January/February 2016

Here's a quick update on things we've done in January and February. I'm just going to keep it simple and update with pictures.

January-March is supposed to be the cold months here. Cold as in around 70 degrees. We pulled out our jackets and had on pants 1 or 2 mornings. But, all in all, it's not cold here. At least not the cold we're used to. 

We've had warm rainstorms. I let the boys go splash in puddles in the yard. They like to get their sidewalk chalk wet and color with it. 

I try to teach them things at home. Here they are feeding their monster letters. It entertained them for a lot longer than I expected.

Since it's not boiling hot, we've been able to get out and play. We came across an alligator on one of our walks. It's actually the very fist alligator we've come across "in the wild". This one was about 5 feet nose to tail tip. Levi threw sticks at it until he scared it away.

I couldn't keep these boys out of puddles if I tried. I always let them get wet. It's really not a big deal. I just strip them down at the truck and put dry underwear on them for the ride home.

Here's me a few days ago at 37.5 weeks. Photo credit Levi.

I hardly post any pictures of me, so here I am. I can tell just by looking at my face I've gained weight in this pregnancy. Oh well, I'm supposed to gain weight :)

Early January. Day at the beach at the Fort Pierce Inlet State Park. There were a lot of people there including a lot of surfers. Adrian and I did not get in the water. The boys did not seem to mind that the water was a bit chilly.

My first ever selfie.

Flying our kite. It's not usually windy, and this day there was not a consistent wind so it was a bit tricky to keep the kite up. The boys loved it.

Little boys go with mud.

Adrian dug a hole in our backyard and filled it with water to make a mud hole. We let our boys be boys.

Saturday matinee to see Kung Fu Panda 3. It's the first family trip to the movie theater.

We had LeAnn, Jared, Kendi and Aydri come visit us. We had such a fun time. We hit the beach every day. The first day we went to Juno Beach. The air was a bit windy and chilly. In fact the water temperature was warmer than the air. The kids did not mind. They all got in the water and bundled up in blankets afterward. We went to the sea turtle rescue center afterwards.

We went to Peanut Island one day. It was a beautiful warm day. The island was gorgeous. We took a 10 minute water taxi to get to the island. Here's some of the kids waiting to get on the ferry.

Here's Levi and Adrian at the dock on Peanut Island. The water was turquoise, clear and shallow.

There was a shallow reef that was popular for snorkeling. At high tide water from the Caribbean brought in tropical fish. There were lots of colorful fish to see and we saw a bunch of manatees. 

It was perfect for the kids to play in since there were no waves crashing on shore.

Here's part of the lagoon on the Island. It was so beautiful.

We had such a fun time with LeAnn and Jared. We played hard everyday and had to have a day to recover from all the playing. We're so glad they came to visit!

We found a new park to play at.

These boys.... I really was not surprised that they ended up naked while jumping in the sprinkler on the trampoline. I love this photo!!

The boys found a dirt pile at the park. We got yelled at for playing on it, so now we don't go there.

These boys love to collect bugs in bowls. 

It's winter and it's finally cooled down enough to have a picnic outside. 

Malachi gets sad when he misses giving Adrian a hug goodbye.

The boys playing in the rain! I love this picture!

Thoughts on Florida

We've lived in Florida for 9 months now. I can't believe time has gone so fast. It seems like the days were slow but the months went fast. The first few months of living here were great. Adrian was off for the first month and helped us get settled and we went to the beach several times a week. We really enjoyed it here. When we left Utah it was snowing. When we arrived here it was hot, but not sweltering hot yet. I remember telling people we liked it here so much we'd consider trying to get a residency spot in the southeast. My stereotypes of Florida did not pay out. I remember I was worried about alligators everywhere, sinkholes and pythons roaming free. None of these were realistic expectations of Florida. 

Then Adrian started rotations. He was busy rotating through the different departments of the hospital and clinics around town.  Some rotations were more time consuming than others, but overall he felt he was not learning as much as he should have. The administration at the hospital was not invested in producing physicians that were prepared for real world, real life jobs. Adrian was frustrated about the fact that he "hit rock bottom" in being sent to this residency program. I think for the most part this intern year for Adrian has not been difficult for me and kids. There's only been a couple months when he wasn't home for dinner. Like I said, some months are more time consuming than others.

