Updates:

[PrincessFiona]

It's been awhile since we've updated each other on our lives/etc...and I thought it would be nice for the new people to learn more about us and for us to learn about them...as well as being a great opportunity to just catch up with each other's lives.

I'll start

As most of you already know, baby #4 (Aidan) made his way into the world in November....has it already been 8 months? Where does the time go??? Since then, life has been a crazy rollercoaster (as evidenced by the thousand color changes that I made to the site ). I've had a lot of ups and downs as I navigate becoming a mommy again after so much time. Andrew is now 9, Amanda 8 and Alex turned 5 in February.

I work in the Bio dept at our local U very part-time and continued working in the Spring. I was able to bring the baby in with me which was nice.

This summer is absolutely flying by...I worked for 5 weeks prepping a bio lab and helping teach two mornings a week which meant I was at work between 6-6am and came home about 9.30-10. (super yawn...way too early for me!) My mother-in-law was here for 3 weeks (ummm, those days didn't really seem to fly by though and I did enough complaining that I think ThuVan was ready to send me a pacifier or those little men with the white coats!) and since then I've been busy planning our very first familiy vacation in 10 years of marriage ..... I am also spending about 1-2 hours a day with the kids working on german...

Workwise I'm writing some bio exam questions for the ETS...it's all work-from home stuff and I've been able to do this in the evenings.

Other than that I've kept busy antagonizing the young pre-meds over at the sdn and putting my foot in my mouth around here... I painted my living room yellow...which in itself was an experience. Those of you who have been here long enough know how freaky I can get about...colors ...and we ended up painting the room three different yellows before I finally decided on the final color (which I'm happy with for now ). I'll have to post a pic. I'm even contemplating painting the kitchen orange 8O so we'll have to have some deep therapy sessions around here about that before I take the plunge!

So how is everyone else and what have you guys been up to???

kris

Good idea, Kris!

This summer, I'm exploring more personal interests and learning some new things. I'm trying dance lessons (Argentine tango is my personal obsession and I'm desperately trying to learn), writing workshops, getting out to hear live music, and going on architectural walking tours. Basically, over the last year, I've been trying to get the most out of living in the city.

I'm moving to a new apartment at the end of the month, so I'm also trying to get rid of all the junk I've accumulated over the past few years. It's kind of scary at home right now...

Work: I've been progressing toward a financial analyst certification (will find out next month if I passed this level- I failed last year). As a company, we're getting ready to move our office near the end of the year.

Okay, you both make me feel like a complete lazy butt! :P

We have 2 girls, ages 9 and 5. We homeschool all year long, but right now, we're enjoying a 1 week break.

I can't think of anything else. Running day-to-day family stuff pretty much consumes me, and that's waaaay too boring for words.

I will say this: DH is considering Hospice work, and we both are very excited about that. We're looking into additional training and opportunities right now, hoping someday he'll be able to work Hospice part or full time. For years I've told him he should consider this, as he's wonderful with families, and I believe there's a need for more emphasis on End Of Life care. So we're currently making plans and considering options.

[DCJenn]

Hmmm, in news from DC-

We are still in the process of unpacking from this year's move. Apparently we must enjoy the torture of moving since this is move #4 in 4 years. Yay!

We are in the process (a very long, expensive and time-consuming process) of completing the adoption of Stoli Schmirnoff. Our homestudy is done, they had to redo it since we moved and the entire thing now gets sent to some vortex where we get the rubber stamp- then the entire packet gets shipped to Russia where a bunch of Russians get to look in our underwear drawers and closets (or at least at a whole lot of financial and medical information) Then- eventually, we get a referral. So- needless to say:

I'm still working full-time as a Federal surveyor. I'm on the road every week for at least two and a half days. We actually really enjoy the breaks- so long as they're short. The 10 days get to be long!

My husband is finally done with adult neurology and done with his few months at the civilian children's hospital. So, life is better, although the next three months still aren't leavable so, once again, no vacation in the near future.

