Here are some pics of the VA Tech campus and memorial area on the drillfield. There was a little basket of flowers with a flag for each student that was killed. The building pictured is Norris Hall, where the tragedy occured.

Colton enjoyed dying Easter eggs with Aunt Sonya and Momma.

JACKSON DEAN BYRD

Born April 4th, 2007

Oh so cute!!!

Colton was very excited for baby brother to come home! He just wanted to kiss and hug him!

Update

Hello, sorry it's been so long......for some reason I just avoid my computer once I get home, except for a quick email check. Well, first off, we have a new nephew, Jackson Dean Byrd, born on April 4. I will be posting pics soon. He seems to be blond and maybe blue eyed!

Things are starting to be "normal" again, at least for Aaron and I, since the VA tech shooting almost two weeks ago. We were able to go and see the memorials and it was overwhelming. Thankfully, we were not directly affected, but we both know people who knew people who were victims. We are praying for opportunities to share and encourage while so many hearts are open to hear and listen.

So, we found out today that Aaron did not get the CMDA scholarship he applied for, but that's ok. We know that God is in control and will continue to provide for us in other ways. We are praying about applying with Project Medsend. So.....we'll see. Right now Aaron has two weeks left in this block, then he will have a week off. After that his next two blocks are back to back with no break until the end, which is July 20th. The END of CLASSES!! But then he will be studying for boards up until August 30th, which is the big day! Please pray for him to be able to prepare for this big test.

I have 6 more weeks of school left!! I am very ready for a break. Well, I guess that's about it for now. I'll try to post some pics soon. Have a good week.

Pictures

Me & Alicia Alicia's new house

My Handsome husband & Me

The beautiful Bride....Sara Bonner

The UT Gals:Me, Steph, Sara, and Beth

I had a great weekend with my best friend, Alicia, who is "with child"!! And just moved into a new house that is beautiful!! I'm so glad we don't live forever away from each other and can still visit on the weekends :). Here's some pics of us and her house and of sara & wade's wedding. have a good week!

March Madness!!

Hello everyone, sorry it's been so long, we' ve been pretty busy lately. My friend, Sara Scribner got married a couple of weeks ago, now Sara Bonner. The wedding was beautiful and it was great to see a lot of my friends. Aaron has officially started studying for his boards, which are August 30. Lots of exciting things are going on this month.......such as......my sister, Carla, could possibly have her baby this month. She takes her last progesterone shot March 15th, and will stay in her system about a week. She could have the baby anytime after that. Also, our friends Michelle & KJ are expecting and she is due March 28th. Also my best friend, Alicia, is pregnant and they find out whether it is a boy or girl on March 26th. Finally, my brother Michael and his wife Katy will complete their final step in "their part" of the adoption process, which is having a home visit on March 15th. Then they have to wait for the paperwork to be processed and wait for their "approval letter." After that they could become parents at anytime :). I am so excited about all the blessings of new life God is giving our family.
God has also been answering a lot of prayers for our neighbors and given us a lot of opportunities to minister to them. My neighbor, Brenda, is hopefully coming to church with us in the morning and I'm excited about that. Her and I have started having bible study at our house every Thursday night which has been really good. I'm excited to see what God has planned for her in the future. God has also given us opportunities to hang out with our other neighbors who are in middle school. I really enjoy hanging out with them and getting to talk to them about spiritual things too. It reminds me of doing YOKE back in Knoxville, which I miss a lot.
Our girls bible study has now started our Beth Moore, Believing God study, which is going really well. We have about 14 girls in our group who are all Med school wives. Ummm......well, I think that is about all I have to talk about right now. Just some random information, aaron and I watched The Lakehouse last night and it was actually a good, clean movie. Hope you all are well and I'm sure I'll have some exciting updates soon. BYE

It's all about Clint (almost)

Well my older brother Clint says he never sees his picture on our blog... Clint this blog's for you!

Here's a bit about my older brother. He's a great brother and friend. He calls to see what's going on with Sonya and me. He loves his niece and nephew! He enjoys a good movie and loves to give gifts, whether it's candy to our neice or a TV (he bought us a TV for our wedding present!!) He is a solid guy who loves God. He works for the evil empire (coke) and without him I think they would probably have to just shut down. We used to play when we were younger and somehow he talked me into jumping out of my sister's 2nd floor window and I ended up hitting my knee on my chin and bitting my tongue. He has always bought me a birthday present, even when he was broke. And one year when I was in college he took me grocery shopping and bought me ALL kinds of food that I want but would never buy! He loves getting people addicted to good TV shows, such as 24, Lost, Alias, and Heros. He sends the funniest forwads on email. Usually I just delete forwards unless it is from clintasaurus. He's 6 ft 9 inches tall and as strong as an ox! Well I guess I could go on and on but duty calls. Clint hope you liked this blog dedicated to you!

And here's a few pics of our trip home a few weeks ago.
Here's Gavin, not his best picture but he sure is cute!

And here's Caryss striking a pose on my guitar case (thanks for changing the strings Daniel!)

