Greetings from North Carolina!

David and I have been in North Carolina for the last couple of days visiting my grandparents with my Mom and Dad. We drove the whole way and it took all day on Saturday. It's been a good trip that has included a fish fry, big breakfast, shopping, pizza, and church with Granny and Grandad. Tomorrow we fly home to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with David's family while my family remains in North Carolina until Saturday. We are so glad to be home and with family and look forward to the rest of this nice break! Tonight we are celebrating Christmas Eve in North Carolina and are opening all of our presents from my family! Fun fun times and more to come!

Winter Wonderland

Today marks the end of the Fall semester for both Rachel and I, which is reason to celebrate.  I can't believe how fast the year has flown by, but we are both very grateful for the restful Christmas break.  Finals were over last Friday for me, so I have had a very nice week.  We attended our Sunday School Christmas party on Saturday night, which was a lot of fun.  Rachel made homemade spinach dip and cherry pie.  Everyone at the party was raving about her items.  One girl asked her how she learned to cook so well, and another chimed in and said, "it's because she is from the South."  We loved that of course and just encouraged her to think that everyone in the south is a good cook.  

      Also on Saturday night, Ben came into town.  He stayed until Wednesday morning (due to the 2-3 inches of snow Tuesday night) and we had a blast with him here.  Unfortunately we did not take any pictures to post.  We went to the Federal Reserve Bank, the Truman Presidential Library and also went Christmas shopping.  We ate at the KC favorite, Stroud's, which is "home of the pan-fried chicken" as well as Oklahoma Joe's BBQ.  I had heard many great reviews about this restaurant, but the only drawback is that it is in a gas station.  It was really a unique place and great BBQ.  It was just great having Ben here.  

     Rachel has her Christmas party luncheon today at KCCS, and afterwards, we are going to start preparing to come home.  We cannot wait to be there as well as the other travels we will make.  We look forward to seeing everyone!

Our First Christmas Tree!

Well, Monday night David and I went to buy our very first tree together. We found the perfect one and it's a Scotch Pine. It's a little bit over six feet tall and perfectly symmetrical. We brought it into the living room and ended up having to rearrange all of our furniture! I was stressed about that at first but now I am really enjoying it. We got it standing straight in the stand and then David put the lights on. Tonight we put all of the ornaments that Mom and Dad have given me on. We are super excited about how good it looks and had a great time doing it together. Now we wish that people were coming to KC for Christmas so we could show it off! :) Work is going good this week and David is studying hard getting ready for finals next week. We truly cannot believe that we've already been married for 6 months!

David, holding our beautiful tree.

The tree in the corner, where the chair used to be!

The tree and new living room arrangement.

Christmas Decor

It has been an extra relaxing weekend here at the Rainwater house. On Friday night we were able to use our Bonefish gift card and go out on a nice date for free! That place is truly so good. On Saturday we were able to get the yard cleaned up and get the Cashion Family Christmas shopping done. Then, on Saturday night, we went over to Chris and Sarah Price's house for dinner. On Sunday morning they walked down and joined the church. We are really excited about it and love hanging out with them. Today David went to the library and studied and I went and picked up a couple of Christmas decorations. I immediately put them up and have included some pictures! We wanted to have most of the decorations up before we came home for Thanksgiving so that they would be up when we got home. Next Monday we're going to go and get our tree and I'm going to put up the wreath that Mom got me and the decorations will be done! We cannot wait to see everyone in a couple of days!

A Reunion Weekend

This weekend was really fun for David and I. On Friday, after class, we left Kansas City to head to Oklahoma City for Erick Sullivan's wedding. We road down with Katherine and Jay. We got there right in time for the rehearsal dinner on Friday night, along with Austin and Emily and Nick and Caroline. We all sat together and really enjoyed catching up with each other. Everyone stayed at the same hotel Friday night and the guys played poker while the girls watched TV. On Saturday morning we all got up and got ready to check out and go to lunch. We went to a great place in Bricktown called Zio's and Nick and Caroline treated us all (David/Me and Austin/Emily) to lunch! After the boys headed to the church Caroline, Emily and I went and visited the Oklahoma City bombing memorial. It was wonderful and very moving. The wedding was very sweet and we got to see Matt and Becky and little Jack! He is ADORABLE. Saturday night we spent the night at Katherine's parents house in Norman and drove back today. It was a long weekend, but it was so much fun to get to see everyone again. We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends.



All the old roommates! Jack is standing in for Adam. :)



We're all married!



Me, Emily, and Caroline. We had a great day hanging out!

A New Face

Rachel has given the blog a facelift.  We hope you enjoy!  I have two more tests, and then Rachel and I are going to try and go see The Lion King later this week.  Can't wait until Thanksgiving!

