Same old Same old....

William's birthday was last monday and he had a great day! Since then we have just been going through the same old routine with work and school. This past Saturday I had to work so William went to the morgue and the pathologist just handed him the sheet with the picture of the body on it and told him to write down everything he saw. Of course William was OVERJOYED and went to town measuring bullet holes and bruises and all that other stuff! I think he has totally decided what kind of doctor he wants to be....

Friday night we went out to eat at Mellow Mushroom, which we are obsessed with now but don't go alot because there is no parking downtown and the wait is always long, and then we rented the new Madea play!! It was so cool to watch it because it is the play that we actually went to in person back in February. It was GREAT! Saturday we went to the gym and it snowed a little again! Sunday night we rented eclipse and the last Shrek movie and basically just had a movie-watching weekend!

This upcoming weekend we are soooo excited to go home and settle more wedding details such as the florist, tux rentals, wedding bands, etc. It feels good to check things off the list!!!!

Happy Birthday

Happy 23rd Birthday to my soon-to-be husband! I love you!

Thanksgiving and such

Oh my goodness, I am terrible at finding time to post. I haven't posted since before Thanksgiving! Shame on me.

This was our last unmarried Thanksgiving and both of our family get-togethers were scheduled on Thanksgiving day at the same time so we decided to split up. It didn't bother either one of us because we figure we'll have the rest of our lives to have to make decisions on where we go and how we divide up our time! We went home on Wednesday, the day before thanksgiving, and William stayed at my house that night. He left Thanksgiving morning to go to his grandparent's for the day while I visited mom's side for lunch and dad's for dinner. William and I both went with our moms on black friday and got some great deals! Here' my favorite part: I love Shoe Carnival. I get all my shoes there and it happens to be about 5 minutes from my house in Garner. Last year we got our black friday sales papers and I saw that shoe carnival was giving away a $100 shopping spree at 7 am. I told my mom we HAD to go to be a part of this drawing and so we finally dragged in there at about 6:50. We got our tickets, looked around for a bit, and they had this little girl pull a ticket. Whose number do you think was called? Yes....I won. LOL So I bought shoes for my mom and I and I haven't needed a pair since November of 2009. Well, here we were November of 2010 and my shoes are worn out. We get our black friday sales papers and What? Another Shoe Carnival $100 shopping spree? Why yes, I think we will go again. So here mom and I go...we had already been to walmart and target and we roll up at shoe carnival at about 6:52. We get our tickets, same old routine, and this little boy picks the ticket out. All of a sudden mom starts screaming and jumping up and down. I got my shoes for 2011. :)

The Sunday after Thanksgiving I met Melissa and Erica, two of my bridesmaids, at David's Bridal so that they could try on the dresses! They loved them and they looked GREAT! It took us about 10 minutes to do all that so we went to Starbucks and talked/caught up for a good while. I didn't even take my camera to Raleigh so here's a picture of Erica and I (and Mere!) at her wedding:

and a picture of Me, William, and Melissa in Africa:

This week we have just been working and studying. Saturday we had our Christmas party for work and we had SUCH a good time. Once again, no pictures (I thought about it but I had a really cute clutch-purse and the camera wouldn't fit). HOWEVER, we had our first SNOW in Winston yesterday. It started around 11:00 and it had stopped by part time which was at 6:00. Here is a picture of William watching from the balcony and a picture across the way:

Isn't it gorgeous? We lit the fireplace, did some cooking, sipped some hot chocolate...it was GREAT! It was the pretty kind of snow that doesn't stick to the roads but just covers everything else.

William has a test tomorrow, which also happens to be his Birthday! He will be so glad to have the test done and we'll probably go out to eat and go see a movie. Today is December 5th which means 3 months until the wedding! We are so excited!

Great Weekend

William and I have had the best weekend just being with each other and relaxing. I was off work Friday so I was able to get some stuff done around the house and for myself. I put dinner in the crockpot and I ran errands, got a haircut, and PICKED UP MY WEDDING DRESS!! I just ordered it last week when mom and grandma were here and they expected it to arrive in December. Well, friday morning I received an e-mail that it was here and I went to David's Bridal, tried it on, got really excited, and brought it home! I don't need any "alterations" except for a bustle for the train. Is that how you spell it? Anywho I was able to move the appointment up to next week and then they'll keep it for about 6 weeks. I just cannot wait to wear it! Saturday I got another e-mail that my veil was in...I guess I should have waited a day to pick up the dress but the store isn't far from our house so its okay.

