The Ten Days of Christmas Break

Mac gets 10 whole days off from work for Chrismas!  We are not traveling anywhere this year, so we are going to try to make the most of it! 

 The First Day of Christmas Break was Christmas Eve.  I was still recovering from a very bad cold which sidelined me all week.  The girls were all still feeling sick.  The boys didn't even get sick, though!  Unfair!!  

For Christmas Eve, I had some grocery shopping to do in the morning.  I took two kids and braved the ridiculously long lines at Safeway to get some much-needed food to complete Christmas Dinner. 

While I was at the grocery store, Mac was with Steven.  Steven had a special swim practice, and while he was swimming Mac went to work out at the gym.  Mac is quite the meathead these days.  He works out a lot!  He weighs 205 pounds now.  That's about 30 pounds lighter than he has been for about 4 years! 

After the special swim practice, Isabel, Luke and I met Mac and Steven at a pizza joint for a swim team pizza lunch.  After lunch, we went with some members of the team to a local soup kitchen to stuff athletic socks with toiletries to give to the homeless people who come to the kitchen three times a day for warmth and good food.  The kids had fun stuffing soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc. into socks.  They were impressed by the whole ministry. 

After that, we headed home for a little break.  I drove Kate to the mall with her friend.  Traffic was crazy.  We live very close to the mall, but the trip took me about 45 minutes!  All those last minute shoppers... 

About 2 hours later, we all went to the mall to pick up Kate and her friend.  We went into the mall to find her.  It was CROWDED to say the least.  People everywhere!  Santa looked positively exhausted.  He barely could crack a smile.  He did NOT look jolly.  We told the kids he was probably worried about all the work he had to do that night- delivering all those presents...  Poor Santa.

We eventually made it home... 

Everyone went to bed a little late-  The kids were so excited for Day 2 of the Ten Days of Christmas Break! 

The Big News... Prepare to be Underwhelmed!

This is the big news:  Mac has been approved to apply for a fellowship in otolaryngology.  We don't know where the fellowship will be, and we aren't sure if it will be for one or two years, but we are sure that it will begin in July of 2012.  We will be moving for fellowship, most likely across the country.  We are hoping to extend the fellowship to 2 years, but we will not know if that's a possibility anytime soon.  We may not know if we will be staying at the fellowship location for 2 years until we are actually already there!  What we do know is this:  we will have to move for at least one year.  For Kate, this will mean moving between 10th and 11th grade (yikes).  The twins will start 6th grade in the new place, and Luke will start 3rd grade.  Josie may start preschool, but that's clearly less of a transition!

Here is the back story, in case you may be confused as to what *fellowship* is...

Medical training is a complicated process.  There are many steps involved, starting with exams one takes to even be considered by medical schools as an applicant.  Medical training takes a long time, and for some, such as my husband, it takes such a ridiculously long time that one is left to question whether or not it is all worth it. 

Regardless, we as a family trudge onward. 

These are the steps Mac has taken in this arduous endeavor:

Step 1:  Graduate from college. 

He did this back in the 1990s!  A whole CENTURY ago.  (OK, so it was 1999, but still...)  He earned the Degree Most Common for medical school applicants:  Bachelor of Arts in Biology.

Step 2:  Take the MCAT and do well enough on it to be considered by medical schools. 
The MCAT is a souped-up version of the SAT.  It's a very Tough Exam.  I remember the days when we were newly married and Mac would spend at least 3 hours a night studying for this exam.  He ended up doing fairly well on it.  After taking the test 3 times, he achieved Acceptable Results which allowed him to proceed on to the next step of his medical journey...   Most students take the MCAT while still in college, but Mac is "nontraditional", meaning he had a career in between college and medical school.  Those were the "food inspector" years.  Ahhhhh, 40 hour workweeks.  Definitely a thing of the past.


Step 3: Apply to Medical School.