Anyone Need Any Firewood?

Yesterday (Friday) we had our chimney inspected and cleaned. The man who did it was extremely nice and told David that there was this thing going on today where you could get an entire truck load of wood for $35. Of course we had to go! We waited in line for an hour and a half and loaded wood for 45 minutes. We were so excited and feel like we got a great deal! There were tons of people there and we were just some of the many stuffing their trucks as full as we could. The man there told us that we probably got a little over a "rick." I don't really know if I spelled that correctly. Whatever the measurement is, we got a TON of wood. When we got back home we backed the truck to the side of the house and put all of the wood that we could get on the back porch and stacked the rest on the ground. Tonight we're going to get a five dollar pizza for dinner and rest by our first fire in our house! In the pictures you can see the massive pile of wood at the place and lots of the cars all pulled up around it. If we looked cold, it's because it is officially the arctic in Kansas City. :)

Pumpkin Pie!

Right now it is nap time at Preschool, and I brought my laptop today! Not all of my kids are asleep though. I wrote in our past post that I got two free "pie pumpkins" at the pumpkin patch. The lady at the place told us that pie pumpkins make the best pies, so last night I tried it. Amazingly it turned out pretty good! It took me forever, but I have now made pumpkin pie from scratch...literally. I actually don't care for pumpkin pie that much, but David liked it a lot. Pictures to come!

A Big Weekend

This has been an exciting weekend for David and I. The pumpkin patch on Friday went well. I didn't have any parent volunteers so I was a little bit stressed, but everyone had a good time. I got two free pie pumpkins too! On Friday night we were all set up for TONS of trick-or-treaters. We ordered a pizza, relaxed, and waited. We had about twenty kids come by. It was really fun. Our first Halloween together and we did not run out of candy! We met a couple named Chris and Sarah Price at Sunday School last week, so after the trick-or-treaters we went to their house and watched a movie. They are really nice and we hope to get to know them better. When we got back around midnight our jackolantern had been smashed! :( Crazy kids. On Friday night David also finished the french door. It looks unbelievable and he did a perfect job. On Saturday David studied and I cleaned the house etc. We thought it might be fun to go see the Lion King on Saturday night, but didn't end up being able to get tickets. On Sunday morning we walked down at Lenexa Baptist Church and joined. We are really excited to be connected to a church up here and look forward to getting involved. We can't wait to take anyone who comes to see us to see the church! Our new pastor also apprently knows Pastor Gary and his wife graduated from UMKC school of Dentistry. It's a really good church with a lot of the same qualities as Immanuel. We can't believe that we are not members of Immanuel anymore, but know that "LBC" is where we need to be. In this post I've included some of the pictures from the pumpkin patch on Friday and my new Thanksgiving bulletin boards.

Almost time for "trick-or-treaters!"

This has been a good week at work for me and at school for David. Nothing too major has gone on at work. Quite of few kids are getting sick, so our numbers are down. This Friday we are taking a field trip to the pumpkin patch. Mom's are going to drive us, but I will actually have a couple car seats in the Honda as well! David got to fill his first cavity today on a fake tooth! He said that it was really fun. Tonight we took about fifteen minutes to carve our new pumpkin. The squirrels ate the other ones I got, so we're keeping this one inside until Friday night when we'll put it out. I took a picture of Gideon today after he ate a sucker that he was not supposed to bring to school. Isn't he cute? I couldn't even get upset at him for it! Look how good my new pajamas look! :)

A Birthday Success!!

Finally, a post

It's been a long time since our last post! Shame on us. Right now it is nap time at school and I brought my laptop so that I could get some work done...but I've decided to blog. Lots of funny things have been happening at preschool recently. For example, Gabe decided that the playground was a good place to potty. I turned around to find him standing with his pants at his ankles, relieving himself. Also, my new thing to say in class is "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit." I say this when everyone gets upset about getting the color marker that they want. Friday, Jack's Mom came to school in the morning and said that she had made chili the night before and that Jack didn't want to eat it. She then told him that this was what she made for dinner and that if he wanted desert he would eat his chili. Jack then shrugged his shoulders and began eating, quoting me..."you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Mom came to town Thursday night and it was a blast. She went to work with me Friday and got to meet everyone, and we got to go shopping all day on Saturday. It was really fun to get to show her around the house and have her notice all the little details that we have worked so hard on. Well, nap time is almost over...but we'll do better posting in the future!

Waxing Practical

This Wednesday, we have our first lab practical, or hands on test in Dental Morphology.  I wanted you to see some of the things that we have been doing in there each week.  "Waxing" is a technique used in dentistry in the production of crowns, diagnostic models, and dentures.  It provides a material and strategy that is easy to change and duplicate.  The last few weeks, we have learned to wax the front tooth and upper canine.  It is a nice break in the afternoon from class in the waxing lab.  Here is a picture of my work.  Hope it provides a better image of some of the things we do at school!

