Josh

The following posts about our month don't really talk about Josh too much. That's because he's working ALL the time. Close to 80 hours a week, which is the limit for residents. Based on those hours, we figure he's making about $2/hour more than the car-hops at the local Sonic. Wonderful. We know his years of schooling, studing, and now laboring will pay off, but right now it's hard to keep that in perspective when he comes home dead tired, not having seen the kids for 72 hours, as he often leaves before they get up and gets home after they've gone to bed. The worst is when he's on call, because he goes in at 9 am and comes home 30 hours later without having slept for even a second.

On the bright side, he IS starting to find his groove and is feeling a little more confident in what he is doing. He knows the computer system now, so that is less of a battle than it was at the beginning, and he hasn't said he wants to quit in over a week. That's progress people. (Don't worry- they all want to quit at some point, I've looked into it :) )

Next month he moves onto a better rotation. This one sounds like the hours improve a little bit- at least over weekends, and he has no call, so that is a definate bonus.

Georgia 2010

Every two years or so, my dad and his sisters rent a house near something fun (this year it was a river, last time, a lake) and we all go stay for a while. This year we went to a huge cabin near a river in the mountains of Georgia- Ellijay to be exact. It was georgeous and so great to see everyone!

Unfortunately, Josh couldn't come, which meant a 6.5 hour drive to my mom and dad's by myself with the kids. Sounds like fun, right? The way down was rough, but we made it- we only stopped once, because I found out that stopping with two screaming kids is slightly worse than driving with two screaming kids. We stayed at my mom's that night and left early the next morning for GA.
Here is the Kitchen in the house

And the living room. I stole these pics off of the VBRO website- the furniture is different, but you get the idea.

Everyone was there- my dad, mom, and brother, Dad's 3 sisters, all of their kids, and 3 other little ones right around Liam's age (one of them is exactly Liam's age- my cousin's son was born on the same day just 20 minutes before Liam!). My grandma's sister and her daughter came too, along with two of her kids. Josh was literally the only one missing. It was a house full to say the least, but it was so much fun to visit with everyone!

The trip was an adventure, as the septic system in the cabin went out one night and we didn't find out we could use it until the following afternoon (no showers, toilets, washer, or dishwasher with 22 people!!- turns out we could have been using 2 of the 3 bathrooms the whole time, but we didn't know that). The air also went out for a day- luckily it was the day that it was 85 rather than the day we arrived, which was 105!

All in all it was a great trip with great food and great company! Such a long drive (13.5 hours) for me to only have been able to stay 3 days, but next time I'm going to try to stay longer!

The outside of the cabin with us assembling for a family photo- the family photo was taken with someone else's camera, so I'll post it when I get a copy (ahem, please)

Liam with the other little ones (in order, Wilsie, Wyeth, and Esten) on the bouncy house. Yeah, they had a bouncy house.

The kiddie table on spaghetti night.

Liam and Wilsie rocking in a rocking chair. Fast.

Liam and my dad in the river. It was too slick to take him out again. Luckily, there was a pool down the mountain, so he got to swim again. Yeah, he's naked (Liam, not my dad!!)

Our Babies!

Here are some new pics of the kids- aren't they getting so big? London just had her 4 month check up today and she's already over 17 pounds! That sounds big, but Liam was over a pound bigger at his 4 month check up, and he started over two pounds smaller- crazy huh? Anyway, she's still on the 95th percentile or higher for everything- what a big girl!
She's hard to photograph outside...she's much too busy to look at me, and when she does, I get this "what do you want?" face seen above.

Liam loves to "Hold" her, thanks to the scene in Toy Story where Andy goes up to the bedroom and gets his sister out of her crib to bring her down for the birthday party- yeah, I've seen that one too many times recently. Anyway, he never tries to pick her up without me, and absolutely loves her most of the time, as you can see in this picture. I just wish he didn't have yellow M&M on his face- he peed in the potty for it :)

Love this pic- London is constantly sticking out her tounge, so this picture is very "her".

Liam playing on the deck in his water table

London playing with a Baby Einstein toy

Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa.

The title of this post being a quote from the movie Field of Dreams of course! That movie was filmed very close to Iowa City.

Anyway, Just wanted to let you all know that we are doing well in our new city, and finding lots to love. It's the perfect balance between a small town and a larger city, since the University of Iowa is here, there are lots of activities and things to do. Tons of parks, local eateries, farmer's markets, and other fun things to do.

I have joined a gym, and Liam LOVES going to play. The gyms here offer a program where you can volunteer in the nursery for two hours a week to help assist the paid staff and they give you your membership for free- how much fun is that?!? I start next week.
The photo below is of a park downtown with a fountain for the kids to play with...that's Liam right in the water near the center of the photo...I'll have to get some better pics- this one was taken with my cell phone.
Josh started residency on the 1st, and they are working him hard! 80 hours a week is bad enough, but when each week 30 of those hours come in one long, sleepless stretch where he is being paged more than once each MINUTE and is one of only two doctors on the floor overnight, things get a little stressful, to say the least. We've heard that this first year is the worst, and that the rotation he is on right now is the hardest- he has to do it two more times this year, but at least he's not starting with an easy one and getting used to that! We're told second year is easier and third is a piece of cake, since there is no in-house call (meaning he doesn't have to sleep at the hospital), they get lots of weekends off, and their hours are in the neighborhood of 7am-6pm...looking forward to 3rd year!!!

Pig Tails!

Have you ever seen a 3 month old with pig tails? It's kind of crazy how much hair this little girl has!