Interview Season

Interview season was busy! It's crazy enough when just the med student goes on his own to the interviews. Add in a baby and a wife and it gets even crazier. 

In the end, Mitch interviewed at Salt Lake, Seattle, Houston, St. Louis, Denver, Columbus, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago, Ann Arbor, South Bend, Philadelphia, Boston, and Palo Alto. Rhett and I went to all of them besides Houston, St. Louis, and Cleveland.

After our Seattle interview with just Mitch and I, we headed to Columbus, Ohio to interview at Ohio State. My cousin and best friend lives there, so I really wanted to go see this place! And Mitch wanted me to see a few of the places to get my opinion on where we could end up living. The problem was, there were so many places near Columbus that Mitch was also interviewing at, so it turned into an almost 2 week trip. 

It was so fun staying with Brooke and CJ! We loved seeing where they lived and Rhett and Jackson played so great together.

The Columbus Zoo felt like Disneyland. Their parking lot was huge and had shuttles and everything. The day we went was freezing, so luckily there was no one else there!

We also went to the library, the Cosi Children's Museum, and had lots of fun playing with all of Jackson's toys.

We loved Columbus! It was such a pretty place. We both felt like we would love living there. Brooke and CJ were so sweet to let us stay with them for so long. They did so much for us- Brooke is the best hostess! I was so sad to say goodbye to Brooke.

Our next stop was Pittsburgh which was an awesome city but so confusing. It has more bridges than any other city in the US. We definitely got lost. More than once.

Rhett and I went to see the place where the three rivers met and played around while Mitch was in his interview.

Our next destination was Chicago. It is such an awesome city, but not one we felt like we would want to raise our family. It didn't help that Mitch wasn't a big fan of the program there either.

Mitch was excited to see Wrigley Field

The free zoo- it was too cold for most of the animals.

                                                  The famous Cloud Gate in Millenium Park

The best surprise of our long interview trip was staying with my cousin Tiffany in Michigan. We didn't realize how close she was to Ann Arbor- where our next interview was. Rhett was so sick of hotels and car rides, the poor kid. He loved staying in the same house for a couple of days, especially because they had such a fun toy room! He loved playing with Carter and George and thought they were pretty cool. The first night we were there, he kept saying, "happy, happy." It made me happy.

She showed us downtown Detroit which was so scary, and all of the boys were out by the time we were done.

I had so much fun with Tiff. She was so sweet to have us and even drove us to Ann Arbor the next day so we wouldn't have to get up super early with Mitch who had an early interview at Michigan State. She definitely saved our trip.

From Michigan, we drove to meet my family in South Bend for the BYU vs. Notre Dame game. It is a beautiful campus with such cool history and tradition.

I have never been colder in my LIFE! The humid cold is miserable. Poor Rhett!

Luckily, Rhett slept all bundled up in a huge blanket for the first half of the game, but when he woke up, we felt so bad keeping him out in the cold, so we joined lots of other fans inside the basketball arena. Much better!

After the Notre Dame game, we flew home for Thanksgiving in Utah for a short break from the interviews.

Our next stop was Philly- home of Chop- the number one Pediatric Hospital. More importantly, home to my cousin Emily and best friend Martha.

Philadelphia has so many cool sites to see. We saw the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Freedom Trail, and Valley Forge. Ems was a great tour guide.

This was the cutest old alley. Some of the homes were built in 1714!

So fun getting our kids together at Martha's cute house. Not near enough time together. So sad saying goodbye to these girls.

We took the train up to Boston for an interview at Harvard. We were so sick of airplanes by this time, so the train was perfect. Rhett could wander and have all the space he wanted.

 

Boston was such a cool city and a very impressive children's program. We didn't take too many pictures for some reason, I think I was a little ready to be done. :)

We saw Harvard, went to a fun indoor market and had some yummy clam chowder, and saw lots of beautiful neighborhoods and fun parts of Boston. 

We stayed with some of Mitch's friends who were so nice to let us stay. His wife took us to the aquarium which was right down town on the water front. Rhett loved it!

Finally, we flew back to Houston for about 10 days. It was so nice to stay at our own place and not live out of a suitcase! 

We had a lot of entertaining to do to keep Rhett occupied on the many flights. 

Our final interview was in beautiful California at Standford. On the flight, Rhett had a major blowout and I was unprepared. He lost his pants but still earned his wings. 

We stayed with Mitch's aunt and uncle who were so sweet! We had so much fun. They live in beautiful Danville. The weather was perfect and we kept thinking, who wouldn't want to live in California for residency?

The day before Mitch's interview, we went to see San Fransisco and Muir Woods. Both were so fun!

By the end, we were all exhausted and ready to be done with interviews!

In the end, we were surprised by how many programs we really liked. But we could not figure out where we should go. We went through everything from cost of living to proximity to family and could not decide. Lots of programs made sense for different reasons, but in the end, the only place that we both felt like we should go was Utah. We had no idea if they would accept us, but we decided that's where we were supposed to be. We had to wait all the way till March to find out where we matched!