Boise

We went up to Boise for the weekend of Michael's birthday and his 10-year high school reunion. Here are pictures from him opening his birthday gifts, some pictures with friends at the reunion, then some at a little preserve in the park that we walked through after the reunion with a few friends where the boys got to see lots of fish, some that Jennie and Dalin took with the boys while we went out for Michael's birthday dinner, and a nice shot of Michael wearing the special birthday fish hat at McGrath's seafood restaurant when Dick and Debbie took us out for his birthday. It was a fun weekend, but way too quick -- I wish it wasn't a 5 or 6 hour drive to get there, so it wouldn't be so tiring to go visit for a weekend.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

"Big Old" Man

Well, we have had a fun week. Michael’s rheumatology rotation has been wonderful – allowing us to spend a lot of time together as a family these last few weeks. Last weekend we went down to Lehi and had dinner with Mel and Christian and Annette. That was really fun. Then on Thursday morning I took Isaac for his 9-month check up. I quite like the new pediatrician we have – she seems young and knowledgeable, and willing to take time to explain things if needed but not too long-winded when we are going over the basics. Isaac was 19 pounds and 31 inches long – tall and skinny just like his brothers. He is healthy, and everything was pretty routine, except we did express some concern that at 9 months old he had just barely started to sit up. She asked some questions, had some blood drawn (which came back totally normal), and gave us the number to call for a state agency that does physical therapy for babies. The doctor didn’t seem too concerned, just thought we should have him seen and maybe do some work with him to get him all caught up. I had a long phone call today with the person at the therapy agency (who I think is really nice), and she is coming to our house with a nurse and an educator to evaluate Isaac on September 9th. So that is good. (And, of course, over the last week since Isaac had his doctor’s appointment, he has become even more mobile – scooting and rolling all over, and even pulling himself up on little things like the bottom step of the basement stairs or the toy boxes – so I think it will be good to work on some exercises with him to get him crawling and walking when he should be, but I’m not concerned that he will have any long-lasting problems because of this. Kolby and Eli had swim lessons last week, and had a lot of fun, as always. I signed them up to do one more session of lessons before school starts, and Camden will be starting too, which I am really excited about since he would love to be in the water each time we go to watch his brothers swim. We have thought a lot about it, and I think we are going to have to take a break from swim lessons once school starts, unless we can come up with any other ideas. I am pretty frustrated with the fact that I can’t find AYNONE in the area at all who offers swim lessons year-round just once a week. In Milwaukee we took the boys one evening a week, all year round, to the pool at the YMCA and we really enjoyed that. But here I can’t find anything like that. Right now their lessons are on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but once they start preschool they won’t be able to go swimming during the day anymore, so the only option the rec. center offers is Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. I just think that doing preschool several days a week, plus we were hoping to get Kolby into piano lessons this year, and adding 3 days a week of swimming on top of that sounds like a lot for such little kids. I really don’t want to over-schedule our 3- and 4-year-old. But I have spent a lot of time searching on the internet and calling all the rec. centers, public pools, gyms, and several high schools with pools within a half hour drive of us, and have found none at all that offer swim lessons once a week. I would love to have my boys swim year round – they love it, it is fun for them, it is good exercise, it gets me to get out and swim with them more often than I otherwise would, and it’s a good skill for them to have for safety around water. We’ll see, but right now we just can’t figure out any way to make it work without making their lives way too busy. Well, on to something else: we drove up to Boise this weekend. It was Michael’s 10-year high school reunion and his 28th birthday on Saturday (I asked Kolby if 28 was old or young, and he said “Old.” I asked, “How old is it?” And he said “Big Old.” Way to go, Michael – you have finally attained the status of Big Old Man. :) We hit traffic on the drive up to Idaho Friday night, and got there late. It is a long drive through a lot of nothing to get from Salt Lake to Boise. But once we got there we had a lot of fun. Michael’s reunion was really fun – it was just a BBQ at a park, but we both enjoyed talking to his old friends for several hours. Then we went home and got to go out to dinner for Michael’s birthday with Dick, Debbie, and Grandma Bradshaw (thanks, Mindy, Dalin, and Jennie for watching the boys for us so we could do that). It was a really nice dinner at a restaurant called McGraths. Then on Sunday, after going to church, we enjoyed a lunch of taco salad (Michael’s favorite), with dutch oven peach cobbler for his birthday “cake.” The drive home was long again, especially since Michael had pulled a muscle in his back just before we left Boise, but luckily he said that the pain wasn’t as bad at the end of the drive as it had been at first. So, we got home safely and everything has gone well today. And we will have to enjoy this week, because next Monday Michael starts his internal medicine rotation, which will mean a lot more hours at the hospital and a lot less time off with the family. Hopefully that 4 weeks goes by quickly. Oh, and last week we did a couple other things too that I forgot to mention – I cut Kolby and Eli’s hair again. Eli’s needed a trim to make it short enough to spike again, and when I asked Kolby how he wanted his cut he said he wanted it “up straight” so he got spikes too. And the boys and I made a fun t-shirt for Michael for his birthday with the words “No 1 Dad” and each of the boys’ handprints on it. It turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I’ll have to post photos of that later too. Oh, and I hit 14 weeks today with the pregnancy. Just a quick update -- I am mostly over the morning sickness, as long as I get enough sleep and eat at certain times, and I have started taking a couple Flintstones children's vitamins a day as an alternative to prenatal vitamins, which has been working a lot better for me. So, things are going pretty well now.

