Happy Holidays!
What a whirlwind year it’s been for both of us! The year started off with Paul wrapping up his time traveling the country by selling his van and moving back to Indiana – just in time for our wedding in May! Thanks so much to everyone who was able to attend! If you weren’t able to be there, (or even if you were!) feel free to check out all the wedding pictures (and our wedding video) at DrMrWedding.com.
The day after the wedding, we left for Turkey and London, where we had a wonderful honeymoon, and some great adventures – from horseback riding to food tours to a hot air balloon ride! Once we got home, however, it was right back to work - we moved apartments, and Vanessa started her surgical residency at Indiana University. Though Paul still works for Amazon, he got a promotion this year, and is now a Sr. Software Development Engineer.
Residency life has been busy, with long shifts and a lot of hard work, particularly while Vanessa’s been going through the residency match process again, in an attempt to move from General Surgery to OB/Gyn. We’ll find out in mid-March what the results of that match process are, and where we’ll be living next year! Paul has also been traveling for work more, due to the combined factors of less pandemic pressure to avoid travel, and his new job title – as a result, he’s made multiple work trips to both Seattle and Los Angeles this year.
We’ve each had some breaks for both ourselves and each other through the chaos – though of course Paul has had more than Vanessa, with residency being how it is. Paul managed to get out to the mountains a couple times this hiking season, including hiking the ~40 mile Teton Crest trail as part of a week-long trip to Wyoming with his brothers-in-law Evan and Adam, and hiking the ~20 mile Enchantments trail in Washington in a day with some work colleagues. Vanessa has been following in Paul’s footsteps, and getting more into rock climbing, and we’ve taken a few weekend trips to Red River Gorge in Kentucky to go climbing outside, in addition to regular trips to local Indianapolis climbing gyms.
It’s been a busy year, and we likely have another few busy months ahead of us, particularly once we hear the results of the residency match in March, and need to start planning to move somewhere new in June! But, for now, we hope you have a lovely holiday season – though Vanessa will be on call at the Hospital over Christmas, we expect we’ll find some time to spend together over the holiday season, and hope you and your family can do the same.
Best wishes,
Paul Kusisto and Vanessa Gehring