Fake 4th of July

I love love love the Fourth of July, but unfortunately were going to be in the middle of a move on that beautiful day. So I took it upon myself to move the 4th of July to the 29th of June this year. 

4th of July

Ingredients:

Awesome people

PS Johnson's, why aren't you in any of the pictures? Lame

Awesome food

Entertaining fireworks:

And a great crowd

Notice how in one of those pictures Papa John is hiding in the moving truck?

Well thank this guy for almost killing us twice launching errant fireworks in our direction

Wes, I don't know if you can handle Riverside fireworks. Just stick with your girly Utah fireworks.

It was a good time, and it satisfied my high demands for Fourth of July celebrations.

The End

After 4 years of medical school and 3 grueling years of medical residency Travis is done! I kind of wanted to say, "we are done." But this post is all about Travis and his accomplishments!

Looking back, medical school wasn't all that bad. The first two years, which are the more studious years, we had no kids. I remember feeling sorry for myself a lot because my husband was always studying, but now that I look back, he probably should have studied more! I'm glad he wasn't one of those gunner husbands that had to be on top.  I remember some nights we would go hang out with friends and Travis would be in the corner studying something. He never liked turning down a social event, even if that meant taking his stuff with him. 

The last two years of school were up and down. We had Avery at the beginning of 3rd year. Every month was a different rotation, so some months were intense and others were easy. It seemed like Travis got pretty lucky with some of the rotations because a lot of times he was home early. I think he sought out the easier ones. That's my husband for you! 

He made a bunch of friends in medical school, and they would sit around and "study" together. It consisted of a lot of Mt. Dew! We loved getting together with all the wives and husbands. Those were the good old days!

Then the real test began. Residency.

 Its not the best idea to have a child during intern year. Intern year pretty much sucks to be honest. He had 30 hour shifts and would work up to 100 hours a week at times. He was ALWAYS tired. It was hard on us because having a newborn, I was up a lot at nights and so I was exhausted too. We had many "discussions" on who was more tired. That was a tough year! 

The last year of residency was so much easier! Less hospital shifts and more clinic hours, very little delivering babies and more elective rotations.  Travis's residency program was really great. He had a lot of wonderful faculty and he loved his co-residents. Sometimes when he had to work night shifts, it kind of seemed like he was going to have a sleepover with his friends. They would eat junk food, watch movies and play games, oh yeah, and save lives too! He got to know some pretty terrific people.

This is his last shift of residency! He looks a little haggard.

At his residency graduation, he delivered an amazing speech. I was a little nervous for him because he doesn't love the spotlight. He put so much thought into his speech. It was funny, but also deep and meaningful. I was so proud of him. 

This was before his speech, can you feel the nerves?

His parents and all of his siblings were able to make it to his graduation. He was really excited about that, so to all of the in laws, thank you so much for sacrificing your spouse and staying home with the kids. That was the best graduation gift Travis could have received!

The graduation:

Here were the special guests

Oh yeah and the Johnson's of course had to be there, Chris was pretty much one of Trav's fellow doctors. I think he went and hung out with him at the hospital more than I did!

And here are the people who my husband spent the last 3 years with

Research Family Medicine residency class of 2013

Him and all the ladies... and NO, residency is NOT just like Grey's anatomy!

Trav I hope you know how much I appreciate your hard work and finding a career that will provide for our family. Even though you kind of fell into family practice without having a passion to do it, I think this is the perfect job for you. Your last year of residency I watched you grow and become passionate about medicine. You looked forward to the didactic presentations and you were always reading some sort of medical journal. Your patients are going to love you. I'm not just saying this because you are my husband, but I would trust you with my health in a heart beat. I am totally confident in your judgements and decisions. And you are kind of hot too. 

We are so excited to be done, but kind of scared to start over somewhere new. Life is crazy!

Smithville Lake

I am so mad that we didn't discover the wonderful sandy beaches of Smithville lake until 1 month before we moved. What the crap!!! 

We were supposed to go camping with the Hastings that weekend, but there was a storm predicted for that night, so we decided to just beach it during the day. Oh yeah, but first we went on a bike ride. I don't think anyone was thrilled to go on the bike ride, because we were a little scared after our last bike episode and I think we all just wanted in on the beach!

After the short ride, we got our beach on. We were there for over 4 hours. The kids were in Heaven. The adults were in Heaven. We swam, ate lots of snacks, played in the sand, reminisced and got some sun. Being with the Hastings is like butta'. So smooth and comfortable! I'm just really mad we didn't do this more often. I love Kansas City!

Travis, don't stand too close to Reece, she will make you look ghastly white!

The Hastings little bunch

The Hastings big bunch

The Charles big bunch

They could be twins, born 1 day apart!

Is Daddy sharing his cough medicine?

Cleaning off all the sand, it was everywhere!

Driving there is one of the best parts, its like a roller coaster. I love the rolling hills and country

KC the cat

I don't know if you saw this post about the skanky stray cat having kittens, but there is more to the story.

We totally got sucked in to keeping one of the kittens.

OK no one really had to twist our arms, but the act of getting a kitten was furthest thing from my mind.

We had really gotten to know the cute kittens under our porch and then Chris Johnson (aka Satan) talked us into keeping one.

 His argument was that if we kept a cat, then we would always have a piece of Kansas City with us because of the fact that the cat was born under our porch in Kansas City. Then I had a brilliant idea of naming him KC, and it was downhill from there!

The only problem was that once we decided to keep the cute black kitten, the skanky mama cat moved her litter. We couldn't find them.

About 2 weeks went by and we thought they were as good as gone. One day Chris and Travis were outside and they spotted the kittens in the field behind our house.

