Showing posts with label Anniversary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anniversary. Show all posts
19 January 2009
Catch-Up on Photos
So, I'm finally taking a little time today to post some photos posted. Here is one of Michael and I at our anniversary dinner at Rodizio Grill.
29 December 2008
28 December 2008
We’ve had a busy week this week, as I’m sure many of you have. Kolby and Eli had last week and this upcoming week off of preschool for the holidays. And Michael got one day off of work this week, December 26th, so we decided to celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas day each a day late (which worked out fine since the kids are too young to realize that we didn’t do our Christmas on the actual Christmas day anyways). So, the days before Christmas were filled with last-minute gift wrapping (I had most of my gifts done early, but we ended up getting a few more things last-minute), running some errands – I got a nice piece of red fleece on sale and cut and tied a baby blanket for Courtland to match his brothers’, I helped Grandma get all of her programs set up on her new computer that arrived in the mail (her old one crashed just after Thanksgiving) and I uploaded all of the music from her CDS so it could be added to her Ipod, and of course the boys also enjoyed taking one link off of their chains each night to count down the days until Christmas.
On December 25th (our Christmas Eve), I got some laundry done so the boys would have clean pajamas to wear on Christmas morning and I gave them all a bath at the same time by myself (an event that takes a lot of preparation and time, and therefore doesn’t happen all that often). While I was getting them all cleaned and dressed, I pulled Eli out of the tub and cut his hair, vacuumed up the floor, washed him off again, and got him back out of the tub to get him dressed. We noticed last time that I cut Michael’s hair that the little plastic ¾-inch guard for our hair clippers had gotten broken somehow, and that, of course, is the one I use for Kolby’s and Eli’s hair when I cut it short. So, I decided to use the next smaller sized guard (which would mean it would be longer before I’d have to cut Eli’s hair again the next time). Well, the end result was definitely shorter than I had intended – I never really wanted my boys to have a buzz cut, and that’s basically how it ended up – but of course Eli is as cute as ever, and it will grow back before too long. I also have Isaac his first haircut that morning while he was in the bath (I learned that giving haircuts in the tub can be helpful, because the kid has water to splash and play in to keep him entertained and then it is easier to just rinse down the child and the tub afterwards). Anyways, I just trimmed Isaac’s hair around the edges – I didn’t want it short (and didn’t want to lose the few cute little curls around his ears), but it had started to get kind of fuzzy looking lately, so it definitely needed a trim. I think it turned out nice – it still looks really cute combed to the side.
After Michael got home from work and the boys woke up from their naps, we started some of our Christmas Eve traditions while we were waiting for dinner to cook. Michael’s family has a tradition of reading the story of Jesus’ birth while acting out the nativity, complete with bath-robe costumes. We don’t have any robes, so we wrapped towels around the boys’ heads and shoulders and had them act it out (luckily Camden is still young enough that he didn’t mind being Mary, since I was video-taping, so we didn’t have any female actresses). Afterwards we got out the two special Christmas Eve pop-up books that are a tradition in my family: The Night Before Christmas and The First Christmas. Isaac wandered around the room while the other three boys sat and listened and moved all the little pieces of the pop-up books while Michael read. After dinner we piled into the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We had heard of a place in Sugar House called “Christmas Street” because of it’s impressive lights display. We drove and got near the street before both the older boys announced that they needed to use the bathroom. It’s rather difficult to find any kind of store or gas station that’s open on Christmas night (we found one restaurant that was closing, and the employees inside wouldn’t even open the door for me to ask them if our children could use their restroom). Fortunately we eventually found a Walgreens that was open. When I took the boys inside it was raining out, and when we came back out to the car it had started to snow. We drove back to the street with the lights, and there was one street that had a different verse of scripture on a poster displayed in each yard, telling the story of Christ’s birth. Then the next street up had the lights display (which didn’t seem much more impressive than other houses decorated for Christmas, except it was nice that every house on that street was lit up). But by that time the snow was coming down hard, and it was hard to see the lights very well, and Camden had fallen asleep in the car. We headed home, and we saw a man walking in the snow and offered him a ride. I’m glad we did, because we drove for what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes in what was by then quite a blizzard (that would have taken him forever to walk) – he was going to meet some family who’s car had broken down, and it wasn’t snowing when he started walking. So, I felt glad that we were in the right place at the right time to offer him some service as part of our Christmas.