This is a Big Money process.  The centralized medical school application service has a large fee, then each school sends you their own secondary application with their own fee, and then a select few (hundred) are invited to come to medical schools to interview in person.  Mac was lucky to receive early interview invitations.  He took a trip to New Jersey to interview even before many schools started inviting applicants to interview.  He was offered positions from the Jersey schools, but continued on one more East Coast interview trip as well as interviewing in the only medical school within driving distance.  Mac was lucky to be accepted early on.  He had options, which is really something many applicants do not have.  We decided to pursue a military career, and that landed us in the only military medical school in the country.  This decision allowed us to have a very stable income throughout medical training, along with nice perks like completely free health care!  And discounted tickets to Walt Disney World.


Step 4:  Complete Medical School
Four years of studying, completing clerkships in various specialties of medicine, and taking more Big Exams. In retrospect, medical school was great.  Mac was home for dinner more often than not, he was excited by learning new things and getting to work with actual patients, and he was full of hope for the future.  In medical school, he felt like he was really taking great strides towards the day when he would be a Fully Licensed Doctor, able to do things on his own...  Ever present during the medical school years was the debate over residency.  The challenge during third year clerkships is to decide what field of medicine to focus on for one's future career.  Mac loved Orthopedic Surgery, but he ultimately chose Otolaryngology because he liked it a lot, it was surgery, and he thought it was more family friendly than Ortho.  At the end of Medical school, Mac was awarded his Medical Degree.  This degree allowed him to go to residency, but not to practice medicine independently.  One needs a little bit of medical experience before that big step!


Here is a picture of us before the big graduation ceremony.

And here is a picture of Mac in his Dress Blue uniform.  After receiving the medical school diploma, all the students removed the graduation robes for their next ceremony: a military promotion.  Army students promoted from the rank of 2nd Lieutenant to Captain. 

Mac had about 4 weeks off between medical school graduation and the beginning of residency.  We traveled and did some work on the house, which was a good thing because there has not been much time for major projects since residency began!

Well before graduation, Mac had applied for and been accepted into a residency program.  Since he attended the military medical school, he was only eligible to apply for residency programs within the military medical system.  This vastly simplified the application process, and we were able to avoid the dreaded "match" that most medical students are fairly obsessed with during their clerkship years of medical school.  Mac simply applied to the Army for a spot in otolaryngology, and waited for them to decide his future!   

Step 5:  Begin residency, starting with the dreaded Intern Year
The first year of residency is the Intern year.  In this year, you are introduced to something calle "In House Call."  Mac was a surgical intern, called a PGY-1.  PGY stands for PostGraduateYear.  His residency is 5 years long.  Not all residencies are this long, and some are even longer.  The "Graduate" from PGY refers to graduation from Medical school.  During "In House Call" Mac actually stayed in the hospital and answered any page about any issue for any patient who had any type of surgery.  Typically a call shift would last 24 hours.  He was busy.  There are exams to study for during the Intern Year as well.  I believe that Mac took a big general exam at the end, but I can not even remember specifically.  Funny.  It seemed like it was The Most Important Thing Ever at the time... 

Step 6:  Complete Residency

After the intern year, Mac focused entirely on Otolaryngology.  No more general surgery, thank you very much!  Every year of residency has brought more responsibilities, and he has been expected to have more knowledge and more surgical skills.  The pressure only intensifies for the resident to "know it all" and "have the best hands".  There are exams to study for.  Every year the residents take a practice exam for what used to be known as the "boards".  Mac calls it the "inservice exam", but I don't know if that's a technical name.  I just know that it's a Big Deal.  The results are very important to the residency programs, and there is a lot of pressure to do well on this exam.  The studying never ends. 

During residency, the doctor is introduced to lots of subspecialties off of the general residency program.  One can practice these subspecialties (legally) by completing a fellowship.  For otolaryngology, some common fellowships are: pediatrics, head and neck cancer, facial plastics, rhinology, etc.  A less common fellowship offered is sleep surgery.  This is the one that Mac is pursuing. 

