So, I am still on the e-mail list for the family history department at BYU and I get e-mails from them every once in a while, usually job offers for genealogy majors. But today I got an e-mail telling about the progress that has been made in digitizing the genealogy books in the collection from the Family History Library in Salt Lake, along with several other genealogical collections. The link to the database is, www.lib.byu.edu/fhc, if you’re interested in taking a look. I haven’t had a chance yet to see if I could find any new info about my ancestors in this archive, but I did type my name into the “author” field real quick, just to see if anything would turn up. It was fun to see the paper that I wrote about my great grandmother, Nettie Dorothy Graham Spohr, and her ancestors while I was studying genealogy at BYU – I had given a copy of my final paper to the FHL in Salt Lake when I finished it, so I knew they had it in their library, but it was fun to see that it has been totally digitized – photos, genealogical charts, maps, and all, so that it can be easily shared with any interested relatives. Kind of fun. (If you are one of my relatives and are interested in looking at that paper on Nettie, here is the link).
Showing posts with label Salt Lake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Salt Lake. Show all posts
11 December 2008
16 November 2008
Christmas Tree Question
Oh, does anyone happen to know of a nursery anywhere in the Salt Lake area where you can cut down your own Christmas tree? I remember doing that as a kid in San Diego and really enjoying it, plus I figured that a fresh-cut tree would last a lot longer than one that’s been sitting in a lot. I’m not too huge about the idea of getting a permit and hauling all the kids up into the mountains to find a tree (maybe when our kids are bigger some day), but if there was a nursery somewhere where we could cut our own, I’d be excited to find it. Thanks!
03 July 2008
Splish Splash!
In downtown Salt Lake they have this fun little outdoor shopping center, and right in the middle is a fun splash pad for the kids to run around and get wet. My Grandma and I took the boys there on Saturday while Michael was on call at the hospital, and they had a blast. Kolby was pretty wary of the whole thing for a while – he thought it would be a great activity if we had brought our swimsuits like some of the other children there, but he did not think that running through the water in his clothes was a very good idea at all. He wouldn’t go in, until Grandma told him she’d go with him, and then he ended up having fun and getting the most soaked of any of the boys. They all enjoyed it. It was a nice activity for a hot day. (Too bad my camera battery died after I had only taken a few photos). I think we’ll have to go back sometime with swimsuits and sunscreen so that we can stay out longer.
26 June 2008
Feeding the Birds
We went to Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake for a little family dinner Sunday evening to celebrate Grandma Bradshaw’s birthday. When we realized that the family was setting everything up just a few feet from the lake, we knew it would be hard to keep the kids dry. Camden stepped in first, and then slipped and fell in up to his neck (then he was walking around in just a diaper for the rest of the evening). Kolby later fell in when he was trying to throw bread to feed the birds (and he was walking around in his shirt and boxers the rest of the night). And later Camden fell in again (I think this time may have been an accident) while he was trying to feed the birds. Michael caught this last fall on tape. It was an eventful night and several of the family members thanked us for providing the entertainment for the evening. Happy Birthday, Grandma!
22 June 2008
Nauvoo
On our move from Milwaukee to Salt Lake we stopped in Nauvoo, Illinois, a little town that is important to the history of our church. It is a fun place where they have many old homes and buildings set up like they would have been originally and they give tours and teach about how life was back then. There is also the beautiful Nauvoo temple. And we got to stop and see my friend who I grew up with, Andrea Cartwright, who is serving her mission in Nauvoo right now. After catching up she gave us a tour of the Wilford Woodruff home. It was really nice to see her. We had a fun day in Nauvoo, I’m glad we were able to go again before heading back out west.
25 May 2008
Getting Ready to Move
This week has been a whirlwind of packing and getting last-minute things done before our move, with some fun thrown in here and there. On Sunday afternoon Michael’s parents and my parents each left, and on Monday Grandma Faun left too. We were so glad that they could all come for Michael’s graduation!
On Monday Michael got his graduation gift from me (and we used the graduation money from Grandma Faun and the money Michael had earned by helping give a test to the 2nd-years a couple weeks ago, and it was still a pretty big splurge – but Michael really, really wanted it and has worked so hard through school these last few years that I figure he deserves to spend some time just relaxing and having fun). So, I got him a Wii. I was always one of those people who swore our children would never play video games (although I do have a secret love of Tetris). But I do like that the Wii has fun sports games that get you up and moving, and that since it is wireless the kids can play too without accidentally stepping on the chords and turning everything off – Kolby is an expert at bowling already! So we have the sports games and Mario Kart, which is a fun racing game – as long as we steer clear of the killing games, I don’t think it’s bad to sit down as a family or with friends and play some games. Plus, Michael was excited to find out that he could play the games online through our wireless connection with his family and friends who don’t live nearby – he has already played the racing game with his dad in Boise, and with the Hymases. So, needless to say, Michael was pretty excited about that gift.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I went to the family history center and had the sisters there help me translate some of the German records that my parents brought back from their trip to the Czech Republic. I am so excited to sit down and figure out how all these ancestors connect, and my mom said she might even be able to come up to Utah once my brothers’ school gets out, and we can both spend some time at the family history center working on it together – it’s so fun that my parents are both getting interested in family history too now.
I have been quite busy this week also selling lots of our furniture and some other smaller things. This week we sold the entertainment center, the kitchen table, another table that we had in the basement, an end table, the breadmaker, and the car. Now we just need to sell the couch, and we will be set as far as the big things go. We’ve also been doing all the last minute things that come with moving – canceling our YMCA membership, getting transfer papers for WIC, getting the tow hitch installed on the van so we could tow the car on our move, making last-minute doctor’s appointments before we move and have to switch doctors, making big batches of soup to try to use up the meat in our freezer before we move, getting oil changes and check-ups on the cars before moving, finding out that the car had some major problems that we didn’t know about that made it un-drivable and would cost more than the cost of the car to fix, posting the car on sale for craigslist for $350 (hoping that we could get more than just $100 for it), having 30 or 40 people e-mail us about the car the night we posted it online, taking one last trip to the Chicago temple before we move, canceling our reservation to get the tow dolly from U-haul to tow our car to Utah, and having someone come to our house as soon as we returned from our temple trip and offer us $500 for the car and then paying us and taking it off our hands right away. Although we were not planning on having to get another car for Michael once we move to Utah, I guess if you look at the bright side of things, we will no longer have to tow the car on our drive to Utah, so that will not only save us a little gas money, but we will also not be limited to the 6 days that we would have had to get to Utah to drop off the U-haul tow dolly, so now we can choose to stay an extra afternoon or an extra day in Nauvoo or at Grandma Bev’s house on our drive out if we feel like it. Also, it was a little annoying that we had just paid to install the tow hitch on the van and we won’t be using it now, but I guess we will tow whatever car we get on our move to Rochester in a year, so the hitch won’t go totally unused.
