On living the good life

Happy 50th birthday Mom Bradshaw. We hope it has been wonderful & great for you!!

Today is the end of four weeks of a wonderful schedule. I had my last day in the rheumatology clinic on Friday. I loved the time off, & working with Dr. Stromquist was so much fun & I learned so much.

Last week my Palm Pilot’s screen was damaged in the top left corner. I couldn’t see anything underneath that part. I was getting by, but then this week the colors started changing & fading, so I decided it was time to get it fixed before it completely died on me. I called Palm & ended up having to have a new one sent to me for $180 – cheaper than new, but still ouchy.

Oh, and everyone can call us again on our cell phone because we got a new battery (finally!!)

We took our van in for a regular oil change & tire rotation on Wednesday. They also found that our serpentine belt had some dry cracks in it & needed to be replaced, & then the cabin air filter (that controls the air going into the car that we breathe) was so full of dirt that it weighed 20 pounds and needed to be changed. That afternoon I went on a bike ride with the boys. We went over to the elementary school & played on the different playgrounds & had a lot of fun.

So Isaac is supposed to have a physical therapy group come to evaluate him in September to see if there is anything we can do to help with his development. The funny thing is, since the doctor’s visit about two weeks ago, he has started doing so many things. Isaac has started sitting up, crawling, pulling himself up on the couch, climbing a couple of stairs, and trying to walk while pushing a chair. It is reassuring to see him finally wanting to do these things. By the time physical therapy comes, they will probably be wondering why they were asked to see him – oh well. So Thursday night there was an activity at the park for this group that we were invited to. They had a blowup jumping tent with slide, games & stuffed animals for all the kids, snowcones, cookies, & facepainting. The kids had a lot of fun.

Since getting the Ipod Shuffle for my birthday, we found out that the tape player in my car doesn’t work. We looked around this week & realized that it is just as expensive or more expensive to put in a tape player as it is to do a CD player with a jack for Ipods/MP3 players. I took my car to the stereo place on Friday & had one installed in my car. I feel like a little kid at Christmas time with a new toy. It’s so cool & easy to use.

Well, while at the car place I got a page from Steph. She was calling to tell me about getting attacked by the weed whacker. She was using it out in the garden to try & cut down some of the bigger weeds, and a 1.5 inch piece of the line broke off & embedded itself in her lower left leg. She tried to pull it out but couldn’t, so she ended up going to urgent care, where they numbed it up & got it out & then put her on antibiotics for 5 days. She is a little bruised in the area, but luckily it only seemed to go just under the skin & didn’t do anything worse.

I had a free coupon to Noodles for my birthday last week, so we decided to use it Friday night & went out to dinner. It was great. Then we had been on the phone the other night with Tyce & Faith Kearl catching up on each others lives & decided to do a game night over the cell phone. We chose Friday night. We called them up & played a game of Settlers of Zarahemla for about 3.5 hours. It was really fun. We really miss being there to play, but at least we can still do some things together. So if anyone else wants to do something similar over the phone or on the internet, just let us know.

Saturday morning I got the lawn mowed. I was edging the lawn in the backyard when the edger made a funny popping noise & then started emitting steam from top to bottom. After that, it no longer worked. I guess we’ll need to get that fixed so we can keep the yard looking nice.

Grandma was able to watch the kids for us while we went to the temple for an initiatory session. We went to the Jordan River & had lunch first in the cafeteria, which was delicious. Steph & I are thinking about making that a tradition for each time we go. The temple was so busy – it took a while to get things done, but we managed to have a wonderful time there.

We had one of Steph’s roommates, Megan, & her husband Kevin Sidwar, who was my old roommate, along with their two kids, over for dinner Saturday night. It was fun to reminisce about old times & catch up on each others lives.

We had a family from the ward, Brian & Sue Eckles, and their children, over for dinner tonight. Our boys had so much fun playing with their kids in the backyard, and we were able to sit out & just talk & get to know each other better. We are looking forward to doing more in the future.

Kolby & Eli start pre-school in about 3 weeks & Steph has her ultrasound on September 8. I start my new rotation tomorrow. I will be on an inpatient internal medicine team at Intermountain Medical Center for the next 4 weeks with a much busier schedule. We will definitely miss that schedule from the last four weeks, but hopefully I’ll be able to learn a lot of good things.