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That’s what Finley calls our new state of residence.  And Shane calls the city “Milla-waukee.”  We’re here, we made it!  The car trip was ROUGH, to minimize it.  If I were giving awards, it’d go something like this:

WORST Road Tripper EVER – screamed the last 3 hours of the drive, refused to nap, had to pee every few hours, tried to wake everyone else when they’d fall asleep…hands down a clean victory for Finley in this category!

Most Geography Questions Asked in 1 Sitting – Jack loved crossing state lines, seeing Iowa’s windmills, and thinking about our borders each time we’d enter a new state:

Biggest Cough Potato – we’d get to rest stops after HOURS of driving and movie time and Shane would say “no thanks” when asked if he wanted to get out and run around for a few minutes. He was in hog heaven strapped in his seat, eating junk food, and watching movies for 16 straight hours:

Cleanest Colon – 3 blowouts in 16hrs of driving.  Amazing.  The kid normally has a dirty diaper every other day, but he really stepped it up for me on this trip.  Up the back, around the sides, on the new car seat…

But we finally made it to Milawaukee.  Thank gosh.  The house is freaking AMAZING.  As in, we have NO business living here, amazing.  It’s HUGE, the yard is incredible, there’s wildlife in our backyard, we have a hot tub, our deck alone is bigger than the entire outside space we used to have.  The house has a bidet, for God sakes.  The kids are OBSESSED with it.  I’ll have to devote a separate post to my thoughts on the unsanitary nature of the bidet.  Anyway, here are a few sneak peeks from my iphone since my Yiayia is awaiting some photos:) 

More pics to come Yiayia, I promise!

—–edited post-hot tub—which I still can’t believe we have, btw.  As Travis put it, it feels like we’re on a honeymoon with our 4 kids.  So much to explore, and to get to come home each day (now that overnight call is a thing of the past!) to this house with a deck for BBQ’ing while the kids run and play in the yard, and then finish off the night in the hot tub, is just incredible.

This pic was from tonight with Nick and Hillary, Shane’s Godparents and 2 of our closest friends.  They’re in Chicago, just 1.5hrs away!

I am SO behind on posts it’s ridiculous. Just wanted to get this one up since I family members are wondering if we survived the drive.  We’re already missing Colorado and our friends there, especially Chris & Emilie (Fin has not stopped asking if you guys are coming to Milwaukee since you left our house in Denver after that sad goodbye!) and Kaakpema and Sara, but we’re really excited about being here and starting another chapter. 

I have a bunch more pictures from Travis’ graduation weekend that I wanted to post before they get lost!  These pictures of Griffie just crack me up.  I swear, he is the funniest, cutest, sweetest little boy and the bags under his eyes just crack me up.  This boy needs a cucumber mask and some sleep!  So does his mommy;)  I love these pictures, especially the ones of the kids with their Gramma, Granjoe, and Aunt Heather.

Here’s Aunt Heather playing with Griff-Star:

Our close friends, Kaakpema and Sara, hosted a really nice BBQ for Travis during graduation weekend.  This is their sweet fire pit:

I can’t believe I didn’t take a single picture to document it, but our really close friends, Sara and Kaakpema, threw us a beautiful baby shower last weekend at their gorgeous home.  We are SO lucky to have such awesome friends.  The icing on the cake was that my mom, Christy (my older sister), and Angela (my little sister) flew in for it.  I’d worked until 12am the night before, so they’d gone to bed in our basement before I’d gotten home.  I came downstairs the next morning to see them in the kitchen making breakfast for the kids and was TOTALLY confused and floored!  I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  It was the coolest surprise ever.

It’s funny, but the shower somehow helped make the whole “we’re really pregnant” thing a little more real to us.  I keep thinking it’s going to hit us and we’re going to feel “ready,” but it’s still so surreal.  Travis still has this look of shock and horror when he sees my profile and remembers I’m about to delivery a baby.  I finished my final ER shift last night, so I’m sort of “off” for awhile – I’m on back-to-back derm elective months with my mentor.  Since I have some book chapters that are written but not yet edited, I can use the time to finish those and get elective credit that way.  I don’t have to be back in the hospital until Jan 23.  I don’t want to think about that yet though.  I just cannot process the fact that we’re going to have a newborn in 5.5 days or less!  That is just wild.  The kids are so cute and sweet with my belly – they rub it, kiss it, and talk about the baby all the time.  I’d give the excitement and newness of having a new baby brother/sister about 2 days for them once Quatro is actually here;)  I’m also kind of shocked that I went full-term.  EVERYONE predicted I’d deliver early because of the stress, lack of sleep, and craziness of being a pregnant intern.  But nope, my body once again proves it likes to hoard babies and NOT let them out…hence the scheduled section.  I am HUGE (close to my pregnancy weight with Finley) and really would have been thrilled to be unpregnant about 2 weeks ago, but I’m also very grateful my Little Bun got a full cooking. 