Nieces and Nephews

Well we went home a few weeks ago for Caryss's 3rd birthday party. It was so wild I (Aaron) injured myself. The party was at "Pump it up" in west knoxville and there were a bunch of big air blown up slides and stuff. I ended up doing a relay and going down a slide that said "feet first only". I saw that sign as I was face planting going down the slide. I recovered nicely though.

Well we had our first real snow this past Tuesday. We ended up getting about 1 inches here in Christiansburg but Giles Co. where Sonya works must have had more because she was out wed. thur and now she's out friday but she has to do some home visits up there tomorrow.

I had 3 exams this past week, and I have 2 next week and then 4 the next week, which is finals week. Then a break, but over the break I'll begin studying for my boards examinations. I take the boards in Knoxville on Aug. 30th of this year. We bought a new car a few weeks ago! It's a 2003 Dodge Intrepid. It was Sonya's dad's work car and he was able to sell it to us once the lease was over. I am currently attempting to clean and wax my truck to sell it, but it's tough when it hasn't been above 32 since sometime in January.

This is my first attempt to put a video on our blog, but let me tell you all the hastle of it is worth it for this funny video. It's our nephew colton who is 2, working out and tell us his name at the end. So here goes nothing. I hope it works! Just click on it, maybe twice




Here's some pictures too!
This was us singing happy Birthday to Caryss at Sunday lunch, I think I should have taken the hint!

January Update

I haven't REALLY updated in a while, except for pictures, so here it goes..... Things are going pretty good here in VA. I'm still working in 3rd grade and Aaron is half-way through his second year of med school! Praise the Lord! It hasn't really felt like winter here yet because there hasn't been any snow and it's been as warm as 70 degrees sometimes. I am anxious for some snow to come our way so that I can stay home and sleep in!!!
There is a little bit of new news with us......we are suppose to be getting a new car, (was my dad's company car), hopefully this weekend, which will be nice. Aaron is especially excited because he will be driving it and won't have to worry about his truck dying on him. Also, we found out where Aaron will be doing his rotations next year. He will be in Blacksburg for 3 months, Radford for 1 month(which are both 10 minutes away), Marion for one month(which is 1 hour & 10 min away), and Wytheville for four months(which is about 45 minutes away). So this is the plan, but as we have found out from other students, these plans can change for any given reason really. It is hard to believe that Aaron will be starting rotations in September! But before that he has to take his boards, probably August 30th. For those of you who do not know, this is probably the HARDEST test he will have to take while becoming a doctor. So, please be praying for him as he starts to prepare and study for it. Pray that God will continue to give him discipline and motivation and encouragement. God is really empowering him to learn and study and have a good attitude during this time.
On a lighter note, I'm contemplating getting a dog. We have a little backyard that would be pretty good for a dog, but we would need to enclose it so that we don't have to keep it on a leash. I have stopped by the animal shelter to look at the dogs that are up for adoption. There are a few cute ones. Cute and friendly are about my only criteria. And this would be an outside dog, which is shocking to most people who live around here. I think I sound harsh and cold-hearted when I tell my friends we would be keeping it outside. But, hey, they are ANIMALS, created by God to be outdoors :). So.......we'll see......I know it's a big responsibility, but I think it would be nice to have a dog around.
I am excited that our girls bible study is planning on starting a new Beth Moore bible study called "Believing God." I've read the book and it was GREAT! So I am really excited to do the workbook and videos. Our bible fellowship class is going well, we would like to see more people coming to class, but we just keep praying.
Oh, and the pictures are of my FIRST HOMEMADE loaf of bread!!!! This is why I need a dog, because I am too excited about bread :). I got a bread machine for Christmas (thanks Laura) and it's pretty neat. I made a multi-grain wheat bread, and it tastes great with butter and honey! Anyway, there are a lot of different recipes I am hoping to test out. So let me know if anyone is a big fan of homemade bread and maybe I can bring you some :).
Ok, well, I guess that's enough updating for now. Hope everyone is having a good January and feel free to come visit anytime. Our latest guest was Craig Wells who stopped by last Friday night. It's always fun to hang out with good friends.
Have a good rest of the week!

More Christmas pictures

Here are some more pictures.....not in any particular order. On the left is my Granny and Pop who live in Middle TN.

On the right is Scott, Colton and Michael enjoying some of Colton's Christmas presents. And below is our annual Christmas photo at my Mom's house. Our family is definitely growing! More family pics...Colton is trying to hide between his mom and dad.
Michael & Katy

Carla & Colton in the Christmas parade.

ok...here are some more pics from Christmas. I was so excited to get to hang out with my best friend, Alicia, and her husband Eric for a little while in TN. Here's a picture of my pregnant sister :)........isn't she cute? she is about 6 months pregnant and they are having another boy!!







Our 2nd Christmas in Virginia!

