Ahhhh...Rest

Today is Friday. Every friday for the last year and a half I have been at the hospital, with a few exceptions. Today I was not at work. Today I was at home with my daughter doing nothing, but resting.
It was a truly magnificent day!
David has been sick for the last 2 weeks, Gigi has been sick for the last week and I finally got this sickness this last week. It isn't a bad cold, just enough to be annoying.
Last night David and I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie and Gigi went to play with her friends (we have a babysitting exchange group, which is awesome by the way). When we picked her up we found out that the whole time she was saying, I want mommy, which is very unusual for her so I decided that we both just needed to rest and spend some quality time together.
We did just that. We watched 2 disney movies, Mulan and Robin Hood, and played together inside all day. It was so much fun! I really forgot how much fun it is to just be a kid.

One fun thing that we did :
Since we went to Chicago and saw a sculture of a boy with water coming out of his mouth Gigi has been talking about nothing else so today we made a "big boy" as Gigi likes to call him and colored water coming out of his mouth. Now I am not artistic by any stretch of the imagination, but luckily Gigi got the idea and now has her own "big boy" sculpture in her room.

Last Party

Maybe it's because I have been throwing parties lately, but for some reason about a month ago I thought it would be really great to have a work party. We had a BBQ at Crystal Lake Park this last Wednesday and even though it was really fun I have decided that I am done with throwing parties... at least for a while. It just confirmed that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.
Here are a few pictures from the party:
A few co-workers hanging out by the grill. The party went off perfectly except for one thing. I forgot to bring a spatula. So we improvised with a metal spoon :)


A few of my co-workers kids. Last year there were 14 people pregnant on my floor at one time. 2 of them had twins...there were a lot of baby showers last year!!


2 of my good friends from work, Amy and Beth.

After the party David, Gigi and I went to a little lake area to feed the geese. We didn't have any bread on us, so we threw what we had...cookies.
The geese seemed to enjoy it, but Gigi accidentally threw a cookie on a goose. We weren't brave enough to get it off though so hopefully the goose will not have a cookie permanently on his back.




I will really miss all of the great parks that they have here in Illinois. This particular park is right next to the hospital and it is really nice to walk by it on my way to and from work.

Offering

On Sunday, we had a very uplifting Stake Conference about offering our whole soul unto God. I've been fighting a sinus infection that today turned into a real sickness, so I made hardly any attempt to put that theme into practice.

Bethany, on the other hand, woke up at 6 am, made my lunch along with hers, and drove herself to work. Driving herself to work means she has to leave even earlier to park two blocks from the hospital, ride the shuttle, and clock in five minutes before her shift starts at 7 am. This will probably help you understand why so many nurses complain about their job. Many people have had the kind of nurse that you have to ask three times just to get an aspirin. Bethany, however, is the opposite of that. She has made it a personal goal to be a Christlike servant to her patients. I have seen that there are many nurses who quickly do the minimum and then gather at the desk to gossip. Bethany rushes all day to do everything that is asked of her. Then, she spends most of her spare time doing random acts of kindness for her patients. So, even on a good day, she comes home with swollen ankles and is emotionally exhausted.

Today, she had a patient whose heart and breathing stopped. Either of these problems creates an emergency situation called a "code". When both happen at the same time, it is impossible to imagine the stress this would cause. But Bethany doesn't get to stand back as soon as a doctor arrives. If I understand correctly, she has to remain in charge of directing the emergency team and delegating in real-time all of the things that have to happen to try to save her patient. Fortunately, the woman survived, but because this happened late in the day, Bethany needed to stay at the hospital until after 9 pm to take care of the extra paperwork.

Because of our busy weekend and because I was feeling sick, practically all of the dishes we own were dirty on the counter and the house was a wreck. I went to bed early hoping that with enough sleep I won't have to miss work tomorrow. This is the situation Bethany came home to. After a day like that, when she finally came into bed, she apologized for waking me up and wanted to help me fall back asleep.

After a little while of not falling back to sleep, I got up to go downstairs to try listening to music. When I turned on the light, I was surprised to see everything in the living room had been cleaned up. I walked into the kitchen and all of the dishes had been washed (we have to do them by hand) and the counters and table wiped off. I also just realized that she even swept and mopped the floor. Bethany, after a miserable, excruciatingly long day, had stayed up til midnight cleaning our house.

I can't express in words how humbled I am to have a wife like Bethany. She truly offers her whole soul unto God by serving me, Angelique, and even the sick and afflicted strangers at the hospital who she will never see again. When I hear stories about people who gave everything, like the pioneers, and the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, I think about how blessed we are for that heritage. Tonight, I realized that I live with a person like that. Those people are praised often for the great things they have done. I know an angel who makes so many unseen and unknown sacrifices, giving of herself completely to Heavenly Father and to the people around her. I really can't put into words how grateful I am. This is all I can do right now to try to tell Angelique, when she's old enough to understand, our future children, and the rest of the world, how incredible Bethany is and how much she offers her whole soul.

