legal

On February 23, I finally turned 21 years old! Considering I lived in Austria for a summer where I was legal, I was kind of over the whole "I can legally buy alcohol" thing so I didn't have any type of celebration really! Ha ha But what I did do was spent the weekend with my cousin Lauren, which one one of my favorite things to do! Lauren and I have so much fun together and I was really glad that she spent my birthday weekend with me!

This is Lauren and I at one of the baseball games that were during my birthday weekend! (:

 One night over the weekend, we did go to the Clubhouse (or the Turtle Pit as my Uncle Terry calls it) with some of our friends! This is Lauren, me and Leah on our way to the Clubhouse!

 This is Lauren and I with my first legally bought drink in the United States! (:

I had a wonderful birthday and I am so lucky to have the friends that I do! (:

Tulsa University

This morning was one of the first mornings that I haven't woken up worrying about graduate school. Thinking about it right now, it felt amazing to not have those horrible, stressful things going through my mind. Well, I got up and got ready for therapy just like every other Monday or Wednesday and headed to therapy. At my second therapy site I got an email while I was with my client. After I took my last client back to her class, I checked my email and I found out that...

I GOT ACCEPTED TO TULSA UNIVERSITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited! Tulsa was one of the schools that I was really hoping to get accepted to and I was getting a little discouraged about it. I can't wait to go visit the campus! Hopefully my decision of where to go wont be too difficult to make!! (:

time to take out another loan

    about two weeks ago, i found out that i got accepted in to graduate school and i am so excited about it. i have been stressing out about graduate school for quite some time now. a few of my friends who had applied to schools had already been hearing back from the schools that they had applied to and i hadn't heard anything yet. needless to say, i was about to have a break down! luckily, i contacted the school and found out that they had actually sent my acceptance letter to the wrong address. i was so thankful that i had decided to call and check on it or else i would have lost my spot. but anyway, i mailed in my response form so until i hear back from all of my schools, i will be attending Louisiana tech in the fall and i am very excited about it. Louisiana Tech has a very good speech pathology program and i already know a few people that are going to school there which is great! i was a little bit nervous about starting somewhere 100% new & not knowing a single person so i am anxious to see what happens! (:

    anyway, as of right now, sometime this summer i will be making a move to a brand new place and i am very excited about it! i am anxious to see what is in store for me.

i'm not shutting up & neither should you

I got the title of today's blog from one of my friends. Her name is Judea Jackson. I saw this video yesterday and was more than moved by it. I took action within 2 minutes after the video ended. This video has gone viral and for good reason. Everyone should take a few minutes and watch this video if you have not had the chance to watch it yet; and I mean EVERYONE. I watched it yesterday and was balling my eyes out. They're exactly right too. Up until I saw this video yesterday, I had NO idea who Joseph Kony was and I doubt you do either. Joseph Kony is someone that we need to make famous. We need to make him famous and we need to put a stop to what he is doing. But before we can do that, you have to watch the video. You can say you don't have time to do it right now and that's fine. But take the time to watch it at some point VERY soon. This is our time to make a difference in the world. It's our chance to shape history. We can do something so wonderful for the world and not because it is something that will benefit America in any way, but because it's the right thing to do. So please, watch the video and do something that will make a difference.

Also, Judea posted an amazing entry on her own blog about this subject and I encourage you to read it. There have been people who have not appreciated Invisible Children and Judea gave her thoughts about those people. Please take action in some way to stop Joseph Kony.
http://judeajackson.wordpress.com/

welcome to the world

This morning at 10:01am, God blessed me with one of the most amazing things that I have in my life. My sister had Dean Otis Cooley, my first nephew. I am so happy! He is perfect in every way! He was 8lbs, 12oz and 22 1/4 inches long. I am in love.

honduras

It has been a while since I have blogged and I have quite a bit to blog about now!! First, I will start off with my trip to Honduras. On January 28, my mom and I headed to San Pedro Sula in Honduras with a group of doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists and it was an amazing trip! Once we got to San Pedro Sula, we went to the missionary compound where we stayed for the first night. Sunday morning, we all loaded up on a bus and drove 7 hours in to the mountains to the village of Guajiquiro.

