Isley Family Life: August 2015

August 2015 was a pretty difficult month work-wise. I was on my second (and final!) month of PICU, and Aaron was on teaching service, so we were both working long hours. I had to be in to work at 6 am, and had several long call shifts throughout the month where I'd work until 10 am (or longer, truth be told) the next day. My PICU rotations, while important in my education, were certainly not my favorite, since the patients were so sick, which made everything very high stakes and very stressful. I was glad to be on the rotation with a couple good friends of mine, so the team made the month much more fun and the experience and hours more bearable. Aaron worked long hours too, that month, but he was enjoying being a third year resident since he didn't always have to stay for checkout in the evenings. He enjoyed teaching and mentoring the new interns that month.

We managed to have some fun as a family as Julia finished up her summer break and started pre-K. We also received the mind-blowingly awesome news that Julia's spinal curvature had markedly improved and was only ~10 degrees, down from 31 degrees in January. Her new orthopedist was flabbergasted to see such amazing progress, and Julia got to stop wearing the brace. It was the best news, and we knew it was a miracle and such an answer to prayer. Julia had been such a trooper throughout those months in the brace, even in the summer heat, and we were so proud of her and so grateful to God for this new development.

Aaron wearing Julia's little pink brace as a hat after work one day.

Post-call at the mall on the carousel.

Family pool fun!

I love all the different expressions here X-D

My beautiful girl.

On a rare day off for both of us at second Saturday at the local art museum.

Princess Minnie Mouse and Darkwing Duck.

The best Kermit is baby Kermit... amiright?

Enjoying an afternoon of painting together. Julia painted a canvas and I was "writing" an icon of St. Julia Billiart for Julia's room. Julia was named for my confirmation saint, but she's not well known in the U.S. so it's hard to find any images... so I made my own! I'll have to post a photo of the finished product sometime :-)

Julia had to bring a picture of something she did over the summer to the first day of pre-K. She drew this picture of her swimming.

First day of pre-K! This was prior to the good news about her back, so as you can see, she's got her brace shirt and brace on under her uniform shirt.

We bought Julia a bike with training wheels since she'd outgrown her tricycle. This bike provided lots of entertainment and exercise that summer and fall!