Step 7:  Fellowship application

This is the step where we find ourselves.  In the military, one needs to apply for approval from the military to pursue a fellowship.  The fellowship needs to be in an area of subspecialty that the military needs to have filled.  Many are fond of saying:  The needs of the Army come first.  As it turns out, the subspecialty of otolaryngology that most interests Mac is also desired by the Army. But, of course, approval to pursue this fellowship is not quite that simple.  Mac completed an application this past fall, and was just given the news that he has been approved to continue in the fellowship application process.  More applications, interview trips, and waiting to hear from programs about whether or not they will offer him a spot.  That is where we find ourselves...

The next steps in the process will be:

Step 8:  Complete residency

Step 9: Begin fellowship training

Step 10:  Take the General Otolaryngology Boards exams approximately 1 year after finishing residency

Step 11:  Finish fellowship

Step 12:  Moving to whatever military facility the military decides is in need of a sleep surgery fellowship trained otolaryngologist. 

In the end, should he be accepted into a fellowship training program, he will have spent 11 years after graduating from college in pursuit of this dream of being a doctor.  We will have moved over 3000 miles away from family for medical school and residency, then moved across country (most likely) again for fellowship for maybe one or maybe two years, after which point we will move at least one more time to be stationed somewhere where Mac will start working as an autonomous otolaryngologist... 

Whew!  It's a LONG road.  And at this point in the game, no one is convinced it is worth it!  But nonetheless, we feel relieved to be one step closer to the end of the educational marathon.  We are glad that he's been approved for fellowship, and will update with any other news as to where that fellowship will be completed!

Great Grandpa

Great Grandpa died on Sunday, November 14, 2010.  We were all blessed by his presence for so many years.  He was very optimistic, and always looked forward to family gatherings and events with great enthusiasm.  He loved going to summer mini-reunions at Lake Easton (a good in between location for the Washington State family, although my mom always noted that it was a little bit closer for the Seattle relatives...). 

Great Grandpa stayed fully engaged in life.  He worked until his fingers could no longer work.  He read books and discussed new ideas up until he lost the ability to speak, about two days before he died.  When we last visited him in August of 2010, he was keeping Grandma up all night on occasion talking about all sorts of things!  Great Grandpa enjoyed art, photography, music, science.... He was a real Renaissance Man!

I thought I'd share some pictures of Grandpa from the last decade or so. 
The first pictures in my digital library are from Grandma and Grandpa's 60th wedding celebration.  They had some balloons and cake during a church dinner.  The twins were babies then, almost 9 months.

Clearly the twins were fascinated by balloons!  And of course they had never played with them before.  Latex helium filled balloons are not recommended for babies.  

If you look closely at the table, you'll notice that Grandpa and Grandma got a Gund teddy bear to help commemorate their anniversary.  Grandpa decided to start collecting Gund teddy bears around this time.  The kids love that collection!  I don't think Grandpa intended his bears to become stuffed toys, but that's pretty much what has happened...

In the spring of 2004, Grandpa became quite ill and needed surgery.  I was very pregnant with Luke at the time.  This is a picture of him after the surgery.  He came through with great success!  "V" is for "Victory" here, people!!!  Although I think Grandpa was all for World Peace, too.

In this picture, Great Grandpa is getting to know Luke, who was born about 6 weeks before this photo was taken.  Luke was born in Maryland, so Grandpa and Grandma had to wait to hold him! This visit was only about 2 months after Grandpa's big surgery.  He really recovered quite well!  

Here are Grandma and Grandpa at a family dinner of some sort.  It was probably a birthday party for the twins. 

The following are some pictures from the Lake Easton family gathering in 2004.  Our family wasn't always able to be there, but until Grandma and Grandpa were no longer physically able, the Lake Easton picnic to celebrate Grandpa's birthday (June 30) was always a Main Event of the year.

Later on during that same summer visit of 2004, Grandpa showed off his relatively new car.  I can't remember if the Honda Element was brand new at that point, but it probably was.  It was hard for Grandpa to buy that car, because before then he had been driving a stick shift.  He felt that stick shifts were really "the only way to go."  But, his Boston style Birkenstocks kept getting stuck on the pedals in his stick shift, so for safety of all others, he decided to switch to an automatic...

