Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

Although my first official day isn't until Monday, on Friday all the interns rounded with the service they'll be starting on, so come July 1 (or 2, if you are like me) we won't all be quite as clueless. This means I got to round with the OB team. I loved it. First of all, I got to wear my new, long white coat, a symbol of finally being a doctor. (Our coats even have our names embroidered on them.) I felt very proper. Second, many of our OB patients are from Mexico, so I got to speak some spanish. After we finished seeing the hospital patients, Carlos (my fellow intern) and I got to help out with OB clinic, a clinic that was with all hispanic patients who come to Greenwood from Saluda for their OB care. I got to play a little with the ultrasound machine, and even got to tell a lady that she was having a little boy, since I managed to stumble onto a good picture of the baby's....well... nether regions. And I got to do a Pap smear (way more fun to do on someone else than ...

Last night we went on a little family picnic down to Greenwood Lake State Park. We had a nice little picnic on the grass by the lake. It was nice and scenic. And don't tell anyone, but we didn't pay our four dollar entry fee. We tried to, but there was no one on duty to make change for us, and we certainly weren't going to leave a six dollar tip with our ten dollar bill. We were only there about an hour anyway, so I don't think we used up four dollars worth of park. We even brought Lucy's dog food, so she could enjoy a picnic dinner. As it turns out, the ol' reach around and take your own picture trick is a bit tougher with a dog in it... The really amazing thing about this next picture (other than the fact that Aubrey is managing to smile with a mouth full of sandwich!) is that Lucy has stopped begging long enough to go eat her own dinner. Lucy was quite interested in the lake. She was never brave enough to actually touch the water or to drink from it, a...

As part of my orientation to being a full-fledged, full-time doctor, this week and last I've been getting certified in advanced life support for adults and children. While I certainly hope that I won't have to use these skills, I have been reminded of how important it is for everyone to learn how to give good, basic CPR and first aid. In the case of a serious event involving a child or adult, the quicker someone right there with them starts good CPR, the better their chances of survival. The American Red Cross gives classes that you can find out about here . This is just one of many websites I found through Google that offers web-based CPR training you can do right at home. The American Heart association is another organization that offers classes that can teach you how to respond in an emergency. The good thing about these classes is that they teach you the best way to do CPR and give you the confidence so that if something ever did happen, you would be able to respond calml...

Here is our branch, complete with dogs. Doing what we do best.....making ice cream! The Whole Clan

Some highlights from the Rampey Family Reunion: 1. Seeing our dog, who is still a little skittish, sit patiently by while our two-year-old cousin "petted" her (while also kind of poking her in the eyes). 2. Lots and lots of storytelling, often by multiple people at the same time. 3. Hearing my nearly 85-year-old great uncle talk about how he enjoyed his water skiing on Saturday, but had to take it easy because he was worried about falling forward on his pacemaker. 4. Seeing all my cousins now as parents. 5. Here's one that is a little painful: Seeing videos of myself from former reunions and other family activities - including the ones of myself in a swimsuit at the age of 14. In the words of my aunt: Those weren't exactly my skinniest years. 6. Eating four different flavors of homemade ice cream in one single night. Plus pound cake. Plus cookies. Plus a burger. (Perhaps I should see above.) 7. Waterskiing and tubing. 8. Getting to look at old pictures - some of my gr...

Unless we come up with some other great name, I think we're going to call her "Lucy." She seems to be settling in OK. Yesterday she was definitely a little groggy and very confused and nervous about her new surroundings. The hardwood floors can apparently be a little scary, as can any interesting noise like the water running in the tub, the steps to our back porch, the sliding glass door opening, the wooden rocking chair, and almost everything else she encountered, including the nice, soft bed we bought so she wouldn't have to sleep on the hard floor. So far, she seems to prefer the hard floor. She has learned 1 sound that she loves: opening the foil bag of "snausage" treats, which we used yesterday to bribe her back onto our porch due to her fear of stairs (stairophobia?) so she would come inside. "Snausages," besides being fun to say, are also apparently quite tasty. She can't walk in a straight line very well, and so is constantly cutting yo...

