Let the celebrating begin!

Graduation from vet school has finally arrived (almost). It is completely surreal. Last night, Gabriel and I went to the Senior Slideshow, which is a big production of photos and some videos from all 4 years of our time in vet school (fun stuff and school stuff). It was really amazing to look back at the last 4 years of my life and the lives of those that have been around me.
Yesterday, my aunt Martha and uncle Ken arrived yesterday in their RV from their travels in the southern US. Cyrus and I went to see them at their campground yesterday, and they came to hang out in Athens today. My parents arrived tonight just in time for a nice dinner together as a big family.

Tomorrow, we'll all convene at the Performing Arts Center to watch me walk across the stage and get "hooded." I can't wait.

-Shirin

Yay! Martha and Ken are here. We met Gabriel at lunch at the Five Star Day Cafe, which serves southern and veggie-friendly food. They both did the southern thing and got barbeque sandwiches.

Gabriel did his typical thing and got the craziest thing on the menu: a deep-fried french toast, peanut butter, and banana sandwich. (His side was fried green tomatoes).

After lunch, Gabriel went back to work and we all went walking around Athens. We found some tourist info and stopped to check it out, since I'm not too good at knowing what kinds of interesting things there are to do around Athens (I just live here).

Then we were off to tour the vet school and vet hospital where I've spent the last 4 years of my life.

The obligatory pose next to our bulldog statue (there are variously-painted ones all over Athens).

Luckily, Martha and Ken are very self-sufficient and were happy to hang out in my house with their laptops while I caught a quick cat-nap.

Then we went to pick up Cyrus and came home to get ready for dinner with Daddy, Grandma, and Baba.

Before we went to dinner, Gabriel and Ken got to compare iPads...Ken has had his for a while and Gabriel just got his today. They both really like them.

Yay! Grandma and Baba are here!

Cyrus was a very good boy at the restaurant and busied himself with stacking little books over and over (thanks Aunt Deena for the Mickey Mouse books).

He also liked to share them with his Baba, one by one.

Back home after dinner. Cyrus was feeling chagrined by the bright flash on my camera.

For graduation, I got the HTC Incredible phone from my parents, which is one of those Android phones from Verizon (a really cool smart phone). Gabriel is jealous of it, even though he's had one of the older ones for 6 months now; here he was helping me set it up and learn how to use it. It has internet, GPS, camera, video camera, and much much more.

Where's Cyrus?

There he is!!

PS. Cyrus doesn't know that his mommy is graduating from a very hard professional school and will subsequently be able to work and make money for the family, but he does know that he's very happy to have all this family together to celebrate. Meanwhile, I am grateful and very lucky that life worked out such that I was able to have my first child and be pregnant with my second while concurrently pursuing and earning my Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine. I am so glad that it worked out so well for us. I also want to thank Gabriel for all he has done to support me through these last 4 years. It isn't easy to be married to a vet student. Hopefully, it was all worth it for us and will improve our lives for years to come.

Dinner with Beth and Brendan

Beth, Brendan, Gabriel, and I used to have more time to all get together for dinner at our place. It used to correspond weekly with Casey on Big Brother and then with shows like Survivor or Lost. Lately, we've all been too involved in our own lives to make it happen very often. Luckily, we still fit it in now and then, like tonight.
I volunteered at the Humane Society all day (where Beth is now doing a spay/neuter externship), but I had enough time when I got home to make some spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread--simple but yummy. Bren and Beth came a little later, and we got to spend a nice hour with our favorite friends/family in Athens.

I'm heading to bed early, because I'm super-tired tonight, but here are some photos of our affair.

-Shirin

Watching a video after dinner called "Girls Are Bad At Sound Effects."

Cyrus thought it was hilarious to hear the bad sound effects the girl was making to all sorts of movies (like the Matrix and Star Wars).

He was in a very silly mood and imitated all of her noises.

More noises.

Who knows?

A few minutes later, he got into my lunch bag and asked Beth to push him.

Not gonna happen, Buddy.

We fed Cyrus about 3 dinners tonight; maybe he's in a growth spurt. One thing's for sure, he was in a silly mood tonight. He made all of us laugh all night. I think he's doing this for his Uncle Brendan, but I can't remember.

Sideways silly glance at Daddy.

Oops...it's past his bedtime.

He still had time to tell Bren and Gabriel about ghosts and Goofy (he makes really funny faces with both those topics, which is what I think Bren was looking at).

Time to lay down and call Goofy on the phone for a good-night chat before bed. Night night!

