2010 so far...

So I realize it has been almost a year since our last post. Our apologies. We have been very busy doing all kinds of stuff. Here goes...

Our year started out with a 5k at midnight through the lights at Tanglewood in Winston Salem. It was Martin's first race and he enjoyed it, YAY!














I was gone most of December through January on clinical rotations in Hickory, but we were able to have a great Christmas up in Ohio with Martin's family.

During one of my weekend trips home, we celebrated Martin's Birthday. We went to the Carolina Hurricanes game! We had the best seats in the house...top row. We could see everything! The players may have been ant size, but we had fun!

February and March

One cold weekend in March, we took a drive down to Jordan Lake and went walking/hiking. Its a beautiful lake for boating and fishing. The nice thing about it is that the waterfront is protected by the NC forestry service, so its not commercialized. It was a very nice activity to welcome in Spring.

Also, in the month of March, Daniel proposed to Mandi!!! We are so excited to have her in our family! She really fits right in.

Once spring came around, we went camping to Falls Lake (about 25 minutes away) with our good friends Nathan and Carolyn.

Wicked and Mother's Day

The first weekend in May Daniel and my parents came to Durham for Wicked and Mother's Day. We had a wonderful time eating at Mellow Mushroom, exploring the Durham Tobbacco District, and enjoying the show!

We loved having everyone in our little 1 bedroom apartment. This is my parents getting cozy in between 2 couches and a tv console.

On Mother's Day we went to Duke Gardens along with everyone else in Durham. It was such a beautiful day and the gardens were lovely.

Daniel, talking to Mandi, who was in Rome at the time. This was the biggest smile I had seen on him all weekend!

Class Party

The last week of school, we had a class party. Martin came to Winston Salem to join me and have fun with us! I am just going to say that I have been blessed with wonderful friends in the Wake PA program. We have made some very lasting memories and hope to continue making memories together!

GRADUATION!!!!

After being in school since Kindergarten (minus some summers and my 1.5 year mission in Ukraine), I finally finished on May 17, 2010 with a Masters in Medical Science!

Joan, Terry, and Alex came into town on Friday evening. We got up early Saturday morning, went to the temple, and then headed off to Wrightsville Beach for some fun in the sun! We spent the afternoon there and had a wonderful dinner at a seafood restaurant on the beach. We ate out on the pier with the seagulls and there was even a wedding at the end of the pier that we watched while we were eating. It was a great day!

Sunday was the hooding ceremony at Wake Forest. Afterward, we had a nice dinner with both our parents, Daniel, and Alex.

Monday was graduation. Unfortunately, that day was the first time in 19 years that it rained on graduation day, so we had the ceremony in the basketball arena. It was nice though.

It was a wonderful weekend, and I was so grateful to spend with weekend with my family and that my in-laws drove down from Ohio to celebrate with us!

1 Year Anniversary

Being married to Martin Buchkovich is the most wonderful thing I could ever have imagined for myself, well, I probably couldn't even have imagined it. He is my best friend! I am so grateful to our good friends Seth and Jen Rogerson who set us up on that blind date. I am excited that Martin got my number after that first date, and I am so happy that the rest is history...

The last year has been such a wonderful adventure, and I look forward to the rest of eternity with my amazing husband!

He makes me so happy and he knows me so well! Our celebrations included a bike ride on the American Tobacco trail, a picnic lunch in down town Durham, and a slice of cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory! It could not have been better!

Even though graduation was over, I had a ton of work to do to prepare to take the national PA exam and be ready to work in North Carolina. I spent lots of time studying and praying, and I passed the PANCE and became certified to practice in the state of North Carolina! Now I have joined the 50% of Americans seeking employment...

Summertime FUN!!!

This summer has been crazy busy and tons of Fun! My parents got kyaks recently, and we have made several trips to Hickory to play and spend time with Daniel who is home doing an internship with the City of Hickory. This is how we obtained the next set of pictures, the newest addition to the Baird family...

My dad built them what we like to call the "Biltmore," aka a really fancy chicken house and coup.

They have 10 chickens and are very entertaining to watch! My parents call it "chicken tv". They will potentially start laying eggs in the fall and they lay 1 egg every 24-48 hours for years and years. Eggs anyone???

