Yesterday was our 3 year anniversary!

Sometimes I feel like time has gone by so fast and it was only yesterday.....
But it also feels like this is just the way it's always been. In a good way of course.

This year in review:

December 28, 2007: For our 2nd anniversary we were visiting my grandma in North Carolina and we all went out to celebrate at a really nice restaurant- we all had a lovely time!

January 2008: We had to hurry back to DFW because we both had jobs! We were working in research labs at UTSouthwestern.. it was our first post-college jobs.

February 2008: Donnie wrote a nice little story about "His Sweetheart" and entered it into our apartment complex's essay contest. He won us a gift card to Chili's! When we went to claim the prize the front desk ladies said it was the best BY FAR and all their hearts melted!! What a sweet husband.

I am obsessed with couponing and finding ways to save money.. And today I stumbled upon perhaps the best deal ever. Let me share it with you:

At CVS on Thanksgiving, they had a bunch of deals that if you bought something you got the same amount of ECB's (kinda like CVS's store money that is good on your next purchase) which means that if you are going back to buy something at CVS and use your ECB's then the item you got in the first transaction is effectively free..

I happen to have two coupons for $3.00 off a BIC Soleil Razor which means that I was planning on paying $6.00 (for my two razors) but walking out of the store with $12.00 of ECB's..

CVS happened to be out of stock of my two razors on Thanksgiving, but gave me 2 rainchecks for when they were back in stock...

Because it is the start of a new month, Upromise* happened to update their e-coupons which (instead of saving you money instantly) are applied to an account that goes towards your kids college funds or your own student loans...

And as luck would have it, there happened to be a $3.00 Upromise coupon for a BIC Soleil Razor..

Which means that I will be basically making $9.00 ($6.00 in the form of ECB's and $3.00 into our very small college fund account) for buying 2 BIC Soleil Razors!

If CVS had been instock on Thanksgiving, I would not get to take advantage of the Upromise e-coupon!

Isn't that a wonderful transaction!?

* I did a lot of online research about Upromise and everything I read said that people didn't make much money and it isn't really worth it.. but I figured that even if we only ended up making $20 after a few years, that is still $20 I didn't have to pay.. so I decided to just go for it. I am proud to say that after this transaction I will have $8.07 in my account and I have only been a member since October! And you can get them to send you a check of your money anytime you want as long as it is under $200 so I figured it really was like free money to me. You should check it out!

No picture in this post :(

I was tagged by Jessica and the deal is you have to post the 6th picture that is in your 6th folder.

This is a picture of me and my brothers. It was taken in the summer of 2005 right after our annual beach vacation in North Carolina (notice how tan I am and how blonde my hair is!!). On the way home from the beach we stopped in Atlanta to see my dad and grandparents on his side. We went out to eat and took a few pictures outside of the Ryan's Steakhouse- or maybe it was Golden Corral? This is Gene, Michael (step-brother, living in Germany right now) and Jed. Sean (the other step-brother) is in the Marines and was in Iraq when we took this picture so he is not here.

BUT I didn't want to leave him out!!! So here's Seany!! I photoshopped him in :) His picture was taken the summer of 2007. I think he had just gotten a job as a Sheriff Deputy. He looks so handsome in his uniform!

Now that is all of us. I used to have so much fun in the summers when we'd visit because we'd go "exploring" in the neighborhood with homemade weapons (each one of us had something different, kinda like the ninja turtles..). There was one day we found a HUGE puddle of THICK red mud and we jumped in it like it was a swimming pool! I wish I had a picture of that. We'd go to 6 Flags and Sean's spikey hair made him just tall enough to ride the rides. And late at night Michael and I would play Smash Car and he would lift his bed, I would position the Hot Wheels exactly under the leg of his bed and then he'd drop it! We destroyed countless Hot Wheels this way :) It was so much fun. It was so fun to be a kid.

Now it's your turn and I tag....................... Regina, Tiffany Fisher and Cassidy!

I survived my first 7pm-7am night shift! I got really tired around 5am, but had a few snacks and made it through. And I cannot even begin to describe how good it felt to come home, crawl into bed and not have to set an alarm. Usually I wouldn't have to do night shifts, but my preceptor had to switch her schedule and the nurse she handed me off to got really sick annnnd I just wanted to get my days over with.. so my last day was a night!

It was a lot quieter and not so hectic on the floor, so that was kinda nice. Plus the nurses told me they get paid about $5/hr more for nights and that would be REALLY nice. When you do hardcore couponing, that's probably equivalent to $500 a night!!! The nurses say you get used to it pretty fast though.. It sucked a little, but I can see the advantages too.

