Christmas Cookies!!

Ron's Mom Jane hosted a wonderful cookie party this past Sunday. There were a lot of people, and a TON of cookies!! 

The day after boards were finished, our friend Peggy took the day off work and came over for a "Cookies and Dawson's Creek Marathon" Day. It was fantastic! All we did all day was bake cookies and watch predictable, teen drama television, what better way to celebrate being done with vet school?!!?

Peggy made  Cake Balls. One of the easiest, most ingenious recipes I've ever seen.

Cake Balls

Ingredients:

1 Box of store-bought cake mix if your choice

1 tub of icing of your choice (Preferrably something that goes well with your choice of cake)

1 Package of Almond Bark (again, your choice on variety)

Instructions:

1. Bake the cake according to instructions on the box, in whatever pan is handy.

2. Let the cake cool for 30-45minutes

3. Smash the cake into crumbs in a big bowl, and mix with the entire tub of icing.

4. Roll the cake/icing mixture into 0.5-1" balls and place on a cookie sheet (it helps if you line the cookie sheet with wax/parchment paper.

5. Put cake balls in the freezer for 15-20 minutes

6. Melt the Almond Bark in a bowl while the cake balls are freezing

7. Roll the cake balls in the melted Almond bark and place on the cookie sheet again to harden.

Finished Product:

That's it! They're fantastic, take my word for it! They were voted "Best cookie" at our cookie party if that says anything.  The combo we liked the best was red velvet cake, with cream cheese icing, and white chocolate Almond Bark.

I made Peanut Butter Cup Cookies. Very easy recipe and they're very yummy.

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Ingredients:

1/2c Sugar

1/2c Firmly Packed Brown Sugar

1/2c Butter Softened

1/2c Creamy Peanut Butter

1 Egg

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 1/4c All-purpose Flour

3/4 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 tsp Salt

1- 13oz Package of Miniature Peanut Butter Cups, Unwrapped

Directions:

1. Heat Oven to 350 degrees. Spray mini muffin pans with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

2.Combine Sugar, Brown Sugar, Butter, and Peanut Butter in a large bowl.  Beat at Medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy.  Add egg and vanilla; continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour, baking soda, and salt.  Beat, scraping bowl often, until well mixed.

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place each ball into prepared mini muffin cup. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until lightly browned.

4. Remove from oven; press peanut butter cup into center of each cookie.  Cool 30 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely.

 

(Makes 4 dozen)

Finished product:

I also made some Eggnog Cheesecake Bars, and homemade Eggnog Ice Cream, but I will put those in another post. Enjoy!

It's all over but the cryin'....

Well, it's over!

I took my exam on Tuesday. Lots of people have been asking what the exam is like.  It's all computerized, so you have to sit in a room with a bunch of other people with cameras and mirrors and such all over you.  I practically got strip searched prior to going in to make sure I wasn't bringing cheat sheets or anything in with me, and they give you a dry erase board, marker, and eraser for notes.  The exam itself is 6 sections of 60 questions each, over everything from cows, to sheep to dogs/cats, birds, turtles, and even business questions.  The maximum amount of time allowed for the whole thing is 7.5 hours, it took me about 6.5.  That's a long time to be sitting at a computer using your brain!

Needless to say, I was completely fried when I finished, and I really have no clue how I did.  There are lots of questions that are "trial" questions, and they don't count, so it's hard to really try and figure out how you did. Once everyone is finished taking the exam (The testing window ends December 13), they will go through everything and decide who passed and who didn't, and we'll get something in the mail in Late January/early February. So until then, I'm just going to enjoy life! 

Speaking of which....I now have the daunting task of cleaning the apartment/unpacking. Since I moved in last week and had no time to do so, the apartment is just a huge mess right now, and I really have no idea where we're going to put everything, but we'll figure it out somehow I suppose!

I decided today that if I was going to attempt to clean anything, that I should probably try and remove the one thing that makes the MOST mess in the place. DOG HAIR!

So here is my attempt....

