The Royal Wedding

Yes, I did wake up at 5 am to watch the wedding. I got bored and snoozed until 6am. I watched the full wedding, live, as I got ready for work. I adored Princess Katherine's wedding gown! It was classy, traditional yet modern enough, and modest but figure-flattering. I did not enjoy the couple's mostly stoic expressions, but I guess it's not very regal to hold hands and wink at each other. All girls imagine to someday feel like a princess with their own Prince Charming on their wedding day. I guess the billions of viewers that tuned in were excited to see the real fairytale come true for commoner, Kate Middleton.

The sweet (but short) kiss brought me back to our wedding day. I honestly felt like a princess and even more so as I walked down the aisle towards my Prince Charming (sorry to be cheesy). Our first kiss as a married couple was so special. Not a day goes by without a kiss, unless we're apart of course!

On a side note, I'm getting very excited that Paige may come home soon! Thank you so much for your continued thoughts and prayers for her, Nate and Kellye. Here's the latest from the carepage...

Paige's good news continues: her BNP is still in the low 500s! She gained weight again tonight and she kept all her feeds down today. She was in good spirits today but chewing on everything in sight. I'm convinced a tooth will appear very soon! In preparation for our departure on Sunday, they removed her PICC line today. Paige was so brave! She sat very still, kept her eyes on Mommy and Daddy, and only cried out one time. Things are looking good! They've even scheduled our follow-up appointment for Tuesday. We continue to pray for Paige's healing.
Have a fabulous weekend!

Tornado

April 27, 2011 - Tornado wrecks the Southeast.

The massive storm has taken over 300 lives in the Southeast US. My Sweet Home Alabama was hit very hard and the destruction was tremendous. I am so thankful that my family and friends are okay. As of yet, no one close to me has suffered much damage to their property either. Dadeville & Alex City, just 35 minutes from Auburn was hit badly. Many of my friends have beautiful lake houses there, and I believe they got lucky. Down the road in Tuscaloosa, our arch rival university really suffered a large loss. Students lost their lives, there has been no water/power, and finals were cancelled. I can't imagine how I'd feel if Auburn were hit in the same way. My heart goes out to everyone affected by the disaster.

Easter Feaster

This weekend, Harrison and I were in Atlanta to visit my family, especially our niece, Paige. If you don't already know from my earlier post, she's been in the hospital for the past 2 weeks with an enlarged heart that has trouble pumping out enough blood. She's been such a little fighter! For the past 4 days, she's been off the IV meds that have been helping her heart contract stronger to more efficiently eject blood. The doctors were hoping that if she could tolerate being off the IV medication, they could transition her to oral meds, and perhaps skip the need of a heart transplant. These 4 days have been a bit of a roller coaster ride with highs and lows. Easter Sunday was definitely a day to celebrate! Things are looking better and there's even talk from the doctors about her possibly going home next weekend!
Here's the latest post from her mommy on her care page:

More positive news today: that enzyme level (also known as the BNP) has continued to decrease! The doctors even brought up the possibility of going home -- maybe by the end of this week. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, though. (Remember that roller coaster ride?) I am extremely thankful that Paige's status has continued to improve and we did not have to go back on the milrinone (IV medication for her heart) or to the CICU. There are a few factors that have to occur before we can leave the hospital. Right now Paige is receiving her diuretics through an IV so she must transition to oral diuretics and remain stable.
Things are looking up for Miss Paige. We are certainly rejoicing this Easter Sunday and enjoying Paige's 1st Easter (even if it is in the hospital)! Stay tuned for pictures with her bunny ears. :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the prayers and Easter blessings. We know that none of this would be possible without God's help and mercy.

After visiting Paige, Nate, and Kellye all weekend, we headed to Newnan to go to Easter Sunday Mass and visit my sister's family for EASTER FEASTER. Easter Feaster has been a Cunningham family get-together for the past several years. At last year's Feaster, Nate and Kellye announced that they were pregnant. Unfortunately, they weren't able to join us this year.

I love my nephews, Blake and Ryan!

