jamaica

A couple weeks ago, Jamie and I went on our 2nd trip to Jamaica (the 1st being our honeymoon). This trip came on the heels of finishing 2nd year of med school and Step 1 (the first part of my boards) and on the cusp of beginning 3rd year, which is basically me paying to work in the hospital. I'm not sure either Jamie or I realized how much we needed this vacation until we were actually on it. We both knew we needed some relaxation and a break from the hectic-ness of our lives lately but we didn't know how much we needed that time to unplug, get away and reconnect in our marriage. We try to make time for a date night once a week but somehow those tend to turn into us going out to dinner and talking about all the things we need to get done and then running errands. This trip definitely taught us that we need to make more time for actual connection even in our busy day to day. It was an awesome vacation spent mostly relaxing and doing not much of anything with the love of my life. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

I loved these peacocks! They just roamed the resort hanging out
(I think this one wanted to go shopping)

Our first experience eating escargot.....all gone! It was so good :)

My totally unfried calamari....wasn't expecting that but it was still delicious

Just one of the beautiful views

Us on our candlelight dinner with our cute heart decorated desserts

The beach :)

Our swim up river suite

Us being sad that we had to leave

New hobby

I have always loved photography and photo editing but my newest passion is making photo mosaics....so much fun! Luckily I was able to find a free program online called Andrea Mosaic to help support this passion as I don't have the money for a fancy program like Photoshop (although a girl can dream). Here are a few of the ones I have made so far (click on the picture to make it bigger and see all the smaller pics):

I made this one for my friend Sarah's graduation

This one was for my friend Mary's wedding

And this one is just for fun

While studying for Step 1 (which I finished on Monday....yay!), I often dreamed of what it would be like if my job were just making photo mosaics all day. In the meantime, guess I will continue it as a hobby, but if you know someone who wants one tell them to get in touch with me and we can work out a price! ;)

a gift from God (in the form of chocolate, raisins and friendship)

Don't you just love when God knows exactly what you need when you need it? For the last several weeks, I have been feeling really lonely and left out. Maybe it is because I have been a studying hermit lately, but it seems like I have been missing out on a lot. The biggest void that I have been feeling is in close female relationships. I am blessed to have friends all over the world (doing amazing things for God I might add!) but the lack of the physical closeness of my girl friends is sorely felt at times. And despite having an amazing community group, I have found it hard to cultivate the same type of close female friendships and most of my efforts have felt very one-sided. In short, I was in need of some encouragement.

Enter Sarah.

As I was studying tonight at Panera, she brought me this study "care package" (complete with chocolate, caffeine and raisins and the scientific evidence to prove they would help my studying ;)) :


It was such a bright spot in my day....let's be honest - in the last couple weeks! I think I just needed a reminder that I wasn't forgotten - by others or God. I love that God allows us to partner with Him to bring encouragement to others and I am thankful that He saw fit to bless me today when I needed it most.