We survived!

2009. 2009. So many, many emotions can be stuffed into a year. Hope, excitement, joy, uncertainty, concern, stressfulness, sadness, disappointment, love...

All in all, we survived! And we thrived in spite of seemingly impossible circumstances.

Our year began with the excitement that Mike passed all of his classes and would continue the book-phase of the PA program, anticipating two more semesters until the good stuff began! The good stuff being the hands on stuff that Mike is so-so good at in his chosen field--the clinical rotations.

We went through the first half of the year without much stress until we hit the summertime when we realized the loans we were counting on were denied because of how much he already had in loans...the worst part is we still had good credit, but with the economy and leery lenders, they said, "nope." So we found ourselves in a bit of a predicament and sought nearly any and every possible solution. The result after three very stressful months of prayer and diligence to seek out our options was a move (including the sale of the home we were living in), scaling back on pretty much everything, and some very generous friends and family lending a hand to help us through this last year. It has not been easy and has, needless to say, been very humbling, but we feel quite confident that we've done everything we could do, including looking into my working (which we determined wouldn't be worth it after paying for daycare or babysitting, though I was more than willing to do whatever it takes to get us through!), so onward we go!

Mike began his rotations and those of you who have been keeping up know that all of his preceptors have loved having him and patients are requesting to see him next time! (LOL...though, he wasn't there long enough for that to happen!) He has done his Family Practice, Internal Medicine, and Psychiatry rotations and is about to begin his Surgical on Monday!

The end of the year we were fortunate to be able to fix our cars and get them running more efficiently! With that, we took a trip to visit Jenna's 86 year old grandma who is about to have hip surgery. She has been in a LOT of pain and with a femur break with a rod put in 3 years ago, it is complicating the hip surgery. She is in so much pain that she would rather risk the surgery than to live the rest of her life in this kind of pain. We felt it important to go spend time with her as a family. We were the only ones she wouldn't get to see at Christmas, since she headed out West where EVERYONE else is in Jenna's family! ;) So we spent time on the farm of our cousins (Jenna's dad's first cousin) where they have a pig farm
(and please don't even ask why all of this was underlined, because I have no idea, nor can I figure out how to undo it without erasing everything and starting over... ;))


and raise corn and soy. 2200 acres! The kids had a blast riding the John Deere tractor

and watching the pigs in their pens (but OOOHHH, do they stink! ;)). It was such a wonderful surprise for Grandma Hansen! She was shocked and quite put out that she wasn't prepared for our visit. ;) But for those of you who know her, you understand that well! ;) We had a great time visiting other friends along the way, too! We stopped in the town where Jenna spent some of elementary and Junior High. It was the first time in our 10 years that Mike ever got to see where Jenna grew up. It was a lot of fun to be back and reconnect with people!

And here we are, days after Christmas looking at 2010 knowing that Mike will graduate in 8 months!!! How thrilling and sobering, knowing what it has taken to get to this point. We are filled with hope that we have options in debt-forgiveness (hoping the bill before congress will pass in January that after 5 years of paying faithfully, health-care and educator college student loans can be forgiven or that one of the other options (like National Health Service Corps and/or moonlighting a second PA job) will pan out to get out of debt, prayerfully, within 5 years of him finishing! Whew...

As for where we will be when he finishes, we have NO idea! And frankly, we are of the opinion that life, with options, is an exciting one. We love to dream and hope and think about the possibilities, so that is what we're doing! Stay here, go West, it is all a possibility, but we greet each with open arms and can't wait to get to the place where we can truly do what we feel we are on this earth to do...make a difference by sharing mercy and grace and Love in tangible ways.

May your year be blessed with hope, joy, Love and change for the better!

We love you all!
The Michauds