Ghosts of Christmas Past

Christmas of 1963

The only toy I remember is the clock on the left, 

but I look pretty excited about getting those dishes.

Now there's a very happy student, a future teacher.

Mom has always enjoyed spoiling us at Christmas.

 Posing in front of the fireplace that dad built,

in the house that dad built.

We had those stockings forever!

I wish I could actually remember this day, but I can't.  Howard has lots of memories of when he was this big.  He can even remember what he was thinking when he was this big.  I would have very few visual images of what my childhood was like if my parents hadn't take pictures like these when we were little.  Thanks mom and dad.

Why Tennessee?

People keep asking me "Why Tennessee?" - often with a very incredulous tone.  I'm going to document it here and now.  

It seems like we were destined to come here at some point in our lives.  About 15 years ago, Howard was accepted to medical school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.  We decided to stay in San Diego so that he could attend UCSD Medical School while I kept my teaching job in National City.  

Three years ago he had the chance to come here again to do research at Vanderbilt.  At the same time, he also had the chance to work at Google in Mountain View, California.  We knew that if he didn't work at Google, he'd regret it.  So he worked there for three years.  During that time, he started to miss academia.  He sent out the word that he wanted to return to academia and, in a horrible economy, felt fortunate to have a couple of great job offers.  We decided it was finally time to come to Tennessee.

Here's the cool part of the story that can't be neglected.  During medical school, Howard was randomly assigned to an adviser named Dan Masys.  Dan told him about a field called medical informatics.  He suggested that Howard do a two-month rotation at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland to see if he liked the field.  He loved it!  While Howard was doing his PhD in Boston, Dan relocated to Nashville to take a position as Professor and Department Chair of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University.  The amazing thing about Dan is that, even though, he wanted Howard to come to Vanderbilt three years ago, he encouraged him to take the job at Google.  What an amazing guy!  He's had such an influence in Howard's career path and I still have yet to meet him!

The real credit for all of this really goes to the Lord though.  On paper, it all looks like a well-orchestrated career path - only we didn't orchestrate it.  All we did was follow the guidance that we got through our faith and prayers.  It was a long tough haul that included many cross-country moves, but I think we finally got to where we were supposed to be - in Tennessee!  Yee haw!

Church Folk

Howard (hubby's code name) and I visited Nashville about 15 years ago.  He was interviewing for medical school at Vanderbilt.  He was accepted, but we decided to stay in San Diego and he went to med school at UCSD.  But, I digress.

So, when we were here way back when, I only remember a few things.  I remember driving down a main street lined with nothing but monstrous churches.  I also remember our trip to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky.  And, I remember the Relief Society (women's) meeting that I attended.  I can't remember where the building was or what the name of the branch/ward was, but I remember there were about six ladies there, one was the teacher and one was me, Eunice (my code name).  The five of us listeners were all spread out, far apart.  The feeling in the room was very icy and not too welcoming.  My worst-case scenario self panicked about possibly becoming a member of that branch/ward.

Fast forward, fifteen years later.  In June we came out for a quick trip to check out the area and to find a place to live.  We were surprised to find out that there were four church buildings and a small temple in the Nashville area.  The ward we visited was packed, there were even four or five rows of chairs set up in the cultural hall - with people in them!  We were really surprised when we ran into a couple of families who used to be in our Boston ward.  (Sing along with me:  It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all...)

Apparently Nissan attracted a lot of people to the area when they moved their corporate office to Nashville a few years ago.  Vanderbilt also attracts a lot of medical people.  Anyway, our new ward, the Old Hickory Ward, is much bigger than I ever imagined it would be.  (On Sunday someone mentioned that there are 450 members in our ward.)  However, there seem to be very few 'real' Tennesseans.  Most of the members are transplants and it seems like the majority of them have lived in California at one time or another. 

We were really surprised to learn that a lot of ward members live near us.  There's a new beta church website where you can see where your ward members live.  Click here to check it out.

Our house is neon green - in the picture, 
not in real life ;o)