An End to Interviews!

Today marks the end to David's interviews! He is on his way home from Tulsa as I write this entry. He ended up going to 14 radiology interviews and 4 separate intern year interviews. Its been A LOT of expensive traveling. Hopefully it will all pay off come March 20th, match day! It's a nerve racking process. A few of David's classmates who participated in the early match did not match this year. That is a possibility we don't like to talk or even think about. Stressful times. It's hard to believe that we moved to Oklahoma almost 4 years ago! People always tell you time will go by fast and somehow it does in the end. A lot has changed in our lives during that time......2 kids to say the least. I look back to leaving BYU and think how hard it was to leave Utah and most of my family. But, we have come to LOVE Oklahoma. We have made wonderful friends here and I have to believe that will be the case wherever our lives take us. How comforting to know that Heavenly Father knows where David and Karen need to be on this next journey of our lives.....and that is exactly where David will match. But it sure would be nice to not have to wait until match day to find out!

2007 Christmas Vacation

Its been a long, long time since I last wrote. Thanksgiving and Christmas have come and gone! We took a very long road trip and have finally started to recuperate. On the 19th of December we headed to Albuquerque for David to interview at the University of New Mexico. From there were headed to Durango, CO to visit David's mom. While we were there we rode the Polar Express to the North Pole to visit Santa. We were also able to see the beautiful log home Sue and Jim are building there. From there we headed to Eagle Mountain, UT to see Ruth for a night. Then on to Paradise (near Logan) for Christmas to be with my parents. We were there for a few days before we headed to Bountiful to Alison's house. From there we drove to St. George to visit David's grandmother and my friend Allie from nursing school. On the way back to Logan we were able to make a convenient stop in Payson to David's uncle's Pediatrician's office. Both the kids had ear infections. David interviewed at the new IHC hospital in Murray before driving on to St. Louis for two more interviews. I flew home with the kids on the 12th of January. We intended to visit more of you while we were there, but honestly we were so sick of driving we pretty much only visited family....Which for me is a task in its own. We put over 4, 000 miles on the car! Overall the kids were surprisingly very good, especially Ben. What a life saver our portable DVD player was. It was not fun to nurse Kate every 3-4 hours along the road at the gas stations though! David just returned yesterday from his last radiology interview in Iowa. We will now put our rank list together and sit on pins and needles until match day on March 20th when we find out where to next. Kate is growing up fast! She has started solids and is rolling over! She and Ben were given the same dose of antibiotics for their ear infections. She will probably overtake him before Christmas. Poor little guy just may get beat up by his little sister. Ben was so excited to see our house when we pulled in. He said, "Look mom, its our house. Its not gone!" Then when we went inside he kept saying things like, "Look mom the couch, Look mom Kate's swing." He was ready to be at home and excited to go back to preschool. We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas! I enjoyed reading the mounds of Christmas cards that were awaiting us when we got home.

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A new first.....

Last week I went into Kate's room to put some things away. When I came out Ben was facing the corner where the wall and entertainment center meet. I asked him what he was doing and without hesitation he told me he was pooping. I decided to give him some privacy and went into the kitchen. A few minutes later I walked back into the front room to find him holding an empty wrapper, chewing some gum he had found in my diaper bag. My innocent little boy lied to me on purpose! I looked, but there was no space for this in his baby book of firsts! Needless to say, I took away the gum and attempted to explain to him that I would have given him the gum if he had asked and that he should never lie to mommy again. I do have to give him some props though for coming up with a pretty good cover up. He is a smart boy, he gets that from me.

David's december interview trail takes him next to Mayo Florida, UT Southwestern, Baylor Dallas, Texas A&M, Wake Forest and New Mexico. Its a long road for all of us!

And here is our 2007 Christmas card!

Birthday Party

Saturday we had a Curious George birthday party for Ben. His actual birthday is the 14th. We had seven 2 year olds and their parents. Most of them have baby siblings as well. It was quite a houseful. We had a good time. Ben had a couple melt downs when he didn't want to share his new toys....especially his new football Uncle Mike and Aunt Christina gave him. We had to wait for him to compose himself before we could cut the cake. Its great having new toys around. He has been so independent playing with all of them.

David has started interview season. So far he has interviewed at OU and Nebraska. Next on the long list are John Hopkins and Mayo MN. The flights, hotel, etc. are beginning to add up. Kate and I came down with a chest cough/cold this weekend. Its so sad to hear Kate cough. I am sure she caught it from me, so it makes me feel bad. Ben had a cold a couple of weeks ago and is still having a residual cough from it......probably the same bug. Ben goes to the dentist for the first time tomorrow. I hope he is cooperative. We hope you are all happy and healthy!

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween. Ben was a frog and Kate was his princess. We had a lot of fun trick-or-treating with our friends and their kids. David and I still feel like we should be the ones trick-or-treating so it was fun to live vicariously through Ben. Ben kept picking out suckers until we trained him to get the chocolate. It was so funny to see them ring doorbells and knock relentlessly. Ben got upset when no one answered the door. Near the end, Ben decided he needed to hop in between houses, so needless to say we were slowed down quite a bit. We took a break for half-time and went inside for warm chili, rolls, wassail, carmel popcorn and salad.

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