Anyway, we had an awesome little getaway to Keystone a few days ago with Kaakpema, Sara, and our friend Shane (affectionately known as “Big Shane” to my kids).  Big Shane, Kaakp, and Travis are business partners and have some very exciting work in Africa as well as Colorado in the field of health IT.  It’s so neat to finally see Travis engaged in work he feels passionate about, and it’s clear this is the field in which he was meant to work.  He initially thought he went to medical school to be a clinician, but he’s realized his strengths and potential are far greater in health IT.  His MD/MBA was the necessary educational path to open the doors he is now walking through, and Kaakpema and Shane are the perfect partners to balance him out.   On a somewhat related note, my kids are obsessed with Big Shane – they adore him.  Here is Big Shane with Little Shane (as my baby calls himself when in Big Shane’s presence):

We had a great time with everybody in Keystone!  Like last year, I used this opportunity to snap some cute holiday pics of my babies (sans Quatro).  Here are my favorites so far…please excuse the water mark on some of these; my lens needs cleaning and I don’t have time to edit the spots out.

Fin got some baby practice while we were in Keystone.  You may remember our friends, Kaakpema and Sara, had a baby ~4 months ago.  His name is Desmond, and he is ridiculously PRECIOUS!  Fin was tickled pink to hold him and it gave us a glimpse into the overbearing “helpfulness” that will accompany her transition to being the big sister of a poor unfortunate soul;)  Seriously though, she was so attentive to Baby Desmond and gentle with him – it was super cute. 

Please ignore my man hands in the following pics.  But they do match my hobbit feet, in case you were wondering.

The next 2 pictures cracks me up…they demonstrate Finley taking her duty as drool wiper VERY seriously.

The last picture is of Jack trying his hand at big brother to a teeny tiny baby again (it lasted all of 45 seconds, when he became bored and gently nudged the baby off his lap and back onto mine:)  Shane, on the other hand, is rather indifferent to babies as it turns out!  When asked if he wanted to hold the baby, he just responded “um, no thanks.”  Uh oh.

First of all, we launched our fall line of SkinnyKidz belts, meaning the remainder of last season’s styles are on clearance!  REALLY cheap.  Like, no profit but hoping they’ll sell so more people gain exposure to the product, cheap.  Jena has done an amazing job keeping things moving and picking the cutest new styles.  She’s also coordinated the next 2 charities, which are AWESOME organizations.  Check out the new styles and the sale belts if you get a chance. 

A little explanation of the video below, which probably doesn’t look like much to you but makes me roll around in laughter…we were at a mall playground the other day and there was a bully.  He would stand on the highest point of a play structure, bate littler kids in, then push ‘em off or just get nasty with words and demands as they approached.  The ultimate Napolean.  I’ve said this before, but my 3 kids are usually like a little gang.  They travel in a pack, they have each other’s backs, and they’re often in their own world even when there are tons of other kids to play with.  They choose each other and they stick together.  It’s so freakin cute how unified they are – best of friends and they have such cute little relationships with one another. 

Anyway, Fin and Shane decided to take on the Playground Bully the other day.  My kids don’t know what a gun is; we aren’t gun people or gun supporters.  You’re shocked, I know.  Seriously.  But I say that because they invented this way to annoy the living shit out of the Playground Bully that totally looks like they’re pretending to shoot him, even though they don’t know what that means.  They would point both fingers at him and say “be-ow, be-ow, be-ow” close enough to be insanely irritating, while never actually making contact with him.  Travis and I were watching and just laughing our assess off while this went on for about 5 minutes (until the kid’s head nearly popped off and he almost just gave up the spot at the top of the structure).  Finally, the kid got so frustrated he started to tattle to his mom.  That’s the part I sort of caught on film – watch Shane start looking all nonchalant when he thinks he’s getting busted.  It’s hilarious.