We have also had some fun this week. Tyce came over and played a bit on Monday night after we put the kids to bed, and the Hedgecocks came over on Tuesday night after Kolby called and asked if Jordan could come play (Kolby and Eli get really excited lately when we let them call their friends on the phone). On Wednesday we got to go to a playgroup at Enderis Park, where we saw Marcela Maas and some other friends. Michael also took the three older boys swimming on Wednesday night while I repaired furniture to get it in good enough shape to sell it. At the playgroup that morning Marcela decided to organize a BBQ for the next night as a little going away party with some friends. She called everyone and got it all organized, and we were surprised at how many showed up since it was planned at the last minute. It was nice to be able to see lots of our friends and enjoy some time together, although people didn’t linger for long after dinner since it turned out to be a very cold evening. After the BBQ, the Hedgecocks stayed to play and Jana and Marie Wells came back over after dropping Keith off at the school to study. Michael figured out how to play the Wii with the Hymases on the internet too that night, so that was fun also.
And today will be our last day at church in this ward. I’m sad to be going, although I’ve kind of been getting used to the idea since Michael matched, so I’ve not been feeling quite as sad lately as I was at first. And this week will continue to be busy too. The pods arrive on Tuesday and we will have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to pack everything and clean the apartment. The pods will be picked up on Friday before noon, and we will head out then. We are planning on stopping in Nauvoo, Illinois for a day and then stopping and visiting with my Grandma Bev in Missouri before driving the rest of the way to Salt Lake.
Oh, speaking of Salt Lake, I sat Kolby and Eli down the other day and explained all of our moving plans and answered their questions, and they seemed to understand and accept everything, except there was some confusion about moving to Salt Lake. Apparently Kolby thought we were moving to a place with water, since it is called ‘Salt Lake.’ I explained to him that there is a lake, but that it’s not right next to Grandma’s house, and the rest of the conversation seemed to go pretty smoothly. I think that the boys are starting to understand the idea of moving, although they keep asking me every once in a while if we are moving back home after we live at Grandma Faun’s house – I think Kolby thought we were going on another extended vacation until I recently told him we would have a new house in New York after we live in Utah. I haven’t mentioned to them that they won’t be seeing their friends again, though. I don’t know if I should say anything about that before we go or not – I’ll probably just tell them today that they need to say goodbye to their friends before we move. Hopefully that goes pretty smoothly too.
20 April 2008
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!
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!
13 April 2008
Two Weeks of Vacation
I love having this month off for vacation. It has been so nice and relaxing to take time getting up in the morning, eating nice breakfasts with the family, playing with the boys, and just being home with the family. We have gotten a lot done over the past two weeks to get ready for packing and moving while still finding time to have some fun.
As far as moving, we have decided to try and fit most of our stuff into a pod that will be transported to Rochester, New York and then kept in storage for a year. Then we will try and fit the stuff going to Utah with us into another pod and our cars. We are going to try and sell most of our bigger furniture (dressers, bookcases, entertainment center, couches, table) in order to make everything fit, and then slowly purchase them again when we get to Rochester. This will help us to save quite a bit of money if we can use 2 pods rather than 3. We set a date to rent the pods for Tuesday, May 27, which will allow us a few fudge days to get everything packed before we have to be out of the apartment on May 31. Then, we are going to get a towing package installed on the back of our van and rent a car tow dolly from U-haul to tow our smaller blue car behind the van when we drive to Utah. That way, we can take a few extra days getting to Utah, stopping in Nauvoo and at Steph’s grandma’s house in Missouri (plus it will cost less to tow the car than to pay for gas to drive it). Steph also found some people in Milwaukee that had just moved here and were giving away their boxes, so we picked them up and have them ready to start packing soon. We also spent a couple of days cleaning out our storage units and trying to get rid of the junk that has accumulated over the past few years. That felt good.
It is crazy to think that we only have about 7 weeks left in Milwaukee. We are really excited to start this next step in our journey, but we will be very sad to leave all of the friends out here that have become our family while away from family. Thanks to everyone who has been so good to us, helping us out when needed and having fun playing games with us. We hope that we can stay in contact with all of them even though we will not be close by.
Speaking of the next step in our journey, we got all the paperwork this week for my new job as an intern at Intermountain Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. I got my contract that showed how much I will get paid (and let’s just say it will be so nice to finally be getting a paycheck again). I also got the form to pick my schedule preference, as well as all the stuff from human resources for insurance, lab coats, ID badge, etc. It is exciting to think that I will be starting as an intern in just a few months, though it was a little crazy to see the spot that I signed at the end of the contract with a M.D. after my name. I mean, I guess that is what I have been working for the past 4 years, but it will still take some getting used to.
Last weekend we got to enjoy watching the 168th General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the internet on our computer. For those that may not know, this meeting occurs twice a year and it is a meeting of our entire church throughout the world. It is a chance for us to hear from the prophet and his 2 counselors, the 12 apostles, and the other general leaders of our church, to receive counsel and instruction that is applicable to us living in the world today. There are 5 two-hour information-packed meetings, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. This weekend’s set of meetings was especially neat because a new prophet was sustained, since President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away earlier this year. The new prophet is Thomas S. Monson, and we each got a chance to show our personal willingness to accept this man as the living prophet of our day. A new apostle was also called, Elder D. Todd Christofferson. I love these meetings because I learn so much and feel such a warm feeling inside as the Holy Ghost testifies to me that what I am being taught is true. I really enjoyed Elder Dallin H. Oaks’ talk about testimony, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s about using self-discipline to stay the true course, Elder Jeffery R. Holland’s about the importance of continuing revelation, and Elder M. Russell Ballard’s about the role of young mother’s in raising a righteous generation of children. Our kids did pretty well, considering their ages, but there were still times that I wasn’t able to pay as much attention as I would have liked – I can’t wait for the Ensign to come out so I can reread everything that was taught.
