Well hello there. It's been awhile…

The spring semester of grad school has finally come to a close and I actually have FREE TIME! Those words haven't been in my vocabulary in MONTHS. It's a wonderful feeling :)

Here is what I have been up to lately:

The semester started with a bang. I received 3 clients for the semester, plus a full load of classes. Oh and I felt the leisure chaos of being a teacher's assistant.

In February, some of the grad students went to the TSHA convention in Houston. It's pretty much a big convention of seminars for speech-paths. It was so informative and I learned a bunch. I also got to meet up with some of my friends who live in the Houston area! Always good catching up with them :)

In March, Eric & I were able to go to the Houston Rodeo with my parents and my bestie, Kourtney! We saw Keith Urban and he was AMAZING. Such a great performer!

I also ran my 6th Bearathon! Really exciting!

I went to my FIRST Rangers game this semester too. I still love my Astros, but man was it a cool experience. I love the ballpark (really any ballpark in general) and I went with my friend, Kimber, which made it so much better. We are both huge baseball fans and it was the perfect big/little date.

Our grad school class celebrate this girls quarter-of-a-century birthday in April.

We went to the Rustic in Dallas and had so much fun just hanging with all the girls in our program and not thinking about school for a night.

I also got to celebrate Kourtney's quarter-of-a-century birthday the next day! She had a "pedal party" for all of her friends and it was such a fun idea! You literally pedal a huge bike/vehicle from bar to bar on Washington street in Houston.

Baylor Bears!

Parker sisters & blonde parker sisters :)

C-town…what's up?

Our grad class showered these speechie babies with love right when the semester ended! One baby boy has already joined the world, and the other will be joining us shortly! Can't wait to kiss their cheeks!

Last week, my mom graduated college from Sam Houston State University! She is such an inspiration - GO MOM! The day after she walked the stage, we had a graduation party for her and about 70 people came out to celebrate her and her huge accomplishment! My in-laws and bro/sis-in law and my adorable nieces came in from San Antonio to join in the celebration. Always a good time to see them and love on their beautiful girls.

In one year from now, I will be walking the stage at UNT getting my Masters. Words cannot describe how excited I am. I have a summer semester of classes & clinic, a fall semester of classes & off site placement, and the spring semester externship (NO CLASS!) left until I finish. I have 2 semesters under my belt and it has flown by, even though it's been crazy hard. I feel so blessed to be where I am and I couldn't have asked for a better experience at UNT or better friends in my program to have by my side. As well as a wonderful family & husband to support me through this journey.

Until next time,
Brittney :)

I'm alive! I promise I didn't go anywhere…I just have been so busy that I don't even have to time to keep with anything other than school.

So much has happened in the past few months…
In November, Eric & I went to our niece, Avery's, Christening in San Antonio. We are so blessed to have that precious baby girl in our lives. We are also blessed to have this one in our lives…

You can't help but be happy every time you are around her. Abigail has so much happiness and goodness in her little 3 year old body. I can't wait until I get to spend time with her again.

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with my family in Conroe. It was a much needed break from school and such a relaxing time. We were able to visit with my aunt/uncle from Oklahoma who are officially parents to the cutest little kiddos! It was such a happy holiday!

Cousins!

Playing Just Dance with my cousin, Tearyn

Sweet Liana.

After Thanksgiving, it was time to get back to the grind of school and studying for finals.
Let's just say that it involved a lot of wine and a lot of notecards.

In between studying for finals, I was supposed to run the Dallas Marathon, but unfortunately Dallas was involved in the icepocalypse, and the race was cancelled. But at least I got to see my parents and play with these nuggets in the snow.

Not so fortunate for Eric, because he slipped on the ice and bruised his back pretty bad. He was in recovery for almost the whole month of December, but he is doing great now! Thank goodness!

Finals came and went. Thankfully they didn't take too much out of me, and I managed to make a 4.0 my first semester in grad school, so I am happy to say the least.
I am so thankful to have such wonderful friends in grad school that help me keep the stresses of school at bay and keep me focused on the end goal. I don't know how I would do it without these wonderful ladies! We decided to celebrate finals being over in style...

So happy the first semester of grad school is under my belt! Now onto the second.

For Christmas, we went to San Antonio to celebrate with Eric's side of the family.
We got to spend 2 whole weeks there, so we made the most of it! We spent lots of time with Eric's family from Arkansas, took our niece to the zoo, met up with one of our best friends, and just enjoyed being with everyone.

Doggies in the Christmas spirit

Pretty Brie-Brie

Christmas Eve was so wonderful! Eric's mom, Cindy, had everyone over to her house after the Christmas Eve church service, and we had such good food and drinks, visited, and played Bunko. So. much. fun. And Cindy's new house looked absolutely gorgeous decorated for Christmas.

My beautiful mother-in-law

Christmas Day was just as much fun, if not more. We went to Eric's brother's house for Christmas morning to watch our nieces open presents and spend some time with just the Udell clan.

Christmas evening we spend at Eric's Wita's house, celebrating with the rest of the family. It was perfect.

After Christmas, we stayed in San Antonio so we could continue the celebrations by going to Eric's cousin, Sierra's, wedding in Boerne. It was such a beautiful wedding and Sierra look gorgeous! We had such a blast dancing, eating, and visiting with family that we don't get to see that much.

Pretty Udell girls.

Cousins!

Favorite girly girl.

When we got back to Dallas, it was time to start getting ready for the start of my second semester. This semester is SO much busier than last semester, but I feel like I got into a rhythm last semester that is helping me out a ton this time around. I am a TA this semester, so I have an extra 10 hours a week of work on top of 3 clients, diagnostic/eval clients, classes, and everyday schoolwork. It is extremely chaotic to say the least. Just trying to keep the name of the blog appropriate ;)

To be honest though, I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah it's very stressful, I never sleep, and I have no down time, but I am absolutely loving what I am doing. I am so happy with where I am in my life. Yeah I would have loved to be out of school by now, but if I have to be in school to get to where I want to go, then I am perfectly content where I am.

And I have these lovely ladies that always have my back and keep me in check.

The second week of school, we had a holiday…MLK day. So I took that time and spent it with my parents. Eric and I were able to have a 3-day weekend with them before school got even crazier.
I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family that supports me in my decisions and wishes nothing but the best for me in my education and professional career.

At the end of January, one of my best friends got engaged to the love of her life! I am so happy for my beautiful friend, AXO sister, and running partner for life, Kristen. She deserves so much happiness in her life. She is truly a rare find and I am so blessed to have her as a friend.

This past week, it snowed in Dallas!! Actual snow that fell from the sky and stuck to the ground! And guess what? UNT still had class and our clients still had their therapy sessions. So unfortunate. And I have been sick from all the weather changes with an upper respiratory infection, so guess who actually had to go to class? This girl. Welcome to the real world I guess. Since we had to go to class and trudge through the ice/snow, we decided to at least document it...

Speechies in the snow

That would be our professor in the top left! She was a trooper.

This weekend I have been recovering from my sickness, which started out as a cold a week and 3 days ago. I went to the doc and found out I had a mixture of pharyngitis and tonsillitis…just my luck because we had 3 tests last week. Perfect timing. NOT.

I still wasn't getting better, so I went back to the doc. Come to find out, it had progressed to a severe upper respiratory infection. Even more perfect.
So here I sit at home, recuperating, and trying to find the motivation to do schoolwork. Haven't found it yet though ;)

Have a great weekend everyone!