A visit from the grandparents

I celebrated my first weekend of freedom with my other family, the Beals. Cyrus was a bit under the weather with his low-grade fever, but he still really enjoyed his visit from Pap pap and Grandma. We had a low-key few days, with lots of eating, talking, and a bit of shopping. During it all, Cyrus regaled his grandparents with tales of ghosts, lions, Mickey Mouse, and Goofy. He also got his birthday presents a few weeks early: some cute pajamas and a new stroller (I sold the old one b/c it was so big). We also got to see Uncle Brendan for a while, which was nice too.
We had a great time and will miss the Beals next weekend at graduation.
-Shirin

Cyrus conversing with Daddy and Pap pap at the Japanese restaurant.

Cyrus' new umbrella stroller from Pap pap and Grandma. It's much less space-consuming in my trunk.

Gabriel, Pap pap, Cyrus, Brendan, Grandma, and David (Bren's best friend) all hanging out Saturday afternoon at our place.

Three generations on one couch.

Careful what you teach your kids

My friend just put these two photos on Facebook from a birthday party Cyrus and I went to. It's amazing to me (and somewhat alarming) how much he has mimicked me in both of them. Yikes...I need to be careful what I teach him from now on!

-Shirin

The sniffles

Why o' why does Cyrus' immune system always know when a big event is going to happen? It seems that whenever we plan a visit with some family or friends, he gets sick the week before. He hardly ever even gets sick at any other time!
Hopefully, it's just a fever that will be gone by tomorrow, but he's been a bit under the weather for the last several days. Today, we each stayed home a half day from work to be with him. He's been a bit more whiny than normal but quite the snugglebug. Gabriel and I always feel a little guilty for enjoying the quiet, cuddly little boy he becomes when he doesn't feel well.
-Shirin

Our busy weekend

Our busy weekend was overshadowed by Cyrus' late Sunday evening adventure in the ER, but now that he is happily healing away with his 3 head-stitches, we can go back to normal matters.
This weekend was a flurry of activity for us. Friday night, we went to the vet school's annual Awards Banquet, which is for all the students who won money or got awards this year. There are so many generous donors that I have actually been able to get a partial scholarship every year. It's nowhere near the amount I would need to pay tuition, but every little bit helps. Gabriel and I always enjoy this event, since the MC is usually a funny clinician from the vet school, and a lot of the awardees are people we know.
Saturday morning, we woke up early and dashed over to Beth's house with all our extra crap to sell. Yep, we had a multi-family yard sale. Beth's two sisters came and a couple of her friends brought stuff as well. It was fun to make a little money and spend the morning with so many fine people.
Saturday night, we headed over to Casino Night, held by one of the vet fraternities. If you remember, it's one of Gabriel's favorite nights of the year. He always racks up on chips by playing poker and then bids on all sorts of prizes. We probably did better overall last year, but we still got lots of cool items and had a great time together. We were lucky enough to have Bren and David with us as well.
Sunday, we finally calmed down a bit and I did my normal household stuff, like laundry, while Gabriel and David acted like children and had doughnuts for lunch (I'm not kidding). That night, we obviously spent most of our time in the ER (refer to the next post), so I don't have to comment on that.
This weekend coming up, we are lucky enough to have the Beals coming to visit. It's too bad they won't be able to make it up for graduation the next weekend due to work conflicts, but we're happy they are coming a week early to spend a few days with us.
-Shirin

Yay. We're going to the yard sale!

Ooo, the camera is too bright!

Beth's house was the perfect location for a yard sale. It's in the part of town where all the other yard sales are, and it's right at the end of a cul-de-sac, so people could all just pull up their cars easily. We had quite a production going.

We got out some camping chairs and relaxed in the sun while waiting for people to buy our stuff.

Gabriel, being the salesman of the family, hovered around our stuff whenever there were people looking at it.

He also took out some time to play with the whiffle ball/bat that Beth got out of her garage for Cyrus.

I mostly just sat around, since my feet hurt these days. Cyrus doesn't look happy here...

...but he was smiling here. He's almost always in a good mood these days. Hope it stays like that.

We got Daddy to sit with us for awhile too.

Casino Night! The boys didn't stay at the same poker table for long--there's no point in winning each other's money. I mostly played black jack at another table entirely. It was much more predictable than any of the other games, and I'm not really a gambler by heart (too cheap).

Let's start the bidding! My awesome exotics professor is the dapper gentleman calling the auction (the guy in the tux, not my hilarious classmate who had just bought the flowery hat he was wearing).

There were lots of people to compete with.

However, after several years of Casino Night experience, I wasn't scared to big on just about anything good.