Congratulations, Aisha and Atif!!

My dear friend, Aisha, got engaged! In her Pakistani culture, there is a special ceremony where the couple gets engaged. Aisha's family, as well as that of her fiance, Atif, joined the couple when he gave her her ring. A definite date for the wedding has not be set yet, but it will most likely be in June of 2009.
Below are a few pics that I've "borrowed" from Aisha from the ceremony. She looked absolutely beautiful! Aisha, we are so happy for you and Atif! Congratulations!!

Second rotation...check!!

Last week, Eric started his general surgery rotation. That means he's already done with his OBGYN and family practice rotations. Family practice was again all the way out in Chandler, AZ, so Eric had another long commute. The practice he was at wasn't very busy, but it was a good experience. Eric was able to see some rare cases and since the practice wasn't very busy, Eric was able to learn alot from the doctor and be able to perform OMM (osteopathic manipulative medicine) on the patients.
Eric also can scratch family practice off the list of medical areas. He thought it was aggravating that the doctor had to know so much, but really couldn't do much. He just had to know what specialist the patient needed to be referred to. So Eric knows that he wants to specialize so he can be really good in one area.
Generaly surgery is going well. He's at Del Webb Hospital in Sun City, AZ. The doctor he is working with is great and was nominated as one of the best docotors in the US in 2007. Everyone is working with so nice and although he's not too thrilled with holding retractors for four hours on end during surgeries, he's been able to see some really cool cases. He saw one where the patient had gall bladder disease and the gall bladder was stuck to all the surrounding organs and tissues. He said it was a pain for the doctors to detach everything (and even bigger pain for him to hold the retractor for 4 hours) and remove the organ, but definitely cool to see!

Our living room is finished!

With our painting for our living room being finished now and hung up, it's really motived me to finish painting the living room and the kitchen. I've been wanting to paint the big wall in the living room red and make that our "accent" wall (haven't I been watching my HGTV??!!). I never had the guts to do it (must be that conservative side of me), but my mom came over and said she had a surprise for me. She came over with a gallon of red paint that was given to her. It was a tomato red color and I thought, "Well, that's not going to work." The red that we needed was a deep, purplier red. Mom said all we have to do is pick out the color we want it and take it to Dunn Edwards and they would recolor it for us. Isn't that cool? I didn't even know they could, let alone would, do that! Mom just thought, we've got this Dunn Edwards paint, it's not the right color, there's no reason they couldn't change it for us. I would have never thought of it!


So mom and I got out my many different paint samples and picked out the perfect one: Ralph Lauren's Venetian Red. We took our paint, our color sample, and went to Dunn Edwards. When we got there, an older man help us. He explained that they could try to match our color, but because of the colors already in the tomato red, it wouldn't be exact. Mom just explained that we weren't asking for miracles, just a color close to the one we wanted. He came back and we were so thrilled with the color. He probably thought we were such lunatics since we were so excited about a paint color. But to us, it was taking a gallon of paint that was just on hand and probably wasn't going to be used and changing to a color to finish our living room-all for FREE!


My wonderful mother who hath no fear of paint nor color thought of this. I just can't believe how perfect it turned out. It really pulls the room together and makes the painting and furniture pop against the wall. We just love it. Thanks, Mom!!!!!

So...we have a bug problem.

About a month ago, I finally called the bugman out to the house. We'd been seeing more and more bugs since it's been getting warmer and when we got back from vacation, it was out of control. I would find spiders, crickets, silverfish and earwicks everyday! And by my standards, anything more than one is way too many! We were told that we needed to keep having it sprayed during the winter even though there were no bugs because it would help keep them down when it was bug season (and especially because we live right next to a wash), but who really wants to spend money to have bugs killed? Even more, who wants to spend the money when the bugs aren't even there?

Well, boy, did we learn our lesson! The bugman came and and sprayed, but it hardly made a dent. Every night, we would still hear crickets and our cats would sit staring at the dishwasher (the bugs would come in through the plumbing). And in the morning, our precious cats would leave us presents all over the house. For whatever reason, I thought that cats would eat crickets. But nooo, our precious kitties would just play with them and pull off their legs off, leaving dismembered cricket bodies and legs all over. If I would walk around the house without shoes on, I risked stepping on a cricket leg! Ugh...!

Well, I ended up having the bugman out again last week. The owner showed up and did a really great job and our problem seems to be under control. So learn from us, trust the bugman, he knows what he's talking about!

A dismembered cricket-notice the missing back, right leg...

The missing leg...found across the kitchen. Gross!