"B" is for Bear

This week at school we are studying the letter B. The kids got to make bear puppets today in my class and they loved it. I finally took a picture of some of them. Two were not here today. The kids that are standing up, from left to right are, Alise, Jack, Ashlyn, and Catherine. The sitting group from left to right are Trey, Caroline, Gideon, and Gabe. Alise and Caroline are best friends and Catherine is a lot to handle. Ashlyn is the healthy eater and Jack always takes his shoes off when he's not supposed to for some reason. Trey has a blue mouth because when I wasn't looking he wrote on his own face with a marker, and Gabe broke his collar bone at soccer practice last week, which is why his arm is in a sling. Gideon refused to wear anything to school that day except the green no sleeve shirt that he is in in the picture (it was 50 degrees when we came to school this morning). If you want a closer look at their faces you can click on the picture itself and it will zoom in. So that's a quick run down on my cute class! Here is also a picture of the salmon that I cooked tonight. David loved it and I was really proud of how well it turned out. Too bad about the side affects. :)

Salmon side effects

Rachel's fish tonight was so good!  Turns out, it has some funny side effects (see picture), even on little Sooie Rainwater.

This week has started off good. Today I went on one of my practicum visits...which means I only have one more time to do it. David is studying really hard this week. He had an anatomy test today and has a Histology test Thursday. He's studying so hard and it's going to pay off. Here's a picture of Sooie "helping" David study. She likes to be near him.

Fall Decor

This week passed really fast! On Thursday night our school had a little back to school singing program and it was hilarious. The parents loved it and there was about a million video cameras going the whole time. Trey and Jack from my class started marching like soldiers halfway through the program and Felicity walked off the stage. Overall it was funny. Afterward I had to rush off to class at 5:30. I only have two more classes for both my Wednesday night class and Thursday night class though. Last night David and I went to eat at this mexican place and then watched the presidential debate. We were able to use some of the tutoring money for a nice, relaxing date. This morning we went down to the plaza and met Nick and Caroline Rhoads, who were in town with some other friends for a concert, for breakfast. Afterward I cleaned the house and then went to the Hen House and got my first ever Fall decorations. I think they look pretty good! You can see Sooie standing in the window checking them out too!

Free Dental Care

Thursdays are my day to rotate around the different departmental clinics at the school to assist.  In addition to this, we are also required to make a visit to a local free health care clinic in town called KC Free.  Yesterday, another student, Matt, and I went to this clinic about 30 blocks EAST of the dental school.  Not such a great area, especially sense our professor told us to take the worst vehicle between us.  

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the receptionist and "head lady," Cynthia.  Cynthia gave us some paper work to fill out and then turned us over to a lady named Natalia.  Natalia did not speak very good English and spoke quieter than a wisper.  She informed us that she was previously a dentist in Russia, but was in America to come to a US dental school.  Amazingly, she was working in this clinic as a assistant just to learn English.  Apparently, there is a stark difference between America and the world when it comes to dentistry.  Anyway, Natalia immediately introduced us to the X-ray machine and processing of the film.  When she, Matt and I were processing the film together in the pitch black, it was funny.  I was glad to know how to do it though.  Afterward, the dentist arrived at the clinic and we began assisting.  It is sort of hard to do because you really don't know how to interact with the patient and the doctor.  You don't want to make the patient uncomfortable with tons of water pooling in their mouth, or even worse, water drooling out of their mouth.  Of course both things were going on while I was assisting.  You also try to keep out of the doctor's way at the same time.  After the dentist checked him out she instructed Cynthia to teach me to "clean this man's teeth."  Cynthia spent about 20 seconds showing me how to work the foot petal and handpiece, and sent me on my way.  Sweating bullets by this time, I would have been really nervous if it wasn't for the rap music playing in the background.  (Attn Tripp: The dentist was singing along to "stuntin is a habit") So I pulled up a chair and began with the back teeth and worked my way around cleaning his teeth, just like a hygienist does at the dentist.  I also flossed his teeth and gave him flouride. 

It was really fun, and I enjoyed it so much.  I'm sure the patient was just rolling his eyes because it wasn't any secret that I had never done this before.  Cynthia taught me sitting right next to him.  The whole experience was hilarious, but it was great to get a taste of what "real dentistry" will be like.  

Electronic Card for Dad

We are disappointed that we could not join everyone in Fayetteville this weekend.  The first SEC game is always great.  We will be rooting the Hogs on from KC.   We miss everyone and cannot wait to see you.  Happy Birthday Dad!

