Moving Back to Bryan

We moved back to Bryan/College Station July 19th and 20th. Moving is exhausting, this time was no exception. :)

Drew, being the kind servant that he is, also volunteered to help a good friend tile his kitchen the same weekend. Which, made things a little more complicated and definitely tired him out. I am really glad that he was able to help them out though.

We also had several friends and my parents come help us with everything, which was a HUGE help. Thank you so much!

Here are a few pictures of our move, well mostly after the move:The moving crew: Drew, Tiffany (from our community group), Clayton, and Sean (both med students)

My mom and me unpacking the kitchen

Chillin' in our bedroom...I think my dad and Drew are comparing toes. lol.

We are mostly unpacked at this point, so I am planning to take a short video tour through the apartment and load it later. Stay tuned. :)

I think we are glad, overall, to be back in Bryan. It was nice to see some friends the same week. It really made me realize how much community we have, especially compared to the same time last year. Also, we are super thankful for our new apartment. It is bigger and cheaper than the last one, better lit, seems safer, and has new carpet and paint! We really lucked out.

We are also a little sad though, as it means the summer is over. Drew has already started back to full time med school classes this week. Our together time has dropped, but we are still making an effort to carve out time and make it quality. :)

Drew also seems more prepared and better able to take on the fire hydrant of information they throw at him. Plus, we are both eager to get through one more year, so he is that much closer to being able to practice medicine and interact with the sick.

Harry Potter 6!

Drew and I were really blessed this summer with a house. We loved having some extra room, especially because we had an extra bedroom for guests to stay. One of our really close friends from Austin College came down to visit us, Kelly Stoker. She was my made of honor in my wedding. I love her alot and was SOO excited for her to come visit.

Her visit also happened to coincide with the newest Harry Potter movie, the Half-Blood Prince. I know, I know, I am a complete nerd who gets excited about Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I was pretty upset when they moved the release of this particular movie from last fall to this summer, so I have been waiting!

We decided to go see the movie while she was visiting, since we all really like the movies. Kelly and I have read all the books. Drew hasn't but I filled him in when I read them, largely because I knew he would not be able to get around to reading them - the poor guy has so much required reading for classes he has lossed the desire to read anything else (apart from the news).

We were going to go to the movie theatre in Temple, but found out the week before that it is super old, gross, funky smelling, and worst of all...over priced! So we took a day trip down to Round Rock. Kelly and I showed Drew around the IKEA there; he had never been before. :) Then, we waited in line for the movie to make sure we grabbed good seats...its the movie of the year people, come on! ;)

I really liked the film, although nothing compares to the books. We were all very appreciative of the quality and consistency of all the Harry Potter films. I cant wait for the next ones! It made me want to go read the books again.

After the movie we went to dinner at Chili's and got a chance to catch up with another of our AC friends...who also happens to be named Kelly. So we had a Kelly clan reunion. I love our friends!

Independance Day

My (Nicole's) parents came down to celebrate with us on the 4th of July. We were still living in Temple at the time (we have since moved back to Bryan, but I will post on that later). My brother was invited to a lake house with a friend, so we missed out on seeing him too. It was a very fun weekend though.
Drew grilled out - chicken and (our favorite) angus hot dogs. He always does a great job grilling, much better than I could ever do. However, there were a few times (yes, more than once) that he dropped a chicken breast in the grass because they were so slippery. My mom gave him a hard time about it...actually so did I. There is even proof of me laughing at him:

Here is a pic of him trying to exact his revenge on my mom by hitting her with the raw chicken breast. Yeah, we a are a goofy family. :)
You can see the look she gave him before he did it. It can turn water to ice.


Here is a pic of the delicious food we had, once Drew finish grilling of course. In addition to hot dogs and chicken, we had watermelon, Greek salad, guacamole, green onion dip, and chips.

My lovely parents decked out in their patriotic t-shirts. I think they are so cute. We hope you had a wonderful 4th of July too!