I want to be updating a little more.. but we are seriously not doing anything fun/blog-worthy.

Recent happenings are:

1. Donnie just took a final for his anatomy class! That means he finished his first class in medical school!
2. I only have one more class this semester!
3. Donnie has been watching a lot of football!
4. I have been doing/looking up lots of couponing!
5. The weather is finally cooling down! I complain that it's cold, but I'm secretly enjoying it.
6. Gas was $1.75 today! wow.

And because I feel compelled to put a picture in every posting, I will add that we got a new car!!! It's a little Corolla we bought from Donnie's mom. It zips around, has a good heater and is way easier to park than my beloved Millie.

*sniff*sniff*sniff*

Imagine diarrhea... now imagine rotten diarrhea..
that is only the beginning of what this smelled like.

yes. that is seawater leaking out of the glove compartment.

used to be Murdoch's shop

the famous Sassy.. on the main road you take to get to our apartment.

After being so busy with school and catching up.. I needed a little fun. I spent a day with my two nursing school friends and we made Halloween-y treats and carved our pumpkins, I had the best time!

On Halloween Donnie and I went to our friend's murder mystery night! It was set in the 1920's at the Juice Joint. I was P.I.Pinkerton (the investigator) and Donnie was Bernie Bootlegger. Can you believe nobody guessed the murderer?!

It was really fun and I was in desperate need of some time away from school stuff.

Now, I must get back to studying.. test tomorrow.

The rules: List 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, and 3 facts about yourself. Tag 3 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog!

3 joys

1. Donnie :)

2. my family besides Donnie and my friends.

3. the internet.. I am really on the computer ALL the time.

3 fears

1. that we will get evicted from our apartment because of mold.. after we thought we escaped the wrath of Ike..

2. that I will fail my next test in school and get moved to the two year program :( I do NOT want to be in this school any longer than I have to.

3. that we will get robbed and hurt/killed by bad people.

3 goals

1. to finish school and start making lots of money

2. to have lots of kids

3. to buy a house

3 current obsessions/collections

1. DEFINITELY couponing- I am following suit with Regina and Amy

2. facebook, although this has taken the backseat since I started couponing.. also digital scrapbooking, it is so fun, but I really don't have enough time to do it too much.

3. daydreaming/planning our future in my head

3 facts

1. As of today, I officially HATE my school. Donnie got an email from the School of Medicine saying they don't feel it's safe for us to be in Galveston and they know we have lots to deal with now, so they are pushing the start date back to October 20.. I got an email from the School of Nursing today telling me I have to be at a clinical orientation on Thursday and I need to pick up a packet to fill out for it TOMORROW... keep in mind that I am writing this from Donnie's mom's computer in Arlington. Also keep in mind our apartment still has no power, we don't have our second car and I'm going to have to drive to Houston to do all these clinicals.. but there is still a curfew in Galveston so I don't know how I'm supposed to live there and do any of this!!!!! Can you tell I'm mad??

2. I have horrible vision. My glasses are -11.5, if you have a prescription and know anything about these numbers, you will know that is bad.

3. I cannot stand smacking.. which is ironic because my husband is a major smacker. It is just a gross noise and I have always hated it.

I tag Jaymie, Jessica and ???? who wants to be tagged??!

I know I should be studying, but I got a little sidetracked...

We left early Thursday morning and got safely into Austin with no real traffic.. Since my family was at work still we met up with some fellow evacuees (my friends Jessica and Mary Alice from nursing school) to eat lunch at Chuy's which was fun and comforting. We wanted to ask if evacuees got any special discounts, but chickened out :)

in the morning..

Here is the forecast for Hurricane Ike, there is one computer model that is projecting it to go towards Galveston, but so far school is still on and there are no mandatory evacuations. I signed up for the phone call alerts from the city and they did say that the storm surge could be 4-8 feet. Luckily we live behind the seawall (15 feet?) AND on the third floor, so probably no flooding here! We'll keep you updated as the storm continues.
For now, I guess I will try to study or go grocery shopping...
-Laura

Donnie had his first day of orientation on August 18th (I'm a little late with the posting..) and here is his picture on his way out the door as he officially embarks on his medical school journey (it's gonna be a long road).

The White Coat Ceremony is a tradition for many medical schools that welcomes the first year medical students. UTMB has been holding their ceremonies since 1993. It was really nice, they had an A cappella group sing and a guest speaker. There were also a lot of awards given to the older students for excellence in different areas (one was our friend Bo for anatomy!) and some faculty received awards from the students.. so you can kinda already tell who the good teachers are going to be!