Once Adrian was working full time and the full blast of summer hit, it was hot. And I mean sweltering hot. We had record breaking highs for lows. It cooled down to 80 degrees at night and was too hot even at 7 am to get the boys out and go for a walk and let them run around. That went on for months. Come September I started expecting a cool down. All I wanted was a little break from the heat where I could get out and not sweat. The heat really is miserable to be in. Even my boys would get grumpy if we went for a simple 15 minute walk around the block. Well, that cool down never came. Until January that is. Each month I thought "it's got to start getting cooler now". I remember our air conditioning running all through December. It still ran a few days in January and February. In fact, it's running at this very moment. I'm told January-March is the coolest time here. We've still been mid 70s to 80s during that time. During the hottest months it was hard for me and the kids. I'm used to letting them play outside and run around and we just couldn't do that because of the heat. Now, we did go the beach and the fountains and played in the sprinklers often, but I can definitely say one summer here was enough for me. I've changed my mind on staying here. It's a great place to vacation and be a snowbird, but I personally like a change in the seasons and I don't mind the snow. I like a good hot in the summer and cold in the winter I've decided.

Other random things about Florida would be the raccoons running around. I've learned that if have garbage in my garbage can, I have to put my can in the garage. Or else I usually have a nasty mess to clean up. There are frogs and lizards just hopping/running about everywhere. Levi loves to catch them. There was one particular week when it rained nonstop for 3 days. All the frogs started croaking and it was a sound I've never heard before. Literally hundreds of frogs from the whole block would be croaking and they were loud. It was crazy to hear. Another unique thing is the flowers on the trees. There were some trees that had flowers for months. And they were different from spring blossoms. It was pretty to see. That seemed to mostly be in the summer and fall.

One thing I particularly don't like are the rude drivers. I've never encountered such mean inconsiderate drivers. Adrian thinks the same thing. There was one time a driver followed me to my destination just so she could confront me face to face and tell me off. It made me quite upset since she was the one driving badly and not me.

One surprising thing is there is hardly any Florida grown produce in the grocery stores. People tell me to hit the Farmer's Market for that, but I was quite surprised that oranges and such are from California or out of the country and not home grown.

When we first moved here we were in the Fort Pierce ward and had to dive about 25 minutes to get to church. I guess we've always been spoiled because that's the longest commute we've ever had to do to go to church. Our ward has since been split and we've been put in another ward in a different building. Our commute is now about 17 minutes. And we also went from being in the Orlando temple district to the Fort Lauderdale temple district.

Oh the bugs in Florida. We've got ants, inside and out, that are a nuisance. The inside ones are called ghost ants because they are mostly white and teeny tiny. They are sugar ants and I had the hardest time with them in my kitchen. Even if I would keep my kitchen clean they would be in my dishwasher or in my garbage can. After months of struggling with them I finally found some ant bait that has virtually eliminated them. Now, we've got these big giant ants in the house. Still haven't gotten rid of them. I squish about 5 a day. They've been in all the beds and I'm worried about one getting in with the baby. We also have ants outside. After Adrian got bit, we bought some ant bait we sprinkled around the yard and they are not much of a problem anymore. Then there's the cockroaches in the house. Yuck. There's phases where I'll encounter a bunch, and then none for a while. There's also mosquitoes here. All year long it seems. They are smaller than the ones I'm used to in Utah. We've learned anytime we go outside we have to put on bugspray. They are also a nuisance when they get in the house.

It's been fun have gopher tortoises around the yard. We had two burrows in the back yard at one time. We have not seem those tortoises in a long time, not sure if they still live there. We had one lay eggs in the front yard. Apparently we missed the hatching day even though we were waiting and watching because we never any baby tortoises.

The ocean is very beautiful and relaxing. The water in the summer was very warm. It's not even terribly cold right now. We still go to the beach and the boys still play in the water.  We have encountered some jellyfish and been pulled out of the water due to sharks. But that never deters us from coming back.

The vegetation here is unique. It's humid and jungley almost. I was excited to see some Spanish Oak trees that have hanging moss. They are pretty, but overall I'm not impressed with the natural vegetation here. I guess I'm just fond of my pine and aspen trees from back home. Though the beach is beautiful, I still prefer the mountains as being more beautiful. Like I said, it's just what's more fond to me.

I just wanted to record some of my thoughts on Florida. It has not been bad living here, it's just been an adjustment. And in fact, I'd rather stay here for a few more years than live the big city we're headed to next. 

Malachi update

Malachi will be 3 years old in less than a month. 

He talks a lot and can communicate anything he needs. 

He is able to entertain himself and plays well by himself. 

He likes to be independent. He likes to dress himself and take himself potty.

We're still working on potty training. To be honest he's basically potty trained himself. He takes himself poop 100% of the time and pee about half the time if he's in underwear. If I keep reminding him to go he'll stay dry. He still wears pull ups a lot since we're out and about a lot.

