What we've been up to

Well, as you can probably guess from our pictures, we were on vacation last week. I had 2 weeks of ER at the beginning of the month then we had vacation. We decided to drive out west. First we spent a couple days at Jason's (Mike's cousin) house and visited with Mike's Aunt and Grandparents. It was the first time that Cori actually met them because they don't travel anymore. We had a very nice time. We then went to the black hills and spent the rest of the week camping, hiking, and sightseeing in Southwest South Dakota. It may not sound like the most spectacular vacation spot, but if you've never been, it's a truly beautiful part of our country. It is amazing to think of the diversity of God's creation after visiting the Masai Mara in Africa this spring and contrast it with the rolling Black Hills.

We spent 4 nights camping in a tent and only got rained on the last night! Otherwise we had absolutely perfect camping weather, cool nights, and warm days. It was interesting because both of us had been to the Black Hills as kids with our families. We went back and saw Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse carving, Devil's Tower, and the Badlands together. We put over 2000 miles on our rental car!

We got back home and Mike has had another week off since he hasn't been called in to work this week! It's been very nice getting to spend more time at home together and get some things marked off the to-do list! We are really enjoying Rochester and if anyone feels up to traveling to Minnesota we would love to see you.

Pictures from our vaction!

Back to Blogin'

So obviously it's been a while since we've updated our blog. Apologies all around. Lots has happened since our last update. First, we are all moved in and settled in our new house here in Minnesota. It's been great and the best part is, my drive to work is less than 3 miles! A huge improvement to the 30 miles I was driving in Atlanta. I also started working at the hospital. July was spent on the general medicine service. This month I have been working in the ICU, which as you can imagine has been busy. I really enjoy the ICU though, much better than general medicine. It has been challenging though, because people do tend to die in the ICU which I have experienced first hand already this month. Cori was searching for a job last month and actually ended up with 2 jobs! She is working at the Rochester Athletic Club on their fitness floor, and also at Ann Taylor Loft in the mall. It's been good so far because they're both flexible part-time jobs. And of course, Cori loves the discount at Ann Taylor Loft! We have really enjoyed Rochester so far, and the weather has been tremendous (we'll see if we're still saying that in February!) We'll try to do better at keeping this updated.

We're Yankees Again!

Sorry we haven't written anything for awhile. Since we got back from Africa we have been a little busy. Mike graduated from medical school and is now a doctor! Then we packed up and moved back up north to Rochester Minnesota. And yes, it is cold up here. I miss the warmth of the South already. Can't wait until winter. Mike and I drove up to MN, unpacked the moving truck, put our stuff in storage, and then went searching for a house. Our realtor Esther was great and showed us 17 houses in one day. We found a house we both liked and put in and offer which was accepted the same day. We are closing on June 9th which worked out really well because Mike has to take a class on the 10th and 11th. It is funny how things work out sometimes. Everything just fell into place with the move, the house, our closing date, etc. You can really see God taking care of our every need. We are both excited to move into our new home. And, it looks like we have renters for our townhouse! Thank you Lord! Thanks to everyone else who was praying for us during our move and in this transition time. They have really been answered.

HOME!!

We made it!! We got into Atlanta this afternoon and are safely back home in Kennesaw this evening. We are looking forward to a good night sleep in our own bed tonight! Thank you for all the prayers.

We're on our way home!

We are leaving kijabe today. We are both sad to leave but happy to come home. We have met some amazing people here and have made some great friends. We will get home Saturday afternoon and will let you all know when we have made it. Please continue to pray for us for safe travels.

The Battle Against the Bugs!

Happy Monday! Our weekend went well. Friday, as expected, Mike got maybe three hours of sleep. He was at the hospital until about 3 and then went back around 6 I think. I'm not sure. I was sleeping! Saturday we went shopping and went up to RVA to watch the rugby scrimmage. It looks pretty tough! I don't think I want to play. On Sunday, we got to sleep in and go to a later church which was a good things because Mike has not been feeling well. After a good nights sleep and a few naps, he beat his bug and is feeling much better. My bug however, was not so easily defeated. For the past week or two I have been getting these bug bites all over and they really itch! I wake up in the morning and find new ones so we figured they must be coming from our bed. Mike, however, has zero bites. We have changed the sheets and I even started going to bed wearing long pants tucked into socks, and a long sleeved shirt tucked into my pants. I know what you're thinking, I was looking GOOD! Even that didn't work. In fact I think the bugs liked a challenge because I think I got more! I counted my bites and had 38 included the 10 just on my stomach. I had had enough. Yesterday we washed all of the sheets and blankets and mattress pad in hot hot water. Then, Mike took our bug spray with deet in it and sprayed the mattress. Then, our neighbor gave us bug killer spray and we sprayed some of that on the mattress too. Then, I ironed the mattress pad and sheets. ( I am never ironing again!) Then, we had to wait for the mattress to dry before we could go to bed. Mike had soaked it with the spray! We finally got into bed and low and behold, today I woke up, and NO NEW BITES!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!!!!!!!!! I am so happy! That doesn't mean the existing ones don't still itch, but no new bites is a very good thing. I hope it lasts. I just thought you would all get a good laugh out of my misery and our bug killing antics. And just so you know, we never actually saw any bugs in our room or bed so whatever bit me is still a mystery. At least for now, we have won the battle against the bugs. Hopefully our victory will last.

