12 more days...

I only have twelve more days till graduation. TWELVE MORE DAYS. I have been in school for the past 19 years, and while I am excited beyond description that I will soon be done, I am also kind of nervous. I'm looking forward to getting paid to work (instead of paying to work), being a real member of society (instead of the pretend type that just studies constantly), and accomplishing this goal that I have been working towards my entire life. In fact, I plan on continuing my education through a three year residency at the county hospital (I may be certifiably insane)! While I am so proud of what I have accomplished, I wish some of my biggest supporters were here to see me graduate. Every major life change (good or bad) is always hard. I will not lie and say the road has been totally smooth - earning the title of "doctor" anything is rough. Throw in major life changes, and it's been a downright roller coaster of an experience. To achieve this goal, I have sacrificed time away from my family and friends, a care-free college experience, and countless hours of sleep. BUT I have gained so much from this opportunity and am so thankful for my education. I'm looking forward to discovering the life of a non-student...I'll let you know how it goes!
NOtice the ugly green velvet and orange polyester hood...yikes. Let's just pray for cool weather so I don't overheat at graduation!

Celebrating April 15th

Better late than never, right? So much fun! Thanks, friends for a fantastic weekend at the beach!

My turn

To be honest, I did not take this picture as soon as I was tagged. I'm too lazy to track down my camera, try to take a non-blurry picture, and then wait for it to load onto this site. But I've set today aside to study, so naturally I'm finding everything possible to distract myself from doing just that.

This is me with short (YAY!) hair finally :) I received my cap + gown in the mail last week, and decided the cap would look just fine with short hair, so I did it! I feel like a whole new person with the weight of my long hair finally gone. I didn't go quite as short as last year because I really missed the pony. At this length, it's easy to dry/live with, AND it can be thrown back into a pony.

Anyway, I'm not tagging anyone...I think everyone who would do it has already done it...

24?

sigh.

Ahhh, Kev...

This weekend, Dave, Peter, Toni and I headed for the beach for a weekend of doing not much of anything. It was glorious. The highlight of our weekend (at least mine and Toni's) was walking on the beach and running in to an old friend. When Toni first started coming to the beach house with my family, we would always sneak up the steps of Kevin Costner's beach home, just down the beach from my family's home, but we were never brave enough to make it to the top of the steps. We always joked about stopping by to say hi to Kev, but it never actually happened. Well, we can now say that we officially spoke with Kevin himself on the beach. Here's how it went down:
Toni and I were walking past a super cute little family - little boy playing in the water with his dog, mom holding her baby in one of those slingy things, and dad admiring his family - when I realized that this man in hat and sunglasses was Kevin himself. I squeezed Toni's arm as we walked by, and gave her a look like "IS THAT WHO I THINK IT IS??". Toni looked back and confirmed that, yes, we just passed Kevin and his family on our walk. We continued to walk until we reached the point on the beach, then turned back around to catch one last glimpse of the star. As we passed, we were stopped in our tracks when a very familiar voice asked us what time it was. Yes, that's right - Kevin himself asked us what time it was, and luckily, I was wearing a watch.

After giving him the time, we told him we were huge Waterworld fans and invited him and the fam over to dinner at our place, where we took the above picture. We hung out all evening and became best friends. (Ok, I made the last part up...we didn't actually want to act star-struck during his family time, so we didn't say anything. At all. Just gave him the time and walked away. Like he was just a normal person.) It was still exciting, though :)