Thank You Craigs List

I really wanted to get the kids a playset for Christmas but I started thinking that we really needed one now while the weather is so great. So Santa just came early! We started searching on craigs list and found this great set. I really love finding great deals. Abe was thrilled to spend his day off disassembling and reassembling this bad boy. We carried in it big chunks so it also involved taking down some of the fence to get it into the backyard. We were thankful for good friends to lend a hand and we had it up in time to play with it on Saturday. The kids have enjoyed it so much. If only Taylor could learn to swing by herself it would be perfect. It has been great to be able to send them outside to play with the great weather we are having.

The other day we were putting up dishes and Ethan thought some music would make it more fun. When I asked him what he wanted to listen to he suggested we find some "Red Hot Chile Peppers". I guess he was riding in the car with Abe the other day and he decided he liked Red Hot Chile Peppers. He is all about rock music. He used some strange phrase the other night at dinner and when I questioned him about what he meant he said "Well its rock 'n roll talk for 'that was good'". He just says it so matter of factly. So Taylor and Ethan started dancing to the music. I couldn't help but laugh at both their moves. Just watching these videos really make my day. I hope they make you smile too.

Life

I'm not usually the one to blog, even though I did start the blog, I think that Meredith uses it as a good way to keep things written down like a journal or diary. She is pretty amazing. She works part time from home while the kids are in school. She maintains the house, is able to keep groceries in the fridge, make meals, take care of the kids and her calling at church. All of this is done with little or no help from me. It isn't so much that I don't want to help it is more of a I'm at work all the time. All that being said she is a pretty amazing woman. I'm lucky to have her for wife and a friend.
I just wanted to also say a little about residency. What a growing experience. Our program has a tradition that as the first year it is your opportunity to take care of the really sick people that come to the Emergency Department. Now I'm not talking about the bad trauma people I'm talking about the ninety year that has pneumonia and is septic, or the four year that is struggling to breath because of asthma. It is a humbling experience to have someones life in your hands. I have had two experiences in the last couple of month's that really stand out that I wanted to share.
First I had a man that came to the department. They got him in a bed about 30 minutes before shift change, which is always a tough time because the workup takes about 2 hours for the average person, so I was debating about leaving it for the oncoming resident. I picked it up anyway. Turns out that the guy had a story that sounded very much like acute coronary syndrome, which is his heart arteries are blocked to the point that he gets pain in his chest if his heart has to work to hard, so I got him admitted to our chest pain unit. The next day I find out he had an aortic dissection that went from his heart all the way down into his abdomen. This is very very bad. The aorta has three layers to it and one of the layers had sheared off and became a flap inside the vessel. People die quickly from this. I wasn't the one that diagnosed this but I could have sent him home for an outpatient heart workup and he probably would have died.
Second the other day a older lady came in with difficulty breathing. In most older patients like this it comes down to if the have congestive heart failure or pneumonia. During the process of her stay we ended up intubating her, or putting a breathing tube in her and admitting her to the ICU. What a very scary decision that was.
It is experiences like these that make my job so fulfilling and so very humbling. Someone is willing to put their life in my hands and trusts me to make the right decision for them. I love being in the emergency department. Ok I think I have ranted long enough. Life is good.

Crushes

Ethan is really into girls lately. I'm hoping that he moves through this stage before he becomes that creepy kid on the playground that is always trying to kiss the girls. Recently I was getting ready for Young Women's and I was explaining to the kids a game we were going to play and I mentioned that I was going to put Ethan and Taylor on a team with the girls (mainly so I didn't have to entertain them for the whole time). Ethan gets a look in his eye and says "Can I be on the team with that girl that babysat me?" I reminded him of her name and asked him why he wanted to be on her team. There was a long pause and a little grin. I gave him an out and said "oh because you know her and you aren't shy when you know someone?" He agreed and then added "and because I think she is cute." He does have good taste because she is a very sweet girl.


So the day after that he was pretty chipper when I picked him up from preschool. He was telling me about his day, which usually involves what game they played at recess. He told me how he had played with the girls again and talking about playing super heroes with one girl in particular. He smiled and said "I told her that I was going to date her when I get older." And what was her response, I asked. "She just laughed." I questioned him about what he would do on a date and he said matter of factly "You go out to eat." I guess I will be happy that he plans on waiting until he is older to take this girl out to eat. Unfortunately things have not continued to go well with this little girl in his class. He was pretty bummed the other day when he came home. I asked him about the playground and he said "K said that she only likes cute boys and that I'm not cute." How do 5 year old girls already know how to be mean to boys? Taylor was oh so helpful and kept saying "All my friends say I'm cute!". I tried to explain to her that we were talking about Ethan's feelings right now and she responded "Well it hurts my feelings when we don't talk about my feelings." I have tried to convince Ethan that he should move on and try to play with some other girls but he is still convinced that K is a very nice girl and he still likes her. That boy is going to have his heart broke a lot if he keeps this up.

The other day you could tell he had something on his mind as we walked into the preschool. I asked him what he was thinking and he said "Boys are very serious..... and its because girls are so difficult. They really distract us." All this wisdom from such a young boy. Then he tells Taylor, "You don't understand big school. When you get to be 4 you are going to hurt boys feelings too." The same day he tells me that although he fell in love with K his love for her is getting smaller every day. Thank goodness. But then she goes and plays with him once and he lights up and says "maybe my love is getting bigger now."

Oh how I love our deep conversations. I'm sure one day they will end and I will no longer get insight into what he thinks about girls around him. So I will just continue to enjoy it for now.

Belton Lake

Abe had a weekend off before he starts a month out of town north of Austin at Fort Hood so we decided to meet some of the Fish gang there. Since it is about half way between San Antonio and Dallas it was a pretty easy trek for both of us. We had such a great time hanging out. We rented a cabin at a lake on the military base and it turned out to be a pretty nice cabin for the price. With 2 bedrooms, kitchen and living room we could cook and have enough space to not be on top of each other all the time. The kids enjoyed the nice playground that was near the cabin and it was perfect weather to hang out at the lake and swim. Friday night Abe and the kids and I stayed at Abe's hotel so we didn't crowd everybody but the campground failed to mention that the road into the park would be closed on Saturday morning because of a triatholon at the lake. It took us forever but we finally made it after taking a dirt road and getting a person security escort.

Taylor and Emmett look so sweet. You wouldn't know that Taylor had just been fighting with him about not wanting to share "her" swing.

The swing beside our cabin.

Maren is such a sweetie. She always wanted to carry Taylor around and "help" her. She did drop Taylor on her head once and Taylor kept saying "Mom, please tell Maren not to drop me on my head again."

Okay, I may have not gotten the sand castle in this picture but they all looked so cute!

Waiting for church to start.

They had such a great time playing together. We can't wait for the next Fish gathering. Carol, your turn to plan the next visit!

Let the Preschool Adventure Begin

Ethan and Taylor have been so excited to start preschool. I feel like we had a countdown going all summer for when school began. Ethan wanted to know exactly what he would be learning and admitted that he was a little nervous that he wouldn't remember all the rules. They were troopers from day one and neither one of them gave me a second thought when I dropped them off. Taylor only goes two days a week and Ethan goes 5 days a week. Taylor was pretty upset about the days she didn't get to go to school but she soon figured out that life was kind of nice with just us girls. She now likes to torment Ethan by suggesting, in front of him, that we go to the park every day Ethan is gone since that is his favorite activity. I will have to say that it is kind of nice to just have my quiet child at home for a couple of mornings. They have such different personalities and Ethan can really get her riled up.

Ethan was a little frustrated the first week with just having to learn his letters again. After the second day when I asked him what he had learned he said "Nothing, she hasn't even taught me to read yet!" Needless to say he was a little disappointed with just learning a few letters but week two picked up and he is thrilled to be getting pretty good at reading his words each week. Taylor has gotten on board with the disappointment in our educational system and when asked what she learned I get a similar "Nothing, and I don't know how to read."

