ER is over

Today was the last day of my ER rotation. That’s 5 of the 13 rotations for this year done. Yeah!! The ER was nice – I worked 21 eight hour shifts and had 7 days off. The shifts ranged from 7am-3pm, 9am-5pm, 2pm-10pm, 5pm-1am, and 11pm-7am. I saw quite an array of people with lots of differing personalities and problems, ranging from no reason for being in the ER to every reason for being there and very sick. Here are examples of some of the more interesting things I saw:

An older man who had a tumor growing on his head for a year before seeing a doctor finally because it was giving him headaches and leaking lots of junk on his shirts. It was about 5 inches wide and 1-2 inches deep and was eating into his bone. We took a biopsy and he ended up having a really bad squamous cell skin cancer. He will need a lot of work with plastic surgery to try and fix it.

A teenage girl who came in 1 week after being diagnosed with strep throat with no other medical problems. She was put on an antibiotic and had a rash appear on her stomach and the front of her legs, and we thought it was just a reaction to the antibiotic. We got some basic labs that came back showing signs of cancer. Further testing showed she had a new leukemia (blood cancer).

A lady had back surgery about 10 days before and had gone to a rehab center. She was not having very many bowel movements and started having a lot of pain and bloating in her abdomen. She ended up having a hole in her large intestine from all the pressure that had built up and was quite sick from it. The CT scan of her belly showed lots of air in her abdomen (a really bad sign) and she was rushed to the OR, where a large part of her bowel was taken out and she was in the ICU on a ventilator for almost a week afterwards recovering.

A man who was wheeled in by EMS with really bad chest pain. We were sitting in the other room and heard, “I need a doctor and nurse in the room now!!” so I rushed in after the attending doctor to watch. The patient had stopped breathing and had an abnormal heart rhythm. The doc ran in and gave a large thump with his fist to the man’s chest while the machine was getting ready to shock him. I think he ended up being shocked 3-4 times before he came around and said “Ouch!” with the last one. He was rushed up to cardiology to get a rapid procedure to look at the blood vessels to his heart, and they found a giant clot blocking the main vessel in his heart. He is so lucky because if he had been at home when he lost consciousness, he wouldn’t have had the machine there to shock him, and so he probably would be dead.

A lady who got something in her eye from raking leaves. We placed a fluorescent dye on her eye and then used a machine called a slit lamp to look at her cornea to see if there were any abrasions (cuts), which would fluoresce a light green color, and I got to see it.

I got to suture (sew) up a few people’s lacerations – one on an eyebrow and one on a head – all by myself, which was so much fun.

I would go see the patient, then talk with the doctor over me, and we would talk about the possible things going on and decide what labs or other tests to order. It was a nice month because the ER is run by the attending doctors, and we are there more to learn than to run it. So we could go a little slower and take time to learn about our patients. I also enjoyed the people I worked with.

There were some frustrating things that would keep me from choosing ER as a career: 1) I saw firsthand the problems that our current healthcare system has with respect to the ER – so many people who use it as their primary care office because they don’t have insurance so they don’t go to a regular doctor, which drives the premiums and taxes up for everyone else; 2) I got annoyed by people who use the ER like McDonalds: they think they can come in, pick and choose (sometimes demand) what tests they want ordered or what pain medicines they want, and then get mad when things are not done as fast as they like because they need to be somewhere else; 3) I don’t like the lack of continuity of care while working in the ER – you see patients, figure out what is going on with them, and then send them out, and it is hard to know what happens to them. I guess if anything this year continues to make me more and more excited for the upcoming training when I will get to learn dermatology, which I am liking more and more the more I see of it.

In other news, Kolby has now done 2 weeks of piano and loves it. He can already play a song that is recognizable (“Merrily we roll along”). The boys had doctor’s appointments this week for well-child checks and they all seem to be doing well. We went on Thursday to JC Penney to get a family picture that we will send out for Christmas. The lady who did our session was the same one who had taken the pictures of the boys in their Halloween costumes a few weeks ago, which turned out so cute, and she was so good again this time – we want her to do it for us every time we go. I can’t wait to get the pictures back – they turned out so nice. Thursday night was Daddy-Eli night and we went to see Wall-E together. Eli was so excited to get a little bag of popcorn and watch the movie on the big screen. We took the van in for a $20 oil change on Friday that ended up costing about $400 – the area where you put the key in locked up and so we had to have a locksmith go to the car place and replace that; the battery was dying and needed to be replaced; and we got the oil change. At lease that van works so well for us most of the time. Yesterday Kolby had a practice for his primary program that he participated in at church today. We had dinner tonight at the Eccles, a family in our ward. The kids had so much fun playing together and we had fun just talking. It has been a pleasant evening and a nice week.

Plastic Surgery and Minivans

This week I started my last hard rotation of my last year of medical school. It is what the school calls the surgery sub-internship. I did my medicine sub-internship in September and that was very busy and taxing, so I assumed this would be similar. We enjoyed my free time last month and were preparing ourselves for having the kids not see much of me. So we were pleasantly surprised to find (at least this week) that things were not as bad as we had envisioned. True, I have had to wake up a lot earlier (around 4:30-5:00 each morning) and stay a little later, but it has usually been until 5 or 6 pm rather than the 9 or 10pm that we had thought. I only have to be on overnight call 3 weeknights during the month, and that is home call (which means I can go home and they will page me if they need me). I did my first home call Tuesday night and wasn’t called in. Then I have to go in 2 Saturday mornings this month, but I get all the rest of the weekend days off. That is mainly because there are two 3rd year medical students on this month as well, so we get to split up all the call between the 3 of us. I guess what I am saying is that I have had a lot more home time than we expected.

And the time at the hospital has been nice too. We have a really good team and everyone seems to get along great. Plus, I have come to find out that plastic surgeons get to do some pretty cool surgeries. This week I saw a couple of broken fingers that were fixed with titanium plates and screws; the start of breast reconstruction for a lady that had to have hers removed for breast cancer; a skin graft to a wound on a lady’s lower leg; and a medial thigh lift for a lady that had lost 100 pounds after having stomach bypass surgery and now had lots of leftover folds of skin. They have quite a variety of “toys” and so many things they need to know. So I have really been enjoying the time in the hospital as well.

I just wish the time would go by a little faster. This is because one week from tomorrow we will find out if we matched into a dermatology residency program, and one week from Thursday we will find out where we will be for the next 4 years (depending on how the match turns out). We feel really good about our choices, but it still is a time of high anxiety as we try to anticipate where the Lord will want us to be next.

This week we also had to make a big decision about our minivan. About 2 weeks ago the van was hit in the back while Steph was dropping off the boys at preschool. The insurance company of the man who hit the van had us drop it off at a body shop on Monday with the intent to replace the back door and bumper and gave us a rental car for a few days to get by. Well, they found that there was a lot more damage than anticipated, so ultimately, they decided that we could choose to have them do the work and give us the van back, or total the van and cut us a check. We think this mishap has come as a huge blessing, seeing as that van has given us so much trouble since we got it. So we plan to have it totaled, and with the money that they will give us, along with our tax refund, we decided to go out and look for a newer and nicer van to replace our old electrical lemon. We went out van shopping yesterday and found one that we really like. It is a gold 2001 Chrysler Town and Country Limited with automatic sliding doors, a 4 disc CD player, and many other nice gadgets and toys. And above all, it seems to run nicely and is in our price range. We are having the financial work processed this weekend, and if everything works out, we can probably get it sometime during this next week. We will have to make car payments for a little while, but it will be minimal because of the money we can put down. We are really excited for this change in fortune. Heavenly Father continues to watch out for our needs and finds ways to bless us when we try to do what is right.

We also had fun playing some games this week. We had the Kearls over Friday night and played lots of games. The kids get along so well and we have so much fun together. They watched our kids for us while we went van shopping Saturday morning, and then Tyce and I stayed at his place to watch some of the kids while Steph and Faith took the others to Sofia’s birthday party at Gymboree. Then we played some more games last night. It has been a very enjoyable weekend.

Monday for family home evening we decided to start memorizing a scripture each month, and we thought it would be good to start with the Articles of Faith, so we are working on the first one: “We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.” I love these simple statements of what we believe. Steph did a lesson on service and we decided that we want to come up with a service project that we can do this next month for someone and help the boys to see how they feel when we do the service.