Norwegian Independence Day

Our two fantastic friends, Robert and Cindy, have significant ties to Norway, so they celebrate Norwegian Independence Day each year by hosting a dinner for other friends who are significantly connected to Scandinavia. All the attendees either spoke Norwegian, was an Edvard Grieg scholar, or had served their mission in Sweden. I once had a friend from Norway, and I have seen the movie Svält, so of course we also joined in and enjoyed the food. We brought the salad.

We also attended last year, which was when I learned that the soundtrack from my favorite childhood video game, Hunt the Wumpus, was written by a famous Norwegian composer. I also learned that a woman in our ward was the only actual Scandinavian who came to this annual event. This year, though, she could not attend because she was participating in a civil war reenactment.

This year, there was a competition to see who could best pronounce a short folk song about a boy who sold his cow for a violin. Out of the three people who did not already speak Norwegian or Swedish, my attempt was the most accurate. The prize was a can of fishsticks.

Family Pictures

Last Thursday we had our family pictures taken.
At Portrait Innovations they have a deal where you can get a ton of prints of one shot for only $9.99.
Of course we ended up getting a lot more photos than that.
Look at our girl...can you blame us?
However, now have a lot of pictures with no one to sent them to. Please let us know if you want any photos and which ones and we will be happy to send them to you :)

Chicagoland

My mom came was in town for a little over a week to celebrate David's graduation. While she was here David and I took advantage of the opportunity to go to the temple together. Since the St. Louis area is under construction and so we went to Chicago. We still decided to do some site seeing while we were there.
The temple trip was wonderful! It was so nice to go with David. It had been almost a year since we had been able to go together and we were really grateful to my mom for watching Gigi.

Afterwards we decided to go to Millennium Park and the Magnificent mile.
We actually had a really good time, despite the traffic and rain.


At Millennium Park we saw a really cool water sculpture, which at the time scared Gigi, but now she won't stop talking about, and another neat sculpture that reflects the entire Chicago Skyline. It was really beautiful!
Then we trekked to the Magnificent Mile.
The Magnificent Mile is an entire mile of upscale shopping. A dream for any die-hard shopper.
It was about 7:30pm when we started on our journey and so most of the shops were closing, but we were able to see a few fun stores.

This is Gigi and I at the Apple Store. We had to amuse ourselves while David ogled at the hardware.

This is inside the Disney store where Gigi decided she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

By this time it was about 8:30 and was starting to rain really hard so David and I left Gigi and my mom outside a restaurant and ran back to get the car. On our way there, in the pouring rain, we found a restaurant that sells real Chicago style pizza and so we ordered some to go. It was delicious!
We then drove home and made it back by Midnight. We had a blast :)

Graduation

David graduated on Saturday May 10th with his MBA from the U of I. It was a very nice graduation...unfortunately since we have been taking so many pictures lately our camera battery died as soon as we arrived :( So we have no pictures from his actual graduation, but never fear I will be sure to get some from the professional photo people for a hefty price, I am sure.
When we met back up with David I asked him what he wanted to do and he replied that he was fine just going home. Apparently graduation wasn't a very big deal to him. Well...I made it a big deal just the same :)
I threw David a huge dessert bar graduation party. My sister-in-law Amy commented that it was actually my fantasy and not David's because I LOVE dessert and David couldn't care less about it, but oh well everyone seemed to enjoy it...even David.


Here is a list of the desserts that we ate...sorry for making your mouth water ;)

Lemon bars
Chocolate Cream pie
Magic bars (yummy bars with coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, pecans, etc)
Oreo truffles
Angel food cake with berry topping (topping provided by Jackie- Thank you so much!)
Molasses cookies (my great grandmother's recipe)
Graduation cake
Ice cream (this actually never got eaten because I forgot to take it out)
Mint brownies provided by Amy Parent (Thanks a ton! these were the kids favorite! I think Gigi sneaked 5 throughout the course of the party)
Chocolate chip cookies provided by Sara Richards- Thanks! They were super yummy!


Here is a picture of us with the graduation cake. I have really been enjoying making cakes lately...of course always with the help of my expert cake decorator Tiffany Peterson (Thanks Tiff!). In case you are wondering the top is made from cardboard, but everything else is edible..including the tassel, which was made from fondant.


After the party we went out to dinner with my siblings and their families and my mom. It was really good!
We finished off the night by watching Dan in Real life. I love that movie and the soundtrack.

