So Long K-town

This is finals week for Rhett, finishing up the last term of the academic portion of medical school. He is on the brink of being half done!!! After these last finals, he has boards (which are huge) a measly summer term, then the big move home to begin the second half of med school 2 years of rotations, clinical hours in hospitals.


So looking back at these last two years, I'm sure Rhett has learned a ton about physiology, anatomy, bio chemistry, etc. but here is a list of what we've learned as a family.

Things You Learn From Living In Rural Missouri For Two Years:

• You can survive with a single retail option...Wal-Mart
• Proper motions to chip away an inch of ice from your windshield most effectively
• There are bugs far more gross than mosquitoes
• What the term "down pour" really means
• It isn't unusual for the area to smell like wet dog for a while after it rains
• People's trash piles in their front yards really mean "come and get it" to everyone else
• The value of living within two hours of an airport
• It is a huge blessing to have clean air acts in place to prevent smoking in restaurants, stores, day cares, etc.
• Camouflage hunting wear is both useful in deer season, and fashionable all year round
• How to extract dead, rotting ground hog pups from your ventilation system
• Beards don't need to be limited to the face, neck beards can not only be attractive... bonus: less chance of food getting stuck and dried in the whiskers since the entirety of neatly trimmed beard is on the NECK!
• People hunt for mushrooms which are a delicious delicacy and look like something a goat barfed up
• What true customer service can be at a grocery store...HyVee employees escort you to items you can't find, they never point
• In some circumstances, "No shirt, No Service" is more of a guideline than a rule
• Fireflies are simply amazing and everyone should have the privilege of seeing them at some point in their lives
• Hot date night will inevitably end up in Wal-Mart at some point, where you'll see other couples you know on dates also
• Difference between Amish and Mennonite (the Mennonites are the ones talking on cell phones in the Wal-Mart check out line)
• Correct method to remove a dead deer carcass from your backyard... and diagnose the cause of death
• You will eventually covet the postal kiosks in larger post offices after spending all day in line at the post office just to mail an over sized envelope and grinding your teeth while each person has a full conversation with the mustache postal worker while the line grows longer and longer and they keep chatting, recounting each person they commonly know from the surrounding communities. Oh, and then they'll close early just because they felt like it.
• Free wading pools in the local parks can save some Mom's lives in the summer...or so we've heard
• To be a local celebrity, all you have to do is plaster your picture and name all over the town
• The length of time it takes a lawn to become a field because it hasn't been mowed
• Some of the best BBQ you'll eat may just come from a yellow trailer on the side of the road
• If there's a chance you'll have to share a room after you have a baby, consider having the child at home
• A small town can never have enough dollar stores
• Every community should have farmer's markets

It's going to be hard to leave all the friends we've made here and these two years have definitely created some lasting memories for our little family.