Graduation Pictures

So, here are a few pictures from Michael’s graduation. It was really great that Michael’s parents, my parents, and my grandma were able to come for that special day. Thanks!

I'm graduated from medical school!!

Well, it’s official. After four long, busy, difficult, yet fun years, I graduated from the Medical College of Wisconsin with a degree of doctor of medicine (MD) with honors in research. What a whirlwind week of activities and emotions. My mom and dad and grandma Faun arrived Wednesday afternoon and Steph’s parents came on Thursday. Not only have we been happy to have family here to be with us during this special week and to have fun playing with the kids, but also we are grateful for the wonderful weather that they brought with them.

Monday was my last day of classes in medical school. My final lecture was on bioterrorism, specifically on anthrax, the plague, and small pox – interesting note to end on. We had our pass/fail final test Tuesday morning (I had to score more than a 64% in order to pass), CPR recertification in the afternoon, and then I was done. Wow!!

Wednesday morning we went with the Lythgoes to the zoo. It was a beautiful day and probably the most active I have seen the animals. The jaguar and the cheetahs were the best, prowling back and forth in front of the glass; the elephants were playing in the water and with sticks; the monkeys were swinging back and forth and putting on a show; and even the black bear came out to say hi. The boys always like the fish and reptiles building. We met up with the Hymases a little later and had lunch by the new flamingo exhibit. The kids had so much fun playing together. On Wednesday night they got to see Kolby and Eli in their swim lessons and then grandpa Dick swam with Kolby, Eli, Camden, and me for a while afterwards.

Thursday morning I went over to the school to get some pictures taken with several of the other graduates in front of the school in our graduation robes. We took the family down to the lakefront to see Lake Michigan and play frisbee and throw balls in the grass. Then we went across the street to the Children’s Museum for a few hours. We are really going to miss this museum that has so many fun and varied activities for the kids. That night was the graduation awards dinner held at the Italian center in downtown Milwaukee. We were treated to a very nice dinner and then several faculty, residents, and people in the class received awards from various departments. It was fun to be there with all the family members and we received some good advice from those who got the teaching awards.

Then it was here – graduation day. The morning was spent around the apartment and just outside, playing with the kids and enjoying time together. My mom made me a really nice embroidered picture of a lighthouse with a really cool quote from our prophet, Thomas S. Monson: “The lighthouse of the Lord beckons to all as we sail the seas of life. Look to the lighthouse of the Lord. There is no fog so dense, no night so dark, no gale so strong, no mariner so lost, but what its beacon light can rescue. It calls ‘this way to safety and this way to home.’” Steph’s parents got us a really nice new digital camera – a Canon G9 series with 12.1 mega pixels. It has so many buttons and gadgets on it that it will take me a while to learn just how to use it. And grandma Faun gave us some money to put towards a graduation present. Thanks to all of you for your generosity, and to everyone else that has called to wish us congratulations.

We headed to the Milwaukee Theatre just after lunch in order to take pictures with me in my graduation robes. Then I had to separate from the family to go to the graduate waiting area and to say goodbye to some people who I probably won’t see again. It was a blur of feelings, thoughts, and emotions. We were lined up and marched into the theatre. Our graduation ceremony is done in conjunction with those receiving a PhD, a MA, and an MS. The speaker focused on what a privilege it is to be a doctor – it is a blessing and honor that comes with a responsibility to always help and serve your patients in order to find true happiness in the profession. Then I was walking up to the stage, across the stage while they were saying my name, and receiving my diploma, signifying that I am now a doctor. There is no way that I could have got here without the help of my wonderful wife Stephanie and all the family and friends who have supported us over the past four years. Thanks to everyone who was able to come and participate – it was so nice to have family here. And again, thanks to all who have called or sent congratulations our way. It is still a little surreal to have the degree – I don’t think it has hit me yet that I am actually a doctor – hopefully that will happen as I start into my intern year.

We were able to drop the kids off at a babysitter (thank you Hedgecocks) and go to dinner at Bartolottas, and Italian restaurant in downtown Wauwatosa. Our reservation was for 8pm, but the party before us didn’t want to get up from the table, so we didn’t end up getting seated until almost 9pm. The owner came out and apologized, and we ended up getting 2 free antipastos (one a mix of meats, cheeses, and veggies; the other delicious calamari) and 5 free desserts. That was nice. The dinner was pretty good – I got a nice seafood mix with some swordfish, octopus, mussels, scallops, and prawns. And we just had a great time spending time together. Thanks mom and dad for dinner.

