Veterinary Badge of Honor

About two weeks ago, Kody got inducted as a "veternarian-in-training," by donning a blue lab coat and participating in a graduation-like ceremony.

Kody's parents came down for the weekend and it was fun to have them here and learn a little more about Kody's next four years of insanity.

The first year students were given their coats by a few faculty members and student representatives. They'll wear them during all their rotations over the next 6 weeks and during the upcoming years.

One of the first people Kody met while getting his rabies shots before school started was the couple below - Nicole and Andrew. They're from Virginia and Nicole loves Young House Love. So basically it was friends at first blog post...or something like that.

Illinois has a unique vet program in that students do 8 weeks of rotations in the veterinary teaching hospital on campus during the first three years of school. Kody will do rotations until October and then begin typical classes. These last few weeks though, he's been loving learning to draw blood from a dog's jugular vein, tackling cattle and learning to tie knots to restrain sheep, goats, pigs, horses and cows. His first week was small animal internal medicine, last week was farm animal husbandry and this week he'll learn about diagnostics.

So far, he's really enjoying it and has already made some great friends. We spent yesterday sweating in the heat at the first Illini home football game with two other couples and then enjoying a BBQ inside at our house. While it was fun...nothing can compare to a Husker football game. The stadium wasn't even full! Even with the lack of quality college football, it was a fun day and the Illini did win!

I have to brag on my hubby for a bit though. He's pretty much dominating this vet school thing so far. Over these first 8 weeks, the students are required to complete about 40 online quizzes, along with weekly assignments related to their rotations. He's almost done with the quizzes and was even jokingly offered a summer job wrangling mean bulls that need tying up, due to his incredible knot tying ability. And if you know anything about Kody, you'll be super impressed that he joined three clubs (Surgery Club, Animal Hospital Assocation of American and the Christian Veterinary Club) and wants to get a University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine license plate holder! Completely different man from undergrad :) Love him!