Jill and Jeremy Bingham

2011-06-18T14:35:00.000-07:00

18th June 2011
Officially done with Sierra Vista and my life in a trailer (at least until I come back next year). There is currently a large wildfire very near Sierra Vista with already loss of property and evacuation by many in the community. This picture was taken on the day that I left.
Best wishes to everyone there affected by the blaze. Hopefully it is brought under control soon. Caden went with me to work the last two days of my rotation here and had a great time “camping” in the trailer.

As we pulled out of my trailer spot I found to pull the trailer home we discovered a flat rear tire. It was good having Caden along to help with the changing.

As requested Adam here are some pictures of my rig.

Acting My Age

2011-06-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

1 June 2011
Back in the Sierra Vista saddle again. I was home for almost a fortnight (not sure how long that is exactly but it feels right using it) so it makes it especially difficult coming back down here and leaving Jill to the mercies of end of year book reports (kids still in school until June 10th-nothing like watching kids flying kites in the park while you are on your way to class) and potty training (Zach has been our toughest since he apparently considers himself to be a bear in the woods- the world is his restroom).
Of all the things patients ask me I hear “How old are you?” by far the most often, (“how tall are you?” being a close second). Generally this isn’t a question that bothers me, especially now that I am officially older than mid 30’s (36), and as one of my brothers put it recently, “easily half way dead”. Of course with the marvels of modern medicine I’m hoping for a bit longer than 70 (will take me that long just to pay off my student loans). Years ago after I had completed my BA in education and was working on my medical school prerequisites I was substitute teaching in the Mesa school district. I found myself one day with a job at Carson Junior High, my old middle school. As I was walking to my truck to leave for lunch I was loudly hailed from behind to “get in the crosswalk!” I turned around and found Mr. Jurca, my 8th grade English teacher from 14 years prior, giving me the skunk eye. I told him I was heading to my car. Apparently, thinking I was a smart aleck teenager, (half right at least) I was told to use the crosswalk to get to the seminary building (located at the far end of the lot). Clearly being mistaken for a 9th grader (I was 26 at the time) I walked to the truck, waved, gave a little honk and headed for a monster burger at Pete’s, all under the baleful glare of that skunk eye.
I tell my patients the key to being young is doing what the kids these days are doing, which in my house includes lots of Phineas and Ferb, making paper Chinese throwing stars, and plenty of Justin Beiber (which I currently have blasting on my trailer speakers as I type……Ella keeps asking for her CD back…I’m man enough to admit it- though I don’t go as far as my bro-in- law Ryan who is a self proclaimed #1 fan…little too far there man).

Big Gulps Huh?

2011-05-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

23 May 2011
I may or may not have recently stolen a Thirstbuster from Circle K. Let me explain. Last Thursday I was in a hurry to make it back to the Valley from Sierra Vista by nine for a Bingham Boys basketball game in Gilbert. There are only a couple of games on the city league schedule that start late enough for me to make in time. I made the critical mistake of not gassing up before the day ended. Unfortunately, I decided to stop at the commerce center of Huachuca City, the Circle K (sitting next door to the true economic juggernauts - the Family Dollar, directly across the street from the Dollar General). While the gas was pumping I ran in and grabbed a quick beverage. Sometime during the 60 seconds it took to fill up a 44 ouncer the line became 8 or 9 people deep. Being impatient to get on the road I approached a pleasant looking elderly Asian couple who were three or four customers back from the front with a dollar in my hand. I held it out, explained I was in a hurry, and asked if they could pay for my soda when they got to the counter. In what can only be described as some sort of Bizarro World reverse panhandling episode, they began to speak Chinese (most likely), waved their arms wildly and refused to accept the money. Cutting my losses quickly I handed it to the bemused gentleman behind them with a filled out Powerball ticket and scooted out the door. I half expected to be hailed from behind that I had just stolen a drink. My reply would have been to point at my scrubs and say, “hospital emergency” (though I worried they would have noticed “Dermatology” written and scoffed that there is no such a thing as a dermatology emergency (though in fact there is, albeit rare). I hope that the man I gave the dollar to paid for my drink but if he ended up buying a second Powerball ticket I hope he was a winner.
For the curious- Bingham Boys (Revcorp- need to put a plug in for Ryan and Larry who sponsored our team) won by 35 (despite my being there and playing).

Seniors and Seniority

2011-05-18T20:32:00.000-07:00

18 May 2011
Last night I was finally able to move my trailer to the spot I have been waiting for since I got here (the pleasant alternative couple from California finally moved). There are some great shade trees and remarkably the WiFi works a little better (though it’s actually a little further from the clubhouse). The move comes none too soon as I recently returned home and the ants had nearly carried off my entire box of Golden Grahams. I took a little heat from Jill who didn’t appreciate me wasting her favorite cereal, but seriously blame the ants, not me. I’m hoping they don’t realize I’ve moved. Unfortunately the trailer is tilted quite a bit and the levelers underneath are missing. I may have to move or reposition (almost rolled off the bed last night). The constant flux of people doesn’t always work out in my favor though. The last week or so there has been a new senior couple tying up the clubhouse and its TV (pretty sure they’re not watching the NBA playoffs) and they apparently didn’t get the memo that the clubhouse has been my personal office. It has been a good spot to get a little studying in and keeps me from getting cabin fever. I would hate to pull rank on them (“you’re new around here Pops so I’m gonna cut you a little slack”) but I’m positive my 7 weeks here easily outranks them. Probably better off not starting a trailer park turf war though (plus I’m pretty sure they’re in bed by 7:30 anyway).

B- I- N-G-O and Bingo was his……..

2011-05-16T22:19:00.001-07:00

16 May 2011
My trailer park is really starting to empty out and most of my RV buds have gone home for the summer. Last week (perhaps to fill the void) I stopped by the Lion’s Club in Huachuca City for bingo night. I have driven by the bright yellow building and its marquee daily since I moved down here and have contemplated playing for awhile now. Bingo is on Tuesdays with the early bird starting at 6:15 (little plug for anyone in the neighborhood). Work has been running later these days so I was a little tardy and they had already started. As I walked in the front door I had 40 pair of eyes (38 elderly women, 2 elderly men) closely scrutinizing me. “Are you here to play bingo?” one lady asked incredulously. In all honesty the way the action came to a standstill (including the bingo caller) I thought I had arrived at a member’s only affair. I was eventually steered to the proper table where I had to again reassure a second woman that yes I was indeed there to play bingo. I was invited to sit at a table with 5 bingo veterans and was graciously loaned one of their multiple (some people have 15 or 20 sitting in front of them) card daubers. Very good group of people that included one of the only guys in the place, Roger, who happened to be the president of the club and perhaps most importantly the snack bar attendant (serves a wicked chicken salad sandwich) at half time (you’ve got to stay hydrated- that bingo hand cramps up easily). I quickly became the table’s Special Olympian as they all took it upon themselves (rightly so) to make sure that I didn’t miss any numbers (which I did miss a fair number of…I started to space out a little towards the end). The gal to my left was not only playing her 18 game cards but my 9 as well and would shoot her dauber over to pick up my strays.
I felt bad for the caller who had angry, grumbling women when their numbers weren’t called for BINGO. Most entertaining was the occasional mistake, such as, “G-75”, which of course should be “O-75”, setting off a firestorm of epic proportions in the bingo hall. Tough crowd. I would love to report an actual bingo, but Roger bingoed (I think I’m creating a verb here) 3 times (very suspicious when you are the president by the way) and took all the table luck (at least that’s what the ladies were complaining) from the rest of us. There’s always next time. Shouting out BINGO remains high on my list of future accomplishments.

House(trailer)guest

2011-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

11 May 2011
Due to my Dermatology conference I only spent a couple of days in Sierra Vista last week. Ella, when she realized I was only going to be gone for a couple of days, tried hard convincing me it was “take your daughter to work week”. After careful consideration (and a lot of please please! from both Ella and I) Jill and I decided it would be a good experience for her to be Dad’s traveling companion for a few days. We left late Sunday from an Easter party at my folks and arrived at the trailer at about 12:30 am. The next morning as we were leaving I pulled through our space, doubled back and ended driving right by our trailer. Ella said, "Man look at that tiny trailer". We had driven by a lot of big RVs and large fifth wheels. For a second I thought she was teasing me (she is a lot like her daddy that way) but realized she didn’t get a good look at our trailer-which she was now describing as tiny. We had a good laugh.
It’s definitely a smaller but a good portable home for us.
Ella really received a warm welcome from everyone at Dr. P's office. She hung out with Wanda and the office dog Blaze, ran errands, and was even given a facial by Chesney.

I really appreciated everyone there making her feel at home- Sherry, Donna, Debbie, Dr. P, Andrea, Kat, Dave, KK, etc. We even had a nice send off as we were leaving. Good folks down here in Sierra Vista.
Monday after work we decided to go to Tombstone for dinner. We stopped by Target for a T-shirt (didn’t want to walk around with scrubs on) and then made the 25 minute drive. I made the mistake of telling Ella to avoid staring at anyone for too long since there was a lot of what I called "rough and tumbles here”. That really backfired as every other minute Ella was cautioning me that I was staring at people. She got pretty nervous walking down the boardwalk past a “motorcycle enthusiast club”. I showed her the infamous scene of my second scariest meal (see earlier post) and we had an enjoyable dinner at The Crystal Palace.
After Tombstone we hung out playing pool and watching basketball in the Quail Ridge clubhouse.

I loved having Ella with me for a couple of days. I wanted her here not only for the life experience but selfishly because dad wanted his little girl around. She really shines one on one and is a delight to have around. I love her great sense of humor and her beautiful smile. Love you Ell Bell. Thanks for spending a couple of days with me.

Tall Guy on a Little Plane

2011-05-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

9 May 2011
I’m back in my trailer in windy Sierra Vista after a short 10 hours at home. Home late last night from Tampa and then left this morning at 4:30 to make it here in time for work. Non- stop 4.5 hour flight from Florida that probably could have been a little more comfortable. I decided to try and book the early bird special that Southwest offers. For an extra 10 dollars they will automatically sign you in for your flight and let you board sooner than most of the people on the flight (commoners I call them). My master plan (as it always is) was to get one of 11 seats- any of the six front row or 5 emergency exit seats. Most of the time when people comment on my height I just explain, “it’s mostly neck and upper back, I have pretty stubby legs”. But even these stubby legs want as much leg room as possible. After I checked my luggage and received my boarding pass I was dismayed to see A-43 on my boarding pass. Gripes! I just paid $10 and there are at least 42 people boarding ahead of me including three people in wheelchairs (I’m not going to disparage those in a wheelchair but they are on to a pretty good thing…like going to the front of the line at Disneyland…quite the racket). After at least 40 people boarded in front of me I was pleasantly surprised to find the aisle seat in row #1wide open right next to a delightful senior couple (I didn’t ask but they could also be living in an RV park). Total score! Who walks past an open aisle seat at the front of the plane where most peoples’ legs can stretch all the way out? Answer: smart, intelligent people. Worst seat on the plane.
A couple of thoughts. The flight started out well enough. As we were taking off I put my head back and immediately dozed off (I usually have more staying power…those Sudokus don’t do themselves) but was startled awake with a jolt while we were still climbing much to the amusement of the flight attendants, who thought I had just suffered a mini seizure. Everything was great until the “permission to move about the cabin” was given. There was not a seat on that plane closer to the lavatory (rather pretentious name for an airplane bathroom) than mine was, a fact I should have realized from the start. If I had raging diarrhea or an enlarged prostate my seat would have been sweet, but since I had neither it was rather unpleasant. There was a constant and steady stream of people bumping me on their way to the port-o-potty in the sky (dang aisle seat). You would be shocked at the number of people who went into that restroom without shoes on. Yikes. As I kept tabs on the frequent flyers (yep I was keeping track of the multitude of tiny bladders out there) I wondered at the wisdom of passing out soda and water to people. I know staying hydrated is important but you are just making it uncomfortable for passenger #1 (that’s what I referred to myself as; hey I was in seat #1). Without getting into specifics I don’t even have to mention the time the flight attendants were forced to pull out the Lysol disinfectant as the loo was apparently assassinated by an inconsiderate passenger. I also unfortunately was front and center to hear the complaining from the flight attendants who really weren’t that excited dealing with such thirsty flyers (though admittedly some of them deserved the sniping……i.e . the bathroom ninja who ruined the water closet). Next time I’ll just be content with my knees up near my chin in the middle of the plane.
(I tried to squeeze as many names for bathroom as I could in this post… how many can you spot?)
(I’ll try to class up this blog with my next post and limit all of this potty talk).