In Guajiquiro, we stayed at a school. The school was on break so it was open for us to use and it was perfect! I mean, it definitely was NOT a 5-star hotel BUT it was everything that we needed and we did amazing things while we were there.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took! It is just a picture of part of the courtyard at the school

This is a picture of the school where we stayed. The rooms were (from the right) a bathroom, the room I stayed in, the kitchen, the medical room/bedroom, and then not pictured were the dental, optical and pharmacy rooms that were also bedrooms as well. Every morning we had to wake up, stack our cots and then set up the rooms again.
This is a picture of one of the cutest little boys that I have ever seen in my life!!!
This is a family that traveled 7 hours to come to our clinic. And when I say traveled 7 hours, I mean that they walked 7 hours down a mountain to come to our clinic and then walked 7 hours back up a mountain. It was so humbling to know that they went through so much just to get a check up and all that I have to do is send a text message to my doctor. They are extraordinary people.
Another adorable child!!!!!
Yet another one. If you haven't noticed yet, I was absolutely in LOVE with the children! They were the cutest in the world!
Throughout the week, we had a group of Honduran staff that helped us with just about everything. They were our movers, handymen, translators, and anything else we needed them to be!! The one in the back in the blue jacket is Jorge, the Honduran dentist. The two on the far right, the one in the hat and the other one in the blue jacket, were my two translators. They were my saviors and were absolutely amazing!
This is me and Mrs. Terry with our translators, Arturo and Jimmy. We worked the first station that all of the patients came to. We took blood pressure, vital signs, and basically just did a quick over look at everyone before sending them to whichever room they needed to go to.
This is Dr. Hagood (who just so happens to be my doctor). He was amazing with all of the Honduran patients.
This is the whole group of us in our matching red t-shirts that we wore on the plane to and from Honduras. The guy in the very front in the Arkansas Razorbacks shirt is Michael. He was the missionary that arranged where we were staying, got our translators, our Honduran staff and basically just took care of every one of our needs while we were there. He was amazing!
This is the medical team. We were the best team throughout the week! :)
Going to Honduras was without a doubt one of the most amazing things that I have ever gotten the chance to do. I was so blessed to have the opportunity to go to Honduras. God provided me with everything that I needed. He helped me raise the money, and everything just fell in to place. I am hoping and praying that I get to go back next year. It is definitely something that I want to continue to do as much as I possibly can!

behind schedule

I have been a little bit behind when it comes to updating this but here's a quick recap! Two weekends ago, my mom, Erin, Mackenzie and I went to Fort Smith to stay with Emilee for the weekend. Unfortunately, it was the weekend before finals week which meant that I got NO studying done what so ever! :/ But Emilee's little belly is growing and it is so cute! :) We just couldn't help but take some pictures with it!!
Finals week was an absolute heart attack! It was absolutely terrible but then again, isn't it always? Before my roommate left though, she gave me my Christmas present! I have always been a little bit sensitive about the fact that Pocahontas is almost never included as a Disney princess and she is never a popular character when it comes to buying things that have her on it. So, when my roommate was in San Antonio earlier this semester, she stopped by the Disney store and they had Pocahontas stuff!! So she was super sweet enough to get me a Pocahontas doll :) As well as a new journal! I was so excited about it all!!
This past Saturday, my mom and I met Erin in Malvern and traded Mackenzie! :) Saturday morning, Mackenzie and I woke up pretty early and just had the urge to bake some cake cookies so we decided to back some! :)
Sunday afternoon, Mackenzie just could not stay inside at all what so ever! So she went outside with papa for about 2 hours! It was so pretty out and she was having so much fun!!!

Monday afternoon when I got home from work, the sky was so pretty! :)
She is just so cute! :)