Ewan had his first day at the UW cow barn today. He got to give injections, evaluate udders, and generally see what bovine vets do. By the time this elective is over, he’ll have spent 30 hours working with the herd. I’m just hoping he doesn’t get kicked.

Yikes! I had no idea how long it’s been since I last posted. We have officially decided that we are going to Madison. Ewan and I toured the vet school at an open house for accepted students and were very impressed. We were surprised to find that Rachel, a family friend from my childhood, will be in Ewan’s class. Small world. The professors and students were all very friendly which is a nice change from some of Ewan’s other vet school visits. Madison, as my family has been telling us for months now, has many extra benefits. The student union has a whole batch of art studios that I will be able to get access to, there are loads of wonderful places to eat, lots of recreational opportunities through hoofers from sailing to climbing to horseback riding, and Madison is just a nice place to live. Plus, it means we will be near my family! Dad and I are already planning paddling trips up to Wausua, the Wolf, the Red and the Peshtigo. Did I mention we’ll be close to a slalom course again? I think I’m going to try to convince Ewan to take up C2 or OC2 with me soon.

Ewan is busy gearing up for starting vet school. He just received what we affectionately call his “Hogwarts list” with his required items for school. It really does seem strange to all of a sudden have assigned classes and lists of things to buy that include items like steel-toed galoshes, a stethoscope and a jumpsuit. He wont need to buy his own stethoscope, though… Yury and Erin surprised us by sending him a top of the line veterinary stethoscope a few weeks ago. I can’t say how much that meant to Ewan; he is very excited and has already ordered the nameplate and is having it engraved with his name and class year to make sure it doesn’t get lost.

I’ve been busy working on the formatting changes for Ewan’s dissertation, doing lots of projects for my PEO chapter, and looking at houses in Madison. Thank goodness Ewan’s dissertation will have to be submitted this week and it will finally be over. He just has to get through Biochemistry and he’ll be 100% done. Then we can devote some more time to packing boxes and house hunting and generally relaxing. That’s not to say we haven’t done anything fun lately. Pizza night gang has still been meeting on Thursdays, we’ve just started going back to taekwondo, the spring rodeo was held on campus two weeks ago, and the big spring pow wow was held last week. I think there are a lot of things we will miss about Bozeman.

Well, it’s time I got moving. The huge rainstorm complete with thunder just somehow turned into a blizzard so I’ll have to shovel off the car windows. I guess there are a few things I won’t miss about Bozeman too…

Wow, a lot of stuff has happened in the past week. Ewan got accepted into vet school at Dublin, wait listed at Edinburgh (after being rejected, go figure), and now finally accepted at Madison. Wahoo! He’s currently interviewing at Prince Edward Island and is not all that impressed, and he’s planning on canceling his interview at UC Davis since it’s not as good of a school as UW and he’s busy finishing his dissertation, and now that he knows he can stay in the states he’ll turn down his position in Dublin. That leaves Minnesota, which he liked very much, and Tufts, which he also liked. Madison, however, liked him so much that they called him a week before they even sent out acceptances to tell him they’d like to fly him in for their open house. WAHOO!!! Now if only they’ll give him in-state tuition or a nice big fat scholarship.

SO – the final score is:

Badgers – Accepted!

Gophers – Waiting

Jumbos – Waiting

Also on the good news front, Ewan has turned in the first draft of his entire dissertation to several of his committee members! Yay! That means just corrections and the defense to go. Let’s have a party!