He is such a picky eater. He'll eat bread products and apple sauce all day if I let him.  I often have "stubborn wars" with him where basically if he does not want to eat what I serve, he does not eat. I don't make special meals just for him.

He loves going to nursery at church. If we're at the park and he's playing with a steering wheel he'll tell me he's driving us to nursery.

He likes to look at books and have me read to him. 

His eczema is nonexistent here in Florida. I don't put any kind of lotion or ointment on his skin and it's nice and soft just with the humidity. 

He loves to go the beach and play in the sand and shallow water. Often if we take snacks, he'll just sit in a chair and eat snacks while everyone else plays :) He likes to dig holes and sit in them and be buried.

He often copies what Levi does and says. 

He pretends his hands are "baby turtles" and are his imaginary friends. 

He sleeps in a toddler bed and sleeps well at night.  He takes 1 nap a day. Usually 1.5 - 2 hours. 

He has 5 blankies he likes to snuggle and sleep with. 

He loves to ride his balance bike and does really well balancing. 

He needs his snuggles everyday. Usually in the morning and any time he feels sad. 

He gets his feelings hurt if you talk loud or harsh to him. 

When he wakes up in the morning he comes into my room and tells me "good morning" :)

He gets sick about every 2 months or less. It's usually a cough and runny nose. 

He loves giving/getting hugs and blowing kisses. He makes sure Adrian and I both give him a hug and kiss goodnight and he gets really sad if he forgets to give Adrian a hug before Adrian goes anywhere.

His favorite song is "I want to be a missionary now".

He likes to sing songs. He'll randomly sing throughout the day and he sings with Adrian and I as we sing songs to them at night.

He likes to turn music on loud and dance around the living room. 

He knows most of his colors and shapes and likes to have "lessons" because they are games. 

He loves to wrestle with Adrian, it's his favorite thing to do.

Most times when he sees a motorcycle or backhoe he'll say that grandpa has one too and he likes to ride with grandpa. Then he'll tell me grandpa lives way far away.

His favorite treat is a donut with sprinkles. 

He loves to collect bugs in a bowl with Levi.

I can't tell if he'll be right or left handed. He uses both hands about equally for different things. 

He's such a sweet kid and we love having him in our family.

Levi lately

I need to update on how Levi is lately. He's such a fun kid. He's 4 years 9 months.

He can tell when I'm in a bad mood and he'll come up to me and give me a hug and tell me he loves me.  He also likes to pick flowers from the yard and give them to me, knowing I love it when he does. 

He wakes up around 6:45 am every morning. He sleeps well in the night and we're still working on potty training during the night. He goes through phases of having accidents. 

He absolutely loves playing wrestle with Adrian. It is the highlight of his day and he looks forward to  it all day.

For the most part he knows his letters, both upper and lower case. I've been teaching him at home. We just play games that teach him. 

He enjoys playing with other kids. This seems like a "duh", but he always initiates play with other kids at the park. I wish I had been better setting up playdates with other kids, I just don't know a lot of people here and have not made a great effort to do so.

He eats almost everything I put in front of him. If the food looks "iffy" I'll tell him to try one bite and if he doesn't like it he doesn't have to eat it. Usually after that one bite he'll say "it's delicious" and eat the whole thing. He especially loves fruit. He'll eat any kind of fruit and gobble it up. His favorite is probably strawberries. 

He is very persistent with what he wants. He'll ask and ask and ask about things until he gets his way or we get after him to stop asking. Adrian always says he'll be a great business man because he'll persist until he gets what he wants. 

He is a great story teller. He'll make up stories and go on and on with them. They are great and entertaining. Right now most of his stories have to do with someone being teased. 

He's good at helping me clean the house and do the house chores. He'd rather play, but is learning how to work too.

He's got a piggy bank and does certain chores to earn money. He knows he can take that money to the store and buy what he wants. 

He loves to look at books and have me read to him. We go the library every week for story time and pick new books. He'll sit by himself and look at the pictures and know most of the words that go along with the pictures just from me reading it a couple times. 

He also loves to watch movies, play at the park, splash in the puddles and jump on the trampoline, especially with Adrian. 

He loves to play with Malachi. They play good and also fight good :)

He is very animated and loud. We love it. If he's excited he's laughing loud. If he's sad, he's crying loud. 

He definitely prefers to be around people and the worst thing we can do to him is put him in a room by himself. 

He loves the beach and loves going in the deep water. He has a life jacket and likes to float and try to swim to Adrian and I. He has to have his goggles on to protect his eyes from the salt water. 