When we got home we put Isaac down to bed and we tried to wake Eli up, but he asked if he could go to bed too. So Kolby and Camden stayed up and found the one gift under the tree that Santa had left before we interrupted him by coming home from looking at Christmas lights, so he would have to return later than night for the rest of the gifts (this is another tradition from Michael’s family – and this gift is always a game that the family can play together that night). So, the boys opened the gift, and it was a 300-piece puzzle that we had fun putting together. We were surprised that Camden enjoyed staying up the entire time and handing us pieces to put together. And then we let the boys put their gifts for family members under the tree, which Kolby was especially excited about. And Kolby left out cookies, carrots, and egg nog for Santa and the reindeer, of course. After we put the boys in bed, we got the gifts out and put them under the tree and filled the stockings, which we set out on the couch next to the tree (Grandma’s fireplace doesn’t have a mantle that we could hang stockings from). Then we went to bed after a while.
In the morning the boys actually slept a little – they were up pretty late the night before – and Kolby came into our room around 7:30 or 8:00am and we were still able to get a little more sleep after that. Michael and I each took a shower and got dressed before getting up the other boys and Grandma and heading upstairs around 9:30am. The snow outside was pretty, and we enjoyed a white Christmas. The boys liked opening their gifts. One gift we got for them was two sets of wooden train tracks that go with the ones they have so they would have enough to build complete tracks they could all play with at the same time, and I had the idea to wrap lots of the pieces separately, so the boys would have more little gifts to unwrap. Then, last week a friend from church offered me another set of these wooden train tracks because she said she got them for her grandkids and ended up with a duplicate set, so I wrapped lots of those separately too. I guess that was a little much, because the boys were still working on unwrapping gifts an hour after we started, which was definitely too long for Isaac and Eli was getting really hungry for brunch by then and saying he didn’t feel well. But other than that it was a really enjoyable morning. The other big gift for all of the boys was a Fisher Price nativity set, complete with stable, tents for the wise men, the inn, all the people, and the animals. And they each got a church movie in their stockings to watch on Sundays. They were also pretty excited that they each got a new “brushtooth” (toothbrush) in their stockings too. They got some adorable outfits from my parents and from Grandma Faun. And there were lots of fun coloring books and sticker books, which they love. They enjoyed picking out gifts from under the tree and handing them to each person (although they weren’t always patient with the idea of waiting while each person opened their gifts), but it was fun to see them give their gifts to each other and give hugs after opening them. Michael and I had quite a laugh after I opened one of my gifts from him: a favorite board game, Thurn & Taxis, and then he later opening the exact same game from me. This is a game that can’t be found in most normal stores, and it ends up that we both got it from the same specialty game shop. So, that was pretty funny – especially since both of us were so sure that the other would be really surprised and have no idea what their gift would be. I also gave Michael another board game, Ticket to Ride Europe, some new white temple pants (since he’s recently grown out of his from before his mission), and a tile sign that I made with his favorite quote on it that he can put in his office someday. And he gave me this beautiful set of Willow Tree figurines of a father, mother, and four boys for our family – now we just need to find one more little boy and it will be complete. The boys had fun giving each other the wooden puzzles they had picked out, and giving Michael his church socks he had asked for. And I really liked the pretty place mats the boys got me for the new table we are planning on getting when we move to New York. Oh, and thank you to both of our parents – Mom and Dad gave us a Clearplay DVD player which edits movies that you buy or rent, so you can watch movies at an appropriate rating (no mater what they are originally rated) and you can filter out things like violence, inappropriate language, etc. for yourselves and your children (we are looking forward to Michael having a better work schedule when he finally finishes this rotation next week so we can rent some new movies and try it out) – and Dick and Debbie gave us money that we decided to put towards our table when we move to New York (I am very excited to have a nice table that isn’t a hand-me-down with matching benches and chairs that will seat our entire family plus guests, it will be so nice). Thank you to all of our family members and friends for the thoughtful gifts, treats that have been brought, and nice Christmas letters and cards that have been sent!
