Isabella
Isaac
Tristan

I decided to compare their new born pictures to see who looked more like who.

What a great Poem

Title: It Isn't Costly
Author: Edgar A. Guest [More Titles by Guest]

Does the grouch get richer quicker than the
    friendly sort of man?
 Can the grumbler labor better than the cheerful
    fellow can?
 Is the mean and churlish neighbor any cleverer
    than the one
 Who shouts a glad "good morning," and then
    smiling passes on?
  Just stop and think about it.  Have you ever
    known or seen
 A mean man who succeeded, just because he
    was so mean?
 When you find a grouch with honors and with
    money in his pouch,
 You can bet he didn't win them just because
    he was a grouch.
  Oh, you'll not be any poorer if you smile along
    your way,
 And your lot will not be harder for the kindly
    things you say.
 Don't imagine you are wasting time for others
    that you spend:
 You can rise to wealth and glory and still pause
    to be a friend.

I saw this poem while I was looking for another one by the same author.  I think it makes so much sense and makes life so much better.

Great Little Weekend Getaway

The kids and I made a trip down to Mesa, AZ to visit family. It is the last time I can travel before the baby comes in 8 weeks. It was fun to visit my family and my parents loved seeing the kids. I enjoyed shopping with my mom and then visiting with Dan, Devery, Lucie and baby Weston. Weston is giving us lots of smiles now and its great to see him so alert and happy.

Isabella started Head Start Preschool last week and loves it! She goes Mon- Thurs for 3.5hrs. Isaac loves the time with just mommy and well mostly his trains haha. However by the time we go pick Isabella up he is asking where she is. When they see each other it cracks me up how happy they both get. They love each other so much!

We get to see Stan in a week so here is hoping this week goes by fast. He has been gone for a month. :(

Nomads

So I am sure you have all seen PBS specials on strange cultures in foreign lands where people spend most of their time travelling around as nomads. I usually think of outer Mongolia, Gypsies, Amazon tribes, Bedouins . . . Did you know that nomads exist in modern America too?

I didn't think so either, but here we are - modern day nomads moving from place to place every few months. But we probably won't be coming to a PBS special anytime soon.

I will spare you a long diatribe of how medical education is structured, but suffice it to say that one thing many medical students do is audition rotations. We do part of our clinical training at another hospital around the country that we want to go to for the next step in our training hoping they will like us. Mix this in with the fact that my school doesn't have a hospital associated with it (meaning we have to set up some of our own rotations) and you have the perfect storm for 6 months living the nomadic lifestyle.

So catching up on our lives means a long list of travels!

We started out in May, when everything miraculously fell in place for Samira and I to go to Hawaii (including Samira's Mom coming to watch the kids). I was there for a conference, but we still found a little time to go enjoy the beaches and scenery. Perhaps the Lord knew things were going to get crazy and wanted to give us some time to muster up our strength.

The storm hit pretty quickly. Looking at our schedule for the summer and fall we decided it would be best to stop renting our home in Portland and save money. We packed everything up in 2 weeks (with the Hawaii trip in the middle) and put everything in storage then drove to Arizona for a few months. Yeah, we are crazy enough to leave the beautiful Portland summer for of all places Arizona . . .

After finished some of my licencing exams we headed back to Portland for a month where I did a rotation. Thankfully some friends let us stay in their house and we got to enjoy a little bit of the Portland summer. Then I was off to Utah and Samira and the kids went to Las Vegas to stay with my parents. Since Samira is pregnant, she will be staying there until after the baby comes in December. While Samira is amazingly holding down the fort with two very energetic kids, I am off galavanting around the country. My parents have of course been a tremendous help - the kids love spending time with them. I will be done with rotations by Thanksgiving and the light at the end of the tunnel is being off for the holidays and for the baby to be born!

Grandpa entertaining the grandkids.

So when people at the hospital ask me where I am from it goes something like this . . . My school is in Arizona, but I have been living in Oregon for the last several years, but my family is in Las Vegas right now with my parents, but I didn't grow up there . . . Its at about that point that everyone's eyes glaze over and I give up trying to explain it all. Which, I am sure I have lost several of you in this meandering post, but at least you have some idea of where we are or are not living at the moment . . . maybe . . .

Going Private

I know it has taken me a long time to decide, but we are going private. I would love to send you an invite so just email or comment your address.

Where are you Summer??

We had the most beautiful day of the year on Saturday! It was 68 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. However come Monday it is raining so hard and the sun is hiding behind some very thick clouds. The kids and I are ready to have the windows and doors open and soak up some sun.

On a happy note Isabella has finally relearned how to sleep at night. For about 8 months Isabella has had lots of trouble sleeping. Waking anywhere form 3 times a night to 10 times. Needless to say we were trying everything we could think of. We finally decided on a strict night time routine. We had always done similar things at night but this time we actually wrote one out and followed it to the "T". After several weeks of the night time routine she went to bed great. However she was still waking up all night. So we finally decided to lock her out of our room. We didn't want to lock her in her room for many reasons, but we could lock her out of our room and not have to worry. The first week she tried everything she could think of to get us to come out of our room. It was really sad and I probably would have had a hard time ignoring her except for the fact that I hadn't had a full night sleep in almost a year. So after a long hard week she actually slept most of the night. For the past week she has woken only once or or not at all. We feel that it is an answer from the Lord, because I was at my wits end. Now if she wakes we help her to potty once and make sure her bed isn't wet, then the rest of the night our door is locked and she has learned to stay in bed. YEAH!!!!!!

Totally different subject....Easter was great! Stan was the Easter Bunny. He made the baskets up for the kids and hid their eggs. Isabella got a memory game, and Isaac got an airplane puzzle. He has been so interested in airplanes lately. He hears everyone that flies by and when he can't see them he says I hear airplane. If you ask him where they go he tells you the airport.

For Easter I made my first turkey!! It wasn't actually that hard, and it tasted great. The gravy that I made from the drippings was fantastic too! I was pretty proud of myself for being able to do that on my own. Holidays are always hard to be away from family. However we had a great time sharing a meal with our friends the Wadsworths. They have 2 kids close in age to ours so we actually could have a dinner conversation because the kids played so well together. I am truly blessed with great friends!

Carefree...... Someday

This past few weeks have been especially trying. I have felt overwhelmed in many areas in my life. Feel as though I am failing in all my roles and responsibilities. I am not sure why I am not dealing with it as well as usual.... Today I just wanted to go home and be a carefree kid rather than a parent, leader, teacher, adule.... and all the other rolls that come with growing up. I know I need to change my attitude but haven't found motivation yet to do it. I am sure it will come.... until then I will just keep trudging a long.