One up...one down!

Eric finished his OBGYN rotation last week. He's already done! It was definitely a tough one, though. Eric is glad, however, that he had his first rotation in a hospital setting. He will now be prepared for his surgical rotation next month. Just knowing what he's supposed to do in the hospital, how to work the computer systems and how to get through an on-call night will be a big help for this future rotations.
This month, Eric is doing his family practice rotation. It's so cool that Eric knows what he likes about each rotation and what he doesn't like. With OBGYN, he didn't like the on-call nights. He liked delivering babies, but knew that it wasn't for him. Now with family practice, he can tell already that it's too slow paced for him. Also, he can tell that he wants to specialize in an area. Instead of having to know about everything but not really be able to do much, he'd rather be the expert in a certain area.
This rotation is going to be much easier than the last as well. It's still about the same commute, but there is no on-call nights and if there are no patients, Eric gets to go home! Oh, and there is no shelf exam at the end (the standardized exam the students take after each rotation). So he should have one easy month!

Our Vacation *Warning: Long Post!!*

Eric and I went on vacation at the end of June. We went back to Illinois and had a great time visiting with friends and family, going up to the cabin in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and just spending time in our old romping ground. The trip was so much fun and we had a great time spending time with each other as well.

We got there on Friday, June 20th and stayed in town for the weekend. I was able to squeeze in a girls' night out with my college roommates. We had so much fun. I really miss those girls!

Danielle and Me

Michele, me and Lisa

The next week, Eric, his mom and I drove up to the UP. It is always so relaxing to go up there. Since Uncle John and his family were staying in the kids' cabin, Eric and I stayed in Grandma and Grandpa Fase's coach house. It's a bedroom and bathroom they built above their garage and it is so nice! I wish I'd taken a picture of it now. Grandma used a lighthouse theme in her decorating and it is just so cute!

While we were there, we enjoyed visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Fase during "wine time" every afternoon, our annual day trip on our anniversary to Marquette, MI and visiting all the local waterfalls. It was just a lovely visit.

The view of Steven's Lake from Grandpa Fase's deck while we played skipbo.

We stopped on the side of the road on our way to Marquette to go down to the beach

Isn't Lake Superior so beautiful? Here is the pier in Marquette. We just love this town and always go to the same restaurant when we are there, The Vierling.

Here are a few of the pictures of the waterfalls and other places we visited the next day.

Eric and me at Munising Falls

Here's the view of Miner's Castle on Lake Superior. It was SO pretty!

At the end of the week, we drove back down to Chicago and saw the Jersey Boys Broadway show with Eric's Mom and Dad. Now, Eric and I might have been a little young for the show, but it was still enjoyable and I couldn't believe I knew all but 2 songs! If you don't know about the show, it's the story behind Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and how the group was formed. It was such a fun show and we had "Walk Like a Man" and "Big Girls Don't Cry" stuck in our heads for days afterward.

Towards the end of the vacation, Eric's dad flew us down to Peoria, IL to go fishing. I'd been fishing many times before in my life, but I'd never caught a fish. It was so much fun! Eric's dad always fishes on some company property that was built to be a landfill but ended up not being used. So it's this beautiful land with a few lakes and tons of wildlife and now they let farmers graze their cows on it. And did I catch a fish? Umm...yes! Within a few minutes of being on the lake, I'd caught one! We fished for a few hours and I caught 9 fish! Eric's dad kept saying it was because he'd given me the special lure because he only caught one fish and Eric didn't catch any. On our way back, we chased some rain storms to wash the helicopter and then when we got back, Eric's cousins, Mike and Lizzie, wanted a ride with "Uncle Woger" so dad took them up. It was so fun to see Mike so excited. Below are some of the pictures from the fishing trip...

We had so much fun on our vacation and can't wait to go back to see everyone!

My husband actually did that???!!!!

So, the big news in the Groen household today is that Eric delivered a baby! He did it! My husband!!!!!!!! I just think that is the coolest thing ever.
He has been getting really good at delivering placentas and taking cord blood, but yesterday he really put his skills to the test and delivered the baby. I'm so proud of him!
He was also on call with a doctor who really enjoys teaching. Most of the doctors just tolerate the med students and really only teach when the students bug them enough, but there is one that Eric just started working with who really loves teaching and is really challenging Eric. With her, Eric got to practice suturing during a ceasarean and got to help out with a tubal ligation. Too bad yesterday was Eric's first day working with her and he only has a week and a half left in OBGYN, but I know he's definitely going to be making the most of the time he has left.