So, we had a nice Christmas. Since Christmas I’ve started to have Braxton Hicks contractions (which is happening a lot later on in this pregnancy than in some of my earlier pregnancies, so at least we know this baby is going to get here before too long). It’s kind of funny too – I only have the contractions in the evening and at night before I go to bed – not during the morning or daytime at all – I’ve never only had them at a certain time of the day with any of my other pregnancies. Although I feel pretty ready for this baby to come, I haven’t hit the really impatient part of this pregnancy yet (probably since we’ve done this a few times before, and we remember that it’s harder after the baby is born, with the lack of sleep and the fun of breast feeding and everything. I’m ok with whenever he comes, as long as it’s after New Year’s day (actually, after January 10th – my birthday – would be preferable) and before February 10th (since he’s due February 9th, and Camden was 5 days early and Isaac was 7 days early, I think I’m being pretty reasonable to say that I would wait until the due date – but for some reason strangers in the grocery stores lately think that it’s a really good idea to say that maybe I’ll have a Valentine’s Day baby when they hear that the due date is February 9th. I don’t think that’s very nice – to say anything about a baby coming more than a couple days late, plus I don’t think Valentine’s Day would be the ideal birthday – I’ll have to talk to the midwife and see how she feels about inducing before Valentine’s Day). Oh, and I don’t want him to come on January 31st, since that is Eli’s birthday, and I’d prefer that each of the boys have their own special day – two birthdays back to back would be better than them having to share the same day, I think. So, I’ve got lots of good ideas – we’ll see what happens. I know that I always said when I was pregnant with Kolby that I’d never have a Halloween baby . . .
So, yesterday was Michael’s and my 6-year anniversary. We are planning on celebrating sometime this upcoming week (waiting until tomorrow to find out which day Michael will get off of work this week). We have always splurged and done something really fun (something that we wouldn’t normally do) for our anniversary – like one time we went and spent the night at a beautiful room in an Anniversary Inn and last year we splurged and had a really nice dinner at a fancy fondue restaurant. This year we have some fun ideas, but we’ll have to see if they all work out, since we don’t know the work schedule yet. But yesterday Michael had one of his late nights at work and so I did a quick dinner of leftovers with the boys, finished up their bedtime routine early, and then I let them stay up late and we watched one of our new movies, Enchanted, together with Grandma Faun. Michael got home during the movie and surprised me with a pretty little bouquet of beautiful gerber daisies for our anniversary. They smell and look beautiful! How sweet!
So, today was church. I am SO looking forward to the new church schedule starting in January – 11am church will be so much easier with the kids, not to mention the fact that Michael will be on an outpatient medicine rotation in January so he will actually be able to go to church with us every Sunday (he hasn’t been able to get a Sunday off from the hospital for at least the last 8 weeks during this rotation, if not longer during his last rotation, I think). Eli is starting next week in a primary class – he is done with nursery and is excited to go to primary like Kolby. Camden still enjoys his nursery class, and I can’t wait until Isaac hits his 18-month birthday and is old enough to join Camden in class, since he hit the point a couple months ago where it is impossible to get him to sit through the adult classes with us, so the majority of church is spent out in the hallway with him. But I had a sigh of relief today when Michael walked into church at the beginning of the third hour – he never gets off work that early! – and we got to sit together as a family. We got through most of Sacrament meeting before he finally had to take Isaac out in the hall, where Isaac fell asleep in his arms for the last few minutes of church. But none of the other boys had to be taken out (I think they knew it was different because Daddy was there too). After church and lunch we put the boys down for naps and we each tried to read a little bit before we both ended up falling asleep on the couch. The younger two didn’t nap well (Isaac never did end up falling asleep), and when the boys got up we watched one of their new church movies – Kolby chose the one about the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. Then we had dinner and Kolby practiced his piano songs before bedtime. Michael is now sleeping on the couch and I have stayed up later than I should have working on the computer (since I haven’t gotten on the computer in several days, and I’ve been trying to catch up with photos and the blog, except the internet won’t connect and let me post anything on the blog tonight for some reason – I’ll just have to post what I’ve typed tonight another day). Well, I’d better get to bed.
Oh, I had to write something cute that Eli said a couple days ago:
The other day Eli was working on his Disney sticker book with Grandma Faun, and they were doing a page with Peter Pan stickers. Grandma had told Eli the names of all the characters, and she asked him who the pirate was:
Grandma: “Who is this?”
Eli: “Captain.”
Grandma: “Captain who?”
Eli: “Hanger.”
Grandma: “Captain Hook.”
I thought it was pretty cute that he made that association between Captain Hook’s hook and a familiar object that was also hook-shaped.
