Bookin' It Through the Bible Belt

We both had to get up early the next morning as we had a long drive ahead of us. Luckily for us, Chris slept like a rock, however Emily managed to only get a few hours of shut eye. Of course, guess who was cranky the next morning???

In training for our future status as Texans, we shared a hearty breakfast with both our parents at Perkins and prayed for GEORGE "DUBBYA" BUSH.

A babe magnet being pulled by our Budget Truck

Although we were both sad to say our last goodbyes, we also were eager to hit the road, as we weren't sure exactly how fast we'd be able to drive the Budget Truck. The guy at the Budget center instructed us, among other things, to not top 55 MPH with a full truck. Our goal was to reach Gainesville, TX by that evening, as its only about an hour north of Dallas.

The drive was uneventful, even going 70 MPH in the truck, until we hit southern Oklahoma...the land of MEGA churches. If you've ever considered tithing 50% or more of your salary to a baptist church, then you really need to check out the I-35 corridor south of Oklahoma City.

We arrived safely to our Motel 8, upon which Emily literally brushed her teeth and headed straight for bed.

One tired, unhappy camper....

The next morning, after a better evening of sleep for Emily, we embarked for our brief jaunt to Dallas. As our luck turned out, our prayers of the morning before had come true, as we found that we would be driving right past President George Bush Turnpike...hey, maybe someday Dubbya will have his own highway.

1) Emily about to pass the coveted Bush Turnpike

2) The approaching metroplex of Dallas

After we arrived at our new apartment, we spent the 45 minutes we waited for the movers trying to unhitch the car (something neither of us was experienced with). As Emily got swarmed by Texas-size mosquitos, Chris finally figured out how to unhitch the car, and not too soon afterwards, the movers finally arrived. However, there was one small issue...Emily had locked the padlock on backwards (this was one of those old locks where the bottom part comes fully undone from the keyway), and luckily the movers had a dead-bolt cutter with them.

Emily will always remember the first Texan that she met in person..."Dr. Love", our head mover. Seriously, the guy introduced himself with a straight face to Emily as Dr. Love. Dr. Love got his team of two other guys together, and with Chris' help, we finally were moved in about an hour later.

We had finally arrived... we spent the next day unpacking what we could, but in two days we were off for our belated honeymoon/vacation to the west-coast.

Graduation....Finally!

Graduation from dental school seemed to occur during a whirlwind of other events leading up to it. Mainly our time was divided between packing (majority of it done by Emily), organizing, finishing up patient cases for school, Emily getting into a car accident (yes, she walked away unscathed - however her car "Pedro" did not), more packing, and saying goodbye to good friends and a few of our favorite places in Iowa City.

Parents from both sides of the family were able to make it in for the graduation ceremony, as well as Chris' sister, Emily's Grandma Margaret and her friend Dalton, and Emily's oldest sister Andrea. After an inordinate amount of staged graduation photos (mostly instigated by the Barwacz side of the family - see below) took place, it was time to head to Hancher Auditorium for the graduation ceremony.



A fairly short ceremony was followed by a champagne toast in the parking lot with a few other fellow graduates. After that it was off to a local restaurant (Bob's Your Uncle) for what some may refer to as a celebratory dinner, and what others may refer to as a pre-moving/truck-loading calorie binge, depending on where you fell that day. At any rate, immediately following dinner both sets of parents pitched in to help us clear out the condo of our remaining things, and helped us hitch up Chris' car (still running strong at 17) for the long drive to Dallas.

After getting the 16' Budget truck fully stocked (literally) and the car hitched, we spent our last night in Iowa City in a hotel that smelled of a musty amalgamation of cigarette smoke and dirty diapers (well, sort of). If you're ever in Iowa City and want to know the name of this hotel, give us a call and we'll be happy to refer you elsewhere!

The next morning we embarked on our journey to Dallas....

Welcome to Our Blog!

Hi everyone...we hope all is going well with friends and family who might be visiting this site. We thought a nice way to keep everyone up to date this year on our happenings in Dallas (and abroad) would be to create a blog site. Some of the entries will have more text than pictures (as Dallas may not be the most picturesque place on earth), and sometimes with more pictures than text. At this point we are learning the in's and out's of managing a blog, so hopefully our entries will only get better with time. Note that picture thumbnails can be clicked on to enlarge the pictures to full-screen.

The frequency of entries to our site will mostly be determined by what's going on in our lives, so at times we may have one entry a week, and at times we may have fewer, it all depends. While our objective is to keep everyone up to date on what's going on with us, we'd also love to hear what's happening with everyone else, so feel free to post any comments/criticisms you may have after an entry, or just tell us how much our blogging skills really suck! So again, welcome, and we hope you'll enjoy our site.

-Chris & Emily