We had a great spread of food included Boston Butt smoked on Drew's Green Egg Grill (fabulous, since we haven't eaten meat in 40 days), potato salad, baked beans, garden green salad, chips/dip, grape salad dessert, and mint chocolate chip ice cream cake! The food was fantastic and we got to spend Easter Feaster in The Swartz's beautiful new home! Blake stole my watermelon! Blake loved having Uncle David push him around the yard in his car!

Relocation plans...

It’s hard for me to think about anything other than Paige these days. I visited her in Atlanta last Sunday and Monday, but I had to be back at work for the rest of the week. It was very hard to leave, but I hope to be back soon. I have a cold right now, so I can’t visit because Paige really doesn’t need to get sick. We live 3 to 3.5 hours from Atlanta, which means it’s not just a quick trip to visit.

This brings me to the next issue… Last Friday, I turned in my resignation to Biltmore Family Medicine. Harrison and I plan to move back to Auburn at the end of July. My last day of work is July 8^th. We really want to be closer to our families, and recent events have confirmed to us the importance of family . Neither of us have jobs yet, but we’re beginning to search. Harrison’s parents live about 10 minutes outside of Auburn, my parents live 2 hours away, my sister’s family lives 1 hour away, and brothers are about 1.5 hours away. Harrison's sister lives in Tampa, which is by no means close to Auburn, but is a much quicker trip than Asheville to Tampa. Because we all love football, Auburn will be a common meeting ground for all of us to get together often. We’ll have to find a large house to accommodate all of the guests we expect during football season!

We absolutely love Asheville, and we’re going to shed a lot of tears the day we see the city in the rear-view mirror of the moving van. If our families were a bit closer in proximity, we’d never leave Asheville. It has given us so much: many close friends, beautiful weather and landscape, our wedding day, our first jobs as professionals, our master’s degrees, and so many wonderful memories.

Prayers for Baby Paige

Our 5 month old niece, Paige, has been in the hospital since Friday, April 8th. At a routine doctor's appointment, she was found to have an enlarged heart. After many tests, she was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy. This basically means that the heart muscle is having difficulty squeezing out the amount of blood that it's supposed to squeeze out. Because this condition has made her heart work harder than the average 5 month old, she also gets out of breath easier and burns off calories quicker. She's on several medications that are helping strengthen her heart to contract/squeeze more effectively. The doctors want to make sure that she's getting A LOT of calories so she continues to grow. They also want to make sure she's getting plenty of rest, because when she's awake and active, she's using a lot of energy. Nate is my brother and Paige's daddy, and Kellye is my sister-in-law and Paige's mommy. The whole family, especially Paige, needs many prayers for this difficult time. You can visit Paige's carepage: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/BabyPaige/

Here's Kellye's latest post from the CarePage: So here's what we know: Paige has an enlarged heart. It takes up a good portion of the left side of her chest cavity. The left ventricle is the chamber that is most enlarged and the muscles in that ventricle do not contract much to pump out blood. Her heart is enlarged because it's having to work so much harder to pump enough blood to the rest of her body but also because the excess blood that is not being pumped out, is being absorbed into the heart. Upon arriving in the hospital, Paige was put on an IV medication to try and help ease the strain on her heart. The doctor's are pleased with how she has responded to these meds. To look at Paige, you would not know that anything is wrong. She is still the same happy, vibrant baby. This leads the doctors to believe that this heart condition developed over time because her body has learned to compensate for her heart's size and malfunction. So where do we go from here? The goal is to introduce other heart medications to Paige orally so we can wean her off the IV meds and eventually go home. With a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy, 1/3 improve heart function, 1/3 maintain the same heart function, and 1/3 continue to decline. Obviously our hope and prayer is for Paige to be in that top 1/3 that will respond to medication and improve her heart function. The doctors are looking for her to gain weight to show that she is ingesting enough calories and her body is able to grow. We are happy to report that Paige has been feeding very well, especially the past 2 days and as of tonight, her weight has increased! Again, we're taking it one day at a time. We're not sure how long we will need to be in the hospital. The doctors and nurses have been so personable, patient, helpful, and kind; they are really taking good care of all of us.

