St Maarten, London, and all over the States!
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Welcome

Welcome to our blog! If you're looking for posts from our time on St Maarten, please look on the right side, under the categories and click St Maarten for all our posts from those 2 years or archives from 2010-2012 for a more specific post. If you're looking for posts from London, same thing just click on London or 2013 archives. There's always the search box too :)

Trisha Wright Photography

If you're new to our blog, welcome! We lived quite the adventure while Owen attended medical school. We moved from Connecticut to St Maarten in 2010, where we spent 2 years, for Owen to study basic sciences at the American University of the Caribbean. In September 2012 we moved back to Connecticut while Owen studied and took the USMLE Step 1 Exam on November 2. In January 2013, we moved to Ealing, London, UK for 3rd year core clinical rotations. During this time, Jamie completed her masters degree in child psychology at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (online program). 

We spent our 2 years in St Maarten making lots of great memories with some pretty awesome people. We were pretty involved in CMDA and the Spouses' Organization. We learned to scuba dive, got advanced certifications, and now have 30+ dives each. We competed in road races and triathlons. Appeared on a radio show weekly. Did a lot of hiking, ziplining, moonlit kayaking, and spent a lot of time at the beach. We had an amazing 2 years on St Maarten with so many great friends. We miss the island and our "island family."

We also enjoyed our year in London, while we learned that we are not city people, we tried to take advantage of all that London had to offer. We traveled throughout England, Scotland, and Wales and even got in a couple other trips to Holland and Ireland! We both became commuter cyclists and learned all about cycling in a large city, on the opposite side of the road, with roundabouts! We continued to compete in races, including a 10K muddy obstacle run and a color run. We experienced a football game at Wembley Stadium between England and Germany. We met some great people through the churches we were involved in. Enjoyed having several visitors. And of course Owen got some great hospital and teaching experience, overall a good experience!

We spent Owen's fourth year electives, aka final year of medical school, traveling all around the US for rotations!! Here's the breakdown from this crazy year: Syracuse, NY January-March; Baton Rouge, LA - April-May (Jamie was in California visiting med school friends in May); Ft. Lauderdale, FL - June; Connecticut/Lake House - July (study month); Detroit, MI - August; Bronx, NY - September; Baton Rouge, LA - October; Miami, FL - November (Jamie stayed in Connecticut for most of the fall) So...did you get all that?! We are just so excited to be back in the States, closer to family and friends, after 3 years living abroad!

We stayed in Connecticut until our trip to St Maarten for graduation! After that we moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the year. Owen pursued different clinical opportunities, including research and a volunteer clinic. He also did landscaping with a friend. Jamie worked as a health coach at a local wellness center through one of the hospitals. She even had the opportunity to help launch a new weight loss program and be the lead health coach. While not matching was not in our plan for 2015, it turned out to be a blessing in many ways. We have so enjoyed our year in Baton Rouge, doing lots of cycling, running, fishing, Owen does some hunting, and enjoying the delicious food!

In 2016, Owen matched into a Rural Family Medicine Residency! The program is part of LSU Health New Orleans, located in Bogalusa, Louisiana. Jamie continued to work as a health coach/educator at both the local hospitals. Owen received great training and Jamie enjoyed her work, we've made a lot of good friends, however it is time for us to move on.

Well here we are in 2019 and he has completed his residency! He has signed with an ER group in rural Tennessee and we will be moving to Kingsport, TN this summer! We hope to stay in the area for a while, and have even bought a house!


Until next time, "May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."  - Gal 6:18