I just realized it's almost July and started hyperventilating. Summer is just so fleeting in Wyoming and I wish the warm weather would stick around for longer than 3 months! At least Jared officially wraps up his intern year as a resident in another week or two. After that he will be a second-year resident and only have to work one 24-hour weekend shift per month!!!!! (for the most part.) We'll have to take full advantage of having weekends more often and get outside. This summer I'd love to visit Devil's Tour, Yellowstone, Sheridan, and maybe the Black Hill Mountains again. Jack's still doing so well on two naps a day. Day trips would be easier if he was down to one nap, but I'm going to hold onto that second nap as looooong as possible. Homeboy is the literal energizer bunny every second he's awake, and I honestly need to have two separate breaks from that during the day.
Over the weekend, Jared's residency program put on their annual campout in the Bighorn Mountains near Buffalo. This is an opportunity for the 8 new interns to get to know the rest of the residents and have some fun bonding experiences. We totally lucked out matching here. The people in Jared's program are wonderful. Jared headed up with some coworkers on Friday evening. Jack and I opted to sleep in our own beds for the night and headed up to meet him on Saturday morning. The temperatures are still freezing at night in the Bighorns this time of year, and there's no way Jack would have slept all night in an open tent.
^^We put in a good fight trying to get him to nap in the tent, but no cigar. This is probably the last picture you'll ever see of this lil' tent of ours. When we lived in Georgia, it accumulated a healthy amount of mold due to the humidity and horrifying thunderstorm we camped in. Then little holes starting popping up in the mesh. And finally, we tried to trap Savvy in here while we ate lunch with everyone over the weekend, but pretty soon the smell of hamburgers was too much for her and she dug her way out of the tent to get to us. Buh-bye tent. It's about time to upgrade to something bigger for our growing family anyway.
Jack and I arrived in the Bighorns just in time to join in on the 2-mile hike to Circle Lake. Jared insisted we bring Savvy since several other resident families brought their dogs. I should've gone with my gut and left her at home. She loved it, but between trying to keep Savvy from eating everyone's food the whole time we were there and trying to keep Jack from jumping into the lake, I wasn't able to get to know any of the new intern families. Next year the doggo will be staying at home.
The lake may have been freezing, but that didn't stop Savvy from taking a swim. She used to go swimming every week when we lived in Georgia where there were streams and lakes everywhere and it was always warm. In Wyoming, she's lucky if she gets a proper swim twice a year.
I might not have gotten to talk to anyone, but at least Jack and Savvy were in heaven all day. They love nothing more than being outside and having lots of other doggos around to play with.
And here we are driving home, past Jack's bed time and trying to keep a tantrum at bay by letting him watch cartoons on the way home. Bless you, technology. I will take one zombie baby during long travel days instead of one screaming lunatic. Please and thank you.
Over the weekend, Jared's residency program put on their annual campout in the Bighorn Mountains near Buffalo. This is an opportunity for the 8 new interns to get to know the rest of the residents and have some fun bonding experiences. We totally lucked out matching here. The people in Jared's program are wonderful. Jared headed up with some coworkers on Friday evening. Jack and I opted to sleep in our own beds for the night and headed up to meet him on Saturday morning. The temperatures are still freezing at night in the Bighorns this time of year, and there's no way Jack would have slept all night in an open tent.
We did this hike last year too. It's the perfect distance and beautiful. It was hot in Casper when I left, but of course cool up in the mountains when we arrived. Don't know why I didn't think of that. All Jack had to wear was a little short-sleeve romper, so I put him in my jacket and he wore it like a dress all day. Mom of the year over here. When we finished the hike and got back to the campsite, one of the new intern wives took pity on Jack and lent him a little pair of jeans she'd packed for her two-year-old.
After the hike, we hung around the campsite for a few more hours, snacking and sitting around the campfire and playing games. Ok, mostly we were just chasing Jack around and trying to keep Savvy from stealing hot dogs from babies. Which she did. Multiple times.
