10 weeks and counting

So, I am blowing off working on my research, but on the upside, I am officially a Ph.D. candidate! These past three years have not been a waste! I will post a picture of the signed document soon. I made like 5 copies! I know the process for getting a Ph.D. is different at each school, and here at Auburn, I had to take written exams from each of my committee members (which of course, they all gave me exams) and pass those. Then, I just did my proposal defense, which is where I present what I am going to do, and defend my ideas and future work. Thankfully, it was only 2 hours, and they only asked me questions for about an hour - where most of the time we just talked about extensions for one of my ideas. Awesomeness!

We are closing on either May 27th or 28th, and we are just waiting to make sure the appraisal went well and we won't need to do any more negotiating. Our inspection went okay, but it shouldn't cost us too much to fix some things she requested. I know we don't have to do it, but at this point, we are still so thrilled that we sold our house we will do whatever (as long as it doesn't cost too much!). Thankfully, we have some friends at the church who are pretty handy, so that will keep costs down as well.

We are excited about our 3 bedroom apartment, and the fact that grandparents will have their own room. I am not looking forward to packing, though! You can accumulate a lot of junk in 3 years! My mom always taught me to give stuff away, so I actually do go through closets every year or so and give stuff to goodwill. Thanks Mom! Goodwill will probably get another nice donation after I am done cleaning everything out.

I have my Auburn shower this weekend, and I am really excited about it! I have been so thankful for my friends Jolie (who is expecting a little girl of her own!!!!), Vaughan, Laura and Tollie who have thus far thrown me two showers between the four of them. I felt so loved!!! I am so thankful that God has given me such great friends! I still can't believe we only have a little over 10 weeks until my due date. My doctor's visit went well yesterday, but the little stinker wouldn't stop moving for them to get her heart rate. She is definitely active pretty much all the time - especially when I am ready to go to bed. Eric and I are so excited about meeting her and Fletch (our little buddy as I call him) said he was going to be a good big brother for her (I don't know how he's going to do without getting all of the attention all the time, though). Poor puppy!