Only ten days since last posting - I feel pretty accomplished with my attentiveness to the blog ;)

Anyway, Christmas was a nice time. My sister and her boyfriend stayed the night at my parents and we stayed up late wrapping gifts and talking. We had a variety of stuff for breakfast and then commenced opening presents. My aunt and uncle came over around lunch time and we all talked for a while. Danny had to work the next day, which was a bummer, but got the early shift so he was home in the early afternoon. After taking a nap, we got dinner and went to the Mormon Temple to see their huge Christmas light display. We drove around neighborhoods after that, looking at all of the lights. A great date :)

I've managed to be somewhat productive since then, getting little errands and chores done here and there. I've also been plenty lazy, reading three library books among other things. I don't have much in the way of plans for NYE yet, or for my birthday in a few weeks, but not having the looming date of having to leave takes a lot of pressure off my mind.

Sorry for falling off the face of the earth (again)! Not much has been happening around here: got a lot of Christmas shopping done - most of it online, I'm ashamed to say but it's just so darn easy - and now I'm awaiting package delivery. Went to see the national Christmas tree with Danny like we do every year, which was fun. Stopped by my work Christmas party and got some gifts, ate some food and caught up with everyone. Danny had to go into work this morning for a few hours but should be home for lunch and maybe more shopping. Planning for dinner with my sister, her boyfriend, Danny and my parents tonight. Getting caught up on football and Chipotle (duh).

Two residency interviews for me (hoping on one more in particular), and February/Match Day can't come soon enough! Really looking forward to starting my career as a vet, getting our own place, all that jazz. Also planning our next date night (Zoo Lights at the National Zoo, I think...) and just being genuinely happy that I don't have to go back to the Great White North! Although I do miss my friends a lot :(

NAVLE scores come back mid-January, I start my externals at the end of January, and I have some good library books I'm working through. Life is good :)

Since posting last, a lot has happened.

First and foremost, I picked Danny up from the airport last Thursday (Thanksgiving). I am so happy to be reunited with him and not have the end of winter break (or summer break, or whatever) looming over us. We are finally together permanently and it is a glorious feeling.

Anyway, I still had to go to my farm services rotation on Friday, but after that I came home, we packed up and hit the road Saturday morning for the journey home. Per usual, we stopped over in Portland, Maine and had dinner at Chipotle. Chipotle is always delicious, but the experience was extra-special as I hadn't been there in six months. Then we went and wandered around Cabella's for a bit and then turned in. Sunday morning we left decently early and made good time until about an hour or so away from home, where we hit pretty bad returning-from-Thanksgiving-weekend traffic. Ugh. But we made it home!

This past week has been spent doing my final studying for the NAVLE. I got 100% of the way through Zuku's study mode and about 50% of the way through their test mode before calling it quits and just browsing my notes all day yesterday. I got up bright and early this morning, made my way to the testing center and even found a parking garage very close by, which I'd been worrying about. Got checked in and started my exam...and just kept going! I forced myself to take a break half-way through (there were six blocks, 65mins each, though I got them done in about 45mins) but other than that, I just kept plowing through. Overall I felt like it was a fairly reasonable exam; for me, the first few sections were a lot easier than the last three sections. There were definitely questions that I had to outright guess on, and some where I'd whittled it down to two reasonable options (at least in my opinion) and had to just pick one, that sort of thing. But overall I feel like I probably passed, which is all that matters!

In other news, I received two preliminary interview invitations with residency programs!! Those will be happening in the coming weeks and while I'm pretty nervous and don't exactly know what to expect, I'm excited to be given the opportunity.

So everything is going pretty well for me. I feel as though with NAVLE and my clinical conference behind me, I had a pretty big weight off my shoulders. I still have some paperwork to do, the two interviews to prepare for, and various other non-vet related stuff to do, but I'm looking forward to the chance to do some fun stuff, prepare for the holidays and catch up with everyone back home :)