Today the theme in sacrament meeting was forgiveness. And in the last hour of classes we talked about repentance. In Sunday school we focused on some of the main teachings of Isaiah, including about temples, the gathering of Israel, and his testimony of Jesus as our Savior. I am so grateful for the scriptures we have and all the testimonies they contain about the mission of Jesus and why He should be of so much importance in our lives. We are so excited because Camden gets to start nursery classes next week – maybe we will be able to get even more out of our weekly meetings then!

Thoughts on Moving

So, as Match Day is approaching I have been thinking more and more about moving. For those of you not familiar with how medical students end up in a residency program after graduation, here’s a quick explanation: The students apply for residency programs and then wait to get invitations for interviews. After interviews are over, each student makes a rank list of all the programs they interviewed with in order of preference, and turns in their lists in February. Each residency program also ranks the students that they interviewed. Then a computer takes all the lists and uses an algorithm to match every graduating student in the country with a residency program. Ideally, a competitive student would get their top choice, but many get one lower down on their list. So, on March 20th all the students come in and each one gets their name called and goes up to get an envelope that contains the results of the match. And that is a contract (you have to go at least for the first year, and you are expected to stay with that program for the remainder of the residency).

So, it is a very interesting time right now, while we wait for Match Day. We have quite a few choices of where to go, and most of them are very good programs that would be good places for Michael to do his residency. We are pretty confident that we will match somewhere, but we’re really not sure which program we are likely to match with. So, being in innate planner that I am, I have a bunch of different questions and thoughts all running through my mind about all the places that we might possibly end up:

• We are going to have to figure out all the stuff for school for Kolby wherever we go. We really aren’t old enough to have a kid old enough to be starting school, are we?
• If we went to Texas, I’ve heard we could afford a house, but would we be able to sell it without a problem when we leave after residency?
• If we went to Pennsylvania, how would it be living in a small town? We could do lots of outdoor things, except when it’s too cold in the winter. But we could also take trips and do all the East Coast stuff.
• How are we going to get wherever we go? We have the van and the car – and driving separately on a long move doesn’t really appeal to me. Is it worth it to take that car with us, or should we just sell it to yet another medical student? But we don’t really want a car payment at this point if we can help it.
• What if we happened to end up in New York City, how would we be able to afford to live there? But wouldn’t it be so cool to live near all those great sites in the histories of our country and our church?
• How is it going to be to move into a normal family ward after being here with all the other student families who are in our same situation? Are we going to be the only young family in the ward? Will we be the busiest/noisiest/wildest family in the ward with all our little boys?
• How humid is it in north-central Florida? Would the humidity be better than living someplace with a really cold winter? We could take a day trip to the beach. :)
• What kind of insurance coverage are we going to have, and how will I figure that all out?
• What if we went to San Diego for a year? There are so many things I would love about that. We would be with family, save money on rent for a down payment on a house, and be able to enjoy the beautiful weather there. Where would we put our furniture and the things we wouldn’t need there?
• If we move someplace for a transition year before the derm residency starts – it will take a lot of effort to get to know everyone and unpack and get settled in, just to pick up and move again a year later.
• Rochester, New York would be amazing, but cold. But when are we ever going to have a chance again to live on the East Coast?
• Wouldn’t it be cool to have a house and a yard? I could decorate and we could plant a garden and the kids could play in the yard. But we are pretty ignorant about buying a house – how will we figure all that out? We would have to buy all the big appliances and worry about maintenance and upkeep.
• What kinds of things are there to do in Ohio? I bet it would be similar there to Milwaukee.
• Maybe our van would actually run ok if we moved to someplace warm – it runs fine in the summer here, but in the cold winter weather it frequently needs to be jumped and lately has started to kill sometimes when we stop at traffic lights, even though we have replaced the battery several times and no mechanic can figure out the problem. We’ll see.
• Salt Lake would mean we could live in my grandma’s finished basement (which is larger than our current apartment), and save up money for a house. But the transition year there said their interns are busier at the hospital than some other programs – it would probably be ok, but Michael’s going to be gone enough as it is, so would I really want him to be more busy than he might somewhere else?
• Tonight the temperature here in Milwaukee is in the negatives. Just about any place would have to have a better climate than this, right? :) Too bad for the winters here – otherwise Milwaukee would be a rather nice place to live.
• How are we ever going to find friends as good as the ones here?
• I feel like there are so many things to be thinking about, and I am just scratching the surface. I wonder what else there is to figure out that I haven’t even thought of yet. I just have to keep myself from really thinking about it too much, since I can’t do anything but wait at this point.

I am excited about starting out someplace new, but at the same time I am feeling rather sad that we will likely be leaving our friends here in Milwaukee and will not see many of them again. This is an exciting time for us coming up, so it will be really interesting to see how it all turns out.

Last Dermatology Interview

I had my last dermatology interview this week and got to see New York City for the first time – too bad I didn’t have more time to enjoy the sights. I guess I’ll have to return with the rest of my family so they can enjoy it too. I flew out early Tuesday morning on a direct flight from San Diego to JFK in New York – a very long flight, but nice not to get stuck in a layover city. I then proceeded to use the NY subway for the first time and did fine. I had to go straight from the airport to the interview dinner. The residents were really nice and the food was really good.

I stayed with a friend of a friend on the upper northwest side of Manhattan, just off of 168th and Broadway. Erin McKinley is a girl I have met on the dermatology interview trail, and she said if I ever got an interview in New York City to email so I could have a free place to stay. Well, it turns out that she was out of town this week interviewing, but she emailed some of her friends from school and found another couple, Jordan and Mary Jacobs, who volunteered to let me crash at their place. They are probably one of the nicest couples I’ve ever met and were so nice to let me stay and have a fun time while in New York – thanks you guys. They have an 8 month old, Manny, in a 1 bedroom, so it is pretty cramped, but they are on the 26th floor with a really cool view of midtown Manhattan.

My interview went well on Wednesday. I really liked the program, but it would be very difficult to live with 4 kids in New York City. The program offers subsidized housing, but even then a 2 bedroom apartment would cost about $2200/month – ouch!! (And there aren't any 3 bedrooms). But New York City is a cool place. After the interview, I walked along the south side of Central Park and over to the Rockefeller center, where I rode an elevator up 87 stories to get to the roof, where I was able to get an awesome 360 degree view of Manhattan, with the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty off to one side and Central Park on the other – way cool. When I got back to Jordan and Mary’s, they ordered some Dominican food and we had a fun night just talking and enjoying delicious food.

It has been nice to spend the rest of this week with the family here in San Diego, especially with the wonderful beautiful 50-70 degree weather. I have really enjoyed just getting up in the mornings and playing with the boys – both here at the house and around the area. Friday we walked to a park that is near the home and enjoyed the pleasant weather while the boys played in the sand and on the playground. Then we had some fun looking through some model condos there by the park – very nice. And yesterday was the 160th anniversary of the Mormon Battalion arriving in San Diego, so they had lots of fun activities for the kids down in Old Town San Diego. The boys got to make bricks, rope, biscuits on a stick that they could eat with freshly churned butter and jam, and pioneer dolls; play pioneer instruments; pan for 'gold;' and take pictures dressed at pioneers. Then we had lunch at a really yummy Mexican restaurant. Last night Matthew, Aaron, and I enjoyed relaxing in the hot tub while it was raining. We challenged each other to do different things in the cold swimming pool water (which was about 50 degrees), like sliding down the slide, or seeing who could sit waist deep in the cold water the longest – it was really fun.

It was also nice to go to church together today again as a whole family. I have been on or traveling to interviews for several of the past weekends so have not been with the family for church. We heard some really good talks on forgiveness and learned about the early life of Joseph Smith and his vision of Heavenly Father and Jesus that brought about the restoration of His gospel to the earth. Such a neat story.

Interview Season

I am writing this while on the airplane flying from Denver, Colorado to San Diego, California. I was at a dermatology residency interview today in Madison, Wisconsin. For the last several weeks I have been flying to cities all over the U.S. to interview for dermatology and transitional year residency programs. I am half way done and have my last interview February 1. Last month we were in Boise for a dermatology rotation with Dr. Randy Burr that was so much fun. We had a great time with my family and enjoyed celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with them.