It was an epic battle, but they were successful with retrieving our scared and tiny kitten. He was really cute, but petrified.

We made him a bed out of a cardboard box and locked him in the bathroom away from the overly loving children.

Every time we would let KC out of the bathroom to wander free he would sprint under our armoire.

I then would have to go and get my blow dryer and blow him out like he was one of the little pigs.

 It took KC about 2 weeks to not think we were going to eat him.

I think he loves us now, especially when the kids are asleep!

We have had KC for about 2 months now and I'm so happy because he eats all the nasty bugs here in Globe.

He ate a spider yesterday thank Heavens above for that, they are his toys!

 I'm not too worried about the wild life getting to him here in Globe, I'm more worried about Avery and Brooklyn.

 He is a super cool cat. He is very playful and loves to climb trees. He almost reminds me of a dog.

Scary

It was Saturday, and we decided to go on a family bike ride. Travis was riding the road bike and I was following him while pulling the girls in the trailer behind me (cause that's just how it works in our family :). We had just barely started going down the hill by our house; when I decided I needed to get on the side walk. I started making my way over, and for some reason my bike started skidding. I think the angle of the bike trailer going down the hill caused my bike to skid, because there really wasn't much gravel, and I didn't ride over anything, but I couldn't stop. Finally my bike just tipped and off I went. 

I hit hard. It happened so slow. I remember bracing myself, but then just hitting my head on the road.  My helmet definitely protected me, but I did blackout for about 15 seconds. It was the weirdest thing, because I didn't loose consciousness, but the lights went out for a second. I tried so hard to get up, because I wanted to see if my girls were OK, but all I could do was lie on my back and wait. Finally, I came back. I looked over at the trailer, and it had tipped. Travis was getting our hysterical girls out. I looked at Avery and she seemed just fine, just shaken up, then I looked at Brooklyn and I gasped. She had a goose bump on her head. When I saw that, I just lost it. 

A nice couple who had seen the crash came over to help. Apparently, they called 911. Our cute little town of Riverside always goes above and beyond and so they sent 1 firetruck, 1 ambulance and about 5 cop cars. It was a spectacle! Within 2 minutes of the wreck, a handful of neighbors had run down to see what happened.  Avery was perfectly fine because the trailer tipped on Brooklyn's side, so she was actually having a hay day inside the ambulance. Brooklyn seemed fine besides her big bump on her head. After checking everyone out, we decided that we were all OK and didn't need to go to the hospital.

 It was about 7 pm, and so we decided to just lie on the couch and watch a movie together. At that point, Brooklyn started vomiting and wouldn't stop. We decided to take her into Children's Mercy hospital to make sure she didn't have a fracture. Before we left, Jim came over to help give a blessing to Brooklyn and me. It was really emotional. Nothing is worse in the world than seeing your baby hurt. You feel so helpless. 

Off to the hospital we went. Brandy watched Avery while we were gone. We got into the E.R. and waited; in the meantime, Brooklyn had barfed about 7 times. She was so lethargic, and kept falling asleep. When we got in, they immediately ordered a CT scan. We were really nervous because they said that most likely Brooklyn would need to be sedated because kids under 3 usually don't sit still. They said they would try first without sedating her, but if it didn't work than they would put her under. I really didn't want that to happen! So first try of the scan, and she was a champ. That was the stillest I had ever seen her. She didn't freak out or try to move. This was such a blessing. They got the shots they wanted and we went back to the waiting room.

 In the meantime, Brooklyn was still vomiting a lot. The doc came back in the room and told us that Brooklyn's CT scan was clear and diagnosed her with a concussion, but the doctor was still concerned about Brooklyn vomiting so much. They gave her some anti-nausea medicine and told us that if she threw up again than we would be admitted. We had to give it about an hour to see if the medicine worked. During that hour I started feeling the effects of the crash. My left arm was leaking pus along with my left hip and I was in pain!  Also, Brooklyn started acting like herself. She wouldn't sit still and was trying to touch everything in the room! After an hour, we were free to leave.

 Brandi had put Avery to sleep and cleaned up our house. What another blessing we had that night! We made a little bed for Brooklyn on the side of ours so we could make sure she was OK through the night and asleep we went! Brooklyn was just fine the next couple of days, but she did develop a really nice shiner! 

A couple things I learned during this experience 

1) even though your kids are strapped into a bike trailer with a 5-point harness, they still need to wear helmets. I always thought they would be caged in even if we tipped, but Brooklyn hit her head on the side of the road. So put helmets on your kids!!!

2) I already knew this, but I have the best neighbors and friends in the world. So many people offered help. From giving blessings to watching Avery to having meals brought to us from calls and texts making sure we were OK. I am so grateful to them!

3) Another thing I already knew, but it just made me realize was how much I love my kids. I realized that maybe I shouldn't always sweat the small stuff and to have more patience and less yelling. I'm so happy they both were OK.

Fish in the making

If its June, than that means its time for the annual Riverside swimming lessons. We love living in Riverside because there is a casino here that subsidizes everything! We get major discounts on the YMCA and we also get free swimming lessons every Summer.

This year was a special year because I self graduated Brooklyn from the Mama and me class. She did awesome being in a class with mostly 3 and 4 year-olds.

The lifeguard asked me at one point if Brooklyn knew how to talk because she just made baby sounds like "goo goo ga ga." It was so funny because the second her lesson ended we would walk over to our towel and she wouldn't stop talking!

Avery also did great in her class. After she completed her course they wanted to move her up to the 5 and 6 year old class. She can doggy paddle with the best of them, we need to work on her strokes.

Matt was the best teacher!

Brooklyn's cute class, Matt andAlison McFarland, this picture is for you and you know exactly why! We've come a long way!