Here is a post on all the Christmas happenings before we made a trip to Albuquerque to celebrate Christmas day. We started the Holiday Season with my participation in the San Antonio Messiah. Sam and I did this last year and it is just so awesome to be a part of an orchestra again. It was stressful last year though because we had to find babysitters every week and I had a baby to take care of during rehearsals. Because of that I decided not to do it and Sam was going to do it this year instead, but this is why it switched:
Sam and his fellow second Ophthalmology residents were invited to take a course in Florida that same weekend. Now I would have Sam blog about this trip but he barely has time to do anything these days. So you will get a very, very watered down version of this trip.
Bausch and Lomb is a company that makes intra-ocular lens ophthalmologists use for their surgeries and paid for Sam to come tour their facilities. Although he was in a lot of classes for the weekend he did get to have some fun with this co-residents.
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| Pirate ship in the sea. |
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| A fortress of some sort? |
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| The amazing meals he got to eat. Meanwhile I ate Mac and Cheese all weekend. |
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| All but one of his fellow second-years. |
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| Yep. I was pretty jealous. |
Like I said, I was able to do the Messiah this year. Sam stayed home Sunday evenings while I rehearsed so all I had to do was find babysitters for the weekend of the performances. A sweet girl in our ward took care of the kids and was very grateful! Sometimes it is hard for me to go out and do things because I always need to find babysitters and it stresses me out, haha.
Ever since Sam was a medical student he was interested in the Retina aspect of ophthalmology. We were unsure if we would be able to do Retina in the Air Force because they would first have a need for a doctor before he would be allowed to do a Retina fellowship and he would have to be selected if there were more than one person to apply. Well, the stars aligned because a fully-funded spot was offered around the time Sam would graduate, and Sam was the only ophthalmologist that we knew of that applied. We found out in December that Sam got the spot! That's half the battle, though because now he has to apply to different programs and match into one. Some of our top choices are in Michigan, Utah, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Congrats Sam! Wonder where we will end up next!
The next weekend was the ward Christmas party. The Singles' Group in our ward took over and they made it super fancy! Sandwiches for lunch, a Christmas program, Christmas games, and of course a visit from the big man. I think the boys enjoyed themselves. We also performed in a Sing-A-Long the following day but no pictures, of course. Just had to show up for an early rehearsal with our kids in tow and find someone to sit with our kids!
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| Reindeer toss. |
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| They had someone taking photos but since the photos never made it back to us here is Sam's phone picture. Eli asked for a "Mighty Airplane Jet Got Ryder" and Joey asked for the Mighty Twins (both Paw Patrol...I CAN'T ESCAPE!) |
I mentioned in a post or two that Eli joined an MDO program. Well, he didn't like it much. It quickly became a battle to get him to go (his teacher said he was fine after I left). He never wanted to go due to the scheduled nap time, but he did fall asleep half the time! Maybe I should designate a nap time in my own home, ha. Well, it costs money and if he didn't like it we weren't going to push it. So for his very last day they had a Christmas program. Eli was mopey during the performance but he did like his book from the book exchange! Here's Eli with Miss Ally. Hopefully he will do better when he starts preschool next school year.
I decided last minute to do a photoshoot for an ornament I was making for Grandparents (and myself!) Right after Joey got out of school I got everyone in nice clothes, grabbed my nice camera, and ran over to a building right across the street from Joey's school. Sadly the kids were not cooperative (Eden cried a lot) and the camera died. Whoops. So we ran back home so I could grab my phone to take photos and Eden a snack. The kids were so much happier thank goodness. I actually got the best photos of the three of them together ever and I didn't even need to photoshop! Yay!
The very last weekend before Christmas I spent the entire Saturday prepping for our trip to Albuquerque with laundry, mowing the lawn and last minute Christmas prep. Sam decided to have some fun with the kids while I busied myself and took them to McDonald's and Sea World. Serious brownie points from the kids! Eli loves the rides, total opposite of Joey, by the way. He was finally tall enough to ride by himself on the kiddy roller coaster and he loved it!
They also enjoyed seeing these familiar characters. Joey has been watching classic Christmas cartoons at school and comes home and tells me all about Frosty and sings the Rudolf song. Sweet boy!
We would have head off earlier to Albuquerque but we participated in our Ward's Christmas program and I thought it was phenomenal. Again, had to find someone to watch our kids (sigh) but the same girl from the messiah volunteered to sit with them and all was well. Then we went home and left for our hometown! Whew, what a month!
