Flip Cup Tourney 2010

Ah, the flip cup tournament!  

It's the traditional end to ZIPS rush: Friday night, the Train Station downtown, and head-to-head flipping competition.

Teams "recruit" members and start practicing, well, that night.  But it's serious competition.

ZIPS Officers filling in the bracket

"Dr. Wicks's Flippers" team members Nishel and Candice practiced hard before the competition started.  The team is Nishel, Candice, Ashley, and Michelle.  They won our D2 year, were topped last year in the finals and were looking to take back the trophy this year.  Sadly, they lost to the same team in the semis.  

Peru Reunion!

Me, RJ, Leslie, and Candice

D4 girls

Michelle, Leslie, Candice, Nishel, Megan, and me

D4 class picture

Not a great picture, but a great group of people!

At the end of the night, a group of D2s won the tournament.  No D4s even made the finals, but we had a great time anyway.  It was a great end to our Rush week! 

AAWD Wine & Cheese

AAWD is an organization that has become near and dear to my heart over the past two years.  I've written about it before when we had our Senior Appreciation Tea.  AAWD is a national organization that was formed by a group of women dentists who saw the need to support each other not only in everyday work, but also in education, product development, and home life, and that remains the core of the organization today.  


This year I have the pleasure of serving as President of Tennessee's student chapter.  We have an amazing group here at UT, not only students, but also faculty and administration who have helped us build from the ground up over the last 5 years or so.  


Our big kick-off event every year is our Wine & Cheese Party.  Need I say more?  


The foundation that manages the Woodruff-Fontaine Home, a beautiful Victorian in Memphis's Victorian Village, is very gracious every year and allows us to use the Lee Fontaine Carriage House for the party.  It is an amazing place!  They have been renovating over the past 3 years and recently finished the Bridal Suite upstairs.  Mrs. Lovell, the foundation President, showed Dr. Harrison and me around before we set up, and it was beautiful.  Amazing to think they used to keep horses there.

Lauren, Nicole, me, and Katie

The calm before the storm!  We were in the kitchen waiting on the girls to arrive with the food.  Just after this you would have thought a hurricane had come through.

Enjoying the party in white - as Katie put it, "it's almost Labor Day!"

Sweet Jessi, another UA Chi Omega!  It has been so much fun having her here in Memphis. I had to twist her arm to get her to come because the D1 class had a quiz the next day in their morphology class.  Her stress brought back a lot of memories about starting dental school and having to learn the ropes ... when it's necessary to freak out, when it's not ... mostly just falling back on verses like Matthew 6:27, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?".  Forgetting that, dental school could involve a LOT of worry.  

My Clinic Coordinator, Dr. Blen.  He is AWESOME.  I could not have asked for a better dentist to have as a coordinator.  He is to-the-point, funny, helpful, full of applicable advice, and he lets us make our own mistakes and learn from them.  Talking on an iPhone?   Not his strong suit.  HA.  He was a good sport about it, though, and let me take his picture!

Our Clinical Director, Dr. Seeburg, and his wife, Marcia

Dr. Seeburg has been an excellent addition to UT; it is great to see him walking around the 4th floor every day.  

Whew!  Finally sitting down and enjoying a minute with friends.

D4 Class Picture with Dr. Harrison, our faculty advisor

back row, from left: Valerie, Denise, Rebecca, Angie, Ashley, Michelle, Clair, Lauren, Nicole, Candyce, Joi, Dr. Harrison

Friday it was back to ZIPS events, so watch for another post soon!

Flight

Isn't that a great name for a restaurant?

Okay, I must admit that I have never actually eaten there, but I've heard it's fabulous.  I used to go to the former restaurant, Stella, quite frequently so I don't know why I always forget about it!  hmmm...anyway, the topic at hand... 

Fraternity Rush!

This is not your typical "Greek Life" from college, although I do miss those days.  (Chi Omega just got 104 new members Saturday.  104! Oh, I miss my days at the Chi-O house!)  The dental school fraternities are laid-back, co-ed organizations that basically operate just to provide a social outlet for students outside of the stresses of our two little blocks in the medical district.  We encourage the D1s to get involved, whichever organization they choose.

I missed our first 'Rush' event last Monday due to another meeting, so I was ready to go on Wednesday.  We had our annual cocktail party at the aforementioned Flight, which is one of my favorite events all year!  After wearing scrubs 5 days a week it is nice to remember what it's like to look nice.  And wear heels.

Michelle and me

happy to be out of clinic and out on the town!

We survived both Dr. Beaupre AND Dr. Durdik together at the UA.  Steve and I can conquer anything.  

It was so great to catch up with Jessica!  She just had a baby.  I know, you wouldn't have known, would you?  Baby E was at Anna's playing for the night so Mrs. Gambill could come celebrate the beginning of her back-to-school, too!  

Beautiful Ashley, my fellow football fan, birthday twin, and basically just a-mazing girl!  I'm so glad we had that conversation a year ago where I said, "um, why aren't you applying to dental school?!?" and Ashley just looked at me and smiled.  Now here she is in Memphis with me!

Jessica (D1), Ashley (D1), me, Sarah (D3), Megan (D3), and Stefania (an Italian exchange student)

I'm slowly but surely meeting the D1s and learning their names.  Emphasis on slowly.

And a few D1s whose names I didn't need to learn:

Some of my faves from the UA!  

Lance, who worked for Dr. Hays, and Jessi and Nicole, both Chi-Os a few pledge classes behind me.  The Chi-O hootie-hoos are taking over UT!