The first picture is Donnie up on the stage donning his white coat for the first time and I caught the second one when he was on his way back to his seat. I tried to get when he was walking up (like a before, during and after) but I couldn't get up fast enough and the only picture I got was REALLy blurry and he's looking away because he had no idea where I was sitting :(

They had some cake and punch afterwards and we snapped a photo with both of us. I'm very proud of Donnie, glad that he is starting what he's been working towards for so long and I'm glad that I can be here to help support him through this next step in his life.

I finally got my digital converter box from Walmart. These boxes cost $50 but the government will give you a $40 coupon if you apply online. We had the hardest time finding one. They were always sold out at home and then in Arlington they were tough to find. In fact at one store, they got a shipment the day before and were sold out that same day. I found out they were getting a shipment last night at 7 and I went early the next morning and got the second to last one left.

Major disappointment today. The new Harry Potter movie is being pushed back from Nov 21st all the way to July 17, 2009. Apparently Harry plays a role on Broadway in which he appears fully nude. Warner Bros didn't think that would be good for the Harry Potter image so they are waiting until the show is done before they release the movie.

Michael Phelps has been amazing. The relay was fantastic but the 100m butterfly last night was epic. I thought the dream was over but somehow he pulled it out. I am starting to think that if I get one of those speedo suits I too could break a world record.

This was a random cool video I found. The Karate Kid is a childhood favorite movie of mine so it was neat to see what they all look like now in this music video.
-Donnie

I just finished watching the John Adams miniseries from HBO and wanted to write some of my thoughts on it. It was very well done in my opinion. I thought the actors who played Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Abigail Adams, and Hamilton did a superb job. Paul Giamatti played John Adams and I had mixed feelings. I like him as an actor but something about the way he portrayed him seemed a little off. Adams is probably the least known of the major founding fathers but, in my opinion, may have been the most interesting. He nominated George Washington to lead the army and recruited Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. He didn't have the leadership skills of Washington, the genius of Hamilton, or Jefferson's eloquence but he did have determination and tenacity. It was also interesting to see the rivalries between the founding fathers. While Adams was president, he had a vice president (Jefferson was a republican) who was from a different party (in those days the candidate with the second highest total of votes became vice president) and was undermining him. Adams also had a major feud with Hamilton who controlled the Federalist party. He was being attacked on both fronts which cost him reelection. Years later he began writing Jefferson and they settled their differences and became good friends again. Adams and Jefferson would end up dying on the same day, July 4th 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

We survived the hurricane quite well. It actually just rained a bit in the morning and then there were some small winds but nothing worth bragging about. We even went to the beach at 10:30 am to see if there were any waves but there weren't. Overall, I would say it was quite uneventful. Laura recorded a little but it was so lame we decided not to post.

Most of you all know that I love the Spiderman trilogy. Yes, it is corny at times but the action is entertaining and the moral of the story is always good. I happened to come across this video about a month ago and thought it was hilarious.

Well, Laura blogged about our first "hurricane" experience a couple weeks too early. Edouardo, the ridiculously spelled hurricane, is expected to hit Galveston or nearby tomorrow. To be a category one hurricane the winds must be above 74 mph. They are not expected to get above 70 so it could be real close. We are going to stay and brave it out as the majority are. Today I went to Walmart to buy some essentials (cupcakes, cheetos, etc) and there were a lot of people buying water and such. It is scorching hot outside as well. Its like the humidity is steam! Hopefully we will not lose power and can keep everyone current on what is happening. They also say that our end of the island is the worst for flooding but since we are on the third floor that won't be a problem. I also parked my car away from trees and electricity poles in case some of them fall.

So the new trailer just came out and I have to admit it looks pretty good. It looks like the emphasis will be more on Voldemort than Harry which I think is a good thing for this book and to set up the next film. Although it doesn't come out until November, we are both really excited!

A bird pooped on me. It landed smack in the middle of my forehead and then dripped onto my sunglasses. Donnie laughed and I had to wipe it off with a leaf.

Fact: Birds do not "pee" or "poop" they only constantly diarrhea and it's called uric acid.

-Laura

I heard on the radio that Cheesecake Factory is celebrating its 30th anniversary on July, 30th. To celebrate, all slices of cheesecake are $1.50, the same price they were 30 years ago when they started. Too bad there is no Cheesecake Factory in Galveston. I am not sure if there is one in Houston but it just might be worth the drive!