Today I felt almost like a normal person.  I got home early, after a “short” work day, only 10.5hrs (as short as they can possibly be – happens when the starts align and no one tries to die on me).  We went to City Park and took the kids on a pedal boat.  It was EXHAUSTING, but really fun and great exercise.  Then we visited our friends, Kaakpema and Sara, and met the cutest little peanut – their baby boy Desmond.  He’s in the NICU, but doing really well and we all hope he’ll be home very soon.  Fin stares at his picture constantly and Jack talks about meeting his “little buddy” often.  Congrats to Sara and Kaakp on their adorable addition!  

First of all, please go enter the SkinnyKidz giveaway hosted by Mrs Broccoli Guy.  We introduced a “big kid” sized belt (6-10), as many of you requested, and her kids were the perfect little demo models!  She wrote an amazing review for us too.  Thanks Christina!  Also, our new charity partner this month is a UK-based organization, Just a Drop, which works to bring clean water to Haiti.  It’s staggering to consider that diarrhea is still a leading cause of death worldwide…mostly due to lack of clean water.  That is so sad, and so preventable.  Please consider donating to this organization, and/or doing so through the purchase of this adorable belt (I think the print Jena chose for the Just a Drop belt is my favorite yet):

If I sounded overwhelmed in my last post, well, that was nothing.  Since then, the virus hit all of us except my little boys, thank God for them being spared at least.  It hit Yiayia on Tuesday night, so I was up most of the night with her / worrying about her.  She took a bad fall during one of her bouts that scared the living crap out of me.  Travis was able to stay home the next day to make sure she was ok, which thank God she was.  The next day, the same bug hit me just minutes after I signed my patients out and was trying to leave the hospital.  I was heading for the door…had to turn around and run for a bathroom, which I proceeded to barf ALL OVER.  I felt SO freakin bad for the poor janitor who was unfortunate enough to be pushing the mop bucket down the hall when I came out.  I apologized profusely and RAN to the car to race home before the next bout hit me.  I made it, thankfully, but was up all night again and totally dehydrated by 4:45am the next morning (when my alarm went off).  It sucked.  I wasn’t about to call in sick, as 1) that’s frowned upon as a resident or doctor, and 2) it would’ve taken a day away from my maternity leave. 

I made it through the day at work, although I felt like hell, but had to suffer through a 30 hour call shift the very next night.  It was rough; I was in my call room LITERALLY for 40 minutes, and I got paged about 4 times while I was in there, so I didn’t sleep a wink.  I’m still dragging ass.  I napped for 2hrs while the kids did when I got home Saturday afternoon, but that was it.  I worked later than I should have yesterday because all my patients were totally unstable and I could not get out of the hospital with them all like that.

Today is my “day off.”  It’s also Travis’ and my 7th wedding anniversary.  We laid low and got to see our friends Kaakpema and Sara briefly this afternoon when the kids swam in Sara’s parent’s pool.  The other day when Yiayia fell, she landed pretty hard on her chest, so although today was my 1 day off, I was in the hospital anyway.  I’ve been so worried about her and her pain has gotten pretty bad, so I took her to get some xrays, which thankfully were all (-).  She’s an ass-kicker and that makes her a pain in the ass patient – too tough for pain meds, too busy-bodied to rest herself, etc.  So thank God nothing is broken.  Yiayia is going back home on Wednesday, which is going to be especially hard for Fin and Shane who get so much snuggle time from her.  Finley has been an emotional WRECK, to put it lightly, so not having Yiayia here anymore to give her extra love and comfort is probably going to send her for another loop.  When I say “wreck,” I really can’t put it into words.  The poor child is so smart and so articulate, so she’ll tell me that she’s angry and sad that I work and leave her all day, but expressing her emotions verbally doesn’t stop her from expressing them physically in addition.  She’s been melting CONSTANTLY.  I almost peed last night from laughing so hard when I heard Yiayia thinking out loud through her geneology and saying “now, let me think, who in our family was a little on the kookie side?” 

It doesn’t make things easier that I happen to be on the grim reaper service right now - 1 of my patients died last night, 2 went to the ICU, and a bunch of others to hospice (plus another for whom we’re providing futile medical care because his family hasn’t come to terms with the terminal nature of his state…so he’s just suffering).  Depressing.  Also on a depressing note, when I came home from work yesterday, Jackie asked “hey mom, how was the hops-ital?” (he can’t get that word right – so cute).  I said “it was good, but there are lots of sick people there I have to take care of.”  And his response?  “My belly hurts, maybe I could come to your hopsital and you could take care of me!”  It’s so sad that my kids realize I no longer take care of them, just the sickies in the hops-ital.  I can’t wait until this year is over. 

