Weeks 14-16 Moving Pics & 1st Mothers Day!

This was a crazy month for us, and it was incredibly exciting-this month we would find out the gender of our little baby! Now that I'm out of the 2nd trimester, things are supposed to be looking up for me. Honestly, the 1st trimester was pretty easy on me, so I can't imagine feeling better. 

I'm ready to see my bump grow! 

Last picture together on the island...

14 weeks:

We went in for our last appointment with our OBGYN in Galveston. We wanted to say goodbye to our RE doctor as well, but she had her twins that week! We were bummed not to say bye to her, but we got to say goodbye to the office staff, who, believe it or not, we had gotten to know pretty well from being up there so much the past year. 

We got bored waiting for the doctor to come in:)

 

He said he was going to "scare" the doctor 

when she came in...I talked him out of it.

Our little baby:

This was our first ultrasound to get a "good look" at our baby-looking

like a baby! What a miracle it is. The heart rate was good, still in the lower

range, 146..which means BOY if you are following the old wive's tale...

And on top of that, the Doctor made Jordan's day when she said she "thought

there might have been something that would indicate boy" but it was too small to tell.

I went to Dallas with Taylor that weekend before we moved to get some things I wanted

to take to the new house. Taylor and I stopped on the way back down in Austin

to drop off the furniture we had and make sure everything was ready for next week.

While I was in Dallas, I got to enjoy some family time, and go to a Rangers Game!

At Peyton's baseball game-he's a really good player!

 Matt and Alethea have the cutest little kiddos:)

 At the Rangers Game-missing my hubby!

Getting our little baby bumps-the 2 preggos!! 

15 weeks:

This week was the BIG move!!  Jordan was trying to study amidst all the boxes:

Zeus was scared about what was going on in the house...lol.

Moving Day 1, Thursday May 3rd:

Saying goodbye to the island! We moved with our friends Josh and Taylor, so, overall,

 we had: the largest U-Hual there was,

a truck with a trailer, a mini van, Explorer AND a Prius! 

We were quite the caravan. 

We started on Thursday morning and got to Austin late that evening.

Moving Day 2: May 4th, we unloaded all day, then Josh and Jordan went back 

to Galveston that evening because they had

 studying and classes next week:(

Jordan's mom was so sweet to come and help me unpack! We almost

completely unpacked the entire house on Saturday and Sunday. I sent Jordan

pictures of the work we were doing:)

Bella, however, was not working-she enjoyed watching us work.

 She loved her new bed.

Living room with new furniture that came Saturday:)

Dogs LOVING their new backyard and porch!

the kitchen took the longest of course...what a beast.

She left Monday morning, I was so thankful for her help! 

Taylor and I going out for coffee ( I sent 

this pic to Jordan..hence the I love you) :

That week I got a lot of unpacking and 

decorating done before Jordan got there.

I wanted to have the house all ready

when he came as a surprise. 

16 Weeks:

Taylor and I went to West Elm. Love all the new decor we got

there for the house. She helped me pick everything out!

Loving 6th street!!!                                          Tablescape.

Love the bedding I got there! And the small

accent items from West Elm. The other stuff I got from our Ikea trip:

 wall lamps, dresser, and headboard.

Check out the night stands I put together! (I'm super excited 

about putting things together b/c I am horrible at that stuff and

always have Jordan do it, but since he's not here, I'm improvising...thanks 

to Taylor for encouraging me!)

That weekend Jordan finally came to Austin!

It was so exciting to finally have him there.

He had only seen our house that one day when we

were moving in, so I was excited for him to see it all

together. For an early birthday present, I got him

a new desk AND put it together by myself!

I spend 7 hours on this puppy:

Now he has his own place to study for his first Board Exam (STEP 1)

Although he is sharing it with the guest room, Its still nice to have 

his own place. Ahem, I mean, for him and Zeus to have their own place:

BTW, this is what Jordan has been doing for 6 months...

studying in his jammies all day, with Zeus by his side.

Its been a real blast, let me tell ya!

Sunday was my 1st ever Mother's Day. A day I have longed for,

dreamt of and thought would never come.