Off they go!

The next pictures are from the winter of 2006.  We visited during the Christmas break.  Isabel usually spends a lot of time over in the Great Grandparent wing of the house.  It's warm over there!  And quiet...  until Isabel's brothers come over!

Grandpa was still working as much as he could in the little office/workspace built by the garage of their new home.  This year he was working mostly with fire opals- triplets. 

Grandma and Grandpa open their Christmas presents.

We tried to visit every year at least two times.  Some years we were able to visit three times.  But as our family has grown, and as the kids have become busier with their activities and sports, it's been harder and harder to visit as often as we'd like. 

These next pictures are from 2008, when Josie was a newborn.  We visited for Christmas.

We visited again during the summer of 2009.  Great Grandpa couldn't make the Lake Easton trip this year, so we had a big family gathering for Grandpa's birthday in his house. 

In 2010, we visited again in the summer.  Great Grandpa was getting fragile, but he still looked wonderful!  And of course he maintained a great zest for life! 



After the visit during the summer of 2010, we didn't see Grandpa again.  We went to the wonderful memorial service and burial in November.  The kids and I stayed for Thanksgiving with Grandma and my family, including Nate and Kristina, Teddy, Mom and Dad, Julie and Pablo and Grace and Guy.  We had Thanksgiving at Ghormley.  It was a great visit.

Here are some pictures of Grandpa's casket.  His burial plot is in a lovely spot overlooking several hills and the valley.    It was a cold day when he was buried, and soon after the burial it started to snow.  The snow did not stop much during the following week while we were visiting. 

In spite of the marvel of how wondrous it is that Grandpa continues on in Life in Heaven, we are of course sad at his loss.  We miss him, and we will continue to miss him through the rest of our days here on earth. 

Trick or Treat

Mac arrived back here the night before the Halloween parties at school.  This was the first year of the 7 that we have lived here that he was able to go to the Halloween Parade.  It was great to have him there!  He was amazed at how many parents were there- moms AND dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles...  Lots of people take work off to show up for this event.  Mac said, "Don't these people work?".  Such a *doctor* thing to say.  I said, "Yes, they just take a late lunch or work a half day so that they can be involved in fun milestones of their children's lives." 

Hmmmm, maybe I'm a little teensy bit bitter about medicine.  Oh well.

Here is Mac with Josie watching the parade.

Poor Luke was not feeling well.  When we got home after the parade he had a temperature of 101.  Notice his pirate teeth!  This pirate costume has been worn by Steven and Luke over the years.  The teeth were a new accessory, though!

Isabel had a great time on the parade.  She loved seeing daddy there!  That was a special treat.  She enjoyed being a gypsy this year.  She also enjoyed the classroom party, the parade, even the walk home from school!  Fun Times!

Steven and his friends are *almost* too cool for dress up.  Steven is the one in the Darth Vader costume.  Steven dressed up as "Darth Vader on Vacation."  Steven still had a great time on the parade, although he tried to hide from me (and the camera) for some reason.  Is it so embarrassing to have your mother chasing after you with her camera yelling "Stevie, hold still so I can take your picture!"?  Really?  That can't be embarrassing.  Not to a 4th grader. 

Josie dressed up in a horse costume, which at one time was Isabel's costume.  Josie loved trick-or-treating.  It was a special treat to be awake that late (usually she's in bed by the time it's dark).  This was also one of the first times she'd been on a walk through the neighborhood without being strapped into her stroller.  Six weeks after Halloween, she still asks to go trick-or-treating!  Such fun!