2 Hairy Dogs (well actually, it's really just Sam that's the big problem, but Ryno wanted to be in the picture too).

PLUS

 A wonderful Piece of equipment (Furminator)

EQUALS

A large amount of hair that's in my garbage, and not on my carpets! Holy Crap! 

(Yes, that can was empty before we started!). 

1 more day

Apparantly Sam and Ryno think that my studying is as boring as I do...

 

 

Almost There!!

Everyone keeps calling to ask me how much I'm enjoying being free!!!

Well unfortunately I'm not free until Tuesday (the 9th), when I take National Boards.

Since I came home on Wednesday night, I have pretty much been spending about 18 hours a day studying. It sucks but I think I'm ready, and I still have a day and a half!  Hopefully things will go well, otherwise I'll have to spend some time studying again in April! (when the test is offered again).  Anyway, I thought I would update everyone!

It's been wonderful being here with Ron, a bit surreal that I don't have to pack my car up anytime soon and go back to Columbia. =)

Back to studying, I'll update next week with pictures from my post-boards celebration!

I Made It!!!

I finished school on Tuesday this week, and drove to KC on Wednesday!  Our apartment is a mess now with all of my crap (see pictures below), but I'm here!!! It feels so great to finally be able to live together and attempt to be a normal couple.  

The apartment will just have to remain a mess for the next few days because I am spending 95% of my time studying for national boards which I take on Tuesday the 9th. Then I'm free to do anything I want for the rest of the month!!

The Mess I've created:

In the Kitchen....

 

And in the Hallway...

       

In celebration of me finishing I got some GORGEOUS flowers from my Mom and my Aunt Carmen (or Caaahmen as we call her).  I am taking a short study break to take some pictures to show you all.

 

On another note...for those of you in the Chicagoland area, we will be home for Christmas this year. We plan on leaving KC on Saturday the 20th, and we will be there for a week.  (We're driving with both the dogs...should be interesting!)  Hope to see you!

Drumroll Please...

Ron and I went shopping today and bought milk!!

Now usually I don't get too excited about milk, but I told you all that I would document the moment when milk expired AFTER I'm done with vet school and it's finally here!!

The expiration date is actually the day I take national boards which is a bit scary too, but that just means I'm closer to being completely, 100% done! Yay!

For your viewing pleasure:

9 days and counting!! 

Happy Birthday To Us!

So I've been incredibly busy lately, I started writing this post about 3 weeks ago, and well here we are, I'm just getting around to finishing it. But good news is I'm only about 30 days from being finished with school!!!! Bad news is it's going to be a hell of a 30 days. I like surgery so far, I've seen a lot of cool cases, but it's definitely time consuming. 

Ron and I both Celebrated our birthdays last month. His was on the 12th, and mine on the 16th.  Yes, you read that correctly, Ron will ALWAYS be older than me by 4 whole days!!

On Ron's birthday, our friends Bryan and Sue took us to the City Museum in St. Louis (here's a link for those interested: http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp)

Basically it's a 7-story building that was renovated and turned into a Ginormous Jungle Gym.  It was so much fun!! We ran, climbed, slid, jumped, crawled, and good god did we sweat!  It made me feel like a kid again (that was of course until the next day when I couldn't walk and my body was covered in bruises).  Despite the bruises, we still had a great time. Here's a few pictures I took that day.

We can't take Bryan anywhere...he always causes trouble!

We're thinking about buying this charming home...what do you think?

   

Ron just hangin' out.

All that work just to come back down...

       

Bryan climbing in the wire thingy.

On our way up!

Ron walked right over me!

Afterward we came home for some R&R, the pups were glad to see us!

Since Ron couldn't be with me on my acutal birthday, he sent me some beautiful flowers!

Since our birthdays, I've just been trying to survive. I finished equine without killing myself, and started Small Animal Surgery about 2 weeks ago.  It's been extremely hectic, but I'm surviving. I take boards a week after I'm finished, and then I plan to do a whole lot of NOTHING! I have time off until after Christmas, so we plan on driving home for Christmas (we will be in town from the Saturday before, until the Saturday after...so put it on your calendars!).