Video Clips from Our Trip to Boise in December

And now it’s time to play catch-up on posting videos of the kids. These are all the ones from our trip to Boise in December (except for the ones of the boys playing with Michael and Mindy that I posted last month). It was fun to watch these clips as I got ready to post them, especially since I hadn’t even seen all of the ones before that Annette took. These videos are of Isaac smiling, Eli climbing up Mindy’s legs and flipping over, Dalin teaching the boys how to do push-ups, and Camden at the Discovery center in Boise. Enjoy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Bedtime Routine

These video clips are from when we were in Boise in December. Michael and his little sister, Mindy, were having a lot of fun playing with the boys before bedtime. (And people wonder why my children are wild???) The funniest thing to me is that Michael likes to play like this, and then when he gets tired he says, "ok, that's enough" and expects them to calm down and get ready for bed. Although I'm sure they wish this was their nightly routine, it's probably good that it's not. They sure had fun, though!

Free MySpace slideshows, photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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.

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:

Dick and Isaac:

Kolby:

Eli chillin' on the slide:

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.

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:

Eli on a 'bed of nails':

Kolby helping a dog in the veterinary office:

Isn't this the cutest picture ever?

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:

Isaac:

Camden giving Isaac kisses:

Photos from our Boise Trip

I haven't really posted any photos since we went to Boise on December 1st. Now that it is January and we are not in Boise any longer, I thought I'd start posting the photos from this first leg of our trip. Enjoy!

Arriving in the Boise airport:

Kolby and Eli with Grandpa Dick:

Camden and Kolby crashed after the plane ride:

Kolby and Eli making cookies with Grandma:

Eli helping to set up the Christmas tree:

Kolby helping too:

Grandma Debbie with baby Isaac:

Camden playing the piano:

Kolby just wanted us to take a picture of the shapes he made,

but he did not want to be in the picture:

Grandpa was working on a project and there were two little extra pieces of sticky black velcro that he stuck on Camden's eyebrows. Everyone got a kick out of how funny he looked:

Eli playing with puzzles:

Aunt Mindy's 16th birthday:

Kolby helping Aunt Jennie do the dishes:

The boys with Santa at a church Christmas party:

Isaac in his BYU sweatshirt:

Tummy Time:

What a Sweetheart:

A new haircut for Kolby (after a quick trim went wrong):

Hmmm . . . maybe it's time for Eli to get a haircut too:

Eli's haircut:

Isaac loves his pacifier:

Smiles:

Well, it's 1:30 in the morning, so I'll have to post some more of the photos from Boise later.

