Merry Christmas!

Well, we missed writing our weekly post last Sunday with Christmas this week, so I’ve got a little catching up to do. So, last week Michael finished up with another set of interviews. On Sunday, December 16th he flew from Milwaukee to Los Angeles for a derm interview with the Harbor-UCLA program. He liked the LA program a lot, and was interested in the large Latino population he would have the opportunity to serve if he ended up doing his residency there. He also enjoyed stopping briefly at the beach, which was about 30 minutes from his interview location. The only downside to the LA program is the fact that a decent-sized house would be a lot less affordable in LA than in some of the other places he has interviewed at so far, and the program in LA didn’t seem to be geared quite as much towards family as the Pennsylvania and Texas programs where he has interviewed. As much as I hate to admit it, we are starting to think about those other two programs a little more than the California one, just because we could get a house now and possibly save up a little more so that by the time residency is finished and we have a doctor’s income, we could actually afford a place in southern California. But it is still a really close decision – and he has several other interviews coming up, so who knows what our top choices will be in the upcoming weeks. Michael got another derm invitation today to St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

I am glad that Michael has been fortunate enough to receive several interview invitations, but I admit that I am looking forward to him being done with all the scheduling of flights, hotels, and ground transportation, having the shirts and suits dry cleaned, spending hours in airports with cancelled or delayed flights, feeling nervous before interviews, having him away on so many trips, having him tired from all his travels, and wondering where we will eventually end up. I am such a planner – I like to be in control and have everything in my life all planned out, but this is just something that I have to wait and see what will happen to us. I can’t believe, though, that match day is in 3 months – then we will know where we will be going. I am really excited to move into a house and start over in a new place. The one thing that we are not looking forward to, though, is the fact that it looks like we will likely be leaving the good friends we have made in Milwaukee. It’s kind of funny – when we left BYU, Peter and Cynthia Hedgecock were some of our good friends there and we thought we would never see them again. I was pretty sad when we left because I have never been the greatest at keeping in touch with friends after moving, and I thought that eventually we would loose touch. So, we were so excited a year and a half later when the Hedgecocks moved to Milwaukee for a summer internship and then returned again to Milwaukee the following year for a job. So, I keep thinking that all of our close friends in Milwaukee should follow us when we go on this next move – wouldn’t that be nice? Well, on to the other events of these last couple weeks:

Anyways, on Monday last week Michael had his UCLA interview and then flew back to Boise that night. On Tuesday night after we put the kids to bed, Bryce Christensen came over and we played a game of Settlers. And then on Wednesday Michael flew out to Salt Lake for a transitional year interview. He said the interview went well, and the only down side to going there for our first year is that they told him they keep their interns pretty busy at the hospital compared to some of the other places he’s interviewed at. But one big draw to going there for the first year is that my Grandma Faun invited us to live with her if we end up in Salt Lake – she has a full finished basement we could use that is probably larger than our current apartment, so having a year rent-free to save up for a house would be a pretty difficult offer to pass up. On Thursday evening Michael was supposed to fly back in to Boise in time for us all to go to the temple together for Jennie’s endowment, but there was snow in Salt Lake and Michael’s plane sat on the runway for 2 hours causing him to arrive in Boise about half an hour after the temple session began. I went and it was nice to be at the temple – Jennie and her fiancé Dalin were there along with Michael’s parents, Dalin’s parents, Dalin’s grandparents, and Dalin’s best friend who just returned from his mission in Ireland.

On Friday evening we played games with the family and then Michael and I went out to do some Christmas shopping late after the boys were in bed. And then on Saturday we got the boys ready in the morning and went to JC Penney to have their pictures taken. Grandma Faun gave us some Christmas money for the boys and we got them these adorable sweaters and matching hats, so we just had to have their pictures taken. It is proving more and more difficult to have successful portrait shoots of all the boys together with each baby we have. Oh well – I guess that if we give it a few years the older ones will start to be a little easier to photograph, at least. One thing we decided to do was take individual shots of each boy along with the shot of all of them together. We’ve never done that before except with pictures of them in their Halloween costumes, but I decided that I wanted one nice one of each boy. We got really cute ones of each of them, and I asked Michael to get me some nice big frames for the photos for my Christmas gift, which I am looking forward to picking out after we get back to Milwaukee. After having the boys’ pictures taken we ran all over the place to try to get all our last-minute Christmas shopping and errands done. On Sunday church went pretty well, although Camden spent the middle hour out in the hallway. But other than that the boys did pretty well.

And then Monday was Christmas Eve. That morning we took the boys outside in the back yard to play in the snow and build a snowman. The older three boys had a lot of fun, and Camden even did really well out in the snow for a while until his mitten kept falling off and his hand got cold and wet. I brought him in after than and Michael stayed out a little longer with Kolby and Eli. The three of them were running around and wrestling in the snow and for the first time neither of them were crying from the cold by the time they were done playing. I know Michael really enjoyed playing out there with them. Later on that evening I got a migraine headache, which is unusual for me because I haven’t had one of those since high school. I went downstairs and slept for an hour before Michael got me up. I came upstairs and it was really nice because Jennie’s fiancé, Dalin, came over with his parents, but his dad was dressed up in a full Santa Claus suit with gifts for our boys. That was so nice of him to do that just for us. The boys loved it. Afterwards, they watched from the window as they left and Kolby remarked, “Look, Santa has a car!”