Every day when Adrian walks through the door from work Levi will rush up to him and tell him in giant voice "Welcome Home" and give him a hug. He also likes to make sure he gives Adrian a goodbye hug anytime Adrian goes somewhere. 

His favorite color is "Rainbow".

He pretends his hands are "baby turtles". They are his imaginary friends. Sometimes if Levi gets into trouble he'll tell me the baby turtles did it even though he told them not to. 

He does great at church and enjoys going to primary. His teachers tell me he is great and obeys and stays in his seat. They also told me he likes to untie his shoes. 

We sing him songs every night as he lays in bed and he says his favorite song is "Follow the Prophet". 

He likes to play Super Mario Brothers on the Wii. His favorite thing to do is get the mushroom houses. 

His favorite movie right now is Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2.

His favorite treat is a donut. Especially with sprinkles. 

He still has his two blankies he sleeps and snuggles with. 

He is so much fun to be around and brings so much love and joy into our lives. We feel so blessed he is in our lives :)

Everglades National Park 2016

Adrian was able to get a weekend off from work so we decided to go down to Everglades National Park. We're 3 hours away and we drove down on New Years Day. I had never been south of Jupiter so it was exciting to see the very south end of Florida. 

We stopped for lunch/dinner in Homestead. We had a cooler packed full of food for all other meals. 

We just did a quick overnight trip and camped in the campgrounds in the Park. The boys are always excited to get snacks and treats they don't normally get. We got to the Park just in time to pitch our new tent before dark. This was the first time using our new tent. When it got dark we walked around the campground with our flashlights. Adrian kept noticing some small reflections in the grass from our lights. As we checked out the reflections we noticed each one was a huge spider. They were everywhere in the grass in all the campsites. Yikes, we we're pretty grossed out. As it got dark the mosquitoes started getting really thick. So thick that they swarmed our lights and were all over us. We hurried and got ready for bed running around frantic to keep the mosquitoes off of us. We've never experienced mosquitoes so thick. 

We did not sleep much during the night. Adrian and I could not get air mattress to pump up. The boys had inflatable beds to sleep on, but they did work well for the boys. We all got little sleep that night. It was extremely humid and warm all night and we all ended up sleeping on the hard ground. I got up and went to the restroom in the night at the toilets they had at the campgrounds. I ended up with 12 mosquito bites on my bottom in the half minute I was there :(

We woke up and everything soaked in thick dew. We hurried and packed everything up because we had a canoe reservation that morning.

I really wanted to go canoeing through the mangrove trees. We were told we needed to paddle for an hour to get to the mangrove trees that were really neat to canoe through. Well, in short, we never made it to the mangroves. We paddled up a river for some time. It was very hot, in the mid 80's. The kids were complaining because of the heat and Malachi had tossed one of the oars overboard  without us noticing so we ended up going back looking for that. We had 4 oars, one for each of us. We were out in the canoe for maybe and hour and a half. 

 We saw an alligator on the side of the road and stopped for pictures.

Can you spot the alligator behind them?

We did a small hike through the thick trees. It was very pretty and cool to walk through. 

The trail took us along side of a large lake. The lake was so smooth you could see the cloud reflections. It was very calm, quiet and peaceful. Except for the mosquitoes feasting on us of course.

We ended up running out of the trees for the last bit of the hike. As pretty as it was, the mosquitoes were unbearable. After the hike, the boys were tired and we headed home. Overall it was a good trip. The vegetation we saw was no different than what we have around our house, so we were slightly disappointed about that.