On December 25th (our Christmas Eve), I got some laundry done so the boys would have clean pajamas to wear on Christmas morning and I gave them all a bath at the same time by myself (an event that takes a lot of preparation and time, and therefore doesn’t happen all that often). While I was getting them all cleaned and dressed, I pulled Eli out of the tub and cut his hair, vacuumed up the floor, washed him off again, and got him back out of the tub to get him dressed. We noticed last time that I cut Michael’s hair that the little plastic ¾-inch guard for our hair clippers had gotten broken somehow, and that, of course, is the one I use for Kolby’s and Eli’s hair when I cut it short. So, I decided to use the next smaller sized guard (which would mean it would be longer before I’d have to cut Eli’s hair again the next time). Well, the end result was definitely shorter than I had intended – I never really wanted my boys to have a buzz cut, and that’s basically how it ended up – but of course Eli is as cute as ever, and it will grow back before too long. I also have Isaac his first haircut that morning while he was in the bath (I learned that giving haircuts in the tub can be helpful, because the kid has water to splash and play in to keep him entertained and then it is easier to just rinse down the child and the tub afterwards). Anyways, I just trimmed Isaac’s hair around the edges – I didn’t want it short (and didn’t want to lose the few cute little curls around his ears), but it had started to get kind of fuzzy looking lately, so it definitely needed a trim. I think it turned out nice – it still looks really cute combed to the side.
After Michael got home from work and the boys woke up from their naps, we started some of our Christmas Eve traditions while we were waiting for dinner to cook. Michael’s family has a tradition of reading the story of Jesus’ birth while acting out the nativity, complete with bath-robe costumes. We don’t have any robes, so we wrapped towels around the boys’ heads and shoulders and had them act it out (luckily Camden is still young enough that he didn’t mind being Mary, since I was video-taping, so we didn’t have any female actresses). Afterwards we got out the two special Christmas Eve pop-up books that are a tradition in my family: The Night Before Christmas and The First Christmas. Isaac wandered around the room while the other three boys sat and listened and moved all the little pieces of the pop-up books while Michael read. After dinner we piled into the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We had heard of a place in Sugar House called “Christmas Street” because of it’s impressive lights display. We drove and got near the street before both the older boys announced that they needed to use the bathroom. It’s rather difficult to find any kind of store or gas station that’s open on Christmas night (we found one restaurant that was closing, and the employees inside wouldn’t even open the door for me to ask them if our children could use their restroom). Fortunately we eventually found a Walgreens that was open. When I took the boys inside it was raining out, and when we came back out to the car it had started to snow. We drove back to the street with the lights, and there was one street that had a different verse of scripture on a poster displayed in each yard, telling the story of Christ’s birth. Then the next street up had the lights display (which didn’t seem much more impressive than other houses decorated for Christmas, except it was nice that every house on that street was lit up). But by that time the snow was coming down hard, and it was hard to see the lights very well, and Camden had fallen asleep in the car. We headed home, and we saw a man walking in the snow and offered him a ride. I’m glad we did, because we drove for what seemed like 15 or 20 minutes in what was by then quite a blizzard (that would have taken him forever to walk) – he was going to meet some family who’s car had broken down, and it wasn’t snowing when he started walking. So, I felt glad that we were in the right place at the right time to offer him some service as part of our Christmas.
When we got home we put Isaac down to bed and we tried to wake Eli up, but he asked if he could go to bed too. So Kolby and Camden stayed up and found the one gift under the tree that Santa had left before we interrupted him by coming home from looking at Christmas lights, so he would have to return later than night for the rest of the gifts (this is another tradition from Michael’s family – and this gift is always a game that the family can play together that night). So, the boys opened the gift, and it was a 300-piece puzzle that we had fun putting together. We were surprised that Camden enjoyed staying up the entire time and handing us pieces to put together. And then we let the boys put their gifts for family members under the tree, which Kolby was especially excited about. And Kolby left out cookies, carrots, and egg nog for Santa and the reindeer, of course. After we put the boys in bed, we got the gifts out and put them under the tree and filled the stockings, which we set out on the couch next to the tree (Grandma’s fireplace doesn’t have a mantle that we could hang stockings from). Then we went to bed after a while.
