sweet home

 Last weekend we drove 9 hours to Wilmington, NC to look at an Oral and Facial Surgery practice.  When Lewis finishes his residency her next summer we will be moving to West Virginia for a year for a fellowship in Pediatric Craniofacial Surgery, but we need to start figuring out where we want to end up after that is done.  The process of buying into a practice, buying someone out, or starting from scratch all take quite a while and we want to get started with all of that as soon as possible.
 Lewis knows someone there in Wilmington who was a resident at UConn when Lewis was a dental student.  Lew spent a lot of time hanging out in the OMFS offices.
 Anyway, we wanted to see what this practice was like and if it felt like the right place for us.
 Wilmington is gorgeous, I would love to live at the beach, but we don't think it was the right place for us.  That isn't a for sure no, but a pretty for sure no.  I think we decided we want to be out west.  Look at me, saying "out west" like any good southerner.  Also, Aiden told me she doesn't want to be a southerner, she would rather be from "up north" which I quickly explained is something only a true Southern Girl would say.
 Brooks was thrilled to be able to fly a kite for once.  It seems like we hardly ever have wind here in Bham and when we do it's because there is a tornado coming and it's time to take cover!  He was in kite flying heaven. And then he put the kite behind the couch in the hotel room and we forgot about it and left it there by accident.  Oops!



 I think the highlight of the trip for Lewis was Sunday morning at church.  We decided to go for an hour before driving out of town hoping to meet an LDS dentist who could give us an outside perspective on the OMFS practice.  There was actually and OMFS in the ward and he told us lots of great things to think about. The best part is that we knew his brother and family while we lived in Connecticut! They were only there for a short time, but she is Thai and of course wanted to have us over for Thai food since Lewis served his mission in Thailand.  It's a small world!  Turns out they actually live in Medford, Oregon now which is a place we have considered going and opening a practice. 
 We really have no idea where we will be in 2 years, I can honestly say I never thought I would live in Alabama or would enjoy living in Alabama, but we've made our home here.  I think we can go anywhere and make a happy life.  We just don't know yet where that will be.

 We spent the last day at Magic Kingdom again.  Lewis and the kids wanted to do some of the magic sorcerer (or whatever it's called :) ) stuff and Cate and Abby were excited to do the fantasyland rides again. There are these cards and this sorcerer game that you go around the park looking for clues and then there is a little video clip that shows up in a window and you get the next clue from the video.  It was fun and the kids finished two of the lands.  They are excited to do the rest next time we go. 
 We had fun on the Tomorrowland Speedway.  The little girls and I did it a couple of times while Lewis took the kids on fast rides.







 These might be my favorite pictures from the trip.  The teapots before:
 During:
 And after:
 Abby didn't want to do that one again! Ha!
 There are now 2 Dumbo rides with a waiting area that is a playground.  There is also this fun spray area that is the Casey Jr. train.  As fantasyland expands I think it's going to be really fun.

We had a great trip but were ready to head home after a long and exhausting week.  I think next time we will do one less day of parks so we can have a day to lounge around, swim, and recover from our days of running around.