"Is there a doctor on board?"

called out the flustered flight attendant from behind the first class divider on our flight out to Boston for my defense/graduation. It may have been the 4am wake-up call combined with the frazzled state of traveling solo with the 2 kids, but I found that incredibly amusing at the time. "He's asking one flight too early," I told the man behind me (who turned out to be a "real"--a.k.a. medical--doctor), as I explained that when I returned, it would hopefully be with the "doctor" title attached. 

Turns out that a man in first class had become unresponsive and needed to be resuscitated by the medical doctor behind me. So, down the plane went for an emergency landing in Souix Falls, South Dakota. The paramedics met the plane, and we waited on the runway for an additional hour while they filled out the paperwork necessary to document the medical emergency. 

The good news is that there were no such medical emergencies on the return flight. And the even better news is that, should there be a rhetorical emergency, I am officially qualified to deal with it. 

I'll leave off with some of my favorite moments from our 2 weeks on the east coast. I don't have pictures of one of my favorites, which actually turned out to be my defense. I was terribly, terribly nervous to defend, but in the end the experience was very positive. I felt prepared, and, thanks to the many people who I enlisted to pray for me, I also felt very calm. It was gratifying to talk for 2-3 hours about the project I had been working on for the past 4 years and to have people who were genuinely interested in and appreciative of my work. Here are some of the other favorite moments. They include finding my family in the graduation crowd, being hooded, having my kids see me graduate, eating at our favorite Italian restaurant in Boston's North End, the beach house, sailing and hiking in Bar Harbor/Acadia Nat'l Park in Maine, and many more!