Grandma's Ring

Grandma Callaway left Lezlie and I the ring she wore. We always thought it was her wedding diamonds reset into another ring. Because it is a little hard to share a ring, I took the larger diamond out of the ring and Lezlie kept the ring and the smaller diamond. She is planning to have another stone set in the place of the larger diamond, but hasn't made up her mind what she wants to do yet. I already had a ring that I wore with a diamond and two peridots (August birthstone) from my Mom's grandma. They were originally in a broach and we passed down and reset into a ring. I decided that since Grandma Callaway's birthday was also in August, I wanted to combine the stones into one ring so I could always wear Grandma's diamond as well. One interesting fact we discovered when we had the diamond removed from Grandma's ring is that the stone is much older than we thought. The jeweler estimated it to be mid 1800's because of it's European style cut. Dad asked various family members, but no one seems to know the story behind the diamond. I took some pictures of Grandma's ring as it originally was, and my new ring with Grandma's diamond combined with the diamond from my great grandma and peridot stones.

Drool in the Pool

For the second year in a row, we took the dogs to an event called Drool in the Pool at our local pool. After the pool closes to people for the season, they open it for two nights just for dogs to swim. Herky of course has always loved swimming and will dive right in off the edge to get a toy. Last year Kinnick would only play in the wading pool, but this year after some convincing, he walked into the big pool on the stairs and pushed off to go swimming. He loved it! At first I was worried he was only swimming around because he didn't know how to get out, so I called him to the edge and showed him the stairs, but he immediately got back in and swam around some more! He prefers to leisurely swim around the pool and steal the toys that other owners have thrown in for their dogs. This video has pictures and video from the event.

School Again...

I know I kind of slacked about posting photos this summer, but I tried to post a few things recently. I start my third year of optometry school tomorrow, which will be the last year of classroom work I have. This year my schedule involves lecture classes for 12 hours a week, lab learning for 2-4 hours a week, clinic for 4-8 hours a week, and teaching a second year lab for 5 hours a week. I am excited to teach the second year lab, and I am definitely excited about clinic too. This year I will also be the President of VOSH (Volunteer Optometric Service to Humanity) which is the group I have gone to Mexico with for the last two years.

Nick and I already have a busy fall schedule planned, here's the highlights in case you are interested:

Labor Day Weekend - friends Shane, Shaybree, Kurt and my sister Lezlie are visiting

Sept. 12-13 - retreat for Women in Optometry organization

Sept. 16-20 - Nick visits Iowa

Oct. 9-11 - Nick and I go to Louisville, KY for Weekend to Remember Marriage Retreat

Nov. 11-16 - I go to Orlando, FL to present a paper at American Academy of Optometry. Nick will join for the last two days to go to Disney!

Thanksgiving - no specific plans, but we will stay here and have dinner with our friends Josh and Lezlie again.

Dec. 14- 18 - Optometry school final exams

Christmas - we will be coming to Iowa, but we don't know the exact dates yet

And of course I have quite a few VOSH events in there to attend and plan, and of course we will probably try to go to a few football games! And then Nick and I both have birthdays too...this will be a busy fall semester!

By the way, don't forget about my other blog with scrapbooking pages on it: http://kaciescrapbook.blogspot.com/

Welcome Home Candice & Thai!

Our friends Candice and Thai live at the same townhouse community that we do, so while they were in New Mexico for the summer we watched their apartment. We decided to surprise them when the came home with a bedroom full of balloons. Six hours and 1200 balloons later...

My Grandma Callaway

R. Arlene Callaway

8/28/25 - 8/9/09

R. Arlene Callaway, 83, of Whitten, died Sunday evening, August 9th, at the Oakview Nursing Home in Conrad. Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, August 13th, at the Whitten Community Church with Pastor Jim Hartman officiating. She will be laid to rest in the Benson Cemetery at Whitten. Visitation will be held from 5-7:00 p.m. Wednesday at the Mitchell Family Funeral home in Marshalltown. A memorial fund is being established. For condolences, please visit www.mitchellfh.com. Ph 641-844-1234. Born on August 28th, 1925, in rural Whitten, Iowa, she was one of three daughters born to Henry and Charity Ruth (Sisson) Koch. She attended the Felix #6 rural school and graduated from the Whitten Consolidated High School in 1942. On December 29th, 1945, in a double ceremony with her sister, she was married to Gene McKeehan. To this union, one son – Dennis- was born. Mr. McKeehan died unexpectedly at a young age. On New Year’s Day of 1950, at her sister’s home west of Whitten, she married Ray Callaway. They made their home near Whitten all of their married lives. Mrs. Callaway was employed at Ford-Hopkins in Marshalltown following graduation, the Tallcorn, a canning factory in Grundy Center, sorted seed corn, worked at Mis-Steak House in Whitten and retired from wallpapering and painting. She treasured her family and attended the Whitten Community Church, was a member of the Eldora Bowling Hall of Fame, the Union OES, Kensington Club, Benson Cemetery Society, Whitten Alumni, and supported many community needs such as the Whitten Fire Department and the Union Ambulance. Last year (2008), she served as a co-grand marshal for the Whitten Days Parade. Arlene also was a great cook, loved to dance and scrapbook and garden. Left to cherish her memory is her three sons: Dennis and Kevin (Jo) of Whitten, Jim (Tammy) of rural Conrad, eight grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren, her sister Clara Ann Hauser of Conrad and nieces and nephews. In death she has rejoined her parents, husbands, sister Joyce (Robert) Wilson and brother-in-law Dale Hauser.