Saturday morning we took the boys over to the hotel to swim with the grandparents. Grandpa Dick taught Eli how to dive into the water and he did it right away with no fear. It was so cute to watch. Nana and Papa took the boys to the mall to Build a Bear and Camden got a puppy named Quinton; Eli got a bunny named Benjamin; and Kolby got an Elephant named Rutherford. You can squeeze the hand and the animal says, “Nana and Papa love…(and then the boys name).” They are really cute and the boys love them. Steph got a new skirt and shirt and I got some new Levis – thanks again moms and dads. We went to a BBQ for dinner at Enderis Park with several other recent graduates and their families. There was good food and fun times seeing some of these people probably for the last time. The Nielsens and Tysons gave us a really cute frame, with a picture of me and the boys and a whiteboard, along with this poem:
“When Daddy write his name, he always writes M.D. That’s so people all will know that he belongs to me. So, M.D. means My Daddy, or something just the same, and that is why he always puts those letters on his name. Some letters in his name are small but those are big, you see. He always makes them big like that because he’s proud of me.” Thanks you guys. After the BBQ, we rushed home to put the kids to bed, and with Tyce babysitting, we were able to run to the mall to see Prince Caspian. I really liked it, and what a fun and exciting weekend.

It is now Sunday morning and we are just about to head off for church. The roast is cooking and the potatoes and carrots are ready to be cooked; the rolls are rising; the cake is cooked; the kids are dressed; grandma Debbie is playing beautiful piano music; the boys are playing with the other grandparents; and it is just a wonderful Sabbath day that we get to celebrate as a family here at home and then at church. Both parents leave tonight and Grandma Faun tomorrow, which we are sad about, because it has been so much fun to spend the weekend with them. This just gets us so excited to come to Utah to be closer to all the family.

Last Month of Medical School

This week I started into my last rotation of medical school – the preparing for internship course. This is just a 2 week lecture series – daily lectures from 8:30 to noon on various topics that the school feels will be most helpful to us in preparing for the intern year. I am amazed by how short my attention span has become for listening to lectures and wonder how I survived the first two years of lectures. :) The things they have taught so far seems pertinent and a good refresher, and it has been especially nice to see all my classmates that I haven’t seen for a few months or years.

Monday we went to the domes, since it is free for Milwaukee residents on Monday mornings. This is a set of 3 large dome-shaped greenhouses, each with a different theme inside them. One had a garden theme, one had a southwest desert theme, and one had a tropical theme. It all smelled really good and was quite pretty. We especially liked the tropical dome and so had lunch on some benches in there.

That night Steph and I were invited to dinner at an Italian restaurant with my dermatology advisor, Dr. Valerie Lyon, and her spouse, and another student that has worked with Dr. Lyon, Christine Palmer and her husband. I tried anchovies on pizza and conch (like the conch shell) in a salad for the first time. It was so nice of Dr. Lyon and her husband to treat us out.

We have started selling our big furniture on Craigslist.com and have had some success this week – we sold the bunk bed, a couch, a dresser, a bookshelf, and a small cabinet. If we can fit all of our stuff into one pod for long term storage in Rochester rather than 2, that will save us about $1000. We are going to put the “furniture money” aside and save it for when we get to Rochester to apply towards new furniture. We have also been able to get some more packing done this week and only have a little left to do after graduation. The apartment is looking quite sparse recently.

Tuesday night we met with Kendra McMullin, a resident wife in our ward who has talked with us before about finances and some suggestions to prepare for the future. She came this time to give us some advice of things she has learned since they started residency – things that we should and shouldn’t try to do once we are living on an income – I think she had some really good advice. She also gave us a book to read, called The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, and so far it is really good. He stresses coming up with a method to pay yourself first in order to have enough saved to enjoy retirement. I was also shown a new website this week, poormd.blogspot.com that a recent graduate from my school has put together on different financial topics and he and his colleagues advice – from Roth IRAs to renting vs. buying to what to do once you start earning an income. Steph and I also sat down this week and started to put together an Excel spreadsheet showing what our monthly expenses will be next year and what things we want to start saving for. I guess we are just excited to finally have a paycheck and to start saving for the goals that we want to accomplish in our life.