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, and Hopefully I will be able to update more frequently in the future. 

Roots, Blues, & BBQ

Columbia had their 2nd annual Roots, Blues, & BBQ festival this weekend.  I didn't go last year, but I had heard good things about it. And when I heard that Buddy Guy was going to be here this year, I called my Mom to let her know and she immediately started planning her trip down to visit.  

Unfortunately I was on call Thursday night when she got here, so I got to spend all of 15 minutes with her before being called in, and I didn't get home until about 2:30am, so that stunk.  But the rest of the weekend was a blast. Mom got to meet Sampson, and she, Ron and I all went out to dinner for mine and Ron's birthdays.

Here's a few pictures from the weekend!

One of the BBQ joints at the festival was called The Pirate Pig, and this was their sign. 

I thought it was cute!

Mom and I waiting for Buddy Guy!

Sue came to join us, even though she had to go back to the hospital to take care of her cow!

Us and the pups! Our first family photo!!! 

Hermann

Ron and I just got back from a fun-filled weekend with friends in Hermann, MO. It's a small historic German town on the river.  Our friends Bryan & Sue are from there, so we go every year and tour the wineries.  It was loads of fun, with WAYYYYY too much wine!

This year we went to three different wineries, and a brewery.

The first winery we went to is my favorite, Adam Puchta.

http://www.adampuchtawine.com/

It's one of the smaller wineries, but I love their wine!! Their tastings are the best as well, in my opinion. They take more time to explain the different wines to you, and give you things like chocolate and wafers to eat with each wine.  The guy serving us was actually an old friend of Bryan's from grade school, so that was fun. In case anyone is interested, our favorite wines from there are:

Adam's Choice- A semi-sweet white, similar to a reisling

Vignoles- Another semi-sweet white. Lots of wineries in Hermann have this type, but Puchta's always seems to be the best!

Hunter's Red- A semi-dry red, this is our FAVORITE! Ron loves this one. 

Dry Rose- (it's supposed to be rose-ay, but I don't have one of those fancy asterick marker things on here!).  It's a unique rose, because it's dry, not sweet. One of my favorites!

After emptying our wallets there....we proceeded on to the next winery, probably Missouri's most famous winery, Stone Hill. 

http://www.stonehillwinery.com/

This one is a lot more commercialized, and they  have decent wine as well. 

We took a few pictures here just because there's some pretty scenery.

Here's a few of our favorite wines from here:

Chambourcin- Semi-dry red, one of our favorites! 

Steinberg Red- a red and white wine mix, very tasty!

Golden Rhine- a semi-sweet White, sad thing is, we bought one of these and opened it on Saturday and I don't even really remember drinking it!

The last winery we visited was Hermannhoff winery. It's located right downtown on the main strip. I like this one a lot, but we got there close to closing time and all of the servers were a bit frazzled about a wedding reception happening that evening, so our tasting was not as informativeas usual. Oh well, at least we still got to taste!

http://www.hermannhof.com/

Here's a few of our favorites from here:

White Lady- a semi-dry white. I love this one! We can actually get this one at a lot of grocery and liquor stores in Missouri. Usually Stone Hill wines are the only ones you find regularly, so we drink this one fairly often at home.

Chambourcin- I can't decide if I like this one, or Stone Hill's better. They're both quite tasty!

Vidal Blanc- Dry white, similar to a Pinot Grigio. 

Then we finally made a stop at Hermann's Brewery, Tin Mill. 

http://www.tinmillbrewing.com/

My favorite beer there was the Seasonal, Oktoberfest. Ron really liked their Doppelbock, a dark beer (pictured below in the growler in Ron's hands). It was good too, all the boys seemed to really like that (exept Bryan, who hates beer, so that was no surprise!). 

