awesome until about midnight when I wanted to go to sleep ;) We also went hiking together on Saturday, which was super fun! Our friend, Matt Haldeman, is a big hiking guy and he planned a hike for everyone with lots of waterfalls and stuff.  It was great to see so many of the residents come with their babies strapped to their chest and what not! Haha, we weren't sure what kind of turn we'd get but lots of them came! And the waterfalls were beautiful! Check out the pictures:

This is me with Amy Boyer (left) and Clory Foust (right) watching the guys play football.    These are by far my two favorite friends down here! With the exception of Lauren Pinkston, whom I also really love but is not in this picture!  She's in another picture though!  I have just really enjoyed spending so much time with other ladies, since our husbands are always working there is always some other girl to hang out with and it's been so much fun! 

One of the little girls was picking flowers and putting them in our hair.  Amy didn't want to put  her flower in her hair,  so I took it and put it behind my free ear.  She started cracking up and thought I looked like a little alien guy or something.  I suppose you had to be there but we were all laughing pretty hard...I made her get in this picture with me since she was laughing so hard! 

Here's Wes playing football with the guys.   

Here we are by the first waterfall! 

Here's a bunch of us hanging out while everyone gets pictures by the waterfall.  Not my best photo ;)

Here we are by the second waterfall. 

Wes, Payton, and Matt climbed over a bunch of rocks and stuff to get closer to the waterfall. 

I did not bring my jacket so I was freezing by the waterfalls.  We were standing in the shade and the mist from the waterfall was so chilly! Clory looks less cold than me in the this picture I think...but she was cold too!! Do I look cold? 

This is Lauren Pinkston.  She has bad knees too so I let her borrow one of my trekking poles  to try out!  She was a big fan after using it to go down hill.  Here we are showing off our "ghetto" trekking poles! 

We stopped at a scenic overlook on our way back on Sunday.    It was pretty lovely! 

So there you have it, the Resident Retreat! We really did have a great time!  We were talking afterward about how it really felt a lot like being at college again.  Like at a Mosaic retreat where we'd all hang out and just do whatever.  But there were a lot of people around and it was just fun to "hang out" together...and I mean like really hang out...not like the hang out until 10:00 when everyone has to go because all of the resident's have to work the next morning kind of a thing.  We also had a church service together on Sunday. Lauren's husband, Gavin, did the teaching and Wesley did the music.  I must say I was super impressed with Wesley because we did not have any instruments so he would just start singing a song and then everyone would join in...yikes!  I would have been beside myself having to sing in front of everyone but he was calm, cool, and collected as usual and just belted it out! And he sounded great too!

Several weeks later, we hosted 5 high school boys (plus two leaders) at our house for the weekend.  They were doing a little retreat of their own and Ben, the student pastor, had people in the church host the kids for the weekend.  We ended up with the boys because they were the smallest group and we have a pretty small place! I certainly would have preferred the girls but it turned out to be a blessing because the Thursday before, Clory and I decided at 10:30 to go and see the Hunger Games at the midnight showing.  It was amazing to me that we were still able to get tickets at 10:30 but this is Greenwood, so they still had some available! We also got there at 11:45 and still got great seats! Sweet!  I totally loved the movie and thought they did a pretty good job of keeping true to the book but also having it make sense to people who had not read the book.  Did any of you see it? What did you think?  Well anyway, so I got three hours of sleep the night before the boys came for the weekend.  So it ended up being a good thing that it was boys and not girls because I would have wanted to hang out with the girls and instead I went to sleep :)  Haha, Wes enjoyed getting to know the guys a little better though!

Just last night, we went and saw the Hunger Games again with some friends.  It was fun to see it with other people a second time too!  We went to Fusion for dinner beforehand!  It's a pretty good Thai place in Greenwood.  Here we all are:

From Left to Right:  Gavin & Lauren Pinkston, Nicole Kennedy, Matt Haldeman, Payton & Clory Foust,  and me & Wes. All of the girls (and Wes) had read the book so we were excited to see it in action (even though Clory and I had already seen it!!) 

Welp...that's about it!  We're having dinner with Jim & Opal Halderman (G&G Haldy) tonight, so we are really excited to see them! They are headed back up to Ohio and are going to stop to see us on their way! Jim is doing much better but please continue to keep him in your prayers! We love and miss you all! Please let us know how we can be praying for you!! Hope you're all doing well and we can't wait to see you in June!

February 2012

Current Weather: 80 degrees and sunny
Current Gas Price:  $3.56 per gallon
Total Cockroach count:  4

Hello dear family...well I lied when I told you that January's post would be the most boring to date because really THIS ONE is going to be the most boring post!  Haha, in fact February was so uneventful that we took NO pictures at all during the entire month....awesome!

We have basically just been working, working, working.  Wes is finished with Block 9 (Peds).  So he's officially in Block 10 (ER) now.  It is so crazy that we are already in Block 10! This intern year has gone SO fast and we can hardly believe that it's almost over.  Wes comments on this fact between on-call shifts, "I'm SO happy...I can't wait to not be an intern anymore."  Well said Wesley!

Work has picked for me as well because of the crazy way they do their IEPs here! In Ohio, IEPs start after an initial evaluation and end a full year after the "Initial IEP date."  Here, the IEPs start after an initial evaluation but end on the last day of school.  SO...in Ohio I had to write IEPs all throughout the year and had IEP meetings sprinkled throughout the year.  But here I will have over 40 IEPs to write and meetings to attend in only a week or two (they like you to keep the new IEP date as close to the end date as possible).  So basically, May will be a crazy month.  Also, because of the way they do their IEPs, I have not been able to dismiss any of my kids, even though some are ready to go, but have had to add all the new ones that I evaluated this year...so my caseload is nice and plump and I'm finding myself having to do a lot of work at home just to keep up! BUT...only 10 more weeks until summer vacation! WAHOO!!

Ok, so wow...that's all I've got! Sorry February was so boring but we've got a lot going on in March so we should have more to update you on! We love you all and miss you! We think of you often and want to hear what's going on in your life! Please keep us updated!

Love you!