Dave's Take

So Griselda is experiencing Cal-euphoria and I am experiencing Mich-again?

Working in a hierarchal work environment a lot of "sabotage" goes on under the radar. Cases and start times are constantly being manipulated in the effort to garner more and better cases for yourself. Ok, it isn't really that bad, but we conspire quite frequently on ways that we could steal cases. If only I were ruthless.... There really is an underlying tension between junior and senior residents regarding case assignments. Josh Jones, the other mormon, and I are constantly pushing buttons of our chief residents. We seem to know so many little things that could trip them up from so many different people that the other residents swear that the mormons have an underground network, i.e. the Mormon Mafia. In actuality, it is partly true. We are extremely well connected....

Had a blast in Cali. Miss the family.

Here are some of my favorite things about Cali....

Sunshine. Shorts all year long. Did I say ALL year long. Beautiful Griselda. And I mean BEAUTIFUL. She just radiates. Sunshine. Sunshine. More sunshine. Outdoor activities year round. The mountains. The beach. Everything in between. Vacation. No work. Beautiful babies. Family. Friends. More family. Sushi. Mexican food actually cooked by mexicans. Chinese food, often also cooked by mexicans. Togos. Texmex.

Glad to be back working. It means that I am closer to being done. Sad to come home and leave my family behind.

Everyone is doing well. Puking J is no longer puking. Flying Lathan is finally grounded with no more plans for low altitude flights off of monster slides. What a nut. Kaelan is still serious and quiet yet can be quite a flirt and chatter box if you catch him on a good sugar high.

Hope that all is well....wherever you may be.
Dave

Cal-euphoria

A few of my favorite things here:

Family.  Sunshine.  Flowers everywhere.  Twilight strolls.  Backyard BBQs.  More family.  Spring pow-pow-gnar-gnar (ok, not quite, but powder turns at Squaw Valley ski resort on a bluebird day and it's almost May!).  Beach.  San Francisco city fun.  Awesome produce.  Yummy sushi.  Infinite number of parks.  Daddy on vacation, too.  Betsy and Max.  Crazy cement slides - for adults only (we found that out a little too late)- in the middle of SF.  Goggle tan/burn.  Learning to ride switch again.  High school friends randomly hanging out at a local park.  Catching up.  Too much to do, not enough time to do it.  Outside, outside, and more outside.  Did I say family?  No school.  No worries (aside from the baby puking for days now).  Babies' early bedtime due to PDT maladjustment.  Rising before the sun for the same reason.  Awesome restaurants.  Sourdough bread.  Boys playing freely in the backyard - by themselves.  Dessert every night.  See's Candies.  Have I said enough about food?  Being downtown and not being frightened.  No pot holes in the road.  Organic specialty stores/markets/restaurants everywhere.  Finally feeling that the kids might be getting too much sun.  Seeing the Lord's work all around with all the surrounding beauty and kindness in this world.  Another week of vacation.....  

Dave's Take

Happy Birthday JJ!
The big #1.
Its a huge day for him. He has been looking forward to this all week. The parties, presents, all the attention. He just can't seem to stop talking about it.....no wait...that's us....his parents. JJ has no clue what is going on because he is one.

So, stuck at work again....
Well, I am back to the suburbs of Detroit. I miss the inner city a little. The guns, knives, car accidents, crazy girlfriends, and firebombs. You know, after a while you just get used to all that stuff and it all starts to feel natural to you, in a very disturbing kind of way.

Jeydan, you all ready heard about.
He is in that pointing and grunting phase. So inquisitive. So smart.

Kaelan
Still learning to talk like crazy. Vocabulary sky-rocketing. Starting to butt heads a little more with Lathan and trying to smother, I mean love, JJ.

Lathan
He is getting so big. Starting to be more of a little man and less of a little boy. He is getting a great sense of humor but is starting to test his limits with everyone.

Lathan and Kaelan definitely got some of our greatest traits; however, the not so great traits that they have also picked up are really starting to cause problems. Good thing that parenting is a learning experience and that we aren't supposed to be perfect right off the bat. Ok, fine, we all know that Griselda is perfect and that I am just talking about myself.

Griselda
Doing some colon cleansing thing. Crazy. I'll let her speak for herself.

Dave (Me)
Working. Working some more. Sleeping a little. Trying to be a Dad.

Funny moment this week.
So, I don't know what it is about peeing with your brother at the same time but it seems to be a right of passage among all young males. So, Lathan and Kaelan try to pee together at bath time all the time. The part that kills me is that the only thing that pops into my head is a line from Ghostbusters, the movie, ...."don't cross the streams!"

Looking forward to California. Especially after it started snowing again this morning. Enough is Enough.

Dave

On the Upswing

We have been feeling so much better. We had a rough run of something nasty at the beginning of the week, but miraculously, neither Kaelan (the boy who ALWAYS starts the virus run) nor Dave were touched by it. That was nice for all of us because there was always someone to turn to for help.


Dave is back at his base hospital (read: a lighter work schedule); but he has been busy moonlighting and then attending lectures, etc., so we haven't seen a lot of him. It just seems like it is more of the same. As a result, I changed up the bedtime routine slightly for this week. The routine itself is the same. I just bumped up the start time by a couple of hours. I found that if I let the boys have "quiet" time instead of a full two-hour nap, I could put them to bed by 7:15 or 7:30, which was really nice for me. For some, this may be normal, but for me to have the kids in bed by 8:30 is usually a HUGE deal; so, kudos to me! I tend to postpone the bedtime routine until after JJ is in bed, but I'm liking the extra couple of hours I get at the end of the day instead of in the middle. It is a bit miserable for all of us around dinner time, but it is worth it when dinner leads straight into bath and bed.

check out their killer "hair-raising" stunts!



It's General Conference weekend for our church, so we've been able to feel extra relaxed AND Dave is home! It's just beginning to warm up here, so all the boys went to the park in the morning. Also, since Dave was gone in the evening for the Priesthood session, the boys baked some banana bread with me as an activity. We had such a great time. They did the whole thing for the first time ever (I'm a little too controlling in the kitchen to let this happen ALL the time). They did an awesome job. Kaelan was able to wear his chef's apron he received for his birthday from Nana and Pops - so cute! Their favorite part was using the loud hand mixer to mash the bananas. What can I say? They love loud machinery.

Today we were able to go on a quick bicycle ride. Lathan is more scared now to ride than when he first got on a bike (my fault because I let him go too fast and he crashed pretty hard). You can see in the video that he won't ride without someone holding/touching him for safety. Poor guy. Just like his Daddy (j/k!!).

We are excited to make it out to Cali in a couple of weeks and hope to see everyone we can. We will be spending the majority of the first week in Lake Tahoe for some spring skiing, but then we will be back in the Bay Area for the remainder of our time there.

I'm sure Dave has some funny stories to tell, but he tells me he's not feeling so hot right now (maybe he's not so lucky after all); so you'll have to wait until another night.


-griselda