We matched at.........

JOHNS HOPKINS! My sister Ruth, David's dad, Justin & Erin Linton, and Tina Berrett all guessed it right. We were definately stunned to say the least! We will stay in Oklahoma for David's intern year at the University of Oklahoma and then move to Baltimore to start in July of 2009! We will be there for 4 years and possibly 5 for a fellowship. I have no idea what to expect. I can't even picture Baltimore. It will be something completely new to me. I am a true blue midwestern girl. I hear there are tons of things to do so you will all have to come and visit us. Washington D.C. and New York City are both very near. We matched at the farthest place from ALL of our family! Not a single relative east of the Mississippi. Should be interesting and definately a new experience. I am proud of David and all of his long, hard work. We are thrilled.

We Matched!

David found out today that he matched! Yes, there are people who go to 4 years of undergraduate and 4 years of medical school and don't match into the specialty of their choice and either have to pick something else or wait a year to try again. So, he will definately be a radiologist..........in 5 years! Now we just have to wait until thursday at 1 pm Eastern time to find out where. We have absolutely no clue where it will be. So lets hear your guesses. These are your choices from his radiology rank list in NO particular order:
Mayo Clinic: Rochester, MN
University of OK: OKC, OK
Johns Hopkins: Baltimore, MD
Integris Baptist: OKC, OK
University of Wisconsin: Madison, WI
University of Nebraska: Omaho, NE
Washington University: St. Louis, MO
University of New Mexico: Albuquerque, NM
Wake Forest: Winston-Salem, NC
Baylor Dallas: Dallas, TX
University of Iowa: Iowa City, IA
Mayo Clinic: Jacksonville, FL
Scott & White: Temple, TX
UTSW: Dallas, TX

I am excited to hear your guesses! It will be our own Match March Madness bracket!

Our Soccer Star

The whole first half!

Ben with the Traynor twins. David told them to make a wall. Ben decided a squat would cover the most territory. They were the only 3 that would play at that moment. :)

A great throw in

Notice the tongue. He gets that from me!

Today was Ben's first soccer game! What a great time. We signed him up at the YMCA with a group of friends from church. The Y was short coaches this year so in order for them to be able to play I signed David up to be their coach. Trying to coach eight 3 year olds is a large task. Thursday night was the first practice. One boy cried and ran to his mom when David said his name. Ben picked up the ball and when David stopped him to take it away he cried and ran to me. Another wanted nothing to do with the rest of the group and hung out on the other side of the field. On the way to the game today David was rehearsing the line ups and deciding how to sub the kids. When the game started only 4 would even go on the field, one of which was laying on the ground! Ben refused to play the entire first half because he was cold and they weren't using his ball. He sat on the sidelines bundled up on Katherine's lap. I guess David didn't have to worry about favoring his son. For some reason, Ben decided to play during the second half. It was so fun to watch. He even scored a goal...........do we need to mention it was in our goal? It was a great shot :) He did pick up the ball one time, but he excelled at the throw ins. One time he dribbled across the whole field horizontally right in front of the goal and kept going when he reached the side lines. It was so funny to watch them all. Sam was frequently found in the other teams huddle. At the end of the game two little boys from the other team were sneaking our team's snacks. We have twins on our team that are a year older than the rest and it showed. They were definately the stars. Jason, the boy twin scored over and over and was so proud of himself. At the end of the game I asked him how many goals he had and he said, "Um, I think 8." Then I asked his sister how many she had and she said, "I think 4." Jason very quickly corrected her and said, "No, just 2 Nicole." One poor little girl on the other team, who was actually doing a very good job and had even scored a few times was scolded by her mother. I couldn't believe it. She took her to the sidelines and yelled very forcefully and loudly, "This is not a social event. Do something out there." I wanted to say something to her like "She's 3!", but held my tongue. And I thought I was competitive. I will admit though, I did get into it when Ben finally started playing. Hopefully by the end of the season he will put 2 and 2 together. Until then, we will enjoy the great entertainment. For those of you who won't recognize him in the pictures, he is the one with the lovely green sweat pants on and the blue and white stocking hat. Notice David in the background. He displayed great patience out there.

Sunday Best

We now have church at 1:30. That leaves a lot of extra time to fill before its time to leave. Today I decided to take some pictures of the kids before we left. Don't we have cute kids? I think so!

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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