Last Monday we decided to take a trip down to Chicago. We had heard that the zoo was free, so we drove down and found some free parking in a park just across the street from the zoo. We got to see the seals being fed and trained, Kolby and Eli chasing seagulls around while eating lunch, and some other cool displays (though the lion’s were not very exciting like they are at the Milwaukee zoo). My favorite was a pygmy hippo that the kids could get down in front of a glass window. The hippo kept trying to dig at the kids and they would squeal. It was really funny to watch. There was also a really cool jungle gym that was shaped like a giant tree, with leaves and netting for the kids to climb around in. After the zoo, we drove downtown and found a parking garage to leave the car and then spent the night walking around the city. We wanted to get to Navy Pier, and since we had been there before, we knew what direction to go. Well, to make a long story short, we ended up taking a wrong turn (though it wasn’t our fault because there were no signs posted saying that the sidewalk was going to end) and found ourselves on a bridge over the Chicago river, at a freeway entrance with cars whizzing past, and us needing to get to the other side. Luckily, there was some construction being done that slowed the cars down some, and then there were some nice people that stopped to let us by. We ended up safely at the Navy Pier and the boys had fun watching the giant ferris wheel and swings. Then we took a trolley ride back into the city to get us closer to our car. We had a lot of fun, though we were so tired on the drive home that Steph and I had to keep trading off driving.
Steph found a website called MilwaukeeMoms.com that has postings for different community events and there were 2 that we did this weekend. In the morning we went to a Kid Fest at the state fairgrounds in the exhibition center. They had all sorts of booths set up from different organizations all over the community, with candy and activities for the kids and drawings for the parents to enter. There was a kid’s circus where they took volunteers from the audience and dressed them up in animal costumes and then had them perform on the stage. We’ll have to post the video of Kolby and Eli as they danced around as horses on the stage. It was really cute.
We got a call from the Theriot’s, a family in the ward, asking if we could watch their 2-year-old boy over the weekend while they went to St. Louis to do some house hunting. He is a really calm and happy kid and has fit in real well with the other boys. They also left us with their X-box to enjoy over the weekend. We have enjoyed playing Tetris, Star Wars, and Cars together and with friends.
This weekend is our Stake Conference, and the other thing that Steph found on that website was a Methodist church that was doing a free babysitting night as a service to the community. We decided to take them up on the offer. We dropped the kids off at 5 and picked them up at 9:30. They fed the kids dinner and then did several activities with them. Steph and I were able to go to dinner at Uno’s and then attend the adult session of Stake Conference together. It was so good as we were counseled on ways to increase our faith and strengthen our families. We need to get the kids ready now for the meeting today at 2pm. We will have 5 boys under the age of 5 with us – it should be interesting. Hopefully we get something out of it. :)
As far as moving, we have decided to try and fit most of our stuff into a pod that will be transported to Rochester, New York and then kept in storage for a year. Then we will try and fit the stuff going to Utah with us into another pod and our cars. We are going to try and sell most of our bigger furniture (dressers, bookcases, entertainment center, couches, table) in order to make everything fit, and then slowly purchase them again when we get to Rochester. This will help us to save quite a bit of money if we can use 2 pods rather than 3. We set a date to rent the pods for Tuesday, May 27, which will allow us a few fudge days to get everything packed before we have to be out of the apartment on May 31. Then, we are going to get a towing package installed on the back of our van and rent a car tow dolly from U-haul to tow our smaller blue car behind the van when we drive to Utah. That way, we can take a few extra days getting to Utah, stopping in Nauvoo and at Steph’s grandma’s house in Missouri (plus it will cost less to tow the car than to pay for gas to drive it). Steph also found some people in Milwaukee that had just moved here and were giving away their boxes, so we picked them up and have them ready to start packing soon. We also spent a couple of days cleaning out our storage units and trying to get rid of the junk that has accumulated over the past few years. That felt good.
It is crazy to think that we only have about 7 weeks left in Milwaukee. We are really excited to start this next step in our journey, but we will be very sad to leave all of the friends out here that have become our family while away from family. Thanks to everyone who has been so good to us, helping us out when needed and having fun playing games with us. We hope that we can stay in contact with all of them even though we will not be close by.
Speaking of the next step in our journey, we got all the paperwork this week for my new job as an intern at Intermountain Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. I got my contract that showed how much I will get paid (and let’s just say it will be so nice to finally be getting a paycheck again). I also got the form to pick my schedule preference, as well as all the stuff from human resources for insurance, lab coats, ID badge, etc. It is exciting to think that I will be starting as an intern in just a few months, though it was a little crazy to see the spot that I signed at the end of the contract with a M.D. after my name. I mean, I guess that is what I have been working for the past 4 years, but it will still take some getting used to.
Last weekend we got to enjoy watching the 168th General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over the internet on our computer. For those that may not know, this meeting occurs twice a year and it is a meeting of our entire church throughout the world. It is a chance for us to hear from the prophet and his 2 counselors, the 12 apostles, and the other general leaders of our church, to receive counsel and instruction that is applicable to us living in the world today. There are 5 two-hour information-packed meetings, 3 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. This weekend’s set of meetings was especially neat because a new prophet was sustained, since President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away earlier this year. The new prophet is Thomas S. Monson, and we each got a chance to show our personal willingness to accept this man as the living prophet of our day. A new apostle was also called, Elder D. Todd Christofferson. I love these meetings because I learn so much and feel such a warm feeling inside as the Holy Ghost testifies to me that what I am being taught is true. I really enjoyed Elder Dallin H. Oaks’ talk about testimony, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s about using self-discipline to stay the true course, Elder Jeffery R. Holland’s about the importance of continuing revelation, and Elder M. Russell Ballard’s about the role of young mother’s in raising a righteous generation of children. Our kids did pretty well, considering their ages, but there were still times that I wasn’t able to pay as much attention as I would have liked – I can’t wait for the Ensign to come out so I can reread everything that was taught.
