Merry belated Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their loved ones. Connor and I had such a fun time celebrating THREE Christmases! We spent Christmas Eve upstate with my family. On Christmas morning I got to wake up to Brianna opening gifts, which was so awesome. Her reaction when she came down the stairs and saw all the presents and the half eaten cookies was priceless. I loved every minute of it!

After we were done exchanging gifts, Connor and I had breakfast then headed back down to LI. We stopped at our house and exchanged presents by ourselves. Our first Christmas in our own little home was so cute and romantic! :P One of Connor's favorite gifts from me was a bottle opener made by a blacksmith. It's engraved with our wedding date and his nickname "Doc." It's pretty cool and rustic! I have to say my favorite gift from him was my cozy socks that have big, plushy cute pig faces on them! I can't take them off.

Connor and I headed out to see his family out east after we finished our own little x-mas. Mrs. D made a bunch of delicious food, as always! And we had tons of fun seeing Connor's extended family from Maryland. They have always played a secret gift exchange game, which I absolutely love! Everyone brings one girl and one boy gift and put it on a table. We all end up choosing a gift and are able to steal from a person. It is HYSTERICAL. I always laugh like crazy when I play it. Everyone has such a great sense of humor, so it makes the game that much more fun!

Luckily, holiday break bliss is STILL in affect! Connor has been doing some work, but it's not as much as he normally has to do. We were able to go out yesterday and have dinner (peacefully). It was such a nice treat to have a date night all by ourselves without feeling guilty about Connor having work to do at home! It's crazy to think how much we took that for granted pre-medical school. It makes our dates so much more special now. I'm sure as medical school gets more intense, they will become even more special.

Really looking forward to ringing in the new year! 2013 will be magical. Just a few more months until Connor and I get to celebrate our wedding! :)

<3 Mandy

Nothing like wine and cake to cheer you up...

Hello guys! Hope you all had a happier Monday than I did. Today was extremely tense at school. Luckily the kindergartners were still their innocent and oblivious selves; most of the students I saw today were unaware of the ugliness of Friday's tragedy, thankfully. But most of us teachers were feeling tons of anxiety and administration has now put many new safety regulations into place.
Needless to say, today was more than just your typical bad Monday. I'm glad it is finally winding down.

Tomorrow is my third and FINAL observation of student teaching and I couldn't be happier. I'm so excited for this phase to be over and to begin life as a certified teacher with a Master's Degree. It has been such a long, arduous road that it feels so wonderfully relieving to reach its end. The hard work has paid off. :)

Connor's semester is really slowing down, which is great! He's mainly working on DPC learning issues right now. His patient is complaining about weird leg pain and has recently just gotten over the flu. He also has a messy demeanor, a family history of alcoholism, but says that he does not drink. Who know what will be the resolution! Connor's "patients" remind me of movie plots. Stay tuned to find out the truth! Was that patient truly sober? Or was he a gin guzzling liar? Who knows?!

Anyway! We finally got our engagement pictures back!! They are so beautiful and I couldn't be happier with them. I love how they turned out. Now it's time to make the Save the Date cards! So excited to get working on those and send them out by the beginning of January. I hope everyone loves them. I was able to scan our prints last night at Mrs. D's house where we went for dinner. It was so much fun seeing everyone and eating delicious food. AND she made my favorite orange cake as per my humble request. It's like a sweet pound cake with orange flavor. IT'S SO GOOD. I die for it. It was such a nice treat. I'm going to have some more today, which is bad idea, but I can't resist it!

Hope everyone has a happy and safe week before the holiday!

Love,
Mandy <3

Getting Cozy on Sunday

Hi loved ones! Hope you are all having a cozy, rainy weekend! Yesterday my mom and niece came to visit me and we had so much fun staying in. My mom made us her Spanish rice and beans and I made gingerbread cookies with Bri. We had a lazy night on the couch watching movies. It was so much fun. I was so happy that I got to see them because I was feeling severely homesick! Poor Connor had to study, so he enjoyed as much time as he could with us before plugging in and listening to lectures.

Connor's new scrubs from the renaming ceremony!

Connor FINALLY took his big content exam on Friday. It was three long hours of misery, but thankfully it's over! I wish I could say it's smooth sailing to Christmas break, but I can't sadly! He has two exams tomorrow (Anatomy lab test and Anatomy and OMM lecture test). It's a little confusing, but just understand that lab and lecture are 2 different classes, so they require different exams. So, needless to say, we are still intense studying mode, which means watching TV in an almost muted state and trying to figure out the context by carefully studying gestures and moving mouths, reading a book/magazine, or browsing the internet. Guess which one I picked! ;)

Some of the things I know Connor is learning at the moment include sinusitis, TMJ, ear infections, and the number of bones in the skull. Those are just  A FEW of the things that he has chosen to share with me as I walk past his desk. I found sinusitis interesting because I saw an x-ray of a clogged sinus full of bacteria and it was just awful! No wonder it's so painful!! BLAGH.

My observation this past Thursday went really well! I was so relieved. My supervisor said really wonderful things, which makes me feel confident that student teaching has been a huge learning experience. She said I'm a natural! Who would've thought? Certainly not me! I imagined myself being many different things like a lawyer or a writer. But I'm glad the career found me. I think that's a great way to put it. And look, I'm still writing! ;) Who knows, I may even write a book someday. Never hurts to have big dreams.


I hope all of you enjoy the rest of your weekend before the work week starts up again!

Love,
Mandy

Surviving Hell Week

Hi guys! Sorry I haven't been writing much. Student teaching is starting to come to a close and I am feeling VERY overwhelmed with all that I need to finish. This Thursday I have an observation with my supervisor. I'm not nervous about it. I just really hate all the work that's involved in preparation for her visit. I've been working on my lesson for the past 3 days and I'm so sick of looking at it! I've been staring at gingerbread men for way too long. I'm doing a math lesson on number recognition using gingerbread men and buttons, and I'm not too crazy about it. I think the lesson is great, but I'm just not as passionate about this stuff as I was with high school content. I had so much fun making high school lessons. I thought Kindergarten would be a fit for me, but I'm surprised to say that I prefer high school! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I find a job in a high school soon after the hell of student teaching is over.

Connor has been preparing for his huge content exam that is quickly approaching this Friday. It has been a very stressful home sadly! I'm really looking forward to Christmas break when we can unwind and separate ourselves from all the work for a little bit. I had a moment last night where I wanted to hide in my closet because it seemed so much more peaceful in there than anywhere else. NOT EVEN JOKING. And I'm scared of small, confined spaces, but that was actually the better alternative to facing the reality of this hectic week. Connor's stress has manifested in binge eating junk food, particularly ice cream. It's scary! He has these huge bowls of coffee ice cream to give him a "pick me up." I think it's more of a mini therapy session every night, but what do I know!

Some good news about Connor and med school: he got wonderful grades back in OMM. All 100s! He's such a smarty pants. I'm so proud of how well he is doing in his first few months. He always motivates me to be a more hardworking and optimistic person. I love and admire that about him. <3

We are still waiting to get our engagement photos back. I'm dying! If I don't hear from them by this Friday, I am definitely giving them a call. I am so excited to see how they turned out. I will keep you guys filled in.

Wish us luck surviving this crazy week! We're almost there! :)

Love,
Mandy