Stewart had a conference in Las Vegas at the beginning of the week on the 19th. He flew to Vegas on Sunday and came home on the 20th. The original plan was for Sophie and I to join him since it was all paid for by his work but when I learned that the conference was only one day I opted out since we would not be there long enough to do anything or site see. I did have Stewart write up a summery of what he did while he was there so I could post it here on the blog. Below are his words...

Earlier this week I had a conference in Las Vegas. The conference only lased one day, so it was a pretty quick trip. I stayed at the Cosmopolitan, or Cosmo as the trendy people call it. My room was up on the 57th floor! My ears popped every time I rode the elevators. 

The conference was on interpretation of EKGs. An EKG is the heart tracing, you've probably all seen something like it on TV before. If you know how to read them they can tell you a lot about what the heart is doing. They measure the electrical activity at various points in the heart. It’s pretty neat actually, but kind of difficult to learn. You can tell if the person is having a heart attack, you can get a pretty good idea of which part of the heart is being affected and even which artery is blocked too. Electrophysiologists can tell you if one little piece of heart tissue is acting up, and almost exactly where the little piece of tissue is. I’m not at that level, and don’t think I’ll even need to be that proficient.

My room had a large soaking tub. The second night I was there I drew up a nice hot bath, turned on some jazz, and read my book. Mmm, very nice. I splurged for one meal. I ate at a place called the Wicked Spoon. It was a buffet with fancy, trendy little dishes. I ate crab legs for the first time. I had a few different types of sushi; I had lamb, muscles, shrimp, and some kind of fancy, made-to-order Macaroni and Cheese. The only thing that could have made my trip better was if Becky and Sophie had been able to join me. 

Here are a few pictures Stewart took while he was there.

The past few weeks have gone by quickly in fact all of January seems to be going by rather fast. I remember last year we it started snowing on October 1^st and did not stop until after Mothers Day. Actually we got a big snow storm on Mothers day last year and church was cancelled for the first time all season. Anyway my point of talking about the snow is to say that this year has been very mild compared to last year. Sophie and I were able to get out of the house and go for a walk last week when it was 50 degrees, the wind was not blowing and the sun was out. We could not have even attempted to do that last year. I am glad that this year has been milder than our first winter in Wyoming.

Stewart seems to like the Pediatric Out-Patient rotation he is on this month. He leaves for work at 7:50am and gets home at 6pm. Since it is cold and flu season I make sure he changes his clothes and washes his hands when he gets home, in hopes that Sophie and I can be spared any illness he may carry home with him on his person. I tried to get him to change in the garage before he came in the house but he would not go for that idea… maybe if it was a heated garage? Anyway, so far he has seen and learned a lot about caring for pediatric children and has even used some of his newly learned knowledge with his own patients at the UW Clinic.

Today Stewart flew to Las Vegas for a CME (Continuing Medical Education) conference about EKGs. He will get back Tuesday late morning. Sophie and I were going to go with him in the beginning but then he pick and one day CME class and after that it looked less appealing. Many of his colleges choose week long CME courses and take their families along to do stuff during their down time. Since Stewart’s trip is such a fast trip it would not have been worth it for us to accompany him, so we stayed home to keep the fort safe.

Over the last two weeks I have been able to offer some comfort to a dear friend who had a challenging week. A year ago she and her husband lost a good friend and Air Force comrade of theirs in a helicopter accident, the day after she remembered his one year passing she lost another close friend of hers due to health complications (She left behind a husband and two young girls), and finally she and her husband learned of the passing of another good friend from their childhood who passed away as well. It was almost too much for her to handle all at one time so I took her children home with me for a few hours to give her a chance to cry without upsetting her kids and worrying them. I was glad I could help her morn and comfort her as much as possible during her time of sorrow.

