Summer is Almost Here

This weekend has been wonderful. The weather has been nice (70s-80s), and this is my “golden weekend” for this month, which means I got the weekend off from work.

Tuesday we had the ultrasound that confirmed we are having our 4th boy!! It also showed that the baby looks healthy and well. That night we dropped the boys off at the Taylor’s house and then went to a meeting where they talked about strategies for eliminating debt and preparing for retirement. They had some good ideas of things that we can do once we start into a job so that retirement can be the “golden years.” One of Steph’s visiting teachers invited us to the meeting, and we are going to meet with another sister in the ward to prepare a financial needs assessment that they do for free. Basically it is a way to show how much you need to save each year to retire with a certain amount of money. We have heard from others in the ward that it is nice to do just to see what sort of things we will need to think about once we have a real job.

I was on call Thursday night, and I got two hours of sleep, which is a lot for this rotation. We see so many motorcycle and automobile accidents, and then gun shot wounds and knife wounds – those are probably the main things that come through the trauma bay. After this month I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get on a motorcycle again – I have seen too many people’s lives completely changed for the worse from these accidents.

Kolby had his last day of preschool on Friday for this semester. He gets a summer break now (and Steph gets a summer break as well), and then he will start back up in the fall. We will continue with the swimming lessons so that they don’t forget how to swim over the summer. We are going to try Kolby again in the class without parents in the water to see if he is now ready. Their new classes start up this next week.

So Friday I pretty much was asleep on and off for most of the day – Steph says I wasn’t much use that day because I was so tired. We did get the car dropped off to have the odometer/speedometer fixed and picked that up on Saturday. We have had to fix the brakes, flush the brake fluid, get an oil change, rotate the tires, and now fix the speedometer and odometer this month. Now hopefully the cars are all fixed up for the next several months. That night we watched Peter and Cynthia’s kids so they could go to a movie.

Saturday morning I went to a class meeting to help us get ready for the 4th year of medical school, mainly focusing on applying for residency and how to prepare our applications and then how to prepare for the interviews that will take place November through January. They gave some good ideas of things to do to show why we should be picked for interviews and residency programs. I can’t believe that we are already here. It is both scary and exciting. We’ll keep you updated.

Steph has put together chore charts for Kolby and Eli, and they get to fill in squares for helping with dishes, putting their toys away, setting the table, and doing jobs for mommy & daddy. If they fill in all their squares for the week, then they get a special prize. Their prize this week was to go to a playground Saturday afternoon and play on the slides. It was such a nice day and we had fun chasing each other around on the playground. Then we dropped the boys off at Peter and Cynthia’s so that Steph and I could go on a date to celebrate Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. We splurged and went to dinner at Outback Steakhouse (mmmmm!!!!!) and then we saw Spider Man 3. We had watched Spider Man 2 earlier in the week so we could remember the story. Three was pretty good, but we both decided that two was our favorite of the series. It was nice to spend time together with just the two of us.

Today has been another beautiful day. It was also nice to be able to go to church with the family. With the way my rotations have gone recently, I have had to be at the hospital a few Sundays each month. I think Steph is also very happy when I am here Sundays to help with the boys at church. They did really well today. They were in underwear the whole three hours without having an accident. The talks in sacrament meeting today were about the sacrament prayers, focusing on the promise we make to keep the commandment. One of the speakers read several quotes from the four most recent prophets about things they have commanded us to do. It was neat to hear revelation that we have received from these modern day prophets. In Sunday school we talked about Matthew 21-23, where Jesus teaches about hypocrisy and how we need to be careful that we don’t fall into the trap of saying or teaching one thing and then doing the opposite. And then in the last hour we talked about provident living and things we can do to prepare temporally, socially, emotionally, and spiritually for the future. Tonight we are having the Kearls over for dinner so that should be fun.

We hope all of your lives are as fun and exciting as ours. Keep us posted.