Saturday night we went to the gym and then tried this new restaraunt by our house. Everytime we pass it we say "hmm we'll have to try that" and we are SO glad we did. It was delicious. William got chicken parmesan and I created my own pasta! It was so much food (for a reasonable price) that we had our leftovers for dinner last night. Yesterday we tried a new church that isn't too far from our house and we liked it the best by far! After church we went to Panera Bread for lunch, made a trip to the dollar tree, and went to the gym again. It has been so much fun just relaxing and doing what we want to do!

On a sidenote: We have been in Winston Salem since July 10th. Since then we have attended THREE funerals. THREE....since July. William has a great singing voice (and loves to use it ALL the time--lol J/k--sort of!) and so he is always asked to sing for the services. His great aunt has been sick for a while and she just died last night so at some point this week he will be traveling home (as long as its a day when he doesn't have required classes). We were talking last night and this will be more funerals in a 5 month period than i have ever attended in all my other years. I will most likely not be able to go with him for this one though because it would really throw everything in a whirl at work. Hopefully this will be the last one for a while....

Home where he belongs

William came back home yesterday after a week in Elizabeth City! I was SO glad to have him back. I don't mean to sound selfish but I moved to Winston so that he can fulfill his dream and so I can support him along the way but when he was not here for a week it all seemed pointless. I know that's me being dramatic but if I'm not here with him then I would rather be at home with my family and friends. Anywho, we are back to normal today. I'm getting ready to leave for work and he has a nice long monday at school where they are starting their biochemistry block. William really should have this unit in the bag. Biochem is his forte. He majored in it, tutored it, taught it, dreamed about it, etc, LOL so maybe we'll have a bit more free time together this semester.

I had a great visit with my mom and grandma while they were here! The only real day we had together was Thursday because I was off work. We went wedding dress shopping, and yes, I bought the dress! I would post a link to the website or a picture but obviously I dont want William to see it! I was so happy with it, it was actually the first one I tried on and nothing else compared. We also went to IKEA and settled the decor for the reception. We made a lot of headway on plans and things are slowly coming together. The other days that mom and grandma were here I had to work so I only saw them at night. They helped get some things done around the apartment, actually went grocery shopping for me, AND they set up our little 4-ft Christmas tree. I KNOW it's not even thanksgiving yet but grandma is an A+ christmas tree professional so I wanted her to straighten it out while she was here. William and I decorated the tree and hung our stockings! Here's a quick picture:






I get off late on Mondays so I am making homemade chili in the crockpot for dinner tonight! I'm using grandma's recipe and I took pictures of the process so once we eat it (to make sure it's good) I will post the procedure!!!

Long time no post

I didnt realize it has been so long since I last posted! Our schedules are SOOO crazy! The last two weeks were filled with finals for William so when he wasn't studying he was thinking about studying--needless to say he did great! This week is what they call Community Practice Experience (CPE). All of the students in his class get places somewhere in North Carolina with either a general practioner, pediatrician, or maybe an obgyn. The one place William did not want to go was all the way to elizabeth city and he DEFINITELY did not want to do gynecology. Well, what do you think happened? Right now he is in Elizabeth city watching pap smears and pelvic exams. LOL. Once he got there, even though it's five hours away from Winston, he absolutely loved it. He is calling me every night telling me about how the house he is in (which is the doctor's house) is right on the beach and how they have jet skis, boats, steaks for dinner, etc. So overall I would say he got the better end of the deal. He may have had to travel the farthest but I think he is having a mini vaccation at the same time! I sure do miss him. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder but I say my heart wants him back in Winston-Salem. I think he leaves on Friday and he wants to make a stop by home before he returns to me. He has to go back again in May for TWO WEEKS and we'll be married by then so maybe I can take a mini vaccation to go and visit him there!