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

It's Friday! Today is Mike's last night of call! He is hoping for a light night, but judging from all of his other calls, he won't get much sleep. This was a pretty busy week. We got back on Monday from our safari and weren't quite ready to get back to work. Mike worked in the ICU again this week and has been enjoying it. I got to go up to RVA (rift valley academy) and work with the athletic trainer there! They are having Rugby tryouts this week and it has been fun to watch. Mike and I are going to a scrimmage tomorrow! Last night we had two Kenyan interns over for dinner. We had fajitas! They had never heard of them before! It was a lot of fun except we had some uninvited guests. In the middle of dinner these huge termites flew in under the kitchen door. They told us it was because it has started raining and they saw the kitchen light on. They picked them up by the wings and put them back outside! It was crazy! I have never seen bugs like that. They were huge and had big wings! Yuck! But besides that, dinner went great! Things are going well here. The patient I have been visiting had surgery today for skin grafting for the ulcers on her legs. She was so excited because this means she may be able to go home in a week! The goals we had come up with was that she walk out by the time we leave and hopefully that will be able to happen! We'll keep praying! I'll have Mike blog more about his night on call and his patients in the ICU when he has time. And, we would like to request more comments from everyone. We miss you and love to hear from you so comment please!!!!!!!!!

Pictures from the Masai Mara

Here are a few of the pictures we took. We will post more soon!

The Masai Mara

Sorry for the delay in the post, but we weren't able to sign on yesterday when we got back. We went to the Masai Mara over the weekend for a safari! It was wonderful. When I pictured Africa, this was how I had pictured it. It looks just like the movies! I will give a brief summary of our weekend. We got picked up at 7AM on Saturday morning and driven to the airport in Nairobi. We flew on a 13 passenger plane to the Kichwa Tembo air strip which was made of dirt! The flight was about 45 minutes. We were met by drivers and given tea and coffee while we waited for another plane load of people. Then they drove us about 20 minutes to Kichwa Tembo tented camp. On the way we saw a baboon! When we arrived we were shown to our tent which was not like any tent I have ever stayed in. It had actual beds, a full bathroom, very very nice! After lunch we went on an afternoon game drive. Our driver was names Willy and he was an expert on the over 400 bird species on the Masai Mara as well as all of the other animals. We drove around in an open land cruiser that seated 10. There were two other couples in our vehicle who were in Africa to visit a mission hospital in Tanzania. We drove around for about 3-4 hours and it poured rain on us! Luckily Willy had brought us ponchos because we were not prepared! We had dinner and watched and participated in a Masai warrior dance back at the camp. I got chosen first to dance! It was fun! We were woken up at 6AM the next morning by Titus, with coffee and hot chocolate! We left at 6:30 for our morning drive. We stayed out all morning and we stopped along the Mara river for breakfast. We saw lions, hippos, crocodiles, hiennas, elephants, and lots more! We returned for lunch around 1PM and then left again at 3:30 for a trip to the nearby Masai Village. We got to go inside their village and see what the Masai people live like. It was quite an experience! We even got to go inside one of the houses which was made of cow dung and dirt! Mike got to try to start a fire with a stick! Then we got to purchase some homemade Masai art or jewelry. Sunday night after dinner we had a slide show on the great migration which made us both want to come back someday to see for ourselves. Monday morning we were woken up again at 6AM with coffee and hot chocolate and left at 6:30 for another short game drive. We went on a hippo hunt since it was early and they weren't in the river yet. We only found two in the middle of an open field in a water hole! They did not like us being there and one started to charge us. Willy said we should probably leave! We then found two male lions and their sister along the river. We watched them play! Then, it was time to go back for breakfast, pack up and leave! We were very sad to go. This was an awesome weekend and amazing to see God's creation. The entire time I just kept thinking how amazing God is that he created all of these animals and the beautiful Masai Mara! We took over 1,000 pictures so we will try to post some of these if my connection stays working. We will fill in more details later on!