Catching Up

Well, it's been awhile since anyone's written on this thing and it SEEMS to me that a lot has been going on.

Trey finished his first semester with all A's of course. He finished his first summer class a few weeks ago (another A) and starts his second summer class a week from Monday. In the meantime he's been building tables, doing stuff around the house and just being Trey. Here's the first table he built (came out really good!):

In the first part of June I traveled up to Baltimore for a week-long forensic anthropology course. The course was really interesting and fun and I am so so glad a co-worker went with me because we were pretty much the only non-MDs at the session. I had a great time, though and it was really nice to attend some lectures. I had forgotten how much I missed going to school. The course was a great refresher course for bone anatomy, osteology, and forensic anthropology and I've been keeping up with it, too, studying skeletons at the office and reading some of my textbooks. If we had the money I would definitely go back to school; not for a degree or anything, but just to go and learn. Here are a few pictures from the trip: 

At the end of June/beginning of July we went on our first road trip as husband-wife.  We left Richmond and traveled to Charlotte and stayed with my parents for one night. Then we drove across the rest of NC all the way to western Tennessee and spent two nights with my uncle and grandmother. THEN we traveled another 6 hours to get to the central part of Arkansas where I had to navigate narrow two-lane roads that winded through the Ozarks. Roundtrip we put about 2200 miles on my car. 

The trip to Arkansas was to spend time with my Dad's family. Trey hadn't met most of them as they weren't able to come to our wedding and enjoyed, I think, getting to know them. Apparently my dad has hilarious cousins. It was nice seeing everyone; the last time we had been there was in 2009 when we had gone to say good-bye to my uncle. It felt really weird being there without him this time. I really think he and Trey would've gotten along...or he would have scared the bejeezus out of Trey. :) 

The tradition, at the Buffalo River (in Yellville, AR population around 2000) is to spend a day canoeing down the river, from the bridge on Highway 14 to Rush, an abandoned mining town. Trey and I shared a canoe and my parents and brother were in another. Trey loved this and I didn't mind it so much either as I didn't have to paddle all that often! 

Another day we spent going to some old haunts: Blanchard Springs and some swimming places in the area. We also went to Mountain View, which I don't remember having gone here before. It was a cute little town with one of those Main Streets that seems like it's out of a movie. There was chocolate covered bacon and huge rocking chairs that you could sit in. 

On July 3rd Flippin (another small town, located about 6 miles from Yellville, population around 2000) has their fireworks. This is because they have them at the dam on the 4th and I guess Flippin doesn't want to detract from that? Anyway, it was FREEZING that night. It got down into the low 50s. Actually, the weather on the whole trip was pretty mild. Usually I sunburn and end up sweating the entire time on the river and I didn't get hot once. The river was really cold to swim in and I didn't stay in long. Plus, there's snakes and bugs and fish in it and that's gross (see-not an outdoorsy girl!). 

On the 4th we traveled back to Dyersburg and had a cookout with my mom's brother and his family and some of their friends. The next day we spent lounging around their pool and the NEXT day we spent a hellacious amount of time on the road trying to get home at a decent hour as I had to be at work at 6am the next morning. 

I wish I had some pictures of Rush. It is this really cool abandoned town. We never have the chance to walk around it as we're always on a bus at the end of canoe trip trying to get back to the cabins to take showers and whatnot. But if you're interested in the history of it here's a link.  

There's really a lot of Frame/Burch/Rae/etc (all family names on my dad's side) history in these small towns in Arkansas. Always at the end of our trip we go to the Flippin Cemetery. This has somehow turned into a tradition of my dad and I walking around the cemetery and me trying to figure out the relationships between all the different families. 

For Labor Day we're going to the NC mountains, but it's my goal to post something between now and then. It's been a busy last few months in the Newell household and now we're getting back into the grind of working and going to school!