Yesterday Aunt Suzie and I enjoyed the cool fall weather at Jumbo's pumpkin patch.

We had a great time wandering through the corn maze and picking our halloween pumpkins. Look at this huge pumpkin I found!

This is the first year Justin and I have carved a pumpkin together. Justin designed the face while I was toasting the pumpkin seeds.

Our goofy jack-o-lantern!

Happy Halloween :)

The Commute: turning business into pleasure

Justin and I tried out the commute to DC in preparations for Psychiatry that starts soon. Justin is planning on taking the train into the city for the six week rotation and we wanted to check out traffic. So this morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and caught the commuter train to Union Station. From there we switched to the subway and luckily there is a stop right at the gate to the hospital. We toured the campus, which is huge and a little creepy. From there we hopped back on the metro and spent the rest of the morning at the Museum of Natural History. The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed being tourists for the day. It was so much fun to spend the day together!

Man with a plan

Hooray for finally having a schedule!

After three weeks of anxious waiting, Justin's step score has arrived. If you aren't in medical school (or married to a medical school student) you may not fully understand the importance of this score. It is like the SAT or MCAT in that it is a numerical measurement to compare students. Of course we were thrilled to see how well Justin did :)

But more exciting was beginning negotiations of a rotation schedule with the clinical advisor. That means we'll know where we are going to be and for how long! Right now we're working on getting the core rotations (psychiatry, internal medicine, pediatrics, ob-gyn, surgery, and family medicine) over the next year and then we'll schedule electives.

So, Justin is now a man with a plan. He's starting Psychiatry on October 20 and is anxious to get started. Especially after just hanging around the house all day while I'm at work. Not to say he's complaining about the quality time he's spending with his video games, but this is the longest break in school he's had since he started!