I'm excited to make it to the resident playgroup next week so I can properly get to know the new girls. One of them is a girl whose blog I followed when Jared very first started med school in Grenada 5 years ago. I think her blog was called "student wife" or something like that, and I was stoked to find the blog of another native Utah girl married to a med student, though they were in Washington and we were in the southern Caribbean. It's crazy that it all came full circle and our husbands ended up in the same little family medicine residency program in Wyoming.
This week marks one year since we moved to Wyoming. And one year in, we are still very happy to be here. I would guess the majority of people out there would say that Georgia and Grenada (the places we lived before here) are more beautiful than Wyoming, but we are Westerners at heart and feel much more at home on these wide open plains.
Things we love about living in Wyoming:
- The wide open sky. Georgia may have had hundreds of thousands of tall, beautiful trees, but they blocked off the sky and I only saw a handful of sunsets during our two years living there. Here in Wyoming, you can see the entire sunset from anywhere. Sunsets are my favorite.
- The sparse population. We just aren't city folk. I think there are only something like 500,000 people living in this entire state, and that sits just fine with us.
- The prairie. All that wide open prairie is what makes Wyoming feel so desolate as you're driving through, but it also feels really peaceful to live on the edge of the prairie and be able to see miles of tall grass and antelope stretching out in front of you.
- The antelope. They are so cute! I love their big, fluffy white bums. We see herds and herds of them anytime we drive into town. Really gonna miss those guys when we're gone.
- The country folk. Lots of cowboys and people who love their quiet Wyoming home. They are big rodeo fans here, which is fun. It's a good culture full of kind people.
- The trucks. This kind of goes with the last one, but EVERYONE owns a truck. Literally, like, everyone. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that nearly HALF of the cars on the Casper streets at any given time are trucks. This works out great for us anytime we find a new piece of furniture at the thrift store, or when we needed to get all the supplies to build our fence. There's always a ward member or neighbor with a truck who's willing to help you out. And since everyone has one, you can ask someone different every time and not feel guilty about it (ok, we still feel a little guilty).
- The close proximity to Utah. 7 hours is still a long drive, but not nearly as long as the 29-hour drive from Georgia. We love being able to visit family and have family visit us pretty often.
- The cool weekend trips. Casper is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but there are some really great destinations 3-4 hours away in any direction. We've got Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Rocky Mountain national park, Devil's Tower, the Grand Tetons, and more.
- The affordability. Specifically in the housing market. Three cheers for being able to buy a house here! And with the way the market's going, it looks like we'll be able to sell for a profit when we move. Gas is also really cheap here. It's been right around $2 a gallon the majority of the time we've lived here (that's been rising lately, but it's still cheaper than everywhere else).
- The low taxes.
- The dryness. For the first time in half a decade, I can curl/straighten my hair and expect it to last for days.
- The perfect summers.
There are also a few things we don't love: the never-ending wind, the lonnnnng winters, the lack of family in our state . . . but the good absolutely outweighs the bad.
(a photo from last summer right after we moved here)
Oh, and to give some updates on my last post:
(1) There have bene no more attempted break-ins. We got our security cameras up and running last week and we all feel a bit more at ease now. We also like knowing that we can check in on our house when we're out of town now. Jared is done working nights so I won't have to sleep alone and be paranoid anymore.
(2) We haven't heard anything back from the Evanston job opening. I'm inclined to think they've either already filled the position, or they're just not looking for a first-year resident intern who still has two years of training ahead of him. In the meantime, Jared's applied to a position or two in Washington to test the waters up there. We aren't planning to sign in Washington anytime soon, but we want to see what the pay is like and if they offer loan repayment help up there. It'll probably be another year before we sign anywhere. We're going to keep our eyes peeled for any other Southern Wyoming positions that may open up, while also keeping an eye out for anything exceptionally interesting in Washington, where Jared's family is. All we know is that we ant to continue creeping closer to family after we're done with residency.
