Home Stretch

As of last Monday, I started my very last clinical rotation of PA school. This is a 6-week rotation in an urgent care. It's actually a great rotation to finish up on because it's a good review of a lot of stuff. Plus they are having me do things quite independently, so it's really good practice.

I work 12-hour shifts, 3-4 days a week. On my days off I sleep in, exercise, make annoying but necessary phone calls, try and stay busy, and look for and apply for jobs. I've had some recent setbacks on the job-search front but I do have one interview scheduled for later this month, so I'm trying to keep hopeful and keep working at it.

And when I'm not busy I feel guilty because I should be studying for the big, looming exam that I have scheduled for the beginning of June. Maybe tomorrow. Today instead of studying I spent the afternoon with Aimee and Callie and felt completely guilt-free, because taking the opportunity to spend quality time with people I love is almost always more important than studying!

Callie riding a rocking moose

Did you know you could get size 22 basketball shoes at Ross?
Believe it or not, they're a bit big for Burke.

It's a privilege to be among this group of amazing women!

I will miss this girl terribly when she moves all the way to Washington!

Goin' South

Bonnie's leaving on her mission next week so a couple of weekends ago Becky came to visit and we took a little road trip south. 

We hit up Savannah on St. Party's Day weekend. In case you didn't know, it's famous for it's huge St. Patrick's Day parade. We didn't. 

We did eat dinner in the oldest standing building in Georgia.

Then we headed over to Charleston and enjoyed the best BBQ in South Carolina while in Battery Park.

We ferried over to Ft. Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was fired.

And then we headed home to Charlotte, stopping for some delicious fried fast food dinner and Cheerwine floats from Cook Out, a North Carolina classic.

So it was a lot of driving, but a delightful weekend. Did I mention that I just love Charleston?

I also love being a part of Burke's family's first-time experiences of the South. 

I love living here.

Wedding Weekend

I still haven't recovered from our 4-day trip to Utah last weekend, but it was absolutely wonderful. It was a whirlwind, and definitely not long enough.

It was a beautiful wedding at the Brigham City temple. That particular temple had special significance because our new brother-in-law's father carved much of the intricate wood decorating the interior of the temple. It's amazingly beautiful, by the way. The happy couple were too!

It was so much fun to be together with Burke's fam, as usual, but it was also really great to see his extended family we hadn't seen in a while. At the reception I got to see a couple of old BYU friends, plus meet a bunch of Burke's old family friends that I had heard about but never met.

We spent a little time with Aunt Janeen's family, and Burke and those 4 boys (that aren't so little anymore) found new ways to rough-house, giving Burke a nice workout, as usual. 

We sure had a blast sledding! 

Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, which will always be held as one of my favorite places in the whole wide world, and enjoyed some time with Grandma and Grandpa. 

Thanks so much for letting us stay with you! We love you both so much and miss our more frequent visits!!

 Now if only this girl would come out east.

Looking forward to that trip really helped me get through my last rotation. I would be surprised if Burke and I ever moved back to Utah, but we're going to have to keep visiting every so often. There are just too many important people there.

New year

Now that it's FEBRUARY and I have been blogger MIA, I guess I'll say hello. I hate playing catch-up ever, which is why when I used to be a good journal writer I wrote every day, and now that I don't I'm doomed to never ever write.

So it's old news by now of course, but it's 2013! I don't know if I've ever so whole-heartedly and excitedly welcomed in a new year.

Graduation year!

I know comparatively I've not been in school for-ev-er like some people do. But there's a big reason (or a few) that I didn't go to medical school and I am so excited to be done.

There are a lot of up in the air details again, as is wont to happen. Our heads are full of questions about houses, jobs, schools, kiddies, monies, and travels, but that's really not anything new. We're taking it as it comes and happy and excited about life.

I'm just glad we have each other.

Boxes and mess to holiday fest

So, it's been a crazy month and a half since we moved! It has taken every bit of that time for us to get settled in. 