Outhouse to Penthouse

2011-05-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

5 May 2011
I find myself now in Tampa, Florida for a dermatology review course. The time change is a killer…I didn’t make it to my hotel room until 12:45 AM and I don’t think I fell asleep until 3:00 (that would have been midnight AZ time). It made for a tough 6:30 AM wake up call. Unfortunately I felt compelled to eat breakfast (some sort of internal policy about not passing up on complimentary breakfast) though I don’t generally and my body thinks it’s 4 am- imagine getting up at 3:30 and eating bacon) and am feeling a little sick about now. I had a real scare at the Tampa airport last night. I was last man standing at the luggage carousel and the familiar “my luggage didn’t make the plane transfer” feeling was there. Several years ago Jill and I survived 4 days with just the clothes on our back on the Big Island in Hawaii when our luggage didn’t make it. Luckily for me my bag was here. I was scanning the belts looking for a black bag with a large yellow stripe. Somewhere along the way my bag was compressed by some luggage jockey and the outer zipper was closed hiding the indentifying yellow stripe (and smashing my Poor Brothers jalapeno chips in the process- yep I pack and expect my chips to arrive intact- see previous post about how being a doctor doesn’t mean you have any common sense). I’m betting my bag made 2 or 3 trips on the conveyor belt before I realized it was mine.
This hotel has one of the nicer rooms I’ve stayed at before. Likely that’s explained by the culture shock of going from trailer park to hotel room in a 12 hour span. On a down note the nights I’m here for the conference are costing me more than two months at Quail Ridge RV (living the high life has its price). I’ve heard they even have a “cement pond”. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Getting Older...I Guess.

2011-04-29T23:28:00.000-07:00

28 April 2011
I’m sitting in my trailer at 9:00 pm on a Thursday night. Usually about now I am just rolling into the driveway and about to be showered with hugs from the kids (unless there is a new movie on the Disney channel…actually the hug showers happened the first couple of times I came home…now 50/50). I have work in Tucson in the morning so had to stick around a little longer. I worry being gone so much has become the new normal for the kids. While Jill bears the brunt of home life (t-ball, football, piano lessons, homework, school, discipline, dinner, baths etc. etc.) I have a quiet trailer to contemplate the mysteries of life. I’m sure given the choice she would love the occasional peaceful trailer vacation 20 miles from the nearest town. Maybe for her next birthday I can set her up at Quail Ridge RV.

I had a disturbing Teen Wolf/Marty McFly (yes I know that’s from Back to the Future) event yesterday morning. You know the scene where Michael J. Fox discovers a 4 or 5 inch long chest hair as he slowly pieces the puzzle together that he is actually a werewolf. Well it wasn’t chest hair (sorry Jill) but a 1 cm long hair on my right ear that caught the light just right as it filtered through the trailer blinds. “What the heck is that?” I thought as I wondered how long that must have been there to achieve that kind of prodigious length. I’m graying and thinning (signs of my own mortality…at 35 I guess I can expect and accept both of those) but I can’t tolerate hairy ears. It does make me wonder how many people must have noticed my ear but failed to mention anything. It has further strengthened my resolve to let others know when their fly is down or they have lunch in their teeth.

Work continues to go well here. Dr. P and everyone that works in his office is fantastic and I appreciate the warm welcome I’ve received since I’ve been here. It really makes being away from the family easier to handle.

Tombstone

2011-04-27T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last week my RV buddies invited me to Tombstone to hang out with them at the American Legion Post to play table shuffleboard. My friend Ikaika happened to be flying in a few clients to Sierra Vista so I invited him to Tombstone for dinner. After work I picked him up at the Texas Roadhouse (apparently he couldn’t pass up a free steak…dang Hawaiian with no self control) and we drove the 25 minutes to the one time home of Wyatt Earp. As we pulled into town there was a flock of buzzards circling overhead, which seemed especially appropriate for the “Old West”. After a quick stop at Toughnut Street we found the American legion (the buzzards were circling directly overhead- eerily ironic).
We had a great time playing shuffleboard. Once I’m done with all of this residency business and finally grow up I plan on having a shuffleboard table (right next to my shave ice machine) in a game room. Apparently Woodie’s dad was a national champion, and he is no slouch himself. Ikaika and I gave he and Glenn a real run for their money but lost a high stakes game of 2 dollars at the very end. I’m hoping for a rematch at some point. If you’ve never played it I highly recommend it, ton of fun.

After the shuffleboard we walked down the boardwalk to a place called Big Nose Kate’s . That name may be familiar to you as the one time paramour (first I use Victorian and now paramour?!, I promise I’m not a wuss reading romance novels in my trailer at night…see my post on my own manliness as evidence) of Doc Holiday. It was closed as well as every other reputable establishment in town. We ended up at the only place still serving food called Vogans. I have a hard time believing that they have an actual food license. People toss around the phrase “dive” a lot so it has lost a little of its value. This place was a total dive, complete with a very surly, nearly toothless lady who was not pleased that 6 people strolled in at 9:30 and she was going to have to fire up the grill. I’m not sure what time they close but when you are the only food in town at that time of night you can’t be so ticked when you get a few customers with “cash money”. Woodie’s wife Cleda Jane set up shop near the grill so that in her words, “I can make sure nothing happens to our food”. I told her to make sure and not tell me if something untoward occurred because I was starving. There were a few locals who I hoped weren’t going to be driving home later that night. One of them, Griz (no joke that’s what he told me-see picture…dude ‘s mother knew what she was doing-he’s on my left) decided I was a new bud and kept punching me on the arm and chest in a playful, intoxicated kinda way.

Curious about Vogan’s online reputation I found the following assessment from an online poster, “This might have been the scariest place I have ever eaten!” I won’t go that far (we ate once at a McDonalds in Blythe that should be bulldozed) but it was close. Good time.

Stolen Space

2011-04-26T08:47:00.000-07:00

4/26/11
I woke up this morning to my Dad shaking the bunk bed to get me up for my paper route. That thought lasted about half a second (weird thought to have 23 years after I slung my last Mesa Tribune) before I realized I was in a rocking Travel Trailer in the middle of the desert. I went to bed last night with a high winds advisory in Cochise County. The warning did not disappoint. One of my RV buddies who just moved back home told me he would not be back next year because it was too dang windy (of course he said a little more than just “dang”). I have been enjoying the wind. Unless you are actively fly fishing or having a Victorian picnic I don’t see how you could complain. Of course we grew up in nearly weatherless Mesa (not counting hot) where even a light drizzle outside was cause for the Bingham kids to do donuts around the house in a rabid frenzy.

I was disappointed after work yesterday to find that my “should have been” new RV space was stolen. My pal Woodie recently moved leaving his RV space open and ready for me. It was a sweet spot with two really great shade trees on both sides. Many a night I have stared out my window longingly (RV commandment #3 “do not covet thy neighbor’s space”) waiting for my opportunity to move my home and assume command of the primo spot at Quail Ridge. I knew eventually it would open up since I’m here until June and everyone flies north for the summer. Sunday at about 1:00 AM I pulled in and was excited to see the spot available. Monday after work a fifth wheel (with California plates no less!) had taken it (I haven’t checked yet but they probably have an Obama 2012 bumper sticker on there). Hopefully I can pull it together and be neighborly.

I also found out that I have ants in the trailer (another good reason to move). Good news is they haven’t yet found my Golden Grahams or Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It’s only a matter of time.

McDonalds and Manliness

2011-04-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

I decided to head back to Sierra Vista early Monday morning instead of Sunday night like I have done previously. Big mistake and I’m pretty sure that will likely be the only time that I do that. Restless couple of hours sleep as I worried I would oversleep and end up being 4 hours late. I got up early (3:30 am- sure some of my siblings are not even in bed by that time) and left by 4 to make it into work on time at 7:30. I’m not usually a breakfast person but by the time I hit Tucson I was starving so I decided on a McDonalds and a Diet Dr. Pepper to get me the rest of the way to Sierra Vista. I ended up needing to use my GPS to find one (man they are everywhere when you don’t need one) and made a quick purchase through the drive thru. Only when I was back on the freeway did I discover that I had been given a Diet Coke instead of a DP. Ticked! I don’t intend to start up a cola war but of all the diet sodas Coke is dead last (way behind diet Big K and even Doctor Diablo-sorry Dad). Last week Ella had Aims testing and was trying to convince Jill to take her to McDonalds for a free breakfast. Apparently the local franchise was offering free mcmuffins to kids during testing week. I’m pretty sure this must have been sponsored by the Chinese government to sabotage our childrens’academic progress because five minutes after eating I was feeling pretty terrible (both physically and mentally) with my decision to go for the Breakfast of Champions that is the golden arches. Of course if Albert at the McDonalds on 6th avenue in Tucson wouldn’t have messed up my soda (I’m not holding a grudge….much) I probably would have felt a lot better.
A couple of nights ago after work I headed over to the Quail Ridge clubhouse to see if I could study (catch an NBA game on T.V). I wandered in and found about 25 people getting ready for an ice cream social. The room was filled with a large RV enthusiast group called The Campers. They meet monthly at different locations for 4 or 5 days doing various activities. As I visited with one of the head organizers (I assume that she was in charge by the way she was yelling at everyone to take a seat) I overheard a gentleman complaining that Dancing with the Stars was about to start and that they needed to get the activity over quickly. I was invited to sit down for some cake and to participate if I wanted to (I decided it would be a little unseemly to just grab some cake and ice cream and run) so I found a seat. They then passed out plastic Easter eggs to everyone that included a slip of paper inside with a specific question for you to answer for the group. When they got to me I was introduced as our “young visitor” (I could have been 60 and still described that way). My egg asked, “Have you ever lived outside the country?” I told them I lived for two years in Russia on a church mission and that I was living in a trailer for a couple of months here working. After I sat back down I told my table that I had come hoping to catch a basketball game. The gal organizing then came over and told the Clay (the very man who was anxious to get Dancing with the Stars started) that he now had the green light to turn on the T.V. With a mortified look on his face he very embarrassedly (is that a word?) turned it to DWTS and told me the women looked forward to this every Monday and that if it was up to him we would watch a game. For some reason Clay decided to hide his passion for a dancing program, as if it was unmanly to watch people dancing (it probably is but I myself have enjoyed So You Think You Can Dance in the past so who am I to judge). First Rick with his poodle and now Clay with his dancing show have felt the need to justify their sensitive side to me. The point, dear reader, is that I am now the gold standard in this community for manliness. I have finally arrived (I hope you are taking notes on all of this Jill…that’s right…MANLY!).

Hazards of Heading Home

2011-04-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

14 April 2011
Water heater is working! I enjoyed my first shower in the trailer. I will complain about the cramped quarters (measurements to follow) later but for now I will just bask in my ability to avoid the Quail Ridge shower stalls, 9 out of 10 rating notwithstanding (yep just used notwithstanding in a blog post, take that bucket list!),and the possible trench feet brewing below my ankles.

Skin screening at the Quail Ridge clubhouse was a success. I walked over at 6:30 to find a mostly full room of people ready to have their skin checked out by likely the only trailer livin’ dermatologist in the state (likely the country but I can’t allow myself to get too grandiose). After flipping a long table on its side on the kitchen counter to serve as a quasi privacy shield I spent the next two hours diagnosing seborrheic keratosis, cherry hemangiomas, and actinic keratosis.

Woodie brought along his guitar and provided the entertainment for the evening. Everyone there was grateful for the time I spent and I was happy to give a little community service. Afterwards I spent a little time chewing the fat and listening to Woodie tell in his words, “clean jokes I have to use in Mesa RV parks”.

The next morning early while I was filling my trailer’s water tank before work I was hailed from across the way by one of my poker buddies, Rick, who was out walking his dog. He thanked me again for taking the time to do a skin screening. I hollered back a “you’re welcome” and asked him what kind of dog he had. He replied that it was half Jack Russell and half poodle. Like a speedy auctioneer (and before I could give him a hard time about walking and owning a poodle) he followed with, “but he acts more like a Jack Russell, and he looks more like a Jack Russell ”. I don’t care what generation you’re from, most guys I know don’t admit to owning a poodle. I gave him a free pass (mostly because I still felt bad about beating his three 8s with my flush the last hand at cards) but I have been working on my poodle material to use the next time I see him walking his dog. There’s nothing wrong at all with a little good natured heckling to win friends and influence people.

The work week in Sierra Vista was a short one as I was scheduled to work in my office in Peoria Wed –Fri. Tuesday after work I stopped by the trailer to grab some gear and finally empty my black and gray tanks (did not want that percolating for a week in the southern Arizona heat). In my haste to leave I inadvertently left my cell phone on the kitchen table. Fortunately, I was only 5 or 6 miles away when I realized I had forgotten it. Unfortunately, the soonest I was able to flip a U-turn happened to be within sight of a border patrol station. In my hurry to be home I didn’t realize until after I had already turned around that I would have been better off going through the checkpoint and then turning around. Judging from my limited view through the rear view mirror it looked like an ant hill had just been destroyed. Finally Rosco P. Coltrane was going to get a little action. As the squad car and truck both with lights flashing pulled me over I prayed fervently that I didn’t have any Central American (hey I’m being politically correct here) stowaway in the bed or under the hood (tiny people on average).

