2011 in Review

2011, you were pretty excellent.

Here are some of the highlights:

This was my first term as an advisor for the Baylor chapter of Alpha Chi Omega (my collegiate sorority), and I got to do some fun events with my sisters.  Accompanied the exec board to Houston for their leadership retreat in January...I was the only advisor and didn't really know what I was doing, but we had fun anyway (despite being chastised for coming home early.  Whoops.)  I also went to Big Sis Reveal, where we welcomed the newest member in the Turtle family line, Allison!

 Allison is my great-great-grand little.  I am very old.  Can't believe I'm still around the area to welcome a great-great-great-grand little to the line this year.  It's time for me to leave college :)  Anyway, Allison is super awesome!

In February I attended Alpha Chi's New Member dance as one of the advisors.  Brad and I dressed the part...the theme was From Geek to Greek, you could dress geeky or fratty...we went for the former, naturally.

 My shirt: "Statisicians are normal, everyone else is skewed".  His shirt: "The only vowels I need are 'u' and 'i'".

Fast forward to spring break...I always love to get up to Montana to see my grandparents, and my cousin Hayley was going to be there with her son Aevry and my aunt Kim, so it was a great time to go:

 I really, really love this place.

 Aevry is just the cutest, seriously.

In March, I went to the Conference of Texas Statisticians with some grad school classmates.  Other people from my cohort presented posters on their research, but I...was a slacker.  Sadly the conference was hosted by A&M this year so I had to go to College Station...but I managed :-P   Also partied afterward with Forrest, Caleb and Brandi, we had a grand old time.



My resident, Kavitha, had graduated but she came back to Waco to work for a news station.  We reconnected in the spring and decided to try out a few restaurants specific to Waco, since I was about to move to Temple and she ended up moving to St. Louis!  Here, enjoying some D's Mediterranean:

Other events not pictured: we went to several basketball games (including the heartbreaking loss for the women to A&M), and I did lots of wedding planning.  At this time we were starting up the great Dress Remodeling.  To explain...I had had one appointment with David's Bridal and found some favorites in the fall of 2010, but I also wanted to try on my mom's dress (she had had it preserved from when she married my dad in 1980).  She had it shipped down from Montana, and that fall I tried it on:

I REALLY liked the classic look of the long train and lacy veil, but I wasn't a fan of the sleeves (they were too short anyway, and what you can't see is that the bodice wouldn't even zip in the back!)  So, we talked about redesigning it.  My grandma has that talent for sewing (she made most of my mom's prom dresses, etc.) but the Texas-Montana divide would make it difficult.  But Megan, my matron of honor's mom, is also very talented and has made wedding dresses in the past - and lived in Austin!  We asked if she'd be willing to take on this task, and she said yes!  It was no small task...the bodice would have to be completely removed, with lacy details around the point of removal needing to be preserved.  Then, she had to design an entirely new bodice, using this David's dress that I liked as inspiration:

Megan really worked wonders.  She couldn't find a pattern with this "crumb-catcher" design, so she just made one up!  Crazy talented.  She worked on it starting in the spring and up until the wedding...pictures of the finished product later in this post :)

In April, life got really shaken up...Brad had found a job at Scott & White hospital in Temple and he was going to move in with me in Waco from his grandpa's house in Tyler.  He was set to move-in on April 1st, and we just happened to have our engagement pics scheduled in Waco for the next day.  Then he would start the job that Monday, April 4!  So many things going on at once...well, on his way home from his last day of work in Tyler, he had an absence seizure and had a head-on collision with another vehicle.  So so thankfully, none of the three passengers in the other truck were harmed, nor was Brad.  This certainly changed our plans, though.  His truck was totaled and the police sent it off to the tow yard.  He proceeded with his move-in the next day (my mom drove in her truck from Austin to Tyler to Waco to get him moved in!) and amazingly, he was still up for engagement pics that day.  He had been really shaken up by that wreck but we managed to have a good afternoon shooting pictures around Baylor and Waco with our photographer, Megan Smith:

Brad started his job as planned that Monday.  We were also trying schedule in time to go back to Tyler and release his truck to the tow place, as well as get him in to his neurologist to change up his meds.  I'm so happy to report that since that 4/1 accident, Brad has not had another seizure.  I think it's the new combination of meds and maybe even the lifting of his mood since moving to Waco (then Temple)...at any rate, we're very thankful for this blessing.

In April we were operating on just one car (actually still are to this day!), which was certainly a challenge.  I would make the 45-minute drive to Temple in the morning to drop Brad off, come back for my 9:30 class, go back at the end of the day after finishing up my IRT job to pick him up, and bring him back home to Waco.  Lots of driving on I-35...it wasn't great, but we needed to do it.  Once classes ended in May it got a little easier, I started an assistantship with Scott & White Research and we moved to Temple in July - after that it was MUCH easier :)

Other summer events...another one of my residents, Stephanie, got married in June and Brad and I had the pleasure of going to her wedding.  It was Baylor-fied like ours would turn out to be, which made us happy :)  They had green and gold in their colors, and they led a sic 'em at the end of their ceremony! 

These are all girls from my hall, North Russell 2C!  Love that these girls' friendships lasted beyond freshman year and all the way up to being bridesmaids in Steph's wedding!  I had just a small part in it, but it feels good to see their friendships last :)

I'll end on that happy note with the rest of 2011 to be shared later!  I have a dissertation chapter due to my advisor in two days...it's probably about time to stop the procrastination.