Pyloric Stenosis

Since we came to Boise on December 1st Isaac has started spitting up. All of our boys have actually spit up quite a bit when they were babies, but this is different. He has done it about once a day and it is very forceful – kind of a projectile spit up. At first we thought that it was just because he was kind of stuffy, but it has continued for a while now. Michael mentioned once that he was the right age for symptoms to start showing for some medical condition, but honestly I didn’t really think much of that comment because every once in a while Michael learns about medical problems and then wonders if he or one of our family members may have them.

So, after this went on for a while, we were starting to wonder if it might be something more than just his reaction to being really stuffy or something. We were at Cass and Marci Smith’s house for dinner last week (Cass is a pediatric GI doctor), and Michael and Cass talked that night about the condition Michael had mentioned earlier, Pyloric Stenosis. Cass said he thought we should keep an eye on him and keep that in mind. I took Isaac in and had him weighed yesterday morning. He was weighed a couple days before we came out here, and he had lost about 7 ounces since then, and babies his age are generally supposed to gain about an ounce a day, our pediatrician told me. I called our pediatrician in Milwaukee, and he also thought that it was possible that Isaac could be showing signs of Pyloric Stenosis, and that we should have him seen by a doctor here. (I guess this shows me that Michael is really becoming a real doctor and I should pay more attention to his ideas about medical problems).

So, I took him into the emergency room yesterday (our insurance will only cover emergency room visits when we are out of state, so we couldn’t just find a pediatrician here to see him). We were there all day, and Debbie was nice enough to watch the other boys for me while I went (since Michael was on an airplane all day). In the emergency room, they weighed Isaac, took his history, and decided to have an ultrasound done to see if he had this Pyloric Stenosis. I had read a little about the condition on the internet before taking him in. Basically, it is when the muscle of the pylorus (the tube that empties into the stomach) gets too thick, and makes it so that the milk does not enter the stomach like it should. This condition is much more common in boys than in girls, and the symptoms are projectile vomiting, the baby loosing (or at least not gaining) weight, and the baby often appearing otherwise healthy (unless it progresses to where the baby is not keeping anything down, and then the baby can come dehydrated and lethargic). So, they did an ultrasound of his stomach and measured the thickness of the pyloric muscle. They told me that his pylorus looked elongated and was measuring between 2.5 and 3 mm thick, which is thicker than normal. But they said that it would measure 3.5 mm if it were true Pyloric Stenosis, which would require a surgical procedure to fix.

So, the doctor said that we would just watch him and see how he does. Isaac was seen by an ER doctor and a pediatric surgeon, and they told me that this problem will either go away after a few weeks when he may just grow out of it, or that it may develop into true Pyloric Stenosis and require the surgery if the spitting up were to continue and get worse. I talked to the surgeon this morning, and he did say that the majority of babies with this problem will develop true Pyloric Stenosis before they are 2 months old, so hopefully if Isaac doesn’t worsen in the next couple weeks, he will just get over it and we won’t have to worry about it any more. He hasn’t spit up like that for a day now, so I am hoping that it will just go away and we won’t have to do anything more for it. Poor little guy he’s already had enough surgeries for a 7-week old baby, he doesn’t need one more.

December 9th, 2007

I am in the Chicago O’Hare airport waiting for my connection flight to Harrisburg, PA for a dermatology interview tomorrow in Danville, PA, about 1 hour north of Harrisburg. My scheduled flight to Harrisburg was cancelled due to bad weather out there (I think), and I got rescheduled for a flight later on tonight and put on standby for one later on this afternoon. So I get to spend the afternoon in the airport. :) Hopefully I get there ok.

Our family is now in Boise for the month of December and has been there for a week now. I am doing a month-long rotation with Dr. Randall Burr, a dermatologist that I know here, and I started with him on Monday. This week has been really fun as I have been able to follow and learn from him and help out from time to time. He has a very busy clinic, with regular clinic days on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and then surgery days on Wednesday and Friday. He sees about 70-80 patients/day on his regular clinic days and does about 15 procedures on his surgery days – probably the busiest dermatologist I’ve seen. He loves what he does and is very good at it, so it is really nice to learn from him. Mostly I have been shadowing, but sometimes I take patients back to the rooms and get the history of why they are there, and then on the surgery days I have helped with cutting sutures and have even had a few chances to suture myself, which was really fun.