Me- “What’s the problem officer?”
Rosco- “Don’t you think it’s a little odd that you turned around in front of a border checkpoint station?”
Me- “I forgot my phone in my trailer and this was the first opportunity I had to turn around to get it”.

I would have arrested myself on the spot with that kind of lame excuse. As I was directed to stand by the hood of the squad car as the border patrol German Shepherd inspected my truck I was reminded of the time I was pulled over while my brother Lance and I were heading to clean the Alta Vista building late one night. I had crossed the first several feet of the gore point while trying to get onto the 51 from the 202. Etched in my mind is Lance laughing at me as I (a fairly straight arrow) was given a field sobriety test for the world to see. When I return I’ll be waiting for one of my Sierra Vista patients to say, “hey aren’t you that goofy looking guy I saw get caught trying to smuggle Mexicans (one political correction per blog) into Phoenix?”

If my mishap at the border checkpoint had been my only (or worst) mistake heading home I would have considered myself fortunate. In my hurry to get home and trying to make up for lost time I decided to eat dinner on the road. Tragically, dinner consisted of me stopping at the Subway in Casa Grande, ordering a 12” meatball sub, and attempting to eat it as I drove…….disaster. Being a doctor doesn’t necessarily mean you are smart nor have any common sense, just that you are persistent.

This morning as I left for work our 2 year old Zachary, waving wildly goodbye, raced me down the circle wearing a camo shirt and diaper. Maybe there will come a time when Glenn, wearing a diaper and sucking on a pacifier, chases my truck out of the trailer parking lot as I leave for work. But until that happens, as Dorothy long ago observed, there continues to be no place like home (of course if that happens I will go RV to RV confiscating the alcohol and /or get Glenn checked into a dementia ward).

Sierra Vista Poker night

2011-04-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

Home sweet home. After just four short nights in the trailer my legs forgot what it was like to not hang 18 inches off the bed or be curled up into a ball. I made it home late Thursday night in just a little over three hours, record time (my first trip back so even if it took me 8 hours it would have still been a record).

My last night at Quail Ridge was spent hanging with the boys in the QR clubhouse at poker night. As previously mentioned I was hoping to bring something to share with the group to eat. I didn’t make it to the store so after an exhaustive search through my semi-stocked trailer cupboard I decided on a half eaten box of mini powdered donuts (the partial bag of chili cheese Ruffles seemed a little too WT). The poker boys consisted of Glenn, Woodie, Rick, and Dale, an affable group who all seemed genuinely happy to have me (and my quarters) playing with them.
As the evening wore on it was enjoyable to find out about each of them, their families, former occupations, and what had landed them in the Southern Arizona desert. I won’t bore the reader with a detailed account of how the actual poker went down. The game was Texas holdem with a cap on raising making bluffing nearly impossible. Generally the best hand won out. The beginning of the night found me quickly down $12.50 (and earned much consoling from my tablemates) before I rallied and ended the night on our predetermined last hand with a diamond nut flush (badly beating Rick’s 3 eights) and up $7.50. I had a great time and am already a little wistful as most of my new QR buds will be heading back to cooler climates shortly. This may be my first and last poker night here. If the troops are able to rally for one more night I plan on putting that $7.50 towards something better to bring (only three donuts were eaten that night….all by me).

The ring leader of the RV boys is none other than cowboy poet Woodie Cochran.

Woodie and his wife Cleda Jane tour the country performing their music and comedy.

I heard a steady barrage of doctor jokes at poker night, unfortunately there is not one that I can safely repeat on a family blog (where did all the clean doctor jokes go?). After the game he promised to get me a couple of CDs of his music to listen to during the drive back home to Phoenix. His first CD, titled Leather and Lace is an enjoyable blend of old school country with…….ok I’ll stop there…I have no idea what I’m doing giving a music review. Suffice it to say I quite enjoyed the music (Cleda Jane has a fantastic voice) and I have been humming Paper Thin Walls (the story of a man who catches his wife with his brother at the motel 8 and guns her down) and A Women Knows all day.

After work on Thursday I stopped by my trailer to gather a few things to bring back with me to Phoenix. Woodie stopped by to invite me over to give me his music and to say goodbye to my new buddy Dale, who with his wife was leaving the next day back to Washington State. After climbing aboard his palatial RV (it really did seem huge compared to my modest trailer) I was introduced to their wives. Dale’s wife, after shaking my hand, insisted that she had seen me somewhere before. Cleda Jane replied, “He’s tall and handsome and you wish you had met him before”. Dale’s wife readily agreed that this was true (I’m not sure if it was to the tall or the handsome part but I’ll say both). Ahh if only I was single and into septuagenarians….. I might never leave. The men folk didn’t seem to begrudge all the attention this young stud was getting at the hands of their women folk. Dale was concentrating on his tumbler full of adult beverage (he was consistently pulling on his flask at cards the night before) while Woodie was looking for his music. After a quick skin check of Dale’s back for a suspicious mole (I correctly surmised it was going to be a harmless seborrheic keratosis, oft referred to as a ‘barnacle of life’) I was off to Phoenix. I offered to perform a skin cancer screening for the general population this next Monday for anyone interested. Woodie enthusiastically volunteered to make some flyers and get the word out to our (emphasis on our) community.

RV Chronicles

2011-04-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

6 April 2011

Jill’s 32^nd birthday today. Pretty sure this is the first time since we have been married that I will have been gone. We have been pretty fortunate generally with work and other obligations that I haven’t often needed to be away from home. Thank goodness, I am a real homebody. I called and talked to Jill at noon and she was being taken out to lunch by Suzanne Davis. I am sure grateful for good friends and family who have taken an interest in Jill and I and our young family. Tristine even stopped by with some flowers. We are really surrounded by some great people. The good news about missing Jill’s birthday is that we have generally called a truce when it comes to things like birthdays and Valentine’s day. One day when we have more money that may change but for now the pressure is off (though I did get her a pretty sweet camera for her birthday last year, thank you moonlighting at the urgent care). More on Jill in a minute.

For lunch today I went to Chipotle (yep SV really does have it all) for a burrito bowl. For the curious the best burrito/bowl consists of rice, pinto beans, chicken, mild, medium, and hot salsa, sour cream, cheese, and lettuce. The place was packed with military personnel, not a chair to be had. I decided my only option was out on the patio. I lasted all of 30 seconds before all of my lettuce literally blew away and I retreated to the safety of my truck in the Lowes’ parking lot. You’d think this place was next to Lake Michigan for all the wind. I watched a couple of carts whizzing by me in the parking lot and just hoped I wasn’t going to get broadsided.

After work I nervously drove into Quail Ridge hoping my home wasn’t on its side from the nor’easter blowing through. Still standing but my now former BFF Allen did not pull through for me and I remain hot waterless. I tried calling him but didn’t get an answer (do they even have caller ID in SV?). I’ll be heading home tomorrow night so I’ll have to deal with it next week.

Jill and I have been married for 13 years this July. In that time she graduated from ASU with a degree in fine arts, had four children, and was our best janitor at Alacrity janitorial (sorry Vern). She has been in young womens, primary, and Sunday school. She finds the time to work on emergency preparedness and sew. She has been my biggest supporter and confidant. She is an amazing woman with many talents and a wonderful mother. I love her and consider myself to be blessed.

Happy Birthday!

2011-04-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

This has been such a fun birthday even though Jeremy is out of town, so many friends and family made sure I felt loved today.

My good friend Suzanne took me to lunch today with my two crazy littlest boys, along with her son Patrick and another friend Melissa. It was so fun and such a beautiful day.

I got all sorts of texts, calls, and singing messages, that I loved from all of my dear family and friends. I also got some pretty delicious brownies, that Zac nearly dumped and trampled on, thanks for saving them Taylor.

Topping it off my beautiful sister n'law Tristine brought me these fragrant roses and some yummy ice cream. Thank you so much to all of you.

So grateful to have so many who I love and who love me and our family as well.
The kids wanted to make my birthday special (especially Ella) with Daddy being out of town. Grandma/Mom , came over after school and took them to the dollar store so that they could each get something for me.
Ella and Caden decorated a little bit while I was at Tay's t-ball game with Zac. They put up streamers and E made a sign.

They each took turns taking pictures.

Here is all the sweet stuff they got for me, they sure know what their mama likes.
We had maple donuts for our birthday cake and a single serving of pie that Grandma and the kids got for me to put a candle on. Thank you guys for making my birthday so fun and special.

Ella's video doesn't' have sound it was on a different camera. I'll have to try uploading the other two videos again, they aren't working. didn't work, files must be too big.
This is a total side note on Zac. We all know he is one active, crazy fast runner, and climber monkey. This afternoon, before nap, I was on the phone while zac threw a couple of the dogs chew toys over the fence. Taylor comes in to tell me about it. I'm on the phone, we walk outside. T proceeds to climb on a chair to look at the items on the other side, telling me he can climb over and get it. He starts the ascent onto the wall looking to me as he straddles it, I nod and give the OK so he jumps down. Meanwhile I'm still on the phone and Taylor throws the items back over to our side of the fence and Zac has gotten himself almost completely over, at this point I am holding him up only under his arms and have been standing on a chair to watch T. Zac badly wants to get down on the street side of our wall. I put the phone down so I can lift him back up. We go inside to see if Taylor made it around the houses back to our circle. Because there was no chair on the other side of the wall to assist him back over to our side. After checking out the front window to see if Taylor is back, which he was, but Zac didn't stand there long enough to realize this, Zac runs back outside. I am still on the phone, i look through the kitchen window and see that zac is already nearly up and over the fence wall again. I finally make a hasty goodbye of my 5 min. conversation and run out there to keep him from climbing our six foot wall and falling to the other side. Nap time.

A few hours later after his nap I go outside with Zac and move the offending chairs that have so conveniently been sitting against the fence to help our 2 1/2 yr old climb the wall. After putting them against our house, Zac says to me, looking up to the top of our 2 story roof, "I can't climb up dere, its too tall." He is a serious nut that keeps me moving ALL day long. I just shake my head and laugh.

Hot Water Heater

2011-04-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

5 April 2011

This morning right when I got to work I called a mobile RV repair service that advertises in my RV park to see if they could come and take a look at my water heater. Allen was very accommodating and told me they could come out today and that they would give me a call when they figured out what was wrong. I was thrilled with the quick service and told Allen I needed a Sierra Vista BFF and this kind of service made him a leading candidate (and also that he is the only person I know here). No call all day so I figured that they weren’t able to make it. I was pleasantly surprised to find a bill for $87.50 on my kitchen table (I had previously hidden the keys on the propane tank). Now $87.50 seems like a completely random number for a service charge with no parts involved but if it meant that was going to have a hot shower I was at peace with the cost. I immediately tried to get hot water at the kitchen sink….nothing. Went to the back of the trailer at the hot water heater and the pilot was out. I again tried to light it but no dice. At this point a bedraggled looking gentleman named Ron with a pink heart pillow clutched to his chest (apparently recently had a bypass) with Paris Hilton’s dog Tinkerbell in tow (I should be embarrassed that I know that…..I am ….a little) wandered over. He kindly asked me what was wrong and after a quick explanation he told me he was good with RVs and would take a look. After gamely applying my lighter to the pilot light for 30 seconds and unsuccessfully lighting it he informed me I was in trouble and that I should use the clubhouse showers if I wanted a warm one. Not helpful. At all. I foolishly was taken in by his official looking slippers and allowed my hop to rise. My general rule of thumb is to underplay my hand, than people will be pleasantly surprised at my amazing performance. Don’t advertise yourself as a concert pianist only to underwhelm your audience with “here we go, in a row, to a birthday party” (you all know the tune). The appropriate tact should be, “yeah I play a little” only to blow them away with Chariots of Fire. I digress. As soon as Captain Ron left I called Allen who informed me his guy Sonny had the heater working and he wasn’t sure why it wasn’t currently heating my water. He promised to stop by in the morning which made me feel a lot better about my earlier BFF proposal to the man.

I just got back from using the clubhouse shower. A couple of thoughts. I brought my tape measure with me and the shower measures exactly 3.5 x 3.5 feet. Who in their right mind thought it would be a good idea to recreate the size of an RV bathroom in an actual bathroom. I’m pretty sure they are there so people can escape the narrow, claustrophobic confines of their rig, not make them nostalgic for them. Thankfully no sign of foot fungus ……yet.

On the positive side my social standing in the community is on a decided up swing. I was invited to the weekly card game held every Wednesday night. I told them I wasn’t any good (a lie) and that I didn’t have any money (true). I’ll need to figure out what I can bring to share, I’m leading towards something with plenty of fiber (enter the conquering hero).

