Everythings Else December!

Wow. This has been a crazy semester. Glad it's over. Robby did well in all 6 of his classes this semester. Abby has been enjoying school. Abby ever sent she turned 4 will tell you that she's going to be 5 soon (May 29) and going to kindergarten! Yikes! I finished up the semester with my 9 credits with A's. Working full time still too.
We were glad for Christmas this year. The break was very much needed. This upcoming year will continue the pace. I'll be taking 12 credits. Robby will be taking well class after class after class and then this summer 2nd year Med School Boards! Abby will start formal school in the fall. 2010 will be another big year for us. I'm beginning to think every year will be highly scheduled and amazing. Abby, is just so beautiful and smart. Her creativity amazes me. I love to watch her draw and color and cut and paste. She loves so many beautiful things. I'm so thankful she's with us... I'm so thankful she's with me when Robby is away. I have been blessed with the company of an angel. How different things will be in the Fall when she's in school 5 days a week.
Weird, this posting went somewhere I didn't expect it to.
Christmas, was beautiful. Abby believed, believed, believed. Her ability to believe in magic is a feeling that on Christmas morning bursts the seems of our front room. She comes down the stairs and excited beyond all measure. From the stairs she can see Santa's footprints in magic snow leading to the Christmas tree. Then, this year it was everything Barbie. She didn't ask for much: Barbie house, Barbie phone, pink playdough, Barbie bed, Barbie clothes. This we neat except for the fact that Abby didn't even have a Barbie. We prompted her to think about maybe asking for a Barbie for starts. She said "Maybe, that's a good idea."
So here it is.

Christmas!

Santa came and went and...KITCHENAID!!!!!

Yes, KitchenAid need I say more...

No Tricks All TREATS!

Halloween was the best this year. My brother Ryan his wife Devan and two girls came down. My brother Dan and Amanda came with us. My neighbor's with Abby's best neighborhood friend Andrew rounded out the crew.
We went to Hanover Street. Saying it and being there are two different things. We went last year and it was amazing! Every house is styled with a theme. It's just amazing.
And this year was extra fun by being "Treated" with family to share it with.

Of course there's pictures. Abby was Little Red Riding Hood. I was the Grandmother. I was crazy enough to sew the costumes when I don't sew. Robby was great and dressed up as the wolf. So, much fun. People on the whole loved it...kids actually were scared of Robby's wolf get up. To funny. Priceless fun and sooo much time preparing for it. I'm always sad when Halloween is over. It's my favorite.
Enjoy the Pictures we loved everyone that was there and always enjoy this Holiday!

Oh, yeah the video was funny because on the street there's a old church and they had all dressed like nuns and music was playing. The song YMCA was playing and forget the candy Abby thought to just stop and dance on the steps! Priceless.

We're Okay and Still have time for Dinner!

Wow, second year is busier then last year. The last two weeks better then the ones before I must say. We have now "adjusted" to more in the mix with everybody doing more. Unbelievable.
Abby's arm is better! Woo Who! She's out riding her new princess bike! Abby's doing so well even with all the scheduling.
We had a first the other night. 5 other couples/families with and without kids all different amazing people from the townhouses we live in went out to dinner last night. It was so wonderful. This goofy mix(goofy us being in it) was amazing. I wish I'd taken a picture of the 10+ two kids of us that showed. This amazing neighbors are now keeping us from renting houses we see. I am now in a place with "a family of support." Yes, we looked at a beautiful house yesterday to rent within our budget. Not to mention it was two streets over. No, I think we're here as long as our neighbors (family)are. Things are crazy but good.

New gear...

Just when we didn't think this will oiled machine didn't have a faster speed. I found it ladies and gentlemen and the smoke on the wheels is there. Is Christmas coming or what:) Yikes! Second year medical school, 4 year old daughter, full time work as a nurse and me taking 9 credits toward my BSN. Either way...I'm going to do this! It's not going to be easy and sleep has always been over rated in this house. If single mom's can do it...so can and will I. I'm doing this. We're doing this.

