December 9th, 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Boise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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