That's it- the horrible first year of fellowship is over.

Jenn

[mommax3]

Well,

Nothing earth-shattering here. We are enjoying the heck out of the summer so far, especially after not being able to take leave last summer due to staffing problems (incompetence) at DH's clinic. DH and I had a few days alone at the beginning of June, which was much needed and VERY nice. We have been to two family get togethers, taken two trips to Six Flags, visited three water parks, gone to our neighborhood pool countless times, and I have had two out-of-town shopping excursions. The boys are staying busy with summer day camp, Kiddie College at our local community college, (today they took a class on worms and came home with a few!) some summer educational stuff courtesy of yours truly, (they love it ) and my oldest is in a summer basketball league. We have a weekend trip to San Antonio coming up in two weeks (and possibly a trip to the Six Flags there if the boys earn it with good behavior) and two weeks after that, we will be taking a two week trip to Indiana. We will see family, DH will (hopefully) tie up the last few loose ends and sign the contract for his new job, and we will visit the Six Flags in St. Louis on our way home if all goes well.

DH is very excited about the new job and I am getting excited about the community where we will be living. I am anxious to visit in August and meet some of the other spouses. DH said tonight that he thinks this next move will be the easiest one yet, since we haven't made any close friends here and thus won't feel like we are leaving anything behind when we go......trust him to find the silver lining of anything! It's probably true, though. He is dealing with.....senioritis, I guess, for lack of a better word, in regards to the time he has left in the Air Force. Starting in about three weeks, he will be the clinic administrator and he is not looking forward to that at all. The base is being inspected this fall, (the second time since we have been here) so there is a lot of non-medical crap that he is dealing with (everyone must have their mobility bags ready, with the requisite number of soaps and pairs of underwear in order to show the inspectors......) and a lot of unexpected duty days (i.e. he has heard that everyone is required to work one of the next two Saturdays on cleaning out files......he is volunteering for this Saturday, even though he is on call, so we can go to San Antonio the next weekend, but some nurse who outranks him and does no patient care could decide at any point that he can't go) There are predicted to be recalls (the phone rings at 4:30 in the morning and the service member has to contact the next person in the phone tree and report to work by 5:30) twice a week for the rest of the summer. He has always hated this crap. It is one thing to step it up when normally you work 8 - 4:30, as most of the military does, and another when you are on call 10 days a month and in clinic every day of the week. Knowing he is so close to getting out is making it harder for him to take.

I am feeling better than I have in a long time. Finally making the decision to stop having babies has been very liberating for me, especially because we are looking at moving for the final time to a place we have chosen, instead of to somewhere we have been assigned. I am excited about the next phase of my life. I still have lonely moments here, but knowing that the worst is behind me helps a LOT.

Probably more than you all wanted to know.....I TOLD you I was lonely!

Sally

We will see family, DH will (hopefully) tie up the last few loose ends and sign the contract for his new job, and we will visit the Six Flags in St. Louis on our way home if all goes well.

Wow, Sally! That is awesome! I remember when you were talking about that job as a glimmer of a possibility. Amazing how things come together.

We are adjusting to, and recovering from, moving to a new city and pretty much feeling like everything is new, new, new. I think (??) that all but a box or two is unpacked with a couple others stashed in the attic (do we really need the stuff in those boxes?).

DH starts residency on Thursday and is having the waves of excitement and sheer panic that goes along with it. At least I've done this a few times before and recognize what he is going through and know it is relatively short-lived. I'm hanging in there and having more good days than bad...I think I will start feeling a little lonely once he starts back after we have been able to spend the last 3 weeks together. But, I'm doing my best to contact ANYONE that I might possibly know in Portland -- mostly friends in Denver who know people here. I'd like to go to the beach in the next week or two. We are loving the summer weather. There is a great farmer's market just minutes from our house. And a library, nice playground, community center, etc close by too. We're starting to find things and not get lost every trip.