After leaving the brewery, we all went back to Sue's parents house and made brats on the grill. We traditionally all donate one bottle of wine to the "pot", and just start drinking.  The nice thing is we all crash there, so no one has to drive. It always ends up being a crazy night.  We definitely played drunken Mouse Trap, and drunken Wiffleball, always a fun time. There are some  much more incriminating photos from later that night, but I will spare you all. =)

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful for me, besides getting attacked by a rose bush (which was actually more like a rose twig....very tiny, but it got me good!). I'm now getting ready to go to bed early, some much needed sleep is awaiting! 

A Big Milestone!!

I went grocery shopping the other day, and bought some food (ya know, cuz that's what you buy at the grocery store). Anyway, I got home, and was putting away my food and realized that there are now items besides Twinkies that expire AFTER I'm done with school!!!  I was very excited!

I haven't quite reached the moment when the milk expiration date is after 12/2/08, but it's coming! I'll be sure to take a picture to document the moment. 

Ok, that' s all for now, you may resume your regularly scheduled net surfing.

-Christina

One More Thing...

To continue adding to my list of things I've learned on Equine...



6. If a horse wants to get out of the stall, don't attempt to put your arm between them and the stall door, it doesn't turn out well. When you have 1200lbs of muscle operated by a brain the size of a lemon, you usually don't come out with the most intelligent decisions. I'm lucky the horse stopped, or I would be at the emergency room with a broken arm. For now, I just have a very sore, big lump that will likely turn into a nasty bruise. Awesome!

The Circus is in Town!!

Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus was here in Columbia today!!

Now, if you look at their schedule, you will see that they're actually having shows in Kansas City right now, but a few selected individuals paid the University of Missouri Vet School a visit today!

We had 2 performing horses and 2 performing dogs here at the hospital today. I got to work with Arthos, a Fresian Stallion. I wasn't able to get any pictures (as I didn't know that they were coming), but he kinda looked like this:

He was GORGEOUS! And very well behaved (at least for a stallion).  It was pretty neat, we did a lot of tests on him (turns out he has a condition that prevents him from sweating, so his body temperature increases a lot when it's hot out or he exercises a lot).   But we had to finish early because he had to be back in KC by tonight to perform! Apparantly he does the "liberty" routine, which basically means he doesn't have anyone riding him, and does all sorts of tricks with 3 other horses like waltzing, and walking on their back legs, weaving in and out with eachother, etc.

Since he practices in the air conditioning, and perfoms in the air conditioning, he can still perform his show with his condition. They just need to be careful where they keep him when they're not performing, and make sure he doesn't overheat from that or too much practice.  They said that the animals all still travel by train, but the cars they travel in are specially made for each species, and the horses have it made...it's also air conditioned in there too! What a life! 

I also got to speak with the traveling vet who came with them. She is a 2004 graduate of Missouri!! How cool would that job be?!?!? She likes it a lot, but like me, started out as a small animal vet wannabe, so she had to learn a lot about some new species!! (they have elephants, llamas, tigers, dogs, horses, goats, etc, etc).  I guess you really never know where life will take you! 

So it was a pretty neat day. The other horse was in because he was lame (limping), so the surgery service saw him.  They also had 2 dogs, one was seeing our Orthopedic surgeons (the dog does handsprings in the show...geee, I wonder what could be wrong!!), and one has cataracts, so they saw our ophthalmology service.  The cataract dog is having surgery tomorrow and will hopefully be able to see again! (The surgery for dogs is very similar to what we do in humans).  

There's been some talk of some free tickets to see the show when they come back to St. Louis in November...we'll have to wait and see!! =)

The things I have learned...

So today marked a whole 2 weeks that I have been on Equine (horse) medicine.  And for someone who knew NOTHING about horses going in, I'm pretty impressed with myself! I haven't managed to get myself killed yet, which is pretty impressive seeing that I'm working with a 1200lb bundle of muscle operated by a brain the size of my fist.

So I thought I would enlighten you with some of my new knowledge so far:

1. When a client says they "mainlined" a drug...that means they gave in intravenously. Not really where that term came up, but I giggle everytime I hear it.

2. A "shod" horse means it has shoes. Before vet school I assumed that all horses wore shoes, but I'm very wrong on that. And not only is there just "shoes", it's like women...there's a whole damn closet to choose from!! This type of shoe does this, and this type does that, etc, etc. 

