You won't get the humor

Today I started my wet lab again (the one I have to retake). The teacher opens up the two cadavers we will be using and then we have to 'flip' them from their back to their stomach. When that was done she started dissecting the back of the one and said that she wanted someone to start on the arm on the other one. There are 3 of us who are retaking this class-me and 2 guys. The one guy will dissect but didn't want to and the other guy won't even touch the body so I decided to go ahead and get started with it. I started the first incision and had a couple people come over to watch, grossing out and commenting. I just kept working and acting like I really enjoyed it (which actually, I did. It was MUCH better than last quarter where the bodies were 9 months old and NASTY!) At one point, I was in up to my elbow and thought it quite humorous that these big, burly guys were grossing out. I was covered in 'people juice' and little pieces of fat and at one point, the guys wouldn't even come near me, for fear I might accidently bump them with my hands. HAHAHA

Anyways, I knew you wouldn't find the humor in it, but it was quite amusing to me. A guy named Jason was standing and talking to me and kind of grossed out too. When I started to compare it to deer processing, he asked if he could join in and he took over for a bit. Once he got in there and worked on the body (we named her Betsy), he agreed it wasn't nearly as bad as he had first thought. Fun times at Life U! LOL

It's been a busy summer

Tim and I finished up our finals on June 18 and the next day we packed up and headed to Michigan for 3 weeks. Seth, Mikayla and Katelyn had gone up the week before with Aunt Debi & Uncle Andy and were busy enjoying the Northern Michigan wilderness. While in Michigan we had so much that needed to be done, so many people to see and so much fun to be had. In a nutshell, we spent a day at Michigan Adventure with my family and the next day we spent it at Lake Michigan and then a dairy farm. We celebrated Katelyn's birthday while there and then went to a party for my cousins kids (Alex & Vanessa). All the kids, except Jacob, spent a week with Tim's parents swimming, going to the zoo and the park. On the 4th, we went to my Aunt Gayles house for her usual 4th of July summer party. THe kids enjoyed swimming in the pool and having snow cones. Seth was in Washington DC with Tim's parents for a family reunion and then sight seeing so he didn't get to go with us. On the 5th, we went to the fireworks. We spent time with friends, going to Splash Universe (an indoor waterpark), a day at the beach and bonfires. We also went to a little martini bar/jazz club for a night.

Tomorrow we get back to the grind of school. I have 23 credits and Tim has 18.2. It's going to be a tough quarter but it should go much smoother than last quarter.

I will post a few pics of our trip, tomorrow.

My city

I've always been a Detroiter. When anyone asks where I'm from, I rarely say "Southwest Michigan"; it's always "I'm from Detroit". While living in the Atlanta area, it makes me miss my city even more. Atlanta is an amazing city with a ton to do (although we've done none of it cause it's too much of a hassle to go downtown with all the kids and we don't have any babysitters to help watch them just so we can go out and hang out). Everyone talks about the crime in Detroit, and yes it's true, the crime is bad, it's not as bad as Detroit. It's per capita and since Detroit is one of the smaller cities, we rank at the top for the crime rates. But when you take a city like Atlanta that has over 5 million people in the metropolitan area, you are going to have more crime. And the crime is so violent and so random. I have a friend who had 2 gunmen break into an apartment of a friend that she was with. It's estimated that they shot 32x. For what? They grabbed their purses and ran out the door. The only way my friend could escape was to jump out the 2nd story balcony, injuring her hand and breaking out all her front feet. It's now in court. It was a completely random crime. While this does happen in Detroit, I honestly just felt safer there. I didn't have an issue with driving to downtown Detroit, either with Tim or alone. I DO however, not go too far from home here in the ATL. Too much traffic; too many people; to much chaos.

The scenary here in Atlanta is beautiful and I've gotten used to coming up over a small hill and seeing a mountain in front of me. The smell of pinetrees is pretty amazing too, but there is nothing like Michigan's lakes and the soft grass. Here in Georgia its so dry. The rivers are low and the lakes are so far apart. Growing up in Waterford, we had a lake on every corner!!! And the grass here is so soft and prickly. You really can't walk barefoot on it because it really hurts your feet.

So, yes, I'm a Detroiter. I'm PROUD to be a Detroiter and can't wait to come home and be a fulltime Detroiter again!

Check out this blog for some great pictures of Detroit...the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. http://fadeddetroit.blogspot.com/

2 weeks!!!

2 weeks from today, I get to go home!!!! It's 8am right now and hopefully that that time in the morning I'll at least be to the Tennessee/Kentucky border, if not further (maybe Lexington)!!!

Pics of Tim

Tim is looking at trying out for rugby this fall and is training really hard for it. He's been doing weight training 3-4x a week at the gym and is really bulking up. I don't know if you can tell too much in these pics, but I thought I'd post them anyways. He has the perfect build for Rugby and when we were watching our Rugby team play in the finals the other day, he looks just like them! Yep, I just had to show him off. ;)

Seth's painting

On Mothers Day, Seth gave me a picture he painted at school. I thought it was so pretty and am in the process of framing it. I had told mom I'd take a picture of it, so here it is. :) The picture does it no justice. The colors are really bright and it is a beautiful picture!

Memorial Day at the Atlanta Zoo

Today we had a beautiful day and spent it at the zoo. I have to say that while it's nice, I don't like it nearly as much as Detroit. I know that's a surprise for those who hate the Detroit Zoo, but Zoo Atlanta has no bears, except Pandas, the lions weren't out, only one tiger, that is in this glassed in cage thing and no roaming peacocks; just one in a caged bird area. The gorilla and orangatun exhitibs are awesome though and there is a lot of other stuff to do, including a rock wall and carousel. Jacob was really into all the animals and loved the "petting farm" (ie, the goats). He was running from one to the next trying to kiss them and was really intrigued by their tails.