In the morning the boys actually slept a little – they were up pretty late the night before – and Kolby came into our room around 7:30 or 8:00am and we were still able to get a little more sleep after that. Michael and I each took a shower and got dressed before getting up the other boys and Grandma and heading upstairs around 9:30am. The snow outside was pretty, and we enjoyed a white Christmas. The boys liked opening their gifts. One gift we got for them was two sets of wooden train tracks that go with the ones they have so they would have enough to build complete tracks they could all play with at the same time, and I had the idea to wrap lots of the pieces separately, so the boys would have more little gifts to unwrap. Then, last week a friend from church offered me another set of these wooden train tracks because she said she got them for her grandkids and ended up with a duplicate set, so I wrapped lots of those separately too. I guess that was a little much, because the boys were still working on unwrapping gifts an hour after we started, which was definitely too long for Isaac and Eli was getting really hungry for brunch by then and saying he didn’t feel well. But other than that it was a really enjoyable morning. The other big gift for all of the boys was a Fisher Price nativity set, complete with stable, tents for the wise men, the inn, all the people, and the animals. And they each got a church movie in their stockings to watch on Sundays. They were also pretty excited that they each got a new “brushtooth” (toothbrush) in their stockings too. They got some adorable outfits from my parents and from Grandma Faun. And there were lots of fun coloring books and sticker books, which they love. They enjoyed picking out gifts from under the tree and handing them to each person (although they weren’t always patient with the idea of waiting while each person opened their gifts), but it was fun to see them give their gifts to each other and give hugs after opening them. Michael and I had quite a laugh after I opened one of my gifts from him: a favorite board game, Thurn & Taxis, and then he later opening the exact same game from me. This is a game that can’t be found in most normal stores, and it ends up that we both got it from the same specialty game shop. So, that was pretty funny – especially since both of us were so sure that the other would be really surprised and have no idea what their gift would be. I also gave Michael another board game, Ticket to Ride Europe, some new white temple pants (since he’s recently grown out of his from before his mission), and a tile sign that I made with his favorite quote on it that he can put in his office someday. And he gave me this beautiful set of Willow Tree figurines of a father, mother, and four boys for our family – now we just need to find one more little boy and it will be complete. The boys had fun giving each other the wooden puzzles they had picked out, and giving Michael his church socks he had asked for. And I really liked the pretty place mats the boys got me for the new table we are planning on getting when we move to New York. Oh, and thank you to both of our parents – Mom and Dad gave us a Clearplay DVD player which edits movies that you buy or rent, so you can watch movies at an appropriate rating (no mater what they are originally rated) and you can filter out things like violence, inappropriate language, etc. for yourselves and your children (we are looking forward to Michael having a better work schedule when he finally finishes this rotation next week so we can rent some new movies and try it out) – and Dick and Debbie gave us money that we decided to put towards our table when we move to New York (I am very excited to have a nice table that isn’t a hand-me-down with matching benches and chairs that will seat our entire family plus guests, it will be so nice). Thank you to all of our family members and friends for the thoughtful gifts, treats that have been brought, and nice Christmas letters and cards that have been sent!
So, we had a nice Christmas. Since Christmas I’ve started to have Braxton Hicks contractions (which is happening a lot later on in this pregnancy than in some of my earlier pregnancies, so at least we know this baby is going to get here before too long). It’s kind of funny too – I only have the contractions in the evening and at night before I go to bed – not during the morning or daytime at all – I’ve never only had them at a certain time of the day with any of my other pregnancies. Although I feel pretty ready for this baby to come, I haven’t hit the really impatient part of this pregnancy yet (probably since we’ve done this a few times before, and we remember that it’s harder after the baby is born, with the lack of sleep and the fun of breast feeding and everything. I’m ok with whenever he comes, as long as it’s after New Year’s day (actually, after January 10th – my birthday – would be preferable) and before February 10th (since he’s due February 9th, and Camden was 5 days early and Isaac was 7 days early, I think I’m being pretty reasonable to say that I would wait until the due date – but for some reason strangers in the grocery stores lately think that it’s a really good idea to say that maybe I’ll have a Valentine’s Day baby when they hear that the due date is February 9th. I don’t think that’s very nice – to say anything about a baby coming more than a couple days late, plus I don’t think Valentine’s Day would be the ideal birthday – I’ll have to talk to the midwife and see how she feels about inducing before Valentine’s Day). Oh, and I don’t want him to come on January 31st, since that is Eli’s birthday, and I’d prefer that each of the boys have their own special day – two birthdays back to back would be better than them having to share the same day, I think. So, I’ve got lots of good ideas – we’ll see what happens. I know that I always said when I was pregnant with Kolby that I’d never have a Halloween baby . . .