3. I've now become an expert in the art of cleaning penile sheaths...yes, you read that correctly. I won't go into detail, let's just say it's not the most fun experience, but makes for a LOT of fun jokes on the way home in the truck!

4. I still have no FREAKING clue how to tell the difference between a Quarter horse, an Arabian, a Tennesee Walking Horse, etc.  I'm doing good if I can get "horse".  And don't even get me started on the colors. If the horse is brown, why can't we just say it's BROWN? No, no, it's "Chestnut". God forbid!!

5. Horse teeth are gross. Nuff said. 

Okay, that is the extent of my knowledge for the day...I have 6 more weeks on equine so I'm sure I will have many more fun stories to share with you all!

A Weekend At The Lake...

Every year, our friend Peggy get's access to her dad's lake house at the Lake of the Ozarks for the weekend after Labor Day.  It's great because the lake isn't busy, and we always have a fun time.  Well we spent this weekend there.....

oh wait...no WE didn't.  Ron did.

I was stuck here in Columbia, on call, taking care of horses.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Although sucks for them, they are missing their token bartender for the weekend, haha! (Altough, somehow, I have a feeling that they still had NO problem getting drunk). =)

We also usually take one weekend in September/October and go to Hermann, MO. A small town just off the  Missouri river, about 45 minutes from Columbia.  Two of our good friends (Bryan & Sue) are from there, and it's a big Wine town. They have several wineries, and we usually spend the day going around tasting and buying lots of wine.  Once we're done, we all take our wine back to Sue's parent's house and drink the night away! It's always a fun time. 

I was supposed to be on call the day we're going to Hermann this year, but some kind soul was nice enough to switch with me! I'm eternally grateful! =) At least I'll get to do ONE fun thing this block!

Startling Realization...

I was thinking about it the other day, and I realized that I only have 4 exams left in my Veterinary Education. FOUR!! Holy crap!!!

I started Equine today, which hasn't been too bad, besides the fact that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about horses! But we have 2 exams on this block, and then I go to small animal surgery next where we have no exams. Then I have one REALLY BIG exam (national boards) which I will take sometime in early December, and state boards sometime in the spring. Then I'm done!

I didn't think I'd ever get to this point, but it's almost here!! 97 days and counting!

Other exciting news....My friend AJ (the pregnant one in the post below) had her baby today!! It's A GIRL!! Her name is Piper, and I'm not sure yet how much she weighed. But I'm so excited to see her! I'm stuck working Equine ICU tonight from 5pm-12:30am but I will definitely try to go see her tomorrow. Yay! =)

Ron on TV! (sorta..)

Last weekend Ron got a call from the CNBC TV show "On The Money" saying that they wanted to air a question he had submitted via email about our finances (ie- my student loan burden), and whether or not we should take on a mortgage. They called yesterday afternoon to record it, and it aired last night! I had no idea that it was a National TV show, I thought it was something local. We were at dinner last night, and a friend of mine called me and said "Did you know that Ron is on CNBC right now??".

He claims he didn't know when it would be airing...but I think that's just his modesty coming through! =)

Not to spoil it, but good news...they said we should go ahead with buying a house! Yay! We're planning to start looking in December, and will hopefully be in the house by May (when our lease is up).

Here's a link to the show: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=829736131
(and just FYI...since they pretty much put it all out there for the wide world, just wanted to let you know that the salary they label is our "estimated take home" after I get a job...not Ron's salary now! I wish!!).

Weekend in KC

I took advantage of the fact that all the Therio clinicians were going to a conference Wed-Fri of this week, and I took a Senior Day on Friday. With permission, we are allowed to take 5 "senior days" on clinics, where we are dismissed from clinics (usually it has to be a good reason, ie- national board exam, interviews, conference, etc). I told them I was going to shadow at a dentistry clinic in KC for the day. So I left for KC on Thursday evening and spent Friday morning at the Kansas City Companion Animal Dentistry Center. It was neat to see their practice and I saw some neat things while I was there.