These are too big to email, so we're posting it here for Nona and Doodah to see

Please don't judge me

Okay, so I feel like the worst father in the world. Last night, Jodi was working a night shift. Turned out to be a bad night for her, as you can see in the previous post. Unfortunately, it was a bad night for Abby, too. She fell out of bed around 4 or 5, and was obviously quite upset and hurt. She's fallen out of bed once or twice over the past year, but has never been seriously hurt. I gave her some motrin, and she calmed down and went back to sleep. This morning, she complained that her shoulder was hurting, but was able to get her shirt on and move her arm around without complaining, so I didn't think much of it, dropped her off at daycare, and went to school.
The room I now meet in is in the belly of a building where cell phone waves struggle to penetrate - over half of the cell phones in the class cannot get reception. As I only have a cheap pay as you go virgin mobile deal, there was obviously no way of contacting me. When class was over at noon, i checked the messages and had a few from Jodi. She was quite upset, said that daycare had called about Abby, and she needed to take her in for xrays because something was really wrong. I tried calling home, but nobody was there. Llong story short, I caught a ride with my friend to our doctor's office, who had gotten an xray for Abby. The result:



a broken clavicle.
Here I am, a 2nd year med student, giving my kid some motrin and sending her off to school with a broken bone. I feel completely terrible about it. What a great dad. So now Abby is in a little thing called a figure of eight splint to help it to heal, which it will completely within a couple of weeks. She is being so brave about it, only whimpering every now and then if she stretches it too much. Needless to say, we went out and bought a little railing for the bed so this won't happen again. Poor thing.

So classes started back up with a vengeance and we're going full steam ahead. Wish us luck with the coming semester. In the meantime, here are some pics from the summer that never got out there. Love you all!!

Woman's FLoor

Floated to a Woman's Floor last night...never liked woman's care in school.

7-28-09 at 11:30 upon arrival to the unit I remember why!

Second YEAR MED!

Well here we are. Back to it's a MAD MAD MAD world. School is in full swing for Robby. I've been working nights. Abby is doing fantastic. I start classes 22 August. AHHHH. I keep telling myself if it gets to bad Abby and I are off to Hawaii. JUST KIDDING. But doesn't it sound nice? *Sigh* SOOO, for family and friends email us if you really want us to get back to you. No, we don't have cell phones and we aren't home for the phone there. I'm hoping to catch up with the world around Christmas. If that's not possible this time next year?? WOW! Hope everybody is doing well and things are positive!
And wish us success this year is going to be a big one!

Cherry Pits 101... Call Somebody?

Cherries are in season and we have some in the fridge. So, me being lazy told Abby she could just go get one.
Then here she comes running into the living room and states " I swallowed the big seed! Call somebody!" Then she starts sobbing. Great. I start into all the typical "You're fine. You didn't choke. It's going to be okay!" "Mama call somebody." "Abby like who? A doctor? You're fine you don't need a doctor." "No, like..like Uncle Dan." "Oh, like Uncle Dan."
So there you have it. For personal drama there's Dear Abby. Spiritual Drama Pray. Everyday 4 year old crisis...Uncle Dan on speed dial. (Priceless until finding out he's telling her to expect a cherry tree to grow shortly, hmm? Though his advice made her stop crying and laugh:)

Almost there! But not quite....

Almost there! We are so close to finishing this semester. I can't wait to have my husband back and "regroup" a little. It will be so cool to start into the second year and be halfway done with Medical school. I'm excited to have Abby turn 4 years old! she's been excited for the past week to bring cupcakes into her class that we'll make with pink icing. I'm really excited for next week getting away to the beach as a family. Just to unwind.
This past weekend was amazing. My extraordinary sister-in-law "Devan" graduated from law school. I had to be there. This woman and accomplishment was more important to me then she'll ever know. She did this at first while working (I think what at least seemed full-time) for the first two years. She was married with a spouse going to school full-time for the first two years that also worked full-time. She published on multiple law journals during school. Then in the middle their family was blessed with Zoe and Syd (Twin girls). Oh, and they have a cat and a dog and moved 4 times during all of this.
I always knew even if I had to sneak in that I would have to be at this graduation if they survived. Really it was for two reasons. First, how proud I am of Ryan and Devan. Second thanks so much for showing me that it can be done. I needed to see this. I needed to see what surviving professional school looked like and you guys looked beat up! But in the end someone does tell you you're finished. Thanks so much for letting us be apart of your hard work. Love you guys!

Well and to all those who don't know I got in at VCU and will start in the fall. So, Robby will be in full-time medical school second year, Abby 4 years old pre-school 3 days to 2 days a week, and I will be full time mom, full-time work and 9 credit hours per semester toward my BSN. So, we thought we had no time before so we have no time on no time and I think I'm going to try maybe no sleep for two years or so. Our time is going to be golden.

Sorry so long inbetween posts. We are as busy as we can humanly make ourselves. We hope all is well with everyone.

Snow and rain

Just wanted to put this up to get a few pics out to everyone. It snowed two weeks ago, and we got a nice 6 inches here! Unheard of in this area. So we went out while it was snowing and built some snowmen. Abby loved it.