2011-04-06T21:03:00.000-07:00

Sierra Vista RV Adventure

4 April 2011

Well after months of fretting over where I would live for a 3 month rotation in Sierra Vista I have finally arrived and am safely here. I am now working for the next 11 weeks or so in Sierra Vista with Dr. -------/ Dermatology as part of my ongoing dermatology residency training. When I first heard 6 months or so ago that I would need to live in SV my initial thought was that I would not want to stay in a place that had roommates (ie. Hospital housing) so I found and purchased a lightweight travel trailer. After having second thoughts about the sanity of living in a trailer (and realizing I was probably too young and possessing too many teeth) I attempted to find alternate housing. I left messages with every Bishop (5) in the area to see if any elderly widower would want to rent out a room….. and heard back from exactly zero. Apparently I need to work on making my voice sound a little less creepy. Next I called a Robbie on Craigslist with a room thinking maybe it was a young military guy (SV sits next to Fort Huachuca) looking for a short term roommate. Turns out it was a single lady (really Robbie?) with a 9 year old daughter. Strike two! Not going to risk 15 years of school and training by putting myself in that kind of situation. Strike three was a big whiff on a sloooooow curveball after multiple attempts to obtain a room with the hospital housing for medical students. Pros: it would be close to work and I would be able to eat all of the bad chicken fried steak and potato flakes I could stomach for free. Cons: sleeping on the bottom bunk while med student Mortimer McGoo tosses and turns passing flatulence all night (see above reference to hospital food). Alas, not to be. I was assured medical students only.

I arrived with rig in tow late last night (Sunday) after an uneventful 160 mile drive from Mesa where I had picked up the trailer from Ryan’s house. After the initial white knuckles of pulling so large a trailer for the first time I settled in at 60 mph with the F150. The V6 did an admirable job and the sway bars Dad and I had installed did a great job. I ended up getting a total of 240 mile for my 23 gallons of gas. Not great. I don’t have a calculator handy but rest assured that is a pretty crappy miles/gallon ratio. After arriving at about ten PM I high beamed the entire neighborhood multiple times looking for my pre- determined lot #--- at Quail Ridge RV, a nondescript 20 x 80 foot pad of gravel. After unloading the truck and getting more or less situated I settled down at around midnight.

I made it to work at 7:30 this morning, after fighting through heavy military traffic heading to the base. Seems like a good crew to be working with at the derm office. At lunch I headed back to Quail Ridge to pay by bill and get my propane tank filled. I met my nearest neighbor Ray, who filled my tank for me. Unfortunately I have been unable to get my hot water heater working. Luckily for me I am able to use the RV park clubhouse facilities. Their bathrooms were rated 9/10 by some online poll (yes I researched the bathrooms prior to committing to this place) and they are extremely adequate. I just got back from taking a shower. I am hoping that this does not turn out to be junior high revisited where I come down with a case of athlete’s (old guy’s) foot . I neglected to bring any flip flops. On the positive side at least now, unlike in 8^th grade, I am a dermatologist and can prescribe all the fungal medicine my size thirteens might require. I plan on calling a mobile RV repair if I prove unable to fix the water heater. I don’t want to spend the rest of my time here heating water in the microwave to wash my hair and shave in the morning. Last night was freezing so I have now tested the furnace and will be firing that up tonight. I just got off the phone with Jill. They sound like they are doing well, hopefully E and C can pitch in and be helpers for mom.

Fall ward campout

2011-01-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

I really just wanted to post some new pictures and these were on the computer. Our ward camp out was last September. We had a good time. There was an abundance of marshmallows, so the kids started catapulting them off a long board so that it could rain marshmallows. Pretty fun,

A Spooktacular Halloween

2010-10-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Every year our friends, the Smith sisters have a serious Halloween celebration. Jeremy and I were finally in town for this must go to party. We had so much fun dressing up as zombies. Ella and Caden even helped with our shirts.

Our story is Jeremy gets home from work and finds me as a zombie and I have turned him into one before we head out for the night.

We're all getting our groove on. Especially Napoleon!

Oh Yeah you got the moves man!!

Thank you for having such a fun party every year. We were so glad we could come this year.

Three of the Smith sisters and Baseball player Tara getting down.

That's right, we were the popcorn hopping, twirling, balancing popcorn on our heads relay champions of the night.

Jeremy was a twirler with his plate of popcorn.

Zombie Jeremy next to a couple of the Chilean miners.

Edward a.k.a.Mark has to balance his popcorn on his head as we work to fill our pumpkin first.

I know these all go backwards. This is our group anxiously awaiting to learn how we bring our plate of popcorn, hopping, skipping to the pumpkin. Lovin all those good looking Zombies and costumes.

Jen and Marshall made the best Napoleon and Kip. Jeremy was a pretty Scary Zombie but Nicole's Zombie complexion wins. Lookin good Nicole.

Bella aka Tiffany, Nicole, and I taking a break after dancing to Thriller.

All of us Zombies who were brave enough to be in our version of Thriller.

It was so fun to dress up with Jeremy and go to such a great halloween party. Jeremy even put on a little makeup. This is how we looked before our makeup got wiped off . The kids loved my hair.

Old swim Pics

2010-10-26T16:00:00.001-07:00

Found this picture in a draft that I never published. Swim team is so hot but it is fun, especially last season with little Taylor pumping along this huge lap pool for 25 yrds. I like how Ella and Caden are looking on in this as Tay is getting ready to jump in for the relay. the 6 and unders were so cute.

Jeremy's Gradutation

2010-10-26T09:07:00.000-07:00

The kids were at the bar all night getting soda after soda. At the end of the night the bar tender made them shirley temples and ella is wondering where hers is. They loved daddy's graduation.

June 26

Jeremy had his Family Practice Gradutation in June. It was so fun and seemed like there were so many activities leading to this event. So much hard work and now he gets to reap the benefits of it right? yeah just until he starts in another residency. Go Derm.

Phoenix Bapist was such a great program for our family. Jeremy made such good friends with his fellow residents. While the kids and I felt welcome and like a part of everything even at graduation when we and Jeremy's folks were invited on the stage to be recognized as Jeremy's supporters in getting him through the grueling years of training.

We love you Jeremy and are so proud of you!!

San Diego with friends and family

2010-10-11T22:42:00.000-07:00

We were so lucky to get to go to San Diego this summer with the Brizzee's.

The Kids had so much fun. Ryan and Julie came over and stayed nearby for a night and we all went to sea world together.

These boys big and small had so much fun boogie boarding.

Taylor and Paige became fast friends and loved playing together.

These sea lions were so loud. It was fun watching them.

We sat in the wet section for Shamu, but don't be fooled by Caden's soaked clothes, We rode the most horrible water ride that just soaks everyone. We were soaked the rest of the day and it was pretty cool out, poor Caden his jeans never dried out. Ella changed out of her jeans and used my sweater as a skirt, looks pretty cute. Taylor was the only smart one and just watched from the bridge above with Aunt Julie.

Taylor posing for me, never got a chance to throw it in. just outside of the camera frame a seagull is swooping down to steal his fish. He was so sad.

They all loved touching the bat rays.

Outside of the condo we rented in Encinatas.

We had so much fun staying with the Brizzees at the beach. We even got to see The Mathews and Banks. So glad they came down for the afternoon. It was such a fun vacatioin. We were so glad we could share it with so many people and most especially without Zac. That is really what made it a vacation for us, not having to worry about Zac hurting anyone or anything.

Dillon, Caden , and Logan, boogie boarding. These boys had so much fun playing together.

Jenny it was so fun to see you with our families and again for our girls weekend.

Thanks Nicole for letting me borrow your tele photo lens. I literally took hundreds of pictures on the beach. It was hard for me to decide which ones to put up.

April and May

2010-08-31T21:32:00.000-07:00

In April we had a conference in Vancouver that Jeremy and I spoke at. While we were there we did some sightseeing. These pictures aren't as good as the ones on my other camera, so they don't really show how beautiful this place is.

We got to go to Lasqueti Island where Jeremy's Grandma Lawlor was born. It was so fun to go to the island with the folks, and Ryan and Julie. It was really cool to see all the places Grandma remembers so fondly from her youth.

Jeremy even did a little geo-caching while on the island. That was cool. Our driver Barry was pretty impressed that Jeremy found it.
Sitting on a bench outside of the teapot house on a bench Barry built in the tree.

The house in Copley cove. absolutely beautiful. New owners call it Driftwood cove now I think.
In the community center. That's Lasquiti.
Another geo-cache, while we wait for the ferry.
It worked out so well that we were there the last weekend of the temple openhouse and were able to go. It was very beautiful.

Then two weeks later we didn't want the kids to miss an opportunity to see the Gila Valley Temple open house, so we went as a family and with Tara and Chad.
All the kids had a great time in the pool. Taylor still talks about the pool that was in the hotel. And a little more geo- caching. We have to introduce everyone to it while we have such good weather. Its fun to drive around and see places you wouldn't normally look for and yet you have a purpose.
The Gila valley Temple was very similar to the Vancouver temple. Both beautiful.

End of the year awards. So proud of Ella, straight A's, a trophy for principals list. Good job sister.

My mothers day gift, Glee concert, was such a surprise and soo fun.

Fathers and sons. Taylor and Caden had a great time with their Daddy. I'm so glad they get to go camping with Dad at least once a year and have these great memories.

Summer update

2010-07-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

My last post was going to be a two parter, because Jeremy surprised me again for mother's day and got me tickets to the Glee concert that was here. It was so much fun, even if Jeremy isn't the gleek that I am, He still had a good time. It has been a long time since we've been to a concert it was really cool and totally awesome of Jeremy to think of getting me something so different from what our normal dates are.

Also back in April, I'll have to add pictures sometime, We went to Vancouver for a family medicine conference and we both participated in a talk. While we were there we were able to go to a little place where Jeremy's Grandma was born called Lasquiti Island off of Vancouver Island. Jeremy's parents came along with Bro- in law Ryan and Julie. We had so much fun exploring the island and all the places where Grandma lived in her childhood. It is such a beautiful place and we can see why grandma loved it so much, and now we know that our Az forests are thin and sparse compared with the dense trees all over the island and also in Vancouver. It was so beautiful there. We were also able to go through the Vancouver temple for the open house. that was a cool experience as well. Our talk went well too.

In May we took a little impromptu getaway down to Safford, Thatcher, we didn't want to miss the opportunity to take the kids to the Gila Valley Temple open house. We went down there With SIL, Tara and Chad and their family. That was really cool to share the experience with the kids. Ella and Caden thought it was pretty neat, although Taylor's favorite part was swimming in the indoor pool with his cousins.

In June we had the opportunity to go to San Diego. We met some friends Dave and Amy over there and got together with some other friends from Med school too. It was so fun to play with my new camera at the beach, I literally took hundreds of pictures on the beach. I'll have to try and narrow it down to a few of my favorites when I post pictures.

Since then it has been swim team or cousins and now Ella is teaching her 3rd annual dance class, after learning the songs and choreography in Mesa, staying with Ryan and Julie. She is doing so well, this class I have been real hands off and on Friday when I had made one too many suggestions I guess, Ella said, "I know Mom, you can sit down now." My aunt happened to be there watching so I said to her, Oh guess I'm dismissed." We both chuckled. Can't believe how well Ella handles her class. She really does a great job. She knows its a lot of work to teach them, and she is always proud of them and surprised by how well they know it when it comes to the final performance. I'm proud of Ella too, its a good responsibility for her to have. All Caden sees are dollar signs, every summer he asks if he can teach a class too. Maybe some day son.

Full of Surprises

2010-06-14T21:41:00.000-07:00

Jeremy completely surprised me for my birthday.

We have talked about getting a digital slr camera for a long time and Jeremy looked into it and got one for me for my birthday in April.

These are some of the first pictures I took with it when we were playing around. Man it is such good quality. thankyou again for this awesome surprise Jeremy!

Skull Valley, Our final Farewell

2010-05-29T21:45:00.000-07:00

So many good memories of this place. I have early childhood memories of coming up to Skull Valley. My grandpa, dad, and uncles would come up often to work on my grandpas house which was up the hill. That was sad when it was sold about 10 years ago. But we had Grandma Anna Mae still living up here to keep us connected to Skull Valley.This was so sad because our little piece of Family history in Skull Valley isn't ours anymore. This is My great grandma Anna Mae's house. I think she lived in this house for about 35 years or so before moving down to Glendale to be closer to family as she got older.

The home had been taken care of for several years before going up for sale. Sold in April. We took the opportunity to go up during our spring break one final time.

Smashing coins on the tracks. We always love to smash em and try to find all of them.

Out in the orchard. Zachary loved the freedom of roaming.
Great grandpa's wall of tools.
Out Geo caching. just before heading into Prescott turned off the road and found this beautiful place. Saw so much because of geocaching.

Metal Detecting behind Grandma's house.

The Kids thought it was great they could get lost in the backyard.
Loved climbing this huge cottonwood.