Although our precious baby isn't quite here yet,

it was so sweet of Jordan to think of me, and get me

flowers, a card and a precious Mothers Love charm from JA.

Next week we go to the Doctor for the gender!! eek!

just because...

I haven't updated my blog lately b/c to be honest-we have been very busy!

 Not to mention, I don't enjoy blogging as much when I just write, and have no pictures.

 I feel like then there is too much pressure on what I am saying and how I am writing=)

 But I don't like going a long time without updating my blog either so I guess

 that's what brought me here. I decided to go for it and write a blog without pictures.

 I hope that is alright! Most people just blog their writings and don't even add pictures,

 so I guess this shouldn't be too hard.

I feel like time is going by so very fast. Every day that is over makes me feel

closer to what's coming, and that is-moving. It's going to be a very difficult thing,

 to pack up and leave (for the 3rd time since we've been married!) but this time its going

 to be much farther away. I wish I could spend more time with my family and friend while

 they are close, but life and school is getting in the way of that. I am however, looking

 forward to the summer and getting to hopefully spend a lot of quality time with them.

 I know Galveston is only 5 hours away, but with the busy lives we all lead,

 5 hours to drive somewhere makes it that much more difficult to get there on a

frequent basis. So I think I will find myself looking forward to holidays

even more than usual!

Just so everyone knows-we are actually 'moving' to Galveston in June...

the week after school gets out. Why so early? Well its sort of a two-fold reason.

1. b/c our lease at our apartment is up on June 8th so we kind of have to get out and

2. b/c Jordan will start his COT (Commissioned Officer Training) for the Air Force

 at the end of June and it will go through the end of July. When he gets back from

that (which is in San Antonio) we will then 'settle in' at our place in Galveston

 (which we haven't found or looked for yet..) And school will start for both

of us around the middle of August. (which I am still looking for a job-please pray!)

The reason I titled this blog, 'countercultural' is because its the name of a series

of a Bible study I have been recently embarking on...now, let me first say

that I am FAR from countercultural, I feel I still have a long way before I am truly

living that out. I may be in 'certain' areas-maybe how I treat/listen to my husband and dress..

.but when it comes to matters of the heart I think I am hardly countercultural. I am certainly

working on it though. I realized in this time of my life where the winds of change are coming

hard, that this is a blessing and not something to be upset or worried about. I heard a small,

 but profound statement:

 'Anything that makes me NEED God, is a blessing'

these are words I cling to, and I am finding them to be indeed true. I also

appreciate the 'reality checks' I get frequently from God when I see the

other hardships my friends and family are going through, or about to go through

that are far more challenging than anything I might be feeling or going through at

the moment. And while I realize the reason we are moving is a HUGE blessing,

 an answer to much prayer and the completion of many years of Jordan's HARD work,

 it is still going to be difficult to move away from family, friends and my job and for us

to be on our own. It is certainly a bittersweet thing=)  Either way, I am praying for

strength and striving to be that perfect picture that God sees me as because of what 

Christ has done-to truly live out who I am in Him. How long will it take me to get there?

 How many hardships and trials will I need to go through to get to that point?

Well, it will probably take my whole life (and I still won't get there!), and many

more trials, but its definetely something worth fighting for, seeking out and living for.

so proud of my husband....medical school & the Air Force!

I have been very quiet about this whole medical school process on my blog b/c everything was so up in the air,

I didn't want to confuse people and make them worry or wonder about possibilities that 

might not happen. But now that it's all said and done, here is the skinny:

I am SO very proud of Jordan b/c last June he applied to all 7 medical schools in 

Texas (excluding Baylor) and starting last August

he got interviews at ALL 7 schools:

UT Houston, UTMB Galveston, Texas A&M, Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas Tech in El Paso,

UT Southwestern and UT San Antonio!!!!!

God completely blew us away and blessed us beyond anything we could have imagined.

I know Jordan will not like me sharing this about him, but its ok b/c I'm his wife, so I can 

talk about how proud I am of him for getting all those interviews!!

