Congratulations Daddy!

Chip has been taking classes at the local community college since we moved here, mainly one at a time with the ultimate goal of getting into the Nursing Program and then ultimately continuing on to get his masters and Nurse Practitioners license. It isn't an easy program for anyone to get into. In fact, it is one of the most competitive in the country and continues to get recognized as one of the best programs in the state, if not the nation. To make it even harder to get accepted, they are having record breaking applications due to the economy and SO many people going back to school to change their careers. Last semester, they had 400+ people apply for 49 spots. You literally had to have perfection to get in. Chip was put on the waiting list last semester -- even with a 3.8 in the pre-requisites and a very good score on the entrance exam. For any other school, it would be more than enough, but it was not good enough here. He seriously considered driving an hour to another school since he could have gotten in years ago, but decided to keep trying here. He retook the entrance exam this summer and got a perfect 6/6 and finally got acceptance letter he had been hoping for for the last year! We are SO proud of him! And, he is pretty damn proud of himself too -- as he should be. He had worked very hard for this all while working 6 days a week and talking care of us. It is a two year program and he starts this January. In some ways it is nice that it took so long since he won't have a full schedule in the next two years. He has already taken all the pre-requisites AND all the non-nursing mandatory classes while waiting to get in. So, all he has to take now are the upper division nursing and clinical classes which is good since it shouldn't be too overwhelming with work.

Lily and I got the mail with the good news right before he came home so we quickly made him a Congratulations sign to surprise him when he came home! He was so shocked he just stared at the letter for like 10 minutes letting it all sink in.