DONE!!!

Blaine is finally done with his Masters degree! He is now a Family Nurse Practitioner. He has worked so hard over the past 3 years, working full time on the weekends and going to school and clinical rotations full time during the week. Although it has been a huge sacrifice for our family to not have him around very much, he did a great job at trying to be there for us as much as possible with his crazy schedule. Mostly what he gave up was sleep and personal recreation so that he could fit it all in and we are so grateful for how hard he has worked for our family. We know that it will all pay off in the end.

So what's next? He will keep working his regular job in the ER until he finds a job as an NP that fits what he wants to do and that has a schedule that is better for family life. His first year as an NP, he'll write all of his prescriptions under a doctor's license and then after a year, he'll be able to have his own prescription license and practice completely autonomously.

To celebrate, we had a very low key picnic dinner in the park with some family and friends. Blaine didn't even want to walk in the graduation ceremony...he just wanted to be done. For a graduation present, I gave him a Wii. The underlying message of the gift? Let's play!