Bryn is doing well, most of the time. She misses her friends and preschool and seeing other kids. Big upside is that there is a 4 yo girl just a few houses down the street from us who she really likes. I found a summer camp for her and she LOVED it and wants to go for the rest of the summer (we'll see....). What a change though, when I filled out the summer camp registration I had to put down emergency contacts other than myself/DH -- ummmm, I don't have any!! I put the neighbor down because they insisted.

Anna is happy as a clam short of the two pesky teeth that are working their way in. Can't seem 'em yet but I'm sure they are there. And she lifted her big caboose off the ground today. Be afraid. Time to babyproof!

I'll keep myself busy with a kitchen remodel. 8O I think this is an experience sort of like childbirth; sucks while you are going through it but doesn't look so bad in hindsight, especially given the results. At this point, I'm having fun with thinking about how I want to do things -- that will probably face a sharp reality check of the budget any day now. We have met with one contractor and meet with another tomorrow am. I'm about to start the demo with a sledgehammer myself. Next house project will be thinking about the yard. Front is nice, back needs some work. I'd like to put in a veggie garden and start some hives in the back. Do I really need 10,000 other little bodies to take care of? Hopefully I get low maintenance bees.

And I might have some contract work around September. Which I will probably need in light of the kitchen.

Oh, and I got my mail! Yeah!

[Phoebe]

Kris- I don't know how you can say your are not organized because you have so many interesting things going on. That is awesome. Sally, I am very excited for DH's job!!!!

We have officially been living in Indiana for 1 year. I can't believe how fast it has passed and to think at this time last year we were entering this new phase in our lives and I was very pregnant.

DH has settled into his job and loves being an attending. The years of training and sacrifice have definitely paid off for him. He loves what he does which is good because his hours have been on the longside lately. His workplace is in transition right now as they are building a new, bigger unit in a new location. We are interested to see the outcome of the new facility and hope it is as successful as they predict.

Our summer is flying by and I can't report that I am doing anything remotely as interesting as to what has already been posted. I am enjoying the laid back days of summer though. I feel like I am making some closer friendships in my neighborhood and feel happy about that. I have also taken up scrapbooking and have tried to spend more freetime on some pages. With that in mind, I have been taking lots of pictures and trying to master our new camera. I would love to take a class in photography.

Our girls will be 3 and 1 in September. I am trying to salvage every moment of Ella's infancy that she has left. June was packed with visitors so we were happy to lay low on 4th of July. We have spent the summer so far going to local parks, kid's concerts and participating in the summer reading program at the library. We finally joined a church and I have tried my hand at summer flowers and have learned a lot. I also joined a new gym with the hopes of reenergizing my motivation for exercise.

This week we are getting ready for our vacation to Charleston, SC with a couple day stint at my in-laws. I am having to gear up for that one! I can't wait to veg out at the beach! I will be the one resembling the beached whale.


Time is really flying by! Don't you think?

[JaneDoe]

Although I have not posted at all lately, I'm still here. I'm just having a hard time finding the time to type.

Some of you may recall that I was pregnant and due in February. Indeed, on February 20, 2004 our first baby, a girl, arrived into the world. It has been the most wonderful experience and I can't believe I'm saying this already . . . but, I can't wait to do it again! She's a really easy-going baby. She's been sleeping through the night since 2 months and she only really fusses when she's tired.

My dh is in his second year of ophthalmology residency. He only has two years to go. It's amazing how fast residency seems to fly by. We're now having "discussions" about whether he wants to do a fellowship. We're on opposite ends of the country from our family, and I'm really anxious to move home. On the other hand, what's another year or two for fellowship.