Our very first geo-cache ever. Little trinkets in a weatherproof container and a log book. Fun to find with our new hiking GPS.
Taylor pointed this one out for us when we had a hard time pinpointing it.
We will all miss this place. I know it was such a happy place for myself, Jeremy, our kids and for so many members of my family. I'm glad we got to go up here for as long as we did, but it will surely be missed. It will be a wonderful memory when we drive through Skull Valley in the future.

Field Day

2010-05-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to add field day to our blog for a while now. It turned out to be pretty chilly, it was March 11 this year. I think Ella had her jacket on until after lunch.
THe little brothers had fun watching Ella and Caden. Although Zachary was a little upset that I wouldn't let him out of the stroller, especially if he saw a ball.
Even Daddy got to go down in the afternoon.

Ellas favorite event, the sack race, she was seriously bounding out there.

Zachary, our little . . . blessing

2010-05-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

He is so sweet in these pictures thank goodness they are start out so cute because this one has given us new insight with little busy boys.

Yesterday was the beginning of the end for me. I put Zac down for a nap like I normally do, then set out to get some work done, because its impossible to get anything done when he is awake. I heard him after awhile and hoped he would lay down and go to sleep. Before long Taylor his friend Andrew, and Zachary come skipping into the backyard. I was totally taken aback I asked Taylor how Zac got out. Because I figured and he and his friend must have gone upstairs when he started screaming and done a little team work to get the boy out. Taylor proceeded to tell me " he was just crying then climbed out and came downstraiwrs." I forgot that couple of weeks ago he was nearly climbing out of his crib. yesterday was my DOOMSDAY.

He figured it out. 18 months old climbs out of his crib, he is screaming at his locked bedroom door for his nap as I write this. He has to be contained. Last night after several attempts to get him to go to bed usually around 8:00, we brought him upstairs with us at 11;30 put his mattress on the floor then the rail back on, thinking surely this will be too much for him to climb over. (On a side note since he went to bed so late last night I though I was going to get to sleep in a little, nope 6:30 bright and early.) This morning after just a little crying I hear a thud. Poor kid it really was high. He just uses his sticky little feet to climb up and over. Be careful Zachie I love you.

What else is that boy doing other than climbing out of his crib, he climbs on the table, pulls chairs off the rug which are not at our dining table,but prefers if they are on the tile so he can just push the chair closer to the counter, sometimes he uses the oven door to get up but he has burned his fingers so the chair is his preferred method. sometimes I just put him in his highchair while I make dinner. He also loves toothpaste and toothbrushes. We often can't find either when we go to brush our teeth. our bathroom counter is full of his footprints and we now use our TV stand as our bathroom counter, not sure where we'll turn when he learns to get to that stuff too.

Life with our little Zachary is never dull. He drives me crazy and melts my heart several times each day.

Finally blogging again

2010-03-26T22:00:00.000-07:00

OK so it has been forever since I blogged. Our laptop crashed in Dec., which had all our pics on it, but Jeremy's good friend Brent was able to retrieve them. Very grateful for friends with computer skills.

This last Sunday we went out to Jeremy's folks for a visit and to pick Ella up after spending the weekend with cousins and at grandparents house. Its getting to be close to time to go when cousins come over to pick up their sister also. So we stay way longer, its hard to get away when so much fun is going on everyone is there and Jeremy and his brothers are playing ball. Even after the extra hour or two we stayed, Taylor is completely upset about leaving and wants to spend the night at grandads and grandmas so he can play with ry ry. Well I tell him we won't be back until Saturday and he would have to ask grandma if he could stay until then. Of course he immediately does and thinks he is staying. problem solved. I guess it wasn't solved when the next thing he knows he's getting stuffed into his car seat, crying that he was going to stay until sat. Grand dad reassures him he'll come out and get he and Ryden to spend the night sometime. he settles down as we drive home and we start talking about what they will do there. The little wheels in his head start spinning, when we tell him he would take a bath over there. He says "NO, I DON'T WANT THEM SEE ME NAKED!" it was hilarious. our modest 4 year old right?everywhere else except for home. He told us he would just take 2 baths at home before he leaves. he is still thinking and planning what he'll bring with him when he does get to spend the night with his cousin at grandma's and grandads.

Pics are from the annual resident retreat at the end of January. Has been a great program going to miss all the stuff they do to include families. I can't believe how old our kids are getting.

Boston

2009-11-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

Jeremy had a big conference in Boston in mid October and I got to tag along. It was short but fun . We tried to see as much as we could with our time there.

This is the view from our hotel room, it wasn't the Devonshire suite, was it Brent and Nicole,but we had a nice view.

Our first night, we were not prepared for how cold it was, in the forties that night with wind and a little rain, looking for a place to eat.

Boston Gardens was pretty close to our hotel so we walked through these beautiful gardens and headed for the Freedom Trail.

That sun is very deceiving it sure looks like a beautiful day but it was cold unless you were getting direct sunlight, and there are a lot of tall old trees in Boston.

The six of us, Jon, Rachel, Brent, Nicole, Jeremy and I.

Listened in on the tour here and learned some pretty cool history. John Hancock, Ben Franklin are among the founding fathers found here.

Site of the Boston Massacre.

Near Fenniul Hall here.

"Ye old Oyster House" Known as the oldest restaurant in America. Jeremy would tell you he had the worst Boston Baked beans here, they were nothing special. Clam chowder though was very good.

Hey, redcoat what are you doing here still?

Paul Revere

Even the fire stations looks cool.

Our final destination on the Freedom Trail. What.! we're climbing up that thing.

Yeah I think we've started to huff and puff up these stairs, what number are we on 150.. 250.. I lost count.

We made it (barely).

Riding the subways was pretty fun, It reminded Jeremy of Russia and Nicole of Japan.

John and Abigail Adams.

This is the home where he retired. There were some beautiful gardens here.

Where John Adams grew up and then lived after marrying.

Jeremy knocked on the door, lo and behold it opened right up on us, but it wasn't John Adams, merely a surprised security guard locking up.

The great 2nd president of our nation, John Adams.

In Harvard square.

Had to see Fenway Park, Jeremy and Brent were really hoping Boston would have made it a little further in the playoffs, so we could have been there when a game was going on. I'm sure it would have been crazy.

Got out of order, George Washington in the Boston Gardens.

Cool Statue of Ted Williams outside of Fenway Park.

The leaves were all changing it was the perfect time of year, even with the little cold front Boston was having.

Leaving way, way too early Saturday morning with Brent and Nicole.

Was cool to see the sunrise above the clouds though.

Quick short trip to Boston a beautiful city rich with American History.

Happy Halloween!!!

2009-11-06T23:35:00.000-08:00

We had four fun filled nights of Halloween this year, and Jeremy worked for three of those. Thursday before Halloween I needed to go to the grocery store for milk looked through my ads and saw they were having a family night at the store. We joined the craziness at the store, it was a fun way to kick off our Halloween celebrations.

There was cookie decorating, a cakewalk, mini pumpkin decorating and a few pieces of candy.

Zac was having a good time, but he wanted to get out of the cart.
The kids had a great time but when we got home Taylor started crying because his bucket wasn't filled with candy. He must have been remembering last Halloween and filling his bucket so full, guess I would be disappointed too if I thought those few pieces were it. We all had a good chuckle over his sadness.

At our ward Trunk or Treat. The super heroes with the super villain.

Zachary went through quite a few suckers, he was lovin it.

Taylor and Zachie and I had so much fun at Ella's and Caden's class parties. Taylor just loved the candy. In Caden's class his teach kept asking for parents to help pass stuff out and Tay kept raising his hand that he would pass stuff out. It was so cute. In the end he did pass out some sticks we brought so they could eat their sweet blood they learned about. My battery in the camera died before we got to Caden's class so we just have Ella's party.

Halloween night, Jeremy took our little supers to a few houses in our neighborhood before heading to work.

One of our 4 mini pumpkins we carved, he's eaten someone.

Ella had requested a medium to large pumpkin for carving, after three stores and news that many surrounding stores were also sold out we came home with little pumpkin pie pumpkins. It's fun no matter the size of your pumkin as long as you can pull out some of the guts.

We love to go to Nana and Papas every year and meet up with some cousins. The kids always look forward to trick or treating down their street.

Going through all the loot.

This year after Nana and Papa's we trick or treated Uncle Ken and Aunt Julie. He and Caden had some fun trying on my wig. Lookin good Uncle Ken!

I think we've got cousin IT here.

Lawlor Halloween Party

2009-11-06T22:49:00.000-08:00

Annual Lawlor Halloween Bash Holy Halloween Batman!!

It's a bird, its a plane, its Superman!

Our little super hereos love halloween, but we all love this annual halloween party at Ryan and Julie's. It is so fun.

She's Super super Girl!!

Maleficent and Batgirl

Taylor having a good time on the tight rope.

At the end of the night when we were no longer making shave ice, Jeremy used the extra blocks to make snowballs, he's looking at his next target.

Zachary loved going in and out of the Halloween houses, and watching the bigger kids pop out of the doors and windows.

Taylor can't wait to get his next snowball, so he can throw it at me.

Our beautiful new niece, Cameron, a little flower fairy. I love her costume.

There were no villains tonight, Tay didn't mind if we were matching so we're both sporting Batman tonight.

Give me some delicious shave ice Dad yummy!

Ventura Vacation

2009-09-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

It seems like I totally stopped blogging. the last couple of times I've been on, it wouldn'tlet me load any pictures, so finally I tried again and got a few on from our trip to Ventura, California. It was beautiful and so much fun.

2009-06-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

Our little cutie at 5 monts old. I know its old hes almost 8month

asked to get off of the baby and Taylor says but he's my horsey.

Field Day, Kids loved it. Taylor's turn to be upset about not being able to participate, but was still able to have fun.

Hot tubbin it. Zac's first time in anything bigger than the tub.

Feb. field trip with Ella.

Zachary's Blessing Day

2009-03-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

January 4th after the weddings we decided to add to the mayhem and have Zachary's baby blessing on Jan. 4. Otherwise we would have waited until March, because of Jeremy's work schedule.

Taylor giving Zachy some loves before bed.

Caden loves babies especially his baby brother.

Grandma Muriel and Grandpa Kirk

Grandpa Mackey and Zachary

Aunt Tristine and Zachary looking cute

Uncle Sam getting some time with Zac

Luckily we got a few pictures on his blessing day. Jeremy went upstairs to change out of his suit as soon as we got home, so I feel completely jipped out of the proper blessing day pictures I should have had. Didn't even get individual pics of Zac with that many people. Can you sense the bitter taste in my mouth for not having been more diligent with the camera. Guess we were too exhausted to think of taking pics.

Zachary was just chillin while everyone ate.

Sophia, Rachel, Sydney, Zachary, and Wesley. This is the new crop of babies in my family. I think we can say crop when in Tay Tay's year there were 7 born. This time there were six arrivals within a years time. This was taken at Julia's reception but Jake and Rindy had to leave before the reception so we are missing our cute little Whitney.

Wedding Week

2009-03-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

The last week of December and first couple days of January were very busy celebrating my sisters weddings. Both were beautiful and so much fun.

Julia and Kevin had a beautiful reception and a very fun cake. They did cupcakes and needed a cake top so they could do the traditional feed each other cake. Taylor and Caden loved being able to eat as many mini cupcakes as they could handle.

I can't believe how big Zac has gotten since the weddings. He is so dang cute.

Julia and all the girls.

Shirley and Mike got married on Dec. 30.

We all had fun at her reception too.

Jeremy and Zac visit with Grandma and Grandpa Lee.

This was the first wedding cake I've ever decorated. I think it turned out pretty good. I also did Julia's topper for her.

Shirley and some of the little girlies.

Even though it was kind of a lot for one week. It was so much fun.

Operation Hernia...success!

2009-02-23T19:30:00.000-08:00

Jeremy's hernia repair was a success. He is now walking tall, with a little help from the percocet. Jeremy before going under could still smile. He was wearing the gown of a 5'4" man and they were going to try to get him to stand up and to give us all a show. Luckily he didn't have to leave them a sample and stand up in his mini gown.

A little loopy from going under but did tons better than the two moaning ladies on either side of him in the recovery room.

Jeremy is doing great a week later and back at work.

Not so perfect pushups.

2009-02-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

Last Monday while doing my morning Perfect Pushups (round bases with handles that swivel, navy seals use them so no grief from anyone;) I felt a sharp twinge in the lower abdomen. After work as I started to do another set the twinge became a definite pain. Dismayed to report I am now the proud parent of a bilateral inguinal hernia (not our nickname for Taylor, I wish). Developed/diagnosed hernia Monday. Tuesday at lunch called surgeon. Met him minute later in the OR where sans gloves (he's old school) he diagnosed bilateral hernia. Wednesday placed on the schedule for Monday 16th at Phoenix Baptist. It's good to have some hospital connections. Pain is tolerable but without being too graphic in describing the pain it reminds me of the time I was laying on my bed minding my own business when Caden hit me (in the words of Kung Fu Panda) "In my tenders" with his foam core bat (he didn't get the bat back for a year). Two days after that is how I feel now, kind of a dull ache worse with movement. Low risk surgery so should go without a hitch. I spent a month with the surgeon, guy is very good. Too young for surgery. Gripes.