On another note, today is my beautiful mom's birthday. She is on her way here to Winston right now with my grandma and tomorrow we have an appointment to go wedding dress shopping!! YAY! Oh, and we're making a trip to ikea! I'll leave you with a picture of my mom and grandma:

Test time again

Well, it's about that time. William has a test every three-four weeks so when it comes down to the actual week of the test he has to study like a mad man. He got behind a little because of the white coat ceremony and all of our families being here so he had to work really hard this past weekend to get back on track. Saturday he studied at the hospital while I worked and then we went to his favorite place: IHOP! He came back to the house to study all night while I met Lauryn and her mom in Statesville (where her brother goes to school). We were able to make a trip to the wonderful world of IKEA. I found so much cute stuff that I want for our house and for our wedding reception! Here is a picture of the outside--once we got inside I was overwhelemed and had no energy for pictures, lol. I could buy everything in there or just spend 3 days looking at everything.

We also went to the Concord Mills Mall and I want to go back there also! It was a great time and I'm so glad I could have the familiarity of home with Lauryn and her mom! PLUS, we always have a good laugh :)

Sunday I helped William study all day and while he worked at the hospital I went to get us registered at another store but the scanners were not working so I will have to try again! We're wokring hard and studying hard this week and William takes his last test of the anatomy block friday. He is SOO VERY excited. Next Friday he will have a final and then the first week of November he will have his community practice experience. He has been assigned to Elizabeth City, which is about 5 hours from our house here in Winston, but I think he will learn a lot!

As a complete sidenote: We love when Charlie comes to visit us and here is a sweet picture from the white coat weekend when she was here:

White Coat Weekend

This weekend was so great that we were actually pretty sad when it all ended. Friday William was in school till about 5:00 and I also had to work. As soon as we were done, we ran and got William a haircut, and then came back to make last minute cleaning adjustments! My aunt, cousin, and grandma got here around 6:30 and we went and ate dinner at the lonestar (and it was probably the best steak I have ever had). We came back and hung out, looked at pictures, etc and went to bed because we had to get up at the crack of dawn for william's ceremony. He had to be there at 8:30 on saturday morning so our family that came in that morning had to leave their houses at 6:00am! What dedication that was! The ceremony was absolutely perfect. They gave some history of the school, one speaker talked about the medical profession, and then they actually got their white coats. Here are some pictures:

It's almost William's turn: He was color coordinated so well with a wake forest tie!

William getting his white coat!

And some family pictures afterwards:

My aunt, cousin, and grandma, along with William's family left Satruday afternoon. We stopped by the mall with them before they left which is always fun! My parents stayed the night and sunday after we got up, ate breakfast, and lounged around, we grabbed lunch and took it out to salem lake. After we ate lunch and walked around a bit, Mom and dad left and William and I went on the longest walk we've ever been on. We walked the trail around the lake which is multiple miles long. Needless to say, we were dead when we were done. Here are some pictures from the lake:

It was a beautiful walk, and we ended up being out there for like 4 hours, then we ran regular errands like the grocery store and came home. We had such a great time this weekend and we're actually feeling kind of bummed that we have to return to reality. My parents brought us some stuff, William's parents gave him a new watch and they brought me lots of birthday presents, we went out to eat a few times, and we just had a blast sharing where we live with our families!

FINALLY some relief

As you all know the last couple of weeks have been difficult times with everything we had going on. This past weekend was the weekend after a test which means that I get William all to myself and I don't have to share him with medical school studies. LOL We both needed this weekend to recover so it was SO nice!

Friday night we cooked dinner and went to the gym here at the apartment. I also progressed in wedding planning! Saturday during the day I had to work and William got to go the hospital and see his first autopsy. If you're like me that grosses you out but he LOVES it. He is really leaning toward becoming a forensic pathologist. If you get a chance to hear his stories they are really neat...a little gruesome but neat. ;-) Saturday afternoon we went for a walk on the greenway that runs behind our apartment. We're not sure exactly how long it is or where it eventually ends but we walked 5 miles of it and then came back for some pizza...terrible, we know. Here's one view as we were walking:

Sunday morning we got up and tried a new church which we really liked and we found out that a lot of people from the hospital go there. Here's a pic of us before we left:

We came back home and ate lunch, took a nap, and my favorite part of the weekend: We did our first registry at bed bath and beyond! It was SO much fun. I took my camera to capture some moments but I was too busy with clipboards and color schemes and chasing william down to stop him from adding one of everything to the list. :)

This coming weekend is his white coat ceremony so we have a lot of family coming in. He is SO excited so it should be great!

catching up

This weekend has been a game of catch-up. Because of the funeral arrangements and all of our traveling William was behind on his studying and I was WAY behind on house work...I also had to work this weekend to make up time. We still had a huge suitcase that needed unpacking, there was over 4 loads of laundry, the dishwasher was full, the trash was overflowing, and we had bills and school papers laying everywhere. Friday night we cooked at home and took a break later that night for some marble slab! It's similar to coldstone, they just don't sing, Lol. William studied the rest of the night and all day today. I got everything around the house back in order and we went out to Applebees tonight for dinner. Friday is William's third test--this one is on head and neck (which he is not that fond of) and then he'll have only one more month of this anatomy block. He is sooooo ready to be done with the cadaver!

Most of our wedding planing has been put on the back-burner with everything that's been going on so we're also excited to get back to it! Hopefully we can get our schedules back on track and use this coming weekend after his test to RELAX.

LOTS going on

WHEW. Sorry we have been M.I.A. We have had SO much going on in our lives. Last weekend I had to work on Saturday and there was a lot of drama (it just so happened to be 9/11) and we had to end up closing the office and I was stressed out. My parents came that night because they knew that we had a rough week but they didnt even get here until about 8:00 saturday night. They were here for about an hour and we got the call that they told my grandma that my grandpa's case was terminal. He had been struggling with dementia for a long time and around the end of June it got really bad. That sunday we drove to Raleigh for the day to be with him in the hospital then we drove back to Winston that night. This week he has been getting progressively worse and the doctors said he wouldn't make it to next week. My birthday was Friday (the 17th-thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes) and he died yesterday on the 18th in the hospital. William and I came back to winston today and we'll be returning to Raleigh tomorrow night for the wake and tuesday for the service. This is the second grandparent in two months so we have had sort of a hard time being able to settle down. However, we know he's in a better place. R.I.P papa george.

Fall is around the corner

This past weekend's weather was AMAZING. There was a slight nip in the air and it made me so excited for fall which is my favorite season. I love the colors of the leaves, pumpkin spice and peppermint lattes, fall clothing, etc [hence the new background change]. It also means we're that much closer to the wedding! :)

Labor Day

Warning: This is going to be a totally boring post.

This is the week of William's second test so even though we have had a fun, relaxing weekend with each other, he has still been studying A LOT. We've gone out to eat a few times, cooked some great meals at home, rented a movie, went swimming, went on a long walk on the greenway, STUDIED, and did lots of wedding research! It has been extremely nice for us to have an extra day together. Unfortunately I don't have any new pictures or anything because we have basically just been relaxing but next weekend William won't have to study and the weekend after that is my birthday so hopefully we'll get out and about! In more exciting news, we have added a wedding countdown to the side of the blog!! Check it out, a little over 5 months! Woohoo!

Just for random entertainment purposes, here's a picture of William and I in Africa with two of our favorite kids:

weekly recap

It has really been a great week! First of all, William found out he got "honors" on his first test. Their med school grades are on a scale so there's low pass, pass, high pass, and honors. It's a tight scale that is down to the decimal so it was such an achievement for him to get honors! He also had his doctoring class this week where he has to go into the hospital with doctors and interview patients. It's really nerve-wrecking because fellow classmates go and they observe each other and I would think it's pretty intimidating. This week he did an awesome job and his professor had all good things to say. This was him before he left (excuse the light coming in from the window!):

As far as my week went, I made some progress on WEDDING PLANS! We're officially getting married on March 5th! We also booked our honeymoon which is going to be a 7 night carnival cruise to the southern carribbean. We leave from puerto rico and go to dominica, barbados, st martin, st lucia, st kitts, st. thomas, and back to puerto rico. We are beyond excited!