 Needless to say, we had some serious decisions to make

as far as which one he wanted to put at the top of the list for the computer MATCH (where

basically they tell you which 1 school out of those 7 you will be going to-held on Feb 1st). After 

much prayer and consideration of all the pro's and con's of every school, he finally made his 

decision and decided on:

UTMB GALVESTON!!!

Those are a couple pictures 1-of the teaching hospital, the other 2-of the island-and UTMB is that 

main big building structure in the middle.

For those of you who don't know or haven't heard about the Air Force Medical Scholarship situation, here is the information about that:

About three months ago Jordan received an email from an Air Force Health Professions recruiter in San Antonio, his name is Sgt. Lochrie. He told him that he is automatically accepted for the medical school scholarship b/c of his good GPA and high MCAT score, which is kind of a cool thing for him b/c the AF is the hardest to get the medical school scholarship (its called the HPSP) and they only are giving out 190 this year. Jordan and I did a conference call with 2 different recruiters to get the story straight, as well as driving to San Antonio 2 different times over the Christmas break to meet with the recruiter, finish the physical exam, fill out paperwork, etc. on what all is involved, and then after much prayer and consideration, we decided to move forward with it. 

Now for the details I know you really want to hear. This is basically what we get/what it is:

-ALL medical school tuition is PAID for in full by the AF (he can still go to UTMB and the military basically doesn't 'touch him' as they say or bother him the whole 4 years of school-they want him to finish so he can be useful=).

-ALL books and lab fees, school supplies are paid for

-We both get free medical insurance and any other dependents he has in the future ;) also get it

-He gets a large signing bonus paid in full starting august 2010 (which we will be saving for when we start out family-we'll definetely need it then!)

-He also gets a monthly stipend that is basically his 'salary' all 4 years he is in school. Its less than a teacher salary, but still-its WAY better than nothing.

-Every summer he will get research/rotation opportunities that last 45 days that he will get paid extra money to do.

-When he starts his residency in 4 years, he will get $10-15,000 more than a civilian will get paid and he will have a wider range of choices, and first pick before civilians get to apply.

-When he is serving as a doctor, if he is doing it for the military he won't have to pay ANY malpractice insurance or stuff like that.

What we have to do as far as 'paying them back':

After his residency,(so like in 8years) he will owe the AF 4 years of active duty service in a military hospital on a base somewhere. It might seem daunting, but it will actually give him some great opportunities to do things most people won't get to do, plus they will be paying him a LOT more money during this time, and paying a housing allowance, food, etc. so it is well worth it! Deployment, yes during these 4 years he might get deployed, but the AF is a lot better than the other branches as far as 'not deploying as much'. They also can't deploy you for more than 6 months in an 18month period. Plus in 8 years the country could be in a totally different position as far as the war goes, so who knows what kind of things will be going on, but we know its not something to worry about now.

After those 4 years are up, he can choose to stay in the military and retire, or he can go do whatever he wants.

So that is basically it. They pay for your 4 years of medical school and you give them 4 years of service when you're done with all your schooling/residency. Then you can choose to do what you want: stay in or get out.

He is thinking right now he might stay in to retire (if all goes well) b/c if you do choose a military residency, that counts towards your 20years to retirement. So say that is 4 years of residency, and then the 4 years of active duty you owe them-that's 8 years towards your retirement...if he stayed in, he would only have 12 years left to retire, plus they give you another huge bonus to stay in and finish. so its really a good deal, especially when we want to do medical missions-that would really enable us to do that!

I was very hesitant and scared about it at first (and I have been for many years actually, b/c he's brought this up for years) but now that I know everything about it and how it works, and after much prayer=) I realize it really will be a good thing for us and we are very excited.

OK-as if that isn't enough information for everyone. Obviously I don't want to bore anyone with all the 

details, but I know some people want to know all the answers to questions, and know what

its all about so I wanted to lay it all out for everyone.

I will write later more about all of this obviously. But for now just wanted to write about Jordan

and in praise of what the Lord has done in our lives-he has been working towards 

this for over 5 years now! 

Congrats to him, I knew when I married him he would do great things for Christ!!!!

we moved!!!!

