Thursday, June 3, 2010
2010 May: Bates
Whiteboards are the devil. Those words best sum-up the month of May.
Usually when you get done with a task (like getting home from work, or finishing a chore) you sit down and lazily think about what you should do next. It usually only takes a minute or two, but it is a relaxing minute. I have ruined those minutes.
This month we hung a whiteboard in my office. It was mostly to help me keep my side projects straight (what needs to get done next). But, I added a section on it for household chores, home improvement, etc. This is great because it helped me to be really efficient and get lots of stuff done... but it also makes it so easy to see what I have to do next that I don't get to sit and think about it for 2 zoned-out minutes.
But, the good news is that Tamara's BDay went great, as has all the home improvement we've done this month (including installing an above-ground pool to cover up a patch of weeds I just can't seem to kill). My side projects have been going great (including one I got drafted into recently by some old mission buddies).
This month was our 3 year anniversary. Each anniversary has a corresponding material (silver, gold, platinum, etc...). I decided that this year was Macramé. So, I built a life-sized statue of Tamara out of vermicelli.
Just kidding. We were pretty lazy this year. I don't really have any time off to waste because the baby is due in june, and Tamara has been pretty achey and had lots of early contractions with this pregnancy, so we took it pretty easy.
Well, I think that does it for us. Here's hoping Macramé anniversaries catch on ;)
-the Bateses
Usually when you get done with a task (like getting home from work, or finishing a chore) you sit down and lazily think about what you should do next. It usually only takes a minute or two, but it is a relaxing minute. I have ruined those minutes.
This month we hung a whiteboard in my office. It was mostly to help me keep my side projects straight (what needs to get done next). But, I added a section on it for household chores, home improvement, etc. This is great because it helped me to be really efficient and get lots of stuff done... but it also makes it so easy to see what I have to do next that I don't get to sit and think about it for 2 zoned-out minutes.
But, the good news is that Tamara's BDay went great, as has all the home improvement we've done this month (including installing an above-ground pool to cover up a patch of weeds I just can't seem to kill). My side projects have been going great (including one I got drafted into recently by some old mission buddies).
This month was our 3 year anniversary. Each anniversary has a corresponding material (silver, gold, platinum, etc...). I decided that this year was Macramé. So, I built a life-sized statue of Tamara out of vermicelli.
Just kidding. We were pretty lazy this year. I don't really have any time off to waste because the baby is due in june, and Tamara has been pretty achey and had lots of early contractions with this pregnancy, so we took it pretty easy.
Well, I think that does it for us. Here's hoping Macramé anniversaries catch on ;)
-the Bateses
2010 May: North
I’m free!! We took our last final on Friday. Now I have 2 months of relative freedom ahead of me. It’s a good thing I’m done too, because my brain was just about full. Going in to the last test I was really burned out, my study time wasn’t as effective as normal, my motivation was gone. I felt like a little kid, looking out my window at the sunshine and the trees and wanting to go out and play. Instead of a mother making me stay in I had a wife…and it’s probably a good thing I did. Medical school is a team effort and I have a great teammate! Rumor has it that about 10% of our class will have to retake the year. I ache for them. This has been a challenge that I would not want to relive. With the help of a wonderful wife and the Lord, I did well in my studies. One of my teachers told me that he hopes that if he ever has to go to the emergency room I am the doctor on call. I think that is just about as high a compliment as a faculty member can give. I have given my best and feel that I’ve succeeded.
Becky and I learned that we are having a little girl. We are very happy. We’ve decided to name her Sophie Lucille North. I keep hearing again and again that she will have me wrapped around her little finger as soon as I hold her in my arms. I also keep hearing that she will be fun to be around until she turns 12 or 13. Well I guess we’ll see, but Becky and I are very happy.
This will be my last monthly email. These emails started when I came home from my mission and moved away to college. A lot of things have changed since then, and I have decided to stop these. If you want to keep in touch with Becky and I, and I hope you do, drop me a line, I still respond to emails and am always happy to hear from you. Also you can check our blog at http://stewandbeck.blogspot.com/. Becky does a great job there, and you get to see pictures of our adventures too. I’m also on Facebook. (Rob, I will still contribute to the Freakish Four blog)
I hope things are going well for you all,
Love,
Stewart
Becky and I learned that we are having a little girl. We are very happy. We’ve decided to name her Sophie Lucille North. I keep hearing again and again that she will have me wrapped around her little finger as soon as I hold her in my arms. I also keep hearing that she will be fun to be around until she turns 12 or 13. Well I guess we’ll see, but Becky and I are very happy.
