I lost a month- part 2

Ok, so now that July is almost over I can continue what happened in May! After my parents left Jared's parents came to visit a few days later. They came to see Jared graduate from medical school. It was really fun to show them around some of our favorite places in Michigan.

Eating lunch at a really yummy sandwich restaurant

We rented a wheelchair for Cathy because she broke her leg a couple days before they came to visit us (seriously, she is such a trooper!) 

This is just Shad making a mess at lunch on our way to Detroit to see a Tiger's game. I think he's cute.

While we were at the Tiger's game Shad was totally flirting with the girl sitting next to us. He kept doing silly things and then looking over to see if she was watching. This boy!

This is Jared's first official picture as a doctor that I took after he became hooded as an MD!

Daddy and Shaddy

Unfortunately this is the best picture we have of all three of us after Jared's graduation.

Jared and I celebrating our graduations!

I can't believe that 4 years already came and went and that Jared is now known as Dr. Jared Smedley, MD! He has worked so hard and I am so proud of him!


As soon as Jared's parents left we packed and packed until I felt like throwing up, and then we packed some more. The last week of May we loaded up our truck and drove almost 2,000 miles across the country to our new home in Phoenix, AZ. My amazing dad flew out and helped us drive, I don't know what we would have done without him!

Jared drove the truck himself the entire time. Ick!




It took us a lot longer each day than we had planned because the truck was maxed out at 65 mph, so we got to our hotels each night around 1 or 2 am. Jared and Shad fell asleep on the couch the first night while I was setting up Shad's pack n play.

While we were driving we stopped at a little town called Shamrock, which is where they got the idea for "Ramone's" shop on the movie "Cars"(which happens to be Shad's favorite movie).

 Shad really did pretty well considering he was cooped up in the car for 14 hours a day three days in a row! I was proud of my little buddy.

We finally made it to Arizona on May 31 (with bugs on the windshield from 9 different states). Hallelujah!

New adventures to come!

Well, a very unexpected but very exciting thing happened last week during "The Match" process. Jared found out that he will be doing his preliminary year of residency at Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona! We will move there in about 2 months, I can't even believe it! We are so excited to move close to home for a year before we move back to the other side of the country again in New York where Jared will be doing his Ophthalmology residency for 3 more years. We have some very exciting and new adventures ahead of us!

99 bottles of be---soda on the wall....

We've had all of these cans sitting in our basement forever because Jared wanted to take a picture of them. These are {most of} the cans of Monster energy drinks that got Jared through his first year of med school. I'm pretty sure there were way more that got thrown away though. He doesn't really drink these any more, because since he's learned all about kidney function and how bad these REALLY are for you, he decided there are probably better alternatives. Like going to bed at a "decent" time most nights during the week so he's not always struggling to stay awake. Gotta love med school!

All that Jazz

Last night was Jared's "med ball" for the 1st year CHM students. We had a nice dinner, then they had awards and played videos some of the students made over this year, and then they had dancing. The theme was "All that Jazz". Jared dressed like a gangsta. There were a few of the faculty and staff that wore flapper outfits, but almost everyone there had just regular dresses on. There was one girl (there's always one at these types of things) that wore a huge puffy white prom dress and stood out like a sore thumb. It almost looked like a wedding dress. Poor girl. It was a really fun night though, it was cool to finally meet a lot of the people Jared always talks about from school.







Standing in front of Sparty.

CHM vs COM

Yesterday Jared had a hockey game, it was the MD students (College of Human Medicine-AKA CHM) vs the DO students (College of Osteopathic Medicine- AKA COM)- students in all 4 years played. Apparently this is an annual thing, and it's kind of a big deal. This is the first year the MD students lost, and it was in overtime. But it was still a pretty exciting and fun game to watch.


Our friends: Doug and Jessica on the left, and Britani and James on the right.

Doug is a first year COM student, so he and Jessica painted their faces, but Jessica crossed over to the other side....



The whole CHM team (their jerseys were way cooler... the COM students didn't even match. But they did win so I guess looks aren't everything.. ) Jared is the second person from the right on the back row.

After the game was over we all ice skated for a while. Then later that night we went to a concert of a local band called My Dear Disco, who Jared and I actually saw in Portland for our student government trip a couple years ago. It was such a fun thing to do on my one Saturday off for the month.

GO GREEN! GO WHITE!

Jared and I went to Michigan State's first football game of the season today! So much fun, I just love everything about the fall! (Little tid-bit: Spartan Stadium holds 72-75,000 people, making it the 5th largest Big Ten stadium!) It's pretty darn big....




The Michigan State marching band.



A lot bigger than what we're used to at good ol' Weber. Fun times!

(P.S.- This is my 100th post since I started my blog almost 3 years ago! Woo hoo!)

Jared's White Coat Ceremony

Last Sunday Jared had his White Coat Ceremony in Grand Rapids. It was pretty exciting to see the official "start" of his medical school journey.

Sorry, I know this picture isn't very good, I was trying to video tape the whole thing and take pictures at the same time, I'm no photographer that's for sure. He's right in the center of this picture getting his coat put on him by one of the professors.





This is the new Grand Rapids campus, where they just added 100 more med students to their program this year. It's a pretty cool building, but I'm glad we're at the East Lasing campus, it will be fun to be at the heart of a big ten school.


(Look at that studly "soon-to-be" doctor!)

Later that night we had our new friends Jessica and Doug over for cake and ice cream to celebrate this new beginning. Doug is a DO student who is just starting this year with Jared and they are also in our ward. I tried to make green and white frosting for their school colors, but I didn't have butter to make the frosting. (Note to self: margarine CANNOT replace butter when making frosting) Oh well, it's the thought that counts, right?

Giant waterslide in the street!

Today Jared had his first day of orientation in Grand Rapids. It also happened to be right next to a giant waterslide. He went down on a bus, and I drove down separately so we could go ride the waterslide. I got there at about 3, thinking he could just sneak out of his orientation for a "few minutes" and be back for the rest, which ended at 5. When we looked where we were in line and realized it would be a while, Jared went back to his orientation and told me to text him when I was close. Well, 4 1/2 hours later, we finally got to the front of the line, about 30 minutes before they shut it down. It was kind of silly that we waited to long for a 30 second ride down a waterslide, but it was pretty cool and the idea of it was great. This was the first year they did this, and apparently they wanted to make some sort of world record. But there were a lot of kinks that needed to be worked out so it could be a success (like making it free, but if you wanted to pay $30 you could get a "front of the line" pass and ride it all day.) This was the reason for the 4 1/2 hour wait for us, the ones who didn't have the money to pay for an all day pass. Needless to say, that is probably the only time we'll ever do it, but it was fun, and we made some interesting friends (and Jared almost got into a brawl with a lady that tried to cut in line with all of her kids after we'd already been waiting 3 hours! Ha!) Sorry, that story was way too long. ANYWAY.... that's what we did with our day today. Here are some pics: