Spring "Break" (what we've been doing)

I promised to try to do a "catch up" post but now that I have the opportunity, I am at a loss as to where to begin. Let's start with the good news: SPRING BREAK IS HERE!!!!! Graham took his final on Thursday night after long hours of study and I am happy to announce he passed with flying colors! The man is a genius. I don't think I can ever say that enough.  
His "break" will be short (a weekend) but super sweet because we are spending the weekend alone together in celebration of our anniversary.  I think the last time we spent three consecutive days with each other was back in Napa in September so this feels like heaven!

(As an aside, I just love this picture of the girls sending Graham off to school. Isla took it upon herself to always make sure Daddy had a drink for class or clinicals. They would stand eagerly at the door, waving until he pulled away. You can't see their faces but I feel like their admiration for their father is visible even from the behind. Sweet girls!)

A lot of you are vaguely aware of the drama that was last quarter. I will spare the rest of you all of the nitty gritty details (mostly because this platform is not the space to do so). In short, Graham's preceptor arrangement for winter quarter fell through. He is required to obtain 500 clinical practice hours (167 hours/quarter) working under nurse practitioners this year in order to graduate. No preceptor = no hours = no graduation. Needless to say, we spent some excruciatingly frustrating and extremely stressful weeks in conversation with the school about alternate options, all the while, watching the possibility of a June graduation date slip further and further away.

Honestly, I would never wish a situation like this one on anyone. We experienced every raw emotion imaginable and we were all over the map (just ask our kids - no "good parent" gold stars for us that week!) Looking back now, I don't know that I've ever been prouder of Graham. He asserted himself in a way I'd never seen in our 9 years together (as his wife, I think I have the right to say so: it was HOT!) and tackled the situation with firmness and grace. In the end, the only solution offered was for Graham to travel twice a week to Port Hadlock to obtain hours in the primary care setting. (I use the word "travel" instead of "commute" because, when it takes a person 2 1/2 hours each way to get somewhere-including a ferry ride-I define that as a trip!!) Of course the answer wasn't that "simple." His available weekdays to go to Hadlock did not align with his preceptor's work shifts so Graham pulled some strings at work and was able to adjust his master work schedule to accommodate the Hadlock dates. Praise the Lord for a supportive manager - she literally saved the day! When he called her in crisis, her words were "Graham, we haven't gotten you this far to let graduation slip away now!"

Sooooo, the last 2 months of our lives have been a complete whirlwind! Graham's been working a lot of weekends (every Saturday and every other Sunday) to avail more week days for the Hadlock trips and so us girls have had to make some adjustments. We've all really, really missed him as he hasn't been home during the girls' wake hours ~5 days out of the week. It's been a crazy quarter (I don't even want to tally our gas/ferry bills or the number of vacation days Graham had to take from work to make this all happen) but we are SO grateful that he was somehow able to obtain 160 of the 167 clinical hours required!! Beginning next week, he'll be working with an oncology nurse practitioner on Capital Hill (Seattle has never seemed SO CLOSE!!!) This is him dream placement so we're all thrilled. He'll be working with her during his spring "break" to help make up for the hours lost but at least he'll have one week without class!

On another note, he had a preliminary interview for an oncology nurse practitioner position a few weeks back and the job sounded like a wonderful fit. It would be based less than 2 miles from our home (WOW) so we would love it if it worked out. He received word last week that he was a prime candidate and that they will be contacting him shortly (it's a new position so they are still ironing out some kinks). We are hopeful that the do but whatever the case, it is promising to know there are NP jobs in his specialty field out there.

I think it's safe to say we are back on track and I have a graduation date of June 9th, 2013 marked in PEN on the calendar. 85 more days to go!!!!!