We also celebrated Molly's XX birthday. I won't post how old she is but it was such a fun night. Her birthday falls on Valentine's Day so it was a pink party with lots of hearts and love decorations and you know I stole some extra goody bags for Hannah and Sammy's Valentine's day treats. Just being economical, right? I have actually known Molly for prob 8 or so years now, maybe more? We met at UNF when I was doing my senior thesis and she played a large role in me getting set up for interviews here at UF since she was already here in the PhD program. She has been such a great source of support throughout this long and grueling process. I know one of the many reasons God picked this particular program for me was the group of friends/cohort I would go through the process with. Unlike most programs I can honestly say we do not have competition with each other but rather fully support each other through each trial and celebrate EVERY victory. I love seeing each of these amazingly strong ladies do some big presentation or pass their quals, etc and get one step closer to reaching their ever so daunting goal. Now that most have started their big girl jobs, it is just great to see that we are all staying in touch and super close regardless of what state or country we end up in.
Molly has a fabulous sense of humor and keeps me laughing about even the most serious stuff but she also offers good insight during rough times. She and Mike had their daughter Jane about 5 months after we had Sammy so it has been nice to have someone to share that "mommy perspective" in our program with. She is probably the ONLY person who truly understands just how difficult it is b/c she has the same deadlines and expectations on her as I do and also struggles to keep a balance between our progress in the program and family. There are days when I will be planning to work on something to meet some huge deadline during Sammy's nap and of course, he won't nap thus resulting in a now cranky little one on top of it all. The pressure starts to creep in as I think of the consequences of not meeting whatever deadline and thankfully can call Molly and say "Sammy and I need to get out of this house, lets go to the park". We meet up and let our kiddos play and vent all our frustration and dream of what it will be like to one day be doing the work we feel called to use these degrees for AND have plenty of family time! What a glorious day that shall be!!!
I have loved "doing life" with Mollz and I am so thankful to have her and her family in mine. Oh also, her mom is who Franklyn lives with now! Franklyn was my first baby, he is a 6 lb Yorkie and was just the best dog, he literally went everywhere with me, even school on my 12-14 hour days! He had his bed right next to my desk. The students who came to my office hours loved him. I trained him and got him certified as a therapy dog but once Sammy became mobile we had problems. Sammy was too rough & with Franklyn being so small I was worried Sammy would break his legs or kill him, seriously. I drug my heels for a while b/c we couldn't deal with parting with the Tank but once he started spending ALL his days shaking in fear under our kitchen table and growling when we tried to get him out from there I knew it was time. It was SO DIFFICULT to give him away!!! I always ask Molly for updates and for anyone who was wondering or knew our little Tank you should know he is VERY happy and loving life. He goes on walks, his skin condition is healed up (we couldn't afford to get the treatment), he is more than happy and is smothered in love everyday and it does my soul good to hear this. She did say he snapped at Jane the other day when they were visiting so sadly, Sammy may have scarred him for life but otherwise he is good. I still get teary over him at times. In fact, when I had to fill out some forms for Sammy's school yesterday I actually lied on the question that said "pets in home" and I put "cat- Kobe Riggs DeLucca" (yes all our pets get full names) and then I couldn't do it. I wiped my little tear and proudly wrote :" dog- Franklyn Marley DeLucca" and quickly turned the page and moved on. I don't fully think it is a true lie b/c in Sammy and Hannah's hearts, he is still our doggy. They both talk about him all the time and Hannah even wrote Franklyn a letter! Sammy loves to say "familia" and name everyone in our family and Franklyn is always in the mix.
Anyway, here are some pics from Molly's fun party! Happy Bday to an amazingly fabulous super mommy!
Amberly was so helpful with entertaining Sammy, she had him mystified with her disappearing ball trick
Vanessa and Jen cheesing it up!
Erin and Clint
Sammy literally cried to be in this pic then wouldn't look at the camera??
Jen and Jon
Love Amberly's face after learning what is in marshmellows.... cow hooves yuck
Chris and Jacquline
Amberly was teaching us her dance moves
Clearly Molly blew me out of the water with her skillz
Molly loved her pashmina she got!