St. Louis

We took a trip over Memorial Day weekend to visit Terra and Jared and everyone else! The trip was very special because we were able to go to the Temple together with Alex who will be leaving on his mission in the middle of August to Barcelona, Spain! We loved being in the Temple with our wonderful family!

On our drive there, we picked up Austin and Mason, our nephews, in Knoxville and had a fun time in the car telling stories, reading new words, and napping.

Besides going to the Temple, our weekend also included a trip to the FREE St. Louis Zoo, eating at Pappy's Smokehouse, eating custard at Bobby's, yummy food, fruit salsa, s'mores, and walking on trail by Terra and Jared's house. We loved seeing everyone, and missed Nicholas, Natalie, and Weston.

4th of July

We spent the 4th of July in Hickory. Mandi was visiting and we made sure that she was able to see almost all of the wonders of North Carolina. We were even able to go white water rafting on the Nolichucky River in TN earlier that week.

It was a jam-packed weekend (like any other in our family). Martin was able to take Friday off and enjoy a nice 4-day weekend! We went on a triple date to Eclipse on Thursday night. We went to Harper's Creek on Friday. Here's some pics of Martin and Daniel jumping off the rocks next to the waterfall. Some people were going all the way up and jumping off. YIKES! They do have a really nice waterfall down stream from this one that we slid down.

Saturday, we enjoyed the annual pancake breakfast at church. Then Tonya, Dustin, Mason, and Austin came in from Knoxville, and and we spent some time down at the lake swimming, canoeing, and kayaking, and playing cornole. We grilled hamburgers, corn, and roasted hot-dogs for the boys, and had really good homeade pomegranate-blueberry icecream. We caught a few of the fireworks at the Crawdad's stadium.

Week with Austin

Tonya, Dustin, and Mason left on Sunday and left Austin to spend a whole week with Uncle Bunny and Aunt Jennie. We started off by letting the chickens out and playing with them. Austin had a great time watching "chicken tv" and getting them to eat out of his hand.

Monday, we hiked Grandfather Mountain. We weren't sure how Austin, a 5 year-old, would do, but we were determined to go. He enjoyed it, except for one part when we went over one of the ladders. He cried that he wanted to "get out of the sky". A starburst cured that! He did such a great job hiking with us! He was spiderman and then wolverine, and had fun spotting and "getting energy" from the blue and yellow blazes that marked the trail.

The rest of that week was so much fun with Austin! We went back home on Tuesday and went bowling that evening.

Wednesday we went to the Durham Life and Science Museum. Even though it was 103 outside (and a lot more with humidity), we had lots of fun looking at all of the Dinasaours, bears, and leemers. We spent a little bit of time inside.

Thursday, Martin took the day off and we discovered one of my new favorite places in Raleigh,

Marbles Kids Museum

Austin had fun doing experiments in the research submarine, dressing up as a fireman, a pirate, learning about money, building a small chair out of wood, surfing, building and racing cars, and of course, Uncle Bunny's favorite...building a tower out of huge duplos!

Friday, we went to the Durham Bulls game. Although it was hot, it was lots of fun, and afterward was one of the best fireworks shows I have seen!

We also spent a lot of time at the pool! We had a great week with him here!

Summer Garden!

Martin got us a patio garden as a treat when I finished my master's project. It has been so fun to plant stuff, watch it grow, and now experience the blessings of having some home-grown fresh tomatoes, basil, chives, jalepenos, green and red peppers. This first picture was in April when we first planted our garden, and the second is what it looks like now.

Scout Camp

As Scout Master, Martin had the opportunity to spend a week with 4 boys and 2 other adult leaders at Scout Camp. Since he is a reasonably young scout master, he decided to grow a beard for the occasion and to look a little bit older. He really enjoyed spending the week helping the boys, napping in a hammock, playing softball and frisbie golf, eating meals in the nice air-conditioned mess hall with his ipod connecting to the wi-fi, slush puppies, foil dinners, camp fires, and of course calling me. I was able to go up for visitor's night, and I have to say, the camp was pretty nice. Despite the heat and thunder storms, they all had a pretty good time!

This ends the long-winded and somewhat brief update on our year so far. Hopefully we will be better at posting on a regular basis. The month of August should hold some pretty awesome adventures that will require some posts... Stay Tuned....