some of you may know that ryan applied to a few grad schools for this upcoming fall. since he's been working for intermountain healthcare [about a year now] he has been interested in hospital administration. this past august he decided he'd like to get his MHA (masters in healthcare administration) at some point. he was planning to work for intermountain for a few years and then go back to school, but i convinced him otherwise. if we're going to go back to school, let's just do it now, right? no point in post-poning that if he knew it's what he wanted to do. so i convinced him to sign up for the GRE that november and he started to prepare and apply. he did well on the GRE, although not as great as he would have liked...but i wasn't ever worried. he applied to six of the top 15-ish schools and he was asked to interview at five of them. ahem...yeah, that's my husband...ahem. anyway, after deciding to interview/visit a few of them [university of michigan, the ohio state university, university of minnesota] we found out he was accepted into the program at the university of washington as well. they don't do on-site interviews because their application process is more extensive, allowing them to choose based on that. although we were already accepted to both ohio and michigan, we felt that living in seattle sounded great. closest to both of our families, a top ten program, potentially the best weather of our choices [sad, but true], and we found some housing that wasn't too terribly expensive. [not to mention i might just run into derek "mcdreamy" shepherd from greys anatomy...right?] anyway, we decided we couldn't make a decision until ryan visited the campus to get a feel for the area. [i was able to go with him to michigan for his interview and we took a day-trip to columbus so i could see that was well.] before he left for his visit we decided to make a pro/con list for each school. we evaluated each based on a number of different things, and from what we could tell it was 1. university of washington 2. university of michigan 3. the ohio state university -- fine by me. but we still felt he needed to visit just to be sure. we essentially threw out ohio to make the decision easier, although after about two days we put it back in the mix. this was pretty much a daily battle we had...ryan would come home from work everyday with a different decision, changing his mind each time. [no...not frustrating at ALL for me. ha ha.] so he finally left for washington and decided to meet his dad up there for a business trip. while he was there, he got a fathers blessing for some clarity and peace about the decision [we had a week before we had to let schools know]. i was at my parents house that weekend and planned to get a blessing from my dad as well. when ryan got back late on that saturday night, we talked about his trip and about our options. after talking through specifics, we both felt good about the same place. not washington. not michigan. but ohio. wait...WHAT? hadn't we already ruled that place out??! apparently not. we had both been feeling really good about it but were a little hesitant to tell the other person. we felt at peace about it and decided to pray about it that night and make a decision. the next day was easter sunday, and while we were both pretty sure that ohio would be the choice, we wanted to have it confirmed. can i just tell you how neat it is when you get specific directions from Heavenly Father? we were in sunday school and the first scripture we were asked to turn to was d&c 38:32...
well then. decision made. we both just look at each other and smiled. later that night ryan joined my dad in giving me a blessing, where our decision was confirmed. for some reason, we are supposed to be buckeyes!!! we are thrilled to know WHERE we'll be for the next two years and i'm happy it's columbus. i had a very distinct and positive feeling while i was there, even though it was for less than three hours. we don't know anyone out there nor do we have any family remotely close, but we know it's where we are supposed to go. it's hard to believe we'll be leaving provo...finally [whoops, did i just say that?] but we are excited about our new adventure. we are still on the hunt for an apartment and would love any leads if you know the area :) ryan will start his program this fall, so we are planning to move mid-august. each day i have a different emotion about moving...some days i can't wait, and others it makes me cry to think about leaving. while we are planning to make it back to utah eventually, that will just all depend on how the job hunt goes after school. we are hopeful to come back to intermountain, but we'll see where the Lord leads us :) we are happy to finally share this great news and can hardly wait to start this new chapter of our life. and hey - maybe we'll be part of a national championship team while we're there... :)
[easter sunday]
for now, we'll just work on accumulating more "scarlet and gray" attire so we fit in with the crowds there. we might be crazy to move with two little babes, but oh well. we'll see what ohio has to offer!

