The day after New Year’s I flew to Washington, D.C. for a dermatology interview with Washington Hospital. My cousin Tiffany Perry picked me up from the airport and let me stay at her place. She also took me on a car-ride tour of downtown D.C., which was really neat. We parked and walked up to the Jefferson Memorial, but it was really cold out and we went home after that. My interview was on Thursday, so I got to experience getting around on the metro and bus systems in D.C. I managed to make it to my interview location and had a nice day.

I flew back into Salt Lake late Thursday night, where my dad picked me up (thanks Dad) and dropped me off at Grandma Faun’s house, where Steph and the boys were (thanks Grandma Faun for letting us use your home). Steph and the rest of the family had driven to Utah earlier in the day for Jennie’s wedding open house the night before her wedding.

We got up early enough on Friday to get the kids all dressed and ready to go to the temple. They stayed in the waiting room with Annette, Mindy, and some other cousins, while Steph and I were able to go inside the temple for Jennie and Dalin’s wedding and sealing ceremony. The ceremony was so neat and wonderful, especially since the man who performed the sealing was an old friend from when we lived in Utah several years ago. He gave some really good advice about learning to love your spouse even more as you came to know more of their faults and shortcomings. It is still weird to think that Jennie is now married – I still think of her sometimes as barely a teenager. But we are so happy for her and Dalin.

Pictures outside after the ceremony were crazy. We had gotten new white shirts for the boys to wear in the picture, but then it was so cold out that they ended up having to wear their coats. There was a cold wind blowing, which made the dresses and hair fly all over the place and kept the babies crying – hopefully they got some ok pictures. Then we went to a church for a wedding lunch and then later to Mel and Christian’s to hang out for a little. It was so much fun to see everybody and just enjoy a good time together.

That night we had to get everything packed up to catch a plane Saturday morning for San Diego. My aunt Sue took us to the airport (thanks Sue) and taught us a nice way to get through security more quickly. We made it down to San Diego without too much trouble and rushed back to Steph’s parents’ home. Once there, we quickly changed into our Sunday clothes, just as the bishop arrived. We did Isaac’s baby blessing on Saturday in the Chidester home, since all the family was together only for the rest of that day. It was so neat to have everyone together for that event. I felt impressed to bless Isaac with continued health and growth; with the knowledge of how he ended up here on Earth and how blessed he is to be born into a home with the gospel; that he will be a calming influence for the family and his brothers; that he will serve a mission and seek to marry in the temple; and that he will stay close to the Lord through prayer and personal revelation.

We had a little bit of time afterward to exchange Christmas presents – the boys got some trains and a train set that they love from Nana and Papa, and we appreciate all the other gifts too. Then the adults were off in the cars to Newport, about 1.5 hours north, to do a sealing session in the temple there. Our boys stayed with Matthew, Aaron and some family friends who are living with Steph’s family (thanks to all of you for watching them). We got up to the temple and Grandma Faun realized that she had left the paper behind that she needed – but the temple staff were still able to help us. For some reason there was a miscommunication about us coming, so they didn’t have us on their schedule, but then a sealer/recorder happened to still be in the temple just at the right time to help us. Everything seemed to work together so that we could get those sealings done that night, and we had a wonderful time spending the night together as a family. We realized that it was the first time in about 3 years that the entire family was together.

Sunday morning I took off early for an interview on Monday in Marshfield, Wisconsin and then the one today in Madison, Wisconsin. My flight went through Denver and was supposed to land in Madison, but due to fog, our flight was diverted to Chicago O’Hare. I was pretty flustered -- especially since we have made an effort to avoid the O'Hare airport at all costs after the last time I got stuck there and missed some interviews because of their delayed and cancelled flights. I had to then wait for some time to catch a bus up to Madison, which took about 3.5 hours to get there. In Madison I picked up my rental car and then drove the 2 more hours to Marshfield. I have never driven through such dense fog before. I was glad to have the GPS that I decided to rent along with the rental car, because otherwise I probably would have gotten lost. I had been planning on getting there around 3pm, but instead arrived at 11pm. I missed the dinner that night, which I was sad about, because that is when you get to spend time with the residents and learn from them in an informal setting what the program is like, but at least I made it there for the interview on Monday. Marshfield is a pretty small city – about 22,000. I really enjoyed my interview day there. The program director there is very committed to education and teaching residents to become excellent clinicians. They have a very strong medical dermatology and dermatopathology program, with an ok surgical derm portion, though not as much surgery experience as I would ideally like. They use an electronic medical record system and each resident is loaned a digital camera, a dermatoscope (kind of like a magnifying glass with lights that help you to look more closely at the skin), and a notepad laptop. The place seems very family friendly and has a very low cost of living. I liked it there.

Once done in Marshfield, it was back to Madison last night for another dinner. The fog was still present and made for an interesting drive – at least it kept me on my toes. After checking in at the hotel I walked to the Italian restaurant and met the Madison residents. We had a pleasant evening and then an enjoyable interview day today. All of the faculty again seemed very nice. Madison is a nice city, a little smaller than Milwaukee, but cost of living is about the same as Milwaukee. This program seems to have a little more surgery opportunities, but it might be a little harder to find a house that we could afford. This is going to be a tough decision as we try to decide how to rank all the different programs. There are so many things to think about – the program itself, the city and surrounding area, cost of living, schools, weather, and so much more. I am excited to find out in March where we will be for the next 4 years. We’ll continue to keep you informed.

Update on Michael’s Travels

So, we posted what Michael wrote on Sunday about traveling to Pennsylvania for his interviews, and I thought I’d give a little update on how his travels went. After spending 12 hours in the Chicago airport, having his first flight cancelled, his second flight that he was on stand-by for to full for him to get on the plane, and his third flight repeatedly delayed for hours and finally cancelled due to mechanical problems, Michael was ready to give up on the interview in Pennsylvania altogether. He decided that there was no way to get to Pennsylvania in time for the interview the next morning, and started making plans to try to get to Washington state for the transitional year interview that he had scheduled for the day after the Pennsylvania one.

But he talked to the airline one more time and they were finally able to work out an early morning flight for him on Monday to get into Philadelphia. The airline put him up in a hotel Sunday night and he got 3 hours of sleep before getting up for his flight in the morning, which was delayed an hour because of fog. He got to Philadelphia, spent an outrageous amount of money on a rental car (because he had to pick it up in Philadelphia and drop it off in Harrisburg where he would be flying out the next day). He drove 3 hours from Philadelphia to Danville, PA, and had his interview at 1 pm (the interview was originally scheduled for 8 am, but they were nice enough to stick around and do it later for him). He said the interview felt a little rushed because it was later in the afternoon, but other than that it went great and he really likes their program there. He also said that Pennsylvania was a beautiful place and that he was told that the small town there was very family friendly and that the other residents there had been able to obtain inexpensive housing without difficulty. I asked him later if he would rank the Texas derm program or the Pennsylvania derm program higher on his list at this point, and he said he wasn’t sure – I guess it’s better to have lots of good programs to choose from than to worry about possibly being placed in a bad program that we don’t want.

So, after his interview he drove to Harrisburg, where his flight was cancelled. He knew he was going to miss his interview in Spokane, Washington the next day, but at least the program coordinator there was kind and said that he could reschedule that one for January. Since the original plan was for him to fly back into Boise on Tuesday and then fly out to Milwaukee on Wednesday, he tried to get them to let him fly straight to Milwaukee from Pennsylvania and save himself so much travel time, but the airlines would not allow that. So he tried to get a flight back to Boise so he would be here for his flight out to Milwaukee on Wednesday morning. They told him that they were going to charge him for that flight back to Boise, but after a long time on the phone with a number of supervisors, they told him they would let him fly back here without charging him, but just this once (which is ridiculous, because they cancelled his flight in the first place, so I don’t see how they could think they were justified in leaving him stranded on the other side of the country). But he finally was able to get them to let him come back – he spent his entire day yesterday on the airplane flying to Washington D.C., then to San Francisco, then to Boise. He got here after 7 pm last night, and left early this morning. He just called to say that he arrived in Milwaukee with no delays or other problems, so that’s a relief.

So, this week he has his Milwaukee derm interview, a Chicago derm interview, and a Los Angeles derm interview, and then he will return to Boise for a couple of days before going down to Salt Lake for a transitional year interview. Then he will not have any other interviews until January, unless any more get scheduled before then. Oh yeah, and he got one more derm interview invitation the other day to Cincinnati, Ohio. Just keep us in your thoughts and prayers these next couple of months as Michael continues this interview process that he will not have any more major travel problems and that he will be able to get to all of his interviews safely.

