Graduation and Goodbyes

Ok, there is a LOT to catch up on! I'm trying to backtrack to before we left and catch up with all of that first, then I'll eventually post the move pictures!

So, as excited as we are for this next step, we were sad to say goodbye to all our friends in Lacey!

We thought the best way to celebrate was a delicious Claimjumper dinner! Hard to go wrong there!

Us, the Wickhams, and the Clarks all enjoying the best Claimjumper appetizer--the soft pretzels!

We flew down to Utah a few weeks before the move to check out places to live and were able to see some friends and family which was great. Bob has a special connection with Easton, as you can see! Easton is Karl and Christi's son (Karl is one of Bob's friends from growing up in Coeur d'Alene who now lives out here) and we had a great time hanging out with them, but every time Easton would reach for Bob!

We went on a short hike in Provo canyon with Jared and it was a beautiful sunny day!

There was a nice waterfall but unfortunately Jared's friend only took a picture of us with the rocks :)

Here's the actual waterfall for ya

When we got back from Utah there was a BBQ with my whole class to say goodbye to everyone since we were all leaving--here we are, plus Patrick and Zoe who wanted in this picture!

Now here we all are with families too. I love how Cheree has John's pic since he's in DC at the time of this shot!

On June 4 the big day was upon us--graduation! Because some of the residents in the hospital were pregnant and we're in transition from the green Class B to the new Army Service Uniform (which is basically the blues without the jacket), somehow there is no maternity uniform for the blues, hence none for the ASU yet, and since the B's are being phased out and they didn't want to make people buy a $300 uniform that will be useless after one wearing, the command decided to go with the ACU's (Army Combat Uniform) for everyone for graduation. This is also in keeping with the whole trend toward ACU's for everything now in solidarity with soldiers in theater. Here is my class looking good in our ACU's! The real benefit of wearing these for graduation is that we wear it every day, so we all know HOW to wear it, so no one had patches in the wrong places!

Ryan's big. Enough said.

Sitting in our seats ready to start!

Mom and John came out for the weekend!

Getting my fake diploma!

Bob's parents came out too, so here we all are!

Us and Bob's parents

My parents and us

I probably should have made this one bigger--interns, seniors, and a few staff

The girls having fun

Interns and seniors again--somehow Pete was working and missed all the fun

My class again

We went to lunch afterwards--here's the girls

We headed home after lunch and Dorothy had made me a cake! Very creative. I don't know if you can see all the Army doctor-ness here, but there's a transformer tank, camo frosting, graduates around the edges, and Band-aids all over to let you know all about my career path! :)

To top off the big graduation weekend, we took the parents to a Mariner's game! It was sad to think it would be our last one, at least for a few years, but even though they lost we had fun. It was a beautiful sunny day at least and we enjoyed the ballpark food as always!

It was also free hat day, so we all got matching hats (although Ron is still wearing his own hat and not the new one)

Sunday night there was a farewell dinner for all the seniors and we all got a Madigan Peds coin (it's hard to see, but it has CPT Sampert engraved on it)

One more shot of our class before we all separate! Ryan didn't get the memo about black I guess... :)

The farewell dinner was great--the other residents made a hilarious roast video of us which we all enjoyed--they definitely got me in so many ways... my fast talking, my endless stories, fascination with all things GI, frequent injuries of late, etc. We did a short powerpoint roasting the staff and junior residents for the new interns to get to know them a bit since we ran out of time, but we had fun with it.

I loved my time at Madigan sooooo much and was so lucky to have 5 of the greatest pediatricians and people in general in my class. I can't imagine the last 3 years spent with anyone else and I already miss them all! I know we'll stay in touch, but we'll never be here again, so it's sad to think about. I'm also sad to leave all the other residents and staff in our program. After 3 years it really feels like home--I know everyone, I know where things are, how to do things, how it all works, and it's a little scary to have a fresh start with everything here in Salt Lake, and as much as I know we'll make new friends and I'll bond with my new coworkers, I also know it won't be the same as residency! Thanks to everyone who helped us get through the last 3 years and we'll miss everyone we're leaving behind! Come visit us in Salt Lake!

More Atlantis!

Here are some more Atlantis pics from the other camera. Bob got an awesome waterproof case for it just before we left, so we brought it with us quite a bit more and most of the pics turned out great. You can definitely see water drops that make the pics a little smeary on some, so here are some of the better ones!

The lovely arch over the lagoon

Bob and I in front of predator lagoon

The awesome rope bridge

Beautiful water and beaches!

We're all saving ourselves from the sun a little by this point--except Carolyn--she loves to get her color!

Makes me want to go back already!

Sea turtles in a lagoon

It was a hot day, so it was muggy in there with lots of condensation, but this is the awesome tube through the shark tank after the end of the tube ride! You can't really tell, but there are sharks swimming outside this tube all around us! So fun! Bob's obviously enjoying it!

Going up the conveyer belt on our tubes for another ride!

More tubin' fun!

It was overcast that morning and rained briefly, but it's warm now!

A little too sunny for Bob without his shades!

The view from the top of the tower for the tube rides

More tubing good times

It was so much fun to stay in the tube and ride all these rides! We floated and floated and had sooooo much fun!

Bob loved it too!

A calmer spot!

