The Clampetts go to New Orleans

Monday morning while we were all recovering from a little case of viral nasopharyngitis (the common cold) Shayna got the idea to head down to New Orleans for a couple days... seeing as how Shayna will be ready to pop in a few weeks we decided it was as good a time as any with my weird work schedule (swing shift). We waited a day so we could drive the 5.5 hrs in the early morning... Trace traveled surprisingly better than most adults. Upon arriving in what is appropriately termed "the dirty south", we were a little worried we had set out on a family adventure, and ended up in Hades. After dropping our car off at the hotel and checking into our room, it seemed a little less derelict. Beignets and local musicians on Royal Street, constantly averting our eyes on our walk down Bourbon Ave, riverboat watching at the waterfront, taking a historic saloon themed family portrait... we did it all! Trace was in rare form as he constantly pointed at trash on the street saying "ewww" and at smokers, saying "na no".
During our dinner at Huck Finns the chef and manager were being interviewed on camera... so our festive Jambalaya meal was free... of course with that kind of luck we had to order desserts.
Besides chasing every pigeon on the street, the hotel was the highlight for Trace. He loved riding the trashcan while saying "yee-haw", and getting to take a bath in a real tub (at home we have have a plastic storage bin he baths in). Shay and I took advantage of having TV and watched 4 or 5 episodes of chopped on the food network. It was a great trip! The drive home was smooth, and we feel very blessed to have not gotten mugged by gypsies or bitten by an alligator while visiting the city with the motto "A lazy current... The seductive howl of an accordion...A splash too loud to be a fish...Pick your passion". We may never return, but it was lots of fun.

 

One Rotation Down..

The first rotation is over and we are all still alive. I spent over 200hrs with Dr Christopher Cummins in Ripley MS (home of the souths oldest flea market) and almost 40 hrs driving to and from his clinic. My first rotation was awesome! Dr Cummins is a southerner to the core and gave me opportunities to stretch beyond my comfort zone daily. Speckled throughout the 5 week rotation period were experiences including: being sung to by a geriatric that had fallen asleep during an exam and woke melodically; getting to guest star on the "Ask Dr Cummins Show" on Ripley's very own TV station; and getting to wear mardi gras beads all day on the 12th. We are indebted to his wife for serving us shrimp and grits, Paula Deane style... It was amazing. Since I don't have an Iphone, packing light each day of clinic was not an option. I always have my little worthless phone on me (worst trivial decision of 2011 was buying that thing), my laptop in the car for studying (listening to podcasts), and our halfway reliable tablet in clinic for drug referencing. I consider this set-up the caveman Iphone.

Shayna and Trace spent their days at the toyota plant RV "park" and going on "adventures". One of these consisted of RV lusting, and they later included me in this covetous practice. The Sherman RV dealer is just 10 miles from where we stay, and is filled with residencies that are considered trailer but far from trash. We felt a little guilty knowing that ruby (not getting any younger or any less wrinkles) was faithfully waiting for our return.

Norma, Shayna's classy black southern midwife, has been up to visit a few times. She has been delivering babies for 18 years and we are so happy we found her (there is only one other well established midwife in MS and she is down on the gulf 6hrs away). Shayna is a champ with this pregnancy and we are so excited for this baby to get here (its quite the little gymnast, I wouldn't be surprised if there were twins in there).

Mississippi

Here we are in the dirty sipp (as it's called by the locals). We've been here a little over a week, and it has been a bit of an adjustment for all 3 of us. Shayna is home alone with Trace from about 7am until 6pm every day... her belly is getting bigger (for a good reason) and Trace takes good care of her. I drive 40min each way to my clinical rotation, spend as much time on my feet now as I did on my rear last year, and am trying to find time to study at the end of each day. We are adjusting! Our new "RV Park" is a bit muddy since it rained most of last week (we are finding out slowly why its called the dirty sipp). Our home started to sink so we had to repark it a few times, but I think we've finally got it so that we wont find ourselves submerged in the middle of the night. We've made some new friends: The Kimbroughs, natives to the south, have had us over a few times (their son Kyle is a friend from school) and have proven that they have mastered the art of southern hospitality (we feel very blessed to live so close to them). It was a relief to finally meet Shayna's midwife, Norma Clark, yesterday for the first time. We are totally confident in her abilities to be a part of the birth of baby #2- she's been delivering babies for 18 years now in 3 states. The town we are in is officially considered to be a village (population 229). It does have a gas station/convenience store/pizza buffet... what more could we hope for. The branch, only 15 minutes away, is even smaller than our last, but still a very friendly group of southerners. The weather is finally warming up and we are thankful for it.