This morning the Tell family officially expanded by one. We went to the humane society to pick up our new dog. She just got fixed yesterday, so she's pretty groggy this morning, and is mostly just laying around, with a little bit of walking around and sniffing. And here she is getting all taken care of by Aubrey... We are still without a name for her, and perhaps you can help us out here. The people at the humane society had named her Strudie, but we think that's ridiculous. We chose a few names that we liked, and we've narrowed it down to either Lucy or Wrigley. What do you think?

Moving into our new house has given me the perfect opportunity to take advantage of my improving sewing skills. Here are some photos of what else I've been doing besides painting and getting certified to try and shock people's hearts back into beating. Sheer curtains for the study Two pretty pillows (my favorite sewing project so far) that started out as linen napkins I got on sale at the pottery barn outlet. You can see the front and the back. I really love the back - I used a decorative stitch in blue thread that matches the front. AND I got to have an actual reason to buy and use some cute buttons - these weren't just purchased because I have this somewhat irrational thing for buttons. Here they are gracing our new lovely couch. Cafe curtains for the kitchen. A closer-up photo of the fabric. A valance for above our sliding glass door. My second favorite - we had these two wooden chairs with cushion seats that didn't match and had started to sag. With my mom and my Au...

I know our many readers have been waiting very patiently to see what we've been up to lately, so I won't postpone it anymore.... (Although I wish the light were better in these photos) Remember when our kitchen looked like this? Now it looks like this: Old Living room: Here's the new one: Old half bath: New Half bath: We don't have a before picture of this room, but just imagine a room with the top half painted blue, the bottom half painted grey, and a monster truck border in the middle, and you'll know where we were coming from. And here's the after: The old bedroom: New: I guess that about sums it up. We have changed most of the rooms upstairs, mostly because I haven't really decided what I want to do. And you can see we still need to hang more things on our walls, but we're working on that slowly. Come back tomorrow for photos of my house-related sewing and craft projects.

'Cause now I have my own business card!!!

As of this morning, we finally have internet at the house again. We are very happy about this. So for you few intrepid blog checkers who have not given up on us, you will now be rewarded with new content from time to time. Aubrey is at the hospital for her first day of orientation today, and I am about to go play golf with another of the resident's husbands. But check back soon for pictures of our newly painted house, and other exciting Tell news. Hint: I'm fixing some gaps in the backyard fence tomorrow in preperation for a new family member who's coming on Thursday!

But so little time. We are slowly getting our new house painted, and our boxes unloaded. I am getting to be on a first name basis with the lowe's paint guy, since it does seem that we make at least one trip every day there. My legs and arms continue to be a testament to the many different colors of paint we are using in our house. We WILL post some photos, soon, but since we don't actually have internet at our house yet, that hasn't been possible. We did enjoy having our first overnight guest, my good friend and classmate, Barbara, and we had our first little dinner party, except that instead of having people over for dinner, we actually had them over for breakfast this morning - biscuits, eggs, bacon, and sausage gravy. (A good, healthy, Southern breakfast!) Now we're taking a break to go to Atlanta with my family to see the Cubs play the Braves!! We are loving our new house, though, and I have even managed to use our big, beautiful tub almost every day we've been ...

To keep our hordes of readers occupied until we can post again, here are some of my favorite beach week photos: Andrew and Sam, playing at the beach Look at that face!! Not sure what Jeff or Jackson are thinking here... Yes, that is, in fact a WINE bottle Jeff is letting Sam play with. Sweet Jackson The boys like the beach. Who's afraid of the big, scary ocean? Not Jackson. Sam loves his Nonna. Daniel and Micah, playing in the water. Mmmm....shrimp. Elise, expert kite flyer and my future sister-in-law!!! (Way to go, Austin!)

Yesterday, we officially became homeowners! We signed all the paperwork, got our keys, and even started painting. That said, since we haven't set up our internet up yet in Greenwood, we may not be posting much over the next week, but I promise we'll add photos of all the painting and decorating when we can. Here is a little peak of what we've done so far: Painting: (we'll post after pictures later.) Eating our first meal on our lovely, quiet deck - we didn't hear a single siren then ENTIRE time we were eating. A real rarity for us. Our Key!!! Isn't it cute. I'm kind of sad that we're going to change our locks and have to go back to a normal, silver key. Notice the paint splotch? I've decided I am physically incapable of painting without getting paint ALL OVER ME. It should be an interesting few weeks.