Graduation

Apparently I graduated from medical school last Thursday, which means I am a doctor. I can't think of many other things that are more terrifying to me (yet pretty exciting at the same time.) A bunch of my family were able to make the trip from the northwest to see me graduate. And my Saint Louis family was able to make it as well.

Part of our goal with the move was to be moved in by graduation. And, thanks to a lot of help from Becky (taking care of Izzie) and the rest of the family, we were able to be moved in enough to host a brunch at our house. Since Matt and I have been married, we haven't had the opportunity to get out our china and I thought, what better time than graduation!

Here is a shot of everything laid out before we began. We had bagels with gravlacks (cured salmon, made by Grant) and fruit salad, as well as coffee and mimosa (or just orange juice). I had a great time getting out the china and making everything pretty - I hope I can get it out more often!

This is a shot of the gravlacks plated. It was a big hit!

After brunch, we headed over to the Chaifetz Arena for graduation (School of Medicine Precommencement).

Here we are reciting the Hippocratic Oath, which I feel is the moment when we became physicians. It is interesting how the oath has changed over the years, the Wikipedia article I linked to actually gives a good synopsis of what has changed.

Here is Isidora at graduation, proud of her Mommy.

With Mom and Dad outside Chaifetz Arena after graduation.

I thought our hoods looked pretty neat - the green is for medicine and the blue and white inside are the colors of Saint Louis University.

After graduation we headed over to Grant and Juanita's house for some dinner... and more pictures.

The three Whitney girls!

The table set up for dinner - well, three tables set up for dinner. We had my favorite, beef tenderloin!

I am so blessed to have had so much family come visit to share this special day with me! Thanks again to all that made the trip out and to everyone that helped with the house!

House update, part two

We have now been in our new house for one whole week! Our new furniture arrived last Thursday, as did our washer and dryer. Unfortunately, the sectional we had purchased would not fit into our basement :( so we had to return it and pick out a different one. It wasn't that the sectional wouldn't fit in the room, but that it would not fit go down the stairs either in our house nor in our walk-out basement. I was very embarrassed. Fortunately, we were able to find a different sectional that was smaller that we liked and we bought a recliner to supplement the seating. They fit downstairs very well and I am really glad we ended up getting those instead of the one big sectional.

Our new washer and dryer work really well and they even play a little tune when they are done instead of just a buzz or a beep. Matt says it is because they are South Korean.As far as upstairs is concerned, we figured out a way to fit all of our furniture in the living room and the dining room is mostly put together! We got our new kitchen table put together and we have already had several meals there - another success!

The big project today was cleaning up the mud room (it had a bunch of boxes and packing material headed for the dumpster). Katee helped out a lot by cleaning up our windows (she did a fabulous job) and I was able to vacuum it finally! It will eventually be a little play room for Isidora while we cook in the kitchen but we also have another set of shelves on the way that we will put our extra food and kitchen appliances on.

Today, Matt and I also went to the grocery store to get all the food we need for the brunch we are having here on Thursday morning before my graduation from medical school. I am pretty excited to host this brunch as it will be the first big gathering we will have in our new home. I am planning on getting out some fancy serving stuff (from our china we got when we were married) - I really can't wait. I also stopped by school to pick up my cap and gown. :)

Anyway, I guess I will leave you with a couple of pictures, since I managed to locate my camera cable :)

Here is a picture of our bathroom. It is pretty tiny, but will work just fine for the two of us. Our house has two full bathrooms - one upstairs that was original to the house, and one downstairs that was added very recently (I am not actually sure when it was added.) We are planning on using the upstairs bath as the master bath and the downstairs as Izzie's bathroom/guest bathroom. So far, with Becky staying with us, it has worked out pretty well!

Speaking of Becky, Isidora has really gotten attached to her Aunt CC (her nick-name). Every morning when Isidora wakes up, she goes to the basement door (our guest area is in the basement) and peeks through this old cat door and yells, "CC! CC!....Hi, CC!" It is pretty adorable. Eventually Becky wakes up and comes up to play with Izzie...

which makes Isidora pretty happy.

Isidora seems to be adjusting pretty well to the new house. She really enjoys running around the house and playing downstairs. I think she also really likes her new room. I know she loves the dog next door - a black lab named Vegas. She wants to go outside several times a day to watch him through the cyclone fence. He seems to enjoy the attention.

Anyway, things have been coming together pretty nicely. There are only a couple of boxes that are not fully unpacked and only a few things that need to be put away. We still have some work to do as far as getting things up on the walls, but we have already started the process.

Hopefully the next few days well go well! Family gets here tomorrow and I couldn't be more excited!