It was nice to get out and enjoy time with friends away from school.  This was just the first celebration of many last week, so there will be many more posts and pictures to come in the next few days!

Happy Monday!

Weekend Whirlwind

This past weekend I travelled across my favorite state to visit some of my favorite people.  All-in-all I spent about eleven hours in the car and was away from home for less than 48 hours, but the whirlwind roadtrip was just what I needed.

I left early Saturday morning with Sooie in tow to go to her friend Bella's house (Ashley's), where she was going to spend the day and night playing.  I just have to say, I love that when I call my parents to let them know I'm going to be gone, they don't even ask, "where are you going?" or something along those lines, but immediately, "who is keeping Sooie?!?"  Oh, they are already like grandparents!

She has figured out that something is up ... even though I packed her bag (lots of tail-wagging and bouncing around involved), "her" seat is not empty and the leash is mysteriously still on.  Note the confused/slightly angry face that she is not going to go on this trip.

After dropping Sooie off at Ashley's, I headed off to Bentonville!  About 45 minutes later than I intended.  Oops.  I was on my way to NWA for my friend Kelsie's bridal shower, so I was on a bit of a schedule.  Arkansas, here I come!

Okay, I don't recommend taking pictures while you're driving, but these are two of my landmarks:  the first is the I-30/I-40 split in Little Rock.  After Little Rock, the drive becomes infinitely prettier!  Then, on I-540, the tunnel, which to me, was always that sign that we were getting close to Fayetteville on a football game weekend (or that I was close to getting back to school).

On this trip, though, this is what happened when I was in the tunnel:

Hello, gas light.  Don't you know I need to get to Bentonville?

So, I stopped in Fayetteville.  Whew, full tank, made it to the shower.

The beautiful bride!

Kelsie's friend Megan gave her this cute "K" apron.  We can just ask Jared's Aunt Tina what it is for.  I'm so glad I was able to celebrate with Kelsie!  Less than one month until the big day.

After the shower I drove back to Conway and spent the night with Erica.  We took no pictures.  :(  Of course!  It's like we have a disease when it comes to taking pictures.  I told her yesterday that this will be the one hiccup on our path to world domination ... we will not have a picture to put on the posters.  If you know me and Erica, you know this is not far from the truth.  :)  After endless hours of catching up Saturday night and church Sunday, I reluctantly came back to Memphis and real life.

Such great friends, such a great weekend.

Katie had a birthday!

I love birthdays.  Is it your birthday?  Your half-birthday?  Let's celebrate!  I'll bring the cake! 

I have had a [small...okay, huge] obsession with birthdays as long as I can remember.  Growing up, my parents made a really big deal about our birthday.  Not the present, but the day itself.  Your birthday was your day, the day that was all about celebrating how special you were!  This is something that has stuck with me as I've gotten older; each of my friends' birthdays is a day that, more than any other day, I try to let them know how much they mean to me, how blessed I am to have them as a friend, and how special I think they are!  I sincerely hope that they know I am thankful for them everyday, but know that I am guilty of not expressing that enough. 

Thus, the birthday extravaganza. 

I know, I know, call me obsessed, overzealous, and out-of-control, but come your birthday, there will be a party, and I will be making you a cake.  And telling you happy birthday.  Starting about a week in advance ...

My sweet friend Katie had a birthday Saturday.  She was out of town last weekend, so we opted to hold off on her big celebration until Wednesday (our first test was Tuesday).  She chose Bosco's for her belated birthday dinner.  Her request for cake was vanilla cupcakes with strawberry frosting; they were her request last year and were the hands-down favorites from all of our celebrations. 

me, the beautiful birthday girl Katie, and her pretty pink cupcakes

(if you have ever met Katie, you know that pink frosting with sprinkles was RIGHT up her alley!)

We had a wonderful time laughing, catching up, and eating lots of delicious food.  We laughed about clinic stories, the joys of [finally!] being D4s, stresses, and professors.  Then a department chair stuck his head in our little room and waved.  Oops.  (Good thing we didn't say anything about him! Lesson - your momma was right, you NEVER know who is listening!)

Leslie, Ashley, me, Katie, and Nishel

(as you can see, we cleaned our plates!)

Katie and Nina

(Poor girls, they were doing lab work until after six.  Are you jealous?  I'm not!)

Jeni and Clair

After we ate, we enjoyed our cupcakes and Katie opened her gift:

Yep, those are cat potholders and a "blond" scrubbrush!  Katie just moved into her own apartment last year and has been having fun stocking her kitchen!  Jeni did a great job finding things that screamed "Katie".

To mix things up a little from last year, I made this year's cupcakes vanilla with a strawberry filling and buttercream frosting.  This picture is so ugly since the filling smeared, but I was wanting to dig in and didn't want to pause to take another one!

Oooh, the deliciousness.  One day I will be super-saavy and take pictures of my baking like my friend Kendall.  Until then, I'll just direct you to the recipes.  The cupcake batter was  "Ultimate Vanilla Cake" from last year's March issue of Southern Living.  Both the filling and buttercream came from Nick Malgieri's book Perfect Cakes.  (I wasn't able to find those recipes online, but I believe the book is about $25 and has a lot of delicious recipes - a good investment if you want to start baking from scratch.)

Ashley was so excited that she wanted a picture with hers.

Oh, so much fun!  I am already looking forward to our next celebration.

Happy birthday, dear Katie!