Our 4th Anniversary

When I came home form work, there was this beautiful fruit basket creation and 2 dozen gorgeous yellow roses waiting for me from my husband of four years! How crazy is it that we've been married for 4 years already?! We then had a special dinner at home. I made some of Mike's favorite polish foods that we usually only eat once a year at christmas at my parents' house. We had barszcz (polish beet soup) with uszka (dumpling with mushroom filling) and salatka (polish potato salad).

caroline thoughts

i'm just sitting thinking about life and such...it's sunday and i'm up early to see if i can get some work done on paper #2. by the way GOD blessed the beegeezies out of me on my last paper which i was really stressing over and i got a wonderful grade. GOD has just been so faithful to me through my whole PA education....it's so awesome to truly see His hand at work in your life. i did some studying and cleaning yesterday and michael put some shelves up in the attic and did some organizing up there...it looks pretty awesome and will be a great space saver. mike's been applying to numerous jobs so please be praying for God to open and close the right doors and just guide Him to the job best suited for mike to serve and utilize his gifts as well as feel satisfaction and enjoyment in his work. i'm also feeling pretty burnt out and i go to OB/GYN rotation starting next week so i might have crazy hours. mike and i will be married 4 years coming up here next month so that's pretty exciting. ok, well hope everyone has a great weekend!

saturday morning

so it's sat morning and mike is still sleeping...i get up early and he loves to sleep in. thoughts are just running through my mind about "the plan." i graduate in august and i'm not sure what God has in store for us next. do we stay here? move back to FL? or move somehwere new all together? i guess i would like to ask for prayer regarding what the future holds and also about jobs for both me and mike. pray for ministry opportunities as well.
so i'm just enjoying the peace of the morning.....mike is going to church to help with maintenance and cleaning stuff and i unfortunately have to go to the library and work on my paper which is due in 3 weeks and is the the biggest pain in my bum. pray about that too. ok, well hope everyone has a great weekend.

an update

hi friends and family,
i'm currently in my transplant surgery rotation and just finished cardiothoracic surgery 2 weeks ago. time is flying by and i only have 2 more rotations after this one. i can't wait because we get a little break in may!!!! things are good...mike is working and still applying for a variety of jobs that might be a little more rewarding for him. i'm just busy with school. it's been very cold here in CT but without much snow. we'rehoping for a little snow so we can maybe go snowboarding one of these weekends. not much else is new. we're really enjoying our church and have met some great people there. we go to life group on mondays and mike has guys night on thursdays. we miss everyone and love hearing from all of you!

smith family and friends at christmas

celebrating christmas

we celebrated christmas multiple times this year. we celebrated with phill, tomi, hampton (tomi's brother) and krystal first. we had a wonderful christmas breakfast and gift exchange with them. phill unfortunately had to work that evening.

christmas

what a cute couple of parents

here are some much delayed christmas photos
polish christmas eve dinner at the rudnicki's
dishing out the barszcz (polish beet soup with muchroom dumplings) delicious!

O' tannenbaum

Christmas with the Rudnicki Family

Here's the rudnicki family minus philip. we celebrated christmas breakfast earlier with phill, tomi and krystal. we then had our traditional christmas eve dinner with mom, dad and michael. it gets crazy trying to arrange everyone's schedules. it was still nice to see everyone.

the parents

my baby brother...all grown up... and sooo handsome!

update

well it has been forever since we have posted anything...we've been a little busy with the holidyas. we drove to FL for the holidays and were able to see our families and friends which was hectic but really fun.

hey everyone.... not much new with us going on. it's just starting to get cold here in new england and we had our first snow flurry yesterday...but not enough to last. we're getting excited about seeing family for the holidays and just getting away for a few days. mike's new job is going well and i'm in my pediatrics rotation. my exam is this next friday!!!!! so.....i'm supposed to be studying right now. ok...hope everyone is enjoying the holiday hustle and bustle!!! we're definitely missing friends and family this time of the year.

this is a random christmas picture from last year.

~thanksgiving with friends~

Appetizers to start........ and then there's more

thanksgiving......the main course

Thanksgiving at Mike and Caroline's

We decided to host a Thanksgiving dinner for a few friends at our house. We had a really good time. I made my first turkey! We also had ham and all the other goodies and a ton of desserts. It was our first thanksgiving apart from our families so we used both of our mom's recipes and combined the traditions to make our own dinner. Thanks to both moms for always putting together a wonderful meal. We miss our family and friends :) On the actual day of thanksgiving we were able to have dinner with a family from church who graciously invited us and that was also really nice. We've really been blessed by the church we attend.

PA get together between rotations

we always try to get together and hang out a bit before we move on to the next rotation....so here are some of the PA people. Also, the gators beat the mess out of western carolina 62-0 on this day...GO GATORS!

mmm.....what's new

well, michael recently got a new job working in an office that helps paroled inmates acclimate into society and find jobs, create resumes etc. the hours for this job are 9-5pm mon-fri so it's nice to be able to have the same schedule. michael liked his previous job but the hrs wre thurs-mon 2:30-10:30pm so that was hard. anyway, i just wrapped up my "family practice" rotation and start my pediatrics rotation on monday. i have 4 more roations left and then one more semester of classes/examinations. my graduation date is august 11th...can't wait. we've been missing everyone around tis holiday time but enjoying the seasons here in new england. fall is beautiful and i'm actually excited for the snow to come.

oopsies

i guess mike and i both decided to post about fall foliage so enjoy our fall pictures....twice :)

fall foliage

New England Fall foliage

mike and i live about 2 miles away from this beautiful little state park called westrock ridge state park. fall is really beautiful and we wanted to take some pics before all the leaves fall.

Fall in Connecticut

Here we are enjoying a chilly day surrounded by lovely fall foliage at our most frequented state park, West Rock Ridge.