More Holiday Photos

Here are all our holiday photos in a slideshow.  I am also putting highlights below the slideshow:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Here are a few of my faves from Disney with my brother, Jeremy, who looks disturbingly like my husband (Jer is 6’3, Travis is 6’0, and Jeremy is much bigger than Travis in general; but they look alike in the face).  Finley looked at these pictures earlier and yelled “it’s me and daddy!”

Jack isn’t in the picture below because he was terrified of Buzz, but Shane was all about Mr. Lightyear.

This is what the end of a day at Disney with CRAZY crowds (see below) and 3 toddlers looks like:

The crowds we braved:

We had a seriously awesome time and the kids are still talking about “THE Castle” at the Magic Kingdom.  Travis and I had planned to run the Disney Marathon, which was last weekend, but we failed to anticipate the craziness of interview season, so we were unable to run it this year.  I think we’ll run one in the spring around here instead.  We were SO lucky Jer took us to Disney.  For 1, it’s outrageously expensive, so it’s pretty sweet to have a “balla” brother who adores his niece and nephews enough to want to take them all for their first magical experience!  And 2, we realized while there that we couldn’t have ridden any rides without Jer.  Our kids all needed to be with an adult on each ride, so being outnumbered would have presented a challenge!!  For 3, the first day we got to Orlando, Disney was “at capacity,” so we had to find a place to stay for the night so we could go the next day…Jeremy has a “friend” (who the rest of us LOVE and think should be the future mother of his kids;) who hooked us up with an employee rate at the Hyatt, even though every nice hotel in Orlando was full!  It was sweet.  Plus, we got to see her, and she’s just the coolest, most beautiful girl ever…and, as it turns out, she’s fantastic with kids too.  And 4, Jeremy is just a blast to be around, so he made the trip all the more fun.  Thanks Jeremy!  I have the best “little” brothers in the world, and my kids love being with them just as much as Travis and I do.

We headed back up to my family’s beach house in St. Augustine after we left Disney, and I again made that (and Jacksonville airport) my jumping off point for more Derm interviews.  But before that, Gramma and Aunt Heather came up to join us for a few days, which spanned the New Year.  It was SO nice to get concentrated time with just us and them, and the kids really enjoyed it too.  They are so devoted to the kids, and both Lynn and Heather have established really strong bonds with all 3 of our monsters.  I don’t think there is a more patient person in the world than my mother-in-law, and Travis realizes that too now that Finley has shown us what a challenging child Travis probably was;)  Not to blame it all on him because apparently I was a few hands-full as well…so she’s like doubly devilish, but we love her that way!  Thank God Jack is such a parent-pleaser and Shane is so easy-going!  Travis recently told me though how much he is able to appreciate everything his mom did for him (her patience and her unconditional love) now that he is a parent and sees how difficult that job is.  I feel the same way and am incredibly grateful we both grew up with such loving parents.  Travis’ little sister, Heather, is also a wonderful person in our kids’ lives.  She is a ball of energy, like our kids, and is such a natural with them.  There are lots of people who don’t have that natural gift, who aren’t instinctively maternal, or just aren’t very warm with little ones, but Heather is extra gifted like that and we are so lucky to have her in our kids lives.

Check out the full moon view from our porch on New Year’s Eve! 

Our little New Year’s Eve party animals:

After New Year’s weekend, Grandjoe came up for a visit.  I didn’t get to spend time with him, since I was back on the interview trail, but he and Travis did a really beautiful hike with the kids and I’m really glad they got to do that with him:

Travis drove back to my parents’ farm with the kids, and I eventually caught a return flight to South Florida to meet him there.  Here’s another hike he did with the kids in my absence on his drive from the beach house to the farm…it was in Ormond Beach and the kids loved playing on the old Florida oaks and seeing the wildlife.

Here is Finley’s favorite horse at my parents’ house.  Her name is Baby Girl, and Finley talks about her incessantly.  She is obsessed with potty stuff right now, so she talks about Baby Girl pooping about a hundred times a day.  My parents also have a horse named Poncho that has a serious gas problem.  The horse coughs, and then passes gas so audibly you can hear it for miles away (literally).  The kids thought that was hilarious.  Finley now imitates Poncho’s sound effects (cough then a fart sound with her mouth), and then cracks up with laughter at herself.  Travis is clearly winning the battle of potty humor versus polite little children.  I don’t think the horses helped my cause.

Hope you all are well.  Feel very out of touch with half the world, and my traveling is far from done.  I leave again this week for an interview, then 3 interviews the following week (although 1 of those is local, thankfully).  I’m in the homestretch though, so to speak, since all my traveling will be done the last day of January!  We’re enjoying these days together now that we’re home in Colorado though.  We went for a beautiful trail run yesterday, and let the kids out of the running strollers to hike afterwards.  Can’t beat 50-60’s and sunny in the dead of winter! 

I’ll try to explain the Match process, as promised, in my next post, but to answer the question a few of you asked, yes, it is possible we’ll have to move twice (once for my intern year, and again for my derm residency).  That is not what we’re hoping happens, but it is a possibility.  And it’s not the worst case scenario either (worst case is that I don’t match – which would be a huge setback and suck very badly!).  Nuts, huh?!  I just keep telling myself that the craziness would be a temporary thing en route to a lifetime profession, and Derm is my dream.  Thankfully, Travis is onboard with that too!