Wednesday we went to the playgroup at the park. The weather was almost perfect and the boys had so much fun with their friends on the playground and in the sand. Camden is now old enough to run around with the older boys and do most of what they do, so it is fun to watch all of them playing together. We packed lunches so we could eat there at the park.

Kolby and Eli continue to improve in their swimming skills. Eli was able to swim back and forth across half the pool with only a flotation assistive device that looks like a weight barbell – his teacher just walked in front of him to make sure he was doing ok. He is also almost just tall enough to stand in the water by himself, so he likes jumping off the side and then trying to walk from me back to the wall – it is really funny to watch since he is not quite tall enough. I swam with the boys in the water after they were done and we had lots of fun.

Kolby and Eli have been working on staying dry all the time for potty training. We decided to start a new chart, and if they went 7 days straight with no accidents, then they could get some “big boy” underwear – boxer briefs – from the store. They have been so excited to work on it, and Eli actually was the first one to get to 7 days, so we went to the store and let him pick out some new underwear. He was so excited. We also had a 2 for 1 at Noodles, so we packed dinner for the boys and Steph and I were able to enjoy a nice dinner for under $8. What a deal.

We have had some fun with friends this weekend as well. Friday night we had the Kearls and the Hedgecocks over for games and dessert. They have both watched our kids for us a number of times and so we set up to watch both their kids for them last night so they could both go on a date. Then, the Wells called and came over to do an ice cream bar and games, as well as helping to watch the kids. We had 9 children last night and they all did reasonably well together. We were even able to get most of them to sleep and able to enjoy playing some games. Steph and I borrowed an old Disney movie from the Kearls called The Happiest Millionaire that we finished watching this weekend and that was really funny.


Well, it is a nice sunny Sunday morning and the kids are getting a little rowdy, so I probably should end to go and help Steph get them all ready for church.

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.

Before and After

So, when I was pregnant with Camden, there were also seven other wives of medical students in Michael’s class who were also all pregnant at the same time. We had this photo taken of all of us at Katie Irion’s baby shower in April 2006, and we were all in order by our due dates.

Stephanie Bradshaw, Christina Nielsen, Jill Craven, Leslie Tyson,

Melissa Jay, Kim Morrison, Heather Vernon, and Katie Irion

Christina Nielsen has been trying since then to get everyone back together again to take a photo of all of us with the babies. A couple people weren’t able to make it when we took these photos again at Ian Nielsen’s birthday party so we’re going to have to try again when everyone is around, but it was still fun. I was feeling a little bit down, being the only one who is obviously pregnant again in the second photo, but I guess it's only fair since I was the least far along (least pregnant-looking) in the original photo.

Camden and Stephanie Bradshaw, Eden and Jill Craven, Ian and Christina Nielsen,

Ella and Leslie Tyson, Isaac and Heather Vernon, & Grace and Katie Irion

Thoughts on September Eleventh

So far, I haven’t gotten this personal with the things that I have posted on our blog – usually it is just news and cute stories about the kids or our weekly post keeping everyone up to date with the goings-on of our family. But I figured that since we print out and save the posts from this site as our family journal, I should write down the feelings I have been having about this day.

It has been six years to the day since September 11, 2001. I remember that day – I was doing my semester in Nauvoo, Illinois. That morning I briefly checked my e-mail before going to class, and I remember glancing at a picture on the internet page before my e-mail inbox opened that showed an explosion, and assuming that it was an ad for a movie or something. Then, when we went to class, they announced what had happened with the planes being hijacked and crashing into the Twin Towers in New York and other places. I spent days in the student lobby watching news reports on the television. I remember crying for those people, and especially when they showed video of people jumping from the towers – thinking how terrible that was for those people, but especially for their families to see that too. I remember after several days when there was no longer a large group of students watching the news reports every day, and thinking that I should stop spending all my time watching the reports, but at the same time feeling guilty – like getting back to my own life was somehow making the lost lives of all those people less important.