Sorry for being a downer.  And this coming weekend is my “black weekend,” so termed because I have the overnight call on Saturday, meaning no shorter days or off days.  All this for less than the wage a garbage man makes.  Since I’ve held barf bags for my patients, held up the pannus of my 415lb patient so I could examine the skin fold (and was almost knocked over by the smell of bacteria & yeast living under there), and done some other pretty gruesome things lately, I think I have earned *at least* a garbage man’s salary.  <sigh> 

On a HUGELY positive note, big big things happened for Travis’ career last week.  He was offered COO of a really exciting health IT start-up.  Buh-bye residency.  Thank God too because I really don’t think I could live through him going through residency too.  He’s really excited about the speed with which his career is taking off, and as usual, Travis finds himself in the right place at the right time.  Part of his agreement with this company is that he finish his medical degree, so he’ll be COO / MD/MBA student all at once.  Part of his agreement is also that he will work remotely, with sporadic travel to Boston when necessary for meetings and workshops.  If you remember, my favorite derm program was actually Brown (45min from Boston), but Travis vetoed me ranking it highly since he had this “thing” about East Coast medicine.  I seriously almost strangled him the other day when he said “too bad you didn’t match at Brown, that would’ve made things easy!”  My heart went into asystole for a brief moment. 

That’s our story.  It’s a crazy one and feels like it’s getting crazier every day.  My belly popped this week; I’m now 18+ weeks.  By “popped,” I mean you can now tell I’m pregnant.  It’s still sort of truck-driverish, but it’s definitely round and now noticeably spilling out of my pants and shirts.  Since we’re still in financial trouble, I’m making do with the belly band for as long as possible, but it really is almost time I move to maternity clothes.  If anyone has any cute maternity clothes you’d like to sell, hit me.  I don’t have time, desire, or money to shop for new maternity clothes but I do need work attire that’ll fit over this belly. 

Calling all parents with young plumbers, you have another chance to win a crack-a-lacking solution (we watched Madagascar tonight;).  Go check out Jena’s blog, Cute Covered, to enter the giveaway!

I’m totally and completely spent tonight.  I’m flying solo while Travis and Kaakpema are on a business trip.  I’ve been trying to keep the kids (and myself) VERY busy with big morning outings and lots of afternoon cooking projects.  So far so good, but life would have been a lot easier if it hadn’t snowed here last night and today!!  WTF?!  Dude, I am ALL. FOR. global warming, and might just not recycle this week in protest of this weather.  Just kidding, Jack would NEVER let me get away with throwing out plastic or paper.

I’m very behind on posts and pictures, so I’m just going to try to catch up in this post.  Nick & Hillary (Shane’s godparents) were here visiting last week, and it was awesome to spend time with them.  One of the reasons Milwaukee was so high on our rank list was because it’s only 1-1.5hrs from them (they’re in Chicago), and that’s essentially having family nearby for us.  They’re sort of the ultimate friends when it comes to our kids, too, since they don’t have any (yet;) but love ours.  So yeah, we love having them in town!!

We have known Nick & Hill for a long time; Nick and I were housemates in college and really close friends then, plus he knew Travis really well too (since we were practically doing a long-distance marriage at that point).  Nick and Hillary started dating shortly after graduation.  Then Nick moved down the street from me and Travis in DC and used to come over for dinner & drinks almost every night,and would often meet up with us for morning runs.  Nick and Travis would go mountain biking on the weekends while I was studying (I was in med school then).  At that time, Nick was rooming with another really good friend of ours who Travis and I grew up with (Sharyn – she was Travis’ next door neighbor until they left for college, but they both went to UF together too).  I think Nick & Hill met Sharyn at our wedding.  So anyway, we all used to hangout a lot and Hillary would visit frequently on breaks from her masters program.  We had lots and lots of fun together.  Ahh, those were the days.   Where was I??  Oh yeah, catching up on pictures.  Here are a few from their visit:

Last weekend we got to hangout with some really good friends of ours who live ~1:15 South of us.  A lot of you know Emilie, Chris, Juneau, and Nova, and I’ve blogged about hanging out with them a bunch.  They’re a really incredible family that we absolutely love to spend time with because we have tons of fun and it’s just such a natural friendship due to our personalities, interests, and similar family dynamics.  This weekend we got to celebrate Nova’s 2nd birthday, which was precious.  Emilie’s mom was in town, and it was AMAZING to have an extra set of hands; she totally played grandma to all of our kids that day / night!  Em, Chris, Trav, and I got to watch some UFC fights while the kids watched Wall-E and snuggled on the couch with each other and their popcorn in the basement while Em’s mom took care of them.  Sweeeeeet!