Yesterday was the day for parties and celebrations. Sophie and I attended one baby shower, and two birthday parties. One of the birthday parties was for Sophie’s friend Evelyn who turned one (ok so maybe it was more of a party for one of MY friend’s whose daughter turned one). I have never seen so many toys in my life! She had a lot to begin with and by the end of her party she had way more then she could ever play with. But it was lots of fun to go and socialize with good friends. The last party we went to was a Nerdy Thirty party for our friend Matthew Ditson. His wife, Kathryn, put together a fun party with nerdy glasses, pocket protectors, and science stuff. She did a great job. I helped her make and decorate his cake. It was a chocolate salted caramel cake with chocolate frosting. We decorated it with a petri dish filled with blue jell-o and sprinkles on top, a test tube filled with yellow melting chocolate to look like it tipped over and was spilling out, and two beakers one filled with green jell-o and the other filled with orange water that she put dry ice in every now and then so that it would bubble and foam up over the cake. I think it turned out neat looking and was glad I could help come up with a fun and easy way to decorate the cake nerdy. Too bad I did not get a picture of it.

I suppose the last thing I want to mention is that I am going to start tending three other kiddos two or three days a week. The two older kids go to school during the day so really I will only be watching the youngest boy who is four for the bulk of the day until I go and pick up the other two when school gets out. The job really just fell in my lap and since Sophie is four and we already do lots of activities geared to her age I hope it is not too much of a hassle to bring the little guy along with us. It will be a good experience for Sophie and for me I am sure. I start this week so we will see how it goes :) 

January 2015 Begins

This year I have a goal to keep up the blog again. I am not planning on telling anyone so if you are reading this lucky you. I quit up-keeping our blog two years ago because it became more of a chore than the hobby it started out as, too many people nagging me to keep up the posts and so forth. Anyway, I am going to try again and hope that it can still be the hobby I enjoyed once.

Well January 2015 is here the start to another great year. So far this year has been fine. For New Year's we watched Disney’s 101 Dalmatians as a family when Stewart got home from work. We had sloppy joes and ate finger foods such as chips, pickles, and olives. Nothing extravagant or exciting, because Stewart had to work the day shift at the hospital (his very last one of the month) and was tired when he got home. We actually ended up going to bed at 10 after we celebrated the New Year with our friends back east.

Stewart did not have to work on New Years and the weather was decent so we decided to take Sophie sledding over at Cahill Park in town. There is a large hill, a medium hill and a smaller hill so you really can find the best fit for your personality. Stewart took Sophie first down the big hill and caught some air half way down. They made it through ok but Sophie did not like it much. When they got back up to the top I decided I would take Sophie down one last time and then we would do the medium hill from there on out. BAD IDEA! Sophie was crying and I forced her into it (which I feel horrible about now) away we went.... we caught some air half way down but instead of making it to the bottom just fine we flew strait up and came back down hard. I landed on the edge of our sled with my tailbone and luckily Sophie landed on me and was spared any injury. I on the other hand bruised my behind and ripped several holes in the backside of my only other jeans that had not worn out on me yet. I am still feeling the consequence of that decision three days later. Sophie still loves to go sledding and went down the smaller hills 5 or 6 times before we left the park to come home. For the record Sophie has forgiven me for my lack of good judgment and prays for me to get better.

Today was Sunday and we switched church time from 1pm to 9am! I love 9am church!!!! I am serving in the Primary as the first counselor (pure honesty here, this is not my favorite calling), Stewart is a Sunday school teacher for the Gospel Doctrine class. I really wanted to go into Sunday school and listen to Stewart lesson today, but we had a few teachers not show up and I had to go and find last minute substitutes for those classes. So in the end I was unable to go into his class, a big disappointment in my day. I hear he is a great teacher and that he does a very good job.... maybe one day I can know for myself. Sophie is now in the CTR 4 class, no longer a Sunbeam. She seemed to like her class and her new teachers. Her teachers made each of their students nametags in class, I guess to help them learn the names of their new class. When we went to get Sophie after church her nametag read: ARIEL (Sophie) on it, I guess that means she has changed her name.