Just a few more Christmas Pictures

Christmas As Seen Through My Sister's Camera

Aaron Here,
here are a few pictures from last week. We forgot our camera at Sonya's parent's house, so on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents house we had to use my sister's camera to take and then download the pics onto my laptop. We had a great break and a great Christmas!!!



Here's Gavin, he's a lot more exciting this Christmas than he was last year!!



















Caryss Loves Bandaids, and Mermaids... it's actually the same word for her. You aren't sure if she wants to watch little mermaid or if she needs (wants) a bandaid!


















Sonya looking fashionably sexy and Caryss with her "Cheese" smile

















My sister, her husband and their kids... the life of the party. Not laura and david but the KIDS

Lots to be thankful for....

Well, this blog is motivated by my brother, Michael, who was tired of looking at our Halloween pictures! Sorry it's been a long time since i updated....let's see...we had a great Thanksgiving spending time with our families in TN. We always go to my Granny & Pop's in Middle TN for a big family get together. Then we stayed in Knoxville a couple of days. Aaron and his dad went to the UT game, while me, aaron's mom, aaron's sister, laura, and my sister, carla, and my nephews and niece went to Fantasy of Trees. It was a really "festive" place and i think the kids had a lot of fun. Aaron and I were talking on our way home Sunday night just about 'stuff' and we realized that we have not been thanking and praising God enough, but mainly just asking for stuff each day, and we feel like that has really caused us to have a bad perspective on things right now. so we are setting our minds on only praising and thanking God this week and trying not to ask for stuff. so far it has been really great, and God has just reminded us of how much He deserves our praise and worship and how much we have to be thankful for...... hope you all are doing well. we praise God that Aaron did well on one of his tests today, he hasn't found out about the other one yet. we are looking forward to seeing everyone at Christmas. sorry I didn't get any pictures of Gavin, but I will get some this weekend bc they are coming to visit us in VA!!!
Here's Caryss at the Fantasy of Trees.....cute as always!
Colton thinks this tractor is 'trevor' off of Thomas. This is at Granny & Pop's house.
Mom showing off her 'fake flowers' for cake decorating.....they are edible ;)
She's pretty good at this stuff!
Colton before Halloween......he really enjoys trying to scare people.

Halloween party!!!!

Well, few people know how to party on Halloween night like some Christian couples hanging out, dressed up like little kids and playing games that any 7-9 year old would be really good at.

Sonya and I went to a party last night with our friends from church/school and had a great time. No we didn't win the costume competition, or the balloon burst relay, or the swinging apple and doughnut competition, or the balloon stomp game or the drop the skittles in a cup game, or the guess how many pieces of candy are in the glass game... but we did get to go home with a prize just for looking so funny!

We found out that we had to dress up for the halloween party this year at Aubrie and Jason's house (aka candy corn and Geroge Strait in the pictures). while rummaging through our clothes i found some Thai kickboxing shorts that I had bought a few years ago when I was over there. So then my friend Sem in Thailand bought me a shirt which I gave to Sonya to wear... and it all came together, i even oiled myself up to look a little more authenic.

Sonya would kill me if she knew i put the pictures of her "unhumanly busty bosom" on here but it was all part of her costume.

No ghost came to visit us cause they were scared when they saw the sights of me









I had to put a lawsuit against NBC because Law and Order are trademark names for my fists and feet!

So we had lots of fun and acted like we didn't have 50 hours of studying in front of us for the rest of the week.
Our birthdays are coming up so feel free to get us something good!! Good night!

Hiking the Cascades

So last weekend my brother, Michael and his wife, Katy, came to visit us for the weekend. I was so excited for them to come and hang out with us for awhile and they got to come to church with us too. I really miss hanging out with my family, but I'm thankful for the time we do have together. So Aaron took them on a tour of his school and they got to see all the dead people in the anatomy lab, and I actually saw them too for the first time! It is quite interesting :). After church on Sunday we went to hike the Cascades. It is a 69 foot waterfall about 30 minutes from where we live. It was a great day for a hike. Don't worry, this isn't what it looks like, but it does look funny :). Aaron and Michael had to practice self-control to not climb every big rock we came across. Aaron almost fell in while playing on the rocks, but managed to keep himself dry. Although on the way back down he did manage to topple backward over a rock and land on his rump in front of a group of people. But he's okay :). Just hurt his pride a little. Katy & Michael
Me & Aaron
The gang at the falls. It took us about an hour and a half to hike to the top. 2 miles up.
The Cascades! It was very pretty with the trees changing colors too!

Well, I guess all is about the same with us. We went and looked at a car last week, but it wasn't the one. I started with a new client last week, so now I have 4 kids. I am getting really burned out on doing paperwork all the time. Please pray that God would help me do my job well and not get overwhelmed. Aaron's first test in this block is this Friday. He's been doing better with having motivation to study it seems....Praise the Lord. I honestly don't know how he keeps going and studying as much as he does. Our Bible Fellowship class (sunday school) is going really well, there are more and more new people our age showing up at church. It is so encouraging. Well, I think that's about all, I'm going to go eat some lunch now. Have a great week.