August 2014

In August, I was on NICU, which was a hard month. We do seven or eight 28 hour call shifts where you show up one morning at 6 or 7 and stay until after morning rounds around 10 or 11 the next day. If you're not on call, you still come at 6 am and work until 4 or 5 pm. We only get four or five days off during the month, and somehow my days off ended up being the weekends at either end... which meant that I worked for 26 days straight. It was brutal. I remember crying before the month started when I got my schedule because I felt overwhelmed about having to work such a long continuous stretch, but somehow I survived. God is good and He carried me through, I'm sure.

NICU wasn't my favorite. I enjoyed getting to do more procedures, like intubations, circumcisions, umbilical lines, etc., but missed having patients that could interact more with me. There were also some really sad cases in addition to the mostly happy outcomes. It was a good learning month, but definitely not my happiest month. Aaron was on teaching service at the VA, so he enjoyed his month, but still had long days with the drive time tacked on. Family time was sparse, but we soaked up every minute that we could.

Julia started preschool in August going 8 to 2:15 on Tuesdays and Thursdays at a Catholic school in town. She actually had a bit of a rocky start, with some crying at naptime, but she quickly adapted and came to really love her teachers and school friends.

Bedhead selfies, courtesy of Julia.

Fun with sidewalk chalk!

Dancing cousins

I can't get over how small MC was here.

Long hours = lots of eating out. This was at Julia's favorite, Sushi Train.

After Julia had fun playing T-ball with friends, Aaron bought her a set and we had some fun with it in late summer.

Poolside.

Running stroller fun.

She cracks herself up, just like her mom, her grandmother, and her great granddad before her. It's a long line of self-cracker-uppers ;-)

We made Spritz for our tea party.

Finally got this beauty hung up in Julia's room. Grand room reveal to come ;-)

Carousel and pretzel dog at the mall. I love how Julia loved wearing her free bear hat - aren't kids so great?