Residency Update

The last time I updated you on Brandon's residency progress, I believe he had just applied to about twenty-two programs. Since then, he heard back from all but three programs. We had heard to expect to hear back from about half of the programs, so I am proud of him! He accepted fourteen of the invites. Fourteen....holy cow!! That means from now until January he will be driving/flying to fourteen different cities and interviewing with these places. This week alone he drove to St. Louis, Louisville, Lexington, and Indianapolis! Yes, that's four interviews in one week! He seemed to be very pleased with how the interviews went. Four down, ten to go! That still sounds like a lot! He gets home tonight and I know will probably crash the rest of the weekend. He took next week off to enjoy a long, well deserved, Thanksgiving break.

We look forward to next week, as we are planning on going to Nashville Wednesday night and spending the long weekend there with our family for Thanksgiving. I hope everyone has a wonderful time with their families and has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Race for the Cure and Halloween

Over Halloween weekend my mother, aunt, and two cousins came in town for a visit. On Saturday, we participated in Race for the Cure, which means a lot to our family. I am proud to say that my mother is a breast cancer survivor!! She is going on 10 years this coming March! Since Saturday was also Halloween, we took the kids and Bailey trick or treating on Mud Island. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend! Everytime I spend time with family, I realize how much I miss them.


Brandon ran the race

Bailey was a cowgirl for Halloween, but she did not like her hat!

Brandon tried to show her how to wear it.

It worked for mmm....a minute!

Logan and Allison....Prisoner and a Witch

Happy Halloween!

October at a Glance

I have to apologize for being so bad this past month at blogging. October flew by, and I feel like this is the first chance I have had to sit down and post. We have had a very busy October! I will let you see for yourself what we have been up to this month!

The first weekend in October, one of my very best friends, Betsy, came in town to visit. We always look forward to spending time and catching up with her. We had a great time!

Of course, we had to take her to our favorite cupcake place, Muddy's!

Betsy met Rylan for the first time!!

The following weekend we went to Nashville for a wedding and to see friends and family. We went to lunch with Jenny and Owen on Saturday at Baja Burrito!! We miss them so much and are so glad that we were able to spend some time catching up with them.

Music and Molasses Festival 2009

Brandon and his mom

Picking out our pumpkin

Guys hard at work

Our Pumpkin!

The whole gang!

There is a rock wall at UT that we have been saying we need to try one weekend for the past year. Since our time in Memphis is beginning to become limited, we decided to go a few weeks ago. Jason, who is in Brandon's class, along with his wife, Brittney went with us. We had a great time, although we paid for it the next day!



Carter was Cookie Monster for Halloween

Sweet Connor was a Chocolate Chip Cookie

I don't have a picture of the costume, but it was really cute!!

Brandon and I were trying to take a picture of the two of us and then......
somebody was feeling a little left out!!

Long post I know, I will try to update more regularly! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!

From Haiti to the Balcony

A couple of weeks ago, Meaghan and I participated in a fund raiser run for a medical mission stationed in Haiti. It was called the 24-hour Tour d'Esprit. The premise of it is that teams have 24 runners who run in one hour blocks so that there is someone running around the clock. We ran together for the 10am hour and logged 6 miles for our team, the UT Medical Students. When it was all over, our team had logged 103 miles over the 24 hours.

That evening, after the run was over, we went to dinner and then went to the symphony. The title of the show was "Music as Muse" and was a compilation of music that inspired screenwriter Craig Brewer as he wrote his movies. If you don't know who Craig Brewer is, he is the writer and director of the films Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan as well as others and is a Memphis local. He was at the performance that evening and talked about how different classical pieces inspired different aspects of his films. The pieces ranged from the Overture from West Side Story to a few movements from Mozart's Requiem mass and a little bit of everything in between. It was a very enjoyable evening. Even Meaghan had a good time!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend where we were able to enjoy some local events in this city of ours. The End.

Sweet 26

Two weeks ago from today I turned twenty-six, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Maybe that's why I have put off this post. I was ok with twenty-four because I was still in my early twenties. When I hit twenty-five, it hit me that I was in my mid-twenties, which I was still ok with. I am twenty-six now, and I for some reason get depressed thinking about it. Maybe because my mother had me at twenty-six, and I always wanted to be a young mother. I just have to remember that Brandon and I are in a completely different situation than my parents were in at our age. Anyways, now that I am twenty-six, birthdays aren't like they once used to be. I don't look forward to them just to turn a year older and get gifts. I look forward to them to spend time with family and friends.

For my birthday dinner, Brandon took me to Pearl's Oyster House here in Memphis. Every year for my birthday, he makes me a strawberry shortcake, so we came home for dessert. Everything was really good, and we had a great time!

The next weekend we went home to celebrate with my family! It was so good to see everyone! Saturday night, we celebrated with my mom's side. We had Mexican for dinner and then mom made Paula Deen's banana pudding! On Sunday, we celebrated with my dad's side. He grilled lunch for everyone, and then we had banana splits! Can you tell I'm not your traditional birthday cake kind of gal? Thank you mom and dad for making my birthday weekend so special! I love you!

When I got to work on my birthday, I had this

birthday card waiting on me. Carter had worked

hard on it for me. He's so sweet!

Brandon got me a memory foam mattress pad

Strawberry Shortcake

Banana Pudding Birthday Cake

My sweet family

Opening gifts

On Saturday, Brandon and I were finally able to go over to my cousin Kelly's house and meet her adorable twins, Hutch and Anniston. We got to play with them for a few hours, and I got to catch up with Kelly! I just want to eat them up!!

The Lake House

Brandon and I spent this past weekend at a lake house on Watts Bar Lake with his family. We met Brandon's dad, his wife, and his brother, Brooks there. His uncle Jim, aunt Shannon, and two cousins, Anne and Hana were there as well. It was good to see everyone since we get to see many of them only once or twice a year. Brandon and I were happy to get away from Memphis and to have a weekend to relax. The weather was overcast and rainy the majority of the weekend, but it didn't stop us. We all went for a Lokey family run on Saturday morning. Once we got back we went out on the boat for a while and then the boys took the jet skis out. Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner and then we celebrated my birthday! To finish the night off we played a few rounds of Sardines, which in that house was SO much fun because there so were so many good hiding spots!!!! At times, I kept thinking, "Wow, we are nine adults playing Sardines...this is really funny!"....but we had an absolute blast. I think we played for about two hours!

On Sunday, we decided to take the jet skis one last time before heading home. When Bailey noticed that Brandon and I were both taking off together on one jet ski she ran down the dock and jumped in after us. We had to ride up to the dock and make her get out of the water. Bill had to hold her back so that we could ride off. She can't stand to be far from us. Then the worst thing ever happened, we rode off and then turned around to wait for the other jet ski and we flipped. I screamed, and Bailey saw us and jumped in, swimming about 30 yards out to us. Once she got out to us we were already back on the jet ski so we made her follow us back to the dock. I guess she thought she was going to save us. Now that is one loyal dog!!

Later on that day we headed home, and Bailey slept almost the entire six hours of the trip! She wore herself out! Brandon and I had a wonderful time relaxing and catching up with family!

The Lake House

View from boat

On the boat

Brooks and Me

Boys about to go jet skiing

Brandon and Bailey

Isn't he cute?

Brandon at play

Bagel and Bailey playing tug-of-war

Bailey saving Brooks from drowning

Blowing out 26 candles can make you lightheaded

Me and my hubby