Year in Review

I've seen some other blogs do this year in review and I thought it was a good idea. That way in the future I can always remember what happened during 2009.

JANUARY: The first of the year brought the start of my surgery rotation. It was a fairly uneventful month...we watched the Ravens lose to the Steelers in the AFC championship game.

FEBRUARY: Another month of surgery to endure. However I gave Zach the best Valentines Day present. It is called supercar sensation and we flew down to Charlotte and he got to drive 3 top end sports cars for 4 hours around the back roads of Charlotte. We had a ton of fun and hope to do it again someday. We spent the night at the Ballentyne resort as part of the package. Zach also submitted his rank list for Neurosurgery and the wait began.

MARCH: Match day came and went...disappointment at not matching into Neurosurgery for Zach was followed by excitement that he did match into General Surgery at the University of Maryland...which meant he would stay in Baltimore with me! I finished up my surgery rotation and to celebrate that feat along with Zach matching we took a spur of the moment cruise to Mexico. It was 5 days of much needed sun and relaxation.

APRIL: On the 5th of this month my great friends Brit and Ry had their precious boy, Harper. He came early but was healthy and strong! All our close friends meet in NYC to celebrate his birth and a belated baby shower. At the end of this month Zach and I flew to Vegas for my cousins graduation and to hang out with my side of the family. We had a great time and didn't lose too much money! From their Zach and I drove to St. George, Utah to stay at his parents cabin and we hiked Zion's national park. (Oh and Zach graduated medical school this month!!!)

MAY: Zach and I spent the month of May in Utah. I did 4 weeks of a family practice rotation and Zach worked on restoring his brother's house. It was a really fun month getting to spend it with his family that we don't see often. We camped with his best friend and his family in Moab and hiked through Arches National park. We also celebrated Zach's 30th birthday with good friends!!

JUNE: This was most definitely the greatest month of the year! On the first of this month, I completed my board exam and we got engaged!!!!! It was amazing and wonderful and I still get excited thinking about that night. Zach bought us our pride and joy, Mosley and we have loved every minute of our time with our new pup! A couple days after the big engagement we flew to Charlotte to see my brother graduate high school and then headed off on an Alaskan cruise!!! The best part of all was that Kendra and Tobin were able to come back from Australia for the cruise! Beautiful and fabulous....I would highly recommend this to any cruise lover!

JULY: I celebrated my 27th birthday in NYC. I had moved there at the end of June to do my Pediatric and OB/Gyn rotation. I lived with Brit and Ryan and Harper and it was wonderful. My birthday was spent with great friends out in NYC including dinner and chocolate fondue! This was also the month that Zach started residency and his life was officially over.... (I kid, but not really :(

AUGUST: Still living in NYC with my surrogate family and starting OB...I finally figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life! It was a great realization and one I can't believe didn't dawn on me earlier....

SEPTEMBER: Wedding planning continues including dress shopping at Kleinfelds!!!! I found the dress of my dreams and also moved back to Baltimore. I was sad to leave my great friends but very grateful for their hospitality and also extremely happy to be back with Zach and Mos. I finished studying for the 2nd part of my boards and took those on the 24th. Zach and I also applied for residency at the beginning of the month.

OCTOBER: I started my Dermatology rotation and waited for emails to come in with interview requests. It was a fairly uneventful month....I did fly to Charleston for my brother's football game and to see him at The Citadel.

NOVEMBER: Zach had his transplant rotation so we didn't see a whole lot of each other but we did go to Morgantown, WV together for our 1st interview. It went extremely well and is still near the top of the list for potential places. Zach had to work for Thanksgiving so I flew to Charlotte and spent it with my mom and Steve and grandparents.

DECEMBER: The holiday season started with me in an ER rotation and Zach doing Neurosurgery. We got our Christmas tree up and then Mosley proceeded to eat 1/2 of the ornaments. We also both went on more interviews. Christmas was spent in Baltimore with each other. All of last week and New Years we were in Charlotte! It was a great trip and Mos was spoiled rotten by his grandparents!

I know that 2010 is going to bring changes and adventures and surprises and I can't wait....a wedding, finding out where we will be the next 5 years, a move, starting residency....and those are only the things I know about!!!!

Christmas festivities

Christmas Eve night I really wanted to go to midnight mass at the Catholic cathedral....this is the Basilica in Baltimore (the oldest catholic cathedral in the US). The service was beautiful and the music was amazing! Poor Zach had trouble given the late hour and that fact that he had been up for almost 24 hours! But we made it and both said that we were glad we went.

Before we even went to mass, Zach made a delicious Japanese dinner and we ate on our TV trays...awesome :) and classy!





Christmas day was spent opening presents in the morning, including Mos! We an then heading down to Zach's brothers for lunch and time with family. We spent the majority of the day putting together a puzzle at which we were unsuccessful :( We're going back down Sunday to try again!

Mos was one tired pup from all the festivities and promptly passed out on his bed when we got home with his new basketball tucked under his arm....

love it!

Ugh!

Obama and Congress are destroying my career before it even begins....awful, AWFUL time to be headed into the healthcare field!

Winter Storm

Well as many probably heard Baltimore got bombarded by snow this weekend! 22 inches fell here as recorded at the airport. I think it's the most ever, at one time, in this area. It started late Friday night and continued consistently for 24 hours. Saturday was a great day to stay inside with hot chocolate and movies...which is what Mosley did as poor Zach tried to get home from Connecticut. He finally made it on the train around midnight. Mos and I did go outside on top of our parking garage and played for about 30 minutes. Another couple brought their dog out and Mos had a great time running around in the snow! Unfortunately I am a horrible picture taker and don't have any of the snow :( A bonus of the storm was that I didn't have to go into the ER Saturday night and work that terrible shift of 5pm-3am! And now I only have 2 days left!

