Today's the Day

Well today is finally the day I have been waiting for for over a year! We are headed to Thailand! I'm currently sitting in the Dallas airport waiting to board our 14 hour flight. Wah! Not looking forward to it, but I'm sure it will be worth it! I would say we're probably going to look a lot worse after our >24 hours of traveling but considering we are all still on California time and didn't sleep much the night before, things may not be improving much!

These past few days have been crazy since I was only home from California for one day before having to repack everything. Fingers crossed I didn't forget anything and also that I am eventually reunited with my suitcase. I'm nervous about that! This morning I was pretty sad saying bye to Darren. I normally don't cry for anything but I did get a little teary. 7 weeks is just a long time! Luckily Annie decided she wanted to ride to the airport with us so I just cuddled with her for moral support. I'm going to miss that little puppy! Bawse on the other hand was not amused that we were waking him up at 3:30am and I only got a minor head lift out of him. Oh well, I'll miss him too!

July Recap

July is over and I'm officially sad. Mainly because that means my off month is over and it's back to real life. And yes, I do realize I should just be grateful to actually get a full month off (which I am) but it also makes going back that much harder. Here's a little recap of a few things that happened in July:

• As I blogged about earlier, we took an awesome trip to Savannah and Tybee Island with some friends. It was a great time and I'm definitely glad we got to get away for a little while.

• I worked.. ALOT. While I had visions of carefree days with nothing on the agenda for all of July, that was actually not the case. I ended up working quite a bit. I can't complain too much because it's always nice to have extra money coming in but working almost 40 hours a week wasn't really what I had planned. 
• Annie was finally old enough to take to the dog park so Darren and I made an effort to take her multiple times a week. While it's really all about her having fun, for some reason I just love taking her there. We found a great dog park that is on a lake and they have a swimming area for dogs, which is perfect for July when it's really too hot for them to run around too much. She's still a little unsure about swimming but definitely likes to get wet and ventures out a little further each time we take her. We even got to meet her doggy BFFs Luna and Bawse there which she clearly loved. 

  

  wet, muddy, and exhausted after a fun afternoon at the dog park

• This was actually a July goal of mine, but I made 2 new meals this month! And I think they were actually both hits. Both came from one of my favorite food bloggers, Iowa Girl Eats. The first was Grilled Chicken Caprese with Basil Vinaigrette. This was my probably my favorite of the two. Anything caprese is my absolute favorite so every part of this meal was perfect. The second was Kung Pao Chicken Lettuce Wraps and this one was probably Darren's favorite. The flavor in the was incredible and since I made them myself I feel like they must be healthier than PF Changs, but they sure tasted very similar. 
• Darren finallly got his approval to work!!  wooohooo! We have been waiting for this forever so we were both thrilled when it finally arrived. He's been hot on the job trail and has already met with a few companies so I'm confident he will have a job very soon. I'm so excited for him!
• I ended my off month with a few fun nights with friends. We had a triple date and went to the Ray Lamontagne concert at the Tennessee Theater. A few months ago Chelsey, Emily, and I had a random idea to buy tickets and take our guys along. I'm so glad we did! It was a beautiful night (almost chilly!) and the concert was really fun. We hit up the brewery after and it just seemed like one of those feel good summer nights (even though it actually felt like late September). 

Trav, Em, Darren, Me, Chels, Joshy

What's ahead for August

I start my family medicine rotation. It's notoriously a hard rotation with very long hours so I'm trying not to have too many expectations for the month other than to survive. I had my first day on Friday and I'm actually really excited about it. I think I'm going to learn so much I know it will be hard work but I really think it will be worth it. My main goal for August (other than survive) is to cut out a lot of sugar from my diet. I really haven't been good at this the past month. I also know I have a tendency to rush for any sugary snack when I have a lot of work to do and just want to reward myself. I'm really going to focus on preparing my food ahead of time and make sure I bring plenty of healthy options with me every day so I'm not so tempted. I'm really hoping eating healthy will also give me more energy for the long hours (in addition to the large amounts of coffee I have no problem consuming).

The end of August is also the beginning of college football season and this household is more than ready! 

Mr & Mrs McPheeters!

A few weeks ago, one of my closest friends and confidants in pharmacy school, Chelsey, married her groom, Josh. And I must say... it was a great wedding! The ceremony was soo sweet and beautiful and maybe even made me shed a tear (even though I don't cry.. ever) and then the reception was just a down right good time.

how amazing are those candles?!

In true pharmacy school fashion, everyone from around their state made their way together which was so much fun! We don't get to all be together very often anymore so we pretty much be sure to make the most of it when we are. One of my favorite things about the wedding was all the homemade sweets Chelsey's mom made. There was a sweets buffet with cute little goodie bags to take things home in. I'm going to need every wedding I go to in the future to have one of those too. The groom, Josh, doesn't like sweets (I knooooow) so he had a groom's cake made out of Jimmy Johns sandwiches which was pretty darn awesome also. 

the girls

my wedding date foreverrr

Knoxville girlz

oops

The night may or may not have ended in Cook-Out after the above picture. Overall, we couldn't have asked for a better night with great friends and I'm so happy for Chelsey and Josh! Chelsey and I are hoping we can have a joint 2nd honeymoon with the husbands when we go to Thailand in December/January. Don't worry... we had separate honeymoons the first time :)

4th of July

Welllll.... it's been a really long time since I've last made a blog post. But I keep reminding myself that the whole reason I wanted to do this in the first place was to remember some of the fun things we have going on in our life that I don't want to forget. So I'm just going to jump back into it and see where it goes this time.

This past 4th of July was a big one for us. It was Darren's first 4th of July in the USA! Even though we've been together for around 5 years somehow Darren has always avoided this splendid holiday. Maybe it's because of the fact that it's a reminder of our independence and dominance of his motherland? Nevertheless, Darren actually got really into 4th of July this year.

We met 2 of my college roommates and BFFs and their boyfriends in Tybee Island, GA for the long weekend. It was a blast! I have all of July off from rotations and Darren is still legally unable to work (must be nice) so we decided to extend our vacation and spend the night before in Savannah since it's only about 20 mins away from Tybee. Spoiler alert: I LOVE SAVANNAH. I already want to go back. I found a Groupon for an old hotel right on the river and it was amazing. Our room was upgraded and absolutely beautiful. The hotel was an old cotton exchange and it had so much history and southern charm. We spent our time in Savannah eating amazing seafood and walking all over the gorgeous city.

We met Candace on Tybee Island Thursday afternoon and watched fireworks on the beach that night. Then we "stayed up" waiting for Chelsea, Nathan, and Garrett to arrive from Nashville. Friday morning we woke up bright and early and headed to the beach and didn't leave until that night. Amazingly, this was also Darren's first time "going to the beach". Obviously he has been to beaches before and has been to way more places around the world than I have but he had never just gone the the beach to hang out all day. We had so much fun playing in the ocean, playing ladder ball and spike ball (a new one to us, but really fun!). Chelsea and Candace brought lots of USA decorations for our beach area and it was so cute and festive. Saturday was basically a repeat of Friday except it decided to rain in the afternoon and get really windy (RIP tent) so we headed back to our condo a little early.

Sunday we packed everything up and headed to Nashville to pick up our pup. Our 7 hour drive turned into a 10 hour drive but we got home safe and sound. I feel so blessed that we were able to spend quality time with 2 of my best friends and especially that our significant others all get along so well. It was just a really fun and happy weekend that I'm so happy we were all able to make happen despite our busy schedules. Can't wait until next time :)