As far as our weekend goes, we at dinner at the house friday night and went to the gym and then the pool at 9:00 at night. We had the pool all to ourselves and it was lit up and really fun! Saturday morning I had to work so William went to the gym and got a lot of studying done. My "life-long" college buddy Erica (and her husband Derek) came to Winston saturday so I met up with them after work for a little shopping and then we picked William up and went to Chilis for dinner. Erica and derek got married on March 7th so our anniversaries wil be close! We had a great time visiting with them and their friends/family! This is us with Erica:

Today (Sunday) we tried a new church and liked it pretty good. We will definitely try some others before we make our decision but we really enjoyed ourselves. We went to lunch at one of our favorite delis and then we spent a LONG time in Borders. We love to just go in there and find a seat in a corner and looks at books! I looked at everything from Oprah's magazine to books on Carribbean cruises! We came back, napped, went to the grocery store, ate dinner, and now our guilty pleasure: Watching big-brother. LOL Between that and jersey shore, we're ashamed of ourselves.

Hope everyone has a great week!

First test down

So William completed his first test of med school! He thinks he did well but I guess he'll officially find out his score sometime this week. It was a terribly long week of studying for him and I felt like we barely had time together because of our busy schedules! He was VERY excited to not have to study this weekend so he was able to sleep in and do some fun things. I had to work saturday so once I got home we were able to go to mellow mushroom and we went to see Eat Pray Love. William was definitely not happy about it but it was my turn to pick the movie so he had to go along with it. I thought it was pretty good but let's just say I have never seen William run out of a movie that fast! It was kind of long but he stuck with me and he was relieved when it was over...haha!

We planned on finding a new church this morning but we were both SO exhausted and forgot to set the alarm so that will be our task for next week. We woke up and had a lazy breakfast/lunch then we headed out to Salem Lake to see what it was like. When we were looking at moving here one of our friends showed us some highlights of Winston and Salem lake was one of them. It's a public lake/park where you can boat, fish, walk/bike the trails, etc. We walked out on the pier for a while and then we walked one of the trails. It was a beautiful walk that we will definitely be doing again. It felt like we were in the mountains with all the trees, creeks, rocks etc. At one point there was a large dam that was just really cool to look at:

We probably walked close to 5 miles and we were so tired when we left that we stopped and ate at Panera and then came straight home and jumped in the pool! We had the pool all to ourselves and it was just a generally relaxing afternoon.

I need to try to post more than just sunday nights but it seems like our time is so limited! William is mad tonight because forsyth county schools start tomorrow and the M2's return to the med school so he has to leave earlier in the morning to beat all the traffic and get a parking spot! On a happier note, we have officially started wedding planning and I'm so excited. Once we get a few important details worked out then we will send save-the-dates and we're definitely excited to be getting married sooner rather than later. If everything goes as planned then we will be married in 6 months!!!! YAY!

A visit from the parents

This weekend we had so much fun! Charles and Verny (and Charlie) came to stay with us and dad helped us hang more stuff on our walls! They came Saturday around lunch time and we grabbed some subway and ate it here at the house so that we didn't have to leave Charlie. Mom and dad had their anniversary this week so we went out to dinner Saturday night to celebrate! We tried a new place here in Winston called Texas Land and Cattle and it was really good! It was a fun atmosphere too because there was a cozy fireplace and it was dimly lit....Oh, and a random girl going around making balloon animals? She definitely made me a frog. Surprise, Surprise....I forgot to take a picture of the dinner experience.

After we ate we went to the mall and mom and dad loved it! They got some new t-shirts and we spent a while in Spencers being hounded by the saleswoman and looking at the CRAZY things they have in there. After we left the mall we went to Krispy Kreme (and yes, the hot light was on) and we got doughnut sundaes! We rented a movie from the redbox and went back to that apartment to find a Wound-up Charlie because she had been locked up for a while! She got my balloon-frog and started running around the house with it! We all held our ears because we knew it was about to pop. William was chasing her around the house trying to get it away from her and me, mom, and dad were laughin to hard to help! Here's the action shot:


This morning we all woke up and had breakfast and just relaxed. We ate a TJ's Deli for lunch which is always GREAT and mom and dad always want to eat there when they come. Dad helped hang a bunch of stuff on the walls and mom helped me cleanup. Here's a picture of the three of them before they left After they left, William had to go to school to do some anatomy studying so I ran some errands and then we ate dinner. When we got back, William went out on the balcony and something freaked him out. He started calling my name and when I walked out there we saw this dead bird sitting on the rail of the balcony. We tried to grab something real quick to throw at it to make sure it was dead and the only thing we had available was sausage? So William threw a piece of sausage at it and missed. I pushed him out of the way and told him to watch, and then I missed. We decided to stop throwing sausage because there was probably someone standing below getting hit in the face with sausage. The next idea, which should have been the first, was to go get the broom.

It took William about 5 minutes to actually the poke the bird and once he did, the thing went flap crazy...it started flying everywhere so we ran inside very quickly!

I wish mom and dad could have been here to see that! Dad would have gotten a kick out of us both acting like idiots! William and I both have very busy weeks ahead. William's first test is this Friday so he will be studying intensely this week. It will be busy but we'll both make it and then celebrate this weekend!

Tax Free

William and I have had a wonderful couple of days. First of all, I was off Friday and my BFF Lauryn was headed back to Raleigh from Statesville where her little bro is going to school. Lauryn and her mom met me for lunch at the mall and I definitely forgot to take a picture so here is a random pic of them:

After lunch we wakled around the mall and I was reminded that it is tax free weekend. Even though you only save like $4.00 it makes me feel accomplished! LOL I have really been wanting an apron because I cook ALOT and I always ruin whatever I'm wearing. We went to Kirklands and this apron called my name! (they didn't have a "J" so I got an "H" for my soon-to-be last name!)

After we departed, William got home from a LONG day of school and we headed out to meet two of our friends from Campbell. We had a great dinner and came back to our apartment to play games and of COURSE I forgot to take a picture....I really need to work on that.

I had to work Saturday morning so once I got home William and I had tons of errands and tax-free things to do! Our top priority was a haircut. I had not had one since before Africa and William's hair just grows like a weed in general. We found a cost cutters (which is where I got my hair cut in garner) not to far from our house. Lucky for us it was their grand opening so our haircuts were $4.99!!! It wasn't tax free but it was enough sale for us! Later saturday night we went to the mall and ate at TGI Fridays! (When I do manage to take pics they are of terrible quality!)

It was SUPER good for some reason! We walked around the mall, went and saw a late movie, and got home around 12:00 am. Needless to say, that was the best sleep I think I've had in Winston so far! Sunday we woke up and I fixed a big breakfast, complete with chocolate chip pancakes!
William studied for a few hours in the morning and then we went tax-free shopping again! Our biggest tax-free accomplishment was getting William some new shoes! His sperries are a cajillion years old so at Shoe-Carnival (which was buy one get one half off) we got him a new pair of sperries and a pair of Ralph Lauren polo shoes! We also got this cleaner for sperries in case they are dirty or scratched and it was all $84.00!

We have had so much fun this weekend just spending time together and looking around Winston. Hopefully William's school week and my work week wont be too hard on us!

Good news/Bad news

The good news:

William and I have been pretty busy lately...so busy that the last blog has been a little while ago! So to recap our weekend: William had to leave Friday afternoon and go home because he was asked to sing at a funeral of a man from his church. Unfortunately, I had to stay here in Winston because I had to work Saturday morning. After the funeral Saturday, William's family came back to Winston with him so that they could see our apartment and so that we could celebrate William's dad's birthday! So Saturday night we went to the outback for dinner and we definitely had a 60-70 minute wait. Needless to say that when we were seated we were hungry. We had a well-worth-the-wait dinner at the outback and then we headed back to the apartment for cake time! Here is the cake I made for Mr. James:
It actually ended up looking like a huge doughnut but it was delicious! Not sure about Mr. James' face here!:

We woke up Sunday morning, ate breakfast, and ventured out to see Winston Salem. William wanted his parents to see the medical school so we went there first and he just showed them around the first floor. This is a pic. of their family in front of Mr. Bowman Gray:

After that we ventured to the mall and then we showed them around the rest of Winston including the undergraduate campus. When we got back to the apartment we were all tired and once they left William and I got ready for this up-and-coming week.

