Matt's visit to Duke

Here are some pictures from Matt’s trip out to N. Carolina. He had nothing but positive things to say about the school, program and faculty, but I do think he gained a far greater respect for cross-county travel, thanks to the three hour time change. Here are some pictures he brought back for us.

This is the chapel... pretty amazing huh?

I feel safe saying that this is probably one of Matt’s favorite parts of the trip. Krzyzewskiville is where students camp the weekend before basketball games... just to get tickets. What are the odds that Matt could get me to spend the night in a tent for basketball game tickets? Eh you’re right, not very likely. Fortunately he said that grad students only have to do this once a year (I’m still not sold.) :)
I think overall the trip answered a lot of questions and also gave us many more. Matt’s next interview is January 30 in Stockton, and I am excited to make the trip with him this time. One encouragement Matt brought back with him are a couple of verses we now have taped to our bathroom mirror.
Proverbs 16:9 “In his heart man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”

Thank you for all your prayers, I know we both felt them! :)

North Carolina or Bust

I have a confession to make. I have been an awful blogger. I am constantly taking pictures with the sincere intent of posting them for all of you to see how we’re doing, but it simply doesn’t happen. Now that the busy holidays are over, I am hoping this new year will bring more posting time (how likely is that really?) But here is a quick update.

All Matt’s PT school applications have been out for about a month and a half now, so he has been anxiously waiting to hear back from schools. Only certain schools require interviews (which is fortunate for us, because all those that do require them also only do in-person interviews on assigned dates, so Matt would be a cross-country traveler by the time he graduates if that were the case!) About a week after the applications were sent we began to see a little bit of the reward for all his hard work and time put into these applications. Matt got an interview at Duke!! As he’s been looking at Duke for a while now, we quickly bought him a (very cheap I might add) Southwest (like my plug?) :) ticket to North Carolina for this coming Sunday (January 11th-13th.) Soon after, he got invited to interview at UOP in Stockton and Regis in Denver. Unfortunately they were for the same weekend and chances of him making both would be very unlikely, so it was time to make a decision. Since UOP is really our only local option we didn’t want to turn down, so Matt decided it would be best to pass on Denver. It was a little frustrating at first after working so hard on an application, but we knew God is opening (and closing) doors for a reason.

So the past few weeks we have been preparing Matt for these two interviews. My favorite part has been dressing him up! He borrowed a blazer from his friend Kyle and we got him some nice slacks and a tie to match. He's dressed to impress that's for sure!

All this to say I know Matt would really appreciate all the prayers he can get this Monday. On top off all the interview and campus tour, it's his first trip to the east coast so I know he is looking forward to experience a few days of life out there. He is on strict orders to take as many pictures as possible since I can't go with.. so hopefully we'll have an update post (with pictures) once he returns! Good luck babe!