Last Monday we decided to take a trip down to Chicago. We had heard that the zoo was free, so we drove down and found some free parking in a park just across the street from the zoo. We got to see the seals being fed and trained, Kolby and Eli chasing seagulls around while eating lunch, and some other cool displays (though the lion’s were not very exciting like they are at the Milwaukee zoo). My favorite was a pygmy hippo that the kids could get down in front of a glass window. The hippo kept trying to dig at the kids and they would squeal. It was really funny to watch. There was also a really cool jungle gym that was shaped like a giant tree, with leaves and netting for the kids to climb around in. After the zoo, we drove downtown and found a parking garage to leave the car and then spent the night walking around the city. We wanted to get to Navy Pier, and since we had been there before, we knew what direction to go. Well, to make a long story short, we ended up taking a wrong turn (though it wasn’t our fault because there were no signs posted saying that the sidewalk was going to end) and found ourselves on a bridge over the Chicago river, at a freeway entrance with cars whizzing past, and us needing to get to the other side. Luckily, there was some construction being done that slowed the cars down some, and then there were some nice people that stopped to let us by. We ended up safely at the Navy Pier and the boys had fun watching the giant ferris wheel and swings. Then we took a trolley ride back into the city to get us closer to our car. We had a lot of fun, though we were so tired on the drive home that Steph and I had to keep trading off driving.
Steph found a website called MilwaukeeMoms.com that has postings for different community events and there were 2 that we did this weekend. In the morning we went to a Kid Fest at the state fairgrounds in the exhibition center. They had all sorts of booths set up from different organizations all over the community, with candy and activities for the kids and drawings for the parents to enter. There was a kid’s circus where they took volunteers from the audience and dressed them up in animal costumes and then had them perform on the stage. We’ll have to post the video of Kolby and Eli as they danced around as horses on the stage. It was really cute.
We got a call from the Theriot’s, a family in the ward, asking if we could watch their 2-year-old boy over the weekend while they went to St. Louis to do some house hunting. He is a really calm and happy kid and has fit in real well with the other boys. They also left us with their X-box to enjoy over the weekend. We have enjoyed playing Tetris, Star Wars, and Cars together and with friends.
This weekend is our Stake Conference, and the other thing that Steph found on that website was a Methodist church that was doing a free babysitting night as a service to the community. We decided to take them up on the offer. We dropped the kids off at 5 and picked them up at 9:30. They fed the kids dinner and then did several activities with them. Steph and I were able to go to dinner at Uno’s and then attend the adult session of Stake Conference together. It was so good as we were counseled on ways to increase our faith and strengthen our families. We need to get the kids ready now for the meeting today at 2pm. We will have 5 boys under the age of 5 with us – it should be interesting. Hopefully we get something out of it. :)
05 April 2008
Feeling Rather Gypped
I have been feeling rather gypped lately. It is not quite Spring yet here in Milwaukee (I don’t care what the calendar says), but I can tell that it is getting close. It has been up in the low 50s a few days recently, although it’s still usually too cold out for t-shirts. One thing that is kind of fun about Milwaukee is that after the snow starts to melt and you can see some of the grey, muddy grass again, once there is a good rainfall or two, the grass is noticeably greener overnight. It is nice to look outside and see green instead of grey. The grass isn’t bright green yet, but it does look much better after the rain this week. But I have still been feeling kind of gypped – I have officially survived the second snowiest winter on record in Milwaukee history (I don’t think we had quite enough snowfall to break the record, did we?), and now we are going to move next month before we have barely anytime at all to enjoy the nice things about Spring and Summer in Milwaukee. Oh well. I guess we’ll just have to enjoy summer in Salt Lake.
25 March 2008
28 December 2007
Merry Christmas!
Well, we missed writing our weekly post last Sunday with Christmas this week, so I’ve got a little catching up to do. So, last week Michael finished up with another set of interviews. On Sunday, December 16th he flew from Milwaukee to Los Angeles for a derm interview with the Harbor-UCLA program. He liked the LA program a lot, and was interested in the large Latino population he would have the opportunity to serve if he ended up doing his residency there. He also enjoyed stopping briefly at the beach, which was about 30 minutes from his interview location. The only downside to the LA program is the fact that a decent-sized house would be a lot less affordable in LA than in some of the other places he has interviewed at so far, and the program in LA didn’t seem to be geared quite as much towards family as the Pennsylvania and Texas programs where he has interviewed. As much as I hate to admit it, we are starting to think about those other two programs a little more than the California one, just because we could get a house now and possibly save up a little more so that by the time residency is finished and we have a doctor’s income, we could actually afford a place in southern California. But it is still a really close decision – and he has several other interviews coming up, so who knows what our top choices will be in the upcoming weeks. Michael got another derm invitation today to St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.
I am glad that Michael has been fortunate enough to receive several interview invitations, but I admit that I am looking forward to him being done with all the scheduling of flights, hotels, and ground transportation, having the shirts and suits dry cleaned, spending hours in airports with cancelled or delayed flights, feeling nervous before interviews, having him away on so many trips, having him tired from all his travels, and wondering where we will eventually end up. I am such a planner – I like to be in control and have everything in my life all planned out, but this is just something that I have to wait and see what will happen to us. I can’t believe, though, that match day is in 3 months – then we will know where we will be going. I am really excited to move into a house and start over in a new place. The one thing that we are not looking forward to, though, is the fact that it looks like we will likely be leaving the good friends we have made in Milwaukee. It’s kind of funny – when we left BYU, Peter and Cynthia Hedgecock were some of our good friends there and we thought we would never see them again. I was pretty sad when we left because I have never been the greatest at keeping in touch with friends after moving, and I thought that eventually we would loose touch. So, we were so excited a year and a half later when the Hedgecocks moved to Milwaukee for a summer internship and then returned again to Milwaukee the following year for a job. So, I keep thinking that all of our close friends in Milwaukee should follow us when we go on this next move – wouldn’t that be nice? Well, on to the other events of these last couple weeks:
Anyways, on Monday last week Michael had his UCLA interview and then flew back to Boise that night. On Tuesday night after we put the kids to bed, Bryce Christensen came over and we played a game of Settlers. And then on Wednesday Michael flew out to Salt Lake for a transitional year interview. He said the interview went well, and the only down side to going there for our first year is that they told him they keep their interns pretty busy at the hospital compared to some of the other places he’s interviewed at. But one big draw to going there for the first year is that my Grandma Faun invited us to live with her if we end up in Salt Lake – she has a full finished basement we could use that is probably larger than our current apartment, so having a year rent-free to save up for a house would be a pretty difficult offer to pass up. On Thursday evening Michael was supposed to fly back in to Boise in time for us all to go to the temple together for Jennie’s endowment, but there was snow in Salt Lake and Michael’s plane sat on the runway for 2 hours causing him to arrive in Boise about half an hour after the temple session began. I went and it was nice to be at the temple – Jennie and her fiancé Dalin were there along with Michael’s parents, Dalin’s parents, Dalin’s grandparents, and Dalin’s best friend who just returned from his mission in Ireland.