(3) It is officially summery in Wyoming now! Hopefully that means we'll be going on lots more local adventures and I'll have more interesting blog posts ahead. Jared has Tuesday and Wednesday off this week (he's in a new ER rotation where Tuesday and Wednesday are his "weekend"). We're thinking about driving up to Sheridan and exploring the Bighorn Mountains.
Things we love about living in Wyoming:
- The wide open sky. Georgia may have had hundreds of thousands of tall, beautiful trees, but they blocked off the sky and I only saw a handful of sunsets during our two years living there. Here in Wyoming, you can see the entire sunset from anywhere. Sunsets are my favorite.
- The sparse population. We just aren't city folk. I think there are only something like 500,000 people living in this entire state, and that sits just fine with us.
- The prairie. All that wide open prairie is what makes Wyoming feel so desolate as you're driving through, but it also feels really peaceful to live on the edge of the prairie and be able to see miles of tall grass and antelope stretching out in front of you.
- The antelope. They are so cute! I love their big, fluffy white bums. We see herds and herds of them anytime we drive into town. Really gonna miss those guys when we're gone.
- The country folk. Lots of cowboys and people who love their quiet Wyoming home. They are big rodeo fans here, which is fun. It's a good culture full of kind people.
- The trucks. This kind of goes with the last one, but EVERYONE owns a truck. Literally, like, everyone. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that nearly HALF of the cars on the Casper streets at any given time are trucks. This works out great for us anytime we find a new piece of furniture at the thrift store, or when we needed to get all the supplies to build our fence. There's always a ward member or neighbor with a truck who's willing to help you out. And since everyone has one, you can ask someone different every time and not feel guilty about it (ok, we still feel a little guilty).
- The close proximity to Utah. 7 hours is still a long drive, but not nearly as long as the 29-hour drive from Georgia. We love being able to visit family and have family visit us pretty often.
- The cool weekend trips. Casper is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but there are some really great destinations 3-4 hours away in any direction. We've got Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Rocky Mountain national park, Devil's Tower, the Grand Tetons, and more.
- The affordability. Specifically in the housing market. Three cheers for being able to buy a house here! And with the way the market's going, it looks like we'll be able to sell for a profit when we move. Gas is also really cheap here. It's been right around $2 a gallon the majority of the time we've lived here (that's been rising lately, but it's still cheaper than everywhere else).
- The low taxes.
- The dryness. For the first time in half a decade, I can curl/straighten my hair and expect it to last for days.
- The perfect summers.
There are also a few things we don't love: the never-ending wind, the lonnnnng winters, the lack of family in our state . . . but the good absolutely outweighs the bad.
Oh, and to give some updates on my last post:
(1) There have bene no more attempted break-ins. We got our security cameras up and running last week and we all feel a bit more at ease now. We also like knowing that we can check in on our house when we're out of town now. Jared is done working nights so I won't have to sleep alone and be paranoid anymore.
(2) We haven't heard anything back from the Evanston job opening. I'm inclined to think they've either already filled the position, or they're just not looking for a first-year resident intern who still has two years of training ahead of him. In the meantime, Jared's applied to a position or two in Washington to test the waters up there. We aren't planning to sign in Washington anytime soon, but we want to see what the pay is like and if they offer loan repayment help up there. It'll probably be another year before we sign anywhere. We're going to keep our eyes peeled for any other Southern Wyoming positions that may open up, while also keeping an eye out for anything exceptionally interesting in Washington, where Jared's family is. All we know is that we ant to continue creeping closer to family after we're done with residency.
(3) It is officially summery in Wyoming now! Hopefully that means we'll be going on lots more local adventures and I'll have more interesting blog posts ahead. Jared has Tuesday and Wednesday off this week (he's in a new ER rotation where Tuesday and Wednesday are his "weekend"). We're thinking about driving up to Sheridan and exploring the Bighorn Mountains.
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