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.

Happy fall!

Happy fall, from the Chesapeake Bay!

So far it looks a lot like the other seasons around here, but it is most definitely fall. 

How do I know? First of all, I've started running again...a clear sign of the coming of autumn.

Second of all, I'm working in Family Medicine right now and let me tell you, people attribute all kinds of things to the changing seasons. 

I like my rotation a lot and think family med wouldn't be bad at all. The one thing I really don't like? Dealing with "colds/coughs/sore throats/sinus infections/upper respiratory infections/bronchitis/whatever you wanna call it" all. the. time. Seriously. But otherwise it's going great!

Burke and I gave talks in church today and as we were introduced the bishop said we would be leaving soon. Between that and Burke's emotional-ness during the intermediate hymn of "Each Life That Touches Ours For Good," (Really? Who can we blame for picking that song?) now everybody has to say something to us about how sad they are that we're leaving or what not. It just feels kind of funny because we aren't actually moving for another month and a half. People are going to keep seeing us around and be like, "Wait. You're still not gone yet?" Let's be serious; nobody wants to say goodbye too many times. 

I hope you're enjoying September, wherever you are! I know it's got to be one of my favorite times of year.

Charlotte

No more working in shorts...it's back to the office with this guy!

Burke has accepted a job for TIAA-CREF in Charlotte, NC, and will begin October 1st (or thereabouts).

He'll be there and I'll be here for one long and lonely month. Then in early November we'll be moving to Charlotte, and I will finish up my rotations there and come back to Virginia to graduate next May as planned. We are super excited!!!

Last year a guy that Burke used to work with at Thrivent who now works at TIAA-CREF tried to recruit him. It wasn't the right timing, obviously, but it got us thinking about future opportunities. Burke already knows several people and has a great reputation at CREF. When Burke's dad got a job for the same company and started plans to move to Charlotte it was even more of a reason to pursue it--both sets of parents are in the same state now! I started working on arranging away rotations in Charlotte so that if the opportunity presented itself again, we could go ahead and move down there. The only bummer is that this job is lining up  a month too early. But that's that!

I feel so blessed and so proud of Burke. We don't know quite where his career will lead us, but he is doing a great job wherever and in whatever he does. I'm so grateful that he supported me in moving to Virginia even though it meant sacrificing a lot for him to work from home. It was a huge blessing that he was able to not only keep his job, but do so well in it, for those 21 months. We're excited for the opportunities that he will have in NC, and I'm thrilled to be moving back "home." We will live really close to Burke's parents and about an hour and 15 minutes from my parents, which is so exciting. North Carolina is wonderful and we can't be happier about our next big change!