Rural Rotation

When Ryan was interviewing for residencies, almost 3 years ago, he was very interested in things like "rural tracks" and continuity clinics in inner-city situations. Working in smaller towns and "medically-needy" situations is something he is very interested in (yay for me, right? ;) ). Our current residency program includes that very thing: a rural track, which is a month rotation spent in another town over an hour away from our home. Ryan has been looking forward to his turn to be out in this small town working in the hospital and clinic there... so throughout the last 2 years we knew it was coming ... and yet it completely snuck up on me! It felt like suddenly I only had a couple weeks' notice that it was coming, and I didn't know how to emotionally prepare myself for the separation.

Since gas is so pricey right now ($3.75 and rising), and because of the length of the drive to this town and back, we decided that Ryan would only drive home to stay overnight at home once each week. He has to be on mommy-call for some of his time as well, so for those days he can't drive home at all. But we were able to make a plan for the month in order to get a visit in with him every so often. We are now exactly one week into it and ... well, it has been a bit rough! The kiddos and I REALLY miss Daddy being around. We also just came off of a vacation week, so we grew accustomed to him being around and then all of a sudden we had that bandaid ripped off! We didn't quite know how to react! 

So far here are some of the negatives in the situation...

-The kids act out more without their normal routine of seeing Daddy every day or two. 

-I feel so overworked by the time their bedtime rolls around. 

-"Mean-mommy" comes out of me WAY too often. 

-I won't be able to attend tuesday night mutual activities unless I line up someone from the ward to sit at my house while I go - which is a lot harder to make happen than it sounds, since so many in our tiny ward have a tuesday calling! 

-I feel lonely some of the time when my mind isn't on the kids or a project. So usually it's at night when -I don't have something to work on.

-We don't eat as well as when I'm cooking for Ryan too ... we end up doing a lot more "kid friendly" food like quesadillas, grilled cheese, muffins, mac n cheese. Yuck. It's getting old and I'm only just over one week in! 

However, I have also noticed some "silver linings" to having Ryan away: 

-My house is much cleaner! And STAYS cleaner! I don't even understand why that is, because Ryan doesn't do a whole of cleaning (insert Ryan's argument here)...haha. He does help when he is on a vacation week, but isn't home enough otherwise to do the typical cleaning projects. So I have the same amount of cleaning as I did before, but for some reason I get it done more often. It's a mystery! 

-The amount of laundry I'm doing has been cut completely in half, which I am totally loving. Man-clothes are so big and heavy... between business-attire, his white coats, ugly green scrubs that are never ending sometimes, and his gym clothes (which he uses 6 days of the week, without fail), it seems like his clothing alone creates more loads than mine and the kids' put together.

-I haven't had to do as much cooking (which is also a bad thing, as I mentioned earlier)

-I have my nights all to myself and can watch whatever silly girl movies I want, or sit on the computer (like I am right now) for hours without feeling guilty. :)

I know we will make it through this rotation, just like every other one we have encountered. Each new month is a new adventure, and each crappy rotation is a chance for me to learn a new level of independence and strength. As pain-staking as it may be. Someday I'll look back on this month and say "Remember when...??" But for now, I sure miss my man!

The kids and I hit costco for an afternoon and got some pizza for dinner. The kids were being hilarious, purposely posing like this (with no direction from me!) so we could send Daddy pictures. 

 They got their hands stamped with smiley faces and Logan kept saying "Show Dad?"

 We send Ryan pictures of our activities when he asks what we're up to. So some of these are just random moments in a day.

 Out exploring the "woods" with a bag of cheez-its. :)

 Window stickies from Grandma and Grandma T have saved the day more than once this week!!

 The kids wanted to "show dad" his baby grass that was seed only a week and a half ago.

Silly Kids {Life}

This paragraph may be TMI for some - but I'm just journaling here! :) The kids do and say funny things all the time these days. I've always felt like 2 year olds are just plain hilarious! So Logan is in a fun stage in that regard, and he straight up owns his silliness and crazy side. I love that he has no shame or shyness at this age! He will run around tooting and make sure to let me know each time it happens... Plus Logan likes to pick his nose and eat it. Or he will start to pick his nose and give me a really sly look to double check that I'm not watching... but when he realizes I am watching he will giggle as he knows he's been caught. Ugh! He also enjoys growling as loud as he possibly can right in anyone's face who is nearby. SUCH A BOY.

There was one morning that Ryan was in charge of the kids for a little while so I could run an errand. They were wearing their pajamas, with Logan's having a picture of a bulldog on it and Grace's had flowers. Ryan started calling Logan "bulldog" and Grace insisted she should be called "flower". So now they're both obsessed with these nicknames, of course. Logan seems to have developed a split personality now too. If something breaks, or there is a mess somewhere, Logan says "Bulldog did it". Today Logan didn't want to walk up the stairs but asked me to carry him. I joked and said "Oh, you lazy bum". He said "No, not boy. Bulldog is." haha. Logan Boy isn't lazy, but Bulldog is, apparently. I don't know what goes on in that head of his sometimes.