Jack had a great time at the Stickley’s house as his alter ego, Princess Jackie.  He can’t resist when he comes across good dress up gear.  I love this kid; he’s so much fun.

We’ve all always thought Finley and Nova have a slight resemblance.  They have VERY similar hair, eye color, dimples, and skin tone.  I’ve never seen Nova spit fire or bite anyone though.  She’s 100% sweet, while our little one is more like the characters in those sour patch kid commercials;)  Oh how Finley loves her “No-fa, Juneau, Em-uh-wee, and Cwis.”

I know I slid off the planet for a few weeks there, but I’m still alive and kicking…just super super busy to an almost overwhelming degree lately.  I won’t get into everything that’s going on in our life right now, but I’ll just say there’s A LOT.  Plus, it didn’t help that my computer got a nasty virus, which required us to completely scrap the whole thing; I was without a computer for awhile, right before my big derm textbook deadline.  Not cool.  We had an old laptop, which is the computer Travis uses, but it’s missing the letter T.  I never knew how often I used that damn letter until I tried to type on that keyboard! 

My parents and little sibs were out here last weekend, so we went out to Steamboat and Travis and the kids skiied with them.  I had bronchitis, which is REALLY unusual for me and totally sucked, but thankfully the kids didn’t get sick and I’m feeling fine now.  I think that was my body’s way of revolting against me burning the candle at both ends, as my mom would say I do.  The kids had a blast skiing in Steamboat, and it was great to be with my parents; they make everything all better!

I FINALLY finished my last derm textbook chapter, and submitted it under the wire Friday (6 hours early actually, but who’s counting!).  Also, the acropustulosis study that so many of you helped / participated in, "Infantile Acropustulosis in Internationally Adopted Children," was just sent back to me for revisions.  I have some work to do but it looks like it’s going to get accepted in THE big derm journal!  There’s about a 70% rejection rate of submissions to that journal, so I’m psyched.  Thanks to my incredible and very well-known derm research mentor, this is my 4th publication in that journal.  This study is my pride and joy since Jackie STILL suffers from acropusulosis and so do lots of other kids who spent early life in a scabies-infested orphanage.  Having it published in that journal should bring a lot of deserved attention to a skin disease that’s often misdiagnosed since few doctors know anything about it.

I’ve also been very consumed with the small company I’m trying to launch.  Jena and I have been working our tails off to get the product ready to bring to market, and we submitted a business plan in a small business competition here in CO too.  We don’t expect it to be a finalist, but it was a good exercise and made us write something we needed to have as a new business anyway.  We will announce it first here when we launch, but we’re shooting for my birthday, May 1st!

I’m also gearing up to start intern year.  I’ll explain more later, but it’s looking like it’ll be an even harder year than I thought it would be.  I’m going into the hospital for 2 weeks at the end of May to get my feet wet and refresh some VERY rusty internal medicine knowledge.  I’ll then have another 2 weeks off before my orientation on June 14 (my clinical responsibilities begin on the 23rd).  Just gotta survive this year of general medicine, and do my best to have my patients survive my year of general medicine too!!  Tell all those you love to stay far far away from the hospital, but especially during the summer months when it’s full of incompetent interns and newly promoted seniors. 

We are swamped with a lot of other things too right now, like the childcare scramble.  We are now less than 2 months away from my start date, so it’s time to solve this issue.  Stressful, to say the least, and I know the transition is probably going to be one of the biggest hurdles (or the biggest) we’ll have as a family.  My parents always tell us they wish we were close to family so we’d have help, but that’s just not our reality and my parents still have their own young kids who need all their care and attention.  So, I continue to be envious of the friends around me who have awesome arrangements worked out with family members willing to help take care of their kids.  We’ve never liked the idea of anyone else (outside family) being involved in raising our kids, so this is going to be a big challenge for us.  As my mom always reminds me, everything in life is a trade-off; I just hope we can look back on things in 10 years with no regrets.  