On Friday evening we played games with the family and then Michael and I went out to do some Christmas shopping late after the boys were in bed. And then on Saturday we got the boys ready in the morning and went to JC Penney to have their pictures taken. Grandma Faun gave us some Christmas money for the boys and we got them these adorable sweaters and matching hats, so we just had to have their pictures taken. It is proving more and more difficult to have successful portrait shoots of all the boys together with each baby we have. Oh well – I guess that if we give it a few years the older ones will start to be a little easier to photograph, at least. One thing we decided to do was take individual shots of each boy along with the shot of all of them together. We’ve never done that before except with pictures of them in their Halloween costumes, but I decided that I wanted one nice one of each boy. We got really cute ones of each of them, and I asked Michael to get me some nice big frames for the photos for my Christmas gift, which I am looking forward to picking out after we get back to Milwaukee. After having the boys’ pictures taken we ran all over the place to try to get all our last-minute Christmas shopping and errands done. On Sunday church went pretty well, although Camden spent the middle hour out in the hallway. But other than that the boys did pretty well.
And then Monday was Christmas Eve. That morning we took the boys outside in the back yard to play in the snow and build a snowman. The older three boys had a lot of fun, and Camden even did really well out in the snow for a while until his mitten kept falling off and his hand got cold and wet. I brought him in after than and Michael stayed out a little longer with Kolby and Eli. The three of them were running around and wrestling in the snow and for the first time neither of them were crying from the cold by the time they were done playing. I know Michael really enjoyed playing out there with them. Later on that evening I got a migraine headache, which is unusual for me because I haven’t had one of those since high school. I went downstairs and slept for an hour before Michael got me up. I came upstairs and it was really nice because Jennie’s fiancé, Dalin, came over with his parents, but his dad was dressed up in a full Santa Claus suit with gifts for our boys. That was so nice of him to do that just for us. The boys loved it. Afterwards, they watched from the window as they left and Kolby remarked, “Look, Santa has a car!”
After that I tried to stay up, but the migraine just wasn’t going away. I felt really awful, because I didn’t want to miss the Christmas Eve traditions with our boys, but I had to go back to sleep. My prayers and the family’s prayers must have helped, because half an hour later I got up for dinner and was ok the rest of the night, except for a pounding pain in my head whenever I bent over or stood up – but I have never heard of such a quick recovery from a migraine before. We had fried chicken for dinner and then we all got in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. The boys were excited to see all the lights and I was surprised that none of the older three boys fell asleep in the car. When we got back to the house Santa had come and left two gifts (Santa always leaves a game on Christmas Eve at the Bradshaw house for the family to play together that night). There was a game that we could play with the boys and one for the adults. We played the kids game, a Disney Bingo DVD game that shows different Disney characters on Bingo spaces and the kids can find the characters and cover the spots on their Bingo cards. Kolby and Eli could actually play the game, and they have had fun playing it a few times since then. After the boys went to bed and the parents got all the gifts out and filled the stockings, we played the other game that Santa left – a fun new game called Blokus. And then when Michael and I went downstairs we watched The Singles 2nd Ward, which actually turned out to be a really funny movie – it’s been a while since I saw the first movie, but I don’t remember liking it as much as I did the second one.
The next morning everyone came upstairs at 8:30 and opened gifts from Santa. The Bradshaw family has certain gifts that are from Santa Claus and their stockings in the family room, then they eat breakfast and move into the living room to open the majority of the gifts from the family members under the Christmas tree. It has been fun to watch the boys this year as they start to understand more about the gift giving and the traditions of Christmas. Kolby especially is really starting to get old enough to really enjoy the holiday. We were blessed with many nice gifts from our family members, and we really appreciate everyone’s kindness.
The day after Christmas we took the boys to Barnes and Noble to meet Grandma Bradshaw and some of Michael’s cousins and their children who live in the area. Grandma Bradshaw wanted to get a book for each of the children, and they had fun picking those out. Then we went to make a couple returns and run a few more errands. I stopped at JC Penney to look at a cute dress I had seen there before (since I have some birthday money to use) and I happened to notice a sign that said there was a door buster deal going on so all the dresses were ½ off before 1:00 that afternoon. It was just before 1:00 when I saw that sign, so I quickly picked 4 dresses and went and bought them before the sale ended, and then I went and tried them all on. They actually all turned out to be pretty cute, so Michael talked me into keeping them. I think I will see if I happen to get enough birthday money to cover the cost of all 4 dresses, and if not I can always return one later on. But that was really fun, because I haven’t bought a dress in quite a while and I felt really pretty in all of them. It’s fun to get dressed up nice. That night after we put the boys to bed we went to Jennie and Dalin’s last indoor soccer game of the season, which was fun to watch.
Then on Thursday it was our 5-year wedding anniversary. When Michael came home from work he brought me a very pretty bouquet of flowers. And then Dick and Debbie were kind enough to watch the boys for us so we could go out together. We were originally tossing around the idea of going on a little cruise in January to celebrate our anniversary if we could find a good deal, but we decided that the cost of a cruise and getting me a passport just wasn’t realistic right now, and since we are only going to be in San Diego for 3 weeks we didn’t want to miss any of our time there. So, we decided to go out for a really nice dinner and see a movie instead. We got all dressed up and went for our reservations at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant downtown, and enjoyed a wonderful meal together. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we really enjoyed and thought was just as good as the first one. It was a great night out.