 Gentry RV Park

Tiny New Albany Branch

The Holidays

The 2 weeks we spent in Wallsburg went by too fast! There was hardly any snow on the ground but at least enough to go sledding behind the 4 wheeler and take a quick snowmobiling run. The nightly temperatures ranged from just above 0 degrees to below 15 degrees. So so cold. Trace got sick for half the trip... so we didn't really sleep for half of the nights. Good thing our time consisted of eating, playing, and catching up... needless to say we slept in a lot. Christmas eve we all slept over at Sarah's and some brave souls stayed up quite late watching random Christmas movies... again we are thankful that it is the season for sleeping in.  Christmas day was really fun! This was the first Christmas we have had together with my family. We received so many meaningful presents that we are grateful for. The giving didn't end after Christmas either... my mom gave us our long awaited wedding quilt... It is a work of art... she does some really nice work. Kenyn, Jenny, and Lawson came up for new years eve which ended up being an eclectic combination of food, watching the boys play, and not really doing anything. We're so grateful that the Koops aren't hard to please- we had fun just being with them! We also got a traditional bite of sushi thanks to Megan and Cory... thanks for keeping the tradition alive. It all ended, though, at 3:30am on the 4th of January when we headed to the airport. Thanks for driving Dad! We used desperate traveling parent tactics to make sure the seat next to us was empty on the plane... boarding the plane is the only time a parent really hopes that their child has a stinky diaper or is throwing a fit, because it means that the seat next to that child will remain empty unless the flight is full (in that case we have pity on the poor soul who boards last). So many things went right... up until we got home after the sun was already down... something had gone wrong with our trailers electricity. So from about 5 until 11pm I worked on figuring it out while Shayna and Trace slept over a heater vent in the kitchen powered by our battery. We went to bed before we had the power back on, hoping that the battery would power the furnace through the night. Somewhere during the night the battery ran out, but the 3 of us stayed perfectly warm under our covers. In the morning we were greeted by a reading of 38 degrees on the thermostat... a few hours later my dad and I had the power back on. Thank goodness for cell phones and amazing dads! My dad talked me through the trouble shooting process... and now a day and a half later we think we have it figured out. I wonder if my mom knows that she married a trailer repairman in disguise? At least now we have electricity and are done camping. Tomorrow I start a week of classes before we venture to Mississippi. Can't wait to get up and go!

p.s. Shayna got the news towards the end of the trip that her sister's house caught on fire. We were so sad to be far away and unable to help. We are so sorry for the loss, but thankful that everyone was safe. Summer, Sunde, and their families have such good attitudes and just keep going. Thanks to God that they are all safe.

 

White Coat Ceremony

Well, we made it... made it to the last few weeks of the year of physical atrophy. I guess now, with the help from my handy white coat, I get to appear to know something about medicine... Thankfully I have another 15 months to get way more knowledge and experience. Shayna and Trace should have gotten white coats also... but they would probably get them messy paying in the dirt at home so we'll hold off on those. We will be moving down to Tupelo, Mississippi in January for our last year of this madness. It's been an adventure... and we don't expect any less from the dirty sip.

Thanksgiving week

This year we were lucky enough to have 2 Thanksgivings. While shopping for our little Thanksgiving dinner at the great and abominable grocery store, a friend called and invited us to join his family. We were already emotionally committed to have our own little Thanksgiving so we left walmart with lots of groceries, but no turkey. I don't think that we could have fit any kind of full grown turkey in our camper oven anyways. We had a fun time cooking and eating our pre-Thanksgiving meal, and enjoyed spending Thanksgiving day with lots of good people and crazy kids. We got to spend the day outside because it was so warm, and got to skeet shoot right before it got dark. The food was great! We only had to pay the small price of me being dressed up by the kids. I consider this my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner.

We've become quite flexible since September. Although there is no way to really express the battles of practical flexibility we face daily, here are a few examples:
- We use an old wash tub as a fire pit and when we run out of marshmallows we roast mushrooms (this was my idea... Shayna and Trace didn't quite appreciate it)
- Previous to our discovery, that our hot water tank can use both electric and gas heating at the same time, the hot water would run continuously for 4 minutes. Since the discovery a shower can now last for 8 minutes with continuous hot water... we're so cheap though we just use the electric heater and turn the water off when soaping up.
-Trace takes baths in our kitchen sink... he loves it. Maybe we'll start encorporating washing the dishes with his bath time... gross.
-Our furnace is in the process of being fixed (it needed a little work so we have been using electric space heaters this whole winter so far), and the past few nights have dipped down into the mid 20's. We are able to keep the trailer about 40 degrees warmer than the outside, with the heaters, so this morning it felt a little bit like we were camping... good thing we like to cuddle... and good thing Trace's basal metabolic temperature is that of an obese bear cub.
- Arranging food in our fridge after grocery shopping is like doing a 3D puzzle. Most of the time we can get everything to fit, but there is never any spare room.

aRiZoNa

 Tracer and I had such a blast in AZ! 

We missed Chris like crazy.. but the time flew!

We got to spend 2 weeks instead of 1, and its a good thing cause so much went on! 

Lacey & Ty's WEDDING

( What a beautiful wedding on the Farm! I was lucky to be the one to take their pictures! They are the Dream Couple!)

Grandma Jessi's 86th Birthday

( We took our sweet Grandma to breakfast and to get her hair done! She loved every minute.)

 HALLOWEEN

( I had so much fun helping Sunde's Fam get all dressed up as the Kung Fu Pandas! Tracer was a tiger thanks to Summer:)

Kacey & Belle had Baby Kessia

( What an awesome thing to see Belle have her baby with a midwife in Summers house! It definitely brought me back to a lot of amazing and terrible memories ha ha! It was priceless to sit and wait on the stairs right by the room with my family. The little girls would run and put their ear to the door listening intently for that lil' cry.  Belle was a champ and the baby was a lil' 5 lb. doll! What a blessing to be there!)

Other highlights;

Being on the Farm at my favorite time of year,

 Eating Mom's Pumpkin Pie all week,

Watching Asher& Elena's Soccer Games,

Randomly seeing Amy Johnson on her way home from Havasupai,

Dad and Kolt both got their Deer,

Hearing the Song Summer Wrote for the Primary kids to sing in the Church Program, &

Took lots of pictures..Lisa & David, AZ Dream Gymnastics, Baby Kessia, & The Andrew Fam.

 It took being a way from Da Da for 2 weeks, but finally... Trace learned to say MA MA!!!