Whiteville NC

More than a year has past since my last post. A lot has happened. For one, my wife gave birth to number's 3 and 4 (at the same time)! Twin girls, Shanna and Haley, were born on May 2nd of 2007. They were both over 7 lbs and breached. Ruth of course had to have a c-section. Everything went really well. They are very different from each other, which is fun. Soon after that I started my 4th year at SCO. The last year consists of 3 rotations: 1 at the school, and two away. I was at the school this last summer and am now at my first rotation. It is a private practice in Whiteville North Carolina. The practice is a state-of-the-art full-scope practice. Most of our patients are over 50 and have both ocular and systemic disease. There are also a decent amount of contact lens patients and just patients of all ages. But overall, a lot of disease, foreign bodies, and eye injuries. The proctor is very nice and all of the employees are very kind. The proctor lets us live in an old house next door to the practice for free. There are 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. The yard is really big and the kids are in heaven after being in an apartment their whole lives.

After this we are off to Raleigh for Christmas and then to Johnson City TN for my second and final rotation. That one will be at a VA hospital. We still need to find a place to live so we plan on going up there over the Christmas break to see if we can find something.

Es una prueba solamente

As a side note, I think I finally need to start wearing a watch.

After Johnson City we'll go back to Memphis for a couple of days for graduation. After that we'll go back to Raleigh and live in Mom and Dad's upstairs for the summer. For the last half of the summer I'll be at Ft. Sam Houston TX for my officer basic course. Sometime in September of next year we'll start our first tour - 3 years.

After a career in the Army we plan on going back to Ely NV. I looked at a lot of different places to live and all their pros and cons, but Ely just seemed to be the best.
I looked at:
Population
Number of Wards
Distance from a Temple
Population to optometrist ratio
Mountains / scenery
Mountain biking
Distance from family
Crime rate
Growth
etc....

Anyway, Kent is the only O.D. in Ely, plus another 60-100 mile radius. He is building a new building and business seems to be going well. It is far from a temple and from Ruth's family however. Ruth's family makes a great effort to see each other though so we'll see her family no matter where we live. My family on the other had almost all lives in the same state and probably only sees each other twice a year - if that. Overall, there are a great many places we could go and be happy. Ely is one of them. I'm not closed to other places but we haven't really found anywhere better.

I'm still speaking Spanish to my kids. It is going pretty well. It is always a challenge for me as I don't feel like I can explain everything I want to in all situations. The kids don't like to speak it much either. They have fully fluent comprehension and are great translators from Spanish to English. They never speak complete Spanish sentences but they do interject a lot of Spanish words into their English sentences. Like I said, it's been a challenge and I'm not sure I would do it again if I could go back, but I can't to back now after the progress I've made.

Maybe when I'm done with school I can devote a little more time to perfecting my Spanish. I'd also like to spend some time mountain biking and of course spend more time with my family!!