April Fool's!

Usually I don't come up with any good pranks for April Fool's Day, but this time, I thought I'd give it a shot. Today I texted Aileen, my sister, and told her that I thought I might be pregnant. She got SO excited... I started to feel bad and quickly told her "April Fools!" It's a good thing she lives in Georgia, because she would have killed me! She got me back by posting on my facebook wall, "Congrats on the baby!" Did any of you get pranked or pull one over on someone?

DeVotchKa

Last night, Harrison and I were at the Orange Peel in Asheville to see one of our favorite bands, DEVOTCHKA. The opener, Kopecky Family Band was also really good. Here’s a photo from the concert and a link to their music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb-i3a_TMxg I can’t say enough good things about DeVotchKa. The description of DeVotchKa, per Wikipedia, reads “a four-piece multi-instrumental and vocal ensemble that fuses Romani, Greek, Slavic, Bolero, Mariachi music with American punk and folk roots.” They’re gypsy punk/indie folk. The lead singer, Nick Urata, plays theremin, guitar, bouzouki, piano, and trumpet; Tom Hagerman, plays violin, accordion, and piano; Jeanie Schroder, sings and plays sousaphone and double bass; and Shawn King, plays percussion and trumpet. They played almost all of our favorites and really got the crowd going. They infused the performace with two lovely aerialists that hung from cloth ropes in the ceiling and did all sorts of skillful acrobatics. I can’t wait to see them in concert again!
Here’s a link to some music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfi1UQ_PKQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3bfhqQKq-s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knsDmfmOnas

Kiss me, I'm IRISH!

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! This day makes me reflect on my Irish heritage and my trip to Ireland several years ago. My dad is quite the genealogist, and he’s followed our family history, tracing back our ancestors for decades. When I was about 15, he traced our Irish ancestors and contacted ones that are still living in Ireland! In 1890, my great-great grandfather came to America and none of his American-born descendants (3-4 generations) had ever traveled back to meet up with the Irish relatives. They (a few separate families) invited us over and we took them up on their offer in June of 1999! Just my dad and I went, and we had a great father/daughter overseas experience!

We landed in the Dublin airport and stayed a couple of nights in Swords. We visited the bustling city of Dublin, checked out the lovely eastern coastline, and ate a lot of beef and potatoes!
Over the next few days, we headed northward up the coast. We stopped off at beautiful castles and landmarks while checking out the counties/cities of Drogheda, Killcurry, Dundalk, Newry, and Armagh. We had to travel in a little rental car. Of course, in Ireland, your driving on the opposite side of the road, opposite side of the car, and if you have a manual drive, you're switching gears with your left hand! I think dad hit every curb on the round-abouts! The picture below is not of us, I just found it on the web so that you get the idea:
This is an ancient burial mound near Drogheda: Newgrange Passage Tomb (photo found on web)
http://www.knowth.com/newgrange.htm It is thought to be one of the oldest man-made constructions on Earth!

Near Newry, in County Armagh (town: Cladybeg), we met up with several extended cousins over a couple of days (The Cunningham’s: Eileen Cunningham Renaghan, Mary Hearty, Julia Cunningham Lennon, Mary Cunningham McArdle & her husband, Tommy, son, Sean, and grandchildren). We went to our great grandfather’s birthplace and had afternoon tea and scones with the family! They were delightful. My cousin, Sean, a rally car driver, took me for a ride in his rally car. Rally car racing is like Nascar for the Irish, except the racing takes place on either private or public roads! He sped around all of the curvy roads in the Irish country side and I thought I was going to die! I was so happy to make it back to their home.

We also met up with our family, the Mara’s, south of Dublin (County Wicklow, town of Rathnew). We shared a wonderful meal with them and enjoyed sharing our lives. My family still keeps in touch with our Irish family. I wish them and all of you a very Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Also, Happy Anniversary to my mother/father-in-law, Esther and Perry!