So, yesterday was Michael’s and my 6-year anniversary. We are planning on celebrating sometime this upcoming week (waiting until tomorrow to find out which day Michael will get off of work this week). We have always splurged and done something really fun (something that we wouldn’t normally do) for our anniversary – like one time we went and spent the night at a beautiful room in an Anniversary Inn and last year we splurged and had a really nice dinner at a fancy fondue restaurant. This year we have some fun ideas, but we’ll have to see if they all work out, since we don’t know the work schedule yet. But yesterday Michael had one of his late nights at work and so I did a quick dinner of leftovers with the boys, finished up their bedtime routine early, and then I let them stay up late and we watched one of our new movies, Enchanted, together with Grandma Faun. Michael got home during the movie and surprised me with a pretty little bouquet of beautiful gerber daisies for our anniversary. They smell and look beautiful! How sweet!
So, today was church. I am SO looking forward to the new church schedule starting in January – 11am church will be so much easier with the kids, not to mention the fact that Michael will be on an outpatient medicine rotation in January so he will actually be able to go to church with us every Sunday (he hasn’t been able to get a Sunday off from the hospital for at least the last 8 weeks during this rotation, if not longer during his last rotation, I think). Eli is starting next week in a primary class – he is done with nursery and is excited to go to primary like Kolby. Camden still enjoys his nursery class, and I can’t wait until Isaac hits his 18-month birthday and is old enough to join Camden in class, since he hit the point a couple months ago where it is impossible to get him to sit through the adult classes with us, so the majority of church is spent out in the hallway with him. But I had a sigh of relief today when Michael walked into church at the beginning of the third hour – he never gets off work that early! – and we got to sit together as a family. We got through most of Sacrament meeting before he finally had to take Isaac out in the hall, where Isaac fell asleep in his arms for the last few minutes of church. But none of the other boys had to be taken out (I think they knew it was different because Daddy was there too). After church and lunch we put the boys down for naps and we each tried to read a little bit before we both ended up falling asleep on the couch. The younger two didn’t nap well (Isaac never did end up falling asleep), and when the boys got up we watched one of their new church movies – Kolby chose the one about the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson. Then we had dinner and Kolby practiced his piano songs before bedtime. Michael is now sleeping on the couch and I have stayed up later than I should have working on the computer (since I haven’t gotten on the computer in several days, and I’ve been trying to catch up with photos and the blog, except the internet won’t connect and let me post anything on the blog tonight for some reason – I’ll just have to post what I’ve typed tonight another day). Well, I’d better get to bed.
Oh, I had to write something cute that Eli said a couple days ago:
The other day Eli was working on his Disney sticker book with Grandma Faun, and they were doing a page with Peter Pan stickers. Grandma had told Eli the names of all the characters, and she asked him who the pirate was:
Grandma: “Who is this?”
Eli: “Captain.”
Grandma: “Captain who?”
Eli: “Hanger.”
Grandma: “Captain Hook.”
I thought it was pretty cute that he made that association between Captain Hook’s hook and a familiar object that was also hook-shaped.
10 January 2008
The Last of the Photos from Our Boise Trip
I am going to get the last of the photos posted from when we were in Idaho:
Before Christmas the boys and I went to visit my friend Colette and her daughter Lila who live in Boise. Colette and I were roommates on our BYU Semester in Nauvoo, Illinois. It was really fun to get together with her and let the kids play together. They have some horses at their house and the boys loved petting them.
Michael and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary while we were in Boise. We got all dressed up and went out to a nice dinner at a fondue restaurant downtown called The Melting Pot. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we both enjoyed.
And a few days later Dick took all of us to the Discovery Center. It had all sorts of scientific experiments set up and everything was hands-on so the kids really enjoyed it. There was also a room set up like a grocery store with plastic food, mini shopping carts, and kid-sized check-out counters and cash registers. And there was a section set up like a veterinarian’s office with toy animals and medical supplies. The boys all enjoyed that day and it was nice that we did it on a Saturday so Michael could go along with us too.
Before Christmas the boys and I went to visit my friend Colette and her daughter Lila who live in Boise. Colette and I were roommates on our BYU Semester in Nauvoo, Illinois. It was really fun to get together with her and let the kids play together. They have some horses at their house and the boys loved petting them.
Kolby, Camden, and Eli:
Kolby, Lila, Eli, and Colette:
Eli petting the colt:
Camden, Colette, and Lila:
And after Christmas Dick took the boys and I to a place called Kid Planet that is kind of like a McDonald's playland with all the slides, ball pits, and tunnels to climb through but about four times larger. The boys loved it there, and Camden was even big enough to enjoy it too because the tunnels were down low enough that he could climb in by himself.