Ahh, everyone take a deep breath and let out a big sigh of relief. We FINALLY closed on our house today! 2 months later, and a lot of drama, it is finally something we can put behind us. We took the major leap of faith to move out last weekend 'before' our closing-b/c they would not hold our apartment any longer, I requested the day off at work-so I would have 4 days to move AND we already got a uhual, packed everything and were totally ready to go.

Well, thank goodness-b/c now we are all settled in and at 4:30pm we signed off the deed.

We still owe a lot of money, but once we get our escrow check back in a few weeks things will look better for us! God has been so very gracious, and we are very blessed to have sold our place in this market. He also has provided a great place for us to live in, and we really love it!

We haven't had internet or TV for the last week! So I haven't been able to post on here, but now that I can I have pictures of our place!

I put a description of the pictures so you know how the layout works and what things are...we have a lot of family that might never see this apartment, so I thought I would make it detailed for them so they can feel like they visited=)

This is not at our place, but I just haven't taken a picture of us in so long, this was the only one I could find! I guess that means we're really busy when I have no pictures, lol=)

This is the entrance when you walk in the apartment, I have some pictures up, but not all the pictures-I'm still trying to find the rest of my frames. (thanks to my mom for hanging these!)

This is the guest bathroom right to the right around the corner when you walk in.

A view from inside the bathroom

Inside view of the shower curtain and stuff

Side view-I love the rug=)

This is the guest bedroom that is connected to the bathroom, and it also has another door to enter as well. I have a twin bed there for now, we are hoping to get a double bed soon...and the random teal curtains in the corner are just there for storage-I need to take them to storage b/c they aren't going up in this place. So they won't be there normally. And when I say storage, I mean, my gracious parent's closet=) lol.

If you turn around from the bed, this is on the other wall-our diploma's and wedding picture

and wedding album (the black thing=)

Bookshelves holding Jordan's wonderful medical school books...and then a few of my books I hope to read, the rest of our 20 thousand books are in storage now.

Jordan's study nook and my craft area=)

I love how I have everything organized finally!!

If you walk out of the guest bedroom you have the living room and the kitchen area.

This is the kitchen area-thanks to Mrs. Carl for putting all my kitchen stuff away and organizing it!

The red stuff I have looks better with the white appliances than it looked with my black ones...so that's good. I do miss my counter space and storage at the old kitchen though....

If you turn around from the kitchen table, there is this little wall (that door is the guest bathroom) and its right around the corner from the front door. It just has a little decorations, and holds our keys and stuff like that.

And then this is the living room...

View of the other side of the living room-on the left there by the couch is the sliding glass door for the patio-that is where the dogs have their beds and their toys (didn't take a pictures of that though=)

Walking past the living room and you have a coat closet on your left and then on your right is the master bedroom

If you walk in the bedroom this is on the wall directly to your right. This is our amazing clock that I think is soo beautiful and unique. It was a wedding gift from Jordan's grandparents.

Then you will find on the floor two little curious doggies.

This is in our bathroom

The shower curtain I literally searched for! We haven't hung stuff in the bathroom yet...

This is the walkway-with the master closets to the master bathroom (pretend your walking backwards=) That cross needs to be hung btw.

And this is the view if you just walked in our master bedroom (sorry the pics were a little backwards there). I took these pictures WAY late at night so that is why the windows are shut, it looks really nice and open in the daytime, I like it a lot.

This is the other side of our bedroom...

Just a view from over by my side of the bed-you can see where it leads back to the closets and bathroom. The pretty flowers on the dresser are from my 3rd grade show the other night! (I plan to post pictures and everything about that later)

And this is little Bella-she likes it here=)

And this is the really cool new 'porch potty' that I had the idea for and my dad brought to fruition. It has a draining system-and real grass-and it is perfect! I love not having to go outside for them to go to the bathroom-they just use the doggie door you see there and go when they need to!

Those are all the pictures I took. I am so thankful that I could get everything situated and moved in so quickly. I hope you can come by and see our new place soon!!

I will be sending our new address in an email probably b/c I don't really want to post it on there.