White Coat Day

It seems like only yesterday that we were watching Kent get his white coat, but actually it was three years ago. Today was Craig's big day--The White Coat Ceremony! This is the day, after two years of learning every bone, muscle, disease, and structure of the human body, as well as working on mannequins and wax teeth, the dental students finally get to work on real people for the next two years before actually graduating! It is symbolized by The White Coat Ceremony! Before the ceremony began, George had to go up next to the stage and pick out Craig's coat from the 82 coats there.

After the talks which were fantastic about the importance of serving the public and having the utmost integrity in all they did, the dental students were each "coated" and then walked across the stage as their name was read. It was really a proud moment!

The procession afterward.

After the ceremony, there was a reception with a light buffet and sparkling grape juice for toasting!

Behind every good man is a good woman! Yeh, Cassie, for all your support!

Cassie, Craig, and the proud parents!

Cassie and Craig with Todd, Abby, and little Tanner. Todd served a Mormon mission with Craig in Catania, Italy, and they came from Dallas to support Craig on this special day.

This graduating class has six Mormon students who have all become best friends through all their experiences at school as well as church, even though none of them knew each other before becoming Gator Dental Students. Their wives have all become friends, too.

L to R - Chris Ingalls, Michael Gooch, Del Greenhalgh, Jason Kim, Craig Copeland, and Bryant Anderson

The six dental students with their wives. (Four are married.)

Later that day, Cassie and some of the other girls, planned a wonderful pool party at a clubhouse for the six dental students, their families, and friends. It was such a great time for getting to know so many fabulous friends, having great food, and enjoying so much fun!

Soon the real "fun" began. Someone suggested they play watermelon football. Wow! Shall I say, "Dental students are competitive?" The only time the pool was calm was when the football was placed in the middle of the pool. I really wish I would have taken a video of all the action!

By the way, do you notice the only wife in the pool in the middle of all the action? That's right--Cassie! "Competitive" is her middle name.

Finally, the fun ended when the watermelon got a split in it. Oh well, I think secretly the guys were hoping that would happen because they were all dead tired!
At the end of the day, George and I came back to Jacksonville with a big smile on our faces with another wonderful memory in the life of parenthood!

Gone Shrimpin'

This week we had some great fun! Craig and Cassie came over for a couple of days after Cassie finished taking her GRE test to get into the Master's program at University of Florida and Craig finished taking his written boards for dentistry. They really needed to get away after all that! So they came over after picking up their friends, Todd and Abby and their darling little 10-month-old baby, Tanner, who had come in from Dallas. Of course, Craig wanted to take them shrimping! (George was at church meetings as per usual, so I tagged along.)

First, Craig demonstrated how you get the net in your teeth as well as use your two hands and try not to catch the net on any other objects as you throw it out into the water.

Then he helped Todd get it ready, but somehow either the lesson wasn't sufficient or a breeze came up right then--anyway, the net got caught all over the edge of the bridge and Craig had to precariously get over the edge and uncatch it. Whew! Anyway, no problem. The next time Todd threw it in, he was a pro!

A guy next to us caught a crab in his net. He was kind enough to let us take a picture of it, but while he was picking it up, it got him with a claw and he continued to bleed on the pier for the rest of the night. Ow!!!

Craig and Todd caught a few little fish in the net. Wasn't Cassie brave to pick one up! The little guys were promptly returned to their watery home.

Cassie, Abby, and I brought little Tanner home so that he could go to bed. Craig and Todd remained for about another hour and a half because actually the shrimping gets better as it gets darker. Sure enough! They were successful and brought home about 4 dozen shrimp!
Now I just have to learn how to take the heads off, de-vein them, cook them, etc., etc. But none of us will have trouble eating them!

Happy 4th of July!

The July 4th weekend turned out to be such a fantastic, fun weekend. Since George and I hadn't really celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary, and he had no weekend church assignments for the first time in I don't remember when, we took off for Tampa for the weekend.

We got to go to a Tampa Bay Rays vs. Kansas City Royals game. We were given box seat tickets inside an air-conditioned stadium with all the food, Diet-Coke/Mr. Pibb drinks anyone could ever want. The Rays won--all in all, you couldn't beat the whole experience!

The view from our box seats.
Raymond, the Rays' mascot, was all decked out for the 4th.


They actually have a tank where you can go touch and feed the real sting rays!After the game, we went out and watched the Fourth of July Fireworks by a beautiful lake where you could see double with the reflection on the lake. It was beautiful! There were so many families there--it was a real party, but made us homesick for all the grandkids. We thought how last year we had done all the sparklers together in Orlando. What fun!

We stayed the night at the Marriott and the next day went to Bush Gardens. What a fun day! That place is really a great place with so many shows to watch and animals to see.

This was one of the best animal shows I've ever seen. It was a musical play with almost every animal you could think of in it--including a kangaroo. He hopped off so quickly, however, that I didn't get his picture!
We rode all the mild rides like the skyride and train.

Then what were we thinking when George said we needed to ride a wild ride! We chose what we thought was the mildest! I should have bought the picture where George's eyes are so tightly closed, his hair going in all directions, and his hands shaking at every bump, jolt, and curve we went through! And this was the oldest roller coaster they had--supposedly not nearly as wild as those fast upside down, 90 degree angle drop rides. Nevertheless, we definitely realized we aren't as young as we think we are! We both had huge headaches afterward!

We stayed the night again in Tampa and returned Sunday after lunch. Except for the wild roller coaster ride, it was certainly a Happy 4th of July!