Our lasts in Greenville...

Time is flying by and with only a few more weeks before we will be leaving our home and our town, we are trying to to the best of our ability to soak up everything. We are going out to eat at our favorite places, walking around Falls Park, walking through Mast General Store, visiting with our friends and making as many memories as possible. We have so many exciting opportunities to create new memories ahead of us but we are just enjoying the last bit of time we have in Greenville.


Friday Night, Richard and I left Lillie with her favorite babysitter. We went to a fancy dinner and had drinks after. We walked all around downtown and talked about how much the town has changed in the 5 years that we've lived here. Downtown in unrecognizable in some parts and is just booming. When we moved here, the West End was dark and you did not really go down there except for maybe a Greenville Drive baseball game. Now it is just crawling with people, new bars, new stores and the next "hip" spot. We joked that should we ever come back to Greenville- to visit or live that we won't recognize anything about it.

Falls Park- Greenville, SC

Coop Crawl/Bad Hair day for me

Saturday we went to the North Main area of town for the "Coop Crawl". Urban Chickens have been a very popular thing in town. When we lived on Faris Road, our old neighbors (and friends who now live in Lexington) had chickens. We thought it was such a wild concept but thoroughly enjoyed eating the eggs.  Well, the fad has exploded since then. We traveled from house to house and saw the various types of chickens and each unique coop. It was fun and made us once again want Chickens. Lillie was pretty tired and didn't know what to think.  Everyone who welcomed us into their backyards were so kind and truly love these chickens. One lady shared that if she leaves her kitchen door open that one of her "girls" will help herself inside and check out the kitchen. Imagine that!!

We love this awesome town and will miss so much about it. We are so thankful for the friendships that we've made with everyone in town. Everyone has supported us and our marriage, they've supported Richards Career,  they've let us borrow their cars to move things or get mulch, they were gracious and loving when Lillie was born and continue to be an incredible part of our family. This upcoming Wednesday I will be attending a "goodbye" dinner for my Side-By-Side bible study (a ministry for medical spouses) and it hurts my heart a little bit to be saying goodbye to these women who have walked with me for 3 years through this journey.  Hopefully there will be no tears but if there are, I am sure it will be the first of many. We are trying very hard to soak up time with our friends and hopefully we will be able to do so. We cannot express how special you are and how thankful we are that God placed you in our lives. 

Fellowship Follow-up

My friend Kara started blogging again after a long absence and I took that as my cue to make some time for it too.  Check our her blog here--White House Red Roof .

What the email we received looked like

The last time I wrote we were preparing to apply for the Fellowship application process. Now months later, we are preparing to move for Fellowship.  In July we applied to 56 programs for a Hematology/Oncology Fellowship. Shortly after his application was submitted, the craziness began. Over the next 3-4 months, Richard traveled non-stop around the East Coast to interview at about 10 programs. We were lucky enough to hear from about 16 total programs, but interviewing at 10 programs was insane (time wise and financially) that we had made the decision to only interview at 10. He was gone multiple nights a week for that 3-4 month time frame and our family time was extremely limited. BUT it was all worth it. On December 7th, at Noon- we found out that Richard had matched at the University of Kentucky.  

At Keenland horse race in Lexington, KY

We were thrilled to finally have our location and a little more known about the future of our family.  As a family we had traveled to Kentucky for the interview (and twice since finding out). Our dear friends and old neighbors from Greenville now live there and graciously welcomed us for the weekend so that we could learn about the city and explore a little bit with their guidance. We thought Lexington was a great town and surprisingly seemed like a bigger version of Greenville with horses.

We will be moving there sometime in the next month or two and Richard will officially begin July 1st. We truly feel like we are being called to Lexington for a reason and are excited to relocate. We are excited about the possibilities that Lexington will bring for our little family and the time to explore in a completely new area of the country for both of us.

Richard is nervous about the unknowns of what Fellowship will be like but Lillie and I have every faith that he'll be amazing and successful.  As of right now, I will be staying home with Lillie until she can get into a daycare and I can start the job hunt. On December 8th, I put her on a waiting list and the daycare still has no idea when she'll be able to start.We don't have a place to live yet but are going to look next week as a family. The right house will happen for us. Our home in Greenville is under contract after less than a weekend of being on the market and we will leave the house officially mid-May. We love our house and our dear friends here in Greenville. We are sad to leave all of these wonderful and precious things/people behind but phones work 2 ways and it won't be goodbye, just see you later. My sweet bible study friends are already planning their trip to Lexington!

Life right now is very busy and our time is limited with so much to do before we leave South Carolina. Somehow a million events are happening in May and right now Richard's hospital schedule leaves us with a 36 hour window to drive to Kentucky (6 hours), tour houses and drive back home. Please think of us and send good thoughts as we try to wrap everything up and find our new home.  As always, thanks for reading and following!