Today Michael had a good day at work – he said he got to close up on several patients and he is feeling pretty comfortable now about his ability to do stitches. He usually gets off at 2:00 on Friday afternoons here, but he didn’t get home until around 6:00 tonight, and I was starting to get pretty worried about him, especially after I called and the office was closed. But I guess they had a longer day than normal to do some catch-up after the holiday and then Dr. Burr took him and the other student out for dinner, and he didn’t have a chance to call. I was relieved when he made it home safe.
Well, we are winding up our Boise leg of the trip pretty soon here. Michael will go in for his last day of work with Dr. Burr on Monday and then we will celebrate New Years. And on Wednesday next week Michael will fly out to Washington D.C. for another derm interview. Then on Thursday morning the boys and I will be driving down with the rest of Michael’s family to Utah for Jennie’s wedding. The reception will be Thursday evening, and Michael will have to miss that because he couldn’t get a flight back from his interview soon enough to make it to the reception. But he will get back to Salt Lake that night and then on Friday morning we will go to the wedding and to the family luncheon. And then we will fly out of Salt Lake to San Diego on January 5th. Busy, busy – never a dull moment.
I am glad that Michael has been fortunate enough to receive several interview invitations, but I admit that I am looking forward to him being done with all the scheduling of flights, hotels, and ground transportation, having the shirts and suits dry cleaned, spending hours in airports with cancelled or delayed flights, feeling nervous before interviews, having him away on so many trips, having him tired from all his travels, and wondering where we will eventually end up. I am such a planner – I like to be in control and have everything in my life all planned out, but this is just something that I have to wait and see what will happen to us. I can’t believe, though, that match day is in 3 months – then we will know where we will be going. I am really excited to move into a house and start over in a new place. The one thing that we are not looking forward to, though, is the fact that it looks like we will likely be leaving the good friends we have made in Milwaukee. It’s kind of funny – when we left BYU, Peter and Cynthia Hedgecock were some of our good friends there and we thought we would never see them again. I was pretty sad when we left because I have never been the greatest at keeping in touch with friends after moving, and I thought that eventually we would loose touch. So, we were so excited a year and a half later when the Hedgecocks moved to Milwaukee for a summer internship and then returned again to Milwaukee the following year for a job. So, I keep thinking that all of our close friends in Milwaukee should follow us when we go on this next move – wouldn’t that be nice? Well, on to the other events of these last couple weeks:
Anyways, on Monday last week Michael had his UCLA interview and then flew back to Boise that night. On Tuesday night after we put the kids to bed, Bryce Christensen came over and we played a game of Settlers. And then on Wednesday Michael flew out to Salt Lake for a transitional year interview. He said the interview went well, and the only down side to going there for our first year is that they told him they keep their interns pretty busy at the hospital compared to some of the other places he’s interviewed at. But one big draw to going there for the first year is that my Grandma Faun invited us to live with her if we end up in Salt Lake – she has a full finished basement we could use that is probably larger than our current apartment, so having a year rent-free to save up for a house would be a pretty difficult offer to pass up. On Thursday evening Michael was supposed to fly back in to Boise in time for us all to go to the temple together for Jennie’s endowment, but there was snow in Salt Lake and Michael’s plane sat on the runway for 2 hours causing him to arrive in Boise about half an hour after the temple session began. I went and it was nice to be at the temple – Jennie and her fiancé Dalin were there along with Michael’s parents, Dalin’s parents, Dalin’s grandparents, and Dalin’s best friend who just returned from his mission in Ireland.
On Friday evening we played games with the family and then Michael and I went out to do some Christmas shopping late after the boys were in bed. And then on Saturday we got the boys ready in the morning and went to JC Penney to have their pictures taken. Grandma Faun gave us some Christmas money for the boys and we got them these adorable sweaters and matching hats, so we just had to have their pictures taken. It is proving more and more difficult to have successful portrait shoots of all the boys together with each baby we have. Oh well – I guess that if we give it a few years the older ones will start to be a little easier to photograph, at least. One thing we decided to do was take individual shots of each boy along with the shot of all of them together. We’ve never done that before except with pictures of them in their Halloween costumes, but I decided that I wanted one nice one of each boy. We got really cute ones of each of them, and I asked Michael to get me some nice big frames for the photos for my Christmas gift, which I am looking forward to picking out after we get back to Milwaukee. After having the boys’ pictures taken we ran all over the place to try to get all our last-minute Christmas shopping and errands done. On Sunday church went pretty well, although Camden spent the middle hour out in the hallway. But other than that the boys did pretty well.
And then Monday was Christmas Eve. That morning we took the boys outside in the back yard to play in the snow and build a snowman. The older three boys had a lot of fun, and Camden even did really well out in the snow for a while until his mitten kept falling off and his hand got cold and wet. I brought him in after than and Michael stayed out a little longer with Kolby and Eli. The three of them were running around and wrestling in the snow and for the first time neither of them were crying from the cold by the time they were done playing. I know Michael really enjoyed playing out there with them. Later on that evening I got a migraine headache, which is unusual for me because I haven’t had one of those since high school. I went downstairs and slept for an hour before Michael got me up. I came upstairs and it was really nice because Jennie’s fiancé, Dalin, came over with his parents, but his dad was dressed up in a full Santa Claus suit with gifts for our boys. That was so nice of him to do that just for us. The boys loved it. Afterwards, they watched from the window as they left and Kolby remarked, “Look, Santa has a car!”