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!

A Long Week of Doctor's Visits

This was a pretty long week for our family. Kolby wasn’t feeling well last weekend and had fevers for a few days, so I took him in to the doctor on Monday and they called us back on Tuesday to tell us that Kolby had strep throat. I was glad that we found that out early on in the week, because with strep throat you need to take antibiotics for 24 hours before you are no longer contagious, and we had a little birthday party planned for Kolby for Friday night. I really didn’t want to have to cancel the party, because not only would Kolby be disappointed, but I really thought it would be easier to have a party before the baby comes. So, I was glad that we got the medicine for Kolby so that he was no longer contagious, and that his brothers were not showing signs of being sick, so maybe there was a chance that just Kolby would get it and no one else in the family. But I was wrong. Camden woke up in the night with a low fever and I took him in to the doctor on Wednesday. Because Kolby had strep, they didn’t wait to get the culture back before starting Camden on the antibiotics, so he got the medicine so that he wouldn’t be contagious (although they never called back about the culture, which means that it was negative and he didn’t actually have strep throat). When we were in the office on Wednesday, I had the doctor look at Eli just to check him, even though he hadn’t shown any signs of being sick, and Dr. Papp said that his throat wasn’t even red at all. So then on Thursday morning Michael had a really bad sore throat and went to his doctor. They said that he wouldn’t hear back until Monday to see if his strep test was positive or not, but they started him on the medicine anyway. So he stayed home from work Thursday and Friday – so it was nice to have him around, except it would have been nicer if he had been feeling well. On Thursday (the day after the doctor said that his throat looked fine) Eli started having fevers too, and I took him into the doctor’s office that evening. His rapid strep culture came back positive immediately, showing that he did have strep. Luckily he got the antibiotics early enough that he was no longer contagious by the time of the birthday party the next night, so we didn’t have to cancel it. So, we had 4 sick boys at our house this week, and four different doctor’s visits – maybe next time one of my kids gets a contagious sickness like this I’ll insist that they write me prescriptions for each of the children so that we don’t have to go back all week long when each one catches it. At least I am doing pretty well – I have had a cough for the last few weeks that I just can’t seem to get over, but luckily I have no signs of catching what the boys have had. Kolby has acted fine all week, and the other boys haven’t been acting like they felt too bad, so that’s nice. Michael is finally starting to feel better today, the last few days were pretty rough for him.

Since Kolby had roseola when Eli was born and Kolby and Eli had strep throat when Camden was born, I kept wondering if we would stick to our pattern of the older children have a contagious illness whenever I have a new baby, but Isaac seems to be holding out to arrive after everyone at the house is healthy. I have had a few times this week when I felt contractions, once when I wondered if it might lead to labor, but even though they were strong and pretty close together, it didn’t last for too long. Michael’s sister, Mel, had her baby boy, Kyler, on Friday (her due date was supposed to be 3 days before mine), and I thought maybe Isaac would come that day too, but was kind of disappointed when the contractions stopped. But it won’t be too much longer – from today, there are 9 more days until my due date (11 days until I will be induced, if it goes that long). I can handle that – I feel like I’ve been very patient with this pregnancy, unlike my pregnancies so far when I have gotten to the last month and just couldn’t wait to have the baby right away. But I am still crossing my fingers that it will somehow work out for me to have the baby early or late enough so that I can participate in the Halloween celebrations with the kids. I was telling Michael this morning that Halloween is a big holiday. As far as rating holidays on how important/fun they are for me to experience them with our children (and not taking into account how significant I think the reasons for the holidays are or how much I enjoy spending time with Michael or other family on those holidays), I think that Halloween would be tied with the 4th of July, right after Christmas. [I don’t know if that made much sense – Michael asked me about Thanksgiving when I told him that, and I said that Thanksgiving is important and the kids enjoy certain traditions we have like decorating cookies to look like turkeys, but it is a holiday that we have always spent our married life with friends, and Halloween is all about our kids and nothing else. So, not to make any other holidays seem less important, but I really love watching our kids dress up in their costumes, carve pumpkins, and trick-or-treat, so I hope I don’t have to miss that].

Well, let’s see, what else did we do this week? On Monday, after we did a family home evening lesson with the boys, we went to the Hymas’ house for Chelsey’s birthday party. We got her a wand, tiara, and feather boa so that she could be her favorite princess – I have fun buying girly gifts for our friends’ kids, since I don’t get to pick out cute pink things that often. On Wednesday night Kolby had his swimming lessons.

After Kolby’s lesson we dropped the boys off at the Hedgecock’s house and had a fun, inexpensive date night. We went over to the Hymas’ house, and they had already put their girls down to bed, and we played Nintendo Wii games. Michael’s parents told us that they would give us some money if there was anything specific we wanted for a Christmas gift for our family, and Michael has been talking about a Wii video game system, which I was not so sure about. I thought it sounded like more fun than normal video games, because you use the remotes like sports equipment to play the games – so you are standing and swinging your arms like you are playing tennis, bowling, golfing, etc. I think that games like that are better than ones that you just sit in front of, and I would prefer sports games to any kind of violent video games, but I am still not a big fan of most video games because of the time that can be spent on them, and the cost. So the Hymases invited us to come try it out, and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the tennis game the most, although I wasn’t the greatest at any of the games (and my arm was quite sore from swinging that remote for 3 days afterwards – I guess that shows how out of shape I am). But after playing that night, Michael said that he thought maybe we should choose something else for Christmas, because he thought a Wii might take up too much time, especially once he has a busier schedule when he starts his residency next year, and he hasn’t mentioned it since then. It was a really fun date night, though. I really don’t mind video games (the ones that aren’t violent), but I do prefer them at someone else’s house, so we can go and enjoy them, and then come home and not have the temptation of spending too much time playing them.

On Thursday afternoon I left the kids with Michael, since he was home sick, and went to my doctor’s appointment. [Hey if any of our friends here in Milwaukee are pregnant and looking for a good doctor, I would highly recommend Luverda Martin – she is a midwife at Froedtert Hospital. She has been great – I have had a different doctor or midwife with each pregnancy, and I will stick with Luverda from now on as long as we live here. When I first considered seeing a midwife, I wondered if it would be weird, but I thought I’d try it out and then just switch doctor’s if I didn’t like it. But my midwife is not weird at all – she has given me “normal” care like any doctor I’ve had – I’m not into herbal stuff or home remedies or things like water births, which I thought a midwife might suggest, and I was definitely not interested in someone who didn’t fully support my decision to have an epidural – and she has never suggested anything to me that seemed different than a normal doctor. She is very personable and she has always made herself easy to contact if I have any questions, and she has a couple young children of her own, so it doesn’t faze her at all when I bring all of my kids into the appointment with me. Anyway, I just think she’s great, so if anyone is looking for a good doctor, you have my recommendation.] Back to the point – I went in for my appointment on Thursday and all is well with the baby. I was measuring normal and she said that the baby’s heart rate is starting to go down a little, just like they would expect since the baby is preparing to be born. And I had her strip the membranes – which is supposed to help the baby come, if your body is ready for labor – I don’t know if I really think it helps or not. With Kolby they did it, and then he was induced a week later, so it didn’t seem to do anything. I don’t remember them doing it with Eli. And with Camden they did it and then he was born 2 days later (2 days before his due date). So, I figured it couldn’t hurt, but I haven’t gone into labor yet, so I guess it didn’t do much this time around. Oh well.

On Thursday night my friends threw me a little baby shower at Sandra Simon’s house. We had desserts and everyone just had fun socializing. I told them that I felt like we didn’t really need anything for the baby this time, so I didn’t need any gifts, but they decided to throw a “pamper Stephanie” party, and most people brought things like nice lotions and body washes and stuff like that, which was fun. It was really nice to get together with friends and have a fun night out, just talking, sharing stories about being a mother and wife, and laughing together.