Christmas evening, afternoon, and morning

2009-01-19T21:22:00.000-08:00

This is my aunt Nancy with Zachary over at my Grandma's. I accidentally erased it while editing but thought it was too cute to exclude so its just a little out of order.
Christmas evening and our last stop for the day.

The kids were loving the rattlesnake eggs Grandpa gave them. They were outside throwing them up and trying to catch them.
Baby Elyse, only three days old, so beautiful.

Zachary trying out Jaden's new doll bed that Ashley made.

Taylor got a sweet animal bag from Grandma. The little dogs in there he named Kenzie after grandma and grandpa's dog.

Grandpa shows them how to throw the magnets to get it to sound like a rattlesnake.

Beautiful Aunts Ashley and Tristine, holding Kayson and Zachary.

Christmas Afternoon Dinner At my Grandmas

Hangin out having a good time, after stuffing ourselves with a delicious Christmas dinner.

Zachary with Uncle Andy.

Grandma opening her gifts.

It stopped raining for a few minutes so the boys could play on grandma evelyn's swing set, and get pretty muddy.

Christmas Morning.

What is Christmas morning without someone getting a bike. This year Taylor was so cute and excited to open the closet and find a bike for him, Today he called it his Santa Bike.

Daddy opening Ella's gift for him.

Caden cutie and his new art set.

Jeremy is checking out his new quilt.

Zachary in his new bumbo seat.

I had to add this one just because I was able to catch Taylor in a moment of excitement so cute.

Taylor and Zach weren't as eager to wake up as Ella and Caden. As it is they let us sleep in till 8 and were able to get me rollin out of bed by 8:30.

Bridal Shower Time

2009-01-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

Two of my beautiful sisters got married over the holidays so we were also busy with bridal showers and wedding stuff along with the holidays this year. Above is my sister Valerie with her cutie Gavin. For Shirley's shower she made a super cute and incredibly durable pinata. It was so fun watching all of these ladies bat at this pinata that would not budge open. What a fun idea this was Val.

Shirley one of the brides' to be.

Shirley's shower was in my brother Joe and Maryann's backyard. It was so pretty I had to take a picture of the food table. Julie thanks for all the cute decorations.

This is Julia's Bridal shower at my house the day after Thanksgiving. Ella was our big helper with the games, she loves being a part of all these things.
Julia with one of the only gifts that wasn't lingerie. Sorry ju you were just too easy of a target to tease.

The other beautiful bride to be. Thanks Katie for all your help with the food. It was so yummy even though we thought we were feeding our huge family instead of a small group of women.

This was us kicking off the holidays

2009-01-18T21:32:00.000-08:00

So the pictures are a little out of order, this was our first Christmas party with Jeremy's extended family on Dec. 6th. There was a talent show the kids and the adults in the fam both did an act it was so fun, wish I had some video footage. Maybe next time.
This was from Thanksgiving.

The kids had so much fun playing at Ryan and Julie's, after our Thanksgiving feast. They also loved feeding the cows.

Tatum, Chloe, Haylee and Ella, what cuties!

The little cousins exchanged gifts with each other at our Christmas eve party they had so much fun shopping for each other picking out the gifts and wanting it for themselves until the exchange. Ella and Caden even wrapped what their gifts for their person was, pretty impressive but they used almost a whole roll of scotch tape.

This was our first annual hay ride and caroling. Jeremy is holding on to the kids tight so they don't fall off, we turned on to one busy street in Mesa, pretty scary and funny at the same time. we were all laughing about it. The trailer was so full with all of us you almost can't see the hay. It was such a fun Christmas eve party.

Zachary is 2 months old and such a little blessing.

At Jeremy's work party Santa came and played Christmas carols on a soprano saxophone and the kids all told him what they wanted for Christmas. I didn't think Taylor would sit on Santa's lap, but he did and when Santa asked what he wanted Ella whispered loudly in his ear 'a dog'. So that is what he told Santa, but not what he got this year, maybe next year.

Mouse Turd and Public Urination (Dec 2008)

2009-01-04T18:48:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas we went to look at Christmas lights. Taylor was really crying in the back seat of the truck. Apparently he needed to take a wiz. I found a suitable side street, pulled over and took him out of his seat. He ran to the side of the road, pulled his pants down to his ankles and enjoyed a nice long pee. When he was done he gave a long satisfied sigh. When he pulled up his pants and walked back around the truck he said, "Thanks Dad'.

Jill discovered a ton of mouse droppings in our van sunday before Christmas. Even in a water bottle so the mouse had to be kind of small. Not sure how long it was in there. The kids wanted to trap it with some cheese. I told them absolutely no. We didn't even have a trap. About a half hour later Ella runs in the house telling us Caden put cheese all over the van. All we had was grated cheese so the goofball spread it all over inside to "trick" the mouse. There is a compartment at the back where the jack goes. I said,"Caden did you put cheese down there too?" "yes". "How much?" "I don't know, I didn't count it" Meaning the pieces of graded cheese. (Jill gave me some perspective when she assured me we would laugh about it later). Jill put out traps the day after we found it ( I was on call). Well it walked all over the sticky traps and ate the peanut butter. The next night snap traps were put in there and again it ate all of the peanut butter. It even started pulling up all of the old Mike and Ikes from the bowels of the van that my scouts had dropped through a vent years ago. I was really starting to get spooked that we were dealing with some sort of super species of mouse ( supercharged with all that PB). I was half expecting the rodent to leap for my face when I opened the door. The ever enlarging turds didn't make me feel any better about the situation. On day number five of the nightly trap saga we finally ended it with some sensitive snap traps. I ran in the house on the 26th yelling, "It's a Christmas miracle" (and meaning every word of it). Jill cleaned up the van really well so now we are back to two cars again.

We blessed Zachary today. I had to ask the Bishop two minutes before start time if we could wait and do the blessing after the sacrament. Only had one brother in law there. Ended up with at least ten in the circle but the only thing later than Mormon standard time is Bingham standard time.

I was in the NICU all December. Had a good experience my last week. Got called to the OR for a 31 week expected delivery, a transfer from a nearby hospital. They were attempting a vag delivery. After reading in the chart I realized I knew the couple from our last ward. They delivered a healthy down syndrome boy with duodenal atresia (problem with the gut). I had the boy on my service so was able to help care for him. On day three of life he was to have surgery to correct his atresia. After doing my exam and writing a note the dad asked if I would help to give him a blessing. It was a pretty choice experience being able to participate in a blessing for one of my patients.

We had a wedding reception yesterday for one of Jill's sisters. It was a backyard reception. I was signing the register book and I turned around and Taylor had his pants around his ankles taking a leak by the decorative arch. I need to keep a closer eye on that kid. He's really getting a liking for public urination.

2008-11-17T21:57:00.000-08:00

Our New Arrival

2008-10-16T21:06:00.000-07:00

All weekend long I had been having contractions, but we managed to make it until Sunday for Jordan's farewell talk and open house. We had a great weekend in Mesa and are so glad we were able to see Jordan off on his mission to Guatamala.

Monday morning, about 5:30, I woke up and it was definitely time for little Zachary Douglas 'Columbus' Bingham to join us.

We made it in just enough time that I was able to get an epidural.

Since it was Columbus Day on Monday we thought we might consider using Columbus as a 2nd middle name to honor our favorite explorer, as cute as it sounds we'll probably just remember that he was born on Columbus Day.

Zachary was born at 8:33 am on October 13, 2008. He weighed 7lbs 12 oz and was 19.75 in long.
The kids just love him. Ella was ecstatic to meet him in the hospital. Caden and Taylor love to hold him. Taylor is always trying to break into Ella's or Caden's turn when they are holding him. He is always asking to hold baby Zachaee, we think he's saying Zachy, but Taylor always corrects us. It is so cute to see how much the kids just adore their new baby brother.

We feel so blessed to have this beautiful baby boy in our family.

Pedicures

2008-10-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

Our pretty toes, Though one of Ella's toes was a little smeared already. She got a cute little flower on her toes.

I have been promising Ella a pedicure for a very long time, so we finally went out on Tuesday evening for a little quality time. Ella loved it, sometimes she and Caden give me foot rubs so she was so excited to get one of her own. It did feel really good and I am glad to have cute toenails before the baby comes.

After the pedicure we went to Cold Stone for a little treat. She is such a fun little girl.

Ella's Baptism

2008-09-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Ella was so happy and just beaming the entire day. She is such a smart and beautiful girl, growing in so many ways everyday. Jeremy and I can't believe we are old enough to have an eight year old already. Ella is such a blessing to us. We are so grateful for the many people in her life who show her love and encourage her to develop her talents. Thankyou Grandma Muriel for being so incredible and doing such a wonderful job with the music. Ella holds a special place for each of her grandparents and loves them.

Ella with her cousins, Tatum and Haylee
Before the baptism

So beautiful all in white. At first Ella didn't want people to see her in the jumpsuit and wouldn't come out, but as soon as a couple of her Aunts saw her, they told her how beautiful she looked in white, and Ella just couldn't stop smiling, she was so happy to be getting baptized. She ran down the hall when it was time, she just couldn't wait.

After the baptism Ella in her new white dress with a white rose.
We felt so much love and support and really felt the spirit in the talks from grandpa and Aunt Kallee. Thankyou so much for helping and to all those who came on Ella's special day, it meant a lot to her and to us.

Ella's 8th Birthday

2008-09-30T09:35:00.000-07:00

Ella has been so excited to turn 8. She is funny because she talks about her birthday party all year long. Then when it gets close she is sooo happy, she has this little excited giggle and can't wait. She planned a couple of the games, egg on a spoon relay and pin the tail on the donkey. They all went swimming for awhile and had pizza, cake and shave ice. ella made sure we had a block of ice because that is another thing she wanted to make sure she had for her party.

The theme was tinkerbell so the girls all had wings, a headband and a little tutu. They were so cute.

This was her actual birthday, the party with her friends was the day after.

Taylor trying to steal Ella's birthday wish, he'll still burst out singing "Happpy birthday to you" every once in a while.
Ella with her flowers from daddy and Tinkerbell stuff, while Taylor tries to keep his hands out of the cupcakes.
This is Jenna, Becca, Ella, Kiley, Jordan and Caden, they had so much fun playing games in and out of the pool and all the yummy treats. It was such a fun little party.

One of Jeremy's Favorite Pastimes

2008-09-09T23:09:00.000-07:00

Over the years Jeremy and his brothers have gone on numerous tubing and kayaking trips down the salt river. Generally not spending much time in their kayaks, but in the water treasure hunting (Jeremy doesn't really like that term). They have found all sorts of crazy things including a wallet with a KKK membership card, boom boxes, CDs, crack pipes, necklaces, rings, money, knives, watches, cameras but mostly keys and sunglasses (I still wear my $100 pair some goofball dropped from their tube a few years ago.) Its just a fun time for the Bingham boys to get together in the hot summer.
Jeremy has even converted some of his fellow residents, who have caught the bug kayaking down the river, but really just diving and searching for river crap. The fun is the presentation of coming up out of the water with open umbrellas or wearing crazy thick glasses from someone who must have been nearly blind. We love talking about the poor saps who lose their goods on the river.
Most recently Jeremy was on a sports medicine rotation "wilderness survival outing" with a fellow resident, preceptor, and his brother Ryan when he pulled up his best find ever.

Olympus waterproof /shockproof 10mpix camera. Thanks Olympus for inventing a waterproof digital camera. Who knew it could survive three weeks underwater. Keep floating down the river drinking and taking pictures tubers.

Last picture taken by original owner (by the way if you recognise yourself in the picture, Jeremy says finders keepers losers weepers).
Three weeks later Jeremy at the river after Jon Manwaring realized the camera still worked. Wish I'd taken a picture of how corroded it looked before Jeremy cleaned it up so well.

Making good use of new camera.
Taylor thought his dad was trying to drown him after he came up sputtering.
Ella looks especially cute underwater.

Caden turns Six

2008-09-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Caden's sixth birthday was August 2oth. It's so fun with little kids because there is such tremendous buildup for the countdown to their birthday. It's just so exciting for them (unlike us old adults). Everyday, starting about a month before his birthday he would ask how many days until his birthday. The day finally came.
Caden's cake was camo frosting with a tank on top. He thought that was pretty cool.
One of the highlights of their birthday cake is they love to light their candles, the one time they are allowed to touch the lighter and ignite it.

Taylor starts blowing out the candles as soon as he hears the last note. As you can see Caden had plenty of help blowing out his candles.