Camden in the ball pit:
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Dick and Isaac:
Kolby:
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Eli chillin' on the slide:
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Michael and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary while we were in Boise. We got all dressed up and went out to a nice dinner at a fondue restaurant downtown called The Melting Pot. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we both enjoyed.
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Dalin, Jennie's fiance, teaching the boys how to do push-ups:
And a few days later Dick took all of us to the Discovery Center. It had all sorts of scientific experiments set up and everything was hands-on so the kids really enjoyed it. There was also a room set up like a grocery store with plastic food, mini shopping carts, and kid-sized check-out counters and cash registers. And there was a section set up like a veterinarian’s office with toy animals and medical supplies. The boys all enjoyed that day and it was nice that we did it on a Saturday so Michael could go along with us too.
Camden picking out some groceries:
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Eli on a 'bed of nails':
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Kolby helping a dog in the veterinary office:
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Isn't this the cutest picture ever?
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Camden loves Isaac so much! He is probably our child who has shown the most interest in his younger sibling at the earliest age. He loves to hold his bottle while we are feeding him or give him his pacifier. And he is always giving him hugs and kisses. So I shouldn't have been suprised when Camden wanted to hold him too:
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Isaac:
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Camden giving Isaac kisses:
30 December 2007
Five Years
I came across this fun post on a friend’s blog, and thought it’d be nice to write one of my own. So, this last week Michael and I celebrated our 5-year wedding anniversary. Five years sounds like such a long time – it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. Although I still feel like we are one of those newlywed couples, I guess we are really more like a “real family.” So, looking back now it is interesting to see what we’ve accomplished in the last five years:
We have lived in four different apartments: our first one south of campus at BYU, our second in Wymount married student housing at BYU, our third was our 2-bedroom apartment in Mayfair Manor apartments in Milwaukee, and our fourth (and current) apartment is our 3-bedroom place in the same complex in Milwaukee. (Maybe our next home will actually be a house – we’ll see).
We have had four boys (all born within four years of each other): Kolby, Eli, Camden, and Isaac. So, we have eight little shoes, forty little fingers and forty little toes, sometimes eight crying eyes at the same time, often four cute little smiles, and always several diapers to change each day.
We have had four jobs and two internships: When we met, Michael was working for BYU’s IT Services and I was working for The Museum of Peoples and Cultures on campus. When we lived in San Diego for a summer Michael had an internship with a company that produced skin grafts for burn victims and diabetes patients and I had a fun job working in a scrapbooking store. Before we moved to Milwaukee I had an internship at the family history library at BYU. And after Michael’s first year of medical school he had a summer research position conducting telephone surveys to pharmacies and eventually compiling his research in a paper.
We have been to eight places: Beside living in Provo, Utah and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we lived at my parents’ house in San Diego, California for a summer after we were married (and we had a fun day trip down to Tijuana, Mexico while we were there). We have also enjoyed fun trips to visit family in Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. And monthly trips to the temple in Chicago, Illinois makes that destination quite familiar to us. Other than the states that we drove through on our move out to Milwaukee and the places Michael has flown to for recent residency interviews, the other location we have visited is Nauvoo, Illinois for a fun family vacation a couple years ago.
We have received three degrees: Although I attended Ricks College in Idaho before I met Michael, I was still finishing up the last couple courses at BYU that I needed to transfer in order to receive my associate’s degree in social sciences from Ricks. Michael and I both later graduated from BYU – I got my bachelor’s degree in genealogy and Michael got his in microbiology with a minor in Spanish. And we are anticipating Michael’s degree from medical school in May 2008!
We have had five cars: We used Michael’s little red Ford Tempo while we were in Utah and Wisconsin until it died on us a couple years ago. We also had a blue Buick for a little while that my Grandma gave us when we were at BYU. When our friends, the Gordons, graduated and left Milwaukee they gave us their old car which we were able to sell for a few hundred dollars. After the Tempo died on us, we got a green Mercury Villager minivan. And then last year when Michael needed a car to get to and from his different rotations, we got a little blue Toyota Tercel from the Johnson’s when they were getting ready to graduate.
We have gone through four baby strollers: In preparation for having our first baby we got a little umbrella stroller and a bigger stroller that a car seat could hook into. And my friend gave us a hand-me-down double stroller when we had our second baby. Later on, after the double stroller was damaged on an airplane ride and the airline eventually paid to replace it, we got a triple stroller.
We have gone through five baby car seats: We had an infant seat that we used for Kolby, but when we were hit by a car the insurance company replaced that infant seat for us (Isaac’s car seat). We have also had two convertible toddler seats (now used by Camden and Eli), and a booster seat (Kolby’s).