Travis has been swamped with business school, research, and the 3 jobs he juggles.  He and Kaakpema are doing some really exciting stuff with their new business, and Travis always has his hand in a million different things.  He bores easily or something;)  I’m excited for the 2 of them and all the doors that have opened for them; the opportunities are pretty huge.  Travis is really excited about the potential, and he and Kaakp are having fun working together.

{We are learning that our Frenchie is a disposal, and the kids have discovered he’ll devour dandelions as mindlessly as a goldfish will food flakes.}

Hope you all are doing well.  I’m sorry for being so out of touch and a terrible friend lately.  I’ll explain more when life settles down (I realize that maybe a tad unrealistic, but my optimism never ceases), and I’ll do a kid update then too. 

I know it’s getting annoying, and I promise to start blogging about something of substance soon, like maybe healthcare.  But for now, I’m just so in love with my puppy, he’s all I can really talk about.  Well, him and my kids of course;)  The only downside to Henny is that I’m so in love with him that our relationship *might* be interfering with my marriage.  Travis put his foot down when he found me carrying Hen around in the Hotsling I’d worn all our kids in as babies.  He drew a line.  All I have to say is, “don’t push me Travis.”  If I have to choose, this *could* get ugly!  Just kidding, and I have no idea what’s up with my usage of *.  Check out the seriousness of this kiss:

I’m so proud of my little Hen-dog; his floppy ear is starting to stand up on its own!  It spent a few minutes upright yesterday, and longer today.  Slowly but surely…the little ear that could.  He’s growing up so fast, and pretty soon he’s going to be a REAL Frenchie!  How hysterical is this breed of dog?!  I am obsessed.  You know the saying, “once you go French…you never go English?” er, something like that.  That’s not fair at all, as few dogs are as cool as an English bulldog.  I’m just loving that my Frenchie is going to be a quarter the size, but still 100% the personality.

As much as Travis hates that I worship the dog, I catch him doting too.  Travis could talk this puppy into a coma.  It’s crazy how Henny can relax to the sound of our voices or our touch.  Henny is not dead, but actually asleep in both the following photos:

This is Henny after he got colored on.  He’s such a good sport, but I wonder if he’ll be quite as inclined to play with kids while they’re drawing with chalk in the future?

Doesn’t he just look like the picture of speed?  Hahaha!  This is the most inefficiently designed dog in the world.  And I LOVE him for it.

Possibly my all-time favorite picture of Hendrick:

Please don’t be inspired by the photo below to call PETA.  I promise Henny’s airway was intact and he breathed through the chokehold.

I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’s been awhile since we’ve had any illness around here (knock knock).  We don’t get sick often (knock knock), and I think it’s been since fall maybe since anyone has had a fever, and no one has had a fever for more than a day since long before that.  We are very lucky in that department, and God knows we have frequent & significant germ exposures…you should see our house!  But anyway, Shanie had a fever 2 days ago and it sucked.  Thankfully, it only lasted a day for him, a night for Jack, and not at all for Fin (knock knock).  But it caused Shane to nap for 5 hours yesterday!!  He was completely back to himself today, but he & Jack have both complained of mouth sores, and Jack has had tummy aches, which he blames exclusively on Fin’s birthday cake.  Here’s what that nasty virus did to Shane:

Diva alert:

I love how Hendrick “pinks up” even more with exercise; you get him runnin’ and he REALLY looks like a little piglet!  At the rate his ears are growing, “the day pigs can fly” might be just around the corner;)

Jack has been going through a tough phase lately.  I’ll explain more in a future post, but I’m hoping he pulls out of it soon.  I miss my happy boy.  He has also NOT been into posing for the camera lately.  This is pretty much as close to a smile as I’ve captured from him in awhile:

Look how happy Henny makes my littlest boy:

Oh to be kids:

Oops:

And then there were 2:

Travis and I have been swamped with work lately.  All my pigmented skin textbook chapters are due this week, and I’m nowhere near completing them.  Also, remember that invention of mine from a couple years ago that I’ve talked about a few times but still have never shown you?  Well, it’s coming along and we’re hoping to launch it very soon, so that’s been consuming chunks of my time as well…but in a fun way.  I totally believe in the product, feel strongly about how we’re establishing our company with its roots in charitable contributions, and am totally psyched to actually start marketing and selling it soon.  I can’t wait to share more and hope to have my blogosphere friends, as well as real life friends & family, help us promote on a grassroots level.