This trunk is his prize gift this year. He shows it to everyone that comes over. He had been asking for a treasure chest, I had no luck at Ross, thankfully Jeremy found this one for Caden and he LOVES it.
Nana and Papa came over to wish him a happy birthday. Caden is holding a remote control tarantula. He tried scaring Jeremy when he got home from work.

I can't believe how quickly he has grown. He is such a funny little boy and is easily impressed with little things. Taylor reminds me so much of Caden. Love my little boys.

First Day of School was Aug. 11

2008-09-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

After a very busy summer and being out of town and family in town all the way up to the weekend before school, the kids could finally get back to normal and school starts. They were excited/nervous for the first day of school. Caden started kindergarten; and Ella started 2nd grade this year. They are both getting so big. Of course Caden is one of the biggest kids in kindergarten, being naturally a big kid and almost a year older than some of the kids hopefully he likes being taller than everyone. They both like their teachers, which I am very grateful for it makes such a difference. Caden's only complaint is that school takes up the whole day. I have to admit I wish it started a half hour earlier or ended a half hour earlier. They don't get home until about 3:45 and we do homework then there is very little time before dinner. I see where Ella and Caden are coming from about not having enough play time.

I do enjoy my time with Taylor during the day. Taylor is still asking to go to school, and where is his backpack, or if its time to go get Ella and Caden at 11:oo am. He was funny on the first day of school. He and I are walking back to the van and very concerned he asks where Caden is, he was used to having his big brother home while Ella was at school. It was pretty cute.

Vacation in San Diego

2008-08-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

I was so glad we were able to make it to San Diego this year Espeically after just being there for my girls weekend in July. It's so fun to see the kids playing on the beach and chasing seagulls. We went over the first week of August with as many of the Bingham Clan that could make it. It was such a fun time hanging out on the beach everyday. The kids loved playing with their cousins.

At night we would come back and play foosball or pool. Or there were four of us who brought over "Breaking Dawn" to read. Wish i would have gotten a picture of us four girls with our books. Caden thought I had his aunt Holly's book half the time. Nothing like a good book on vacation.

On our way out of town we stopped and walked around a little in downtown San Diego. It was fun but not the beach. After we had lunch Taylor said " I wan go beach dad." We love coming to San Diego as a family.

Caden loved boogie boarding with his cousins as well as body surfing.

I had to add these two. we went to Disneyland in April and stopped at the beach before we went home. It was freezing water but Ella and Caden still played in the waves, Taylor got caught in a wave and was soaking wet. He didn't like that at all but I didn't' want to walk back and get him dry clothes so he wore Ella's pink jacket with no diaper and sat on my lap the rest of the time.

Taylor wouldn't get in the water at all the first day but once he did he couldn't get enough. Jordan took him out in some bigger waves and he loved it.

I Can't Believe It's Already Been Ten Years

2008-07-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

Today Jeremy and I have been married for ten years. It doesn't seem like it has even been close to that long and sometimes it seems like we've always been together. I absolutely love being married to my best friend. I can't wait to see what unfolds in the next ten years of our life together.

Ten things I love about being married to Jeremy:
1. Family is always first we love having him here and home is where he loves to be.
2. He is hilarious, he is always making us laugh and taking advantage of funny situations so we all laugh even harder.
3. He loves me so much, he knows I need a little girls only time, so he encouraged me to go on my girls trip last weekend and he took tremendous care of the kids while I was gone. They love a little daddy time too.
4.He is such a good Daddy and wants the best for our kids, while still wanting them to be well rounded ,hard workers and respectful, which has kind of become our motto.
5. He supports what I do at home as a stay at home mom. He comes home and helps me with cleaning and even cooking sometimes but most especially time with the kids.
6. I especially love that he takes time out for just us. Spring and summer before our first anniversary Jeremy took on a second job delivering pizza,on top of school and our cleaning gig. The money from that job was specifically set aside for a trip to Hawaii celebrating our first anniversary. It was so fun being able to look forward to that trip and plan for it. Since then we take advantage of opportunities to go on vacation and do things for just us whenever we can.
7. He has always been a good example, to me, our kids, and siblings. He is so strong spiritually, smart economically and so many other qualities.

8. I love that we both have common goals for short term and long term. We ultimately want to live good lives as well as those who we love so we can always be together.
9. I love that after he graduated with a degree in a education, he realized he wanted more and wasn't afraid to go back to school and do medicine. Last night he pointed out that five of our married years have been in medical school and then internship. It can only get better from there.
10. I love that Jeremy makes me feel good about what I do and He makes me want to do and be better and continue to grow and learn.
I love this wonderful man that I married ten years ago. I love being with you and knowing you are always there for us Jeremy.

I am so grateful for these last ten years and feel we have definitely made the best of it and enjoyed life as our beautiful family continues to grow. Love you Jeremy, Happy Anniversary!!

Summer Update

2008-07-09T23:57:00.000-07:00

Performance day for Ella's little dance class all these girls were so fun and cute to have over everyday the last couple of weeks.

Deer Valley girls up at Camp Lo Mia and us cabin moms

This summer has seemed to fly. There was only a couple of days at the beginning before summer classes started that kind of dragged on. Once June hit we have been busy. Jeremy started out June with a week off we just stayed home and tried to do something fun each day. It was just nice having a little down time with Daddy at home with us. His schedule has been pretty good since vacation week so we are just enjoying it while it lasts.
I went up to girls camp mid June. Jeremy and my sister Valerie and my brother Morgan all watched the kids while I was away. Thankyou so much you guys. I had a lot of fun with the girls and other leaders up there.

During the week I was gone Ella took a Broadway musical dance class out in Mesa. She stayed with her Aunt and unlce Ryan and Julie. Julie took such good care of her while she was out there and Ella had a fun time staying with her cousins, even if she did get a little homesick in the end. Also while in Mesa a little girl down the street from Ryan and Julie was teaching a gymnastics class to little girls. Ella realized she could do the same thing and teach her own class with something that she knew how to do. She finally talked me into a class after I thought about it and realized it could be a really good experience for her. Of course she was excited at the propect of earning money. Ella handed out fliers to kids in Caden's preschool and girls at church. Today was the last day of her two week class and the girls performed for an audience, parents and some grandparents, today. It was so cute they did such a good job. I am going to try to upload some video sometime next week from both Ella's performance and Ella's class. They all seemed to have a lot of fun.

Hopefully I can get video and more pictures up soon. We have had lots of fun this summer so far and more to come.

Baby News

2008-06-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

I believe most everyone knows that Jeremy and I are expecting our fourth baby. Last week I had the ultrasound appointment to find out what the baby was. There was a lot of anticipation leading up to the appt. I brought Ella with me so she could see the ultrasound. She was standing next to me most of the time so she could see the screen better, until we found out what the baby is. She was very disappointed to find out that she is going to have another brother. We are still excited for a baby no matter what, although I was getting a little excited about the prospect of buying little girl clothes again. Maybe next time.

Disneyland April 2008

2008-05-06T23:25:00.000-07:00

April was a pretty fun and busy month. Jeremy had a good schedule with his rotation plus a week of vacation. Jeremy and I had been planning a trip to California and told the kids we were going to go visit our friends Marc and Katya and go to the beach.

They loved getting reacquainted with the Parker kids and had a ton of fun playing in their backyard. We always love getting together with you guys, we had a great Sunday afternoon at your beautiful home.
After leaving the Parker's and heading to the hotel, Ella noticed quite a few Disney land signs. while Jeremy was checking in she asked "Why are there all these Disneyland signs?" She knew it was close and started begging to go there while we were here. We finally told them once unpacked that this was a Disneyland trip. They were so excited, they of course had a hard time getting to sleep.
Taylor fell asleep each day, but this ride he stayed dead asleep the entire time and once back into the stroller continued his nap.
Caden loved feeling some control over the rocket being able to make the rocket go up and down.

Our first visit to California Adventures.
We met the lovely Snow White and a very cute little dwarf in the window.
You would never believe it, but California Screamin' was Ella's favorite ride between the two parks. She must have been able to go on it at least 7 or 8 times between Jeremy and I using fast passes and the rider switch pass. She even went on the Hollywood tower of Terror. She didn't love it like a Roller Coaster, I didn't even end up doing that one. She wanted to try everything.
Taking a little lunch break.
Caden and Taylor loved the Bug's life kids area. Caden even met Flik and got his autograph while we were there.

Taylor finally stood on his toes so that he was tall enough to go on these little bumper cars. He loved helping daddy drive.
Ella and I waited a long time in line to meet the princesses. The boys caught up to us just before it was our turn. Good timing. Taylor was way cute for the pics. We met Ariel first, and he wouldn't get in any of the pictures with her. After Ella and Caden walked away from their pics, he went up to Ariel and took off his hat for the picture. What a little gentleman.

Disneyland really does have something magical about it that California Adventures just doesn't have, maybe the next generation will feel differently.We loved surprising the kids and spending a few days at the theme parks. Ella of course loved all the roller coasters, and Jeremy and I loved having a partner to ride with. Caden's favorite was Star Tours, he told everyone about it once back home. Taylor, can't tell what his favorite was, he didn't like Pirates of the Caribbean. He started crying when the skull started talking, poor little guy.

We had so much fun on our vacation.

Easter

2008-05-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Easter after church before the hunt.
We celebrated Easter Sunday with my Dad's side of the fam. It was fun getting together with everyone. My Aunt Julie told the kids she would race them. They loved it, and she lasted for quite a while. looking forward to next years race.
This was our egg hunt at my dad and step mom's house. The kids had a lot of fun, and didn't want to eat dinner after finding eggs.

Taylor took a break and did some putting.

This was the hunt back at our house after hunting at Nana and Papa's. Daddy was post call so we didn't wake him up until around 5:00 or so, then he joined us for the final hunt of the day.

Cute Spring Break pics

2008-05-06T22:31:00.000-07:00

this one's from easter, but the rest we took over spring break for fun ,these are some of the cutest ones.

Jeremy and his brothers and couple of brother in laws(one not pictured)played in a basketball league and won the tournament. Jeremy played when he could and made the trek out to Mesa, it was a fun time.

THis is Taylor with my youngest sister Becca, we had a fun time with her over the break. Ella loves to hang out with her aunt Becca.

Taylor wa kept happy with lots of jellybeans, he of course wanted to take off the tux jacket, but I just had to take some photos of him in it before he totally outgrows it. I couldn't find the pants that go with it.

T-ball and Field Day

2008-05-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Ella's Field Day was in March, but I don't think I put up any pictures. Caden was upset a lot of the time because he was only allowed to participate in a couple of events. For him it was pretty boring since it was just watching Ella's class the whole time. One of the class favorites was the pizza box relay. It was a fun day and Caden can't wait until next years field day.

Swing away. Caden started T-ball in March and loves having games, mostly for the snacks after the game :). The whole team is getting better at paying attention, they are hilarious to watch. Sometimes they are in outfield just spinning around, you get one kid started and then it has a Domino affect on the whole team until the coach puts a stop to all the shenanigans. Now the team does pretty good paying attention to the ball and throwing it in the right direction. Caden loves to show off how far he can throw, once he was at the pitchers mound and threw it over the fence behind home plate. He looked a little sheepish after, it was funny.
Team picture. Taylor gets into the games too, we drive by the field and he'll say 'Cade game' pointing towards it. Its been fun, only five games left.

Busy yet not so busy

2008-03-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

The last three weeks Jeremy has been working nights. Finally this week he will be working days again. We're excited to have him back in the evenings. Although that means I will have to start making dinner again. I have gotten used to having cold cereal and macaroni for so long with the kids I am going to have to think of menus for dinner.
March has been full of fun stuff for the kids with school. T-ball finally started for Caden, He loves it as does Taylor. Taylor just wishes he could participate a little more at practice. Caden had green eggs and ham on Dr. Seuss' birthday, and then celebrated Easter and St. Patrick's day on Friday, because it is spring break this week. Two weeks ago we went to the zoo and met Ella's 1st grade class there. We had a fun time chaperoning, it was perfect weather. I do know now if I am just going to the zoo with my kids, I don't want to go on Fridays, that is field trip day at the Phoenix zoo. The kids even got tired before it was time to go back to the buses. It was a great day. Ella just had Field day on Thurs. She had lots of fun. They do lots of fun stuff for the younger grades, hula hoop, jump rope, scooter relay. She really enjoyed it. Caden was a little upset that he couldn't participate in everything, he finally settled for playing on the playground while I watched Ella.
Even though the kids have been keeping me busy, I have really gotten into some bad habits. With Jeremy gone at night or sleeping during the day, I kind of let the house go and the kids run wild, and what was I doing all this time, reading way too much, with intervals of playing with the kids. Most of the series I have enjoyed recently Jeremy read first and knew I would like them and others' friends suggested. Here's what I have most recently read;
Loved "The Bartimaeus Trilogy" by Jonathan Stroud, very clever writing, really enjoyed it.
"Inkheart" by Cornielia Funke have only read the first but sequel is on hold at the library waiting for me.
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull, Amy turned Jeremy and I onto this book in Hawaii. have only read first of this one also and have sequel waiting.
Currently reading the last book in "The Dark is Rising Sequence" by Susan Cooper, 5 books in the series some of the books were predictable but all of these books are in the young readers section. Love it because you know they are clean yet very exciting books. Two books by cooper won newbury or newbury honor.
So this is how I would escape Jeremy not being there and slip into my fantasy worlds with magical creatures. It's been fun, but I need to start getting back to reality and just escaping into my books for a few minutes at night before bed like I used to.