We had planned to set off a few fireworks of our own, but never got around to it. Drew was definitely excited about it though.
After dinner we went to the local fireworks show. There was a band that played before the fireworks that was terrible - they were Elvis and Beatles impersonators. Drew said the Elvis had a range of about 4 notes, which seemed accurate. It was fun to see some of the local color though. Ah, small town America. :) The fireworks were surprisingly good. Temple has about 100,000 people, so I guess I shouldn't have been shocked that they would have a decent fireworks display, but these were really good!


Do you have any traditions for 4th of July? What did you do to celebrate this year?

Austin Trip

We headed to Austin two weekends ago for the wedding of some friends from Austin College. Drew served as an usher. Some really sweet staff friends let us stay in their guest room in their brand new house - thanks Sarah and Drew!

Here are a few pics of the wedding:

Drake and Callie Millier
A few friends from Austin College - we represented an entire table.

Drew was trying to make the party a little more interesting...I told him he didn't need to try. Need I say more? :)

Earlier that day we went to Chuy's Hula Hut on Lake Austin to enjoy the afternoon. It was SO GOOD! The menu is Polynesian Tex-Mex. The salsa was extra spicy and had mango and pineapple flavors in it, with lots of cilantro. Drew had the avacado & chicken enchilada and I got the shrimp tacos with this amazing jalepeno & cilantro cream sauce in them. We also splurged on their house blended drink - its huge, they literally serve it to you in a fish bowl! We made sure to share. I think its funny whenever I get Drew to drink a "chic" drink with me...this definately qualified, it had not one, but two pieces of fruit on the side AND an umbrella. :)

We ended up sitting inside (which I liked because we escaped the heat) but we got the perfect table, the windows were right behind us, so we could still see the lake. I must admit people watching was pretty fun.

Sprained Ankle

Drew and I both are trying to stay in shape and use this summer to get back in the habit of working out...actually to be more accurate, he was already in the habit and runs and lifts weights pretty regularly, even in the midst of a stressful med school week. I am very proud of him for being so dedicated. I might be tempted to be jealous of how athletic he is, but he's my husband, so I get to enjoy what a good looking man he is.

So I have been working out at a local gym (I don't do well in the heat) and Drew has been lifting weights at home and running around the neighborhood. The other day he came home in a good deal of pain...he had sprained his ankle. Its the same one he has repeatedly injured, so the tendons are very weak. He was running by the local junior high and stepped on the long jump pit, the concrete underneath buckled and he rolled his ankle.




He was able to get himself home so I could nurse him back to health. :) He especially liked that part - who doesn't like being served? It was also helpful that his main boss for his summer research is a physical therapy PhD - so she gave him all the advice he needed to heal quickly. You can see how swollen it was the first day, and this is after we had elevated and iced it.


He is pretty much all healed now. It will still be a while before he runs on it, but he can walk and do plenty of balance and stretch exercises.

Outstanding Award to Asian American InterVarsity student

I really love all of my students, and I will talk to you about all of them if you invite me to. However, I'd like to brag on one in particular today. I was so happy to hear of the recognition she received a few months ago now at graduation...

Juhee was one of our executive leaders this year; she coordinated and trained all of the small groups and helped influence many for the Kingdom of God. At her graduation this May, she was awarded the Brown Foundation-Earl Rudder Memorial Outstanding Student Award (one of three top awards)! Texas A&M President Elsa Murano presented the award to her saying, "Juhee is known as a leader who has tremendous potential to succeed in her chosen field of medicine. Her experiences living in Korea, Japan, and the United States have given her a perspective of the world that motivates her to want to serve all cultures, and her own miraculous recovery from late-stage cancer at 18 months has inspired her to help others through the practice of medicine. She hopes to serve as a medical missionary with the international medical group Doctors Without Borders."

Juhee has a gift to connect with people, and she and I often spoke on the importance of crossing cultures with respect for the sake of the Gospel. Within the last year, I saw Juhee take dramatic steps to improve her ability to ask good questions and build trust with those around her. She has clearly made quite an impression on the A&M campus, and I fully believe, by God's grace, she will go on to be a world changer.