Can anyone else believe it is 2013?! And, that it's already halfway through the month of January 2013, I was supposed to do this post on like the 2nd! I don't know why it seems so crazy to me, maybe because it seems like I blinked and 2012 is already over, weird. But, since it is a new year I figured I would really do the final post to officially bring my blog up to date by doing a "year in review"-style post (similar to my 2011 post)! So, here goes the best of 2012:
• This was a little bit of a stressful time because 2 days after I drove home from Orlando from seeing Michael off, I had my oral qualification exams for my doctorate (I had completed my written exams successfully previously in the Fall 2010), the oral is difficult because it's what gives you what's called "Candidacy for the Doctorate" and you are official a candidate. It's a big deal. And its crazy because its you in the room with your 5 committee members and basically they grill you on all of biology, and specifically your area of training. It was difficult and I stressed, but the results were great, I passed and am officially a Doctoral Candidate!!
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| My friends had a little get-together for me in another conference room with champagne! |
• Spent a few weekends in January shopping and preparing for a best friend of mine, Taylor's wedding! I made her bouquets for her wedding and one weekend she came to Tally to dress shop, we ended up finding a lace dream dress for her here, we got so lucky! Then, on February 4th, was the actual wedding! It was at Dubsdread Golf Club in Orlando which is a rustic, lodge feeling kind of place and it is a great venue! The wedding was beautiful and we were/are so happy for the new Mr. and Mrs. Robertson.
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| From left to right: The day we found Tay's dress, some flowers as I was making them for the bouquets, and Tay's bouquet! |
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| Playing around in Taylor's veil as we were getting ready on the big day! (Last two photos by Pilster Photography) |
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| A couple shots of Mr and Mrs Robertson, and the Bears at the fun reception! (First two photos by Pilster Photography) |
• About a week after the wedding was our 1 year anniversary on Feb 12! I already recapped our anniversary trip, where we visited the Ritz Reynolds Plantation in Lake Oconee, Georgia! We had a wonderful time!
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| 2/12/12 |
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| Our anniversary cake that was the same flavor as one of the flavors of our wedding cake (we had 3 so for our anniversary cake we picked the Devil's Food Chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream filling, yummm. The cake is by Anna Cakes in Orlando. We actually had it after we got back from our anniversary trip and the next time we went down to Orlando (which was in March for when I flew to Chicago from there for Michael's bootcamp grad, and drove the cake home to Tally to my husband! |
• In March, Michael graduated from Navy bootcamp in Chicago (the recruit training command base is in Great Lakes, a suburb of Chicago), so me, my mom and step-dad flew up there to attend the graduation and visit Chicago, it was cool because I had never been to Chi-town and attending a military graduation doesn't get more 'Merican than that!!
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| At the Recruit Training Command at Great Lakes for Michael's Navy Bootcamp Graduation! See if you can spot him in the picture of his whole Division! |
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| Playing around Chicago after graduation when Michael had leave for the day! A couple of these pics are taken at the famous "Bean" and the first one on the left is in the park around Lake Michigan. |
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| Loved this anchor on the front gates of the base! |
• At the end of the Spring, I successfully submitted and defended my proposal for my doctoral research (this is a big step because then you are officially on Dissertation hours and this must be completed within 6 months of passing qualifying/candidacy exams)! Another big step down on my way to completing my doctorate in Biomed Research.
Summer 2012:
• The summer was pretty low-key, we both worked a lot actually, may seem weird since it's summer but his company was busy (can't complain there!) and in graduate school you don't get summers off and if you have experiments to do... well, you get them done! But, at least it was productive! The only time we left Tally was to visit Destin a couple times, and then we went and saw the Blue Angels fly in Pensacola, FL with my friend, Brittany!
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| Gorgeous Pensacola Beach, FL |
• The most exciting thing of the Summer last year was we moved into a cute house in a good neighborhood in Tally. We are renting the house as we are hoping to not be in Tallahassee too much longer so it obviously doesn't make sense to buy, but even though it's still a rental we love it and is a much improved changed from living in a condo/townhouse as we have since we moved to Tally in 2009. Since I am caught up to the present after this post, when I start doing more frequent posts I might do a home tour where I show pictures of around the inside of our house!
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| Our cute little house! And it's pink! |
• On July 1st, our little baby pup Sugarbear turned 1 years old!
• A couple months after we moved in we had a fun July 4th party to celebrate America!
Fall-Winter 2012:
• In September I went to another conference: The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cancer meeting (in Long Island, NY). CSHL meetings are extremely prestigious! I got a little scholarship to attend this meeting so that was amazing! The conference blew my mind, I met leaders in the field, and the atmosphere at the lab campus is so rich in scientific history that I can hardly explain. Some of the biggest discoveries were made right there in the labs at CSHL. One such discovery, was the finding of the structure of the DNA molecule by Watsona and Crick (Nobel prize winners, obvi). Well, Watson went on to be the president of CSHL for many many years and ended up building a mansion on the grounds because he loves CSHL so much. I visited the mansion and then Watson made an appearance on the last night of the conference where they had the South Hampton quintet play for us. What an amazing experience!
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| From left to right: The view from behind the the campus of CSHL (sits on the Long Island sound), James Watson discovered of the DNA structure and there he is!!!, Me outside of the McClintock Lab (she is nobel prize winner for her work on transposons in Maize), and on the last night CSHL is famous for their lobster banquet, fancy! |
• I got selected out of all the graduate students to give a talk at our Departmental Colloquium, which is an honor so I was excited about that! I also won 2 prestigious awards in my department, The Margaret Menzel and Thrower awards! Yay!
• We participated a little in FSU's football season, this was us at the heartbreaking FL-FL State game
• December 9, 2007 was the day me and Aaron met, and also the day we ended up having our first date... we were chaperones at our church's youth group event where we took the kids to the House of Blues Gospel Brunch that Sunday. We obviously clicked during that trip because Aaron ended up asking for my number when we got back from the day-trip (don't worry we were still good chaperones to the youth group haha!). After we parted ways, he called me THAT NIGHT and asked me to come over... and the rest is history.
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| Aaron surprised me after a couple years that he saved the ticket from that day from the Gospel Brunch! |
• I had fun re-decorating our Christmas tree:
• We had Holiday photos taken around downtown Tallahassee. These are first professional pictures here, and with Sugarbear in the pictures! We used one of them for our Christmas card this year!
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| Merry Christmas from the Druliners - 2012! |
• We ended 2012, celebrated new Year's Eve in Tallahassee. We had a little get together at our place then went downtown where Tally put on a pretty good event, with Sister Hazel performing and fireworks!
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| Happy New Years! |
We are ready for 2013!!
Awwwww yeah Robertson wedding!!!
ReplyDeletehaha of course your wedding made the blog!!!
ReplyDelete