Happy Halloween!!

So Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday as I hate all things scary and I am afraid of the dark; however, I do love carving pumpkins and decorating for it. I have been carving pumpkins since I can remember.  I even introduced Paul to his first pumpkin carving experience when we were in college.  When I was growing up my brothers and I always did the usual jack-o-lantern faces. Now, that we have grown up we have expanded into designs and scenes. Here are a few pictures of mine and Paul's jack-o-lanterns this year.  Paul had the idea to go with an OSU theme.

Getting ready to carve pumpkins...Dasher had never seen real pumpkins before and was quite perplexed..he wanted to eat the stems.

checking out the insides

He is Orange to the Bone

The finished product. I did the OSU and Dasher's Orange to the Bone. Paul did the Pistol Pete.

My outside fall decor is now complete.

This year was the first year that I saved the pumpkin seeds and roasted them. I got the idea from Paul's cousin who blogged about roasting several different flavors. I just did two...salty and spicy.  They turned out pretty good and I think this will be a new tradition of ours.

This was Dasher's first Halloween and in our neighborhood people sit in their driveway with a bucket of candy to pass out to trick or treaters instead of having them come to the door. This worked out great, because I was wondering how Dasher would react to the constant door knocking and/or doorbell rings. We couldn't leave our door open, because we don't have a screen door. Anyway, Dasher loved all the trick-or-treaters and attention he got wearing the costume my mom got for him. He is such a ham.

waiting for trick-or-treaters to come

He was tired after all the Halloween excitement.

Overall, it was a great Halloween, and I enjoyed passing out candy at my own house for the very first time. I hope everyone else had a great Halloween!

Psuedo Fall Break Fun

So apparently Texas not only refuses to recognize fall as a season, but because there is no fall there is no fall break. We do get a whole week off for Thanksgiving so I guess that makes up for it. Anyway, this past weekend was my little brother's fall break and my mom, dad and four little brothers all came down for a visit. We had a great time playing in the 90 degree weather. This visit was the first time two of my younger brothers had ever seen the ocean/gulf.

On Saturday we got up early for a Saturday, but not early enough for my little brother Brett to go fishing in the Gulf. We caught a lot of  interesting things.

The waves were really big this day

Paul caught a blue crab...he reeled it in from 30 yards out in the gulf. It was so cute. It held onto the shrimp he was using for bait and when he got done eating it off the hook he crawled away rather quickly.

When we were collecting shells for my mom by brother threw this one about 20 yards in from the bay area...a little while later I was wading around shore and found some small hermit crabs crawling around...it got me thinking to check my mom's big shells to see if any crabs were living in them...she had two of these shells by her chair and sure enough both had rather large hermit crabs in them...she would have died if she took them back to OK with her.

On Sunday we slept in a little and drove back down to the gulf to play at the beach. It was beautiful day and the waves were a bit calmer than Saturday.

fooball in the surf

baseball in the surf



Dasher had to show mark to dig a hole for a sand castle

boogy boarding

The Guys - Paul, Brett, Dad, Nick, Steven, Mark

 We all had a great time. No one had to go to the emergency room this time, but Steven did cut his foot open and scraped his side.  I scraped by with a blotchy sunburn.

I do miss fall, but it was fun to play at the beach in October with my family.

First Med School Course Completed

Last Friday, Paul took his first medical school final for his Gross Anatomy and Radiology 8 week course block. He is glad to be done with the course, but now that he is starting his new course, Molecules, Cells and Tissues, he is missing his old PBL group and professors. Med School seems to be flying by. It is weird to think that he learned all of the human body in 8 weeks. His results of his test came in and he remains in the top of his class which is good. 

I am still adjusting to the changes medical school has brought. For instance, Paul reads almost every night. In the 5 years I have known Paul I have never seen him study, now he studies every night. I have had more physicals in the past 8 weeks than I have had in my whole life. I am now fairly certain that I have extremely low blood pressure all the time. I find pictures of random body parts around the house. Conversatiosns center around all things medically related and I have learned somethings I never wanted to know. Also, Grey's anatomy is highly accurate except for when a lady spoke Portuguese wrong that one time.

Survival of Test #1!

So this post is a little late, but last Friday Paul took his first ever test in medical school. He spent the week before in intense study mode neglecting both me and Dasher just a little. I actually got a lot of the things I wanted to do done without Paul looking over my shoulder. Dasher just butted in like he always does and made himself at home next to Paul. He really likes to help.

In the end all the studying payed off because Paul scored in the top half of his class on his test! To celebrate we all went to the beach. Dasher is not a huge fan of the ocean and is terrified of the waves. He will tuck his tail and run away from them everytime. Paul and I make it our mission to break him of this fear and drag him out into the water anyway. 



Here he is body boarding...note the fear in his face.



Here he is swimming back to shore as fast as he can.

His favorite beach activity is skim boarding because it doesn't involve getting in the water.