I've gone back to work . . . ugh. Fortunately, my daughter's daycare is in the same building where I work. So, I go down to breastfeed and visit her about three time during the day. After her arrival, I've really surprised myself about my feelings about staying at home with her. I absolutely did not want to return to work. I really want to stay at home with her. Our financial situation, however, does not permit it at this time. Once my dh finishes his residency though, our plan is that I will stay at home then. I can't wait. Before she was born, I never new that I would feel so strongly about this.

A note to Kris . . . I visit the sdn forums every once in a while, and I always look for your posts!! I can always count on you to post one of the most well-thought and insightful posts. Your contributions there always make for a great discussion!

[migirl]

Well, I don't have quite as much going on as others, but I'll join in...

DH just started his third year of his urology residency; it's hard to believe that we're PGY-3 already, intern year seems like it was just yesterday. So far third year is going pretty well, the big upside is the reduced number of calls - only 4 calls this month!! Even though it's still far off (4 more years to go! ), we're still batting around the idea of fellowship training after residency. Long story short: I would love to be done after residency is finished and start living like 'real' people (isn't six years enough training??!), but his interest is oncology which would require a fellowship, most likely somewhere far from our family and where we currently live. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it...

Career-wise I'm still working at the same job I've been at for the last two years. It's ... ok. I'ts definitely a 'job' and not a 'career'. We're hoping to start having kids soon and I'm still holding out hope that DH will agree to let me stay home with them, so I'm not putting too much effort into finding another job that I might like better.

We just got a new dog, and she is the princess of our house. She is an absolute joy, and is the happiest and most affectionate dog I have ever seen. DH calls us his 'two favorite girls'.

We just took a week's vacation at the end of June and spent some time in North Carolina visiting friends. I'd never been there before, so it was really fun to go somewhere new. We spent some time at the beach, ate tons of great seafood, and even got to see Venus fly traps which only grow wild in North Carolina (so I was told)! Very cool (btw, did you know that they only grow a few inches tall? I was shocked because in the cartoons they always show them as these huge plants that are as big as people!). We're taking another vacation in the middle of September, and we're planning to go to Toronto (another place I've never been!) for the International Film Festival.

Other than that, we haven't been doing any big things this summer. We've been going for lots of walks around our neighborhood with the dog, there are some fun summer festivals that come to town every year, we've been hitting the local Dairy Queen pretty frequently , and DH's birthday is coming up next week so we'll have a small party with his family.

Personally, I've been steadily losing weight, of which I'm very proud. I've been running pretty regularly (3x per week), and last Friday I managed to run 4 miles which is a first and very good for me. The weight loss is actually becoming noticeable to people other than myself (as of this morning I've lost 10 pounds!), and I've been getting a few comments from friends and co-workers that they can really tell the difference. I've never been very good at the diet/exercise thing, so I'm excited that I'm actually seeing results.

My brother just got married over the weekend and we had lots of friends and family in from out of town and even out of the country (most of my family still lives in Korea), so it was great to be able to see everyone. The wedding was an absolute blast, we closed the dance floor that night. 8)

Overall, I've been enjoying this summer and feel happy with my life in general. I sometimes have to stop and remind myself of how blessed and lucky I am.

[houseelf]

It is a lot of fun to see what everyone is up to.

We just started DH's fifth year of general surgery residency in Minnesota. He has completed three clinical years and is starting his second research year, which is a nice change of life. We will hear if he won an NIH loan repayment grant for his research in pediatric osteosarcoma (? I think that is what he works on...I don't really know) which would keep us in the lab for one more year before finishing his last two years of clinicals.

My 4 year old son is enjoying summertime. We try to go to the beach or pool as much as possible. I'm really enjoying getting to know the person that he is becoming. He begins montessori school 5 days a week this September. (Mama is not ready for this, but he is. )

I am almost 35 weeks pregnant with a baby girl. I plan on continuing to work approximately 3 to 4 days a week writing opinions for a judge until I deliver. Then, I will be on maternity leave until late February, 2005.

