A Fun Game Night

When the Owens came over the other night, we had so much fun having dinner and playing games together. The kids enjoyed the night too.

Camden and Jessica reading books together:

The boys watching a movie after Isaac and Jessica fell asleep:

Christmas Morning

And here are the pictures from Christmas day. I had to get a shot of the pretty snow in the back yard. The boys enjoyed opening gifts, and I think my favorite part was watching them give hugs each time they opened each others’ gifts. Isaac’s favorite part was pulling off one little piece of wrapping paper at a time and handing them to Grandma. And, of course, here are the shots of Michael and I each opening the same board game that we got for each other. The boys look so cute in all their new outfits. And this last shot is of Isaac when he was starting to get tired and ready for brunch – he laid down to rest for a minute inside one of the toy boxes. Pretty cute!

Bear Lake Trip

So, after we got a little settled in here in Utah, we got to go on a really fun trip with Faith and Tyce to Tyce’ grandmother’s cabin in Bear Lake. The first day we went on a little hike and the next day we tried to go swimming, although it ended up being rather cold and rainy so we ended up playing games for most of the day. Then on the third morning we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground (yes, it is June!). And even though I was rather cold, it was a very fun trip. We are looking forward to many fun trips with you guys in the future!

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Ready for Retirement

This month has been so wonderful having Michael home with us for his vacation month. Not only has he been super helpful with the kids and allowed me to get a little more rest most mornings, it has been great for the boys and for me to just be able to spend time with him. I told him that I am feeling ready for him to retire so that we can continue having all this great time together as a family forever (I wish!). We have gotten all the planning done for the move and have started packing some things for Rochester this week. Planning for this move has been a little harder than past moves because we are sending half of our things and storing them in Rochester for a year and taking the other things that we will need with us to Salt Lake, so as we pack we can’t just throw everything into boxes, but need to decide which things we can get by without for a year and which things we have to have with us. But we are making progress – we sorted through our basement storage unit and our storage in the apartment, we have assembled a pretty good collection of boxes, we took many of the pictures and decorations down, packed the china, packed all the things we could from Kolby and Eli’s room, we went through all of our food storage and removed the items that would expire before we get settled in in Salt Lake so we can start using them, and we have packed what we could from the bathroom and linen closet, and a little from Camden’s closet, and I have started to post a few things for sale on craigslist.com. I think the next step will be to pack the odds and ends that have started to pile up in our bedroom since we started packing, then on to finishing Camden’s room. I feel like we’re not too far from getting the majority of the Rochester stuff packed, and then we can relax a bit more until we need to get everything packed after Michael’s graduation.

So, a lot of days this week were taken up by several hours of packing in the morning/afternoon with interspersed feeding, changing, and disciplining of children, and usually a fun family activity like some time spent outside (the weather has been nice) or games with friends. On Monday for family home evening we went over to Jacobus Park and took a little nature walk with the boys around a pond and through a wooded area to the playground and then back to the car, which was really nice. And when we got home Michael gave the boys a great lesson on the creation, after pointing out all the beautiful things on our nature walk that Heavenly Father and Jesus created for us.

On Tuesday I was able to go to the family history center in the morning for the German translation service that they provide a couple of days a week there. I took the scanned documents that I got from my grandparents’ house and the lady there was able to translate a letter and start into another document for me. So far most of the letters just list names that we know are family members from the last names, but the first names are mostly unfamiliar, but I am hoping that if we get all the letters translated that we will be able to figure out who some of the people were and how they were related to us. When my parents come for Michael’s graduation next month they are going to bring the pictures that they took of the headstones and the pages of the parish birth record book they found one afternoon at an archive while on their trip to the Czech Republic, and I can barely wait to see what those records show and am very hopeful that we will be able to find the names of some more ancestors when we look at those together.

Tuesday night was Eli’s night out with Daddy, and Michael had a meeting about student loans, so he took Eli with him. Eli colored during the meeting, then they both went to the library to read stories afterwards. After they got home, the Kearls came over and we had a fun night of games. Then on Wednesday evening Michael took Kolby, Eli, and Camden to the YMCA and I took Isaac with me. Michael swam with Camden while Kolby and Eli had their swim lessons, and then they all swam together. I went to an enrichment meeting at Sarah Lythgoe’s house about cooking with food storage, and I’m still trying to motivate myself to experiment with using some of the wheat and other food storage items in our everyday cooking. For now I feel like I want to keep trying to perfect my whole wheat bread first before adding something else to my ‘to do’ list.

Thursday night was a really nice break for us. After packing in the daytime, we got ready and dropped off our boys at the McMullin’s house and then went and picked up the Kearls. We drove downtown to the Marcus Theater and arrived just at the same time as the Hedgecocks. We all enjoyed a night out at the Orchestra listening to Holst’s “The Planets.” The music was very good. Afterwards we headed over to the hotel across the street for free desserts, which gave us a nice chance to talk to each other. After picking the kids up from the McMullins’, we ended up playing a few games over at the Kearls’ house before heading home late that night.

On Friday we continued to pack and we babysat for the McMullin’s to go out for a date that night. I think Michael enjoyed having an older kid around (their son, Tyler, is 10), because he pulled out his old Nintendo and they played an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game. After the other kids were all in bed we watched Jumanji – probably one of my favorite big kid movies – and it was fun to see Tyler’s reactions as he got excited and jumped up and down during the more intense parts of the movie.