This will be my last monthly email. These emails started when I came home from my mission and moved away to college. A lot of things have changed since then, and I have decided to stop these. If you want to keep in touch with Becky and I, and I hope you do, drop me a line, I still respond to emails and am always happy to hear from you. Also you can check our blog at http://stewandbeck.blogspot.com/. Becky does a great job there, and you get to see pictures of our adventures too. I’m also on Facebook. (Rob, I will still contribute to the Freakish Four blog)
I hope things are going well for you all,
Love,
Stewart
2010 May: Robertson
Greetings everyone,
What a month. I could go on for pages and not give the month justice. So here are some basic highlights. First of all. The month started with my parents flying in from Idaho to attend my graduation. It was great having them here for the few days that they were able to be here. When they left, Kyla and Daria had a minor break-down and keep asking to go and visit them. My graduation was relatively painless (for me). The commencement was a little under two hours and the commencement speaker was odd and didn’t make much sense (since she was director of the NY Times Education department I guess it was fitting concoction of poetic nonsense). Following commencement was a hooding ceremony were each master graduate was able to pick an individual or individuals to bestow the master’s hood on him or her. The master candidate was able to introduce the individual and explain why he/she picked that person(s). It was a very good ceremony. I picked Morgan to hood me, but Kyla and Daria came running up to the front of the room to be a part of it as well. It was cute. The rest of the day was filled with parties and family gatherings.
While my parents were here we took them to the old town cemetery to see the old graves. There is a vet from every war the US fought in from the Revolutionary war to the present in the cemetery. It was neat to see all of the old graves. Nothing like that in Rexburg. While there I think that I picked up a little friend, but didn’t find it until the next day.
On the following Monday, I was getting ready for the day. I noticed a little brown spot on my arm and tried to brush it off, but then it started to wiggle. I looked closer, and it was a firmly embedded tick. After freaking both my wife and my mother out, I was able to get it out with a knife and tweezers. By the following day, I had developed a nice rash around the bite area and by Wednesday morning, it hurt to open my hand closest to the bug bite. I went into the doctor and he diagnosed lyme disease and put me on a regiment of hard hitting antibiotics. Since the disease was caught early, there really isn’t a chance of it coming back, so no worries there.
I then received an email from BYU-Idaho saying that my name has been approved by the Church Board of Education to be hired at the University. So I accepted and the contract was sent (I signed it today – I have rarely felt so good signing my name).
On about day 7 of the 10 day antibiotics, I awoke in the night with horrible pains. It felt like the worst heartburn attack I have every had. I ended up awake for most of the night and sitting on the couch. I looked at the antibiotic I was on, and it said that sort of pain was a possible side effect. So I suffered through it for the next few days until I was done with the antibiotic. I was hoping that the pain would then go away. Nope. If anything, it got worse over the next few days. I tried eating a piece of chocolate and ended up doubled over on the floor gasping. That was when I decided to go in to the doctor. I went in and the conclusion was I was headed toward an ulcer. My body had built up too much acid thanks to the antibiotic while possibly killing some of the good bacteria in my stomach with the result that I was getting acid burns in my stomach and possibly esophagus. I had to do a bunch of blood work to make sure no other organs were damaged (they weren’t). I was put on an extreme antacid that stops my body from producing acid. After a week on that stuff, I am back to normal health – more or less. If only June would be a more restful month – ha!
Morgan has basically been taking care of me for the past month while at the same time, trying to find a car and a place for us to move to in June. She continues to astound. She was scheduled to get her tonsils out at the beginning of the month, but the doctor decided to postpone that indefinitely. They are now on a wait and see course for the next bit, and considering all of the other health problems this month, that was a blessing. Besides my sicknesses, Everyone went through a cold this month and Kyla even developed an Ear infection. So she is on antibiotics now as well – albeit nowhere near as robust as the kind I was on.
Jamis has exploded with energy. In the course of the month he has gone from army scooting to crawling, pulling himself up, furniture surfing, and climbing stairs. We thought he was just an early developer until he grew fangs (I’m not joking, pics will be up on our blog shortly). SO there you have it. It isn’t a case of just a precocious child, we are somehow rearing the undead. I guess we just have to be extra careful around his bite, and boy does he like to bite (and pull hair, but I’m not quite seeing how that fits into this entire vampire phase). We are hoping he gets his middle teeth in soon enough, but in the mean time, we have to take some very good pictures.