On Friday Kolby got to go to school again after missing it all week because of his strep throat – he was really excited to go again. And that night we had the little birthday party for Kolby. Michael and I spent the whole day cleaning the house and preparing for the party – and I was pretty worn out by the end of the day (even though I know he felt pretty lousy with being sick, I’m glad Michael still found the energy to help me clean up, because it was a lot of work to get everything done that I wanted to, and it felt really nice after we had finished). Kolby was excited about his Tigger Halloween costume, and so when I asked him what he wanted for his party theme, he said Tigger. We took orange ribbons and curled them and hung them from the ceiling like bouncy Tigger tails, blew up balloons for the kids to play with, and played pin-the-tail-on-Tigger. I used half a container of yellow food coloring and half a container of red to turn the frosting for the cake a bright orange color like Kolby asked. And I got a little set of plastic Winnie the Pooh characters that I used to decorate the cake, and then the boys got to have them as toys afterwards. Kolby was so excited about his friends coming over and the gifts that he got. The one thing we forgot was to hand out the little goodie bags that the boys helped me make at the end of the party – so we still have a big bowl of goodie bags sitting out in our living room, I guess we will have to give the candy from the bags out to any trick-or-treaters that visit.

On Saturday morning I went to the church for our Super Saturday enrichment activity, and among other things I did a project where we etched our name on the bottom of our glass dishes. I think they turned out well, although I signed up to do 4 dishes when most other people just did 1, so it took me a lot longer than I had planned.

It was fun to go and see people there and do the fun projects. The rest of the day we spent at home. Michael was supposed to be in charge of a project at the church that morning to spread mulch in the landscaping areas, but he ended up having to ask some friends to take over for him on that because he was sick. And we were also planning on going to the temple with the Hedgecocks, but had to reschedule that too – we are now planning on going next Saturday, if I haven’t had the baby by then. When I got home, Michael checked the mail and found an invitation for his first dermatology interview at Texas A&M. He is waiting until tomorrow to hear back from them, and hoping for an interview date in the end of November. It was exciting to get a derm invitation already, because we had heard that they usually don’t start arriving until November, and today at church one of our friends who is a derm resident said that he only got 3 interviews before Thanksgiving, so it will probably be a while before he gets most of his invitations. But it was really exciting to get that first one for dermatology! And then we rented the movie Transformers and watched it after the boys went to bed last night. Michael liked it, and I liked it pretty well, except we thought there were some parts that they really didn’t need in the movie.

Church went pretty well. The boys did a good job. Camden has trouble because he gets so tired while we are at church – if we were at home he would just lay down in his crib and cry to sleep for a few minutes, but there is no place for that at church, so he kind of has a rough time. But what we heard of our lessons was good and Kolby’s and Eli’s teachers said that they both did well in their classes. Camden spit up a couple times at the end of church after he had his cup of milk – I am wondering if he has some kind of lactose intolerance. I mentioned to the doctor on Monday that he had started spitting up again for about a week, (which is strange because Camden spit up a lot with the formula, and then stopped entirely when we switched him to whole milk about 3 months ago). The doctor thought it might have something to do with him having a little cold or being sick this week (because milk can cause you to have more mucous when you have a cold), and suggested not giving him any milk for a few days to see if it stopped. I got a bottle of soy milk and he didn’t spit up once with that. But I figured that now since he is over his cold, he should be fine on whole milk again. I don’t know – I guess we’ll have to talk to the doctor about it and see what we need to do to find out if it is any kind of allergy or if it might be something else.

Well, there is a roast cooking for dinner and Michael is off home teaching right now. I can hear the boys in their rooms waking up from their naps. Tonight we are having a new family in the ward, the Gittins, over for dinner. They have a little boy and a little girl, so it should be fun for the kids to get together and for us to get to know them better. Hope you are all having a nice Sunday!

First Dermatology Interview

Michael just got his first invitation for a dermatology interview at Texas A&M in Temple, Texas. He is waiting to hear back from them, and hoping for an interview date in the end of November. It is really exciting to get a derm interview, especially since we've heard that most derm programs don't send invitations until November. I wanted to keep track of his interview locations and dates, so I made a map of them and posted it down at the bottom of this page -- you can scroll all the way down to the bottom to take a look. Please keep our family in your prayers over the next few months as Michael gets more invitations and as he goes for his interviews that we will end up going to a residency program that is good for Michael and good for our entire family. Thank you!

First Interview Invitation

So, Michael called from work to tell me that he got his first residency interview invitation today. It is for a transitional year in La Crosse, Wisconsin, about three hours from here. We had a couple friends from the ward go to La Crosse last year for their transitional years and they were telling us that it is a really family-friendly program and there are some nice perks, like really inexpensive resident housing. So, we were excited to get the invitation for the interview -- we have heard that he most likely won't get invitations for dermatology program interviews until November (and most of those interviews will probably be in December and January), but I hadn't really thought about the possibility that he might get interviews for some of the transitional year programs earlier. They gave him several different dates for the interview, and we are hoping that it will work out for him to do it on the 6th or 7th of November. So, keep our family in your prayers over the next few months that he can get as many interview invitations as possible, that the interview invitations he does get will not be on conflicting dates in different parts of the country, that his interviews will go well, and that we can match to a good dermatology program.

Sub-Internship Makes My Life Seem Like A Blur

This week has seemed a blur as I have started into my medicine sub-internship. I say that because I am realizing just how busy it is going to be when I am an intern full time next year. I had to ask Steph to look at the calendar to remind me what actually happened this week outside the hospital.

I was on call Monday and Friday this week. Being on-call entails being at the hospital from 6:00 am one morning until 1:00pm the next day – about 30 hours total. During an on-call day, our team can get up to 10 new admissions, usually starting in the afternoon. There is a senior resident, three interns (including me) and two junior medical students, so we take turns going to meet the new patients, usually in the emergency room. On Monday I got two new patients – an older gentleman that had fallen in his home and been stuck on the floor for two days before being found by his neighbor, and a lady with multiple sclerosis (MS) with a bladder infection. As an “intern” I am in charge of meeting the patient, conducting a full history and physical, writing all the admission orders, and then taking care of the patient while they are in the hospital. I still have the senior resident who looks over all my orders before they go out to make sure they are ok, but it is a new experience to be in charge of making so many decisions. I am at a new location that uses a computer system that I am not familiar with, so it has been an uphill learning experience on that end as well.

That first call night I got about six hours of sleep, which was great – I didn’t have to go home and sleep the next day. But I did miss the Labor Day ward BBQ that Steph went to with the boys. She said some of our friends helped her with the three boys and that the boys loved playing on the playground.

My other call night, Friday, I got about 3 hours of sleep. I got two admissions again, this time a man with a cellulitis (skin infection) in his left leg, and a really complicated patient that has a 3rd clot in his left leg and shingles all over his body because he had a lung transplant a few years ago and is on medicine to suppress his immune system. Things were a little busier overall for our team, so I was up more of the night and pretty tired the next day. It is nice to have that post call afternoon to recuperate before having to go back in the next day.

Then, on top of normal call coming every 4th night, we have “short call” that occurs the day after our post call day (so call day, post-call day, short-call day, and pre-call day). On short call we start taking admissions in the morning and can get up to 4 as a team. Most mornings we are already busy with seeing how the patients did overnight, writing progress notes, filling orders, calling consults, and rounding as a team to talk about our patients, so to add admissions on top of that makes those days pretty busy as well. I guess I never realized how much paperwork goes on in the background behind patient care.

Wednesday night I had my first Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) meeting. AOA is the medical school honor society – only 32 of the 200 people in our class were invited to join. Dr. Kolesari shared with us how he ended up as a family practice doctor and the director of the anatomy program at the medical school. Then we were introduced to the different programs that AOA members typically take part in, including helping to prepare the 2nd years for the Step 1 test; helping with testing the 2nd years for their physical exam test; helping with the Make a Wish foundation; serving at free clinics; and more. It looks like one of the goals of AOA is to find ways to serve the medical college community and our community at large.

I had Thursday off, which was such a nice break after the busy week. I helped Steph to take the boys to their last art class. They made tropical trees, “grass” (plastic) skirts, and other decorations for a luau that we had Saturday night at the Nielsen’s house. The luau was really fun, except for the mosquitoes that bit all of us in about 20 places each. Camden looks the worst with pink spots all over his face. There was a fishing pond and a treasure hunt for the kids, and dinner and desserts. Then we came back to our place for games last night.

Thursday afternoon and Friday all day Steph participated in getting several ultrasounds of Isaac, to help with training residents and some nurses on how to conduct ultrasounds. She got to keep several of the ultrasound pictures, got food, and even will get paid $100 for participating. I also made about $70 this week from selling old text books. Oh, speaking of money, we got our residency interviewing and relocation loan this week, so we now will have money to help pay for applications, interviews, and then moving next summer.