The Bad News

Saturday, right before William and his family got here, my phone rang and it was my mom. She told me that my dad's mom (Grandma Marie) had just passed away. She's been sick lately and hospice stepped in so it was definitely expected but extremely sad nevertheless. William and I will be traveling to Raleigh tomorrow as soon as his class is over so that we can attend the funeral. You will forever be loved Grandma hood...

More good news!

This past weekend was pretty uneventful. William and I didn't do much of anything of here's the recap: Friday we went out to eat at this restaraunt called "Texas Roadhouse" and it was really good! Saturday night we went and saw Eclipse (my second time, William's third) and went out for ice cream at Ben and Jerry's afterwards. It was SOO good but it was so hot outside that we had to eat it really quickly. We only managed to snap a picture of William's cone so here it is:

Sunday night I had to return to Raleigh because my orientation for my job was at headquarters in Raleigh on Monday morning. I went Sunday night so that I could spend a little time with Charles and Verny (a.k.a my parents!) and our precious dog Charlie!

I had a lonnggg orientation all day Monday, complete with OSHA training and every other boring thing imaginable, and William continued here in Winston with his med school orientation. As soon as it was over I headed back to Winston where William informed me that he received a FULL SCHOLARSHIP to Wake Forest. He was nominated and sent his application the day before we left for Africa. They told us he would find out in July but last week they gave out the financial aid so we figured he didn't get the Full Ride. They sent him and e-mail yesterday and we are BEYOND elated! Since Wake Forest is a private school tuition is high but thank the lord this burden has been lifted!

Happy Days

The past few days have been some happy days! Yesterday William and I went to the mall, mainly because we had a bath and body works gift card, and the mall here is huge! Bath and Body Works happened to be having some GREAT sales so we got $80 worth of stuff for $25. The wallflowers (and refills) were buy one get one free and the aromatherapy collection was buy two get one free. I love sales...

Today was an extremely happy day because it was the first day of William's medical school orientation AND I was hired for the job I wanted! I have orientation monday and then I officially start Tuesday. William's orientation continues through next Friday but it won't always be ALL day like it was today. They received their laptops today and had to go through a bunch of computer workshops and confidentiality stuff. William was at least happy that they got Chic-fil-a catered for lunch! Here's a picture of him before he left this morning: (I felt proud!)

He has to be there early tomorrow but I think he gets out by lunch. We have a lot of errands to run tomorrow and I'm glad we get to spend the rest of the day together!

A little Traveling

The past few days have been filled with family visits. My aunt, cousin, and her bf (who are below) went out of town on vaccation and winston-salem was on their way back so they popped in for a visit. We had a good time laughing at William who was hyped up on iced-coffee!

We arent't sure what's going on with the weather in Winston. It seems like everyday since we've moved in has been complete with a tremendous downpoor out of nowhere. We were getting ready to go to the gym and when we walked out this is what was happening. You probably can't tell by the picture but it was the hardest rain I've ever seen. Soooo we went back inside.

Monday we got ready and drove to Oxford where William is from. We mainly went to visit and run some errands with his family but we also got a few important things done like changing William's car's oil and giving it a MUCH needed wash!

We went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel with his family and then we played Mad-Gab with William's sister Victoria and her BF aaron. I don't know if anyone reading this has ever played that game but it's sort of weird. I guess this is one of those "had to be there" things but here goes: The point of the game is to guess the phrase from the cards but the cards have like mushed-up sentences on them. The only clue you can give your partner is whether to stretch out their words, pronounce it faster or so on. I laughed SOO hard at william, mostly because I was mad at him, because the card said "A Seal Den Full Hope", the answer obviously being "a sealed envelope" and he got the sealed part but he KEPT saying "den-full-hope". I was yelling "WHAT is a sealed den-full-hope?" HAHA. We laughed about that for a while but he eventually got better at the game.

We had to come back to Winston today because I had to have like a second interview/training session at my potential job today. I'm pretty sure I got the job but I should know for sure tomorrow. William's med school orientation starts this Thursday so we'll keep you posted on how everything's going!