Sickness Arrives

Well, my sore throat persisted all the way through today, which was miserable at school. I finally went to the doctor today and found out I have strep throat...as well as congestion and fluid on my ears. Nice. I've taken the prescription that the doctor gave me and I'm hoping to get to feeling better very quickly!

A Long Week

I am so glad that it is finally the weekend. It has been an extremely long week because of class and first aid training. David is currently doing community service with the Kansas City Chiefs and will be home to study for his two tests that he has this upcoming week. I am actually worried right now because I have about 2 million things to get done this weekend and I woke up with a really sore throat. We don't have a doctor up here yet, and it's the weekend, so I think I'm just going to have to wait it out. Yikes.

Freebies

Today we had our second test, which went okay, and a quiz as well.  It feels good to get the first few tests over with and now feel like I know more of what to expect. 

The best part of the day was that Proctor and Gamble came and brought lunch.  They distributed free electric toothbrushes and other dental goodies.  He said the toothbrush was their top of the line and a value of $150.  (Just so you can see how exciting this was.)  You can imagine how pumped everyone was to get their hands on a toothbrush!  He also informed us of great rates for "oral care" products we can receive at students. 

Rachel has a long night tonight and is staying late for First Aide training.  Everything is going well at work, and she is doing great.  Fall seems to be creeping in here, because it got to the low 50's last night! 

First test taken and new name given...

David had his first dental school test today and he said that it went great! He studied so hard and was truly prepared. When he got home tonight he really felt like he had done well. He has another test AND a quiz tomorrow, so he is studying hard again. Our newest member of the family finally has a name. She is going to be called "Sooie." We think it fits and will remind her that she is actually from Arkansas. :)

The Newest Rainwater!

What an exciting weekend this has been! On Friday evening we went to David's first "rush" party at this place in the ghetto. It turned out to be be really fun and we got to meet a lot of new people. We found out this weekend that there was a "sale" going on at one of the local shelters and that all of the cats were half price for the weekend. David surprised me and said that we should go down on Saturday morning and see if there was any of them that we wanted. I was so excited that I didn't sleep good on Friday night just thinking about it. We went down to the shelter first thing in the morning and found a wonderful cat! We haven't named her yet she's all gray, with green eyes and she's pretty big. She has acclimated very well and appears to be unbelievably lazy...which fits our lifestyle perfectly. The only mishap we have encountered so far is that on the way home from the shelter she pooped in her box. Yuck. I cleaned it up while David studied. David seems to like her a lot and asks me to bring her into the breezeway so that he can pet her while he studies. We feel very blessed and lucky to be able to get such a wonderful cat that immediately fit right in at the house. David has his first tests this week, so we will let you all know how they go. Here is our little no name cat! Let us know if you have any suggestions! P.S. You can't see it in any of the pictures, but she has on an adorable leopard print collar.

Finally Rushing

It has only taken me 5 years, but I have finally taken the plunge into the Greek world and decided to rush a Dental fraternity.  These groups are a bit different than college, in that they are full of dental students and that they are coed.  There are 3 on campus, although one contains pretty much Hawaiians, and students from New Mexico.  I do not really fit into those two categories so my focus is on the other two.  All this week, we are eating lunch for $10 and we had great BBQ today.  Pizza was yesterday.  It has been fun having a break from packing a lunch, and I wish the dental school did "rush" more often.  I am not sure which to join, because it feels like a shot in the dark.  I will keep you updated.  

Our first test is Monday in Anatomy.  

Meals ala Rachel "Ray"nwater

Rachel has been cooking the greatest meals these past two weeks, and I have been so very grateful. She is coming into being a wonderful cook and preparing new dishes as well as old favs. Tonight we had the greatest beef enchiladas with green beans, a staple, cheesy rice and fruit salad. There is no better restaurant in Kansas City. In addition to this meal, she has made all the following dinners.

Poppyseed chicken

Meatball Deluxe (no green peppers due to the famous food allergy)

Busy Day Chicken

Spaghetti

Wagon Wheel pasta

Jambalaya (with Burl's sausage mixed in)

I know there are probably others I have forgotten, but these are on the tip of my tongue. I just you to know how great she is doing, and how much I love it!

Labor Day Weekend

Hoping that Lauren and Justin believe that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," we are copying them and making a blog. We love the idea and think it might be a good way for family and friends to keep up with what we have going on in Kansas City.
David and I were able to go to Fayetteville this weekend for the first Razorback game of the season. It was wonderful to see a lot of our friends and family. We headed back to KC on Sunday morning so that David could get to studying...so it was a short trip! On Sunday David studied hard and I worked on getting our laundry and house ready for the upcoming week. I was able to clean the house on Monday morning while David studied. We also worked in the yard...I pulled weeds and David mowed the grass. Doesn't it look great!?