Ouch!

Benj was out the other day with our neighbor kids playing baseball. He decided to be the catcher, which was maybe a bad idea to begin with, but that's beside the point. Jessie tipped it off and the ball came back and hit Ben right in the "noggin" (as Keith-our neighbor said). It was no big deal and wouldn't have been noteworthy either, except for the fact that Ben now has a wound on his head where the stitching of the baseball hit him. He looks pretty funny, actually. I guess now we know why Ben didn't play sports in high school!

Last Day!!!

Today is Ben's last day of being a student! He saved up all his vacation and took it all at the end. So, he is doing his last day of rotations ever!!! It's so hard to believe and I know Ben is really excited and nervous thinking ahead towards his internship all at the same time.

I am so proud of all Ben has done these past 4 years! He has learned and accomplished so much. We had no idea what we were getting into when we came to medical school! I don't know how we got through it all, but we made it! Now we just have to wait until he graduates May 17!

Just a trim...

Ben decided that he needed a haircut this week and he didn't want to go to the barber. Our neighbors have a set of clippers, so we borrowed them and I went to work. I figured it couldn't be that hard. I mean, I worked at a beauty shop in high school and saw the ladies do hundreds of haircuts. I must be a pro, by now. Plus when I was in college, I cut a friend's hair in my dorm room and it didn't turn out so bad (of course, he just wanted it buzzed all over, so there was no way to mess that up!)

Anyway, Benj just wanted it a little shorter on the bottom. He can't stand it when it gets long on his neck and over his ears. I tried to get that gradual change thing that boys have going on. Well, it turns out I'm not as good at this as I had hoped! He turned out looking like a little boy with a bald spot! He says it's not that bad, but really...I think we should have just paid the $10 and had a professional do it. It's so worth it! Here's a picture of the back of Benny's head. He's not totally bald in that spot...it's just a little thinner :-) Good thing his hair grows fast!

Easter Fun

Ben and I had a wonderful Easter! It even snowed a little here on Easter morning. After church, we went over to Melinda's house and had a great dinner with lots of our close friends. The food was amazing. We had smoked ham, deviled eggs, several kinds of salads, homemade rolls, cheesy potatoes, corn, & great desserts among other things...Check out all the goodies!

Here is a fun picture of some of my closest friends here in Kirksville--Laura, Lauren, me, Teresa, Melinda, and Elsie!

Melinda's daughter Maggie is just about the cutest little girl ever! She brought out all her beauty supplies and Erick was such a good sport. Here she is painting his nails. And then, there's Ben showing her how to do it "right!" Erick told me that I shouldn't post these pictures...but really, how could I resist?

We also dyed some Easter eggs and just enjoyed spending the day together! I'm so glad that we have a great group of friends here.

Afterwards, Benj and I went over to Josh and Wendy's house and had a less traditional Easter supper of homemade corn dogs! They were so good, just like what you would get at the fair. What a great day for Easter!

Can it get any better?

Ben and I didn't have much going on at work last week, so we took off Thursday evening and spent the long weekend in Kansas City. Sometimes it is just so nice to get out of town! Plus, my future-sister-in-law had her bridal shower yesterday, and I couldn't miss that! Danny graciously let us invade his house for the whole weekend and we had a great time!

Friday, while Danny was working, Benj and I went to a travel agent and booked our vacation. We are taking a cruise to celebrate Ben's graduation! We are so excited about it; I just can't even tell you. This looks like it will be the best one yet! We are going to 5 places in 7 nights with the ports of call: San Juan, Puerto Rico; Bridgetown, Barbados; Castries, St. Lucia; St. John's, Antigua; Philipsburg, St. Maarten; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas; San Juan, Puerto Rico! Click the link to see our cruise... http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/cruiseDetails/itineraryAndPricing.do;jsessionid=0000R1olnwZmiZohWUeTGyKq3yC:12hbioe0u?packageCode=AD7SCSJI&sailDate=1080525&date=20082&selectedCurrencyCode=USD&promoType=&hasSenior=&hasMilitary=&state=

There was a really cool music store next to our travel agent that we went in to check out, too. Ben has been wanting to learn how to play the guitar, so we stopped in. We found such a great deal. They had a used guitar for only $75 and it looks and sounds really nice (for a beginning-to-learn kind of instrument.) Last night he learned his first three chords and he says his fingers hurt already!

We did some other little shopping and enjoyed the evening with Danny. Then on Saturday, we just messed around most of the day. Here's some fun we had at Cabellas....

Can you see Danny??

We went out to eat that night with our friends Matt and Laura, too. It's always fun to hang out with them!

Does my eye look funny to anyone else?? Who am I winking at, anyway?

Moving on...

