Life is good!

Hello! It’s been a while since we posted and a lot has happened this fall. August saw Whitney graduate from nursing school at UMass. She passed her nursing boards in September and soon afterwards began the job hunt. It took about a month but she eventually got interviews at two different places: Mass Eye and Ear, and Ophthalmic Consultants of Boston (the company she previously worked for). Although her end goal is to work in labor & delivery, her previous experience made her a stellar candidate for these places. She has begun working 30 hours a week at OCB in the OR, a few floors down from where she used to work as a scribe and technician in the Retina Department. She is working three days a week, and babysitting on the side, although she might begin looking for a per diem position to fill out 1 or 2 more weekdays. So congratulations to Whitney!

At graduation.

We also had a lot of visitors these past couple months. The Lentzs came out for a few days just after we moved to our new place in Brookline and we had a great time hanging out with them playing games and spending some quality time, which was especially great since we hadn’t made it back to Seattle this summer. It was so lovely to see both Stephanie and Steven and catch up. We (of course) played games non-stop and baked cookies (twice) in the short time they were here. One of the highlights of their trip was actually going to a friend’s wedding reception. It was an open bar, photo booth, ice cream sundaes and dancing. I’m not sure about you but that is a perfect night – especially with Steven and Stephanie.

Chad's lab mate got married a few weekends ago in the white mountains of New Hampshire. See the gorgeousness that follows below. We suffered from dry mouth due to costantly staring at sights (like below) with our jaws dropped to the floor. We enjoyed a lovely weekend filled with autumn splendor, an open bar, and delicious food. On Saturday we went for a drive through the mountains taking in the sights and going on a hike. The weekend was the perfect getaway in a beautiful hotel in gorgeous New Hampshire.

We also recently got the chance to see Chloe and Scott for a weekend to start out their East Coast trip to Boston, DC, and NYC. Since they had already seen Boston we decided to head on up to Vermont for the weekend. We stayed at a great Airbnb place which was an in-law above a garage with a full kitchen that allowed us to cook some delicious food! The night we got there we walked across the street to a bar to see if they had Heady Topper. They didn’t, but they did have a great live band before turning in. We stayed in Essex Junction and spent Saturday around Burlington, mainly in the pedestrian shopping district. One of my highlights was managing to get three cans of Heady Topper at Ken’s Pizza. It is one of the best beers in the States and incredibly hard to get, as they only can on Mondays and Wednesdays, and it sells out later that day! Lunch was at American Flatbread, which Whitney and I visited on our anniversary trip a couple years ago. The pizza they make was just as crazy delicious and there was a farmers market outside where we got to try some different samples while waiting for a table. My favorite was the farm-sourced vodka made from 100% maple syrup and distilled 23 times. Crazy smooth and delicious. For dinner Whitney had brought up a butternut squash and sage lasagna which was delicious, and we took it easy at the house, watching “42”, which was a good movie about Jackie Robinson. The next day after breakfast we stopped briefly back in Burlington before heading down to Waterbury to visit the Ben & Jerry’s factory and Cabot’s on the way home. Unfortunately the Alchemist Brewery was closed so we couldn’t grab any cans of Heady Topper to take home. We literally called a restaurant to see if they had any left and the waitress who picked up watched them sell their last three. In any case we drove home and arrived early enough to have a wonderful dinner that Scott cooked: seafood paella! It was amazing. And that was our whirlwind visit with the Vegas. We hope to see them and the Lentzs and everyone else at home soon!

Looking forward to the holiday season and coming home for the first time in a year!Chad just scheduled his third committee meeting where hopefully they’ll tell him that he’s ready to go back and start 3^rd year of medical school in June. Chad’s experiments are at the point where they’re high-risk and high failure, so that’s been a little frustrating but he’s focusing on finally publishing what he’s been doing as well as being very involved with the MD/PhD program. This is his last year serving on the admissions committee and has also created and organized a monthly Careers in Science seminar series. It’ll be hard going from the top of the heap as a 3^rd year grad to a 3^rd med at the bottom of the totem pole! I’m so proud of him and all he’s done over the past four years. What an accomplishment to be wrapping up the PhD portion of the program. Kind of crazy that we will moving out of Boston in two and half years when Chad starts his residency.

 

 

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