Next Year

So I just wanted to let everyone know how excited we are about next year. Steve is interviewing right now and he has to do interviews for two separate residencies because radiology requires you to do a preliminary year in something. We chose Internal Medicine. Anyway Steve's first interview was a couple weeks ago and he pre-matched to do a residency with them. Its down in Gross Pointe. Which is on the southern section of Detroit on the Eastern side. So it hugs Lake Huron. Its supposed to be a really nice area. Which is nice cause it means we won't be in a scary area, but we're hoping it doesn't mean expensive housing. 

For Halloween I was a gypsy and Steve is Mayhem from Allstate.

For those of you who don't know what it means to Pre-match I'll explain as best I can. Most residencies you'll interview with afterwards you rate them and they rate you and then in March they match up who liked who best and thats where you go for residency. To Pre-match its like you only rating them and them only rating you so that there's no guess work. Except you also sign a contract so neither of you can duck out and give them the shaft. So thats what we've done! 


Anyway its nice knowing where we will live next year and that we don't have to move far, plus we can still visit all the people we love in Saginaw! Now Steve is just interviewing for the four years after that in Radiology. He has a couple interviews in Detroit in January and one in Syracuse NY. Out of those options I think NY would be awesome. I really want to live in New England so we can travel on his time off and see all the amazing things there are. I'm still hoping he'll interview in Connecticut cause I so want to be a Gilmore Girl. (Yes I know how silly that is. You should see peoples faces when I say that to them. They don't know whether to laugh or call the therapist.) Anyway I just want to see the east coast. 

This is Mayhem Steve with our friend Jessica aka Flo from Progressive.

That's where we are right now. We'd also like to thank everyone who supports us during the Medical School ups and downs. We have the greatest families ever! 

Yay For Pumpkin Season

So we did our yearly trip to Johnson's Giant Pumpkin patch for the 2nd time. Such a great ancient tradition for us. I invited everyone I know in Saginaw to come so that we could share the fun. Mmmm if you haven't had apple cider donuts on a cool crisp day than you haven't lived. Of course this wasn't a cool crisp day. This was our indian summer day that we all got sunburned on.

         

 

We also got to see the launching of pumpkins with the trebuchet. I know that everyone is wondering where I learned that word. And no nobody had to tell me that this launching machine was called that. Everytime I say trebuchet I remind myself that I'm a bit of a fantasy geek. But seriously this macine is awesome it launches a pumpkin which hits the ground so hard that its shrapnel looks like it would hurt. We saw it at least 3 times that day. (We kept coming back to watch with our friends cause they kept showing up.)

 I particularly enjoy the wood carvings that a man does with his chain saw. Such a random skill. I wonder if its on his resume?

 I ♥ the Mystery Machine. Maybe someday I'll have one of my own!

 This year the walk through the christmas tree bird walk was free so we got to see some cool birds. The duck in a wig cracked me up. My mind keeps getting fried trying to sort out all the dumb movie quotes that would make fun of this. All I can say is I keep coming back to the phrase pig in a wig which doesn't fit at all but still funny! See if you can come to something better.

I Hate Hate Hate Spiders

So I feel very cursed when it comes to certain things. For Example, spiders. So I think it all started in about 7th grade when I did a halloween sleepover at a friends house. We slept in their partially finished basement that had all sorts of halloween decorations up including fake black spiders all over. That was just fine, but then of course we watched "Arachnophobia". Its Halloween so of course I can understand us wanting to watch a scarier movie but it was so freaky that I've had nightmares about it and the paranoia is quite annoying. 


So anyway about a week after watching that movie with the deathly jumping spider invasion, I was taking a shower and when I stepped out there were baby spiders descending from the ceiling all over the whole bathroom and I'm pretty sure they heard me screaming in china. I fact if any of you happen to remember a faint rumbling of the earth around 1997 a little after halloween then that was me so no worries I had a wee meltdown. 

If you've seen the movie you can probably sympathize with me cause its pretty freaky. Anyway I'm not so good with spiders. I am fine if they keep their distance or are outside, but when they get too close forget about it. 


So this week I was getting ready for work in the morning and What looked like a dandelion fluff floated in front of my eyes and my first instinct was to blow it away but I'm glad I didn't seeing as it would have swung back in my face and was actually a big big spider descending about 2 inches from my face. What the heck. Do all the spiders in the world have a vendetta against me. I haven't killed that many and I just need a hula hoops amount of distance for comfort. 

I did have this funny flash in my mind of the scene on mega mind with the speeider arachnisdeathicus blown into his face, but then reality kicked in and the spider almost claimed ownership of the bathroom. Then again maybe all this spider stuff started before "Arachnophobia". I remember when I was probably about 8 my sister told me that a spider had crawled into my hair and I couldn't tell if she was joking or not and so I kept trying to shake it off and I'm still not sure if there was one or not, but she gave me an excellent case of the heebie jeebies. Anyone else have weird stuff like this in their life?

What's Up Doc!

All righty, here's a quick update on life here. Steve is doing his surgery rotation in West Branch still. He finishes the last week of October and we are looking forward to it a lot a lot. Its getting really tiring him being gone all the time. and He is bored of his new reclusive life, plus there isn't much going on at the hospital most days so that makes it even harder to be so far away. It's about an hours drive. After that he is going to start an Emergency Medicine rotation.


He has decided to do Radiology now but since this rotation is already scheduled we figured he might as well stick with it. He applied the first week of September for residencies and we are now just anxiously waiting for everyone to notice how awesome Steve is and set up interviews. He already has a couple of interviews down in Detroit so thats hopeful. He is doing his calling at church with the 11 year old scouts and loving that. This next week we are looking forward to doing a fun game night with some couples in the ward and going to a local pumpkin patch where they launch pumpkins and sell amazing apple cider!

I was working at the mosquito control until labor day and then I started my new job. The mosquito control director offered e a job at his home staying with his daughter during the day. She is 25 and in a wheel chair and I just hang out with her get her up and ready in the morning and some diaper care. It a pretty nice job. She is pretty much a normal 25 year old with a few minor differences that she has from when she was hit by a car at the age of two. I like working so that I feel like I have something to plan the other things I need to do around. Its also fun cause I get to do crafts with her during the day.


Steve and I are planning on probably staying in Saginaw for Christmas so that we can have time in January for him to schedule and travel to interviews. Then in March we find out if he matches to a residency program and then graduation on June 8th. So this year is mostly just getting through it and making plans for the start of residency which we can't really plan much for since we haven't the slightest clue where we'll be. Anyway those are the highlights and I guess we're doing good. Michigan isn't so bad in the fall. Kinda pretty!

Fall Camping

Steve and I finally made a trip to the upper peninsula of Michigan. We drove up friday night and camped right by the Mackinac bridge. Then we drove up another 2 hours to Tahquamenon Falls. It was so beautiful on the road with all the leaves changing colors. We hiked from the lower water falls to the upper falls which was about 4 hours round trip. Sadly that is a bit out of our comfort zone right now since we are getting super lazy and don't know many good hiking places close by. But we still did it and have our aching feet ect. to prove we did it. Sophie loved being out in the woods and it was a blast to just go out and be mountain men. 

Orchard Family

We the Grandkids