On Sunday, we had a bridal shower for Danny's fiancee, Vicki. I am so excited to have a sister-in-law and Vicki is just wonderful! We couldn't be happier for Danny and Vicki. Their wedding is May 23, less than a week after Ben graduates, so it will be a busy week for the Schrant family! The shower was lots of fun. The lady who hosted it had a beautiful home and did a really nice job with the food. Vicki got tons of great presents and we even played a little game to see how much Vicki knew about Danny. (She was very knowledgeable and got almost all of them correct....if you were curious!) Here she is opening the gift from Mom Schrant and the next picture is her after the shower holding her bow bouquet with Danny.

Then, when we got home last night I went over to spend some time with my good friends, Lauren, Laura, Elsie, Melinda, and Teresa. We made cookies and Elsie was trying to teach us how to dance (good luck to her!)

So, I just don't know if we could have had a better weekend. We had fun with friends & family. I got to do some shopping. Plus we planned a great vacation! I mean really...Can it get any better??

Top Ten

Ben found this funny on one of those tear off calendars for doctors and he brought it home so that I could post it on my blog. He thought it was really funny....I only got some of it, but it is still pretty cute.

Ten Reasons to Become an Anesthesiologist

1. You can intubate your friends at parties.
2. Have you ever met a happy internist?
3. You don't have enough ego hypertrophy to be a surgeon.
4. You can comfort anxious patients with, "I know just how you feel. It's my first anesthetic, too."
5. Any job where you can drive to work in green pajamas is a cool job.
6. You can park next to rich doctors like ophthalmologists.
7. You can cover your mistakes with Versed.
8. After spending the night with surgeons, they still won't respect you in the morning.
9. If you get bored on the weekends, you can give yourself a spinal.
10. No office, no overhead, no rectal exams!

Spring Break

Well, it's Spring Break here, only I don't really get a break. I am here at work, trying to pass the time. It is so slow around here when the students are gone. It's a nice chance to catch up, but it gets really boring, too. Consequently, I have lots of time to blog. Unfortunately, I don't really have anything exciting to tell you about.

My parents did come up over the weekend. That was lots of fun. We ate out, played cards, and did a little shopping. My mom has been having back trouble, so it's been a while since they have been able to come up. It was really great to see them! I know it's a long trip; we really appreciate you guys coming!

It was so nice here yesterday. Ben even got to go hunting yesterday. He has a friend who has some private land down in Macon County. Plus he has a connection with a guy who owns one of those hunting lodges. I guess that they released 500 pheasants for a private hunt on Saturday. So yesterday, Ben and the guy went down to "clean up." They didn't get a ton, but he had a great time and felt spoiled to be pheasant hunting in March!Thankfully, the other guy took the pheasant. The last thing we need is more of that in our freezer! Benj also saw lots of deer. He said there were hundreds of them. Unfortunately, Blogger is being dumb and I can't get those pictures to upload, so you'll just have to take his word for it.

Spring Cleaning

Ben and I have been trying to so some spring cleaning this week. We live in a small apartment, so every once in a while we have to go through our stuff and purge. We actually kind of enjoy it. I don't know why, but it's so liberating to throw things away. Anyway, Ben decided it was time to toss all of his notes from the first two years of medical school. I couldn't believe how much he had. It's no wonder medical students spend all of their time studying. How could you not when you are supposed to learn all the stuff that's in here??

That's 21 notebooks worth of class notes--oh, and he did keep one of his notebooks from anesthesia class. Benj was so funny looking through these. He'd say things like, "Oh, physiology that was a pretty good class," or "neurology......blech!" or "this was a really good diagram." He has a lot of memories here. He spent many nights studying these notes with Michael (his good friend from 1st and 2nd years). We emptied out each notebook and then we had to take the papers to a recycling bin--I mean seriously, we probably have a whole forest worth of trees here. They had to be recycled. It took both of us to carry this tub to the school and get rid of it. I feel bad for the janitor who has to empty that recycling bin! If I knew who he/she was I would bring them a special treat. They'll deserve it after this load.

I'm a member!

Yesterday, our friends Lauren and Erick and I all joined the Methodist Church here. We have been talking about it for awhile, and since Benj and I are going to be here for his residency, I decided to go ahead and join. You would think that it wouldn't have taken me four years to get around to it, but whatever. It is nice that I have found a church home and hopefully, I can get a little more involved here. I am already doing a Bible study and I have really enjoyed getting to know those girls better. I am so glad that the Schuermann's were there with me; it made the whole experince less scary...Who wants to go stand up in front of the whole church?? We were all just transferring our membership, so it was really no big deal, but several of our friends did come to see us! Here's a fun picture of Lauren, me Laura, and Elsie.

And here we are shaking hands after church. It was like a wedding reception line. The whole church filed past and welcomed us into the congregation.