After that I tried to stay up, but the migraine just wasn’t going away. I felt really awful, because I didn’t want to miss the Christmas Eve traditions with our boys, but I had to go back to sleep. My prayers and the family’s prayers must have helped, because half an hour later I got up for dinner and was ok the rest of the night, except for a pounding pain in my head whenever I bent over or stood up – but I have never heard of such a quick recovery from a migraine before. We had fried chicken for dinner and then we all got in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. The boys were excited to see all the lights and I was surprised that none of the older three boys fell asleep in the car. When we got back to the house Santa had come and left two gifts (Santa always leaves a game on Christmas Eve at the Bradshaw house for the family to play together that night). There was a game that we could play with the boys and one for the adults. We played the kids game, a Disney Bingo DVD game that shows different Disney characters on Bingo spaces and the kids can find the characters and cover the spots on their Bingo cards. Kolby and Eli could actually play the game, and they have had fun playing it a few times since then. After the boys went to bed and the parents got all the gifts out and filled the stockings, we played the other game that Santa left – a fun new game called Blokus. And then when Michael and I went downstairs we watched The Singles 2nd Ward, which actually turned out to be a really funny movie – it’s been a while since I saw the first movie, but I don’t remember liking it as much as I did the second one.
The next morning everyone came upstairs at 8:30 and opened gifts from Santa. The Bradshaw family has certain gifts that are from Santa Claus and their stockings in the family room, then they eat breakfast and move into the living room to open the majority of the gifts from the family members under the Christmas tree. It has been fun to watch the boys this year as they start to understand more about the gift giving and the traditions of Christmas. Kolby especially is really starting to get old enough to really enjoy the holiday. We were blessed with many nice gifts from our family members, and we really appreciate everyone’s kindness.
The day after Christmas we took the boys to Barnes and Noble to meet Grandma Bradshaw and some of Michael’s cousins and their children who live in the area. Grandma Bradshaw wanted to get a book for each of the children, and they had fun picking those out. Then we went to make a couple returns and run a few more errands. I stopped at JC Penney to look at a cute dress I had seen there before (since I have some birthday money to use) and I happened to notice a sign that said there was a door buster deal going on so all the dresses were ½ off before 1:00 that afternoon. It was just before 1:00 when I saw that sign, so I quickly picked 4 dresses and went and bought them before the sale ended, and then I went and tried them all on. They actually all turned out to be pretty cute, so Michael talked me into keeping them. I think I will see if I happen to get enough birthday money to cover the cost of all 4 dresses, and if not I can always return one later on. But that was really fun, because I haven’t bought a dress in quite a while and I felt really pretty in all of them. It’s fun to get dressed up nice. That night after we put the boys to bed we went to Jennie and Dalin’s last indoor soccer game of the season, which was fun to watch.
Then on Thursday it was our 5-year wedding anniversary. When Michael came home from work he brought me a very pretty bouquet of flowers. And then Dick and Debbie were kind enough to watch the boys for us so we could go out together. We were originally tossing around the idea of going on a little cruise in January to celebrate our anniversary if we could find a good deal, but we decided that the cost of a cruise and getting me a passport just wasn’t realistic right now, and since we are only going to be in San Diego for 3 weeks we didn’t want to miss any of our time there. So, we decided to go out for a really nice dinner and see a movie instead. We got all dressed up and went for our reservations at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant downtown, and enjoyed a wonderful meal together. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we really enjoyed and thought was just as good as the first one. It was a great night out.
Today Michael had a good day at work – he said he got to close up on several patients and he is feeling pretty comfortable now about his ability to do stitches. He usually gets off at 2:00 on Friday afternoons here, but he didn’t get home until around 6:00 tonight, and I was starting to get pretty worried about him, especially after I called and the office was closed. But I guess they had a longer day than normal to do some catch-up after the holiday and then Dr. Burr took him and the other student out for dinner, and he didn’t have a chance to call. I was relieved when he made it home safe.
Well, we are winding up our Boise leg of the trip pretty soon here. Michael will go in for his last day of work with Dr. Burr on Monday and then we will celebrate New Years. And on Wednesday next week Michael will fly out to Washington D.C. for another derm interview. Then on Thursday morning the boys and I will be driving down with the rest of Michael’s family to Utah for Jennie’s wedding. The reception will be Thursday evening, and Michael will have to miss that because he couldn’t get a flight back from his interview soon enough to make it to the reception. But he will get back to Salt Lake that night and then on Friday morning we will go to the wedding and to the family luncheon. And then we will fly out of Salt Lake to San Diego on January 5th. Busy, busy – never a dull moment.
12 December 2007
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.
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.
07 October 2007
First Week of October
Well, this first week of October has been much more relaxed than the schedule we were on for Michael’s rotation last month. He is now doing one of his elective rotations called “Promoting Health in Urban Underserved Communities,” and he has basically had a 9-5 schedule with a lot more flexibility to get time off if he needs to, which is nice because he is taking one of his Step 2 Board exams and we are expecting the baby to come this month.
So, this week was pretty uneventful. Kolby had preschool, which he always loves. It is interesting because his classroom teacher is blind, although I don’t think that the kids really realize this. On Monday Kolby wanted to take a cut-out of a footprint that he made in his church class to show his school teacher. He was showing it to her at the beginning of class, and she was asking if she could hold it, asking what color it was, and telling him that he must have big feet if it was traced from his foot. And he loves his gym class too. Often we go about 15 minutes before the end of class and if they are wrapping up a game that is not very structured, I will let Eli join in with Kolby and the other kids. They have played freeze tag a couple times and the boys really like it. Kolby seems to be one of the only kids that really comprehends the idea – many of the others just kept running after they were tagged without waiting to be unfrozen. And on Wednesday when I went to pick him up, Kolby and another little boy named Simon were running around holding hands and they came up and Kolby told me Simon was his best friend. I let Eli run around with them, and they were holding his hands and playing great with him too. I think Eli will really enjoy going to the classes in a few months – he will be able to start in the winter session once we get back from our trips, since he will be 3 years old by then.
Well, on Wednesday I hit 36 weeks with this pregnancy. So now I have just over 3 weeks to go. I am glad we waited a while in the beginning of the pregnancy to announce to people that we were pregnant this time – I know that it’s all in my head, but it really seemed to make the remainder of the pregnancy go by much quicker than with earlier pregnancies when we announced it soon after we found out. So, on Wednesday night Michael had an AOA meeting, so I took Kolby to his swimming lesson. He is doing great. They have these little float belts that they put around the kids’ waists to give them confidence, and the kids all swam the length of the pool with those on several times in this week’s lesson, then at the end they swam a few feet from the edge of the pool to their teacher with no float belts, so that was pretty cool. It is fun to see Kolby’s confidence increase as he is now really learning how to swim.