We decided to let the kids try the rock wall and I was shocked at Mikayla. I had told them that if any of them made it to the top and pushed the red button, we'd stop at Dairy Queen on the way home. I was about to pay up! Mikayla went to the top, not once, but twice. I was amazed at her! Seth went about halfway up and couldn't go any furhter and Katelyn went about 1/3 of the way.

On the carousel, Micah was a pretty scared at first. He didn't want to get on the ride at all and once it started moving, he almost paniced, but he got over it pretty quickly and then asked if he could ride it again.

All in all we had a nice day, but I'm toast. Two days in the sun (and the sunburns that go with them) are a lot!!!! Tomorrow it's back to the final push for school and to finish off this quarter. We have some 'catch up' to do in a couple of classes, so we'll see what happens.

Keep that in your prayers!!!!



Micah...still a bit scared

Jacob, on the other hand, loved it!

Loving the tail!

Mom, can I have one of these??? How about a dog?

This is the dad panda.

Bamboo grows wild down here, but they have a ton of it at the zoo.


I think one of my kids got out!

That's Mikayla near the top in the turquoise. Katelyn is on the left. The boy is just some random kid.
Almost as tall as a flamingo.

A day at the beach

A local beach opened today and we decided it was a great thing to do with the kids since we've yet to go swimming in the year we've been here. The one we went to is about 30 minutes from the house, but it was really nice. The sand is so different from back home (bigger granuales and not slimy at all on the bottom) and it was really clean. Jacob wasn't too sure about the water, but after about 20 minutes of sitting on the waters edge, he got into it. He's a daredevil though so he has to really be watched. He loves putting his face in the water!! Here's a few pics from our day. The water looks really gross colored, but it's because of the reddish sand that they have down here. It was actually very clean water. Tomorrow we are off to Zoo Atlanta!

Been a Long, Hard Week!

It's been a bit since I updated so it's definitely time. We had 2 weeks of midterms, followed by 3 more test (which were our hardest classes) this week. It's been really rough. Lots of tears from the whole class as half the class if failing these classes. On the one test this week, our class average was 56%! On our gross anatomy lab midterm (where we went into the cadaver lab and they had things tagged, asking what the vein/nerve/artery/muscles/etc was, the class average was 55%! We are talking about some VERY smart people who have never so much as failed a test in their life, much less an entire class, and are now looking at having to retake not just one, but 2 or 3. As of now, I'm looking at the possibility of taking the one again (unless I pull a 91 on the final) and possibly 2 (if I can't get an 87 on that one). I'm pushing hard and running full speed, to try to make it through. On the other hand, if I do have to retake it, I've come to understand it's not a reflection on me. There have been a lot of complaints about the one professor over the last couple quarters and they are actually demoting him from the class for next quarter and bringing in another professor. Great for the class behind us, but it sucks for us as we are stuck in the middle.

Anyways, the kids got out of school on Friday and the girls cried the whole way home and then for quite awhile afterwards. Mikayla will be switching schools next year and going to the "Intermediate" and Katelyn will be staying in the "Primary". It's sort of funny to me the way they reacted about being done with school. Seth, though, was so excited. To him, summer now means more time to go fishing (which he is out doing right now with Tim), more time to explore the woods and play at his best friends house.

Micah is as funny as ever. This week he has some of the best one liners, but the two that stick out the most are "JoJo-why are you watching me? I'm not a TV show, I'm just a kid". LOL The other one was that he and Seth were talking and Seth said something like "Didn't you hear me???" Micah said "Seth, I couldn't hear you! I have a banana in my ear". Where does he come up with these things????

Jacob is getting into trouble like normal. This boy is so active and into everything. His new thing is to close his eyes and walk around the house, bumping into walls, couches, and whatever else is in the way. He has learned to give kisses this week (finally) and is now saying "Thank You" and "SIT DOWN" (which seems to be a nightly dinner thing that we have to say with micah lately.) He's getting so big and it's hard to believe that he's 16 months old already!!!

I should probably talk about Tim too, huh? He's been spending a lot of time in the gym working out and building muscles. His shoulders, chest and arms are HUGE!!!!! His shirts are starting to not fit across the top and he's beginning to pull the seams out. I'll try to get some pics soon.

Today we are off to the beach for the day. It's supposed to be 85 and a local beach opened this weekend so it should be fun. The kids don't know yet but they've asked for the year that we've been down here, when we could go to a beach, we just didnt' know where one was. Tomorrow, for Memorial day, we are going to the zoo. Hopefully the animals will be active and we'll have a good day.

As most of you have seen, we've had pretty severe storms here over the past several weeks. Fortunately, we have been safe during them and they have bypassed us for the most part. The last one (this past Monday) went up by our school and a girl in our class actually lost her house to a tornado. It's all too close for comfort though. It's been the biggest tornado year down here in a VERY long time and it will only get worse over the next month. :( I will make sure to keep everyone updated on here as storms come.

A study group

Last quarter, for finals, we had a study group. These are a few of our aquaintances and study partners at our cookout study group.


Marcus getting the grill ready.


Jimmy & Diana think that Tim is in need of a good whoopin...


Tim...always deep in thought!


Jimmy brought a bottle of wine with him but forgot corkscrew so tried to cut the cork out.


He resorted to a hammer and this was the end result. He's quite proud of his work though.


Marcus' 4 year old son, Harriston, is in cooking classes so had to be part of the action.


JD and Harriston grilling.


This is where Marcus' kids do their homeschooling, and yes, we really did study here!!!! (Don't look at the horrible picture angle and how HUGE it makes me look!!)