Welcome to our family blog!

This is us on a trip to Seattle after Jon got accepted into medical school. He will be the first doctor on both sides of our family.

Next weekend is Jon's "white coat ceremony" and school starts in 10 days. Our daughter will be in 6th grade this year and is excited to see her friends who she has missed while homeschooling. As for me, I will continue in my job working for the state and traveling to places like Nome, Barrow, Metlakatla and Unalaska.

Jon applied to schools last year and was accepted into a program in Arizona but we weren't quite ready to take that leap which would have meant moving out of state for FOUR years. We were really hoping for WWAMI because it would only mean ONE year out of state...but it didn't happen that year.


Here's a picture of him right before his interview at UAA in 2008. Snazzy suit!

Jon re-applied to the WWAMI Program in 2009, got an interview, and we received a call from his professor the very next day that he was accepted!


Here's Jon with our daughter right before his successful 2009 interview.



Knowing that much of Jon's time in med school would be taken up with studying, classes and whatnot, we decided that we would travel as much as possible. Our first trip was to Seattle where we visited the campus and spent our daughter's birthday doing fun touristy things like the Space Needle and the Science Center. We also visited the UWSOM campus.


Then we flew down to Mexico where we had some adventures at Teotihuacan (outside Mexico City) and Isla Mujeres (off Cancun).

In April we took a trip down to southeast Alaska where we visited Juneau and Hoonah. It was beautiful and sunny. We took lots of pictures of mountains, beaches, whales, sea lions and porpoises but we never got to those pictures because I accidently dropped the camera into Icy Strait.

This summer we visited my hometown, Kotzebue, over the 4th of July weekend.

This was Jon's first time in the "land of the midnight sun" - I had to get this shot!

Our daughter even got to participate in the 4th of July parade! By the way, the young lady in the fur parky who is waving won Miss Arctic Circle 2009.

So now this weekend is our final weekend before medical school activities begin. We have our niece with us but no real plans other than to relax and enjoy each other's company. Maybe we will pick a few blueberries or just sit on our deck in the sun.

Whatever we do, we'll keep you posted.