Enjoying free time in January

Life is nice again, at least for this month. I am in an internal medicine outpatient clinic. Clinic hours are from 9am to about 5pm, Monday through Friday. This means I get nights and weekends off. I love it, my wife loves it, and the kids love it. Kolby was so excited to learn that I would be home “early” every night this week. In the clinic we deal with more chronic medical problems – diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic pain, congestive heart failure, chronic lung disease – as well as seeing people after recent hospitalizations. Some cases are very straight forward, like someone recently diagnosed with high blood pressure, and others are much more difficult, such as people that have multiple medical problems that are all giving them problems right now. I end up seeing about 2-4 people per day. They first see the nurse, then the pharmacist, then one of the residents, and then the attending doctor – so it can take quite a bit longer for the patients to have a visit, especially if they are new to the clinic. But it is a great experience for us because we come up with a plan, present it to the attending doctor, and then we arrange everything, from blood draws to x-rays or CT scans, from consults with specialists or other specialty testing. And then, when the results come in, we are in charge of calling the patients and letting them know.

Steph and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary recently. We’ve accomplished so much over the past 6 years: 5 children (almost, since the last is due in 1 month); both with BS degrees from BYU; finishing medical school; living in 6 different places in 3 states; moving 6 times; and so much more. It has been so much fun and we can’t wait for what this next year will bring.

We always try to do something each year that we don’t normally do. This time we decided to go and get a couples’ massage. They had us both in the same room, and Steph even had someone who specialized in prenatal massage. It was so nice – but it would be an expensive hobby – about $1200/year just for the 2 of us to go once a month. Then we went to dinner at Rodizios – a Brazilian restaurant that serves several types of meats and other foods – it was delicious. On the way home we rented a movie and enjoyed watching that together.

Kolby and Eli started school again this week and are really enjoying it. It always amazes me how much these little ones can take in and learn.

Here is a cute saying from Kolby about tithing. He said that when he pays his tithing to the bishop, the bishop gets it to the prophet, who then gives it to Jesus. What a neat thought process. Then the other night, I was joking with the boys that mommy was going to be an old women on her birthday, and Kolby asked, “So does that mean she is going to die?” In other times, when he has asked about dying, we have told him that it usually doesn’t happen until we get old. It was really cute.

Tuesday evening I went to help a family pack up that had to move out of their apartment emergently. They thought they had until Saturday and then were told they had to be out by Wednesday, so a group of us showed up to help at the last minute. It was snowing off and on and icy and cold that night. They got a U-haul that we filled up and drove over to their new rental. Upon arrival, we opened the front door and heard water gushing. The upstairs bathroom was flooding, and water was in the downstairs walls and the carpets were soaked. The water had been left on but the heat was off, so some pipes froze. We ended up unloading into the garage, and they had to find a temporary place to stay. Luckily for them, the owner is getting everything fixed, but I felt so bad for them that night – what a hard week for them.

Kolby started piano lessons again after the Christmas holiday. He loves to play and is learning his songs so fast. He will sometimes even practice a second time during the day just because he likes to. It’s cute to watch Eli and Camden as they have to follow their brother and “practice” themselves after he is done.

Thursday night was daddy-Eli night. We went to the library and found about 10 books and read together. He found one that he wanted to bring home. It was so much fun. I think both us and the children always look forward to these nights.

Saturday was Steph’s 27th birthday. I got the boys up early and helped them each to make a card for her. Then Kolby and Eli helped me to cook some eggs and make some juice, and we took it to Steph so she could have breakfast in bread. I got her a 750 GB external hard drive that also comes with a disk you can format as a boot disk for your computer so that if it crashes, you can just put that disk in and have everything restored. Now she can back up all her photos and video and other files that she was worried about losing if her computer were to crash. Grandma Faun watched the boys after lunch and we went to a play at Hale Center Theatre called “Cash on Delivery.” It was hilarious. The story is of a guy who had an old renter that was on social security and then moved out, but instead of forwarding on the social security checks to the man, he kept them and cashed them, and then continued to make other false claims. The story starts with the social security department coming to ensure all his claims are true, and then he and others in the house have to start trading parts in order to cover for the fake people. It was great.

I got Steph an angel food cake with strawberries, apples, peaches, and whipped cream that we had for dessert. She didn’t want 27 candles on the cake, so I made the numbers 2 and 7 out of 16 candles.

For dinner, Grandma watched the boys again, and we went with Weyland and Miriam Barker at Red Lobster. We had an hour long wait, and it was so much fun to just talk. Dinner was delicious and enjoyable. Afterwards, we came back here and played a round of Thurn and Taxis, one of our new games from Christmas. Steph won again – that is one of her favorite games.

Today it was so nice to be able to attend all of church with the family – it has been quite some time since I was last able to do that. The sacrament meeting talks were on the importance of physical health and obeying the Word of Wisdom, and on our duty to do missionary work to help our neighbors and friends learn about the gospel. In Sunday school the lesson was on the blessings that come from Jesus Christ’s atonement and resurrection. In the priesthood meeting we talked about how to become effective leaders in our home in order to teach our children. The prophet Joseph Smith said, “I teach the brethren correct principles and then let them guide themselves.” This is what we should do with our children. We need to take time to teach them with love and by example. Tonight the Mills invited us for dinner. We are watching the new movie about Emma Smith’s life now, and it is really good. It is amazing what she and her husband, the prophet Joseph Smith, went through in order to defend the truth of the gospel.