And now it has already been six years since then. On the Oprah show this afternoon there was a story about September 11th, which focused on the children of those who died that day. It had several teenagers on the show who were children when their father or mother died six years ago. The part that got to me the most was when they showed an interview from 2001 of a father who had lost his wife, and he was describing how he had to explain to his 3 year old son that his mother was dead and wasn’t going to come home. And I thought of Kolby, who is also 3 years old, and how that would be to have to explain such a thing to him. I usually don’t get emotional while watching tv shows or movies, but I cried a lot while I watched that today, thinking of all those children. It said that over 3,000 children were left without a parent after September 11th. Wow.

Seeing something like that sure makes you grateful for all the good things in your life. I find myself thinking that life is hard with Michael gone on overnight call every few days and watching the kids by myself. Or sometimes I wish that we could just not worry about money and go out and get something really nice – even though I don’t usually complain about not having much, I think about how nice it will be someday when we have a real job to have enough money to save up. Or I think that I have it hard because I have so many young kids – even though I know we chose to have them all so close together – but still I feel some self-pity sometimes when I am having a hard day with the boys and thinking that other people don’t really understand because they’re not in the same situation as I am.

But this afternoon I was remembering about a local news story a few months ago about a medical team that was carrying a transplant organ over Lake Michigan when their plane went down in the lake and all of the people on the plane died. Several days after the plane crash, I saw a news story with an interview of the wife of one of the men who had died in that plane crash, and what she said really struck me. She had three young children and her husband was in the medical field, so her situation felt familiar to mine. And she was crying as she said that there was still a pile of dirty laundry in their bedroom. She said that she used to get so mad when her husband just left the laundry out and never put it in the hamper. And then she said that if her husband would just come back, she’d pick up every piece of dirty laundry and never say a word about it. I listened to that and cried that day too.

I think that one positive thing I can get from these stories of families that will never be together again in this life, is that we need to be thankful for what we have while we have it.

Even if Michael is on call overnight at the hospital every few days, he will have a lighter schedule with his next rotation next month, and he will hopefully have a nice family-friendly schedule when he finished his residency in several years, and even if his schedule is awful, I still have a husband who I know would rather be home with me and the boys more than anyplace else, ever. I know some people who seem like they would rather be at school studying to make a better score on the next test, or at the hospital impressing their attending so they will have a better grade, or at work so they can make more money, and I am blessed to have a husband who enjoys learning and working hard, but would rather be with us anytime.

And we may not have much money, but we really are blessed in our financial situation. If it weren’t for the student loans and government aid that we live off of, we would be in a lot of trouble financially. I hear stories of how “poor students” lived in my parents’ generation, and we are pretty well off compared to them. Even though we are considered to be below “poverty level” now as we try to get through school, we have an apartment that is a little crowded as our family continues to grow, but it is comfortable, clean, in a safe neighborhood, and we have good neighbors. With our fourth child on the way, it is not always easy to “live within our means,” but if we are willing to try hard to give up lots of little things that some people might consider necessities, we can make it work. We have been blessed that we have been able to get by without ever having to reconsider our original priority that we made for me to be home with the kids instead of out working and having them be raised by daycare providers.

And on those all-to-frequent days when I get frustrated with the boys and loose my patience and yell at them, I just need to take a minute and think of how lucky I am to have them. So many people have trouble getting pregnant, and we have been so blessed to have children when we decide to. I think of families with children who have mental disabilities, and I wonder how I would be able to handle that – we have been so blessed to have healthy, active children. Our kids eat like crazy, often consuming as much or more at meal time as my husband and I do, and then crying for more food when the meal is over – but we have never had any problems with children who are unhealthily underweight or have food allergies. And our boys are very active, they have creative imaginations, they can be mischievous, and are sometimes destructive, but they are generally good kids – they often play well together, they sleep well, they love learning and doing family activities, and they love each other and Michael and I. So I think that maybe next time Eli rips up one of his storybooks, or the next time Camden spits up all over my dress, or the next time Kolby waits until I have packed all the kids and diaper bags and strollers into the car and am driving away before he lets me know that he needs to go potty, maybe the next time I will try to remember to be thankful for my kids rather than frustrated with them. I am pretty lucky for all the good things I have.