Ethan's teacher has a system where you get blue slips of paper for doing good deeds and once you get 5 you get to pick something out of her treasure box. Ethan always gives me an update on how many he has and how many he needs until his next prize. He is getting good at any math involving the answer of 5. The other day he was reminding the teacher that she had not given him all the papers he earned. She better not try and pull a fast one on Ethan, he has the memory of an elephant. He also enjoys reporting on who is on yellow (green means you had a good day, yellow means you had a hard time following some directions, and red is pretty bad). Ethan prides himself on allows being green but keeps tabs on the yellow kids and what got them there. I love to hear his stories when he comes home. Taylor tries to compete with Ethan's stories and always tells us how Presley didn't know how to sit on her tape (which happened on the first day of school but we have relived it for 2 weeks now.)

This being Baptist preschool has also brought with it a little confusion that I hadn't thought of. After the first day of school Ethan asked if it was possible for there to be two different ways to say prayers. I guess they had a prayer at snack time that was not what he was expecting. Being a child who attended many different Christian churches and preschools I'm quite familiar with "God is good, God is great, let us thank him for our food. Amen." But Ethan thought it was interesting. He has yet to try and bless the food at our house that way. They have also been learning some new songs that they want me to help them learn but are new to me. Ethan was trying to sing me one at dinner and according to him it went something like "and when I'm at the gates with cheese at my side...." I asked him if he thought that it could be "Jesus at my side" and he pondered it for a while and said "yeah, you're probably right. I didn't think cheese made any sense anyway." I love that kid.

Yesterday Abe didn't have to work until the afternoon so we decided to enjoy our first weekend with him in a while and do something fun. Ethan has been begging to go to the children's museum that someone had told us about. We are pretty excited to go from no children's museums to having 2 within 30 minutes. The kids had a great time playing. I love to hear their vivid imaginations as they play and try, unsuccessfully, to boss each other around. Taylor takes make believe very seriously.

The kids loved playing in the ambulance, especially with Abe driving.

Taylor's favorite activity was taking care of the babies in the "hospital". She can't get enough of babies.

Taylor bossing her daddy around with her hands on her hips. We get this look a lot.

Taylor calling Ethan in his ambulance to tell him to come to the emergency room.

And Grandma Came to Town

The kids and I finally discovered another part of the zoo in town. Who needs animals when you have water to play in and sand to dig in. I know I told Ethan to stay dry but that didn't last long. But it is a great way to end a hot morning at the zoo. The annual pass to the zoo has been a great investment.

My mom came into town to watch the kids while I went to Detroit for work. We were spoiled to have some company while Abe has been working so much. I think we probably failed in the department of showing her the highlights of San Antonio but we showed her all the important stuff. And the kids LOVED having her visit for so long and are already planning her trip back.

We went to the caverns that are close by and enjoyed the cool walk.

Ethan was a trooper for the long walk. The other day we were trying to figure out something to do to pass the time on Sunday. With 8:30 church we have a lot of time together in the afternoons when Abe has to work. Ethan decided he wanted to walk to Sonic. I explained that I was okay with the idea but we couldn't buy anything since it was Sunday. Sonic is a 2 mile round trip walk so I had my doubts but he did awesome. It is fun to see how excited he was to accomplish his goal.

Some pictures of the caves.

The things we love, and those we don't

Now that we are past the moving in phase here in San Antonio I've really been thinking about all the things I love about our current city. I absolutely love the side of town where we ended up. Everything is so close. We have a huge shopping center right behind the house with most of the shopping I could ever need. The other day we had to get the cars inspected and while waiting I walked to the post office and then to the insurance agents office. I was having flashbacks to my time in Honduras as I walked down the dirt road where the post office is (they are repaving it) in the 100 degree heat. I might have even been honked at by a group of latinos in a car, or maybe that was just in my head. This week we played the fun waiting game at the DMV for a Texas license and just as we made it to the front of the line, almost 2 hours from the start of our adventure, Abe had to go take the kids to swim lessons. So I just waited and walked home. We have never lived so close to things before. In the heat I was regretting my decision until I took a little detour by the Sonic for a drink. I can't wait for it to cool down some so we can take more advantage of our close proximity. We get a lot of strange looks when we walk to church.

