Living Life East Coast Style...: 9 month resident.

I'm finally feeling like a true resident of Pennsylvania - except for my Wisconsin driver's license and license plates that my father tells me to change on a weekly basis. I can now navigate myself to multiple costal cities without the use of a GPS and have picked up on some of the Pennsylvania slang, unfortunately.

My job is still going wonderful. These summer months have been filled with children coming into my clinic with broken bones from sports, trampolines, falling off bikes, and car accidents. We have special clinics built into the week specifically for fracture add ons. By the end of those days, I'm covered in glitter and fiberglass from all of the casting we do. I still am traveling to outreach clinics in Harrisburg, PA and Wilkes Barre, PA every other week with one of the surgeons I work with. I enjoy being able to have a wide range of patients to follow.

Next week I will be at Camp Spifida all week long. I will be one of the Child Life Specialists and a camp counselor for kids with Spina Bifida. We spend the week fishing, swimming, going on the adventures course, woodworking, doing arts and crafts, dancing, eating meals in the dining hall, and this year we are even going trick or treating and sledding with fake snow. I am really looking forward to it!

Katie and I continue to be socialites whenever we have free time. Shocking, right? We go shopping on a frequent basis and now know where the best stores are in a 3 hour radius. A girl can never have enough shoes, clothes, and accessories! We have been playing trivia with our co-workers at a local bar on Thursday nights. We try to sample new food and drinks at restaurants once or twice a week. The local oyster bar seems to be our hangout. Over Memorial Day, we hiked a state park -- the weather was perfect, saw many waterfalls, and even spent some time at the beach. We tried to take up gardening after our mother's this summer as well. I created a herb garden out of an old palette and Katie planted a bunch of flowers. Most everything is still alive but this East Coast humidity is starting to take a toll on the plants. In May, we were able to sneak away to Denver for a week to the Child Life National Conference - it was so great to catch up with college friends, professors, and old co-workers. While I was in Denver, I was able to see some of my cousins who live there and my aunt, which was great. My mother came out over the 4th of July for six days. We toured Lancaster county, where the highest concentration of Amish people live. Over the weekend, we travelled down to Washington DC and the Chesapeake Bay. It was nice to get away for a few days and escape reality!

Even though I love my life out here, I do miss all of you back home! I literally am counting down the days until I will be home at the end of August. (43 days!!) I can't wait to spend time with my family and friends, see Steph's baby belly, walk the streets of Madison, visit Molly and Justin's lovely new home, eat Culver's and Waterfront fish fry, and just relax!

XO. Sarah