It was a nice move, as moves go... Being able to load the truck, move, and unload the truck in one day is a big (and welcome!) difference! We are so excited to be here in Charlotte. So far we like the area we are in and we like our ward. We love being able to hang out with our families more often. Our apartment is not without it's flaws but it's a definite big step up. One of the big highlights of the last month or two was purchasing our very own washing machine and dryer! I'm still getting excited to do the laundry, if that tells you anything. Once we finally got a few pictures hung on the walls and put up our Christmas tree the place really started to feel like home! That Christmas tree is on it's 5th year and holding strong.

In the lower left picture you can see the TV stand/shelf Burke built/stained/etc. It added a lot of time to our "getting our stuff situated" but he did a great job and it's what we needed. Also it gave Burke a hankering for power tools and space to build stuff. 

Burke's been very busy with his new job, including a trip to Denver. I loved my orthopedics rotation in November. Really, I loved it. Except I'm still not super crazy about surgery. I started pediatrics in December and am really enjoying this one. I haven't yet found as much fulfillment on any rotations as I feel when I walk into a room and get to make friends with a sick little kid. It doesn't happen every time, but it's so fun. 

I took my first sick day since I can remember last week and today Burke left work early sick. I'm not sure if I should blame working in pediatrics but I have sure been exposed to a lot of germs over there. It's a bummer, but hopefully Burke will be better tomorrow so we can start our Christmas partying! We're feeling so blessed to have each other, wonderful people in our lives, and all that we need and so much more.

By the way, I'm super excited to live in North Carolina again.

Best of Norfolk

I asked Burke what he would miss about living in Norfolk and together we came to a simple consensus. There are only 2 things:

the beach

and the people.

Our memories of Norfolk and our time here will be filled with lots of other interesting and unique things:
Like I-64 W that goes north and I-64 E that goes south
Our apartment, which smelled musty when we were gone for a weekend, leaked in a ridiculous amount of cold air through the windows, with carpet that was stained and didn't meet the door, miss-matching and miss-fitting linoleum in the bathroom, and neighbors who we could hear every.dang.thing about.
The roads! Oh the roads! From the pot hole-filled interstate to the narrow-laned Tidewater Rd
The hula-hooper on Granby St
Tunnel traffic
Jet noise. Those "I <3 Jet Noise" bumper stickers? They're sarcastic.
Hurricane hype

We may look back on those things with a sense of nostalgia. But we won't miss them.

We will miss our beach. Living on the beach. A luxury we will likely (almost certainly) never enjoy again. And while I'm sure we didn't appreciate it and utilize it like some others would, we still loved it. And we'll miss it.

But more than anything, we'll wholeheartedly miss our friends.

(and many more, not pictured)

We've been so blessed to meet some awesome, awesome people that we will sorely miss. Thanks for being the best part of Norfolk!

The pluses and minuses of ER (updated)

+ The opportunity to learn and do procedures
+ Getting (relatively) quick results on labs and tests
+ Lots and lots of variety, and lots of things I've never seen before
+ Connecting with a patient, and feeling like they like and trust me
+ Wearing scrubs...  happy to put aside my dress pants for a while
+ Days off...'nough said

- Long shifts
- Nights. For me, they were brutal.
- Draining abscesses is far less satisfying than I imagined it would be. Actually, it's really gross (I know, shocker). 
- Screaming, sick children still terrify me
- Lots and lots of sad situations
- Nobody is having a good day when they come in to the ER

There's all kinds of tough stuff coming through the doors. There's addicts, psychiatric illnesses, people who refuse to take care of their medical problems and end up so far gone. Sometimes there just isn't much we can offer.

Overall, now that I'm done, I have to say I really enjoyed it. Most days were pretty fun and exciting. Naive little me learned a lot about the great big world out there and the struggles people face. And I learned a lot about medicine. Do I want to get a job in an ER when I'm done? Quite possibly.