On Tuesday I looked over my application for residency programs one last time and then hit the submit button. I ended up applying to 100 dermatology programs and 6 transitional year programs. The ball is now out of our court and we will wait to hear for interview invitations. Keep us in your prayers so that we can get in somewhere. :)

Today I had to go into the hospital to round on my patients, so I finally got over to the church about 1:00pm for the last 20 minutes of choir practice. Mainly I went to help Steph with getting the boys back home. The Kearls invited us for dinner tonight, so that should be pretty fun. And I have tomorrow off, so that will be very relaxing. I am looking forward to when this month is over so that I can have my weekends back and more time to spend with the family.

We Are So Blessed

So the weather outside is beautiful today. We had rain basically all week, so it is so nice to see the sun again. Today at church we learned about the light of Christ, how it is an innate gift that we are all born with, that the Holy Ghost uses it to touch our hearts and lead us to do right. In Sunday school we talked about the journeys of Paul into Macedonia and how he was always willing to open his mouth to share the gospel, and how we can try to be better friends to our neighbors and those we meet. Then in priesthood the lesson was on the living Christ and forgiveness, and how they relate together – it is only through Jesus Christ and His atonement that we can be forgiven and be made clean. If we want to be like Him, then we need to learn to forgive others. It was a great morning.

Earlier this week we had one of Steph’s family history professors from BYU, brother Minert, and his wife, over for some dessert as they were passing through Wisconsin. It was fun to see them and catch up on the projects he is in charge of at BYU and sharing what we have been up to since we saw them last a few years ago. I think it is so neat to have a college professor that gets to know their students so well and wants to visit them when they are in the area.

Kolby continues to improve at swimming lessons. Steph said that this week he only had the foam float belt around his waist and he was able to swim the width of the pool with basically no help. Eli is also one of the top in his class – he loves the water.

Yesterday I was in charge of a big activity over at the church building. We share the building with another congregation, so we split the grounds in half outside, and we are each in charge of weeding our half, so that is what we did yesterday morning. Like I said, it had been raining all week, so I was worried that we would be rained out and no one would show up. I said a prayer that the weather would be nice and that people would show up, and my prayer was answered – the weather was wonderful and we had about 30 adults (50 people with children) come, and we got everything done in about two hours. Now it looks great (at least our half of the grounds). :)

I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden with me so that Steph could have some time to work on Christmas presents for our parents and siblings – yep, that is right – Steph wanted to get them done early so that they could be done before she has the baby in October. When she puts her mind to something, nothing can stop her.

This week I think some more prayers were answered as we got some really good news. I received a letter saying that I was chosen to be a part of Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), the medical school honor society. This could not have come at a better time, since I am planning on submitting my residency application next weekend, and AOA is looked highly on in dermatology, so it should help us out a lot to be able to add that to the resume.

It amazes me when I stop to think how blessed me and my family are and that we have a loving Heavenly Father who is always watching out for us and helping us when needed. I have a wonderful wife and three beautiful children; I am pursuing a career that I love and things seem to be working just when needed to help us get there; and we have the gospel to bless our lives.

Keep us in your prayers as we get ready to submit the residency applications – then the ball will be out of our court and we will have to wait for programs to invite us to interview. Thanks.

August is Here

This week Michael started his ambulatory medicine rotation (which doesn’t mean that he gets to go on ambulance rides, like it sounds – it’s just another outpatient internal medicine month). He was pretty sad to have to stop his dermatology rotation, but this month looks like it is going to be a good one. Michael is lucky and will often have the afternoons off on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this month, so that will be really nice. He will have lots of time to work on his application process and to spend time with the family. It was fun, on Friday he got home around 11 am and we had a great day. We took the boys swimming to the splash pool at Enderis Park. Camden has no fear of the water and loves to crawl right in towards the middle of the wading pool which is only a couple feet deep, but still too deep for him. And Kolby and Eli had a great time – I have never seen them actually swim under the water so much before at the splash pools. Eli kept jumping up in the air, landing on his bottom, and then laying back down with his face under the water. We all had a lot of fun there. Then we went to dinner because Michael got a free meal coupon for his birthday from Noodles and Company. And then we parked over by the Ronald McDonald House across from the medical school and went on a relaxing walk through the woods. Friday was a very fun play day for our family.

This week we also got several other things done. I finally had my wedding ring repaired at a jewelry store, since one of the prongs had bent a while ago. It’s nice to be able to wear that again. And I got my report made for my visiting teaching district. I have to say, I am glad to have this new church calling after being in the nursery for almost a year. On Wednesday we went for the family history enrichment group, which I messed up because I was thinking that it started later than it really did. So, we missed the rest of the group, but I did get some more family names prepared for temple work. We also went to the splash pool that day for playgroup, and the boys had fun playing with the other kids there. And Kolby and Eli both had their swimming lessons. They continue to do great – both boys are now good at doing “bobs” (dunking their whole heads under the water). It is also fun to think that Kolby will get to start a sport at the YMCA in a few months (they have to be 4 years old), and after we get back from our December-January Christmas trips Eli will be 3, so he will be old enough to join Kolby for his preschool classes at the YMCA too. That will be fun for them to go together. Well, on Thursday the boys also had their toddler art class, and I think this art activity was the most fun yet. They got to put their hands and feet in paint and paint on a big piece of paper along the fence. We stripped the kids down to their underwear so their clothes wouldn’t get painted, and most of them ended up painting their bodies too before we were done. For some reason, Kolby seems to like eating the paint – I couldn’t convince him to stop putting his paint-covered fingers in his mouth. Oh well, at least it was the non-toxic kind. (I posted pictures from the playgroup at the splash pool and the painting at art class down below).

And I can’t forget the big announcement: Michael’s research paper was officially published in the periodical, Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, on August 3rd. His article is titled, Language Barriers to Prescriptions for Patients With Limited English Proficiency: A Survey of Pharmacies, and I think it ended up being 11 pages long, including several charts that Michael made. If you would like to take a look at the article, you can see the journal online at: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/
Michael’s article is the fourth one listed on this main page for this current issue of the journal.

This week I also spent a while making a family budget in an Excel spreadsheet. I have a budget that will show the whole year, and it is linked to a separate worksheet for each month. We have made some predictions for how much money we think we will spend for things in the upcoming months, and then we can enter in information from our receipts and then compare the projected and actual expenses. At the end, I had fun setting up graphs that will show our spending for each month, and one for the rest of the year. (That made me think back to middle school when I would do a school papers and then my dad would teach me how to make a graph in Excel to go along with my paper, and I was always so proud because I thought my papers looked so cool).

Yesterday we got things done around the house and then we babysat for the Rahms in the evening. After they picked up their boys, we went shopping because Michael got some birthday money from his family. We went to Kohls and he ended up getting two nice dress shirts, two new ties, and a t-shirt. The boys were patient with us, because we ended up being there until 10 pm (which is way later than we usually ever have them out at night). On the way out, there were these cute stuffed dinosaurs on sale for $5 each and the profit from their sales went to education, so we splurged and got one for Kolby and one for Eli. They love them – Eli’s is a brachiosaurus that he named "Long Neck," and Kolby’s is a triceratops that he named "Sara" (like in his The Land Before Time movie). They slept with them last night, and haven’t stopped playing with them since (the dinosaurs even waited in the car for us while we were at church). It’s pretty cute. Well, church went well today. Camden actually fell asleep during the sacrament meeting, so it was the first time in a while that we didn’t have to leave during the entire first hour. Michael said the opening prayer, and several kids got up to share their testimonies today. Kolby liked watching the other kids, and he said that he could do that when he gets bigger. When we got home, the boys went down for naps, and Michael and I made a few changes to the page that I designed for his yearbook – so now it’s ready to submit to the school once we get back his professional portrait from the studio this week. And now Michael has fallen asleep on the couch while I’ve been writing this, so all of my boys are napping. Tonight should be fun too – we are going to the Hedgecock’s house for dinner, and they always have breakfast food for dinner on fast Sunday. Well, we hope that you have all had a good week too!

