Comings and Goings for Brandon

This is Brandon. Melody has been great to take the reins on blog posting lately. We've been accruing lots of experiences that warrant a good blog post but neither of us have been willing to sit down and get it done. Now we have an influx. We tried to spread them out over a few weeks so as to not overwhelm anyone.

School is going alright, at the moment. The beginning of 4th year in D.O. medical schools is particularly full of things to get done on the side. I had three board exams to take. Two of those tests were multiple choice exams that I took at the end of June. If we missed updating everyone, I got the scores back a few weeks ago and I passed (in case that was a question for anyone else other than me). The third exam is a different breed of test where I got to travel to Philadelphia for a few days to interview and examine actors who are trained to portray real patients. I have yet to hear back on the score for that one, but I imagine it went alright. After the stress of that test was over, I hit the streets of downtown Philadelphia to see a few sights. I wish I could have spent more time there because the city is a hoot, for those of you who haven't visited. Next time I'll try to bring Melody along with me too.

Here are some highlights from the trip:



Once all that was over then I jumped right back into the next task which was to finish residency applications. Thank you to everyone who helped edit and proofread. Melody and I have been looking into which potential Internal Medicine programs we want to apply and, after several months of serious homework and debate, we've whittled down the options to our favorite 18. The majority are located in the west part of the country, but we are considering several here in the midwest as well. Applications are in now and I have heard back from four programs already to schedule interviews for the end of this year. We get really excited every time a new interview offer arrives. We're hoping for even more interview offers within the next few months.

Sporting KC, Chiefs, and Anniversary

At the beginning of August, Brandon's school gave us tickets to a soccer game. We were so excited to find out that Sporting KC was playing the Salt Lake Real. This was the first professional soccer game I've seen. It was such a fun game to watch. I had no idea I even liked watching soccer until that day. You can tell by the glistening that it was a hot day in Kansas City.

Later in August, I won tickets from work to see the Kansas City Chiefs play the St. Louis Rams. This was the first professional football game I've been too and we had a great time. It didn't hurt that we had amazing tickets. As you can see below they were $100 each. We got to enjoy the food and air conditioning on the inside of the suite and then step outside to be apart of crowd watching the game.

The day we went to the football game was also our 5 year anniversary of the day we got engaged. Brandon bought me these beautiful roses.

We decided to post a picture of us not sweating :) We took this picture last spring but hadn't found a good reason to post it.

Carter Visit

My sister and her family moved from New York to Idaho this summer. I was so grateful that they drove through Kansas City on their trip. They only stayed two nights but it was fun to see Daniel and Anna and play some games of Settlers in the evenings. Anna gave me a smile when they first arrived.

Daniel and I went to a park and wading pool on Monday while Katrina and Neal did their laundry.

Later in the day we went to the Indepedence Visitor Center and drove past the Kansas City Temple which is under construction.

We loved that Daniel slept on his knees with his rear in the air.

Good luck in Rexburg. Hopefully we can see you again soon.