The other thing I really love is being in such a friendly town. Its probably the same all over Texas but you just see a lot of nice helpful people. We were driving somewhere the other day and watched several cars pull over on the interstate to push a car that had died in the middle of the street. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone was always that helpful to a neighbor.

There are a few things that I'm not so found of... mainly the military way of doing things. I needed a new military ID now that Abe is on active duty again. I made 3 trips to the ID card office. One day I got there and they had just closed because they close at 4. But there is no hours listed on the door so you never really know. The second time I came at 3 but I guess they close even earlier on Friday because once again the doors were locked. Finally I got there early enough only to find out that unlike the last time I got a new card your "sponsor", Abe, has to be with me. The other options, according to the helpful woman at the check-in counter, was to wait the 2 hours that they were estimating it would take me to get to the front of the line and get a piece of paper that I then had to take back to Abe for him to sign and then I could come back again and sit ANOTHER 2 hours with my children to actually get the ID. Oh no she couldn't just grab me one of those forms, I had to wait for it. Like that made any sense. Needless to say I did not wait and actually was able to find a day where Abe could get off early enough to actually get it done. I feel like I'm finally getting to the end of my crazy long list of things to get done when you move. Yeah! Now maybe we can start doing fun things instead of spending all our time in line at the DMV, ID card office, Tax assessors office, immunization clinic....

The kids are enjoying our move and all the fun things San Antonio has to offer. We have been doing swim lessons the last two week. The kids have loved it even though they have learned absolutely nothing except Taylor makes a great teacher's pet and can sweetly convince the swim teacher to just pull her along in the water rather than making her swim. On the first day the teacher told each of the kids to put their face in the water. All the kids did it until she got to Taylor. She is my child, and I hate going under the water, so I knew she wasn't going to do it. She did put her face close to the water and then smiled nicely at the teacher and said "No, thank you." And that was that. Now I have to find swim lesson that will actually teach them how to swim. Ethan keeps us on our toes as usual. On the way home from swim lessons he re-started an earlier "discussion" about how I don't let them watch tv when the babysitter is here in the mornings to watch them for a few hours. I explained to him that I pay the babysitter to watch them not to watch them watch tv for 2 hours. There was a pause in the back and he starts again.
Ethan: "You pay Darlene (the babysitter) to entertain us."
Me: "Yes"
Ethan: "I think watching tv is fun."
Me: "I know you do"
Ethan: "So if watching tv is fun then it entertains me so you should let us watch tv with Darlene."
I love how he logics through the things that he wants. Not that it changes my mind but I love watching them grow up. Sunday at church they decided that they wanted to go to Nursery and Primary by themselves. They were adorable. Taylor idolizes her big brother and loved him taking her to class. I just can't believe how big they are getting.

We went down to the coast last weekend with some friends from the ward. It was the perfect weather to head to the beach. It was hot but not overwhelmingly so. The kids had a great time and so did the adults.
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This weekend Abe had to work Saturday and Sunday so the kids and I decided to come up with lots of fun things to do. We started off at the zoo early in the morning. Of course it would be the one day that it actually rained in San Antonio. But it didn't last long so we just kept on going. It was better than sweating.

Aren't they so cute!

The goats don't like the rain so they didn't want to come out and play.

After the zoo we headed to a great park on base. This park had everything. It was so nice to have some nice weather so we could actually survive time outside. You can tell from their faces that we take the park very seriously.

After the park we headed to the pool for a nice swim, with the life jackets on since no one learned a thing in swim lessons (but I'm not bitter :). Such a great day. But we definitely missed Abe. It is going to be a hard adjustment getting used to him working weekends and not being around for all the fun. We are hoping to check out some more San Antonio fun this week when my mom comes to visit so hopefully he can get a day off in there.