Happy National Doctor’s Day! It feels like we’ve been on this medical journey forever. Or at least that I’ve been complaining about it forever. Billy didn’t know he wanted to be a doctor before we got married. He mentioned he might be interested in medicine, but he was still working towards his Bachelor’s degree and still had some general studies classes left. As a naïve 20 year old, I figured there was plenty of time to talk him out of it. Then all of a sudden, he’s signing up for Organic Chemistry classes and scheduling a date to take the MCAT. I remember I thought about having a surprise party for him with all his friends and family right after he took the MCAT. That’s how you know we got married too young, because now that we’ve been married a little longer and I know him so much better, I know he would absolutely hate a surprise party in his honor. He hates large groups of people in general. And now that we’ve had quite a few “8 hour tests that seem to determine the course of our whole life” under our belts, I know that all he wants to do after them is relax and then sleep. And then wait 6-8 weeks for the test results. These tests are all done online, so I still don’t understand why the results take so long, but we only have one more of them to go, so I’m guessing I’ll never find out.
Billy acts like he’s dragged me to live all over, but I am so grateful for all the places we’ve been able to live. I think I’ve learned that I can really live anywhere, and it’s made me appreciate the times when we do see our family that much more. Billy’s last year of training ends in June of this year. As we thought about where we wanted to live next, it felt so overwhelming. We’re used to being told where we are living—for med school, it was the only place he was accepted. For clinicals, we had a tiny bit of choice, but ultimately got our second choice. For residency, you make a rank list, but really you are a slave to the Match algorithm. Now all of a sudden, we can apply to jobs anywhere in the world?!? I was, of course, looking up jobs in Hawaii and Dubai and England. Our kids are still so young, so we’re not too stressed about good schools or being settled yet. I actually feel like I’ve loved everywhere we’ve lived because I know it’s temporary. The idea of living in one place for more than 3 years kind of terrifies me. I think I could happily move every 3 years if I knew it wouldn’t be so hard for my kids when they’re older.
Anyway, after a wonderful trip out to my parents’ house last year, we both felt that our next stop should try and be at least within a day’s drive of family. Seeing our kids with their cousins was just too special to pass up on. So Billy applied for some jobs in Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado. After getting down to the finite details of each job, we really got the most excited about one job in particular in Chesapeake, VA. So, Billy’s mom flew out to watch the kids while we flew out to the in person interview and fell in love with the place. We joked that we had to remain neutral, because we probably would have fallen in love with a job in the Sahara Desert just because it was a kid-free trip. But we got along with the doctor and his wife really well and we really love the style of the practice and how Billy can still work in a hospital in order to keep his inpatient skills. We love that it’s a rural area but with 20 minute access to city amenities and 30 minute access to the beach (and it's the Atlantic Ocean so the water is waaaaay warmer than our California beaches). We kept wishing we had brought our boys, because there are so many ships and bridges and different rivers going every which way, and we just felt like it was every little boy's dream. We especially love that it’s only a little over 3 hours from my parents and 2 of my sisters. And as if we didn’t love the area enough, when we were looking up what we could do on our last day there, this is what popped up on our google search: 
We felt like it was a sign from the heavens that we’d be really happy there, especially with our Komodo dragon loving boy. But it's more likely, our google algorithm just knows us reeeeeally well. We will miss our life and all the people in Redlands so, so much. But we are really excited to finally have Billy be able to work somewhat normal hours and to be able to start paying off those loans. And you better believe we’re going to have a guest room for everyone who wants to come visit us!
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