The place I belong

Stephanie and I took off Thursday morning on our 8.5 hour trek to Prince William Forest for the France Family Reunion. My abhorrence for 81 has grown even more since we had to stay on it for 300 miles (or 5 years). But once we got into Virginia we started passing by many familiar places from our childhood.

Stephanie and I were born at Martha Jefferson Hospital in Charlottesville. Until we were 4 and 4 mo. respectively we lived in Waynesboro, VA and this place is probably more like home than any other town we've lived in. This is where Grandma's house was and the place we always came back to for holidays or family get togethers no matter where we moved. This is the Waynesboro SDA church (right on the highway!) and probably what we'd consider our alltime home church. The church bought the property for this building while my dad was the pastor and my uncles helped build it several years later.
We stopped at the overlook into Afton (Grandma's house is probably somewhere down there) and both of us remembered how much we love these mountains and how much this feels like home. This has to be the most beautiful place on earth to me!

These signs are all over VA highways but what exactly does this mean? How can they see your license plate from the air? And what do they do, drop a bomb on you? Do a low fly by? I don't get it...

Thursday night the main portion of the family hadn't arrived from TN due to car trouble so the Fords had the entire camp ourselves. Friday my Uncle Kit, Aunt Pat, and cousin Lindsey arrived and we took a trip into downtown DC. Lindsey met us there and spent the day with us! It was quite windy...

My Aunt Sharon, who works in a building near the White House, treated us to lunch on top of the Hotel Washington with great views of the White House roof and the mall.

This is the part of our family we're probably the closest to. We still go to their house often to share holidays and play with their dog, Laddie.
Here's Lindsey trying to figure out her new digital camera. Hopefully we'll get to see more pictures on her blog now! (hint hint)

Where North Carolina and Virginia meet at the WWII memorial.

Camping part 2

Carrie mailed me a CD of her pictures from our camping weekend, here's a few I couldn't resist sharing...

Carrie gets the look...

A woodsy weekend

This weekend Ryan, Carrie, Ryan, Mary Jane, Randy, and I took a trip to Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky. Be sure to check Carrie's and MJ's blogs for pics too! Despite the extra long trip there (thanks to my being cursed by an unexplainable attraction for 81 for no apparent reason), the mishap of the not-so-missing tent poles, and the frigid weather, we're back home safe and sound. I've decided that mummy bags and crocs are a campers best friend!

The temperature was 36 degrees according to Ryan H's car and boy did we feel it. Fires were the order of the weekend. Fortunately we found lots of firewood and the bathrooms were heated and equipped with hand... er... hair dryers that Randy found most useful.

(Check out the huge log in our fire above!)
Although our campsite was really rocky, Carrie and I found a nice soft site right on the edge of a cliff which was actually taller than it looks.

On Sabbath we took a hike to Cumberland Falls...

(where the Ryans had fun skipping rocks)

and Eagle Falls.

I think we all had trouble sleeping due to the cold (and rocks, except those of you who brought air mattresses) but Ryan definitely had the hardest go of it. He slept maybe 4 hours over both nights which made him susceptible to dozing in strange places...

Fortunately, he did fall asleep at the campground for about 20 minutes. Maybe he was also tired out from being the firemaster and building multiple fires all weekend.


Taking down to go home...

Update on the update

For those of you I haven't told, I decided not to take the job in the cath/EP lab at Memorial. I interviewed on Monday; it was a bit intimidating. I didn't realize I was walking to a group peer interview but I think I did very well and came across as confident and self-assured (even though I wasn't completely feeling that way). I felt some vibes during the interview I didn't like between a few staff and I think just being in there and talking about the job with them and coming home and evaluating my life made me realize why I like the job I have and how dedicated to the new job I would have to be to make it work. With everything that's going on in my life, I decided I would rather stay where I am. I didn't know if they would even offer me the job since they were worried that I didn't have critical care experience. However, as they said, "You have big people batting for you" meaning a cardiologist, his nurse, and one of the heart surgeon's nurses. They called on Tuesday morning to let me know if they were going to offer me the position but I didn't even let her tell me what they had decided. I just said I had decided that I wasn't ready to do it yet.

So I've decided that there was a point to all of this because it really made me evaluate my job and existence and realize what I like about it. I will get to see the girls at Christmas and go home too. I get to deal with patients every day and I interact with doctors who will teach me things and let me get involved in learning about my patients, not just handing them instruments. It was almost funny because on my way to work Wednesday I asked God to let me learn something new and different at work that day. When I got there I was floated to a different floor than I usually work on and had patients with diagnoses who were completely different than I usually have and I dealt with crazy weird issues all day on multiple patients. So the moral of the story is: watch what you pray for. I think God has a sense of humor. I think exploring this option of a new job has given me the kick in the pants I need to finish the semester and be content in my own situation.

One of the docs who saw me when I was floating downstairs Wednesday walked past me in the hallway on Thursday and said "You just don't know where your home is, do you?" I stopped and thought about it and I realized, I do know. 2 Central. Where I get a little respect from my coworkers, I know what I'm doing, and where everybody knows my name... Thanks to all of you for your prayers and listening to me talk this decision out. You probably got really tired of hearing "I just don't know..." ;-)

Now it's off to camp for the weekend at Cumberland Falls state park in Kentucky. Pictures will be coming to a couple of er... several blogs near you...

Ah... the mountains...

On Sabbath I had Ryan, Jerad, Chris, Jon, Stephanie, and Tanya over for spaghetti with key lime pie for dessert.

Then we headed to Signal Pointe for a hike, some beautiful scenery, and a little rock climbing.














The boys take a whack at rock climbing...

while Stephanie watches from above.

If Jon were really falling lets hope he wouldn't look this calm...

update

Well, I have an interview with the director of the cath/EP lab on Monday at 2 PM. I've talked to several of my mentors, my advisor, family, friends and I don't feel like the door has closed so I'm going thru with the next step. This means a big change for me, it could totally restructure my schedule, perhaps most importantly working full time during the 2 month orientation while going to school and probably not getting to go home over the holidays as much as I had hoped. But it could be an exciting new opportunity to stretch my brain and learn a lot, which sounds very intruiging to me right now. So say a prayer for me, will you? Growing up and making all these big decisions is fun and not so fun all at the same time...