After that I tried to stay up, but the migraine just wasn’t going away. I felt really awful, because I didn’t want to miss the Christmas Eve traditions with our boys, but I had to go back to sleep. My prayers and the family’s prayers must have helped, because half an hour later I got up for dinner and was ok the rest of the night, except for a pounding pain in my head whenever I bent over or stood up – but I have never heard of such a quick recovery from a migraine before. We had fried chicken for dinner and then we all got in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. The boys were excited to see all the lights and I was surprised that none of the older three boys fell asleep in the car. When we got back to the house Santa had come and left two gifts (Santa always leaves a game on Christmas Eve at the Bradshaw house for the family to play together that night). There was a game that we could play with the boys and one for the adults. We played the kids game, a Disney Bingo DVD game that shows different Disney characters on Bingo spaces and the kids can find the characters and cover the spots on their Bingo cards. Kolby and Eli could actually play the game, and they have had fun playing it a few times since then. After the boys went to bed and the parents got all the gifts out and filled the stockings, we played the other game that Santa left – a fun new game called Blokus. And then when Michael and I went downstairs we watched The Singles 2nd Ward, which actually turned out to be a really funny movie – it’s been a while since I saw the first movie, but I don’t remember liking it as much as I did the second one.

The next morning everyone came upstairs at 8:30 and opened gifts from Santa. The Bradshaw family has certain gifts that are from Santa Claus and their stockings in the family room, then they eat breakfast and move into the living room to open the majority of the gifts from the family members under the Christmas tree. It has been fun to watch the boys this year as they start to understand more about the gift giving and the traditions of Christmas. Kolby especially is really starting to get old enough to really enjoy the holiday. We were blessed with many nice gifts from our family members, and we really appreciate everyone’s kindness.

The day after Christmas we took the boys to Barnes and Noble to meet Grandma Bradshaw and some of Michael’s cousins and their children who live in the area. Grandma Bradshaw wanted to get a book for each of the children, and they had fun picking those out. Then we went to make a couple returns and run a few more errands. I stopped at JC Penney to look at a cute dress I had seen there before (since I have some birthday money to use) and I happened to notice a sign that said there was a door buster deal going on so all the dresses were ½ off before 1:00 that afternoon. It was just before 1:00 when I saw that sign, so I quickly picked 4 dresses and went and bought them before the sale ended, and then I went and tried them all on. They actually all turned out to be pretty cute, so Michael talked me into keeping them. I think I will see if I happen to get enough birthday money to cover the cost of all 4 dresses, and if not I can always return one later on. But that was really fun, because I haven’t bought a dress in quite a while and I felt really pretty in all of them. It’s fun to get dressed up nice. That night after we put the boys to bed we went to Jennie and Dalin’s last indoor soccer game of the season, which was fun to watch.

Then on Thursday it was our 5-year wedding anniversary. When Michael came home from work he brought me a very pretty bouquet of flowers. And then Dick and Debbie were kind enough to watch the boys for us so we could go out together. We were originally tossing around the idea of going on a little cruise in January to celebrate our anniversary if we could find a good deal, but we decided that the cost of a cruise and getting me a passport just wasn’t realistic right now, and since we are only going to be in San Diego for 3 weeks we didn’t want to miss any of our time there. So, we decided to go out for a really nice dinner and see a movie instead. We got all dressed up and went for our reservations at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant downtown, and enjoyed a wonderful meal together. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we really enjoyed and thought was just as good as the first one. It was a great night out.

Today Michael had a good day at work – he said he got to close up on several patients and he is feeling pretty comfortable now about his ability to do stitches. He usually gets off at 2:00 on Friday afternoons here, but he didn’t get home until around 6:00 tonight, and I was starting to get pretty worried about him, especially after I called and the office was closed. But I guess they had a longer day than normal to do some catch-up after the holiday and then Dr. Burr took him and the other student out for dinner, and he didn’t have a chance to call. I was relieved when he made it home safe.

Well, we are winding up our Boise leg of the trip pretty soon here. Michael will go in for his last day of work with Dr. Burr on Monday and then we will celebrate New Years. And on Wednesday next week Michael will fly out to Washington D.C. for another derm interview. Then on Thursday morning the boys and I will be driving down with the rest of Michael’s family to Utah for Jennie’s wedding. The reception will be Thursday evening, and Michael will have to miss that because he couldn’t get a flight back from his interview soon enough to make it to the reception. But he will get back to Salt Lake that night and then on Friday morning we will go to the wedding and to the family luncheon. And then we will fly out of Salt Lake to San Diego on January 5th. Busy, busy – never a dull moment.