Isley Family Life: February 2013

In February, I was on a pediatric clinic elective and Aaron was finishing his community hospital rotation in a rural town close to home. The clinician I was working with had started her own practice not long before, so the clinic was on the quieter side, but I had a great time getting to know her and lots of fun seeing her cute patients with her. Aaron and I both had pretty awesome hours, so we continued to bask in the glory that is fourth year medical school.

Unfortunately, Aaron did have to work some long ER shifts (11 am to 11 pm, but add in 45 minutes of drive time on either end, and it makes for a long day), one of which was scheduled on his birthday. Julia and I made him a special birthday banner and birthday breakfast, but then he had to go work all day. He got home around midnight, went to bed, then woke at 4 am, needing to run to the bathroom to vomit. The poor guy proceeded to wake, then, every half hour for a couple hours to vomit. Seems he picked up some sort of awful bug, made even more sad that it was the night of his birthday. Over the next couple days, as the stomach issues faded, the upper respiratory symptoms flared. He was really pretty sick for a while there. All birthday plans were postponed as he just rested up, drinking sports drinks and going through tons of tissues.

We ultimately celebrated a few days later on Mardi Gras with a take out steak dinner one night after Julia was in bed (she ate a good, albeit less expensive, meal earlier, lest you're worrying I send her to bed without supper ;-) ). Julia and I gave Aaron a bunch of new ties (cliche dad gift, I know... haha!) since he'll be wearing a lot of ties at work during residency. A few of the ties are even washable (!!!) which I think is great, especially in medicine since it's germy work and ties can spread nastiness from patient to patient. We also gave him a funner gift - an expansion for our Rivals of Catan card game. We had my family (minus the college girls who were pretty busy that day) over the following Sunday for dinner so they could celebrate Aaron, too. I made stromboli, tortilla chips and white queso, and ice cream cake per the birthday boy's request. I was going to make a salad, too, but Aaron decided he didn't want anything green at his party... ha!

Valentine's Day was low key but fun. I made a special breakfast for my loves - French toast (using ground flaxseed instead of egg) and berries. I actually had the day off, so Julia and I met up with friends for story time at the library. Aaron surprised me with some beautiful flowers and some gorgeous yellow gold hoop earrings. Then, Aaron, Julia, and I went out for burritos that night, since our favorite burrito place was having a buy one, get one free deal if you kissed each other at the cash register. We're never ones to pass up a free burrito... haha!

We did a lot of traveling in February - much more than usual! At the beginning of the month, we went to Quartz Mountain. The third weekend of the month, we went to Oklahoma City to celebrate the engagement of our friends, Alex and Blake, and visit our friends, Aaron, Jordan, and Michael, our godson! At the end of the month, we went to Kansas for several days to visit Aaron's family - more on that soon!

While Daddy was working one Saturday, I took Julia to the museum for family art day. This craft was a bit beyond her skill level... meaning, I pretty much made this Valentine. Julia did pick out the colors of yarn for me to use ;-)