Then Dasher decided to help us build a sand castle by digging a moat.

Here is the finished product. Dash didn't want to dig a hole all the way around so it just has a moat on one side.

Plates and Puppies

Last weekend Paul took me to the Painted Potter to decorate pottery. I had been wanting to do this ever since my little brother Mark and his girlfriend Mallory had made us salt 'n pepper shakers and a spoon holder for our wedding. It was a lot harder than I anticipated. There are so many choices, and for those of you who know me I do not make decisions quickly. It is definately an activity that I would recommend making some plans or at least have an idea what you want to do before just going and doing. Anyway, after about 3 1/2 hours this is what we finally ended up with:

I can't figure out how to rotate these, but you get the idea



"I Belong to You" is the name of the song Paul wrote and sang at our wedding.



On another note: Last Sunday was the Dallas Cowboys' first game of the season and Paul had a few friends from medical school over. Since Dasher is a little too excited when company comes over, and will try to eat your food he had to hang out with me that night. Now, for those of you who do not know, Dasher thinks he is just like Paul and always has to be with Paul.  Below are a few pictures of my sad puppy during the Cowboy game. He would sit at the door and when he heard Paul's voice he would whine and tilt his head.

So much for him keeping me company while Paul is busy with medical school.

You know you are a becoming an adult when...

...you want bedroom furniture for your birthday instead of something less practical. This weekend my birthday present finally arrived. Paul and I had been searching for bedroom furniture to match our existing sleigh bed that I love and bought separate when the line was discontinued the year prior to our marriage. I didn't think that it would be hard to match since it was a classic cherry wood finish. Boy was I wrong. I had no idea that so many different colors under the umbrella of cherry finish. We finally got lucky and found a perfect match the night we got home from visiting my family in OK. We decided to run to check out a set we saw in a newspaper that morning at my grandparent's house. Since it was Labor Day weekend many of the stores were having sales. That set didn't match, but I convinced Paul to take a chance and go across the interstate to the RoomStore just to see since we still had an hour until they closed. When we walked in our sales lady took a look at a piece we had brought with us from the full length mirror that matched our bed and led us straight to a set that matched perfectly. She cut us a great deal, at least $750.00 cheaper than we expected, and we were out of there in less than 30 min. It was the best furniture shopping experience I had ever had.

Now that we have our furniture we can focus on getting more decorations. 

Birthday/Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend was not only a holiday but it was my birthday. I have to say if I was going to pick a holiday to have my birthday on Labor Day is a pretty good holiday to have it on. You get a day off from work and it isn't that major of a holiday so the roads and vacation spots aren't super crowded. Oh and they have awesome sales going on.

Anyway, this weekend we traveled from Houston to Minco, OK to visit my family. It is an 8 hour drive so we missed my littlest brother's football game Friday night, but I hear they slaughtered the other team.  Go Dawgs! Saturday was filled with food, fishing, games and presents/shopping for me. While my mom and I were shopping Paul and my brother's went fishing where our little Dasher apparently learned how to swim. As the story goes, he jumped into the river after the bobber thinking it was a ball and that the water wasn't very deep and he went under for a few minutes until his head popped up and he swam to shore. I am grateful for this experience because I always wondered if he could swim. And probably one of the best events of Saturday was when OSU killed Washington State. Go POKES!! Sunday was filled with more food, games and hanging out at my grandma's and my house. Overall, it was a very relaxing weekend.

My mom got me a pretty bracelt and an OSU rock.

My grandma made me some pretty pillow cases.

Paul surprised me with a cupcake made of flowers!

I had a great time visiting with my family and a great birthday weekend. I feel very blessed that my little brothers come home when I do just to hang out with Paul and I (it weird to think that only Steven actually lives at home now). Not to mention I have a great husband who always makes sure to make special occaisions extra special. To top it all off I even got my birthday wish when Paul and I ordered bedroom furniture (finally) on Monday night at the last minute when we returned to Houston. I felt like we had been searchign forever and we found a perfect match that we both liked in less than 10 minutes. Our sales lady was great too. I highly recommend working with Wendy from RoomStore. She was a hoot.

Oh and yes Paul took almost everyone in my family's blood pressure this weekend and took some time to study. Although, I do think he was a little too distracted to study as much as he would have liked. Good thing he is a smarty pants.

You know you are married to a Med Student when....

So lately I find my self thinking about how different everyday life is now that Paul has started med school.  It goes a little like this:

You know you are married to a medical student when....
...you have your blood pressure taken 50 times in a span of 3 hours

It leaves marks.

...you glance over at the computer screen just to see what he is doing and he yells "Don't look I am learning how to crack someone's chest open for anatomy lab tomorrow"

...you use medical terms in everyday conversation like that is normal.

...when he tells you about his day he now starts and stops sentences editing his day for you so you don't have to hear the gross, disturbing stuff.

...you travel on vacations with a stethescope and blood pressure cuff; just in case an opportunity to practice arises.