Logan also has had a VERY rough time this past week. His attitude has hit a new low. Plus he is more violent, way more easily brought to tears, has screaming fits to the point of coughing and choking, and is horrible at listening/obeying me. I thought it was because he is coming off of a cough and cold lately... but when Ryan visited us last night (after having been away in Athens for 6 days on his new rotation) it hit me! He is acting out because he hasn't had Ryan home. Logan was a perfect, happy angel last night while Ryan was home for a visit and wanted daddy to do everything for him: brush his teeth, read his book, play with him. He is usually such a mama's-boy so it's all making sense now. Even today, Logan has been so much happier and more like the normal Logan, since he saw daddy last night. It's not abnormal for my kids to go 2 or 3 days without seeing Ryan while he is on a rough rotation at the hospital. He'll get home late at night and leave early in the morning, so he'll completely miss them for a couple days. But this rotation (living in Athens, OH for the month to work and be on call here) is definitely the longest stretch we've experienced, and it makes sense now why Logan is acting out. It's heart-breaking already having Ryan gone like that... but now seeing what it does to my kids, it's even harder to swallow. We FaceTime with Ryan every night before bedtime, but of course it's not enough and the kids can't really communicate to us WHY they're feeling so unhappy. I hope this month goes by quickly for all of us!

Grace is also very silly and fun, but she has developed a quite, moody, self-conscious side as well that usually overrules in the end. To be honest, I worry that I caused this. It's not like I make fun of her and purposely make her self-conscious about what she says or does... but I feel like I don't encourage that side of her. Hopefully it all comes down to this phase she is in: which is the 4-year-old-EXTREMELY-EMOTIONAL-girl phase... and that I haven't in fact ruined her. I am trying harder to find more times when I can play and be crazy and silly with the kids so they know it's a great thing. :) 

An example of her self-consciousness is when she started chocking a little at dinner. Ryan reached over and [in a funny, overacted way] started to pat her on the back. She immediately looked down, covered her eyes, and started bawl her eyes out. This happens ALL the time now. I don't know if she thought she was in trouble at the moment, or just felt like it was too much attention on her she didn't want, but she was sad for several minutes before we could get her to understand why daddy was "helping". Grace's emotions are so close to the surface and will tear up while saying a simple sentence such as: "My backpack is in the way and I can't climb into my seat", or "I wanted to wash my hands but there is no stool", and the list could go on. There is so often the sound of an emotional outburst threatening in her voice many times in the day. Poor girl! This makes me very nervous for her teenage years. Yaaaaay. 

Speaking of "teenage Grace", she often includes the word "like" into her sentences. She will often say something along these lines: "Can we go to the, like, store, or something?"  Whoops. I wonder where she is picking these things up...

The other day Grace was playing with her little Frozen figurines, which includes Hans, Christoff, Sven, Olaf, Elsa, and Ana. She had all of them except the girls and I asked her about it. She said "I don't want to play with those. I just like boy-toys." Oh... k...

Yesterday we were driving in the car and had music going. I looked in my rearview mirror and she saw me watching her dance. She said "Mom, my tongue is dancing!" and stuck it out of her mouth, moving it all directions. haha Love that silly girl.

Back in February, the kids were playing together so nicely after Logan's nap, and the light was coming in just right in the playroom... so I grabbed my SLR and started snapping away. I just let them do their thing - with crazy hair and a mess everywhere. I wanted to capture them clearly at that age, on that specific afternoon, and I know I'll cherish these forever! I've wanted to break into offering these types of session (called "Life" sessions) for others, but haven't had the guts yet. I still need lots of practice, but I find those kinds of photo sessions so much more rewarding and special than a forced, posed session somewhere outside of a child's comfort zone. 

Then a month or so ago, I took these. Our rule at our house is NO JUMPING on the couch or off of it like it's a jungle gym. But every so often, I'm lenient and I let them go crazy. :) They were taking turns pushing each other off the couch and onto a stack of pillows. Good times!

Anniversary Get-Away

Ryan and I are going to celebrate our EIGHTH wedding anniversary in a month from now. We have a crazy-bad few months of rotations between now and July, with little time we can plan on to celebrate our anniversary. So we [sort of last minute] lined up a night away at a B&B and asked Amanda to watch the kids while we were away. We haven't had a night away like this since Grace was 1 (that was 3 years ago) so we were beyond excited! 

