Before Nebraska

I hope you all know who we are, and what has happened recently. If not, you are in luck! In this post I will give a brief overview of our life before we moved to Nebraska.

• Joel met Dani, Joel fell in love with Dani, and Dani loved Joel. They got married, and have been married for 12 years now. 
• Along the way came three cute kids. Porter, Alyssa, and Oakley.
• Joel worked in law enforcement for 7 years, and had a wonderful retirement with the state. 
• Dani went to school and got a Bachelor's degree. She was trying to get into PA school. In the meantime she was teaching in a Medical Assisting program, and loved it!

The big dream for Dani was to become a Physician Assistant. I had tried to get into PA school a few years ago. I applied to the U, and was told that 1200 people applied for 30 seats. Unfortunately, I didn't get one of those seats. The next year I decided to apply to two schools, Utah and Montana. I was told the same thing from the U, but was offered an interview in Montana. 

Joel and I made the 10 hour drive to Montana so I could interview with them. After a grueling 6 hours I was done with the interview. A few days later I was told that I had not been accepted into their program. When I asked for their reasoning I was told three things. That I couldn't handle stress, that I didn't understand the PA profession, and that my GRE score was just above average (above their set limits though). All three reasons upset me, and it took me a long time to get over them. 

One day I was at work and had a wonderful conversation with Carrie, my boss. I was trying to decide if I should apply to PA school this application cycle or wait a year. I knew that I would need to go back to school to take a few more classes before I would be accepted in a PA program. Honestly, I felt like a big failure because I wasn't accepted into a program before, and had doubts that I would be good enough for another program. I had a strong desire to go to PA school, but didn't want to be shot down again. After a lengthy conversation I decided that I should at least apply and see what happens. 

Most PA school applications go through a central application center. I got all registered for them, and had requested for my transcripts to be sent to them. One PA association decided to host an online chat with several different PA schools. I decided since it was my day off I would get online and chat with a few different schools. I knew at that point that if I wanted to get into PA school I would likely need to move out of Utah. I decided that chatting with several schools would be my best option to explore schools out of Utah. I got on and chatted with a school in North Carolina, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. There may have been more, but those are irrelevant now. My next post will detail all that happened while chatting with the school from Nebraska.