I'm looking forward to becoming a mama again and gettting back into road racing. I plan on doing a ten mile race in November. (Too ambitious? I may have to do the Galloway method if I'm not up to par: Run 9 minutes, walk 1).

Take care of yourselves!

Kelly

Okay here is our not so exciting update. here we are 3 years post residency and I can honestly say that I think my mind has chosen to block out the hard times during those four years as now I can't remember too much hardship. We are still in Ohio about 45 miles outside of Columbus and after 3 years DH is finally tired of the commute. He wants to move back to Columbus which I think sucks because I am now just really comfortable with all we have done to our house to make it ours and he wants to turn around and sell it, UUGGHH!!!

On a lighter note, we spent a week in Destin at the beginning of June and it was way too short for me. Maybe it was the 15 hours driving each way. The girls loved it. We are now gearing up for my sons who are 14 and 16 to visit us for 2 weeks starting Saturday. Mackenzie will be in 1st grade this fall and Ryleigh starts preschool so I will actually have 3 days of the week with 3 hours to myself to scrapbook, a dream come true for me.

DH is promised to be the Director of Emergency Medicine at the trauma center when an additional hospital is finished so things are looking up for him as well.

See, told you it was boring.

[SueC]

We're having a good summer so far and enjoying dh being in his 7th and final year of training. It's been a long road but we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and looking forward to getting on our feet financially.
DH goes back and forth daily on whether he will stay on as attending at the university hospital or go into private practice. I'm supportive of either decision but I want him to really think it through and not just go with whatever mode he is in at the time. We are developing a plan for renovating our current house and are going to try to ease into the next lifestyle instead of trying to move into a bigger house right away. That said, with 3 kids and a very large dog, we are bursting at the seams in our 3 bedroom house.
The girls are in MDO 2 days a week and I'm trying to stay organized with my business so we will have more time to play. We've done some cool outings the last few weeks, including going to see a magic show, kid concert, and going to a nearby petting zoo. The girls also recently started ballet class one day a week and are really enjoying that. They look darling in their little pink leotards and try so hard to master the positions and steps that they haven't necessarily developed the gross motor skills for yet.
The baby is our easiest baby yet. He will be 3 months old in another week and is a wonderful sleeper. He goes down at 9pm or so and only gets up to nurse at 6am before sleeping another 2 hours or so. During the day, he only catnaps (which makes keeping the business going tricky at times) but he has such a good temperament. All I have to do is look at him and talk to him and he smiles at me from ear to ear. My girls were fussy babies and I had to tapdance to get them to smile so I'm enjoying the heck out of him!
DH has really "stepped up to the plate" as far as helping me with the kids. He was so caught up in residency when the girls were babies, but he is around a lot more in this final year of fellowship and is really a great help to me most of the time. He seems so much more relaxed this year and is really enjoying spending time with the family.
Oh yeah, we now have our almost 3 year old potty trained so I'm pleased as punch to only have one kid in diapers!!!

I haven't posted in a long while! Life around here has been crazy! I read alot of the posts and wish I had time to respond but it is so hard with 3 small kids, ( 6 yrs, 4 yrs, 9 mo.) 2 of which are napping right now so I will steal a few minutes
DH just took Step 1 boards and is now an M3. He studied for WEEKS and was gone so much for that stinkin test (it's still too fresh) We then moved for 3rd and 4th year rotations back to where we were before Med school and I came up with the kids alone for the last 2 weeks of his studying. Between the move and the test and unpacking and being alone I AM TIRED! We are finally resettled again though and getting our routine back. We are just swimming alot and hooking up with old friends and slowly unpacking boxes and getting used to rotations and call. I am sometimes afraid to post about hours and what not b/c I know you all are post school and residency and thinking it only gets worse. I think we are doing fine but am not looking forward to intern year.
8O We start back to school so early here (Aug 9) and we are trying to squeeze as much fun time in as a family as we can! Thanks for the update idea, Kris!