Summarizing Summer

While writing this post I could vividly hear the Dixie Chicks circa 1999... "well the weeks went by and spring turned to summer, and summer faded into fall...."

Yep. That's pretty much what happened. I haven't posted since spring break in April! I'm not even sure where the summer went, but here we are nearing October!?! I think after boards I just took a break from pretty much everything, and it was hard to get motivated to post again. Several of you have been sweet enough to inquire about the blog, which lets me know there are a few of you out there that care to read my ramblings. :)

Let's see... in the past 4 months...

I passed Part 1 of said boards (praise be to Jesus)!

Four of our favorite people moved up the East coast. Brother Mike to New Jersey and the Domeny clan to New Hampshire. They wouldn't leave Addy with us. "You must have your own children," they said. So we hugged and cried, and hugged and cried some more.

And then they left...

Although we miss them daily, they are truly friends forever. I might even endure a cold, snowy winter visit just to see them.

In May, I finished my 3rd year of optometry school. That concluded all of our didactic courses, so we will NEVER sit in our self-assigned seats again! I'm sure the far left seat of the third row of Room 301 is perfectly shaped to my behind at this point. Sadly though, this means my classmates and friends are slowly parting ways as we have been in various externships during the summer and rest of our 4th year. I don't know if I could have made it through without these three ladies below. Heather, Erika, and Gussie helped pull me through the hard times, and laugh through the good. I'm excited to see where we will all end up in the future!

In May we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary by going to the Alabama Jubilee Hot Air Balloon Festival near Huntsville. And made a trip over to the Unclaimed Baggage store in Scottboro. We ironically visited Unclaimed Baggage passing through on our first anniversary - this is unintentionally becoming a tradition.

We've enjoyed the farmer's market and the beach a couple times this summer.

Explored some Florida caverns with Matt and Heidi.

Helped paint a friend's house. Painting is sooo much more fun with friends. Always make that chore a party!

I spent half of my summer living back at home to "work" at my externship in Elba. It was such a wonderful experience to work beside the two ODs that inspired me and have encouraged me along this educational journey. They have a wonderful practice with an amazing staff, and I got great "real-world" experience while there.

I got to visit with cousin Carissa on her way back to Virginia. What should have been a 30 minutes coffee break quickly turned into a couple hours delay on her trip. But it was worth it!

We took a whirlwind trip to Seattle and Olympic National Park for a week in between my school semesters! Those details I will share soon in another post.

Since then, we've been to Memphis, Tennessee for my cousin Cameron's wedding, which was beautiful, delicious, and quite a blast! We enjoyed several roof top views of the city, and couldn't leave without trying some Memphis BBQ!

And that gets us to this month! I've been at my new externship site for the Fall semester. This is a local practice of ophthalmologist mixed with a few ODs. I'm seeing tons of diseases and ocular issues I've never seen firsthand before! Jesse has taken a break from his Master's program, mostly to plan around our Seattle vacation, but should be back to his studies soon. We've enjoyed our afternoons with heavy doses of Netflix. :)

Stay tuned for Seattle! We ate SO much food, I may have to split up the post! And Olympic was pretty marvelous, too.

High Five for Friday

Once again, I forgot to post on Friday. I don't know why... I was completely distracted from studying yesterday and at the pinnacle of procrastination.  Finals are a week away, but my brain is pretty much done with this semester.  This week held lots of exciting things, though - let's start from last weekend:

1. Saturday we were home for my cousin Clint's wedding.  It was quite the ride out into the countryside, but the venue was gorgeous!  A newly built barn just for events like this, that screamed rustic Southern wedding. All the little touches Ashton had planned were absolutely charming, and there was a candy table.... probably for kids... but you know I had to get some!  And there was a grits bar that made my tummy swoon (twice).

And look how gorgeous my cousin Kelsey is in this seagreen color! (Which goes with her glasses, might I add. ;)  )

Little Adelyn also loved the candy bar:

2. We had Easter lunch with Jesse's side of the family on Saturday as well.  Marilyn made a delicious ham and veggie strudel, and Heidi brought her famous double-layer cheesecake.  We also hunted eggs (because you are NEVER too old for that), and Heidi found the "golden egg" with $5 inside! We were all eager to empty the candy out, and everyone was excited about Peeps.  (By the way... Peeps should be designated for Easter... we don't need Peeps for all the other holidays. That sucks the fun out of egg hunts and the original Easter Peeps. Just sayin'.)

3.  Church was amazing on Sunday, with a great worship service and a focus on the resurrection power of our living Savior! The same resurrection power that was enough to save you is the same power that can sustain you. So why do we try to chose what parts of our life we want His power to show up in? Salvation, but not in the hatred of a friend that has hurt us? Save us from all the ugly sins of this world, but not enough to save our marriage from the nothingness it's become? Strong enough to conquer death, but not to help you break your addiction? It's strong enough to restore you- restore your marriage, break addiction, and allow forgiveness (plus more). It doesn't change; it doesn't fade or lose its strength!
Service was followed by what has become the annual Domeny Easter lunch, where Kelsey cooked up a ham and all the proper Easter fixings.

4.  Jesse and I got sick mid-way through the week, but have (almost) fully recovered at this point. Feeling better always feels so good!

5.  After a round a chicken noodle soup and appetites were back to normal, last night we tried using pantry and freezer items to make a homemade spin on a local favorite dish of ours - Saw's Soul Kitchen's Pork and Grits which is a bed of grits topped with turnip greens, pork, and shoe-string onion rings. Divine I tell you. Now, it was a stretch, because we did not have BBQ pork, but I made cheese grits, we cooked up spinach as our greens, and Jesse topped his with shrimp (I'm sadly allergic), followed by French's onions. Mine was okay, but his was delicious. He tries to pretend he doesn't cook, but when he does, he always goes all out and it tastes amazing.

Happy weekend, everyone!