We dropped the kids at Ben and Amanda's house at 3pm on friday and made the 40 ish minute drive to Logan, OH. After checking in at the B&B, we drove the 20 or so minutes to the entrance of Hocking Hills State Park. Specifically, we planned to do the Old Man's Cave trail, but of course as SOON as we got out of the car the rain started fall. It wasn't much at first... 

  but then 2 minutes later, when we were literally standing at the top of the staircase to the waterfall, it was a downpour. :( But I wasn't going to stand around. I had a hood, after all! Plus it was a perfect temperature and I wasn't going to let the rain stop us.

 I'm so glad we did, because it was incredibly beautiful down there!

You can see the depth of the canyon, with the tiny people at the bottom and the big bridge above.

 It was wet and slippery, but it did finally stop raining. Everything was so beautiful, it almost looked fake! I'm so used to hiking in either southern Utah/Nevada or northern Utah where it's also a bit dry, but mountainous. This is so completely different than all of that. So green, wet, mossy, and lush... sort of out of nowhere! I purposely didn't take too many photos, so I could enjoy it. But I do wish I had more to post and remember. Plus my iPhone 4 has a pretty crappy camera on it and I definitely wasn't taking my nice camera on that wet hike.

 After we walked on the trail for about 20-25 minutes, suddenly we were at the top and going "Oh... was that it then?" haha! We had no idea what to expect, so we had quickly walked the whole trail and didn't realize it would end so abruptly. It was well worth it though. I'm excited to go back sometime!

For dinner we ended up in Logan at a dutch restaurant (buffet-style). There was a petting zoo in the back and these cute little kids (aka baby goats) were coming to say Hi. I knew the kids would love some pictures of them.

 The Bed and Breakfast where we stayed was sort of like a basement apartment attached to a home where the owners live, on their cattle ranch. We have never been to a B&B before, so I had images of what I thought it would be like... This was a little different, but very comfortable and affordable, and they thought of everything we might need! We even had a pool table and a kitchenette all to ourselves with snacks and fruit and lots of breakfast items for the next day. They were very nice people!

Ryan and I played a couple games, but it didn't take us long to realize we are both TERRIBLE at pool.

 At 8pm, this old man fell asleep while watching TV. Typical night in the life of a resident. ;)

Meanwhile, back home, Logan was fevering through the evening and night. :( Poor Amanda had to deal with keeping him comfortable and medicated. We were so grateful! Terrible timing, buddy.  

On saturday morning, Ryan and I slept in until about 8:45am. I didn't actually sleep that whole time, because my body is not at all used to that, but I did just REST and lay there in the quiet. It was bliss!

We headed over to where the zip line tour starts and got all decked out in some very attractive safety gear.

 The Canopy Tour is a total of about 2-2.5 hours, with 10 different zip lines and a couple of bridges to cross. Man, did we have a blast!! The only problem was that it was 35 degrees that morning, and we were shivering the entire time from 11-2:30. I would love to come back and do it again when there are leaves on the trees and it's not freezing cold.

Ryan "zipping" to the next platform

 The final repel off of the last platform to finish the tour. Ryan was very first. It was more like a slow-fall down 2 stories. We've both done worse/scarier than that!

 You can't tell but I'm very high up, and letting myself hang off of the tree with my anchor rope. Freaky! And yet so much fun!

We had a great time on our mini-vacation together! It ended up being just shy of 24 full hours away, and we were grateful for that time. :) Huge thanks goes to Amanda who dealt with a sick child that wasn't her own, kids who didn't sleep until 7am like they normally do, and a broken air mattress to try to sleep on. :/ Whoops.

Haircut, St Patrick's Day, and Ryan's vacation days

I have been growing my hair out since last fall... mostly out of laziness and not wanting to pay for trims every 6 weeks. Plus a little curious as to whether I'd prefer it this time around, after always keeping it short. I haven't had it this long since sometime before Logan was born! So I had to document on the day before my haircut how long it had gotten before I chopped it again.

It was nice to have it long for a little while, but this is definitely "me"!

 On St Patrick's Day, "lucky" the leprechaun stopped in and left his rainbow footprints all over the house. He dyed some milk green for the kids, left coloring pages, hats, and some Lucky Charms cereal. The kids really got a kick out of it!! 

This is something that I remember happening at my house every year when I was a kid. :) Lots of fun memories!

 These last couple of weeks, Ryan has had some vacation time mixed in with some random shifts and meetings. We had originally been putting this time aside as our Disneyworld trip. But we went through a rough financial period during and after the holidays and couldn't swing it... So we just enjoyed our time home together as did some "stay-cation" things instead. Ryan has been such a hard worker these last several weeks, taking on as many extra shifts as he could fit into his already crazy schedule. I'm grateful for how well he takes care of us, even though I know it can be exhausting.