On Saturday we had plans to go to the Hedgecock’s and the Kearls were coming too, and we were all going to enjoy pizza for dinner and play some games together. So, Michael was working on getting some laundry done and I was helping the boys when the Kearls called in the morning, and Faith and I ended up going shopping while Tyce and Michael took the kids to the playground. It was fun – I haven’t gone shopping with a friend (other than my mom) for about 2 years now, I think. After the Kearls headed home, we ate lunch and then Kolby and Eli played some Sesame Street games on the computer until it was time to go over to the Hedgecock’s house. We had pizza and played a few different games, in between playing with and taking care of the kids. It was pretty impressive – by the end of the night we had all the kids asleep at the same time in their two-bedroom apartment: Carter fell asleep in his crib in Peter and Cynthia’s room, and Camden fell asleep in our playpen that we set up next to Carter’s crib, and Nathan slept in Peter and Cynthia’s bed. And Jordan slept in his bed, and we set up blankets on the floor in Jordan’s walk-in closet and Kolby and Eli camped out in there. After Isaac fell asleep we moved him in his car seat into Jordan’s room too. Then, after Camden was asleep we moved him to a blanket on the floor and put Katie to sleep in the playpen. I think we’ve gotten pretty good at getting a bunch of toddlers and babies sleep all at the same time in a small space – we probably wouldn’t know what to do if we ever had a big house with lots of bedrooms and beds for all of us and our friends to use.

And today church went pretty well. The boys did very well in Sacrament meeting and we didn’t even have to leave the meeting except for one diaper change. Then, after dropping the older three boys off at their classes, we substituted for Amanda Hansen as teachers for her 5-year-old primary class. We had five kids in the class, and they made our job easy by all being very good for us. We taught them a lesson about the Holy Ghost and I think it went well. Teaching the children’s class sure seemed to make church go by a lot quicker too. Then, after we got home I stayed home with Camden because he fell asleep on the drive home and Michael took the other boys for a walk around the neighborhood (and gave me a chance to write this). And, just as I was finishing writing, Isaac just rolled over from his back to his tummy for the first time (he rolled the other way a while ago, but hasn’t rolled this direction before). Well, better go get dinner ready. Hope you are all having a wonderful Sunday!

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!

A Run-in with the Law

So, we had a little excitement at our place last night. After Michael took the boys to swimming lessons and I returned home from visiting Amy Hymas and her new baby, Faith and Tyce Kearl came over to play some games. Michael got a phone call from his sister, Mel, in Utah telling him that there was a lunar eclipse and he and Tyce went out to look at it. They came in and said it was pretty cool, so Faith and I went outside to see it. We were standing in front of our apartment building looking up, and it was kind of cool – you could see a brown spot on the moon from where the Earth was blocking the sunlight. We stood out there for a few seconds, and then I said that the eclipse was cool, but that it was too cold to stand out there any longer to look at it.

So we started to walk back inside, and as soon as we did a lady came into view down on the street in front of our building. It was dark out and she was yelling at us to stop, using profanity, and pointing a gun at us. So we ran inside as fast as we could. I think we startled our husbands when we ran in and locked the door. We told them what had happened, and I said that the lady yelled “Police,” but Faith hadn’t heard her say that. But I have heard enough stories of bad cops hurting people or bad people impersonating police officers, that I wasn’t going to wait around outside while someone was aiming a gun at us to see if she really was a police officer or not. So, when we heard four officers come into the hallway outside our front door and they were yelling, when Michael went to the front door, I didn’t want him to unlock it. I thought that it would be very strange for a police officer to aim a gun and yell profanities at two people for no apparent reason, so I thought that if it really was an officer, and she did want us to come out of our apartment she could calm down, explain herself, and show us her badge before barging in.

We soon realized (by watching through the peep hole in our front door) that the officers in the hallway were not calling for us to open our door, but they were calling for someone to come down from upstairs. We kept watching as the teenage boy from upstairs came down and when they asked him who else was upstairs he said that it was just him and his mother and sister. I then overheard the officer say that they don’t mess around when they get reports of a gun. We kept returning to the door to peek out, and first they had the boy handcuffed, then later on the mom and the girl were there handcuffed too and they were reading them all their rights.

At this point I started to feel bad because I didn’t want the officers to think that the mom and daughter were the ones they were chasing outside and have them get in extra trouble for running away from the officers when it was really us. So I cracked open the door, and the officer told me to wait inside. After a while the mom and daughter were no longer in the hallway, it was just the boy. The officer knocked on the door and came in and I apologized for running away. She said that there were reports that the boy was shooting a gun out of the upstairs window and that there were two females with him, so we had really bad timing for going out to look at the moon, because she assumed that we were those two females from the report. She made it seem like we were pretty dumb for running away when she told us to stop, although I still feel justified for running from a person screaming and swearing at us in the dark and aiming a gun at us, even if that person did say they were the police. So, the officer took our names and information, just to note in their paperwork that neither Faith nor I were the ones with the gun, and then she left.

We were talking after that, and commenting that we didn’t think the boy could have actually been shooting a gun out the window above us or we would have heard it. I can tell you that both Faith and I, and probably Michael and Tyce too, had an adrenaline rush after that. (I had never had a gun pointed in my direction before).

I was rather concerned that the boy living in our building could possibly have been waving or shooting a gun, and wondering if we needed to be concerned about our family’s safety, so today I called the police department and asked about last night’s incident. I was told that after all that, they found out that it was not a real gun. She said it was a soft air gun and we didn’t need to be concerned. (So, because the boy upstairs wanted to play with fake guns, Faith and I got a real gun pointed at us). That was quite a little adventure. And it is a relief to know that the boy upstairs is not some kind of psycho.

When I Grow Up, I Want To Be . . .

We got this questionnaire from Kolby's primary class at church, and I asked Kolby the questions while I wrote down his answers. I thought they were pretty cute, especially the one about what he wants to be when he grows up:

(just click on this page to zoom in)