Temporary pescetarians

We're only two days into Lent, yet Harrison and I are happy so far with our decision to give up meat for these next forty days. While first and foremost keeping in mind that we're making a small sacrifice in appreciation of Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross, we also have some other benefits we hope to achieve from our temporary pescetarian lifestyle. It will be nice to save some money. Sirloin roasts, pork tenderloin, etc. don't come very cheap. We're also looking forward to opening our eyes to unfamiliar vegetables, spices, seafood, and meat substitutes. Finally, we hope to lose a few pounds! It seems like the holiday weight never said 'goodbye.' For lunch yesterday, I had cheese tortellini and for dinner I made a scrambled egg and cheese burrito. Harrison made a combo of brown rice, corn, black beans, and salsa. He added some cheese and made a very yummy burrito. Today I made some vegetarian chili with Morning Star crumbles (meat substitute), and I think it turned out ok. I really liked the dinner that I cooked up tonight: Italian Portabella and Roasted Edamame (for recipe, see the tab: For the love of food). In the next few days, I'll probably be making Smoky Cheese Black Bean and Rice Casserole. Please leave a comment if you have some good vegetarian or fish recipes for us to try out!

Mini getaway to Charleston, SC

Harrison and I were in Charleston this past Thursday through Sunday. He was on Spring Break and I was going to attend a medical conference. We had such a nice, little weekend getaway.

Thursday night we had dinner at Hyman’s Seafood. They claim to have the best seafood in the southeast, but we weren’t very impressed. It seemed like a tourist trap with average food. Harrison had the stuffed grouper and I had the shrimp scampi. On Friday I headed over to the conference that was put on by MUSC at the Doubletree. I walked into the large ballroom with 150 MDs, NPs, and PAs. I sat at a table and started chatting with the people nearby. It turned out that the woman next to me was an NP that used to teach clinical skills at Auburn. She taught me my very first nursing 'skill': how to make a patient’s bed! After more talking, I found out that she had moved to Gadsden (my hometown) 18 months ago and now is in the same social circle as all of my parent’s friends! We had such a fun time reminiscing and talking about all of our commonalities.

At lunch, I met up with Harrison and we had lunch at Jestine’s Kitchen. It was a cute little diner downtown. Our entrees were just okay, but the Coconut Cream Pie dessert was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I had to go back to the conference after lunch, which was followed by a nice wine and cheese reception. Harrison and I met back up and headed out to the Rooftop Bar at the Vendue Inn to watch the sunset. It was a lovely view of the city!

Afterward, we headed to McCrady’s. It is a very nice restaurant/bar that has a neat place in history. You have to reach the entrance from a cute little alleyway. The bar was too full, so we actually didn’t stick around. We had dinner at Sermet’s Corner and Harrison had pork tenderloin that was to die for! To top the night off, we ended up at Club Habana. This was such a cool cigar bar with really great atmosphere and drinks. We were a bit smelly when we left.
On Saturday, I was in the conference until noon, then Harrison and I met up for lunch. We drove out to Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms and ate at Coconut Joe’s which overlooked the beach. The food and drink was pretty standard. We took our chairs onto the beach afterward, but we had to stay bundled up.
We had drinks at the Boathouse which was really exciting for us. Harrison and I had our rehearsal dinner at the Boathouse in Asheville. Our guests were the last ever to eat at the restaurant before it closed for business due to the economy in 2008. Harrison and I also sampled the clam appetizer, which was fabulous. Neither of us have ever had clams apart from chowder.

Next we headed to Vickery’s, and had a drink on their outdoor porch. It was a cute place with a tiki bar feel to it.

Afterward we went back into downtown Charleston and had one last drink at the original Citadel (now an Embassy Suites).
When Sunday rolled around (and so did we with all of the food that we'd eaten), I had one last half-day of conferences. I really learned a lot and I highly recommend primary care conferences by MUSC. It was very organized, they fed us well and kept an endless supply of coffee available, and the presenters were fantastic. It was a great way to earn 15 hours of continuing education. Eventually, Harrison and I headed home, sad to end our mini getaway.

- A special thanks to Elizabeth, Harrison’s sister and former Charleston resident, who recommended almost every place I mentioned above.