Trip Report

Our visit to the midwest this past week was wonderful on so many levels. It was also very sobering: flying into Cedar Rapids, over cornfields that should have been a lush green carpet but instead looked like a scuffed and threadbare brownish rug. Seeing the town I grew up in looking like a war zone, up to within a block or two of my parents' home. Watching people pick through their ruined belongings and try to re-establish their lives. Knowing what a challenge that will be for months and years to come, despite the fact that the rest of the country has already turned its eyes elsewhere. So many problems and as of yet, no solutions.

However, we also had many happy moments in Iowa: family dinner with my parents and siblings, breakfast at our favorite breakfast joint with friends and former co-workers, and then riding up to Wisconsin with my brother, my sister, and my sister-in-law to attend Matt's parents' Fourth of July party together. In terms of the party, I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all!














We also got our anniversary cake from Craig's Cakes while we were back in Wisconsin.
Banana split! Oh, YUM.
We also enjoyed time with Matt's sisters and their significant others, and went out on the boat with his parents. Throughout the entire trip was a pervasive theme, for both of us, of: we need to get back here. Soon. Whether it was the devastation of Cedar Rapids or getting up early to take a run through the unbelievably gorgeous smell of fresh-cut hay that's all over Wisconsin right now, we both feel a mounting sense of impatience to get back to the places--though above all, the people--that matter most to us. We are hugely aware that very few couples are as blessed as we are to have joined together two families so full of incredible and kind people, and we've come to the conclusion that living far away from that is not something we want to do much longer.

And so it is that I bring you to the next unexpected bend in the road of our lives: I'm planning to apply to the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, a fully-distance program, and hopefully we'll move back to the midwest to do clinicals (and to stay) within the space of a year or so. There's even an incredibly birth center I've found, which does homebirth as well, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can do my clinicals there.

What about Shenandoah? It's a good program, but careful blog readers will recall that I was always a little ambivalent about it. It never quite settled in for me. Frontier is also less expensive, and quite a bit more flexible; it also has the added benefit of having been around for a long, long time. It's well-known in the midwest, which is where I plan to practice. While we've loved our time here and plan to maximize it, and there is plenty we'll miss about Reston--

above all else, we're ready to come home.