Alyssa had her last day of Kindergarten last week, and we really are going to miss her teacher Mrs. Buxton. Here are some of the things that Alyssa learned this year:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup--they all die. So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned--the biggest word of all--LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all--the whole world--had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.And it is still true, no matter how old you are-- when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.--Robert Fulghum

Dr.Preece

We officially have a doctor in the house! Dr. Preece graduated from Medical School on Saturday. I can't believe that eight years later here we are. Graduation was a huge accomplishment for both of us. Medical school has been great, definitely challenging at times but worth all of the effort and sacrifice.Dr. Preece looked so happy and was just grinning from ear to ear So the night before graduation, I decided that I better pull out his gown and make sure that it was ironed and ready to go. I pulled it out of the package and it looked like a shirt instead of a gown. I just figured that they changed the design, and that maybe they weren't having the students wear the traditional gowns anymore. Come to find out, they gave Kevin the wrong size. They gave him a gown to fit a midget. Here it was the night before graduation. There was nothing that we could do to get a new gown. Luckily, one of our neighbors just finished the Ph.D. program and they wore the same gown. We borrowed his gown and it looked perfect. The day of graduation was great. We had a fun party afterwards with our family and friends, and we appreciated all of the love and support. Now on to residency......

We are official homeowners

We own a house now, we feel like adults finally! After eight years of living in a cinder block shack, we are moving on to bigger and better things. We looked at about eighteen houses and liked only a handful of those. Finally the last house we looked at we fell in love with. Everything about the house is perfect. It has the perfect yard, perfect porch, perfect trees, perfect area of town, perfect interior, and most of all the perfect place to raise four kids. We put in an offer on the day that we looked at the house. The next day, our realtor called and said that the offer had been accepted. I can't believe it, a house that is ours!