The Grove Adventures...

01 May 2016

Springtime in South Louisiana

These are the last of the highlights from the springtime in Baton Rouge. This catches me up to about May 2016, which I will get to posting soon. We got to visit with some friends and we had some family come to visit us! We did the St Patrick's Day parade in Baton Rouge. Went to a country trivia night at Owen's work. Went to Abita Springs to tour the brewery. Enjoyed the beautiful weather and sightseeing in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Had several crawfish boils. Did lots and lots of cycling, including a 100 mile ride!! We made sure to find time for lots of fun activities during our days off from work, knowing that once residency was to start in the summer, free time would be very limited. Here are some photos of our springtime adventures in south Louisiana!

Visit with Alie and Sean during Owen's interview in Shreveport

Lots and lots of cycling with Clint!

Houma House in the back

100 mile ride!! No pictures, severe sunburn, but we did it!

Sunny days in Baton Rouge

Old Capital Building in BR

Abita Brewhouse

Spring rains (not the ones that caused the serious flooding this summer), Owen rode his bike through the flooded path

St Patrick's Day celebrations

Trivia night fundraiser at Owen's work, country themed!

Mark came to visit, so of course we had to have some crawfish!

Riding on the levee

Perfect day in New Orleans

Tore and Tony came to visit!

Swamp tour (I had to work, but Owen, Tore and Tony had a great time and saw this huge alligator!)

Owen and Tore climbing at the park down the street

just one of the many crawfish boils we went to....so good!

15 April 2016

Match Week Celebrations!

After a long year and a second round of residency match cycle, we finally made it to match week 2016! Praise the Lord the news was much better this time! We found out that Monday that Owen matched into a Family Medicine residency, though we did not find out where until Friday, since that's how the match process works. We decided that Monday was really the big celebration for us, since just having a position was what was most important, so we went out for a really fancy dinner at Juban's in Baton Rouge. Owen had talked about making that our match celebration dinner since the year before! We got the hallelujah crab and it was awesome! It was such a nice evening together, we dressed up, even had drinks and dessert with our crab, it was great. Owen also surprised me with a beautiful new necklace, to celebrate and thank me for my support through this whole process, it was such a sweet gesture. I am so proud of all that he has accomplished and we feel so blessed that he is in a great residency!

That Friday of match week we found out that he matched into the Rural FM program in Bogalusa, Louisiana!! We were so excited to be staying in Louisiana and less than 2 hours from Baton Rouge! We celebrated with Clint, Paula, Barron, and Allison by having a crawfish dinner at the house. Here's some pictures from our celebrations! Thank you to all our family and friends who have supported us along this crazy journey! SO happy to share this great news with you!

Crawfish boil to celebrate staying in Louisiana!

With our Hallelujah crab at Juban's

Beautiful black pearl necklace Owen gave me

02 April 2016

Mardi Gras

Since we live in Louisiana (at this time wasn't sure if we would be here for more than just the year) I of course wanted to see Mardi Gras. Fortunately my good friend Meg let me tag along with her, some friends, and her cousin to do the whole Mardi Gras thing, but in a more family friendly, safe, fun way (not rowdy or inappropriate). The weather was perfect for it. It really was a lot of fun and most of Mardi Gras is not what people think of, that's only select parades in select areas. I hope to make it back again, since we are in Louisiana for a few more years! Now to make some crafts with all my beads!

End of the first night, those beads are heavy! Absolutely nothing inappropriate was done for these beads!

Beautiful day for round 2!

Time to get crafting!

01 April 2016

Races

So I realize I have been terrible about updating the blog this year. I'm going to do a couple quick posts with picture highlights of 2016. I will attempt to keep it updated more often, though really life is settling into a routine and there's not as much to post about these days. I will try to get pictures up at the very least, especially for those who do not use Facebook.

First post will highlight some of the races we did in early 2016. Owen did his first Marathon and I did my first Half Marathon! I also did a 10k the following month, and a 5k after that. Owen did a mountain bike race!