Christmas Card 2007

Dear Family and Friends, December 2007
This year has brought our family a lot of great changes and blessings. Our biggest blessing of the year came to us on February 16 when we welcomed our new little daughter Ariana Wan-Juen Chen. Ariana is a beautiful baby and everywhere we go, she gets compliments on her beautiful eyes and delicate features. Ariana is a great cuddler, a fast crawler, and well on her way towards walking.
Just a month after Ariana was born, our family attended the “Match Day” ceremony where we found out where Reuben “matched” for his residency. After more than a dozen interviews at locations throughout the U.S. and months of waiting, we were pretty anxious. In the end, Reuben matched to stay here at UCI for his first year in internal medicine and at one of his first choices at the University of Minnesota for his three years of specialty training in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). We are excited because the program in Minneapolis is very good, but we’re nervous about the winter weather! Regardless of the cold, we continually hear great things about the Twin Cities area and everyone we’ve met who’s lived there has loved it. We’ll miss living so close to Reuben’s family but hope for some visits from family and friends!
In June both Reuben and Katie graduated with their advanced degrees- Reuben from UC Irvine medical school and Katie with a masters in Food Science from Chapman University. Before graduation, Reuben was also able to be certified in acupuncture through Helm’s Medical Institute affiliated with UCLA. It required a ton of memorization and practice but his Chinese medicine internship the previous summer in Taiwan really gave him a leading advantage.
July brought about the start of Reuben’s internship. The first couple weeks of the average 80 hour work weeks were grueling but since then he has seemed to adapt surprisingly well. He has a long shift every fourth day where he gets home long after Ariana goes to bed (and sometimes he works all night until noon the next day) but on the days where the whole family is together, we try to make the best of it. We’ve enjoyed this last year in Southern California to the fullest and have gone to beaches, amusement parks, and family outings.
For Reuben’s first vacation in October and celebration of our third anniversary, we went back to Katie’s mission area in Southern Spain and joined Reuben’s parents for a couple days for a visit in Paris. Some people called us crazy for taking a trip like that with a baby, but Ariana was a perfect traveler. She loves to be on the go and we all had a fantastic time together. In fact, Ariana didn’t really bring any stress to our trip, it was the fact that we had lost our luggage and didn’t have any of our things for the entire vacation! After we bought some new stylish Spanish clothes, things turned out great. Katie really enjoyed seeing friends and the whole experience made her mission seem less like a dream. Paris was gorgeous and we were fortunate to see so many incredible sights in just a few days.
Our family has been blessed this year. Katie is a full-time mom and enjoying all the time she gets to spend with Ariana. She is still studying Spanish and Chinese, running, and also did her first triathlon this year. Besides spending long hours in the hospital, Reuben is also able to exercise, practice martial arts, and spend time with the family. Reuben fulfilled another incredible goal this year- he received his Black Belt in Judo- which was eight years in the making. (He also has a black belt in Taekwondo).
We are so happy that we’ve been able to share our time here in Southern California with many of you. We’ll miss you as we’re traveling on to the Twin Cities area next June, but hope you know that you will be in our hearts and prayers always. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!The Chen Family- Reuben, Katie and Ariana. www.chenschristmascard.blogspot.com