Tuesday after we finished with clinic I went with Dr. Burr to a monthly dermatology conference that is held at St. Luke’s in downtown Boise with all the local dermatologists. Several bring in patients with really hard or odd skin problems, and the group talks about suggestions of what those patients might have and how to treat and help them.

I also got a few more dermatology interviews this week – to University of Rochester in New York and University of Florida in Gainesville – so now I have 10 total dermatology interviews. We are so excited. Steph and I have spent a lot of time this week working on flights, hotels, and rental cars for all of these interviews. I also wrote my thank you notes to my interviewers at Scott and White in Temple, TX for the interview I had there last week. This next week is pretty busy with interviews: I am flying today to Danville, PA for a dermatology interview tomorrow; to Spokane, WA tomorrow for a transitional year interview on Tuesday; to Milwaukee, WI on Wednesday for a derm interview on Thursday; driving to Chicago, IL on Friday for a derm interview on Saturday; and then flying to Los Angeles, CA next Sunday for a derm interview next Monday – whew!! After returning to Boise for a couple days, I will have a transitional year interview in Salt Lake City, UT, and then I will be done with the interviews I have scheduled so far for this month, and will have a little break before the interviews start up again in January.

We have also had some fun this week with friends from Boise. Last Sunday we went to Layne and Debbie Bennion’s house (an uncle and aunt) for toffee and hot chocolate after the First Presidency Christmas devotional. We met with Neil and Becky Wall (one of my cousins) and decided to play games together this week. We ended up playing Cities and Knights of Catan with them at their house on Friday night after putting the kids to bed. It was really fun. Earlier that afternoon, we took the kids to the YMCA to swim. They have an awesome toddler pool at this YMCA, with slides and fountains and water at a perfect height for our boys. They also had a waterslide that I could go down with the boys on my lap (one at a time) that was so much fun. We’ll definitely be returning there to play some more.

Thursday night we went over to Bryce and Emily Christensen’s house for dinner and talking. Bryce and I went to high school together. They have two children as well, so our boys had fun playing with them. Kolby and Eli are usually pretty good about not getting into too many things. Camden is our baby now who loves to get into everything and either try to tear it up or eat it, so we had to watch him. Kim Woodings (another friend from high school) showed up after dinner, and we all had fun just catching up on each other’s lives, since it has been two years since we had seen any of them.

Yesterday we took the boys to the dollar store so they could get little Christmas presents for each other. I took Kolby with me and Steph took Eli with her so that the presents they chose could be a surprise for each of them. They really enjoyed that. Then we ended up at the mall and found some really cute sweaters and hats for the boys (using their Christmas money from my parents and Grandma Faun). I also found some new shoes for work. The brand is Dansko, and several people over the last few years have recommended them to me because they are so comfortable to wear, especially when you are on your feet all day for surgical procedures, and especially for someone like me with plantar fasciitis (pain in the bottom of my feet). The only reason I hadn’t gotten any before is because of the price – about $120. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than $30 on shoes before, but my feet have been aching so much lately that I need something. The salesman said I can wear them around the house for the next few weeks to try them out and see if I like them, and then return them if I don’t, as long as I don’t wear them outside. And he said they are supposed to last 10-15 years, so we’ll see. I tried them around the house last night and they were really nice.

My parents took us and our boys to see The Bee Movie yesterday afternoon. It was cute and I think the boys really liked it. Then we went to dinner last night at Cass and Marci Smith’s home. They used to live in Milwaukee and recently moved out to Boise for him to start his first job as a pediatric gastroenterologist (a gut doctor). They have a beautiful home and we had so much fun catching up with them and our kids had so much fun playing together.