I am so proud of David and all that he has accomplished in these last 2 years. He has not only gone to school, but also watched Angelique 2 days a week, studied for and taken the LSAT, applied to law school and was accepted to his dream school, applied for and got a great internship, and has always put his family first. The lord has blessed David tremendously and I know it is because he has done everything that he can! Thank you David and congrats!!

Miracle of Miracles

Yesterday I received a phone call from Penn. It was the dean of admissions congratulating me, because she had just signed my letter of acceptance. I was suspicious that it was a prank call, but she sounded professional, so I didn't embarrass myself by not playing along. After I got off the phone, I still had trouble believing it. I'll have to wait a few days for the letter to come and prove this was not a hoax. In the meantime, I will consider it a reality that I have been accepted to my dream school.

I feel so much like Motel from Fiddler on the Roof right now that I have included a clip of what I would look like singing that song. You can also imagine me playing Bethany's violin and dancing exuberantly on the rooftops (but that might be even more awkward)

It is a well known fact that David and I love Rocky. We seem to feel that our lives have a similar theme to Rocky's. While David was studying for the LSAT he watched clips from Rocky everyday to pump him up.
Recently we have been sharing our love for Rocky with our friends the Petersons.


Tiffany and Quinn
Last night we had our second Rocky night. We had a delicious dinner of hamburgers, spinach and strawberry salad and french fries.


Gigi and Clarissa loved the tomatoes!

We then put the kids into bed...don't they look cozy?

Finally we sat down and watched Rocky II. It is my favorite Rocky movie. If you haven't watched it in a while I suggest you rent it tonight!!

ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY!!
Yo Adrian We did it!!

A dream is a wish...

This week was Angelique's 2nd birthday and we had a princess party for her. From Tuesday to Thursday (the day of Gigi's party) I did nothing but eat, drink, and sleep her princess party.
We invited 15 children and 13 showed up, including their parents. It was a bit crowded, but it was really fun and Gigi had a blast!!!
The party went as follows:
Some kids arrived around 3pm and we sat around and chatted until more kids showed up. Then all of the kids gathered around 2 chairs in the living room and I had our special guests come in...

That's right. Gigi had 2 real princesses at her party. A HUGE thank you to Jackie Kitchen (playing Snow White) and Celeste Baillio (playing Cinderella). The kids were mesmerized! They each read a short story about their character and then handed out crowns and wands to the girls and swords to the boys.
The kids then made their way to the kitchen where tables were set up with foam crowns for the children to decorate. I had buttons, stickers, markers and puff paints. After the kids decorated them I put them up to dry.

Next, the kids decorated sugar cookie wands. Each sugar cookie had a dowel stuck in it to look like a wand. There were all sorts of toppings: sprinkles, chocolate chips, runts, dots, M&M's, etc. Mostly the kids enjoyed eating the cookies, especially Asher who didn't mind getting frosting all over himself.

Then we all went back into the living room where a poster of Ariel was hanging on the wall, compliments of Jackie Kitchen and her amazing abilities. We played pin the crown on the princess. They used their crowns that they had made and each attempted to put it on the princess. This was pretty chaotic, but I was quite impressed with the toddler's abilities.

...your heart makes

On to the cake and ice cream! Tiffany Peterson, who I have decided is the cake queen, helped me make a Ariel princess cake for Gigi. While Gigi was sitting on Cinderella's lap (perhaps my favorite part of the party...it was SOOO sweet) I brought in the cake. Gigi LOVED it!!! She was even able to blow out the candle by herself. I was very impressed.


After eating the yummy dessert Gigi opened up her presents.
She made out like a bandit. She loved it all!! I am hoping it will all keep her amused for weeks to come :) Thanks to everyone for the awesome presents!


After all of this the guests had to go home to get some real food in their bellies. Right after the party we found out that David got a job and so we went out to dinner to celebrate where Gigi was even able to have french fries for dinner. It truly was a day fit for a princess.
We love you Gigi!!! Happy birthday!
This day was made possible by all of the help from my friends and family. An especially gigantic thanks to:
Jackie Kitchen, Celeste Ballio and Tiffany Peterson. You really made Gigi's day a dream come true.

Summer Work

About two weeks ago, I wrote a post about the unusual timing of an email asking me to interview for a summer job. Later that same day I received a phone call asking me to inverview for a completely different job. After months of no success, it was amazing to me that I at least had some interviews. This week I was offered both jobs. I accepted the one that is full time and pays more.

I will be doing market research for a start-up technology firm at Research Park, which is just a short bus ride away. This was an important miracle for us, because it means that Bethany does not have to work full-time anymore.