Jeremy's Graduation Party

When I asked Jeremy what kind of residency graduation party he wanted me to throw for him, he said he wanted to invite just a handful of friends (he's not as much of a party animal as I am). If I had it my way, I would have invited everyone we know it Dayton :-), but we ended up just having a little gathering with a few fellow residents. Still, I do even small parties big, so there were lots of fun details and way too much food.

The theme of the party was "Old School - Celebrating the End of 28 Years of Schooling" (although I was a little wrong there - it was only 26 years of schooling. I forgot that he was on a mission for 2 years).

For the food, I only did dessert, and I decided to do a Milk & Cookies bar since it's Jeremy's absolute favorite (plus, it went well with the theme). We had all kinds of cookies, from my famous chocolate chip-toffee cookies to snickerdoodle cupcakes (recipe on marthastewart.com):





To go with the cookies, we served school lunch cartons of milk, strawberry milk and chocolate milk. My favorite thing was the striped paper straws that I found on modernlola.com.

I made the banner out of varieties of green scrapbook paper and gold ribbon (Wright State school colors). It says "Congrats Dr. Crouch".

The centerpieces were simple - just 1 sunflower and 1 white gerber daisy, bundled with a pencil. I put white paper down on the tables and set out crayons - great accents for a school theme, but also entertainment for the kids. :-) I also laid out some cute old school pictures of Jeremy.




As for the the activity, we truly partied old school style and played a little kickball. It was so fun! I love acting like a kid.



Finally, how about some pictures of the cute kiddos enjoying the treats..

A break from the kiddos

Following Jeremy's graduation, Jeremy and I got to have a weekend getaway to Chicago. The coolest thing: we stayed in a $400 hotel room for free! (Long story short, I have a hotels.com account and since I've stayed 10 nights through hotels.com, I got a free night. It was good for any hotel up to $400, so I hopped online, searched for one of the most expensive hotel rooms in Chicago I could find and booked it.)

I should have taken a picture of our beautiful suite. Suffice it to say that we experienced a (free) weekend of luxury and it was fabulous. Actually, I don't have much at all by way of pictures, but oh well...

My favorite place in Chicago: the boardwalk along the lake & the marinas

Stuffing our faces with the most amazing Chicago Deep Dish from Lou Malnati's Pizzeria.

Quote of the week

My friend, Melissa, was over here this morning. I told the boys that Melissa is pregnant. They looked at me funny, so I then clarified that Melissa has a baby in her tummy. So, later this afternoon, Melissa and the boys went out for a walk. Jordan looked up at her and started talking, and this is how their conversation went:

Jordan: So...You have a baby in your tummy?
Melissa: Yeah, I do! I have a baby in my tummy.
Jordan (with a really confused look on his face): Hm...Why did you eat a baby?


Hahahahaha! Isn't it hilarious how a toddler mind works? :-)

OK, now you've had your laugh for the day. You're welcome.

Jeremy's Graduation

Holy cow, has it been an eventful month! I have tons to catch up on, but let's start with the most important event of the month - Jeremy's graduation! Yippeee!!! I can't believe we're done. And even more so, I can't believe we've finished it all with our marriage, family and sanity in tact! Unbelievable.

Jeremy's parents flew out and my family drove over for the blessed event. On June 19, 2010, we all got dudded up and headed to graduation which was held at a banquet hall in Carillon Park. When I put my dress on, Jordan asked, "Are you going to be a princess today, Mommy?" And then Matthew asked if he could spin me. So cute!


Jeremy won two awards.He won the CREOG award, which is an award for scoring the highest on the annual national OB/GYN competency exam, and he also won the William Nahaas Surgical Excellence award for being the best surgeon in his class (in fact many of the staff have commented through the years that Jeremy is one of the best surgeons to go through the program there). Can't tell that I'm proud of him, can you? heehee. OK, less bragging and more pictures...

This is Brian Jewell, one of Jeremy's residency buddies and his fellow "P90X graduate"

Graduating Residents: Jeremy, Phil Jones, Kelly McCluskey, Anna Schissel, Adrienne Perfilio, Alicia Thompson

OK, this is SO cute. This is our friends' little girl, Madeline. During dinner, Matthew whispered to me, "Mommy, I want to spin that girl." (by the way, he is SO girl crazy). I said, "OK, go ask her." So, he did, and Madeline got up, curtsied (!) and then asked Matthew, "Would you like to dance?" Ohmigosh, they were such a crack-up! Don't you love how he's just staring dreamily at her? haha

Jordan also developed a little crush that night. If the boys were 13, I think a fist fight might have ensued over Madeline. Ha!

And now, Jeremy is the sidekick of this guy - Dr. Steve Guy (his new partner). Yay! :-) Go fight some OB/GYN crime, you two!

Jeremy, I'm so proud of you, Sweetie-pea! Now we'll see if the 8 years of schooling and 4 years of slave labor were worth it. ;-)

Camping

More than a month ago, I bragged that Jeremy took the boys camping, leaving me with a beautifully empty house. Well, finally here are some photos to document the boys' first campout.

Mapping out the trail

Being silly with Grandpa

More silliness

Jeremy said that it POURED buckets of rain on their hike. The boys were troopers on the way there, but on the way back, they were pitiful. Matthew kept talking about getting his Marley, his bed and taking a nap. Sad!

By far, the boys' favorite part of the whole campout was throwing rocks into the river:


And what's up with that anyway? Give a boy some rocks and a body of water, and he'll keep himself busy for hours!