Boo

Here's our sweet dog Haley. I've been trying not to post a picture of her yet because I know we take way too many. I couldn't help it this time since she has a pumpkin bandanna.

Fasting

I have heard many people at church and Bible studies refer to fasting as the lost spiritual discipline. Well a doctor I work with told a story about a patient he saw years ago. He told the patient to come back in 14 days fasting for blood work which is something we commonly ask patients to do. The patient called a few days later and said, "Doc, I don't think I can make it a full 14 days." He had been fasting since he left the office!

We went to Augusta this weekend to visit Wes' parents. Saturday was beautiful so we rode bikes at the Augusta Canal, alongside the Savannah River. This is our favorite place to ride. Here are some pictures.

Coz every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man...with a bassoon

I'm pretty excited about a gig this week. It's homecoming week at UGA and the school of music has put together a homecoming concert involving current students as well as alumni. I'll be playing in a chamber orchestra accompanying the university chorus. I'm nervous! I still play bassoon sometimes, but usually not with college kids who are way better than me. I even had to submit a "headshot" and bio for this thing. I've never needed a headshot before, so I had to create one in a hurry. My friend and coworker Jeanne took this in front of the fine arts building at school. Hopefully it will suffice. It's hard not to look good with a bassoon! Now you see why Blakely can't control herself. If only I could find a rotating seat strap so I could spin my bassoon around like ZZ Top...

Here are some other shots I considered using:

Soul To Soul

Patrick, my brother, works for MAC presents in Nashville-see link. Among other things, his company sets up concerts and arranges sponsors for concert tours. Patrick has done some pretty cool things. He books Vanderbilt's concerts every year in Nashville. Here's a picture of him with Coolio before a concert. Patrick had to pick him up from the airport and drive him to Target to get some t-shirts before the show.

This summer he spent on a bus touring with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill because his company arranged for JEEP to sponsor their tour. He was in charge of setting up all the JEEP stuff at each venue, including Tim and Faith's personal JEEP, and arranging the pre-show concert they did for a small group of VIPs. In Atlanta, he was able to get my family in for the VIP pre-show concert with Tim and Faith. It was so much fun! We were within a couple feet from them! Here are some pictures. The tour is now up for an award by Billboard for their sponsorship deal. Here's a link to go on and vote. http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/marketing_promo.jsp

"Foolish" Oswald

I know Wes and Nick don't want me to get "all deep" on the blog but I read something in "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers that I thought was so good this morning. I read the book in college and I still like reading a day's devotion every now and then because it is so great. Plus, I know my grandfather has read it every day for years and it's cool to know what he may be thinking about for the day. Anyway, here's something from today, "When looking back on the lives of men and women of God, the tendency is to say, 'What wonderfully keen and intelligent wisdom they had, and how perfectly they understood all that God wanted!' But the keen and intelligent mind behind them was the mind of God, not human wisdom at all. We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were "foolish" enough to trust God's wisdom and His supernatural equipment." I hope to be known when I die as a person who was "foolish" enough to trust God!

Punky Brewster

I usually get comments from patients about how young I am, like, "Are you even old enough to drive?" A few weeks ago, I had a patient who was brought in by his grandparents. When I was still in the exam room, the grandfather said to his wife, "I didn't know we were getting a Punky Brewster doctor today!" Do I look like Punky Brewster? I actually really liked her show when I was little so maybe I'll take it as a compliment.

My Turn

Yeah-we're bloggin'-Thank you Sullivans for your help this weekend convincing Wes that we should blog! We had an eventful weekend and now everyone can hear about it. Friday night we spent at GAC as usual for the football game with the band (which won their division in the competition last weekend-Go Spartans!) Saturday night we went with Sarah and Nick to a Roswell Ghost Tour which was interesting. It was fun and fun to laugh at. Our favorite quote from the guide was, "As paranormal investigators, we rely soley on scientific data...and mediums." Then Sunday after church we went to lunch with the Sullivans, hiked stone mountain, and went to dinner with the Goldens. Thanks to Chris and Katy, I now have a new favorite restaurant, Chow Baby-where you create your own stirfry-yum!

"Those Minty Chocolates"

That's what Blakely wanted to title this blog. Can you believe it? It's that kind of thing that kept me from wanting to start a blog for so long. We even had an argument this afternoon over the web address for our blog, but I won't get into that. I've already had to exercise veto power twice and our blog is just hours old. This could get ugly. Special thanks for the creation of this blog are due the Siples and Sullivans. Without their ultra-cute blogs I would still have time on my hands to play guitar and watch Fox News before hitting the books.

Minty Chocolate (aka "MC"): out