Travis has been crazy busy with school, his 2 jobs, his ophtho research (which has led to several publications), and now a really neat new consulting company he & our really close friend, Kaakpema, are getting off the ground.  We’re also trying to figure out if we’ll be able to swing some time up in Wisconsin before I start my intern year so that Travis can work with the ophtho department up there, and also to get to know the city we’ll be moving to a bit before we actually make the move next year.  As if our plates weren’t totally full, we’re also trying to sort out things like childcare, schools, etc. for the kids once I start in June and Travis begins his 4th year medical school rotations.  Lots of moving parts here!

Anyway, looks like we have an exciting adventure coming up this weekend.  We’re going someplace very very cool with some really good friends who happen to have 2 little girls that our kids adore.  I’ll keep it a surprise for now, but the thought of where we’re headed makes me giddy.  A clue: it’s a very unique natural landscape and environment right here in Colorado.  We’ve been before, but not with all 3 kids.  I can take a picture of water, desert, and snowcapped mountains all in one shot.

So, remember when I said we need a dog like we need a hole in the head?  Well, meet Hendrick.  We’re calling him “Henny.”

He’s like an English bulldog, only the wussy version, since he’s French;)  He’ll be ~20lbs, no butt wiping necessary (unlike lots of English bullies), but still a HUGE, quirky personality packed into a tough, meaty little body.  Frenchies have bat ears, and Henny did too until yesterday, when his sister kicked his butt and left 1 floppy.  We know his ears had already “come in” because we have pictures of him before it flopped.  He’s fine, it’ll probably just take the cartilage some time to strengthen.  In the meantime, he looks a little drunk!  Fittingly, his name, Hendrick, comes from Travis’ favorite drink (Hendrick’s Gin and tonic, with cucumber).  Special thanks to our friends Kaakpema & Sara who introduced us to that favorite beverage!

We are SO smitten with our 8.5lb puppy.  He’s 11 weeks old, and he flew in from Oklahoma this morning.  The kids adore him, and as expected, Finley is especially obsessed with him.  She thinks his name is “Honey,” which is so cute to hear her call a dog.  Shane calls him “Henry,” which also cracks me up!  If “Honey”/”Henry”/”Henny” survives puppyhood, and can stand to be bossed around NON-stop by an almost 2 year old, this is going to be a beautiful friendship!

The cutest is Travis though; I knew I’d love Henny, but it is SO sweet how quickly Travis has taken to him…and vice versa:

I don’t know EXACTLY what inspired us, but we have been saying for a few months now that we miss having a dog so much.  Every time Finley & Shane come in contact with one (and go ape over it), we feel like we’re depriving our kids of something!  WTF is wrong with us?  We don’t know either.  But we decided to sit tight until we knew where I matched, and as soon as we did, I was all over the Frenchies.  When we were discussing breeds we’d consider if we ever got a dog again, we temporarily flirted with the idea of an active/athletic dog.  I grew up with boxers, and we both love that breed.  But then it dawned on us – we aren’t looking for a running partner, or an animal to bring on our family hikes (we have enough to manage in that setting as is).  We just wanted a sweet companion with big-personality, like an English bulldog, but that is just too much dog with 3 toddlers.  We have always been admirers of Frenchies, and the thought of a manageable sized dog (versus a 60lb English bulldog) was so appealing.  I don’t know why we like the short, fat, lazy, short-nosed variety of dog, but we just really do.  A Frenchie is like a big dog, in a little dog’s body.  Oh, and they don’t bark or yap either!

When I saw Henny’s picture, I can’t describe it, but I just knew he was our dog.  Plus, the temporary name his breeder gave him was “White Lightnin”!  Tell me he wasn’t meant for our family!  Funny part is, Jack is not really a dog person (yet), so it’s taking him some time to warm up to Henny.  Jack didn’t think Lightnin’ was an appropriate name for our dog, since that’s the name of a racecar.  I guess it seemed blasphemous to him!  A few hours into Jack’s play, he announced, “I like this dog.”  So I think he’s coming around.