Match Day - A moment I will never forget

Where do I begin?
I guess I must go a back a little and describe the events that have taken me to this date. By this point I had gone to several interviews. It has been quite the year full of emotions, hard times and overall very uncertain of the future. I never thought I would be going to match day twice but again, I never imagined I would be going to med school. Anyhow, when we were in Cedar city, Rand Colbert took my wife and I to lunch one day right before we were moving to Florida and simply said that he was so glad I had not matched into OBGYN. Rather, he felt it was an opportunity to apply to other fields. He kept saying that I should apply to dermatology and as far as he was concern I was going to be a dermatologist. For the most part I kind of went with it but I was certain it was almost impossible to match in such competitive field. Besides, I did not have the high grades the most applicants would need, no fancy research and certainly no belief that I could even be considered for an interview. I felt, however, that I did not have much to loose if I apply to the few osteopathic derm programs in the nation and see what happens. After all, there were only 9 programs in the nation and about 50 total positions nationwide. It would mean couple of hundred extra dollars for the application so I just went with it.
As my internship started I started looking at all kinds of programs and I ended up applying for close to 150 programs. I applied to Anesthesiology, Internal Medicine and Dermatology. I figured I could do anesthesia, I always thought it was boring and I really never saw myself in it but I has a good income and overall good life home balance; it felt better that a primary care field and maybe with some kind of "prestige". Then I though, "well if everything fails I can do IM and then do a fellowship'. This option seemed more likely as I felt it was easier to match into IM and well it would take me MUCH longer but perhaps I could do Cardiology or something like that I feel like  I have a good income career, no primary care and get the sense of pride I was seeking. However, matching into IM would mean that this intern year would have been a waste and then my residency would become 6-7 years.
The interview season started and I got several interviews both in Anesthesiology and Internal medicine. Both were allopathic program and even a couple of them in anesthesia were advanced positions (would start as a PGY 2 in 2017, meaning I would have a year off). I had interviews in the following: Anesthesia in Philadelphia, Buffalo NY, Massachusetts (soon to become UofM program), University of Missouri Colombia. Internal Medicine in UofW Boise, University of AZ, University of Indiana, Mercy Hospital in St Louis MO, Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, one in St Joseph MI (cancelled it), University of Akron OH (cancelled it). Then I randomly I got an interview for dermatology at St John episcopal in NY. Well I went to all the above interviews, it was exhausting, expensive and kind of depressive. I would go one day to IM and I would say I love IM, then the very next day I would go to Anesthesia and say all I dream about is being an anesthesiologist. Much uncertainty was in my mind.
When I was ready to go to the dermatology interview, I spoke to Rand and asked for advised. He told me to be humble and to make sure I express gratitude. All good advise but did not realized the importance of that till later. To be honest I don't remember much about the interview, there were the regular questions although one was "what three items would you want to have if you were stranded on an island by yourself". At the end they asked why should we pick you and I remember feeling the impression to simply being grateful and thankful. So without really answering the question I just said "I am thankful for the opportunity to be here, I am humbled by the experience". Well that was it, life went on.
On December 2015 I took my level 3 examination and I remember during my lunch break I got a call from the program director from Mercy hospital (I liked the interview and I felt good about it) and she offered me a 2nd year position. Basically she would count my first year of residency. I was shocked and somewhat puzzled. Of course, I said yes and went on to finish my test. What else could I have said?? In my mind I kind of wanted to go for anesthesia but again it was a great offer. The key here was that I had to basically pull myself from the match and simply signed a contract outside of the match. Well, this experience certainly deserves and lot of explanation but basically, she sent me the contract, I received it and I stalled it for quite of while. She called, email and basically was wondering why the delay. I came up with a reasonable excuse, I asked her to include in the contract that I would be admitted as a second year IM resident and that my current year will be honored. To my and her surprise that took a long time. She had to confirm the offer with the Academy of IM and basically to her REAL surprise she realized that she could not count my current year as it was at a Osteopathic program...bummer. By this point, I am only trying to buy time to go through the Derm match, after all what that heck all they could say is "not matched", I only had one program to rank.
Just a few days prior to the Derm match the IM director called me and basically told me what she found about the regulations and that she could not longer offer me full year credit. In fact, all she could was 3 months and therefore I could not be offered an advance position. She felt bad as she was not aware of all of this prior to her original offer so she told me that I have a guaranteed position as a 1rst year resident regardless of what rank. I had great relief, for once I could go through both matches DO and MD in all fields and basically have a parachute with this IM program if I did not match at all anywhere else. I must say that through all this time, I have people telling that I should signed the contract and just move on, etc, etc. I even considered it myself and there were moments when I was about to do it.
Well February 8th came (DO match for Derm) and I was at work doing my regular thing. I was supposed to get an email of whether I matched or not. To be honest I knew I would not match so I was not worried or even excited at all. It was about 815 am when to MY BIGGGG ASTONISHMENT, I MATCHED INTO DERMATOLOGY IN NY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! On my!!!!! There are not words to described how I felt. It was not short of a miracle.
All of the sudden all the other interviews in Anesthesia and IM did not matter, I guess it was all part of the plan, who knows. To my biggest surprise the program I matched into, took 3 residents per year, 2 of which were already given prior to interview season (used to be a FM-Derm program and they had already 2 spot promised) so there was only 1 position left and there were about 80 applicants. I had 1 in 80 chances or about .0125% chance. CRAZY. even more it was that in the whole nation, at least in the DO world, there were only 51 positions given this year and over 500 applicants.
So here it is, the story of my match. I can't describe in details the emotions I had and not sure if I can convey how amazing this was.