Three days from now Ryan has to start his "rural" rotation in Athens, OH. The town is 1 hour and 15 minutes away from here so he will be living in a small apartment that the program provides for residents and students in his position. He won't be able to drive home to us more than once every week or two... ? depending on his call schedule. The gas would cost way too much. :( But to be honest we aren't exactly sure what to expect, so it'll be an interesting month for us. Fortunately, just like any yucky rotation, it always comes to an end! 

 Look at those handsome boys!

 The kids received a fun package from my sister and her family in California. They have enjoyed so many beach days since their recent move there, and knew how nasty our winter was... So they sent us a piece of the beach, with surprises hidden in the sand! The kids LOVED it! Thanks, Linds & kiddos.

 We took the kids to Slate Run Historical Farm. Of course Grace complained of the stinky animals the entire time, but it was still fun. ;) 

 I was taking off Logan's shirt after getting home from church and found a sticker. Obviously he had his shirt up during nursery... :/ Sorry to all the other parents! hehe

 Grace was painting with watercolors the other day and made this beautiful painting. I was so impressed! She said it was a sunset, with green grass. Isn't it beautiful?

 On thursdays, a local bowling alley does $1 bowling for the kid's mini lanes. So we took the kids and let them each bowl a couple of games. They were in heaven.

 Ryan works at a few different hospitals within the city. He is usually at Nationwide Childrens, but for one or two rotations a year he works at Doctor's Hospital. It's about 40 minutes away and definitely in the ghetto.  He found out that on his food card (which is only good at that hospital and only for food) there was more than $2000 on his food card. There was no way he could use all that money during the short amounts of time that he works out there, and then they just add more to it at the start of every year. So he was bringing home snacks and drinks for us, getting pricey stuff like Naked juices and sushi for himself, etc. We even drove out there as a family a couple of times during his vacation week to make it sort of a family outing. It's quite a hike out there... and it's not like the food was amazing (we mostly ordered chicken fingers and fries) but it was free, so we were grateful for it! He was even able to be in the right place at the right time to buy dinner for a military lady and her family that was in line behind us. I hope he doesn't mind me sharing that quietly paying a stranger's tab is something he has always wanted to do. We haven't yet been in a position that we could afford it, though. Of course, doing so in a hospital cafeteria (with a "free" money card) isn't much, but he was really grateful he got the opportunity to do some good.

 The other day, while the kids were painting, Ryan saw them and wanted to join in on the fun. 

 As with anything he does, he got to work like it was the most important thing in the world to create a masterpiece. ;) He was so serious about it! haha Aw, I love him. It was a great painting in the end, and he said it was very therapeutic for him. I told him to stick with us and he'd be just fine! ;)

 Just a selfie with our matching Turner reunion shirts. 

 A few days ago, the weather was BEAUTIFUL and we took the kids to the zoo for the first time this year. We really love our zoo pass. All the other times we have headed up there have been at 10am-noon. This time we went at 2pm and all the animals were awake and super active. It was by far the best experience we've had there in the nearly 2 years we've been going there. 

 Manatee

 We checked out a new park and the winds were absolutely nuts. We only lasted a few minutes but we had to get out again before the snow storm hit that night.

 Gotta love technology! These kids crack me up.

 Way up on the north side of the city, by the zoo, is a Recreation Outlet showroom where people can check out the outdoor playlets and buy them. They let families come play on the playsets, and it's usually pretty expensive. But this month it's only $2 per family, so we took the kids up there. It was SO much fun! We all had a blast, and Ryan and I were dreaming of the fun playset and trampoline we hope to buy someday.  ;) 

 Grace was helping catch Logan on the super-slick slides. It's blurry, but it was too cute not to try and capture!

 We passed a BJ's Brewhouse on the way home and just HAD to stop for a pizookie. This was one of our favorite restaurants in Henderson and it was fun to take the kids out! Yum.

 General Conference was yesterday and today. The kids were good for the first session today (sunday) but were totally losing it the entire last session. I really don't love having to prepare and eat dinner during the second session. I can't focus when I'm doing the preparing, serving, and feeding of messy kids. I even tried to do most the prep-work right before it started at 4, but it still ends up a little frustrating... and all we did was tuna-melts! haha. Oh well. Of course just as we will finally figure out the groove of things in this time zone, we'll probably move back west anyway.

 In between sessions, Ryan did some OMM on all of us. I desperately needed some help with my sore back from who-knows-what... and he really worked his magic. Logan and Grace are both coming down with colds so Ryan did a couple of things to hopefully help. Logan is always so nervous when Ryan tries, so I took of him. Grace on the other hand loves the attention! Her love-language is definitely "touch". Such a cuddly, touchy, lovey girl. 

 During the closing prayer (yes, I took pics during a prayer...) I had to capture Logan. He is hilarious when he's trying to keep his eyes closed. It's almost like it's the hardest thing in the world for him to close this eyes. Look how hard he's trying!! Cute boy.