Our Research at the Junior Olympics

DSCN0489, originally uploaded by AOA SVS.

Since last summer I have worked with a professor at IU performing research that tests the eye movements of athletes and non-athletes. We use an infrared eye tracking camera to record where the person is looking as they are instructed to look at a computer screen and do things like simply hold their eyes steady while the background moves or move their eyes quickly back and forth between two dots.

We recently had the opportunity to travel to Des Moines, Iowa to conduct our research on the athletes at the Junior Olympics. A big group of optometry students and optometrists also came along to perform basic and sports related vision screening tests on the athletes. It was a great experience and also a great opportunity to visit Iowa.

Parent's Visit and Indianapolis Zoo

My parents came out to Indiana to visit for a week around the 4th of July. We planned a big BBQ on the 4th with family and friends, but of course it rained the whole day...so we ended up with a dozen or so people in our tiny living room, but it was still fun. While my parents were here we also took the dogs swimming at Lake Monroe and visited the Indianapolis Zoo. The zoo was nice, and my favorite part was the butterfly garden exhibit.

Upcoming Iowa Visit!

For those of you that don't know, my sister Lezlie will be graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Dance from the University of Iowa this Saturday! Nick and I are leaving on Thursday to drive back to Iowa to be there for her graduation. Unfortunately, Nick will have to drive back to Indiana on Sunday to work on Monday. But I am staying in Iowa until Memorial Day (the 25th) to visit friends and family! I'm so excited!

Farmer's Market

I went to the Bloomington Farmer's Market for the first time this year. I was hoping to get some fruit, but it obviously wasn't quite in season yet. I got a strawberry smoothie instead, and took some photos of the action - the Farmer's Market really is a busy place!

Little 500

Again this year, I decided to go to the Little 500 bicycle race at Indiana University. Nick decided he would rather go golfing, so I went with my friends Todd, Sylvia, Jessica and Tim. It was much nicer this year - sunny and 80 degrees. Last year was raining/snowing and 30 degrees! The same team won again this year - the Cutters. But we were just happy to have gotten a sun tan instead of frostbitten fingers! I included one picture from last year just so you can see the difference! (By the way, it's not alcohol in the glasses, Vitamin Water corporation gives away small samples of their water every year :) )

Swim Meet

As the new President of VOSH (Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity), I organized a volunteer trip to the School for the Blind in Indianapolis. They were hosting the regional swim meet, and they needed people to help time and run the meet. It was amazing to see so many junior high and high school students motivated to do their best and swim for their respective state. There were students from Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and maybe a few other states. Mostly, they swam just like any seeing person would. Some of them were not allowed to dive off the starting blocks and had to start in the pool because the sudden increase in pressure from diving in wouldn't be good for their eyes. The lane dividers helped make sure they were swimming straight, and the coaches helped them determine when they were getting close to the edge of the pool by tapping them on the back with a tennis ball on a stick. It was a great and inspiring experience! We are planning to help with their track meet next fall!

Update on Kinnick and Nick

Just wanted to give you an update on Nick and Kinnick. Nick had a few uncomfortable days, and did stay home from work one day, but his shingles is finally looking better. He is well on the road to recovery and I don't think he will have any scars.