It was a great night for trick-or-treating.  It was warm enough that we ventured out of our small neighborhood to the neighborhood just up the street.  It's a short walk away, but usually it's so cold and we are so sick of Halloween that we stay very close to home.  This year everyone felt more festive.  Here we are going on the pathway to the neighborhood up the street:

Here we are at our neighbor's house.  Josie said "tic o tea" at every door, and when someone held the bowl of candy out to her she would just help herself, saying "ta tu".  She got the most candy of all the kids.  She was so cute that people just couldn't help themselves.  Being a toddler, she insisted on carrying her stash.  She ended up dragging her bag of candy for about 10 feet after every house, then she'd let me carry it for her.  Too funny!  She ended up with over ten pounds of candy.  

After Josie was done trick-or-treating, we went back home and she looked through her bag of treats. 

She tried her first (of many) 3 Musketeer chocolate bars. 

She wasn't sure at first if she liked it, but in the end she did.  She went back to her bag of candy for more treats!  She sampled a lot of candy that night.  Too much candy!  Mac took about half of the candy to work with him to give to staff and patients. 

 

Kate also went trick-or-treating, dressed up as some kind of an angel I guess.  She went with some friends rather than with 'the family'.  Yes, she was one of those obnoxious teenagers who sort of dress up, then come knock on your door asking for candy.  She didn't get much candy, of course!  I told her that if she really wanted a lot of candy, she should have taken Josie trick-or-treating!  That's the ticket to CANDY!  Maybe next year...  I'm sure she'd have more fun with Josie.  It's hard to resist that kind of enthusiasm!

Here comes Halloween!

I know it's past Thanksgiving, but nonetheless I feel like I should at least post some Halloween pictures! 

Halloween really snuck up on us this year.  Mac was gone until the 28th, so I didn't have much time or energy to get creative with costumes.  In fact, this year I had the kids just choose costumes from the costume box.  We actually didn't buy anything new.  The kids got creative, though.  I think a good time was had by all.

The first Halloween event was the Cub Scouts party.  This was hectic indeed.  The party was held about 2 weeks before Halloween!  The kids raided the dress up box to choose clothes for this party.  I was focused on the aspect of the Cub Scout Halloween party that we always miss:  the pumpkin carving contest.  This year I managed to get the boys' pumpkins carved before the party.  We have brought uncarved pumpkins before- just so that we could participate in some way!

 Here is a picture of Izzy, ever willing to help.  I didn't carve the girls' pumpkins that day, as it was still way before Halloween.  Izzy wanted to help scoop the pumpkin goop out anyway. 

 Steven followed his usual design: scary-pumpkin-attacking-a-Polly-Pocket.  After this picture was taken, the little strip of pumpkin 

between the nose and the mouth fell off, leaving a big gaping hole for the mouth.  Scary!


 
Luke always has definite ideas about his pumpkin design.  There IS a right way, and it is Luke's way.  He decided to add eyes, ears, and other various other unidentifiable features. 

These pictures illustrate why it's so hard to get the kids out of the house, let alone dressed up in costumes AND carrying jack-o-lanterns...  Months ago, the boys showed Josie how to play "light saver" as they call it.  Just the added bit of hilarity and chaos one needs when running 5 minutes late...

Josie easily defeats this Power Ranger with her excellent "light saver" skills.  Note the "mouthguard" she wears when fighting.

The Mysterious Isabel is reading the palm of 'Darth Vader on Vacation'.  The fearless Josie is taking out the "good" (Power Ranger) while the "evil" (Vader) is distracted.   

Izzy wore A Lot of Makeup to complete her costume.  She decided she doesn't love makeup! Josie started out the night dressed in a costume, but it didn't take her long to take it off!  She was not in the mood for dress up.  She was in the mood for night-night...

Later on, about 2 weeks AFTER the cub scout party, we finally got around to carving the girls' pumpkins.  Mac was home, so he used his Mad Surgical Skills to carve out these two wonders:        Josie's pumpkin has eyes and a nose in heart shapes.  Very fitting for a princess, which she is.  She'll tell you too.  "I pincess!"  

 Isabel, ever the artist, had a crazy intricate design with curly hair, earrings, and big eyes with eyelashes.  Mac did his best!  Maybe not quite what The Artist envisioned, but pretty good nonetheless.