One month in Rochester

So I can’t believe we have been here in Rochester a month already. How time flies. We have been able to get some good things done on the house. We painted the top half of the dining room the dark red that we love. The plan is to put white wainscoting on the bottom half. I thought we would be able to get the parts already preassembled, but when we were looking at Home Depot, we came to realize that we will have to assemble the parts – a flat board on the back, and then the framed square pieces on front, and paint it all white – that will take some time, but already we love the red color, and I think it will look so nice when it is done.

Courtland started eating rice cereal and loves it, which is especially nice after having the last two kids hating to eat baby food. He tried green beans for the first time tonight and loved that too. He is so cute when he eats. Friday night we decided to move Eli onto a twin mattress (until we can get a mattress to fit the full size bed frame), Isaac into the toddler bed, and Courtland into the playpen. Isaac has done really well with the transition. Courtland is doing ok. Part of the trouble is the heat and humidity, and us not wanting to use the air conditioning. This makes it too warm for him to be wrapped, so he is taking a little longer to fall asleep. But he’s still doing great. We finally broke down tonight and turned on the air conditioning. It seems to be working great so far.

Steph mentioned last week that I was asked to be our unit’s Boy scout committee chairman. I was able to make it to the scouting shop this week and pick up a new scout shirt with all the required adult badges. I got the first one sewed on today (yeah!!). I also had some online training that I completed this week. I still don’t know everything that I’m doing, but I have a good committee that seems to know what is going on, and they are all willing to help out to make things great for the scouts in our unit.

Steph took the boys to a playgroup at the park Monday and had a fun time getting to know some of the girls in the ward. She is so excited to get out and get to know some new people, and the boys had so much fun with the other kids.

Tuesday night we had Josh and & Jill Hunter over for dinner. They are friends from Milwaukee who ended up here in Rochester for an orthopedics residency program. It was so fun to catch up on each others lives and to see the kids play together again. Rain made it so the kids couldn’t play out in the backyard, but they still had a great time together.

Work is going really well for me. I love everything about it. It is so nice to be doing something that I look forward to every day. There is so much to learn, which can be quite overwhelming at times, but I’m trying to take it one day at a time. There is a monthly journal club, where we meet with some of the community dermatologists at a nice restaurant and go over scholarly journal articles. This time it was at a Japanese sushi house. I had never eaten sushi before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I tried so many different types – tuna, salmon, crab, yellow tail, and others. Most of it was cooked; the yellow tail was raw; but it was all so delicious. I wouldn’t mind trying some more in the future.

Thursday night Steph took Camden on a walk around the neighborhood for his night out. Then we had a guy over from Home Depot to do a presentation on the benefits of having a soft water system installed in your home. We were doing it to get a $20 gift card to Home Depot. He performed some fun experiments to show how much nicer the filtered water is, and he was quite convincing. But it is way too expensive for our budget right now. Speaking of the budget, we made our first payment on our home mortgage – that felt so cool. It is just so much fun to say that we have a house.

Friday night we were invited to a dessert and game night at the Silva’s house, a couple in our ward. The kids had a lot of fun playing together and we had fun getting to know them and the St. Cyr (pronounced St. Seer) family. We attempted a get-to-know you game, but the kids wouldn’t allow it. It was still really fun.

Camden has started going to the bathroom in the toilet on a more regular basis. We got him some pull-ups on Friday that he really likes. He especially likes getting the treat afterwards. We aren’t really trying to push him yet, but we figure if he wants to do that much, then we are all for it.

Saturday morning I took my car in to have the 4 tires replaced so that it would pass inspection. Then I moved the lawn. I skipped last week, and moved the wheels down a setting, so it took almost 2 hours. But it looks so nice now – I’ll just have to remember to keep up on it every week. While I was mowing, Steph filled in the dirt at the side of the house to make it so the area didn’t slope in towards the house. It really is fun to get these little projects done and start to make the house look nice. We wanted to place the fertilized, but the weather hasn’t cooperated yet.

Then in the afternoon we went out to the Palmyra stake center for a pioneer day celebration to remember when the Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake valley for the first time. They had several different activities for the kids – puppet show, 3-legged race, wheelbarrow racing, pie and oreo cookie eating contest, spinning wool, and dinner. After dinner they did a raffle for the kids. It was quite warm and humid, but we had fun with several of our friends from the ward.

Isaac had a really hard time at church today, both during sacrament meeting, and then even in the first part of nursery. He didn’t want to sit still for the first hour, and then he just wanted to cling and cry during the second. He finally calmed down and had fun for the last hour. Steph and I got set apart for our callings today. Then there was a baptism after church for one of the kids in the boys’ primary, so we stayed after to watch that. The elders quorum presidency came over to meet us this afternoon. Then we had a really yummy pork roast for dinner (we have switched from the beef to the pork roast, first because it was cheaper, and now because we really like using the leftovers for bbq pork sandwiches the next week).

Tonight we had some friends (the Christensens, Phillips, and St. Syrs) over for dessert. The weather was finally nice, and the kids had so much fun out in the backyard while we sat and talked with the other parents. It was very fun and relaxing.