The Story

Last night I was too busy celebrating to do a decent job of sharing the story of December 3, so here we go…

Sunday night, we fell asleep a bit easier than either of us expected. Whether that was the alcohol (yes), utter exhaustion from worrying (yes), or the acceptance that there was nothing left to do at that point (yes), we both were able to fall asleep around midnight. Joe tells me he was up multiple times, poor guy, so at least I was able to sleep a solid 6 ½ hours.

My hope was to sleep as late as possible so I could wake up to news, but once I woke up around 6:30, that was it. At that point, I didn’t care what the news was – I just wanted to know. It drove me crazy that even on December 3^rd the waiting game wasn’t over. I laid there willing myself to sleep until 7:30 when I heard the hall door and then our bedroom door open. Joe comes in and says, “Well, it’s official – I’m going to dental school!”

Seriously. One of the best sentences I have ever heard in my life.

It turns out he was accepted by a school in Florida. It’s a brand new program, so it was not the top of our list (they aren’t even fully accredited yet), but neither of us cared. I felt like a thousand pounds were lifted from my shoulders just knowing that he got in somewhere.

The acceptance was followed by a waitlist notification from another school in Florida. I was pissed (I am such a mama bear when it comes to my husband – people better not mess with him, and they better appreciate him as much as he deserves to be appreciated!). 

Then, at 9:30, he got a call from a school in Missouri. We were really excited for that call, because not only was it another acceptance, but Joe is from Missouri and almost his entire family is there. I imagined living close to his relatives, and how wonderful that would be (especially when baby Brier eventually comes two or three years down the road).

*Side note* Joe’s family is the most amazing group of people that a girl could marry into. It pains me that I don’t have a deeper relationship with them (thanks to geography), and I am hopeful that some day I’ll get to see them much more than once a year. *End of side note* 

After that, we were still hopeful for an acceptance from the University of Pennsylvania. Barring that, it looked like Missouri would be the place.

UPenn has been Joe’s first choice (and clear frontrunner – like, far and away miles ahead of any other school) ever since he interviewed there in October. He actually said to me at the time that if he got into UPenn and chose any other school that he would regret it for the rest of his life. Anything that my husband wanted so badly, I couldn’t help but PASSIONATELY want. 

*Another side note* Joe and I are similar in a lot of ways, but one way that we are VERY different is that he is very practical and I am very emotional. Joe has an unbelievable, unconditional love for his family, and if he were an emotional guy, he would have picked the Missouri school to be close to them. But he's not, and I admire that he can set aside his emotions and choose the place that he knows is the best fit for him. At the risk of sounding incredibly lame and over-dramatic, UPenn is Joe's glass slipper *End of side note*

Anyways - back to the story.

UPenn is old school, and they send letters rather than notify with e-mails or phone calls. Since it’s an East Coast school and we are West Coast, we weren’t sure that a letter would arrive on December 3^rd even if he were accepted, so we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the mailman. 

Around 2 p.m. Joe looks out the window and the mailman has arrived! We rush downstairs and see that he has only just started to divvy up the mail to each apartment, so we sit in the lobby waiting. My eyes are on him like a hawk, looking to see if there are large envelopes or packages. People on the pre-dental message boards were talking about a package (yes, I read pre-dental message boards. I've been doing it every day for over a year. Pathetic, I know), so I was eying all of the boxes trying to figure out which one it was.

Finally, after 30 loooonnnggg minutes, the mailman leaves. Joe and I take one look at each other and run to our box. There are several packages near our mailbox and we look at all of them. Nothing from Penn. We were both sad, since we assumed it was a package and not an envelope. Even if it was an envelope, my "eagle eyes" did not once see a large envelope in the mailman's hand.

Apparently I don't have eagle eyes.

Joe opens the mailbox and the first thing we see is a large envelope from Penn Dental School! Here's a picture of the happy boy:

We always discussed having a long conversation about which school to chose if the time came and we were lucky enough to have options, but the decision was made when that envelope arrived. That was the dream, and the dream became reality.

We made the necessary calls to parents, etc. and then celebrated by decorating our tree:

And going out for an amazing dinner:

 What an amazing day. And what a blessed life we lead.