Through the holidays...

It's been awhile but I'll update you through the holidays...

In November, I got busier at work since we hired a new RA to assist me with my grant work. The studies just never seem to end and there always seems to be another experiment that has to be run due to the results of another. Stephanie has been a huge help and it is nice to have someone to talk to at the same time. Little did she know that when she was hired how busy we were going to keep her. I also stayed busy with S.O.K.S. We sponsored a CAT TOWN before the last home football game and I was in charge of planning the catering for ~300 people, set up and tear down. I was rather overwhelmed since this was something so new to me, but it came off without a bang and people seemed to enjoy it. A perk that came near the end of it was when Bev, our S.O.K.S. sponsor/Dean of Vet school's wife, offered me two free tickets to the football game that day. So I quickly found a friend (Thanks Lindsey!) and got to enjoy the last game against Missouri. It was a pretty good game until the end so we left a little early, but we did get some sun while we were there (even though it was mainly on the left side of our faces). Oh...good times! Mike stayed busy (imagine that) with school.

For Thanksgiving we enjoyed a quite day to ourselves with no stress or hurrying. We got to put our tree up and enjoy sitting by the lights that evening while watching football and movies. I can't recall the last time we had a holiday break when we could sit back and relax and not worry about school or running off to another committment. Mike even took three days of his break to NOT study even though he had an exam the following Monday (how nice of the vet school). I also finally finished the quilt for Sharon for Christmas.

Then it was time to start planning for Christmas...BUT HOLD ON...WHAT DID WE GET...Oh yeah, we got an ice storm!! That put a little damper on things considering that it was during the week of finals and even K-State closed down one day. Thank God, we only lost power for ~10 hours. We were definitely more fortunate than others. Many a day our house was a shelter for others from church for hot meals, heat, showers, a place to study, and a place to eat with light. We did get a few cool pictures out of it though, including individually frozen blades of grass. It slowed down getting things ready to come home but on the Saturday before we left, Mike and I high tailed it and got everything done with a few hours to relax before packing up the car,the dogs and hopping in the car at 4 am to make the long drive back east. We ended up putting over 3000 miles on our Jeep this trip.

Holiday Pictures of the Marinos

We were able to go home for 2 1/2 weeks this time. We did the usual running back and forth between my parents and his parents but got to enjoy plenty of time with both families. Praise the Lord...this was the first Christmas season in awhile that neither of our families had any huge health concerns. God has been good this past year to us! We got to celebrate our niece's (Angela) 9th birthday, attend my sister's winter choral concert at Redding Middle School, visit with old friends I grew up with (Congratulations Carrie on your engagement!!), relive our first date to Red Rose Inn and Longwood Gardens, visit with old coworkers and veterinarian friends and see everyone back at Newark Naz. We wished we could have seen more people but we drove ourselves ragged as it was and there just wasn't enough time, so if we didn't see you then we hope you had a wonderful holiday season! We got back to Kansas 5 days before we had to return to work and school, and we needed every moment of that time to recuperate. Traveling can take so much out of you.

Longwood Gardens with Jenn & Angela

We are both back at work and school now. I am trying to dig myself out at the same time as preparing to leave again. I will be traveling back to Atlanta at the end of the month for another training. Mike is already dreading this semester as he is taking 23 credit hours and 9 classes, as well as working again as a emergency on-call vet tech (just like he did all last year). After last semester, I think he just dreads it will be the same even though neither of us have any idea what it will truly be like. The only thing I know for sure is that God would not have put us here if it wasn't part of his plan and if he didn't think we could handle it!