Seeing the finish line...

Marcus in his spare time...
Levi hitting the books

Levi is seeing the finish line, for this semester anyway...This week is finals week, so the last few weeks he has been really busy studying and getting ready for this upcoming week. Most classes will end, but I think one or two carry over into next semester as well. He'll have finals Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week then we will pack up and leave Sioux Falls for the next three weeks. On the 17th he'll start a week long clinical in Kirksville, which I think he is really looking forward to. It will mostly be an orientation to his clinical site, getting to know staff, seeing as many cases as he can in a week. It is possible he might do some intubations, but not too much further than that yet. I guess if he does get to do an intubation it will be his first live patient...though he has had lots of practice on the simulator patient. It has been a very intense semester, but I can tell he is learning so much and will really enjoy this as his career.

Once that week of clinical ends he'll have a nice three week break. We plan to spend time in Kirksville with family, and all of the Lebron side of the family is coming into town for a family reunion that we are all looking forward to. Most live fairly close, however Santiago and Mary Lebron (Levi's Grandparents) will be traveling from Tucson, AZ. His cousin Charity is coming from California, and Uncle Michael and family will be there as well. They live in Mongolia.

It will be a great time of visiting and catching up. After the reunion we'll head to KC to see my family, have the Ballew Christmas Eve party, and spend time with family and friends for a week. Then for the final week off, we'll be back in Sioux Falls to get the boys back on a good schedule and have time to just relax at home before starting the new semester on January 7. We are praying that the boys do well with all of the traveling and that no one gets sick, so that we can all enjoy the holidays to the fullest. I've never been away from home around the holidays, but in a wierd way it feels so much more like Christmas with all the snow around, travel plans, and the excitement of seeing people we haven't seen for a while. We are so thankful that we have all of this to be excited about.