The Match, March Madness, Easter Weekend, and The Eggstravanganza

Well folks it has been a busy few days. With all else going on I have paid less attention to the NCAA tournament than I can ever remember (I think I paid more attention when I was on my mission than I have this week). I am doing poorly, and Notre Dame is out, so I don't perceive a lot of excitement for me this week either. Though I do have Western Kentucky over UCLA so at least I have a possible upset left to get excited about.

As you no doubt know by now (from the email I already sent out and a couple of blogs) we matched at St Joe's hospital in South Bend. There are two family medicine programs in South Bend and I went back and forth on which to rank first and in the end I actually ranked the other program first, but I'm very happy to be going to St Joe's. Melissa actually liked St Joe's better than Memorial (fewer on call months during the intern year) so maybe she had something to do with the outcome. One of the things I'm very excited about is the program director at St Joe's. Of all the programs I went to for interviews he was my favorite PD by far.

With the match over we were able to spend a little time getting some things ready for our upcoming house purchase. We bought our plane tickets and reserved our rental car for our whirlwind graduation/house buying week in May. How do you put a graduation in Pikeville, KY into the same week as looking for a house in South Bend, IN you say? You fly into Indianapolis and spend a few days driving 6+ hours. We may even add in a night stay in Cleveland.

Now onto the weekend (here's where we get into the pictures). We started the Easter weekend with a trip down to Snow Canyon where the kids had a great time playing in the sand dunes (I must say I got a lot of sand in my pockets as well). Kristian had a blast.

I have never seen him more at home than he was in the sand. He smiled from the moment his bare feet hit the sand and didn't stop grinning until we picked him up to go eat lunch.

The other big Easter event was the Eggstravaganza. For those who don't know we Corrys have a tradition (founded by Mark and Doug some years ago) where we have an egg spinning contest. The rules and regulations for this event have gotten more complex as the years have gone on (mostly during the past 2 years when myself, and this year Bob, have gotten involved in the Eggstravaganza). This year it was determined that eggs could be hard boiled at home and brought to the Eggstravaganza.

Bob took this rule to a whole new level with his eggs (involving a security detail).

I spent my time working on methods to boil my eggs in a position to regulate the position of the yolk and air bubble thereby gaining maximum efficiency in my spins. I am presently working on a patent application for the upright egg boiler.

The Eggstravaganza is actually a two part event. The first event, called the Royal Rumble, is a spinoff with everyone participating at the same time. In addition to winning a trophy (for egg displaying purposes only) the Royal Rumble also determines the seeding for the double elimination Eggstravaganza tournament. The tournament is double elimination and I did quite well this year. I won the Rumble with my #2 egg (I generally use my #2 egg during the Rumble due to eggcidents from other competitors, Dad was notorious for this during the Rumble of 07).

Having the top seed gave me a bye in the first round and I was pretty happy to be facing Dad as my first opponent. It was a close battle but I made it though unscathed.

My top egg did well through the following rounds and I ended up in the championship match with none other than Dad (it should be noted that Dad finished at the bottom of the competition last year, hence his reputation as an eggsacin during the 07 Eggstravaganza).

While he put up a good fight I came out victorious and my eggs enjoyed their places in the trophy case for this year.

Unfortunately chances are that I will not be able to defend my title in 09 (for two years in a row the Eggstravaganza champion is moving away). We may just have to get Doug and Maegan to take an Easter trip to South Bend so we can have an eastern time zone Eggstravaganza (the Brawl for it all).

The Eggstravaganza should come as no surprise when you consider that during my childhood we spent Easter morning gambling with our Easter candy (Thankyou Charlotte).

We also formally added a kids division to the Eggstravaganza this year, though no trophy was awarded.

The kids did some of the regular Easter activities as well such as egg hunts and coloring eggs (though not a formal rule I don't think you can spin white eggs in the eggstravaganza).

I'll give you one guess as to what color Spencer colored his eggs.