Zach is gone again tonight to Buffalo for an interview, so Mos and I are hanging out.

We've decided to go to midnight mass at the Basicalla in Baltimore Christmas Eve night. Growing up Catholic, it is my favorite service of the year and I'm super excited to go to the cathedral. It's supposed to be beautiful and I can't wait to hear the music! For those of you who are Catholic, we like to sit, stand AND kneel during the service. Well given that Zach is Mormon, they don't do the whole kneel thing, so when I asked him if he minded if we went to the Catholic service he said he didn't but asked if he could bring knee pads!

Separation Anxiety

Our dog has separation anxiety....we love him a ton but when we leave the house he destroys something...first it was the corner of the TV stand, then it was a hole in the carpet, then he ate the lights and ornaments off the lower quarter of our Christmas tree so he was finally put back in the cage/kennel area. It is a 5 ft area that surrounds the doggie door so he has his space indoors but he can also go outside to potty when we aren't here. Well that was going great for 3 days and then we left Wednesday night for a Christmas party and he found a way out of there, tipped over the Christmas tree and proceeded to eat the rest of the ornaments. Now our tree is the equivalent of the Charlie Brown tree....I know bulldogs are high maintanence but this is craziness! I think it's just hard for him when he doesn't know what's going on or what the schedule is. Zach and I are always coming and going at different times given our hours this month and it's been rough on Mos. Hopefully things will calm down and so will his anxiety...otherwise our house will be destroyed!!!

In other news, it is supposed to snow 12+ inches tonight and tomorrow!!! And of course I just dropped Zach off at the airport to fly to Connecticut for an interview and he is supposed to fly back tomorrow at five, right during the heart of the storm and I'm have to work 5pm to 3am Saturday night....we'll see what this weather does but it doesn't look promising.

Sad news is that we wont' be going to Iowa for Christmas this year. It breaks my heart because I really wanted to make it...we missed last year because we spent it in Utah with Zach's family. But flights are way to expensive this year and with all that we've had to pay in residency interviews, it's just not feasible. We are hoping to make it back sometime in February or March to see everyone, especially my grandma.

I'm off to work the 3-11 shift tonight in the ER...and putting Mos in his cage...hopefully I come home to an intact Christmas tree!!

Quick Update

I'm alive. It has been a busy last couple weeks. Home to South Carolina for Thanksgiving. Started an ER rotation on Monday (hate it) and then drove to West Virginia on Tuesday for 2 interviews, back here on Friday night for an interview Saturday morning and spent Saturday and Sunday night in the ER working and am headed back there today from 3-11.

Thanksgiving was really great! My grandma and stepgrandpa drove down from Iowa and I flew in Wednesday night. Danny was home from The Citadel, we were just missing Kendra :( I also finally figured out the colors and style for the bridesmaids dresses with mom on Friday...this has been a frustrating part of the wedding process. But I think I finally decided...

I'm not even going to comment on my ER elective this month because I really hate it! Lots of drunk, overdosed individuals and it's just not my thing....only 12 more days!

Interviews went well! Loved both programs in WV and also got to see my great friend Britt! We both interviewed at Marshall together and it was awesome to do it with her.

It's back to the ER tonight and then I finally have a day off tomorrow. Unfortunately for Mos, the "boys" are coming off tomorrow. But then I'm going to pick up our Christmas cards to address and we are finally, finally getting our tree tomorrow night!!!!

Weekend Recap

This weekend was really great because Zach and I both had off Saturday and Sunday. Our original plan was to see Blind Side Friday night, however the lovely world of transplant surgery decided not to release Zach from the catacombs of the hospital until close to 9. So needless to say we spent Friday night in. Saturday we woke up and went cake testing!!! After much thoughtful consideration from Zach (I told him the cake could be of his liking) we finally settled on a 3 tier round cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. The bottom flavor is raspberry filling with chocolate ganache, second layer is lemon and the top is red velvet. We are also having our grooms' cake resemble Mosley as a puppy and that cake is chocolate with a coconut pastry mousse. The actual wedding cake is white and around each layer is green frosting that looks like wild grass. Amongst the green grass are yellow, purple and pink sugar flowers that resemble our flowers. Our theme for the wedding is "English garden" and this fits it perfectly! We both love it!

After that we had the fun task of registering. I had started the registery online a few days before but there were definitely things that we wanted to see in person. We decided on only doing Crate and Barrel since they have kitchen, bath, bed and all other kinds of decor. In theory we really don't need a ton of things since we have lived together for about a year and have accumulated things on our own. But we did want to upgrade some of our kitchen items, namely utensils and dishes. We opted not to do fine china and picked out everyday dishes that can be dressed up with a charger and nice linens and table scape. Our biggest decision was actually silverware. It took us about 30 minutes to decide exactly what we wanted and to make sure we agreed. Everything else was pretty quick and easy and Zach had fun 'zapping' certain items in the store. (here I would normally mention the Georgia game but given the outcome I refuse to do so....)

Sunday was a pretty lazy day, we went grocery shopping and watched the Ravens lose (again). We also had dinner down in Annapolis with his brother and sister in law.

I'm looking forward to a short week and am heading to Charlotte by myself Wednesday night. Unfortunately Zach has to work Thursday and is on 24 hour call Friday so instead of sitting here by myself I booked a flight home and will spend it with mom and Steve and Dan!