Well, I'd better go check and see if any of the flights or gates have changed – they seem to like to do that at the Chicago O’Hare airport. Hopefully I get to Pennsylvania in time for my interview tomorrow.

In Boise

So, we’ve gotten a little behind, since we usually try to write about our week each Sunday, and it is Michael’s turn to write this week but he has just been too busy during the days and too tired at night the last couple days, so I’ll do it this time. So, last week Michael had his first derm interview down in Texas, and he was really impressed with their program – he liked their emphasis on surgery and how family-friendly their program seemed to be. He was also attracted by the low cost of housing there [I told him that since we aren’t planning on settling in Texas permanently it might be difficult in 4 years to have to downgrade to a smaller house when moving to a different state, but still it might be nice to be able to afford a nice-sized house for a few years at least.] I also wouldn’t mind moving to someplace warm, although everyone says that some parts of Texas get miserably humid in the summer, but I don’t know if Temple Texas is in one of the more humid areas or not. So, we’ll see.

Camden had his 15-month doctor’s check up this week also (he’s not that old yet, but they scheduled it early so he could get his shots before we left town). He seems healthy, other than a perpetual runny nose, and the doctor commented that even though Camden seems so big for his age, that he is not as high up on the growth curves for his weight as he is for his height. Isaac also had his circumcision on Thursday morning, and it took me a while to calm him down after he had it, but he has seemed fine since then. I also had my 6-week check-up after having the baby (this sure was a week full of doctor’s appointments!) I was pleased to find out that I had lost all of the baby-weight from Isaac’s pregnancy (now I just need to work on the weight that I never lost from Eli and Camden’s pregnancies, but still I felt pretty good about that since I haven’t even been trying to lose weight yet with all that has been going on).

On Saturday morning we got up around 3:30am for our morning flight. We spent Thursday and Friday packing for the trip, and got it all into 8 bags (but it was really less than 8 suitcases, because several were just carry-on-sized bags that we decided to check rather than carry on to the plane). So we did pretty well – 8 bags, 4 car seats, and a stroller for a 2-month trip with six people – I even had room to pack my ski boots and ski helmet. So, we got up early Saturday morning and the Kearls took us to the airport, which was so nice of them to get up (and get their kids up) that early for us!!! We got on the plane alright and the flights went pretty well. My grandma was on the first flight with us, and she got off in Salt Lake. We had to rush in between our two flights because the snow in Salt Lake slowed down our first flight so they called a cart to drive us from one end of the airport to the other to catch our second flight. We were the last ones on the plane, and then after we got on it pulled away from the gate and sat on the runway for about half an hour before it was de-iced and we could take off. We got to Boise a little while later. All in all, it was a good trip – some of the boys cried a little off and on, but none of them cried for an hour nonstop (which has happened to me on past flights).

When we arrived, we went straight from the airport to a singing recital for Michael’s youngest sister, Mindy. Then we left after Mindy’s song so that we could go to a bridal shower for Michael’s other sister, Jennie, that was being thrown by her fiancé’s family. While I was at the shower, Michael unpacked all of our bags and the boys got to play with their grandpa. It is not as cold here as it was in Boise, and the boys have been able to play in the back yard a couple times, which has been really nice for them to get out. And we got to meet Jennie’s fiancé, Dalin, who seems like a nice guy. On Sunday we went to church, which went pretty well, except for Camden getting a bad case of diarrhea (caused by the antibiotic that the doctor gave us for his runny nose), but he has finally started to get over that today. At church we spent some of the time with the two youngest boys in the hallway, but got to attend part of all three meetings, so that was nice. We also got to talk to a couple old friends, and it will be fun to try to get together with them while we are here. That night we got to watch the First Presidency’s Christmas Fireside. We decided to watch it at home on the computer since taking the boys to church and trying to get them to sit still and quiet for an hour might be difficult. It was kind of crazy at home with the boys talking and crying, but we tried. After the fireside we went to Layne and Debbie Bennion’s house, Michael’s uncle and aunt, and got together for their annual tradition of hot chocolate and toffee. We got to see some of Michael’s cousins, and we talked with Becky and Neil Wall for quite a while. (It was fun to meet Becky after she and I have been in touch over e-mail for a while). We are planning on getting together with them sometime soon.