I am not sure what the New Year holds for us; Stewart will graduate from a 2^nd year resident doctor to a 3^rd year resident doctor(in July), Sophie will turn 5 this year, and this will be our last summer in Cheyenne that we are aware of. When Stewart graduates in June of 2016 we will be moving to where he gets a job. We may or may not know where that will be by the end of this year. Here is to the days ahead, may they be filled with joy and love.

Hugs

Family Date Night

There is a park in Fayetteville, about 30 minutes from our home, with a large display of Christmas lights. We decided after dinner this past Friday we would drive out there to look at them before they put them away after the New Year. We made some hot chocolate and headed out on our family date night. I did not bring the camera with me so there wont be any pictures of our field trip but we did have a lot of fun. When we got to the park we moved Sophie up front with us so she could see the lights better, and we all sipped on our hot chocolate as we drove through the park. It was fun to watch Sophie point to different characters she recognized from different movies they had displayed around. She loved the giant Santa waving, and the cool tunnel of lights we got to drive through. The neatest thing in my opinion was when we pulled up to the nativity set and she pointed to all of the statues and told us who they were. She know why we have Christmas, and who we celebrate this time of year.

After the lights we put Sophie in her car seat again and drove home. When we got home we all got in our Pajamas, and then Stewart made us a bed out of blankets in the living room so we could sleep under our Christmas tree before we put it away the next day. We all snuggled together with the glow of the Christmas tree lights and watched a VeggieTales movie, It’s a Meaningful Life. We only watched half of the movie before both Stewart and I were tired, so we turned if off and told Sophie it was time to go to sleep. I know I fell asleep before her so I don’t know when she finally decided to follow our lead, but I do know it was after 11:00pm! Teach us to give her chocolate milk after dinner.

The next morning we ate fruit loops and finished our movie in our makeshift bed. It was a fun family date, and perhaps a new family tradition. 

Christmas 2012

This is the first year we have spent away from family with Sophie. The last few years we were blessed to be with our families for Christmas, however this year it was not so. That is not to say we had a miserable Christmas, truth is we had a fantastic Christmas. Christmas Eve was spent at a friends home with their family and the missionaries. Christmas morning was spent together just the three of us, opening presents and enjoying the spirit of the season. We Skyped with my family and spent a good portion of our afternoon mingling with friends over Christmas dinner. It was a fun day, and we enjoyed being together the most.

We bought Sophie a piggy bank. We used the twelve dollars she received for her birthday and exchanged it for the same amount in various coins so she would have something to fill her pig with. We thought she would love feeding her pig since she enjoys feeding mom and dads pig, but it did not go over as well as we thought. She received a few stuffed bears from different people in the ward and our neighbors. My sister Margie sent her some cool fruit that is velcroed together until you use a wooden knife to cut it apart. My parents gave her a few movies and some simple toys as well. Put all that together and the piggy bank was not as cool as everything else. Stewart and I exchanged notes of affection, as we are saving our money for a small vacation after Stewart graduates in May. We hope to see some of the sights we have been unable to explore before we move out west (hopefully) before residency starts in July. 

Looking over the contents of her Christmas Stocking

Helping Daddy pass out the gifts

Cuddling her new bear given to her by a nice family  we know from church

Opening gifts with moms help

Playing with her cool new Velcro Fruit Aunt Margie gave her

And Because I want to brag... here is Sophie's Snowman pancake I made her Christmas morning 

Graham Cracker Houses

We had fun making graham cracker houses again this year. I made a outhouse, I was not feeling creative so it is lacking in color. Stewart got bit buy the rainbow bug because his house had enough color to make up for mine and then some. Sophie got to make a Picasso picture using melted white chocolate for a canvas with pretzel rods as the frame. She then put in whatever candies she wanted to until the chocolate hardened. After that she ate the candy… way to much candy. We did have fun, it is a blast making memories.