Hoppy Easter!

Isn't this a beautiful picture? I love that Christ's face is right in the middle of the blossoming branches. As with every Christian holiday, I want us all to remember that Christ is the central part of it. I think this picture captured it very well.

These easter twigs are a tradition we already had growing up in Germany. Every year a few weeks before Easter, we'd clip young branches off some tree that would blossom, put them into a vase full of water and hung up wooden eggs. The ones pictured are vintage wooden eggs from the Erzgebirge, that I found new on the net here in the States. I'm so happy for the conveniences the internet has to offer, so I can feel homey a little bit more.

We went to the Truman State University annual Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately it was so cold, that we just gathered some eggs and left without seeing the human sized bunny.

Here's little Noa being proud of his eggs.

Ava's basket broke, but she couldn't gather eggs and hold the basket at the same time anyway, so I helped her.

Here are Leea and Luca. They were so cold and just wanted to get home. Unfortunately we forgot to bring their gloves.

I have been cleaning up at home for the move and found some Christmas paper in Easter colors that needed to be used. The kids didn't even realize it. :)

These are our favorite chocolate Easter bunnies. I was so happy that WalMart carries them. When I was a kid, they used to have little bells on them. German chocolate it THE best. :)

Here's our living room Easter egg hunt video.

The Match: We're going to Washington!

Here are our BIG NEWS in Lincoln's own words:

I've matched to the Colville Rural Training Track (RTT) of the University of Washington-affiliated Spokane Family Medicine Residency!!! I feel honored to have been granted this competitive position (17 interviewees vied for it), and we are excited to move out to the beautiful West and be closer to my side of the family! And hopefully my parents will finally make it out of hot Las Vegas and move closer to their only four grandkids. :) We'll be moving to gorgeous Spokane at the end of May (a 24-hour drive from Kirksville!), and I start my orientation June 16.

I will complete my first year of training (R1) in Spokane (pop. 200,000) mostly at the two huge hospitals in town (Sacred Heart & Deaconess) as a part of a class of 10 interns (plus 20 upper-level FP residents and some Internal Medicine & Psychiatry & Radiology residents and Traditional Rotating Interns). Then I will complete years R2 & R3 1.5 hours north of Spokane in the mountain-nestled town of Colville (pop. 5000; pronounced "Call-ville"). The Mt. Carmel Hospital in Colville is small (30 acute care beds, 8 ICU beds, 2 ORs), but it serves a broad referral base of ~35,000 people. As one of only two total residents in town at a time I will be surrounded by procedural opportunities and quality teaching from the 28+ doctors of various specialties in the group I'll be a part of there. The rural-oriented training there is very hands-on and conducive to developing independence.

The training in the Colville RTT is literally ideal preparation for my plans to practice full-scope family medicine (including preventive medicine, inpatient care, ER call, endoscopy, obstetrics including C-sections, and osteopathic manipulation [OMT]) in a rural underserved area out West that will qualify as payback for my four-year NHSC Scholarship. The Colville RTT is actually the first specifically rural FP training track created (in 1986), which will be a nice extension to attending KCOM, the original osteopathic medical school (est. 1892). :)

Athough the program is not yet AOA-accredited, I will still be practicing and using OMT and learning more of it from an excellent core faculty member who is a DO as well as from other DOs in the community. Colville is also home to an integrative medicine clinic where I may be able to further pursue my interest in Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Another really cool opportunity I will have in Spokane and Colville is to use my Russian and work with the many Russian & Ukrainian immigrants there! And of course Spokane and Colville are surrounded by beautiful nature and will offer a nice lifestyle for the family.

Now we just have to find (pre)schools for the kids and a house to rent! Please stay in touch - we would love to have you visit anytime! :)

Chicks at the Hardware Store

We are always on the lookout for new and exciting educational experiences or something FUN to do. We do regular visits at the library and go to music and dance class weekly. We also like to occasionally go to the Missouri Conservation Center and Magruder Hall at Truman State University to look at animals. Points of interest are limited so I was happy that Tasheena let us know that they have chicks at the local hardware store. It was perfect. Especially with these horrible winters here we get really antsy in the house. So off we went. They all loved the chicks and ducklings. Noa probably loved them a little too much.

Here's the video of it.

FourHandsFull

While I was still pregnant with Ava and Noa, random people would look at my belly and say stuff like: "Anytime now, eh?" The sad thing is that this started when I was only like 7 months pregnant. So every time we went shopping, they'd say that, and after I would reveal that I actually had a couple of months left, they'd ALWAYS say: "Well, you'll have your hands full." I eventually heard this about a gazillion times and now can laugh about it, but back then I was SO annoyed, especially when people didn't offer their help. Once we flew somewhere and people would make such comments, I almost cried because nobody offered their help carrying stuff, even if they only had one thing to carry.

Now when I go shopping or go somewhere with all the kids, I hear "You've got you hands full!" all the time but take it as a compliment. I often reply: "Well, better full than empty, right?" Then I smile and answer all their question about how I can handle so many kids, especially in the store. I like letting people know that we have a positive attitude about our kids. I'm sure the kids appreciate it, too. We want them to always feel that they are special and wanted, and even though they ARE a lot of work and we really have our hands full, we wouldn't want it to be different.

We chose FourHandsFull as our blog title because it kind of sums up our life in one word. Lincoln and I really "have our hands full." Four busy hands taking care of four precious kids and managing life in medical school or supporting it, plus taking care of all the random things related to it all. Our hands ARE full, and we feel blessed. :)

It's about time...

...to write my first post on this blog. It has only been months since this blog was created. We're very excited to share some Westfall family happenings with family and friends through this blog. What a great way to (re)connect. I love reading friends' blogs and getting to know them better. The last few years have been very hard to keep everyone updated and write each person individually. We usually send out an annual Christmas/Easter letter, but we want you guys to feel more included by reading frequent updates.

I, Rebecca, will be writing most of the posts, all in English, my second language. This will help me to learn to express myself better in English and hopefully learn a few more words. This is a real challenge for me. I've lived in this country for almost 6 years now, but I have had the feeling that I really need to improve and expand my vocabulary to decrease the times of being misunderstood and misunderstanding people. It will also help my family to have no excuse to learn English better, an important skill in the world nowadays. Plus if it was in German a ton of people would have no idea what it says. This way you have to get the dictionary out and translate. Really, I only want the best for you, mom! :)