Family is Great

We just had a wonderful morning at church today. There was a combined third hour meeting, so Steph and I got to listen together. And Steph’s visiting teaching companion wanted to hold Camden for us the entire time, so we actually got to listen to the lesson. The topic was The Proclamation to the World on the Family, and we were taught two of the main doctrines that come from that proclamation: staying close to your spouse and learning how to cope with life’s challenges together as a couple; and the importance of nourishing and teaching our children from a young age. The bishop brought up the fact that statistically right now about 1/3 of the young men in the church are serving missions. He specifically pointed out that since we have three boys in our family right now, statistically only one of them would serve a mission if those numbers remain the same. And that this also affects the young women in the church when it comes time for them to choose a spouse and trying to find temple-worthy young men. The bishop wanted us as parents to think about what we need to be doing to teach our children so that they will want to make positive choices later on in life. Steph and I had some good ideas afterwards of things we can do to try and have more love and goodness in our home, including doing our family scripture reading as part of the boys' bedtime routine each night and trying to include them in the reading more, rather than just reading while they play on the floor.

The weather this week has been very pleasant. We took advantage of the good weather yesterday and met the Kearls at the beach at Lake Pewaukee. They have so much fun playing in the sand. We made an island for Steph to sit on and then the boys dug a “river” around her to trap her on her island. Afterwards we all went to dinner at Denny’s, since kids eat free on Saturdays – what a deal for our family.

I can’t believe it is already the end of July. It feels like I just started my dermatology rotation, and now I just have two days left. Maybe that’s because I’m having so much fun on this rotation. I continue to enjoy the things that I see and the idea of becoming a dermatologist just feels right. I have a presentation and my end of month test this week, so wish me luck.

I have also been working hard this week on my residency application. I met with my dermatology advisor, who I am also writing a case presentation with about one of her patients. She is going to write one of my letters of recommendation. I will meet with the dermatology chairman this upcoming week so he can get to know me a little better and write a letter – wish me luck. I am talking with one of the other pediatric dermatologists to see if she will write a letter for me. And then Dr. Flores, who I did my summer research project with during first and second years, is writing the other one. I have also been working on my curriculum vitae (in common terms, my resume) and a personal statement that we have to write.

Steph continues to stay busy at home with the three boys. They are always full of so much energy. They went to the zoo earlier this week, they both have swim lessons, and they have an art class every Thursday morning. And then Steph has her physical therapy each week to help strengthen her knee, which seems to be helping. Camden also got one of his front top teeth this week, and he looks so cute. And he waved at someone for the first time the other day too.

Monday night we had the missionaries over for dinner, and the message they shared for family home evening came from James in the New Testament, where he talks about the importance of going to the Lord for help, and then waiting for the answer to come, telling us how to act and what to say.

Tuesday night we went to JCPenny to get pictures of me for applications and the school’s yearbook. Normally when we go, it is such a chore just to get the boys to smile and try to get a decent photo. So I was expecting us to be there forever like always, until I realized that the photographer only took about 10 pictures and said we were done, all in about 5 minutes. It was great.

Friday night we had the Kearls and the Morrisons over for games. We played a card game called Red One that normally is meant for four players, but we tried it with six, and it actually worked fine.

Life continues to fly as we keep ourselves busy and enjoy the friends and memories we are creating out here in Milwaukee.

Derm Decisions

With Michael’s dermatology rotation this month he is working at a different hospital each week, and this week he was at Children’s Hospital. Children’s is supposed to be the busiest, and they have an evening clinic a couple nights a week, so Michael was going to have to stay a few hours later this week, but it ended up that lots of the doctors and residents were going to a derm conference in Chicago, so the evening clinics were cancelled and he had an especially light schedule this week (but the time that he spent at the hospital was very busy). He continues to like dermatology. I am very excited that he likes this specialty, because I definitely want him to go into something that he really enjoys, but it is nice that what he really enjoys also happens to be a specialty where eventually he could end up having a schedule that is really nice for our family.

When Michael first listed dermatology as one of the specialties he was interested in, I didn’t think it sounded too great, but it actually sounds kind of interesting, now that I know a little more about it. Michael said that one thing that he liked about it was that the problems on the skin often relate to other internal problems, so you have to know about a lot of different things. And you deal with a range from minor problems to all sorts of cancer. Michael also likes that he will get to deal with patients (and continue to build relationships with patients over time), but that there will also be opportunities to do procedures. And lots of people comment to him that they wouldn’t want to deal with the acne, but Michael has actually been alright with that part of it so far – he really likes that it is something that effects the self esteem of a lot of young people, but that there are several things that he can do to make it totally better (and in some of the other specialties you run into a lot of problems that you can’t fix).

I think this will be a good specialty for him to go into. Now it’s time to get ready to apply for residency programs. One thing that Michael has considered is having a different specialty (internal medicine) as a back-up in case derm doesn’t work out right away (because derm is a competitive program to get into, and we know several students who have not been accepted when trying for derm residencies). But since this month has started and we have seen how much more Michael likes derm than any other specialty, I think we are not going to do another program as a back-up. The thing we are trying to decide on right now is how to work out the applications for transition years. Dermatology is a 4-year residency program, but different programs work differently: some are 4-year programs, and others have it broken up into 1 transitional year and 3 more years of derm. So, the best thing for us would be to either do a 4-year program, or if we end up doing a transitional year, then we want to have the transitional year either be in the same location as the 3-year program or have the transitional year be here in Milwaukee and then move for the next 3 years, so we can avoid moving twice in such a short time. But since we are planning on applying for quite a few derm programs, we only want to get interviews for transitional years at the same places that we get interviews for 3-year derm programs, and so we will have to figure out the best way to work that all out. Anyways, we have lots of new things coming up that we will need to figure out before we are all set for the next step in our lives, but it already feels like we are almost to the end of medical school now. Pretty exciting!

Anyways, the rest of our week went pretty well. On Monday I had a WIC appointment, and the people there were really nice and it went well. Then on Tuesday evening we met with Kendra McMullin, a friend from church, who is a financial advisor and we ended up setting up a little life insurance plan with her. It was nice to sit down with her and get an idea of what we need to do in the next few years to start to plan for retirement too. On Wednesday morning we had a family history enrichment group that met at church so the moms could use the family history center and rotate babysitting the kids. I was able to get a lot of names prepared for temple work. That afternoon I had a doctor’s appointment, and everything is going well with the baby. And then Kolby had swimming lessons that evening, and he listened to his teacher very well. On Thursday I had physical therapy and Michael happened to get off work early, so the boys went over and played with him at the medical school while I went for my appointment, and then Michael went with Eli to his swim lessons that evening. On Friday Michael got up real early to go with some others to Chicago for the derm conference, and he said there were several interesting lectures there. That night after the boys were in bed, I went back over to the family history center and got quite a few more names prepared for temple work.

Then yesterday we went with Peter and Cynthia down to Chicago for our temple trip. It has worked out really well to go with them once a month and switch off babysitting so we can each go in together as a couple. Michael and I took all the kids to Costco while they went to the temple, and we got lots of comments and funny looks from people who thought we had 5 kids under the age of 4. We were able to stock up on lots of things like shampoo, computer paper, and baby wipes, and the kids were very excited for all the free samples they got to try (Kolby really likes going to the “treat store” by the temple). And we got a good scare at one point when Eli started choking on a piece of fruit, and nothing helped for about 15 or 20 seconds until Michael did a the full-on Heimlich maneuver several times. We were glad that Eli seemed just fine after that was over. Then we went back to the temple and Michael and I did baptisms. There were a few other people in there helping, and we got almost all of them done that we took with us – we ended up doing 86 names, I think. And today went pretty well too. The boys did well in church (except for Kolby needing a bribe of a treat to make him go into his sunbeams class), and I substituted in nursery while Michael substituted as a teacher in his priesthood class. Then Michael practiced after church for a men’s choir performance. I have been making bread since we came home, and my visiting teacher just left. All three boys are down for a nap right now, and in a couple of hours we are going over to Sonia and Devon Cole’s house for dinner, so that should be fun. Hope you have all had a good week too!

Dermatology is Great

So it is my turn to write about our week, but Steph has made my job a little easier, since she has already written about going to the zoo and how we celebrated on Independence Day. :)

This week has been a wonderful week for me. I started my dermatology rotation, and I am again loving life. It is so nice to be doing something that I am enjoying, that I look forward to reading more about when I get home, and that am excited to go back to the next day. It is also nice to have nights free and the weekends off to be with the family. Just this week I have seen so many odd things that can happen to the skin – I’m so grateful that I have healthy skin. I really like the complexity of dermatology – they have to know so much in order to differentiate the different rashes, lumps, bumps, etc., and then to know how to treat them. There is a lot of dermatology that is so new, with new drugs just coming out on the market to treat/manage currently untreatable/unmanageable conditions. I like that it has the feel of primary care with the day-to-day clinic work, interspersed with quick little procedures (shave biopsies, freezing, punch biopsy) and then more involved surgeries. I have decided that I am going to apply for dermatology for residency.