That afternoon I went to see my friend Kim's baby, McKenna. She was born 2 weeks ago, and is an absolute doll!! I wanted to take her home with me, but Kim frowned upon that! =)

Here's a picture of us!

The next day we met up with Nichole and Scott in the Kansas City River Market for some coffee and then we walked around a bit. Here's a few pictures from that...

These pups were playing in the park for a while, and then the guy just plopped them into the basket and wheeled them away, they were adorable!

Scott & Nichole at the Coffee shop.



Ron and I at the Coffee Shop

We walked around a bit after that, down to the river and a got a couple of neat shots of the scenery there.

On Sunday evening Ron and I attended the memorial for our friend's Tim and Rachael's (Tim was the officiant that married us) baby Aurora. They unfortunatly lost little Aurora full term. It was very devastating news for all of us, and we continue to pray for them and their family.

Ouch!!

So I started the last leg of this block (it's a 6 week block, 2 weeks on Oncology, 2 on Ophthalmology, and 2 on Theriogenology). On Therio we do a lot of large animal reproduction stuff, and some small animal. Today we were sexing cow fetuses using an ultrasound probe in the rectum (yes, I went shoulder-deep in about 15 cows today, yay fun!). Well we were about 1/3 of the way done and there was a particularly feisty cow that didn't want to go into the chute. Our clinician was screaming for us to shut the gate, and I did it, but as I flung the latch, it pinched the thumb part of my palm REALLY BAD. I screamed and said a few chosen cursory words, but then I just wrapped it up with some paper towels and threw a glove over it. When we finished all the palpating (about 3 hours later), I finally took it off and my palm BLEW UP, it was so gross! (and not to mention incredibly painful!). So I decided to go to the doctor. He put a steristrip on it, and wrapped it up. He also gave me some good pain meds, which I plan to take in a few minutes and head to bed...

Here's a picture of the damage for your enjoyment!

Boring

I haven't updated in a while simply because it's been kinda boring around here!

The last couple of weeks I've been able to spend time in KC for the weekend since the current rotation I'm on isn't very demanding (but don't worry...I won't have a life starting September 1st!).

My good friend Lisa (Bell...now Burger), and her husband Scott, and their two adorable puppies Charlie & Wrigley came through KC on their way to Arizona a few weeks ago. It was great to see them, even if it was only for a night! The puppies got along well with Ryno (Sam stayed with Grandma & Grandpa Nelson), and I took pictures, but somehow they vanished from my memory card.

Not sure what happened there, but I do have one picture of Ryno after they left... poor guy was exhausted!

Ron and I went to the Royals-White Sox game last weekend and sat in the "All You Can Eat" Seats. I had gotten the tickets for him for our anniversary. The tickets include all you can eat drinks (non-alcoholic), hot dogs, popcorn, nachos, and peanuts. We definitely took advantage of all of that and were STUFFED by the 7th inning. Somehow the Royals managed to pull out a win, although they tried really hard to lose in the 8th inning.

Here we are at the game:

The seats were shaded, which was nice because I think it was about a million degrees out that day! So at least we were out of the direct sunlight.

I also got a few shots of Ken Griffey Jr...too bad he didn't do the Sox any good!! He picked the wrong Chicago team to be on this year, Go CUBBIES!!

I also helped throw a baby shower for my friend AJ. She's due in September and is still in school with me (what a trooper!!) She was in there with the rest of us wrangling cows on our food animal rotation with that big ol' belly!

The momma-to-be:

Isn't the cake adorable?!?!?

Here's a better picture of it:

All in all it was a great shower, and a fun weekend.

Right now I'm currently finishing the Opthalmology portion of the rotation I'm on, and then I go on to Theriogenology next week. (That's reproduction....how fun it will be to play with semen and artificial insemination!).

At the end of this month I start Equine, and then Surgery, both of which are EXTREMELY busy and I will likely not have any time to even go to KC for a weekend. But then I'm done...I just keep telling myself "4 more months...4 more months..."

Love you all, hope all is going well!