Fall is HERE!

Fall has officially arrived in Central Texas. In October we had a few cool nights and cool days but it warmed back up pretty quickly. However for the last week or so it's been beautiful outside. I've noticed the leaves have really started changing colors the last week or so and I love it! We have been leaving our windows open all day and at night, meaning it gets quite cold in here in the mornings, but that's ok by me.

Fall means different things to different people and brings new happenings depending on what you are involved in. Let me explain what I mean: For some it brings the start of Basketball or football. For some it brings the first snow. For me it brings a few things this year. Fall is when we interview for our next years residency class. These are the people that will start on July 1st and be here for 3 years. The current residents are very involved in the interviewing process. This is important to us. It is who the current 1st and 2nd years will work with. For the 3rd years it doesn't impact us quite as much but for me I still feel a sense of responsibility in helping to choose the people that are best for our program. I love it here! I love our program, my fellow residents, my staff, and my hospital. I want what is best for them, which means I want the best of the best for our future residents. During interview "season" we have a pre-interview social at one of the resident's houses once a week. We have had this social at my house 2 times this year. We usually serve dinner to those interviewing as well as the current residents who are here to interact with those interviewing. This allows us to get to know them in an informal way and lets them be more comfortable asking us questions. I really enjoy going to these socials because I get to hang out with good friends and meet lots of neat people.

Something else this fall brought is a job interview for myself. I interviewed today for a Pediatric Hospitalist position here. A pediatric hospitalist is basically a general pediatrician that only takes care of children in the hospital. I don't like working in the clinic so this is perfect for me. Interviewing here was a little odd since I'm already a resident and everyone already knows me. It was basically a way for me to get to ask questions about the future of the Children's Hospital (the new one is currently being built), salary, benefits, and transitioning to a new "role". Like I said, I love it here and would love to stay here for a long time. Jonathan also really likes living here and we have made some wonderful friends. I should find out soon if I got the job.

One other thing this fall brings for us is observation hours. We attended our first Family Link Retreat this past Sunday in Austin. Our foster care agency (Family Link Kids) has a retreat once a month for families in the agency to get together for support, fellowship and training. It allows all of the foster/adopted kids and biological kids to interact with each other. This is also an opportunity for future parents, ie: us, to get some of our observation hours. We got 4 of our 40 hours this weekend. Basically, what happens is that when families with foster children arrive those children are left in the care of future parents and volunteers so that the foster parents can attend training and interact with the other foster parents. We were given a baby who was about a year old and a little girl who was 3. We had a lot of fun playing with the children and getting to know some of the future parents.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I can't wait. We have lots of fun plans with our families coming up. This weekend we are off to Rockwall to my sister and brother-in-laws house. Thanksgiving with my family is on Sunday. It will be fun to hang out with my siblings for the weekend and just have fun. My sister has taken up photography and is going to take some new pictures of me and Jonathan so maybe I can update our photos on here. Then on Wednesday night we are going back to Dallas to have Thanksgiving with Jonathan's family on Thursday afternoon. Should be a week full of fun and food. I hope to put up our Christmas tree sometime in the next week or so!

~until~

PS: to my friend in Dubai, I miss you :)