Meet the Member Mondays: Katherine R

Hello! We are John, Katherine, Kylan, Daven and Bella (the dog) Richardson. My husband will be graduating in 26 (!) days and will begin a Family Medicine Residency for the US Air Force at Fort Belvoir in June.

He has nine years prior service as an Army Officer and spent 2.5 years in Iraq as a Blackhawk Pilot doing search and rescue missions. We decided to make the switch to Air Force in hopes of shorter deployments and better family support.

We met in Raleigh, NC (where I’m from) while he was stationed at Fort Bragg. I had just graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill and was applying to Ph.D. programs when we met. He was about to leave for his second deployment, which left me free to go wherever I wanted for graduate school since no matter where it was it wouldn’t really be any closer to him (one silver lining).

Our nearly eight year marriage has been an absolute whirlwind including lots of separation, seven moves, buying and selling four homes, me completing two Master’s degrees (in Speech-Language Pathology and Music), working as a Speech-Language Pathologist, singing Opera professionally, birthing two amazingly wonderful children who absolutely make my heart sing, and my husband (almost) completing Medical school. We love traveling and all things active, most importantly, playing with our kids! I also enjoy cooking, drinking wine, reading, and music.

I have THOROUGHLY enjoyed two years at home with my kids, but this June I will be headed off to COT for the Air Force and will begin Medical School at USUHS in August. I am terrified and excited all at the same time. It will be a huge transition for our entire family and to top it all off, my husband will be in his intern year so things are about to get a little crazy. We are moving to Arlington, VA in a few weeks to split our commute and have hired an Au Pair from Italy to live with us, who will be arriving in June. Wish us luck, I think we are going to need it!