Ok, we have a lot more pics, but that's enough to give you the idea! We had such a wonderful time and would love to spend another week or 4 there! If you ever have the chance to go to Atlantis, do it! I do have a few more pics from Carolyn's camera so I may post some more later, but I'm sure you're all pretty Atlantis'd out by now! :)

I've had some questions about what/where Atlantis is, so for those who've never heard of it, it's a ridiculously opulent resort in the Bahamas on Paradise Island. http://www.atlantis.com/ is their website if you're interested. They also just built one in Dubai, so for those of you frequenting the Middle East, you've got a great option there as well! ;)

In unrelated news, we finally made it to Salt Lake! The movers came and packed everything up really quickly and loaded it all in the same day and it's all being delivered tomorrow!

The drive down went well--we stayed a day in Coeur d'Alene which was great--we saw both of our families including the Grandmas, which was especially nice since Bob's Grandma had a knee replacement and gout attack simultaneously about 10 days ago, so she was very excited to have some visitors. We got her some Circus peanuts and jelly beans as she requested, and a birdfeeder for her front window so she can stay entertained while she recovers. We loved that we even got to have lunch with our Poteets, minus Georgey who was at school still. We met their handsome new baby Gibson, who was not even 2 weeks old and super tiny and cute! We wished we could have seen everyone more, but even a short visit was wonderful!

After staying the night in CDA we woke up early and headed down to Pocatello and made it by 4:30 so we got to have dinner with Jap, Mady, Brooklyn, and Jay since Jen was out of town for the weekend (Bob's sister and her family). We played lots of games with the girls and went on a bike ride and a walk, jumped on the trampoline, and even played the Farming Game. We stayed up late and had a great time, which the girls especially thought was awesome. They've never played so much Trouble, Uno, Memory, Old Maid, etc in one 24h period! We are so excited to live closer to these nieces and nephew who we rarely see and they're excited to see more of Lilo and swim in our pool! Jap made us some delicious french toast and we played a few more games with the girls and then took off for SLC.

We had a slight hiccup with the apartment we were supposed to move into... the tenants trashed the floor somehow (despite it being concrete), so we're taking a different unit--they are cleaning it this weekend and it will be ready first thing tomorrow morning, which is great because the movers will be there at 0830! Christi and Karl were kind enough to put us up for last night and tonight, so it all worked out. We're excited to get all our stuff moved in and settled!

We're excited to have a little time before work starts--I have a 4 hour class on 25June, but then start orientation on 1 July, and Bob starts with Bath Fitter here in mid-July--they open in August, so he'll just be building displays for the showroom and setting stuff up, but he's excited to be their first employee and get to train all the new employees! He's starting at his same wage and commission he had here, so that's a nice smooth transition for him!

Last but not least, we got a renter for our house in Lacey just before we left which was AWESOME. We were a bit worried about how long it would take and having to pay our mortgage and apartment rent for a while, but it worked out just in time. They've signed the lease and will move in the next week!

Hope you all enjoyed this ridiculously long post and thanks for reading! I'll email out our new address soon, but if you don't get it, shoot me an email and I'll send it on. :)

~Cathy and Bob

Atlantis trip!

We're back! We love Atlantis so much and this time Bob's folks came for part of our trip which was great! For any of you who aren't acquainted with Atlantis, it's an amazing resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas with a HUGE waterpark and it's awesome!

Here's Atlantis from the ferry!

This pic demonstrates my sweet Atlantis rash guard, necessitated by my frenemy, the Sun. We all know I'm pasty, but despite SPF 50 applied literally 3 times a day, I was burned by day 2. My chest and shoulders were the worst, hence the rash guard really helped preserve the pastiness. :) It also shows off our sweet matching shades--Carolyn only had sunglasses that clipped onto her regular glasses and didn't want to lose them in the river, so we got a good deal on these when we were shopping in Nassau.

We had dinner at a deli with pickles at all the tables instead of bread. They were good, but we all know I'm a carbatarian and let's just accept that people want their bread!

We had some delicious chocolate cake for dessert

Bob is very proud that we finished it!

Please ignore the red arm, shiny face (MANY layers of sunscreen) and poufy hair (pretty humid this night!)

Jelly fish at the huge aquarium!

Bigger scarier jellies!

What's cooler than a seahorse?

Isn't this an impressive rope bridge and waterfalls?

There are more beach pics coming, but here's one from the last day!

Atlantis from the rope bridge side

There are pools with different sea creatures all around the resort and the hammerheads were especially impressive!

More rope bridge--last day again, hence the pants, knowing I will freeze on the plane otherwise, despite the toastiness throughout the morning and especially in the long line waiting to go through customs!

baby rays

Another view of Atlantis from the ferry

Who doesn't love a giant chair?

Pegasus fountain in front of the Royal Towers

Here's one stolen from Carolyn's blog to give you a preview of our lazy river fun!

And here's another stolen from her camera only slightly ruined by the date stamp--I spent a while roaming the beach finding little white shells to make this and it was worth it!

Last day with Bob's folks--so tough to leave the sun!

Ok, there are more pics coming from our other camera--Bob got an awesome waterproof case for it right before we left so we took it with us on the lazy river and got quite a few more pics.

Basically, this was the best vacation ever! We love Atlantis so much! We floated the lazy river a million times and enjoyed every second! We swam in the ocean, relaxed in the pools and on the beach, snorkeled, and swam with the dolphins! I wish we could have stayed another week, but life goes on. It was a great chance to relax before the chaos of our move, now only 2 weeks away, so we were so lucky to have this opportunity to go, and we were especially glad to have Bob's parents come along too! We loved showing them around Atlantis! We saw so many families and kept talking about how fun it would be to bring our kids someday, but also were grateful it's just the 2 of us right now, because it's pretty insanely pricey and we could not even fathom what the bill could be for all the huge families we saw! It would add up fast!

Hope you all had a fabulous weekend and I'll post the other pics soon!