The Founding Fathers

Friday we drove around the Gettysburg battlefield listening to an audio retracing the soldiers steps. There were 170,000 men who fought in this three day battle, and by the weeks end 50,000 had been killed. Most of the fighting done was head to head, rifle to rifle, man to man. Many times when they would run out of ammunition they would raid the dead for more bullets to just sustain through the fight. The men who fought in these battles were sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers--- some who were fighting against their own brothers, and friends. I am not sure the average age but I imagine many of them were in their early twenties. The narrator would say "if you were standing here 140 years ago a band of confederates would be rushing at you with muskets and cannons." So as we sat in our car listening to the sounds of rifles, cannons and the cries of men-- I imagined what they must have felt charging enemy lines. Many knowing that they would not live through the day. But they still rushed to the fight. The kept moving. They didn't retreat. In the face of carnage they still fought.

We've gained amazing insight into our country's beginings this past week. Will and I visited the Lincoln memorial and saw the bigger than life statue of Lincoln. The president who led our divided country through the civil war. We then stood in the place Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech "I have a dream." We also rode to the top of the Washington Monument and looked from one side of city to another-- the Capital, the White House, the Lincoln memorial, the Jefferson Memorial (see picture above). We also visited the Library of Congress --- symbolizing our nation's earliest ideals that knowledge was power and the more one could get knowledge the more "free" they could become. The last day in Washington DC we visited the Holocaust Museum -- and while it did not have a lot to do with our nations history -- it served as another unique experience and insight into Hitler's prison term where he came up with his vision of "purifying his country" by getting rid of the Jews. With his plan in tack he rose to power through the power of media, appealing to the common people.

While this last week was phenomenal we're grateful to be back "home" relaxing with Will's sister Lizzie and Micah (see picture below). Family is chicken soup to the soul-- and like our other family visit we are eating fabulously and enjoying the presence of beautiful children and refined company. Meanwhile, we're slowing figuring out next steps. We're thinking we'll try to get me a full time job and Will a couple part time jobs while he studies for the Step three this next year. The part time jobs could be fairly simple jobs in hospitals and or community colleges teaching medical terminology.

So the following pictures are picture of a New York ward house, Oliver our new nephew, Will and I at Lizzie's place, a session at the Washington DC temple, a picture of our travels to New York where we barely escaped the jaws of one of the east coast floods, our visits to the national monuments, etc...










And a bonus video for the Blackhursts of Simon counting to a hundred ;)

Dealing with Disappointment

I haven't always been good at dealing with disappointment. In fact in the past I have failed miserably at it ;) This week has continued to be a week full of disappointments. OSU won't admit us into another 4th year of medical school, they basically said the same thing Will's residency said-- that they are not equipped to "rehabilitate" someone like Will. When we took the route of trying to find a residency that would take us -- our Ohio connections (Dr. Glascow) strongly discouraged it and said she would write a letter but thought the decision would be premature.

Now I'll back up and try to answer more questions-- so Jon B. doesn't feel left out this time ;) First off we'll let you know the remaining "stroke deficits" that are keeping Will from progressing in the professional world-- He looks tired and people take this as he is not interested. He has a slower processing speed-- that accounted for doing poorly on a medical exam in Ohio. And lastly the application of the knowledge is still recovering I'm guess because he doesn't have all his memory connections back so piecing the puzzle back together without all the pieces is too much to ask. We're confident Will is still recovering we continue to see progress in theses areas, however, for now, our world is still on hold. We'll probably be living in our Bountiful Condo for the next year and taking prep classes for Step Three (if Will passes the boards before even doing the first year of residency I'm sure they'll let him back into a residency next year). Meanwhile we're looking at possible service/medical opportunities in South America and we're both looking for jobs in Utah.

To end with, this time around the disappointment has not been so devastating-- One day I said to Will "I'm not going to mess up my make up - so no crying today. " Then a few days later when Will sensed I was getting upset and he said to me-- "don't mess up your makeup." We're learning to laugh at ourselves and we're really enjoying our time together. On top of this we feel your prayers and know that the faith of family and friends is holding us up right now.

ps As for our current travel plans, we're leaving Georgia tomorrow and going to stay with a friend in Washington DC Tuesday and Wednesday then we're going to stay with some other friends in Pennsylvania Thursday and Friday then We'll be off to New York on Saturday to stay with Lizzie for a week. Then we'll head back to Ohio to have Thanksgiving with Jon B and Peter's Family.

pps the Below pictures are our travels to Georgia, Will in front of the hospital in Kentucky were he was born, our beautiful ride through Tennessee's country roads and our fun times with the Peter Clarke Family in Georgia.








You need to know there were no animals harmed in the filming of the below clip. Also if you have a weak stomach you may not want to watch this one due to the excessive amount of animal saliva seen in the clip (see the pleasant video I posted on http://willsrecovery.blogspot.com instead )-- If you're brave enough however just know none of us saw the signs that said "keep your windows rolled up halfway" until the end of the tour -- Jessica Peter and poor Bailee baby practically had buffalo, long horns, deer, and zebra right on top of their laps. On top of the animals trying to get in the car we had an animal of our own inside the car. Throughout the safari trip Logan opened the van door with a herd of animals outside of it, he also almost crawled out the window a few times and he had one of my camera lenses hanging out the car to hand to one of the animals.