Taylor turned 2!!!

2008-02-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

Taylor turned two years old on February 3rd. He is such a cutie. This boy loves balls. so I had to do a sports theme cake plus it was super bowl Sunday, so we had to have a football on there. Which Taylor wanted to grab off his cake and probably would have tried to throw it.
We just had a small party for him with our family and my brother Brandon and Amber's family. Ella and Caden were so excited. They kept bugging me when was I going to make a cake and how come they couldn't make a cake in their easy bake oven for him. They were busy all day preparing for his birthday finding things they could give and making cards, it was so cute.
Taylor's 2nd love after sports is cars or anything with wheels whether it is a car he rides or an rc car he loves it. He is talking so much now. It is so fun to figure out what he is saying and here his little vocabulary grow. We would always ask Taylor how old he was and he would put up one finger so now he just puts up both fingers, so cute. Taylor and Caden are playing more and more together, They are already wrestling and rough housing at 2 and 5, and Taylor defends himself pretty well. They are quite a funny pair.

Taylor's two favorite things that he has to have are his "pacie" and his blankie. This green blanket I made for his last b-day and he has loved it since. Sometimes we can get him to use a smaller blue one with the same silkie border. At the retreat he had to walk around with his blankie, partially because he kept getting hurt and needed it for comfort, Ella got to follow him and hold it up off the ground so it didn't get muddy. She felt like she was holding up a dress. He is hilarious. We are so glad he is our little guy Ella and Caden love him so much. It's so fun to see how the three of them are growing together.

Baptist Retreat

2008-02-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

Ella and Caden were dying to make something, this was over christmas break. I just had to take a picture of her with her fruit pie and recipe. I hadn't gone grocery shopping in a while and this was literally all the fruit we had. Ella didn't like the final result. The grapefruit was just too overpowering. She had me eat all the grapefruit, even then its juice made everything else taste funny. She did a great job and had a fun time making it. Phoenix Baptist has an annual retreat the first weekend in February and families get to come too. We had so much fun up there with everyone. About 20 min. before we left our house to come up Taylor fell off a chair onto tile climbing onto the counter to get "piece" of candy. So he fell on his face and got a huge fat lip, three little teeth marks on the underside of his lip. The picture doesn't do it justice for how bad it was. His pacifier was lopsided the whole time, but he still did great, and loved playing in the snow.
I hung out with some of the kids and did crafts and stuff while all the adults played some games.
Jeremy just finished paintballing. he faired ok , but his hat took a beating from a couple of paintballs. He came and found us playing afterwards.
Marty had all the kids wrapped up in a story about the "children of the light." They LOVED the story. Ella was really worried that rocks and pebbles were going to start sneaking up her. She had to make sure with Marty that it wan't a true story. As soon as they got their glow sticks all fears were forgotten. Caden kept talking about how nice Marty was.

My computer is taking forever to upload the last few images, I am ready to post so I may have to add the other pics later. More of the retreat. We had so much fun playing and getting to know everyone a little better. Thankyou Phoenix Baptist for such a fun time.

2008-01-27T20:31:00.000-08:00

I think I post about as often as I write in my journal. Or sometimes I want to post and start writing and erase everything. So this time I think I will follow through with my post. The holidays went well. Always busy and lots of family sometimes too much family. Christmas Day we went to all three sides of the family this year, but it worked. Lots of parties. Taylor was afraid of Santa it was pretty funny. I know I shouldn't laugh at my own kid when he is scared, but I get some amusement from it. Even in the picture he is looking at Santa with some speculation. This was at Jeremy's work party. The snow was also at his work party. I don't know how I got two pics of it on there and not sure how to get it off.

It was a lot of fun over the holidays we loved seeing so much family and having them over for sleepovers and visiting. We had my sister and her kids who stayed with us for a few days after Christmas. We also had our nieces spend the night for one big last hurrah before they moved to Utah. They wanted to try out the pool, I totally wish I knew how to download the video because it is hilarious. All the kids except Taylor joined the polar bear club. Jeremy said the pool was probably colder than it is for the scouts when they do their polar bear swim at Camp Geronimo. Paden was the toughest she jumped in at least three times I think. We had fun with you guys hope your doing well up there in that freezing weather.

The etch a sketch picture is random, after a Christmas party at our house my brother in law sat there for about 15 min. using a picture of Jeremy and I. this is how it turned out, not bad. Someday I'll figure out how to get the pictures in the order I want them.

Mommy Makeover

2007-11-04T15:57:00.000-08:00

I kind of messed up this image I was trying to move it and ended up stretching it a little. these were after the makeover if you can't tell.

It's Sunday afternoon, Jeremy is on call and Taylor was just put down for a nap. Ella, Caden, and I have a good 2-3 hours to our selves. I am just coming down the stairs and Ella asks if we can play makeup. This usually consists of thick layers of lipstick and sometimes nail polish, I stall for time. Do I really want to "play makeup"? Ella, "Please mom your the only other girl in the house , so I can only play with you." Ok so how am i suppose to refuse that and still have a clear conscience. She has a good point. So I finally agree to "play makeup" and now caden wants to join in.

Ella; No Caden I am doing mom's makeup.

Caden: No, I could do her Hair.

Ella: good Idea

Ella proceeds to pull out all her lip gloss and lip stick, talking to me about what other 'patients' like , so what would I like.

I tell her she is the makeup artist and she grins and tries out a few different colors.

Ella: Hey Caden, How does this lipstick look with mom's skin.

Caden; good

she tried a new color, got some out side of my lips and on my teeth,

Caden: laughs, "you look like a clown"

Ella dabs it off of my face and does her best to get it off my face.

Caden ran upstairs to find a brush and he grabbed two bottles of spray gel. He asked me which I would prefer, one bottle was the real stuff the other filled with water. I choose the water filled bottle. Caden douses my hair with the "gel" and as he brushes says, "this is going to be so pretty." Later he sighs and says, "How do you get it straight?"

Caden finishes my hair and asks if I know where some lotion is.

Ella: Oh yeah you get a free massage, all our patients are so excited when they find out they get a free massage. they are like(she fans her face and in a high pitch voice) "A FREE MASSAGE!!!!

they do, they freak out." I love how her imaginary 'patients' get so excited about a free massage.

Ella and Caden proceed to paint my nails Caden does my toes and Ella my fingernails.

the makeover is complete, lots of glitter, sticky eyeliner from her makeup kit, and I lost track of how many coats of lip stick and lip gloss , and the cherry on top is the nail polish that covers not only mynails but the surrounding skin as well. And Caden wanted to make a pattern he says so he does a different color on each foot. The mommy makeover is finally complete. Why would I wnat to pass up something like this? We had a fun afternoon and Ella couldn't wait to show off her mad makeup artist skills to Jeremy when he got home. I am just hoping I don't have a major breakout because of the little kid makeup.

Caden's first lost teeth

2007-09-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

Caden woke up this morning with out his second bottom tooth. He lost his first tooth on Saturday. Last night it was hanging on by a thread, so we are going to look for it in his room since it fell out during his sleep. He is talking with a little lisp since both teeth are gone now. He is doing really well in school, he also take an arts and crafts class on t&th, since preschool in only three days a week.

Ella is reading more and more. I am going to have to start going to the library with her. The books that she gets from her classroom are way too easy for her. Ella still asks to go swimming even though the water has been in the 70s lately, that is too cold for me, even after mowing the lawn yesterday. The weather has been so nice lately, we have been going to the park a lot lately.

Taylor is getting cuter everyday. He is talking more each day. Not that I understand it, but it's really cute. When you ask how old he is he holds his finger out and it looks adorable. He loves looking at his animal board books. I can't believe how long it entertains him.

Ella and Caden have been riding bikes and scooters with the neighbor kids. They are loving having other kids they can go and play with.

Jeremy's schedule has been horrible. This month he has been doing ob. This weekend we hardly saw him. He worked about 30 hours straight sat to sun. Then got home and slept until six or so. then had to go to bed early so he could wake up at 4 am. I'll be glad when this rotation is over, as will he.

Ok so I connected my camera and found the pictures, but when I try to look for them in blogger I don't know where to look. so Maybe Jeremy and I can figure it out later.

Hopefully soon I will have picture up.

schedules

2007-08-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I put this off for so long, I check out other people's blogs almost everyday. I just don't really feel like writing when I am feeling so negative right now. I have been such a complainer lately, and haven't had my girls nights to get it all out, you know.
We seem to have finally figured out our pool, still a few quirks, but at least it hasn't turned green lately. I love having a pool, so do the kids. Its so nice to go and jump in after I have been in the garage or yard sweating to death, and then cool off so quickly. Thankyou Jeremy for only letting us look at houses with pools.
Caden just turned 5 last week, he loves telling people he is 5 now. I finally found the cord to post pictures, but I have not downloaded them yet so next time I will make that a priority. His cake was a baseball decorated with licorice as the stitching. So easy, then Ella tells me for her birthday, next week, she wants a barbie cake with the barbie in the middle. Which I have done for her but she was only 3. I said, can you choose a cake that is a little easier to decorate, so she said awl right. Thank goodness, just because I know how to do it doesn't mean I want to.
Ella has been going to school this week hasn't missed a day yet this week. The first two weeks it was such a struggle to get her to go. I talked with the principle and she was very understanding. so Monday she started in her new first grade class, which was a substitute for two days. Thank goodness she really liked the sub. Today the regular teacher was back, and Ella seems to like it. She wants me to take her to school everyday, so our next step is dropping her off without me having to walk her to class, then hopefully soon after she will take the bus. Lots of drama from this little one.
Night times have been my enemy lately. Jeremy has been working night shift going in at 5 and getting home around 7:30 or so. Only two more nights.Its crazy, it throws everything off for him, he averages about 5 hours of sleep and then eats two meals a day. I can't tell you how much I dislike the whole night time routine with my kids. It has never been heaven trying to get the kids to bed. Now I can't even describe it, I keep deleting everything I write. Ella is terrified of being alone at night. We were out of town she saw a scary movie and has not been the same since, and is rubbing off onto Caden, its totally lame.
Anyway, I know my girls all know what its like with our intern husband schedules, life gets a little stressful. I am looking forward to this one being over, but is ob going to be any better next month, we'll see.

New Changes

2007-08-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well we have been living in our new house for a little over a week now, I love our new house. It's very roomy. I love our pool but hate the learning curve that comes with it. I just went out to turn some stuff on and what I thought was pigeon poop this morning looks a little more like black algea tonight. I tried to scrub it up and its stuck good. Black algae is the worst kind to get rid of, so I am learning. So we haven't really been able to use the pool this weekend.
The kids have started school. Caden is in the same pre- school he was in last year, so he really likes it. Today was his birthday, so he was spotlight at school, he loved it, and he warmed up a little to our new primary yesterday, when they sang Happy Birthday to him. We just had a quiet little b-day party at home, and my brother and his family stopped be at cake time. since some cousins were there I think he felt like it was kind of a birthday party for him.
Ella started first grade last week. She is at a new school this year. THe school had a lot of late first graders sign up so they had to open another class. Her class has a long term sub until they can get a surplus teacher in the district for her class. It's not really working out for Ella. So hopefully we can do something about it soon and she'll be happy to go to school, instead of dreading it.
Taylor is jibber jabbering a ton. It is so cute. He loves it when he sees animals. He kind of calls everything a puppy. There was a young looking bird on the step right outside of our back door, that wasn't getting scared away. he was so excited about it, He kept making his puppy sounds. THe kids even had time to name it, he hung around for so long, they named the bird Zeke.
Jeremy's schedule continues to be crazy. He is working nights for the next couple of weeks.
As for me I was still unpacking our stuff, when I was called into YW's. I am sure it will be fun, especially when we get a little more settled in.
Life has been full lots of changes in the last little bit, but we are up for the challenge.

Almost Moving Day

2007-08-08T21:39:00.000-07:00

Tommorow is the first half of our big moving day. We are moving out of our generous hosts house, jeremy's brother Ryan and his wife julie. Our first night in our new house we are just goiing to sleep on the floor on sleeping bags and stuff. We would stay another night, but Ella has meet the teacher night and Caden's 2nd day of school is Friday(he missed the 1st day). We will be moving everything out of our mini Friday afternoon. And finally be able to settle into our new house. We are really excited to be getting into a house that is about twice as big as our old house.

my first post

2007-08-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

this is only a test run.