Awww...Sarah you gave me goose-bumps and that warm fuzzy feeling - very sweet!

We went to St Maarten as a family and enjoyed every minute of it. The kids had a ball, and will never in their lives forget their experiences living in the Caribbean. No one suffered, in fact, everyone in the family grew from the experience. We met friends that we'll have for the rest of our lives.

I will mention, however, that while you can choose to do your core rotations in a location that allows you to remain for the entire 3rd yr, 4th year it gets tricky. I say that because unless you have plans to remain in those locations for residency (Kern, Providence, Ireland, England, NYC), you WILL want to do 'away-electives' so you can spend time in the facility where you are going to be applying for residency. If you have kids (who will likely be in school etc), you cant just uproot them and run off to another city for a month, or two or three. Even if you dont, you'll have some kind of rental agreement where you are, and may not be able to leave for those few months of away-rotations. This boils down to you and your loved one being apart for a few months potentially, during electives. Its not fun, not easy, but doable. You'll be so busy the time will fly, but you still dont want to have any issues with trust.

Anyways, I just mention this to sort of prepare those who have managed to stay together as a family. There is a pretty big possibility that at some point after core rotations, you will have to 'do your own thing' for a while. I'm so happy we have msn messenger for the free communication - even if hubby does only type with one finger (makes for some frustrating conversations, heehee).

Jules

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