When There is No Peril in the Fight, There is No Glory in the Triumph

The quote that I have chosen to title this post is said to have come from Pierre Corneille, a French dramatist in the 1600s. It fits perfectly with the idea that when we struggle to obtain what we want to achieve, it feels like such a bigger victory because of what we have gone through to get there. With that said, I am pleased to share that I have survived my first year of graduate school (academically, anyway). I took my last exams this past week and will now be focusing on research full-time. I will be using this summer to learn and develop an expertise for laboratory techniques, as well as grow as a scientific thinker. I also hope to begin progress toward ideas for a potential thesis project. Although taking a summer off would be wonderful, I am really excited to plunge into research, and I will really enjoy not having to use all of my free time to study!

Chris and I have an exciting month ahead of us. Between going to Disney and having a number of visitors, we are going to be quite busy. It is going to be pretty hectic, but we love being able to see our family and friends. I will also be co-leading the study for our young women's group and couldn't be more thrilled. I am really excited to get back to meeting with these ladies every week. We really lift each other up. I'm also looking forward to getting back to working out. An injury and exams threw off my whole schedule and I will feel so much better when I get back to being healthy. I may even read for pleasure this summer...I know-crazy thought.

I know this is a pretty short post, but I'm just so glad to get a break from school! Plus, school pretty much consumed my life for the past few weeks so not much happened. My cousin did get to visit for a weekend so we could celebrate our birthdays and we had a blast. Relay for Life was very successful-thank you for all of the kind donations. It was definitely an event to remember and between the 100 teams that participated, over $60,000 was raised for cancer research and support.

Thank you so much for supporting and believing in me. I cannot express enough how awesome it is to be able to rely on so many people for encouragement and prayers. It means so much to me. Thanks for reading!