On Thursday morning we went to the Twelmyer’s house for the family history group, and I was able to help Sister Twelmyer to learn how to search for some ancestors on the IGI online so that she can prepare the names to take to the temple. Later that afternoon I had my doctor’s appointment – I am down to the last month now, so I am having an appointment every week – and Michael was able to join us for the appointment this time. Everything is going well with the baby, and I am dilated to a 2. (I don’t really care if I’m dilated much yet or not, except that my midwife had mentioned that they would induce me a day or two after my due date, if it goes that long, but that if you get that far and are not dilated at all, they might not do it as early. So anyway, I got her to commit to inducing me on November 1st if I haven’t had the baby by the due date, which is nice to have a final date set). And Thursday night Michael took Eli to swim lessons, and said that they had a lot of fun.
And this weekend has been spent watching General Conference on the internet. The boys kind of had a rough time sitting through the first session yesterday, but it seems like they are getting used to the idea of sitting quietly and watching the 2-hour sessions at a time, and they have done pretty well today (as well as you could expect for a 2- and 3-year-old, and Camden napped through most of this morning’s session). After the last session that will be starting up here in a few minutes, we will eat the roast that Michael has prepared for dinner and then he is going to head down to Chicago. He got a pretty good deal on a motel room, so he can drive down tonight and not have to get up super early in the morning and he can avoid any bad traffic tomorrow. In the morning he will take one of his two Step 2 Board exams. It is the one where they have different standardized patients and they are graded on how they give exams and take the patients’ histories. So, hopefully he will have a safe drive down there and back, and his test will go well. Then I think we are planning to go out to dinner as a family when he gets home Monday evening to celebrate him finishing his test.
So, this week was pretty uneventful. Kolby had preschool, which he always loves. It is interesting because his classroom teacher is blind, although I don’t think that the kids really realize this. On Monday Kolby wanted to take a cut-out of a footprint that he made in his church class to show his school teacher. He was showing it to her at the beginning of class, and she was asking if she could hold it, asking what color it was, and telling him that he must have big feet if it was traced from his foot. And he loves his gym class too. Often we go about 15 minutes before the end of class and if they are wrapping up a game that is not very structured, I will let Eli join in with Kolby and the other kids. They have played freeze tag a couple times and the boys really like it. Kolby seems to be one of the only kids that really comprehends the idea – many of the others just kept running after they were tagged without waiting to be unfrozen. And on Wednesday when I went to pick him up, Kolby and another little boy named Simon were running around holding hands and they came up and Kolby told me Simon was his best friend. I let Eli run around with them, and they were holding his hands and playing great with him too. I think Eli will really enjoy going to the classes in a few months – he will be able to start in the winter session once we get back from our trips, since he will be 3 years old by then.
Well, on Wednesday I hit 36 weeks with this pregnancy. So now I have just over 3 weeks to go. I am glad we waited a while in the beginning of the pregnancy to announce to people that we were pregnant this time – I know that it’s all in my head, but it really seemed to make the remainder of the pregnancy go by much quicker than with earlier pregnancies when we announced it soon after we found out. So, on Wednesday night Michael had an AOA meeting, so I took Kolby to his swimming lesson. He is doing great. They have these little float belts that they put around the kids’ waists to give them confidence, and the kids all swam the length of the pool with those on several times in this week’s lesson, then at the end they swam a few feet from the edge of the pool to their teacher with no float belts, so that was pretty cool. It is fun to see Kolby’s confidence increase as he is now really learning how to swim.
On Thursday morning we went to the Twelmyer’s house for the family history group, and I was able to help Sister Twelmyer to learn how to search for some ancestors on the IGI online so that she can prepare the names to take to the temple. Later that afternoon I had my doctor’s appointment – I am down to the last month now, so I am having an appointment every week – and Michael was able to join us for the appointment this time. Everything is going well with the baby, and I am dilated to a 2. (I don’t really care if I’m dilated much yet or not, except that my midwife had mentioned that they would induce me a day or two after my due date, if it goes that long, but that if you get that far and are not dilated at all, they might not do it as early. So anyway, I got her to commit to inducing me on November 1st if I haven’t had the baby by the due date, which is nice to have a final date set). And Thursday night Michael took Eli to swim lessons, and said that they had a lot of fun.
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. __ . __ . __ . __ . 
Eli decorating cookies . __ . __ . __ . __ . __ . __ . Eli licking his frosting
On Friday morning, after I dropped Kolby off at preschool, we went to Jill Hunter’s apartment for some fall activities for the kids from the apartment complex. All of the kids went outside and collected fall leaves, and then we went back in and they decorated cookies that were shaped like leaves. Eli had fun doing that. Then on Friday night we went to the Townsend’s house for our ward dessert groups, and the Sanders family came too. We had banana splits and had fun talking with the adults while all the kids played.And this weekend has been spent watching General Conference on the internet. The boys kind of had a rough time sitting through the first session yesterday, but it seems like they are getting used to the idea of sitting quietly and watching the 2-hour sessions at a time, and they have done pretty well today (as well as you could expect for a 2- and 3-year-old, and Camden napped through most of this morning’s session). After the last session that will be starting up here in a few minutes, we will eat the roast that Michael has prepared for dinner and then he is going to head down to Chicago. He got a pretty good deal on a motel room, so he can drive down tonight and not have to get up super early in the morning and he can avoid any bad traffic tomorrow. In the morning he will take one of his two Step 2 Board exams. It is the one where they have different standardized patients and they are graded on how they give exams and take the patients’ histories. So, hopefully he will have a safe drive down there and back, and his test will go well. Then I think we are planning to go out to dinner as a family when he gets home Monday evening to celebrate him finishing his test.
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Eli, Mommy, and Kolby watching Conference
Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention that Michael got another interview invitation this week. He got an e-mail saying that he is on the early invite list for the transitional year program in Salt Lake, and that they will let him know the dates for that interview shortly. So things are all going pretty well. I’d better run get the computer set up now so we can catch the last session of Conference. Hope you all had a great week!
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