On Monday Michael started his derm rotation with Dr. Burr and he is enjoying it. Tonight he went to a derm conference in downtown Boise with Dr. Burr that is supposed to present a lot of really interesting cases, so it is nice that he gets to spend time this month doing what he is really interested in. On Monday evening we were invited to family home evening at Bryce and Emily Christensen’s house, but they called before we left to say their daughter had fallen and cut above her eye and they needed to take her in to see if she needed stitches, so we’ll have to get together with them later on. For our family home evening activity last night we ended up setting up the Christmas tree, and we will decorate it sometime this week. The boys should have fun doing that. Today we took the boys to the playgroup at the church, but it was cancelled because the carpets were being cleaned in the building so we took them to an indoor play area at a Burger King nearby instead. The boys had a lot of fun with that. When we got home I helped Debbie to get photos of all the family members for a calendar she is having printed. And now all 4 boys are napping – it sure is thoughtful of them to sleep at the same time so that I can write this.

So, Isaac sure has been great since we got here! When he was in the NICU they put him on a schedule of eating every 3 hours, and he had stuck to that schedule pretty much since then. So, after he got up several times the first night we were here, I decided that I needed to adjust his eating schedule. With my other boys I always nursed them every 4 hours from the time they were born, and they were fine, so I decided to switch Isaac to every 4 hours. I thought that if he acting hungry after 3 hours, we could just hold him and play with him to try to hold him off until it reached 4 hours since he last ate (because he is pretty content with being held, and he doesn’t cry much so I thought we could hold him off without much trouble). We did that all day and he did just fine with it, and then he went for 4 and 5 hours between bottles that night. The next day he did great again and last night he went for 5 ½ hours, got up once to eat, and then went another 5 ½ hours before he got up in the morning. I can’t believe what a wonderful baby he is. I guess, now that I think about it, all of my boys have been really good as babies, but I didn’t expect Isaac to switch his schedule so quickly just because I decided that he should. It has been nice to be able to sleep with minimal interruptions, and I hope it continues.

Oh, and Kolby said something pretty cute the other day. While we were having dinner Sunday night Dick asked Kolby what he learned in his class at church that day. Kolby told him about a song they sang about Joseph Smith going to Neverland. We all laughed and none of us could figure out what he was talking about. So, later on that night we were listening to Christmas songs and he said something about Joseph in Bethlehem – that’s what he meant earlier. How cute!

Preschool Update

So, last night we ended up signing Kolby up for preschool at the YMCA. We decided that it was still the best option, even with the extra fees, and didn't want to wait around until the classes may have already filled up. I am still hoping that something might come of the letters and phone calls that I (and other displeased parents) have made, but I doubt it.

Kolby will be starting his classes on September 17th. He will be taking two classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings (the third music class we were planning on signing him up for is not being offered anymore). After hearing that the other local preschool that has been recommended to us by other friends from church costs $1300 for one school year, and that is only for 2 days a week; we decided that paying $60 for Kolby to go for the fall session isn't too terrible (although we still weren't very happy paying the extra fee, since it was more than we had originally planned for in our budget). We just really felt like Kolby needed to do something this year, rather than just staying home.

He will miss the end of the fall session when we go to Boise in December, so it is too bad to be paying for time that he won't get to attend the classes, but oh well. And we will just have to decide what to do for the winter session. We were planning on signing Kolby and Eli up then, since Eli will be old enough to attend once he has turned three in January. So the fee will be twice as much for the two boys, (but I guess that's still less than some people are paying for other preschools for just one child). But the winter session probably starts in the beginning of January, and we won't get back from San Diego until January 30th, so I don't know if there's any way to get the boys in for part of the winter session once we get back or not. We'll have to wait and see. Anyways, I said that I would keep family members updated on what we ended up deciding to do with this whole preschool thing, so here it is.

