School, Work, Lessons, Games, etc.

It has been awhile since I have posted but only because I have been really struggling to juggle my classes and life at the same time so I decided it wasn't wise to "waste" time blogging. But, I have turned things around by FINALLY doing well on my last exam. This past month has been really challenging with Nate not here as much and I am well aware now how much I relied on him last year. Second year of medical school really doesn't feel much different than the first year. With the kids in school now I am hoping things are a little less stressful for me.

In other school news for me, we are currently putting in our requests for clinical rotations for the following year and we should know by mid October what our schedule for third year will be. It is really exciting/scary! My school is really good at keeping everything under a cloak of secrecy.... annoying to say the least, so I don't quite understand how it is all going to work yet. We focus mainly on primary care medicine and surgery for third year but we will have more flexibility to try out a few specialties in our fourth year. I am trying to get some rotations in Buffalo but it looks like there will be a few I will be required to do in Erie. As the cloak is lifted I will let you all know!

Liv is loving the flute, I can't believe how fast she has picked up on the fingering. Her teacher is the cutest and kindest little old man, just perfect for Liv. She has only had 4 lessons and she is really coming along!

Lex has been busy with her sports. She will be a starter on the school basketball team this year, yay! They practice everyday for two hours and it looks like they have 2-3 games a week this season. She also had her first soccer game this past Saturday, they won the first and lost the second. All there games are in Ohio about 2 hours from here (I don't know why) and they play two games every other Saturday. It is pretty exciting for Lex (and us) to have her involved with this competition team, the level of playing is really impressive.

Nate hasn't had enough time to do much besides work lately with his 3 hour commute each day but somehow we manage to find a FEW things for him to do when he gets home! We are looking forward to next weekend because he took off a few days in addition to labor day so it will be a nice extended weekend.

The fur faces have been being trained on the electric fence... Baby needed a refresher course and we figured it was time for Bella to learn because she busted out of the zip line we had set up. Baby got shocked right away and has been terrified to go outside so in order for her to use the toilet outside I can't put the collar on her anymore... this is fine I just have to be vigilant watching her as she occasionally would like to sneak off. Bella has done really well with it and it is so nice for her to be able to use the entire yard instead of being confined to a tie out, this makes fetching much more fun. We haven't had her out when the neighbor dog is also out or any bunny's running around so we are a bit anxious about how she will deal with these distractions.

Me and the girls, and one of Lexi's friends went for manicures yesterday to get ready for their first day of school, it is one of our favorite annual traditions. We had a really good time even though Lex looks totally annoyed in the picture!

Today was the first day of school for the girls! Here is Lex on her way to the bus stop for her first day of eighth grade.

Liv is so excited for her first day of third grade. She was lucky enough to get the teacher she wanted and two of her best friends in her class. Her teacher happens to be the gifted teacher she went to all last year, they have changed the gifted program in our school district for this coming year and this teacher decided she would rather teach third grade full time instead!

And as an aside, if anyone is interested in joining us in NYC for Thanksgiving we would love it... I got a wild hair last night and booked our trip for Nov 25-28.