Wrapping Up

As we are wrapping the last Christmas gifts and wrapping up the year, Jared and I are realizing how many new beginnings are ahead of us as we embark on 2009.  As Jared mentioned, we haven't had many posts in the last several weeks since we have been completely out of our routine.  Just before Thanksgiving, Jared and I took a road trip to the Youth Specialties Conference in Nashville with our "Philly relatives," Doug and Mear.  Once Thanksgiving was over, Jared and I had to part ways once again (yes, this gets very old) as I started a rotation at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga and he headed back to Philadelphia for the next month.  We were finally reunited just before Christmas when Jared drove 14 hours in one day to Murfreesboro, just so we wouldn't have to spend yet another night apart.  After 4 years of marriage, it still feels like we are dating...and long distance at that.  Fortunately, this past month was supposed to be the last rotation completely apart, which we are very thankful for.  Since then we've enjoyed all the Christmas festivities (including too much down home food) with my side of the family here in the Boro, and we will be headed to Gatlinburg to meet up with his family to celebrate Christmas/New Year's Day at the beginning of this next week.  

     Our lives have certainly been chaotic lately with these away rotations, holiday traveling, residency interviews and a baby on the way, but we look forward to a couple of short months of routine life in our humble Philly apartment before all of the new but welcomed chaos begins.  If our baby allows, I will be working through the end of February and will then start some of my vacation time that I have saved up over the past couple of years the first week of March, which is when our baby girl is due.  Later in March, we find out through the match where we will be moving for residency.  Then, I will hopefully be finishing my last 4 weeks of medical school during April by doing a local ENT rotation in Philadelphia with an ENT doc I have worked with previously.  I graduate in May, and we will then move as close as we can to my residency hospital (wherever that will be) in early June.  Residency begins the last week of June.  Sound crazy?  It will be.  We are also not so naive to believe that everything will go according to plan.  This is just the skeleton of a plan that we have in place.  Usually when I get my ducks in a row, God flicks at least a few of them down just to show me who is in control, and I am ok with that.  He's has brought us to where we are today, and we lead content (although complicated) lives as a result.  

     We are now 30 weeks along in the pregnancy, but here are some pics taken at 28 weeks for those of you who like visuals.  Hope you have all had happy holidays.  [gallery]

All quiet

Just so you know, we haven't posted much lately because Holly is in TN for a rotation and Jared is back in PA. We are both lonely and pathetic shells of ourselves so there's nothing interesting to post. Unless you want us to talk about the wicked virus that we both caught from my grandmother at Thanksgiving. Or how we traversed across most of KY while Holly was interviewing at 2 residency sites on back to back days, right after we were starting to recover from said virus. Or how we are very thankful that my sister, who Holly is staying with, has the ability to iChat on her computer and we can therefore see each other when we talk at night. Other than that, you should know that Holly crosses into the 3rd trimester tomorrow. It's getting closer and we can't wait. Thank you all for your prayers and support. We'll try to post some pics of Holly or Thanksgiving or both soon.