Final Yearbook Page

Well, as I mentioned before, I spent a while making a personal yearbook page for Michael's yearbook. The other day Michael looked through some photos with me, and we decided to change a couple of the little photos on the border. So, I was just waiting until we went to pick up Michael's portrait from the studio, so I could scan that and add it to the yearbook page and be all done with it. I picked up his portrait last night, which turned out great! So, this morning I scanned the portrait and went to add it to the yearbook page, and to my great frustration the yearbook page was not saved on my computer. All the photos I had used on it were right there, in the folder titled "Yearbook," right on my desktop – but no yearbook page. I don't know how it could have accidentally gotten deleted, especially since we were just looking at it a few days ago. So, after totally starting over from scratch, I have taken all morning to re-make the yearbook page. I am pretty tired of it by now, after making it twice -- but at least I didn't have to go through and decide a second time on which photos to use for the page, because I guess that really took the most time when I made the original page. Anyways, here is how it turned out:

And here is Michael’s portrait that will be used not only for the yearbook, but also sent along with his applications for all of his residency programs that he will be applying to in the upcoming months. Isn’t he so handsome?

The Perfect Schedule

Well, about a month ago Michael got his schedule of rotations for his 4th year, but some changes had to be made because one of the required classes was missing from his schedule. He had to wait until this week, when they opened up the website for students to make schedule changes, and we were a little worried that the only time that required class might be available was during the months when we were planning on being out of town for an away-rotation and a vacation month, and that would have messed everything up. But Michael said that someone must have been praying for us, because when he got onto the computer, all the rotations he needed/wanted happened to be available in the exact months that he was hoping for. So, he rearranged the schedule a bit, and we were very pleased with how it turned out. He could always make changes later, if he decides to choose a different rotation one month, but we were glad that for now we got everything worked out.

So, he’ll start with Dermatology in July. We are glad that he got Derm his first month, because that way he can decide for sure if that’s what he wants to go into or not. And they will need to be decided on a specialty in the next couple months because applications for residency interviews will begin. In August he has Ambulatory Medicine. And in September he has his Medicine Sub I – a sub-internship is when a 4th-year student takes on the responsibilities of a 1st-year resident (intern). So for his two Sub I months 4th year he will have a more demanding schedule. In October he has one called, Family and Community Medicine: Promoting Health in Urban Underserved Communities. In November Michael has tried to get a rotation with an easier schedule since we will have a new baby at home, and he signed up for one that he heard wasn’t too bad: Pediatric Radiology. We will be going to Boise for the month of December and Michael will be doing another Dermatology rotation there with a Dermatologist who is a family friend of theirs, who Michael has shadowed in the past. We will be staying with Michael’s family and then we will be there for Christmas. We have heard that the months of December and January will be the busiest for Michael with his interviews, so he will be flying/driving to interviews a lot those two months. In January we are taking one of our two vacation months, and will be staying with my family in San Diego. It will be nice to avoid some of the long winter months of Milwaukee. In February Michael has a rotation in Infectious Diseases. And in March he will be doing Plastic Surgery for his Surgery Sub I. In mid-March we will find out where Michael has matched for his residency. In April we will take our second month of vacation so that we will have time to go look for housing wherever we may be moving. And in May Michael has signed up for an easy course that everyone takes, called Preparing for Internship.

So, we are very excited for this upcoming year and all the new experiences it will bring for our family. And we can’t believe that medical school has gone by so quickly – although, I assure you that there were times when it did not seem to be going by very quickly at all. But as we have been watching lots of our friends who just graduated make preparations and move away, it has been amazing to us that we will know where we will be going for the next four years in less than a year now. Michael will be graduating, and he will officially be a doctor. And our little family is starting to grow up too. With the next place we move to, we will not only need to consider finding a nice house and it’s location relating to the hospital where Michael works, but we will also need to look into the reputations of the local school districts for the boys. Wow. I remember moving here, and seeing the 4th years moving out and thinking how much they knew and how long they had been in medical school, and now we are almost there. And now we are looking forward to residency – a whole new adventure.