Happy Birthday, Bri!

(a week late)

Happy Birthday to my best friend! He is an amazing friend, husband, student, musician, athlete, fan, comedian, and partner in mischief. :) I feel so blessed to be with him forever!Isn't he handsome?! We had a fun birthday dinner at Red Robin (YUM!). We both got the bacon burger, with--of course--campfire sauce (Natalie) and honey mustard (Brian) for the fries.

Then we came home and opened presents.


A funny Doctor Shirt from the Evans:

Sporting all his new Vanderbilt gear from me:

Happy 26th Birthday!

The Right Profession

Brian is definitely in the right field. When I met him on campus today to work out, he was practically giddy; he told me all about cutting apart his group's cadaver (affectionately known as "Jeff").

(He had already told me all about how it took all 4 of his group members to move Jeff onto his stomach and how they cut through and opening up the skin on his back.)

Today he got to pull back the ilio costalis, spinalis, and longisimus (back muscles) and broke off parts of the vertebrae to expose the spinal cord. He animatedly described using a bone saw to get through the vertebrae and the subsequent juicy-ness that splattered his shirt.

Personally, I don't think I could handle that. But Brian loves it.

Just now, he said (from behind his computer):
"Oh sweet! On Friday we get to use power saws to cut the clavicles and the lower part of the sternum. And use pruning shears to cut apart the ribs!"

Yup, pretty sure he's in the right profession.

Adventures in Tennessee

I had initially intended to blog about each of these things separately, but some of these pictures are already months old, so here's a hodgepodge of what we have been up to here in Tennessee!Vanderbilt medical school "sorts" the students into "colleges" (not unlike Harry Potter being sorted into houses by the sorting hat). Brian was put in "Robinson College", the defending champions of the college cup. College Cup was a weekend full of competitive events: a swimming meet, 5-k race, basketball, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, dodge ball, water polo, trivia, iron chef, laugh-off, dance-off, and others. Each college competed for the championship. Unfortunately, Robinson did not win overall this year. :( Brian participated in Basketball, Volleyball, the 5-k, and Water Polo. I participated in the swim meet and water polo (the ultimate frisbee team was full--- sad day!).

We have been hosts for several potential med-students who come to Vanderbilt for interviews. One of them left us a 6-pack of beer as a thank you for letting him stay with us! haha. Our next door neighbors saw him bring it in and asked us if they could have it because they know we don't drink.
Thanks to my amazing friend, Angie, we discovered a new favorite cookie recipe: S'mores chocolate chip cookies! Yumm!
Who knew (before seeing the movie "The Lightning Theif") that there was a life-size replica of the Parthenon in Nashville? It is beautiful!
Apparently there is a museum inside, but we didn't want to pay the $10 admission fee. We had a lot of fun walking around the park outside, though!

Rafting

Once upon a time we went rafting with some people from med school on the Ocoee river