Cooperstown III

Well, Ellen really wanted to go up to Cooperstown again, but given the price and inconvenience of my schedule, there wasn't really an opportunity to head up for a week in October like we did last year.

But... the hospital up there (Bassett) has a really nice transition year program for which I received an invitation to interview. A transition year is a one-year program for students right after they finish medical school, and it kind of combines internal medicine with surgery with electives; basically it's cushier than a regular internship, but still counts in the sense that radiology programs will hire me as a resident after the transition year - you don't HAVE to do an internship.

The interview up there was really nice - it was my first interview and I think it pretty much ruined the rest for me. They put you up in a bed and breakfast and give you like $30 each for dinner the night before. Plus, when they found out I was married, they also gave Ellen $30 too and got me a queen bed.

It really made us reflect on how Sonja has grown in the past year (faithful readers will remember that we took her up to Cooperstown when she was 2 weeks old last year).

Here is a comparison picture from the same place, Fly Creek Cider Mill - one last year and one this year. See if you can spot the difference.



Because we were only there for one night, there wasn't a big opportunity to take pictures of lots of pretty leaves and stuff, but we did spend some time in the back of Fly Creek, checking out the ducks.




The bed & breakfast, The Inn at Cooperstown, was very cool. I realize that it probably is the first of its kind that I have been to. It kind of carries on the tradition of the medieval inn, you know, where it's basically just like somebody's house with a lot of rooms in it. They even had like a family room with board games and stuff. We also found out that Sonja loves climbing stairs and went up like 3 flights as fast as she could. Descending? Not so much - couldn't really figure that out too well. Here are some shots from our hotel room.

Anything is fair game to go in the mouth, obviously.

I don't think I have talked about how much she loves bananas. That's its own separate post.

Nice shot from on Mommy's shoulder.

The car ride to Cooperstown is about 4 hours by car from our apartment. She did pretty well for the 8 hours total, but did require quite a bit of stimulation from us in the form of books, cups, blocks, and crackers (or, as she says, "Caca?"). Here she is during one of her more serene moments with her favorite stuffed animal, Lambie (she always gives a huge smile when it is first handed to her).