Thankful Thursday: We Made It!

Today words cannot describe the gratitude I have in my heart.  It seems like it has all happened so fast but when I really sit down and think about it I remember all the hard work and prayers that went into getting us here.  Where is here? Here is University of New Mexico Pharmacy School.  Jordan and I have been preparing for this moment for 4 years! 4 years of ups and downs, and most of the time me feeling really scared that it wasn't going to work out, and I guess I had no real reason to be scared. 4 years of daily prayers always asking for guidance and help in pursuing this goal. 4 years of fasting once a month for blessings related to obtaining our goal (What is fasting?). 4 years of Jordan taking and sometimes re-taking really really hard classes,  and not to mention the nearly 6 months he spent studying for the PCAT, and then taking the PCAT twice! 4 years of Jordan working extra hard outside of his school work to boost his application, shadowing pharmacists, and volunteering. It was both exciting and nerve racking when we actually started filling out the applications and also VERY expensive.  We finally finished and submitted all of the applications by early October this last year, and then we had to wait.  We soon found out that all my doubting was in vain and all our prayers had been answered.  We applied to a total of 26 schools, Jordan received invitations to interview at all but two of them, he traveled to 9 of those schools for an interview and after all was said and done he was accepted to 8 of those schools! However, deep down we always knew that if he was accepted to UNM we would definitely go.  Luck would have it that UNM was the last school to offer him an interview and that was in April!  The good news is that we only had to wait 5 days to hear back from them. He got the acceptance and we knew that was where we needed to go.  So we forfeited our deposits at schools in Utah and Wisconsin and made the move.  And now we are here! He is in a class of 81 students and only 5 of them are not New Mexico residents which is a huge compliment to Jordan.  Today was the white coat ceremony, which is basically a ceremony to say "congratulations you made it to this point, you should be proud, but you still have a lot of work ahead of you".  And even though we have a tough 4 years ahead of us we feel a great amount of relief and gratitude that the last 4 years are behind us.

Norah did really well sitting through the hour long ceremony.

Here is Jordan receiving his coat from the faculty.

And here he is looking all proud.

This is his class, the class of 2018.

Doesn't he look so cool!

And Norah bit her tongue, I know it may appear that we are laughing at her pain, but I promise we care.

WOHOO!

And this is the VERY awkward statue that stands on the campus.