Merry Christmas to YOU!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from our family to yours!!

Yes, you!!

Right after he landed in the mud. Look at that smile!

Let your heart be light!!!

Thank you for walking yet another year with us. What a year it was!

We started it in the middle of the fourth year of medical school. We'd just lived away from home for two months with a newborn and were happily settling in back at home in Blacksburg. We spent a tortuous month of January trying to decide how to rank our residency programs and surprised ourselves a bit by deciding to stay in Blacksburg. In the end, it was the best decision for us, we matched here in February, and we're happy to call this area home for a few more years.



In May we celebrated as Jim graduated from medical school!! He became a doctor and our family and friends couldn't have been more excited, proud and supportive. We did a bit of traveling to see family and had a comedy of errors that hit our trip to the beach and then a flood came to our back-up vacation plan at The Pinery. We actually really enjoyed it and were grateful to be there for the first flood like it in 80 or so years!! What a story.

In June we moved to a home in Christiansburg right before Jim started his family medicine residency. We have a huge backyard, a playground down the street, and much more space than we've ever had. We love our place and I think how grateful I am for it every day. We have a guest room... come visit!

Ian and I spent a week with Jim's family at Brigantine Beach and Jim was able to join us for a couple days. Then we hit the road for The Pinery and enjoyed time on the river with my family.

Residency started with a bang! Jim had a fairly easy rotation the first month and then we had five hard, long hour-filled rotations in a row. With no weekends off for five months, we survived and made it out the other side. Jim's working hard, getting good feedback, and enjoying his program as much as you can during intern year. When he's not seeing patients, he's spending as much time as he can with Ian especially, woodworking, and working in the yard.

I'm enjoying staying at home with Ian and following his lead. I've been enjoying being a part of some mom's groups, setting up playdates, trying new recipes, and attempting to document Ian's milestones.

Ian's a vivacious, kind, and active explorer! We love observing him and learning more and more about him every day. Days are filled with reading books, visiting the playgrounds, going to the aquatic center, playing with friends, playing with Leif in our backyard, and much more! What a blessed gift he is to our family.

We try to get out on as many hikes as we can, spend time with friends & family, and make the most of the downtime Jim has.

Right now we are living in Richmond for a month with friends while Jim completes a pediatric rotation in a hospital here. We're grateful for our friends' hospitality and the chance to be together while he has to be away from home. (Thank you, Mike, Lindsay, & Chappie!)

We hope and pray that you and yours have a warm, laughter and joy-filled holiday season! We also hope that our paths cross often during 2015. Thanks for following along :)

Much love,

Käthe, Jim, Ian, & Leif