Spring Fever!

Since I am sick and stuck at home attempting to relax, I figured now would be a great time to send everyone an update on our lives :) The weather has been somewhat of a tease here in the South this winter, with temps in the 60's and even 70's some days, it has us very ready for the warm temperatures to stay. It's 60 today so I am sitting on our porch writing this update :)

 

School has been going very well for Mike this semester, with more clinical time and a little less classroom work than last semester, his focus is now to figuring out what he wants to do after graduation and if he wants to specialize. He shadowed the oral surgery residents this past week and got to watch a world renowned surgeon rebuild a pallet on a child which he absolutely loved. The hours would be brutal, especially through residency should he pursue that route, but the job seems like something Mike would be very good at and would love by the way he relays his stories from the week to me. I am also officially Mike's patient at school so please say a little prayer for me since he will be doing a filling on me soon! ha! 

 

I am officially received news this Friday that I got a job I applied for. I will be doing corporate meeting planning with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina and working with a pretty fun little group. I am pretty excited as planning is something I greatly enjoy. My special events and photography company with partner Stacey has picked up quite a bit, with several weddings booked this summer and into next year that we will be organizing and photographing. It is very exciting to see our small company start to grow with all of the hard work and time we have put into it over the last several months-it's finally starting to pay off! 

 

That is pretty much all for now! We hope everyone is doing well and has a great weekend!

 

Love,

 

Erin & Mike 

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Updates, updates, and more updates!

Long time, no post! So, I will remedy that :) What have the Costa's been up to this summer? I think it might be more like, what haven't we done this summer!

 

-Travel, and lots of it! We were able to make it  down to Charleston, SC twice (once for a conference three weeks ago for Mike), spent a great and relaxing weekend in Cancun, Mexico and then went white water rafting in Asheville, NC and up to see our family (many of which are probably reading this now) in NJ and PA. We had a great visit up north but it was much too short. I also made a trip up to Pittsburgh/Erie, PA for a friends wedding and Mike just got back from another school trip out to Portland, Oregon. Needless to say, we are keeping the roadways and airways hot!

 

-School: Mike was in school through most of the summer and then had a five week break to enjoy the end of the summer-that was when we did all of our traveling together :) He is back in school now and treating patients in clinic every week! I am officially his patient and he will start treating me in a few weeks (YIKES!). He did make deans list again this summer so that puts my nerves at ease a little :)

 

-New pup: We adopted a new dog this summer and his name is Duke. He is about 10-11 months old and a black lab mut mix. Duke and Zeke went through a 6 week training course and we are proud to say they graduated and are officially trained and well behaved dogs (well, almost).

 

-Photography: I launched a new photography website back in June (prevoirphotography.com) and have recently started shooting weddings. I absolute love it and am looking forward to my next one in Raleigh next Saturday. I am also currently taking two classes, one for Photoshop and another one for more advanced photography. Mike has been amazing with encouraging me and spoiling me with new equipment!

 

That's all for now! Hope everyone is doing well-

 

Love,

 

Erin & Mike

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Sweet Summertime :)

Summer is in full swing down here in the South, well, not by calendar rules, but by temperature rules. With temps in high 90's already, we are hunkering down for another hot summer! After a short break from school, Mike is back at it for his summer classes and got to see his first patient last Wednesday! It was great to hear all about it and see how much he really loves what he is doing. Honey, remember this when you are up at 4AM studying for your next test like this morning :)

 

Recent updates with us...hmmm...We bought bikes on a whim and have been riding them pretty regularly. We are lucky to have a great riding trail right down the street from us so we are able to just hop on our bikes from our apt and ride down there. I am now teaching swim lessons part time for children of all ages since quitting my full time job back at the end of April. I am pretty excited to be back in the pool teaching kids, I loved doing this in high school and college. I continue to work on my photography and small business as well as take classes whenever I can. 

 

This past weekend Mike and I spent the weekend working around the apt and spending some quality time together :) Last minute on Saturday we decided to check out two local wineries that are right down the street from our house. We went to Cloer Family Vineyards and then on to the Vineyards at Southpoint. We really enjoyed our afternoon and actually learned some very interesting info. For instance, before Prohibition, North Carolina was the leading producer of wine, not California. During Prohibition, they replaced many of the vineyards with tobacco farms during that time, which then became our leading crop. These days ,however, they are ripping up the tobacco farms and replanting vineyards at a pretty rapid rate. We now have 106 vineyards in North Carolina which continues to grow every year. Pretty exciting news for us, or at least we thought so. 

 

Lastly, we just ask that you keep our brother in law Greg in your thoughts and prayers. He deployed to Iraq just a few weeks ago and leaves behind his wife (my sister Bekah) and their two beautiful children, Christian and Ava. Please pray for a safe return home to Bekah and little ones and for a quick deployment.

Vineyard Visiting

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Memorial Day Weekend

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Spring Fever!

Hello! I just wanted to update everyone with what has been recently going on in our lives :)

Mike was recently chosen as Kaplan teacher of the year in North Carolina, and was given a nice raise to incent him to keep teaching both online and in the classroom in his spare time (if you can call it spare time in dental school!). If you are not familiar with Kaplan, they offer classes and tutoring for students taking any standardized test such as the MCAT, LSTAT, DAT, PCAT, SAT etc. I am very proud of him even though he thinks the whole thing isn't a big deal, but it is, so I will brag for him.

Mike is less than two weeks away now from completing his first year of dental school! Time has really flown by and as exciting as it is, he will resume summer session classes after a few weeks break, so hopefully he will have a good relaxing break until then.

We will be moving to Durham at the end of next week so we are closer to classes for Mike. He has been commuting about 35-45 minutes to school everyday so this will put him right across the street from the Triangle buses, which he will be able to hop right on to go to class. If you are familiar with Durham at all, we will be living right across the street from the The Streets at Southpoint, which is a very nice shopping and dining area. My friend  and business partner Stacey actually works for the apartment complex and recently moved in there with her husband Jason, so I am excited to be neighbors with my best friend and of course have access to her closet :)

I am continuing to take photography classes whenever I can and am currently in the middle of an 8 week class. I enjoy it more and more every class and am starting to take more pictures on the side for different people. Stacey and I are looking to start advertising and pushing photography more with our company Prevoir Special Events so we are very excited of what's to come with that! Our next big event with Prevoir is just two weeks away from today in Raleigh and we are so happy with the volume of pre-sale tickets and sponsors who have signed on for this fashion show fundraiser. It's been a lot of work but overall a great experience to date.

There will be more news to come in the upcoming weeks but until then, I hope everyone enjoys the warmer weather that is finally here to stay, well at least in NC :)

 

Love,

Erin and Mike