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...