I came home Tuesday afternoon with two derm books, and Steph immediately took them from me and started looking through them. I think she has already learned more about derm than I have this week. It is fun that she is also excited about dermatology and interested in what I am learning. Tuesday was also a good day because we got our loan money for this semester, so we no longer have to live off the credit cards, at least for another few months. Yeah!!

Thursday night I got to take Eli to swim lessons, and we had so much fun playing together in the water. We stayed after the class for about a half hour just playing on the steps and near the wall of the pool. Eli loves to jump in and under the water.

Friday was only a half day in the clinic, so I got the afternoon off to be home. I stayed home and played with the boys while Steph went shopping for the next two weeks. She also got a video from Blockbuster, Flyboys, that we watched. It was based on a true story from WW1 – it was good, though a little slow and predictable.

Saturday morning it was my turn to help clean the church building. I also got the chairs set up so that we wouldn’t have to go as early Sunday morning. I spent the rest of the morning starting to fill out my residency application online. I am going to use July and August to try and get all of my application materials ready to submit. We can start submitting to residency programs September 1, so I want to have everything ready before then. That afternoon we took the boys over to a neighbor’s house to swim in their little outdoor swimming pool. I got in with all three boys and had a blast. Kolby and Eli had two little watering cans that they used to “water” daddy so that I would grow. It was fun. Then last night we had some friends over for dessert. Sandra Simon came with her son, and Heather Vernon and her son Isaac came – her husband is out of town for the month doing an away-rotation. Steph had tried a new recipe for an ice cream cake and wanted to share it with others. It was really good. We also played some card games and had fun talking.

All of the boys did really well at church today. The sacrament talks were about family history work and making sacrifices to go to the temple. We have another stake temple day coming up in August, so they want people to try and get family file names ready to take and do their work. Steph is trying to get some ready for us now. Then in Sunday school we talked about John 16-17, where Jesus talks about the importance of the Holy Ghost and His mission and atonement so that we can gain eternal life. We talked about the difference between the manifestation of the Holy Ghost and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, the difference between knowing about Christ and actually knowing Christ, and then how to teach these things to your children. And then in priesthood we talked about the importance of faith and obedience, and how they lead to blessings; that faith always precedes the miracle; and that when we decide to follow God and His commandments we are not showing blind obedience, but faith obedience – we may not know everything, but we know that God knows what is best for us and we are using our faith to trust and follow Him. They were all really good lessons.

Well, I am going to enjoy the rest of this beautiful day with my family. Have a wonderful day.
Luv,
Michael, Stephanie, Kolby, Eli, and Camden

A Long Weekend

This week has been wonderful! Michael finished his trauma surgery rotation and had his test on Thursday, which he felt good about after he took it. We are both so relieved to be done with this rotation – and on to better things. (Wow – Michael’s now a 4th year – one more year of medical school to go!)

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, we all went over to the church and Camden and I went to an enrichment activity about family history. Most of the evening was an introduction to genealogy, so I just went to help out, but they also scheduled a time once a month when a group of us will be going to the family history center during the day and we can trade off babysitting so we can have some time to work on our research. I am excited because this should allow me to find the time to get some more names ready for temple work. While I was in doing that, Michael and the older boys went outside and helped as a group of church members pulled weeds around the church grounds. Michael said that they will still need to get together again because it didn’t all get done, but about ten families showed up to help so that is a pretty decent turn-out, I think.

Wednesday was a busy day. Camden had his 9-month-old doctor’s check-up in the morning, and he looks healthy and right on track with his growth. He now weighs 20 pounds 4 ounces and is just over 29 inches tall. A few hours later I dropped the boys off with Rachel Roberts and went for my first physical therapy appointment. I liked the physical therapist and she gave me some good information. Since then I have been doing several different stretches for about half an hour two times a day, and the pain that I had in my hip for the last week has gone away. My knee pain is still there, but hopefully it will go away soon too. Then that evening I took Kolby and watched while he had his swimming lesson. He has done so well this session with listening and doing just what the teacher asks. He did an especially good job of floating on his back this week.

On Thursday morning I took the boys to their art class, which they always enjoy. After Michael got home from taking his test and the boys took their nap, we went and got some fireworks. We found a good deal on a big pack of fireworks that was buy 1, get 2 free. When we got home, we took Eli to his swim lesson. Michael got to swim with him while I watched. And afterwards we went to a BBQ for the students who were all on the same track with Michael to celebrate the end of 3rd year. I only knew two couples there – the Cortezes and the Jays – but it was nice to meet some of the people Michael has been working with and have some time to socialize and play at the park.

On Friday we were thinking about going camping overnight because Michael had the day off, but then decided that it would be less expensive to just take a day trip. We ended up going to swim at the Lake Pewaukee beach, and it was a lot of fun (although I still find it a little difficult to call anything that is not on an ocean a “beach.”) But we all enjoyed ourselves there.

On Saturday evening we had our annual pre-4th of July BBQ and fireworks. There was a very good turn-out – there were over 20 adults there and tons of little kids. I love the summer time when you can do stuff like this and you don’t have to worry about how many people you can fit into your apartment. After eating, we gave sparklers to all the kids and they had a blast. Some of the little girls kept running around waving the sparklers like magic wands and saying, “Bibbity bobbity boo!” Afterwards Michael and Matt Vernon put on a fun fireworks show. Lots of the people ended up heading home before the fireworks were done, just because their kids were tired because we had to wait so long to start the fireworks because it doesn’t get dark until after 9:00pm in the summer. But it was a fun show – especially since the boys enjoyed it so much. Kolby kept naming all the different colors of sparks he saw, Camden watched with a smile from his stroller for the first little while until he got tired, and at one point Eli was so excited that he was jumping up and down and shaking Camden’s stroller. It was pretty cute.

This morning Kolby was kind of grumpy when he got up and he said that he didn’t want to go to church. I was telling him the fun things that we would get to do, like going to his sunbeam class and taking the bread and water for the Sacrament. When I told him about the Sacrament, he seemed to be happy to go to church. So, this morning we went early to set up chairs at church, but someone had already done it before we got there, so Michael played a few hymns on the piano until it was time to start. Everything was going pretty well until the young men went up to the front of the chapel to help pass the Sacrament, and then Kolby wouldn’t calm down. He said that he needed to go help, and when Michael told him he needed to stay in his seat, he said that Mommy told him he could. So, when I told him about taking the Sacrament in church, he thought that I meant he could be one of the young men who got to go help pass out the bread and the water to everyone in the congregation. He finally calmed down some when we told him that he could pass the bread and water to us after it was passed to our row. But he still wanted to go up to the front and help. The rest of the meetings went like normal. This is the fourth week in a row that Camden has been happy right up until the third hour of church, when he acts so tired and fussy that we have to take him out in the hall. Michael took him for me the last few weeks when he did this, so this week I said I could stay out with him. I did get to meet another new family in the ward while I was out there, so that was nice. After church Kolby’s sunbeam teacher told me that during primary there was a family visiting who’s son had recently been baptized. The boy was baptized in the Susquehanna River, which happens to be a significant location in the history of our church, so the primary leader was asking the children to guess where the boy had been baptized. So, his teacher told me that Kolby raised his hand right away and answered, “At a garage sale.” She said that he was very proud of his answer.

This afternoon we came home and water was leaking from the light fixture and wood work above our kitchen sink. We finally got a hold of the apartment maintenance worker, and he came and said that he will have a plumber come tomorrow, since it seems that it leaks more in our apartment every time our upstairs neighbors use their sink or dishwasher. Luckily, the majority of the water is dripping into our sink, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

This next week should be a lot of fun too. Tomorrow Michael has the day off because in his dermatology rotation they are training new interns tomorrow, so they aren’t going to have the students start until Tuesday. So we are planning on taking the boys to the zoo in the morning. And then Michael gets Wednesday off for the 4th of July, so we will take the boys to the parade in the morning, then to the annual ward party at the Twelmyer’s house, and then to see the fireworks in the evening. Hopefully the nice weather holds out. Well, we hope you all have a happy 4th of July!