Residency Graduation...goodbye to the Empire State

The weekend before we left, Shawn had his residency graduation party.  He and his co-resident Reanen both received their official graduation certificates to perform surgery.  It was a great moment seeing the culmination of three years of hard work and dedication.  It was especially heartwarming to see how much people love Shawn.  The other physicians, attendings, nurses, staff, etc. all had great things to say about Shawn and sincerely enjoyed working with him.  He will be a great physician and we are so proud of all he does for our family.  Even through the demands of residency, he continued to give us his time and energy.  We are blessed to have him as a husband and father!

Our friend Laura is quite an artist and was enlisted to do some face painting for the kids.  Jack thought he'd take on this project on his own, and created his own face painting masterpiece.  I asked him what it was and he just shrugged his shoulders....it looks like a squashed spider to me.

We took a final picture of the kids in the yard at our Creek Locks home.  New York might not have been my favorite state, but I will miss how beautiful and green it is here.  Our yard seemed like a paradise at times.  Never again will we have a small creek with frogs to catch, surrounded by huge trees  filled with cardinals and bluebirds, and wildflowers in the day and fireflies at night.  We have thoroughly enjoyed this yard.  It has been our children's ideal growing up playground, with room to run and explore.  I feel blessed to have lived here for the past three years.