Before we pulled the trigger, Travis read all about quarantine laws and things like that, since we’ve talked a lot about doing fellowships overseas after residency, etc.  It is very nice that Hendrick will probably be small enough to travel in a carry-on bag.  We know we’re nuts, but hey, lots of people match into derm and buy themselves a fancy car (even though they’ll be broke residents for awhile).  As I told Travis, I have no interest in a fancy car, but I really wanted a dog for our family!  We’re up for this challenge, and hopefully Henny will be potty trained and integrated into our family before I start residency at the end of June.

We’re doing things differently, now that we’re not in a place to have our dog rule the roost, like Winston used to.  We had a lot of guilt when we were thinking about getting a dog after having to place Winston with another couple; Winston had been so dominant all his life, and we’d allow him to totally own us.  We lived for that dog.  Then when kids came into the picture, everything just went very very sour.  I still feel awful about that, but our kids are at an age now where they can enjoy having a dog, and we are at a point where we really miss having one.  It just feels right, and so far, it seems we got the perfect dog for us!

Strangely, Henny has been SO NATURAL with us and our kids.  He’s a puppy that likes to be touching someone’s skin AT ALL TIMES, with no regard for personal space (kind of like our kids).  If you’re sitting on the floor at our house, you’re GOING to have a puppy on your lap in a matter of seconds.  Plus, this dog can play wild, then settle down almost instantly when we need him to.  I’m sure there’ll be nipping, but so far no sign of it.  Honestly, I think we found the perfect puppy for our family’s needs.

Thought I’d go with an explicit title this time, since I’m all out of creative juices (or just never had any).  Also thought I’d share the greatest iphone app EVER…for those of us with the last generation phones that don’t have video camera capabilities (until this app!).  Some genius designed an app that takes a constant stream of photos as fast as possible and then pieces those together to make a video (Travis would cringe if he read my description of technology, but that’s the best I’ve got!).  It’s surprisingly high quality, and the audio is awesome too.  It’s called Qik Video and they are NOT endorsing this post in any way!  It was a $2.99 download and worth every cent. 

These little clips were taken with our iphones using the qik video app.  We’ve been in Keystone since Friday, which has been amazing, in a condo that overlooks the big frozen lake.  We rented ice skates for us, Jack, and Shane, and a sled to pull Finley in since she has a newborn sized foot and no one expects a newborn to be able to ice skate.  The boys ice skated a little, and then all 3 kids took turns on the sled.  Ice skating was a HUGE hit today, as was the snowfort at the top of the mountain, to which we took the Gondola, yesterday.  Shane’s favorite part is that he gets to wear his “red Gossy boots,” a hand-me-down from our friend’s little girl, Kaitlin.  So cute.

Speaking of newborns, our very close friends, Brad and Melanie, had their baby girl yesterday and mom and Baby Vivianne (8lbs 15oz) are doing great!!  Congrats to them! 

On a random note, just to document Finley’s insane pain tolerance, I have a gross story.  She was barefoot and opened a closet door right into her toenail yesterday.  She uprooted the nail and ripped it off completely.  The kid did not make a PEEP, but walked over to me, held her bloody foot up in the air, and said “mommy, clean it please.”  Poor thing, but tough as nails (no pun intended!).

We had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and hope you all did too.  We went to Kaakpema and Sara’s condo (the next building over) and enjoyed a night of drinks and fondue with a bunch of good friends.  The kids were showered with attention, passed out there, and we carried them home at the end of the night.  Jack stayed up until midnight, which was crazy, but towards his last moments, he gave one hell of an oration in front of an adult crowd of ~10.  It was a “YES WE CAN” speech, and it was hysterical.  I don’t know what inspired it (other than Barack Obama), but he started saying these hilarious things, then he’d raise his fist and say “yes we can!”  By the end of his oration, he had all the adults participating in the “yes we can” part, and his closing line was “can we help each other?  YES WE CAN!”  Freakin riot.

We’re feeling really terrible that we missed just about every Tet event this year (the Vietnamese Lunar New Year), but the family time out here has been so good for us.  It’s also rare that Travis and I get to hangout late with friends, since we don’t really have a babysitter or like to leave our kids, so that’s been a blast too.  Have I said lately how much we love life in Colorado?  Nothing like a little dose of mountain air, gorgeous scenery, and family time to put life in perspective and remind us of all the blessings we’ve been given.  We’ll have to celebrate Tet when we get home, Chúc Mừng Năm Mới!!  Here is a great site explaining the days of traditional Tet celebrations, and Wikipidia actually has a great description too.