I have gone on long enough. So I will bring this to a close. We hope that each of you are doing well. We think about you and pray about you often. God bless you all
Derik, Morgan and Kids Robertson
What a month. I could go on for pages and not give the month justice. So here are some basic highlights. First of all. The month started with my parents flying in from Idaho to attend my graduation. It was great having them here for the few days that they were able to be here. When they left, Kyla and Daria had a minor break-down and keep asking to go and visit them. My graduation was relatively painless (for me). The commencement was a little under two hours and the commencement speaker was odd and didn’t make much sense (since she was director of the NY Times Education department I guess it was fitting concoction of poetic nonsense). Following commencement was a hooding ceremony were each master graduate was able to pick an individual or individuals to bestow the master’s hood on him or her. The master candidate was able to introduce the individual and explain why he/she picked that person(s). It was a very good ceremony. I picked Morgan to hood me, but Kyla and Daria came running up to the front of the room to be a part of it as well. It was cute. The rest of the day was filled with parties and family gatherings.
While my parents were here we took them to the old town cemetery to see the old graves. There is a vet from every war the US fought in from the Revolutionary war to the present in the cemetery. It was neat to see all of the old graves. Nothing like that in Rexburg. While there I think that I picked up a little friend, but didn’t find it until the next day.
On the following Monday, I was getting ready for the day. I noticed a little brown spot on my arm and tried to brush it off, but then it started to wiggle. I looked closer, and it was a firmly embedded tick. After freaking both my wife and my mother out, I was able to get it out with a knife and tweezers. By the following day, I had developed a nice rash around the bite area and by Wednesday morning, it hurt to open my hand closest to the bug bite. I went into the doctor and he diagnosed lyme disease and put me on a regiment of hard hitting antibiotics. Since the disease was caught early, there really isn’t a chance of it coming back, so no worries there.
I then received an email from BYU-Idaho saying that my name has been approved by the Church Board of Education to be hired at the University. So I accepted and the contract was sent (I signed it today – I have rarely felt so good signing my name).
On about day 7 of the 10 day antibiotics, I awoke in the night with horrible pains. It felt like the worst heartburn attack I have every had. I ended up awake for most of the night and sitting on the couch. I looked at the antibiotic I was on, and it said that sort of pain was a possible side effect. So I suffered through it for the next few days until I was done with the antibiotic. I was hoping that the pain would then go away. Nope. If anything, it got worse over the next few days. I tried eating a piece of chocolate and ended up doubled over on the floor gasping. That was when I decided to go in to the doctor. I went in and the conclusion was I was headed toward an ulcer. My body had built up too much acid thanks to the antibiotic while possibly killing some of the good bacteria in my stomach with the result that I was getting acid burns in my stomach and possibly esophagus. I had to do a bunch of blood work to make sure no other organs were damaged (they weren’t). I was put on an extreme antacid that stops my body from producing acid. After a week on that stuff, I am back to normal health – more or less. If only June would be a more restful month – ha!
Morgan has basically been taking care of me for the past month while at the same time, trying to find a car and a place for us to move to in June. She continues to astound. She was scheduled to get her tonsils out at the beginning of the month, but the doctor decided to postpone that indefinitely. They are now on a wait and see course for the next bit, and considering all of the other health problems this month, that was a blessing. Besides my sicknesses, Everyone went through a cold this month and Kyla even developed an Ear infection. So she is on antibiotics now as well – albeit nowhere near as robust as the kind I was on.
Jamis has exploded with energy. In the course of the month he has gone from army scooting to crawling, pulling himself up, furniture surfing, and climbing stairs. We thought he was just an early developer until he grew fangs (I’m not joking, pics will be up on our blog shortly). SO there you have it. It isn’t a case of just a precocious child, we are somehow rearing the undead. I guess we just have to be extra careful around his bite, and boy does he like to bite (and pull hair, but I’m not quite seeing how that fits into this entire vampire phase). We are hoping he gets his middle teeth in soon enough, but in the mean time, we have to take some very good pictures.
I have gone on long enough. So I will bring this to a close. We hope that each of you are doing well. We think about you and pray about you often. God bless you all
Derik, Morgan and Kids Robertson
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