We have had four computers: I had a computer during college and Michael had his dad’s old laptop (which we set up on top of a book shelf so Kolby couldn’t reach it when he was a toddler and he grabbed the chord and pulled it down and shattered the screen). We got our pc a couple years ago and Michael recently took advantage of the school’s offer to extend student loans to cover the cost of a laptop.
We have celebrated 17 birthdays: five each for Michael and I, four for Kolby, two for Eli, and one for Camden.
And we have had hundreds of hours of laughing and fun, thousands of smiles, and lots of happy memories.
It’s been a great five years. Now we’ll just have to wait and see what the next five years have in store for us.
We have lived in four different apartments: our first one south of campus at BYU, our second in Wymount married student housing at BYU, our third was our 2-bedroom apartment in Mayfair Manor apartments in Milwaukee, and our fourth (and current) apartment is our 3-bedroom place in the same complex in Milwaukee. (Maybe our next home will actually be a house – we’ll see).
We have had four boys (all born within four years of each other): Kolby, Eli, Camden, and Isaac. So, we have eight little shoes, forty little fingers and forty little toes, sometimes eight crying eyes at the same time, often four cute little smiles, and always several diapers to change each day.
We have had four jobs and two internships: When we met, Michael was working for BYU’s IT Services and I was working for The Museum of Peoples and Cultures on campus. When we lived in San Diego for a summer Michael had an internship with a company that produced skin grafts for burn victims and diabetes patients and I had a fun job working in a scrapbooking store. Before we moved to Milwaukee I had an internship at the family history library at BYU. And after Michael’s first year of medical school he had a summer research position conducting telephone surveys to pharmacies and eventually compiling his research in a paper.
We have been to eight places: Beside living in Provo, Utah and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, we lived at my parents’ house in San Diego, California for a summer after we were married (and we had a fun day trip down to Tijuana, Mexico while we were there). We have also enjoyed fun trips to visit family in Boise, Idaho and Salt Lake City, Utah. And monthly trips to the temple in Chicago, Illinois makes that destination quite familiar to us. Other than the states that we drove through on our move out to Milwaukee and the places Michael has flown to for recent residency interviews, the other location we have visited is Nauvoo, Illinois for a fun family vacation a couple years ago.
We have received three degrees: Although I attended Ricks College in Idaho before I met Michael, I was still finishing up the last couple courses at BYU that I needed to transfer in order to receive my associate’s degree in social sciences from Ricks. Michael and I both later graduated from BYU – I got my bachelor’s degree in genealogy and Michael got his in microbiology with a minor in Spanish. And we are anticipating Michael’s degree from medical school in May 2008!
We have had five cars: We used Michael’s little red Ford Tempo while we were in Utah and Wisconsin until it died on us a couple years ago. We also had a blue Buick for a little while that my Grandma gave us when we were at BYU. When our friends, the Gordons, graduated and left Milwaukee they gave us their old car which we were able to sell for a few hundred dollars. After the Tempo died on us, we got a green Mercury Villager minivan. And then last year when Michael needed a car to get to and from his different rotations, we got a little blue Toyota Tercel from the Johnson’s when they were getting ready to graduate.
We have gone through four baby strollers: In preparation for having our first baby we got a little umbrella stroller and a bigger stroller that a car seat could hook into. And my friend gave us a hand-me-down double stroller when we had our second baby. Later on, after the double stroller was damaged on an airplane ride and the airline eventually paid to replace it, we got a triple stroller.
We have gone through five baby car seats: We had an infant seat that we used for Kolby, but when we were hit by a car the insurance company replaced that infant seat for us (Isaac’s car seat). We have also had two convertible toddler seats (now used by Camden and Eli), and a booster seat (Kolby’s).
We have had four computers: I had a computer during college and Michael had his dad’s old laptop (which we set up on top of a book shelf so Kolby couldn’t reach it when he was a toddler and he grabbed the chord and pulled it down and shattered the screen). We got our pc a couple years ago and Michael recently took advantage of the school’s offer to extend student loans to cover the cost of a laptop.
We have celebrated 17 birthdays: five each for Michael and I, four for Kolby, two for Eli, and one for Camden.
And we have had hundreds of hours of laughing and fun, thousands of smiles, and lots of happy memories.
It’s been a great five years. Now we’ll just have to wait and see what the next five years have in store for us.
28 December 2007
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.
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.
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