Our Personal Plage: The Big news #2

The Email Jeff

Has Been Waiting For His Entire Life

3.2.14

Jeffery,

Congratulations on being selected to be part of the 2014 Idaho WWAMI class! I really hope you choose to come to UWSOM, and if there are any questions that I can answer for you, please don’t hesitate to contact me. My cell is listed below.

Looking forward to seeing you at orientation in August!

March 3, 2014

(March is one good month for our little family)

Who was part of the 40 or so percent of applicants to get into medical school this year? That's right my husband!!!! Jeff has worked SO HARD for this moment, to have not just the confidence of his friends and family, but the acknowledgment of a prestigious school telling him he was good enough.

Jeff and I met while we were both leaving a church activity. We walked out of a door at the same time, and we remained to stand in that door frame for the next hour talking about traveling and him wanting to be a doctor and I wanting to be a humanitarian. I knew from the way he talked that his passion was going to get him there! I am SO PROUD of my man!

If any thing Jeff teaches me that although it takes hard work, you fight for your dreams! Through our hard work and the help of a loving Heavenly Father paths open up and sometimes it is better than we even thought. I know that these next ten or so years of medical school is going to be extremely demanding on our family. I understand I am going to be lonely, but more importantly I know my husband is chasing his passion. I will have an accomplished stressed but happy husband! And I on the other hand am going to be a stressed but happy mom!!!

I want to always remember the sweet moment that took place after all the shock and excitement. I know Jeff. He would sacrifice what he truly wanted so I would be happy. But he needed to know that when it came to this I do not want him making any decisions on his own because he felt the extra time away would make my life harder. Different specialties in medicine take more time and years of schooling. The one that Jeff may end up choosing may most likely not be the 9 to 5 doctor job. He has the talent and the passion to work long hours to do his best to save lives. And on top of that be an amazing dad and husband. I made him promise me that he would choose the path of medicine that he loves the most and I would support him in that. He then promised me that all this sacrifice would be worth it. That in the end he would make it worth it for our family!

Jeff's Journal entry:

Well today has been a day of excitement. First we finally got the pictures from our reception from Heather Ball. It took along time because of miscommunications and such, but we finally got them and quickly inundated Facebook with them. They are awesome pictures so, Thanks Heather!

Then we were shocked when we checked my email and there was a message from UW saying that I was in! This is Sunday evening, during the Oscars, only 3 days after interviewing. Why on earth was I getting the message then? It almost felt like it should be a prank or something like that. It surely couldn't be real. But you wanna know the best part? It is real!

So Amber and I were talking on the drive back from Seattle about schools and other things, but the thing that stuck out in my mind was that I have wanted this for so long that I have begun to doubt whether I am going to be any good at this whole doctor thing. There has been so little to go off of from the schools that I applied to, especially because I have been rejected by so many of them. Columbia rejected me while I was in my interview with UW for heavens sake!

So when I got that email from UW, I honestly can say I didn't know what to think. I still don't know what to think in all honesty. It doesn't seem real. Maybe it will in a few weeks or months, but it will be real come August whether I feel it is real or not. The main thing is that there is this tremendous weight off my shoulders about the future. The next 4+ years are taken care of. Will there be many long hours and sleepless nights? Yes. Will there be lots of stress? Most definitely. Will I be horribly in debt? You better believe it! But they are going to happen and I am going to really become a doctor! I don't need a backup plan. I don't have to worry about the future. I am good enough and that is a huge relief, especially for the kid who worries way too much.

Now, we haven't said for sure what we are doing, because the University of Utah still has to get back to us, but that will just mean we have choices. That would mean a different kind of stress, but that stress would almost be welcome stress.

There are so many things to think about with a newish wife, new baby and starting med school, but I know that we will be successful because I have a great wife who supports me and has the strength to help me through it. It also means that I have the strength and capacity to help her through it because heavens knows this is not going to be a walk in the park for either of us.

Needless to say I am very grateful for all the help I have received over these past many years from friends, family, teachers and most importantly the Lord. All have made this possible and I am so very grateful.

I still don't know what to think. I am in shock. Somebody pinch me and wake me up because this is too good to be true!

* * *

Going down to Seattle this past week for the interview was so much fun. The drive from Coeur d'Alene to Seattle was only about 4.5 hours. Our very first stop exiting the freeway was REI. Now this is no ordinary REI! The entrance alone looks like you are in the woods. There are mountain biking trails to try out the bikes on and hiking trails, including water falls, to try out the hiking gear. The warehouse is the largest REI has!!! Jeff and I just walked around staring at all the treasures with our mouth hanging for a good while before we got down to business finding some rain coats for backpacking Europe. Jeff found an awesome sell price on coat he picked out and I found a good one that will work with my growing belly!

Oh and I must mention! I could wear my T-Shirt!!! It was sunny and warm out!

Our next stop was downtown! After our honeymoon to Hawaii we stopped in Seattle for a few days because I had never been here. At the time we walked all over and happened upon the most delicious Vietnamese Pho!!! Know we would be coming to Seattle for the past month I have been craving it. We spent some time driving around all the "fun" one way streets in this town. But in the end we FOUND IT!!! It was as yummy as I remembered. We then spent the next few hours walking around Pike Street market. We bought the coolest fruit ever :) I had never heard of it before, a lemon plum. Since I have been craving lemons throughout this entire pregnancy it seemed that this miracle of such a delicious fruit was heaven sent! We also found Himalayan salted caramel chocolates that were to die for!! But I can not forget about the famous first Starbucks. My caramel cream frappuccino and Jeff's apple cider was oh so good! The best part was our he/she man (what is Seattle without some liberal culture) that made it into our picture.

But onto our main reason for the road trip! We were nervous about finding the right building on UW's big campus. Jeff's interview was the next morning. Bright and early at 7:30am. We drove up to campus and spent awhile getting comfortable navigating around.

February 27, 2014

After a fun evening at Jeff's cousin Brian and his wife Brook's home, Jeff nervously found his way into his interview! From 7:30am though 12:30pm while Jeff was impressing everyone in his interview I explored the campus.

UW's campus is absolutly beautiful!

Here are some pictures I took:

This is the view from behind the medical school!