Kinnick on the other hand, will definitely have a scar. He got his stitches out this week, and it looked like the bite/tear would heal just fine, but the next morning we noticed that he must have scratched at the scab, and it was open again. Another visit to the vet (this time our local vet), and she agreed it needed to be re-stitched. Since the healed edges would heal back together, she had to cut away to expose fresh tissue and re-clean the wound. Since it takes awhile and there are risks associated with sedating dogs, Dr. Jones asked if she thought I could keep Kinnick distracted if she just did a local anesthetic. The vet tech brought me a bag of treats, and Kinnick sat perfectly still eating treats out of my hand while Dr. Jones cleaned the wound, cut new edges, and re-stitched it. Hopefully these stitches do a better job!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! Hope everyone else had a little more mild Easter than we did...Nick had been complaining about his head hurting for a few days before Easter, but I didn't think much about it, I just figured he had a headache. But while we were getting ready for Easter church, I noticed that Nick had a rash on his forehead. I thought it looked like shingles, so after some Internet research, we decided we were pretty sure it was indeed shingles. Since it is important to treat shingles early, but it is not contagious (except for small babies and immune suppressed individuals), we went to church anyways, and Nick just sat on the end row and didn't go near any babies. Then we left and immediately went to the PromptCare to get medication for Nick. Sure enough, he does have shingles! Unusual for someone his age, but with early treatment it should resolve well. We got some lunch, and decided to take the dogs to the dog park at Griffy Lake to run and play. They had a great time, and we were hosing them off outside our apartment when Nick noticed Kinnick had a big hole on his left side behind his shoulder. It was big enough that I could fit three fingers in it, and it was bleeding some. I thought back and remembered that a terrier had jumped up on Kinnick nipping at him and Kinnick had snapped at the terrier. I yelled at Kinnick thinking he had overreacted. But the terrier probably got his tooth caught and ripped a good sized hole in Kinnick's side. Of course it was Easter Sunday and no vets were open, except the emergency vet in Indianapolis. Nick was feeling pretty worn down from the shingles by this point, so I took Kinnick to Indianapolis to get the wound cleaned out and he got three stitches. As you can tell - it was an eventful Easter for us!

Scavenger Hunt

A tradition in optometry school is the annual Scavenger Hunt. As second year students, we take a big exam called the competency exam in January. During this exam we have to perform an eye exam on a randomly assigned first year student with a doctor watching and grading us. If you pass the competency test, it is one step closer to starting summer clinic as a third year. In celebration of passing competency, the third years plan the Scavenger Hunt for the second years. During the scavenger hunt the second years form teams and are given clues. You get a photo clue and a location clue. For the photo clue, you must determine what location/item the clue is talking about and get a picture of your whole group with that item or at that place. Then you must decipher the second clue and figure out what location the third years are waiting at. The locations are usually bars, and if you show up at the correct bar with the photo clue - you get points. Then there is usually a wacky optometry related challenge at the bar - such as throwing a ping pong ball into a bucket while wearing really strong powered glasses, or identifying high school pictures of our current professors. My team was called PALs, which is a good name because we are friends, but PALs also stands for Progressive Addition Lenses, so it is optometry related as well. We made team shirts, and the first photo here is the picture we put on our shirts. Our team members were: Kyle King and Julayne Miller (back standing), Sylvia Mishoulam, Eric Weigel (laying), and me, and in front Tim Hobbs, Lezlie Jones, and Carl Harder. Of course we all brought our significant others, so it ended up to be a pretty big group! There are a few pictures here that we took for the photo clues. Overall it ended up to be a super fun night! Can't wait until we get to plan Scavenger Hunt for next year's second years!

Florida Pictures Updated - More to Come!

Okay, I am finally getting around to adding some pictures from Florida to our blog. If you want to see these pictures already on a scrapbook page, you can check them out at my other blog: http://kaciescrapbook.blogspot.com/ (there should be a link at the top right of this blog too).

Florida

Nick and I just got back from a week-long vacation in Gulf County, Florida with the dogs. We rented a beach house with Josh and Lezlie Jones and their dogs Molly and Zelly. We had a great time relaxing on the beach all week long. We stayed in a very small town named Indian Pass, and there were several other smaller towns within driving distance. We spent a lot of time just relaxing on the beach and letting the dogs walk and play on the beach and in the ocean. The ocean was a little chilly, but we did get in several times. During the course of the week we went to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park to go snorkeling and enjoy the ocean. We also went to Apalachicola where we tried fresh oysters (yuck!) and went on an afternoon boat ride. On the boat we went to three different islands where we collected shells and sand dollars. We also saw dolphins in the ocean and a bald eagle on one of the islands. Another afternoon we drove to Panama City Beach which was about an hour away. We went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, and Gulf World Marine Park. At Gulf World, we saw sea lions, macaws and other birds, alligators, loggerhead turtles, stingrays and an amazing dolphin show. Overall, it was a great week, and I have tons of pictures. I will try to sort through them and post some of my favorites. In the meantime, here is a link to the pictures: http://s231.photobucket.com/albums/ee181/kaciemonroe/Florida/

Souvenirs from Mexico - Playing with the camera again!

I decided to take some pictures of the souvenirs I got in Mexico, and had fun playing with different settings on the camera.