thanksgiving weekend

Thanksgiving weekend started on Wednesday with my last day of work with Stephen.  It was a bit sad, as I really enjoy working with him.  I will probably resume work with him when I get back to Atlanta in August.

Thanksgiving day I headed up to Acworth for dinner with the MacFaddens again.  Adam once again took charge in the kitchen, starting us off with an enormous pile of Georgia shrimp, then roasting turkey, preparing mashed potatoes, french bread stuffing, shaved brussel sprout salad, creamed corn, and collard greens with smoked turkey neck.  Rachel and Linda provided stuffing, green bean casserole, and yams.  My contribution was an apple-almond crisp for dessert.

mmmmm... georgia shrimp!

i got a bit of EVERYTHING!

adam and rachel tucking in

happily stuffed: rachel, linda, apollo, me and adam

we had to wait 2 hours before we had room for apple-almond crisp

Friday morning I headed off to "The Holler" in Fletcher, NC.  I was looking forward to seeing my friends Justin and Rebekah, who I hadn't seen in eight years.  As I drove northeast on 85, I kept seeing signs for Greenville, SC.  I made a phone call and ended up stopping in Greenville to say hi to one of my old mountainboard sponsors.  They currently have a skate/ standup paddle shop called Invert Action Sports.  It was fun to surprise them and catch up for a few minutes, and it was barely out of the way.

invert action sports

I got to the Holler mid-afternoon, only to find out that Justin was injured (3 month old injury) and Rebekah had just fallen ill that morning!  Nevertheless, I had a great time catching up with them and meeting their five kids.

papa justin and three of the kids

the holler is just as pretty as i remembered it

Isaac (the oldest) showed me "Africa," a very cool area on their farm where high school groups come to learn about missions and specifically, experience living conditions in Africa, including sleeping in mud huts or wooden shacks, eating food prepared in outdoor kitchens, and basically "roughing it" by American standards.

one view of "africa"

a different set of three of the kids on my africa tour

I ended up heading home Saturday instead of Sunday to allow both Justin and Rebekah time to heal.  Traffic was MUCH worse than I expected, but at least I got a nice sunset.  And I was then able to use Sunday afternoon to complete a project that was due this morning at 8 am.

sunset, and traffic

Today I started my neuro rehab short term clinical rotation.  I spent four hours doing orientation - ten (yes TEN) binders of information to read and then take an exam for each.  I now have a logon ID for the Emory Healthcare System (for these two weeks only) and were something to happen with any of my long term clinicals and I ended up back there, I'd be off the hook for orientation.  Small comfort, that.

My clinical instructor was not in today as she is working this coming Saturday.  Instead, I observed one of her colleagues for the afternoon.  I'll start "for real" tomorrow morning.  I'm looking forward to learning a lot in these next couple weeks, and then... in 19 days I start my drive home to California!!