They canceled school for us the next day, as well as the test and pushed it back to Friday, the same day as another test. It made things a little more stressful, but worked out okay in the end. Then, not even a week after 6 inches of snow, we had a beautiful weekend with 70-80 degree weather. Weird, but we took it and went to a local park with trails and some animals (Maymont Park). We all had such a great time, even though my white skin burned.



Abby took this picture



She wanted to feed this dandelion to the goat, but it didn't want to eat it after she tossed it in.

And this duck kept kicking the turtles back into the water. Jerk.






This deer came right up to the fence and was taking grass from the kids' hands. Abby said that he was such a "cute little guy."




Overall, it was a ton of fun. And free.
So the other week at school they had a little poker walk, where you go to 5 different buildings and pick up cards, then turn them in to try and win an iPod. I figured, what the heck? I have a test in an hour, but this will only take about 15 minutes. Unfortunately for the student group, it was a day of many tests. Not many people wanted to take the time. But that was good news to me - because I won. A nice 8BG orange iPod. The cool thing is, the iPod that I had was about 5 years old, and I had won it in a contest at work, and it was starting to die. We had been talking about maybe getting me another one but didn't want to spend the money. Good thing, because I git one for 15 minutes of my time. Plus, I still did well on my tests. It was a good day.
Mary and Tim came down last week, which was totally cool. Abby and I spent a few hours with them at Panera and the DMV. Abby had so much fun, and was pretty upset when they left. Mary got a video or two of her - maybe she'll share them. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera, so no pics here.
So now we've been having rain for the past 3 or so days. Nasty weather, but hopefully it clears up soon - we're ready for Spring.

Abby is funny sometimes

Oh yeah, I forgot to put this in:
So we were talking about my tooth, and Jodi was saying ways they could maybe fix it. She said they might be able to do a cap, but they might have to give me a flipper. What the heck is a flipper? I didn't have any idea. I only knew that flipper is a dolphin. I let her know that my tooth was broken and I had no need for a dolphin. Abby looked at me with a quizzical look and asked in all seriousness, "daddy, why don't you want a dolphin to break your teeth?"
She makes us laugh pretty good sometimes.

Going to the Dentist = GREAT IDEA

So the past week or two has been pretty intense. I had a fun round of exams which kept me pretty busy. Meaning that even with Laura out visiting, and her, Elijah, Jenny, Lizzie and mom coming down to Richmond, I was busy hitting the books. And it's a good thing that I did. I needed as much info in my head as possible, seeing that the average on this round was the lowest so far because the material was so dense and crazy. But now it's over and we're on to a new wave of stuff.
The family visit was apparently a lot of fun. So much fun, that Abby was crying when they all left. Now she is always talking about Lizzie and "Baby Elijah" and saying how they are coming over tomorrow.





On Saturday, Abby went to get her first real haircut. Jodi has trimmed her hair once or twice (emphisis on trimmed) but her hair was getting a bit ratty at the end. So we went to a place that specialized in kid's haircuts just because we didn't know how she would react. She was a bit timid in the beginning, but it went quick and she was great the whole time.



And she loved the results.
So now I ask: How did Jodi get so unlucky with me? I had an echocardiogram last week, and we thought the results were fine (based on the preliminary things we saw with it). However, my cardiologist pulled her aside at work and let her know he really needed to talk to me. So apparently, the pressure gradient across my replaced valve has doubled in the past year and the velocity of the blood flow has increased. Which basically means that the valve is thickening up and might not be working so great. So I'm going to need an esophageal echo, which is where they sedate me and stick a tube down my throat to take pictures of my heart from the inside. Not much fun, I'm thinking.
Then last night I was flossing and a decent sized chunk came flicking off one of my teeth. I started screaming. What in the crap?!?! Teeth don't just do that. I freaked. Jodi kind of freaked. Why are my teeth rotting out of my head? I've never even had a cavity!! Needless to say, I found a dentist that could see me today, avoinding eating anything even remotely hard. Luckily, we've got a great mashed potatoes recipe. So I told the dentist what was going on, he took a quick look and quickly relieved my worries. It was tartar. Huh? Okay, that's good, but kind of gross and scary. I thought I took better care of my teeth than that! So visits to the dentist will be more of a regular thing for me (my last one was more than three years ago - sorry mom!) Jodi is no longer freaked and is relishing the hard time she can give me for it. I was so worried - the money it would have cost us to fix a broken tooth, the time, the problems. I was cursing Mountain Dew, sure that it was the cause. Luckily, I have kicked that habit. I think I'll just avoid sodas for a while.
Here's an Abby serious look to leave you all: