Happiness

I was bored and folding laundry the other night and found this documentary on netflix. It was actually really good and very interesting. They showed that once basic physical needs are met that extra material gains do not change happiness levels.  The most interesting thing to me is that God really does love us. He created us in a way that the chemical dopamine, which creates feelings of happiness, is released in our brains when we do things that he asks us to do. Such as being compassionate and loving, being close to your family and friends, being part of and participating in your community, exerting yourself physically through work, and having a good spiritual connection of some kind. All these things that are free and help us get out of ourselves and become more like the Savior. The sad thing is Satan has also provided stimulants that chemically release dopamine in the brain such as drugs and alcohol. Amazingly enough feelings of compassion release way more dopamine than if someone were to take a hit of cocaine. And being loving and compassionate is free and opportunities for it are all around us. So they have scientifically proven it Heavenly Father really does love us and his paths truly are the paths for happiness in this life... if only all of society would get that and stop chasing down false sources of happiness.

Chris' Homecoming

Caleb's younger brother Chris came home from his mission in January. We drove out there to spend a few days with him and the family.  Caleb was excited for weeks before, and was so proud of him. He served in El Salvador and seemed to have a wonderful mission and it was obvious that he was an amazing missionary.  While we were there we hung out and listened to mission stories, played games, went skiing, went to the Temple, and helped get Chris set up with some stuff for school. It was relaxing and fun to be with the family. The kids loved being with their uncles and aunt, and were spoiled by Grandma and Grandpa with lots of attention.    

We got to Utah a day before Chris. We had a mini Christmas. Grandma made the kids the greatest Jake and Izzy costumes and threw in a princess too. Joshua and Abigail have put them on almost everyday since we have gotten home.  We tried to take the kids skiing with Grandpa, but the fickle winter weather kicked in right when we got there. The kids still loved it -- for about ten minutes! Grandpa was an excellent teacher and even took them in to get hot chocolate and got them all warmed up and happy after. Caleb and I even got to go on a little mini date and do 3 runs down the mountain on our own. 

   We had such a fun trip and were so happy for Chris and proud of him for serving such a wonderful   mission. We are grateful to have so many wonderful examples for our children to follow and learn from. We only wish we could have stayed longer and heard his homecoming talk and seen more of them family. 

Big News

The big news (if you have not already heard) is that Caleb got a job! He will be working at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria California. We will be (hopefully) moving to the Santa Ynez valley which is a 35 minute commute, but he will only have 15 shifts a month, no call,  nothing more! So a commute is no biggie.  My family lives there and in Santa Barbara, and the Goolds (our wonderful friends from Vermont) live there. Caleb is very excited about the Hospital. He had a few different interviews/tours there and really liked the other doctors and the style of their practice. With EM you typically work for a group that contracts out to the actual hospital.  Sometimes they're big with tons of contracts around the country, sometimes smaller. Marion is a small private group that's just with the one hospital, which can be good and bad, but in this case it all looks very good. They are starting a family practice residency next year, who apparently will work closely with the ED, and they may eventually have some med students rotating through. Caleb loves a little teaching, but has never wanted to work at an actual academic center, so this will give him just enough of it. All around we are very excited. I am so proud of Caleb. He has worked so hard since his undergraduate years to get to this point.  And while he was working on his schooling and training he managed to be a wonderful loving father and husband and some how always managed to provide for us so I could stay home with the kids. It has not been easy, but he has managed beautifully and I am so grateful for him and so glad that we have been on this journey as a family. The journey has been fun and we have learned a lot....But we are all ecstatic about being able to see daddy more, and not have to cram in quality family time when ever he is home for an hour or two.

Caleb surprised me, and scared me when he told me he was doubting doing a fellowship. It was another example of Heavenly Fathers guidance though. He decided in September that the fellowship was not feeling right anymore, but was still unsure. So we put some feelers out with jobs, just to see what was out there. He sent his CV to all the Hospitals around us, and then between Camarillo and San Luis Obispo, since we knew that is where we would ideally love to live. We figured we would do back up plans once we decided with the fellowship. With in a few days Marian got back to us, slowly we heard back from a few other places. Marian was his first interview, and Caleb loved it right away, and it was close enough to the Santa Ynez Valley, where we have always dreamed of living. It seemed a little too perfect to be true. So we interviewed at all the other hospitals that had spots and had gotten back to us, but nothing felt right. We went to the Temple, prayed and fasted about whether to go forward with the fellowship application process or do the job thing. We kept hoping we would hear back from a job before the fellowship deadline. We didn't...but felt that the job idea felt like what we were supposed to do. So we gambled and pulled the application, and have been waiting since November to hear if we really made the right choice.  So we learned patience, and learned that we did make the right choice. So we are happy and relieved to know our next step and our looking forward to our next great adventure. We have loved living here and have felt completely blessed and guided through out Caleb's med school and training years. Every choice we made we have prayed and fasted about and have been so perfectly placed in the right program, house, neighborhood, and group of friends. We know that he has once again guided us, and so grateful and excited. 

Christmas

Christmas Sunday... got the kids in their Christmas outfits. I wanted Abigail to wear red but she wanted to wear a dress that was long enough to drag down the stairs like a princess...so we settled for black and white.

Caleb was on his night float schedule for Christmas, so Christmas Eve was Caleb's fifth of five nights in a row. When daddy woke up on Christmas eve we had our regular Christmas eve dinner, Luke 2 reading and dress up (Abigail was Mary, and Joshua was Joseph, Caleb and I filled in for all the extras :)), we read "Twas the night Before Christmas", opened one present and put the kids to bed. Caleb went to work and I scurried around getting ready for the morning.

 Christmas morning was great. Caleb has worked an overnight shift on Christmas eve all three years of residency. It is not ideal but way better than working Christmas morning.  So he got home from work around 7 am and we were all still asleep! Joshua never sleeps past seven. So we actually had to wake the kids so we could start opening presents and get daddy to bed. 

Abigail got a kitchen for Christmas, and not much else. She has played with it constantly since. She loves making everyone food, and setting up tea parties.

Joshua got a Playmobil jet airplane, which he has not put down since Christmas. He loves it and quickly started accessorizing it with all his old toys.

 After presents and breakfast, Caleb went to sleep for a few hours. Then he woke up and we drove up to Santa Barbara to have Christmas dinner with my family. It was very fun and worth the trip. Poor Caleb was so exhausted, but driven by the Christmas spirit and excitement to participate. We stayed at my parents for a few days while Caleb caught up on a lot of much needed sleep. We got home Friday night had one day at home to unwind, and clean up Christmas before Caleb started his next five overnight shifts. Then I got a bad cold, then the stomach flu, and poof New Years was done without a thought. So it is 2013 and we are looking forward to our next adventure... our first real job and a new town. 

 

Fall Fun

It has been a fairly cold and rainy winter for California. The kids have loved playing in the rain. It has been fairly busy fall because Caleb is applying for jobs, so we have been taking quite a few little road trips. We also got five baby chicks for Abigail's birthday. I waited until they were almost three months old to move them out in the coop. They were out for about two weeks and doing great when some sort of animal torre through the top of our coop and killed all five of our small chickens and our three 2 year old chickens. We were all very sad, we picked out the cleanest one for the kids to help have a funeral in the backyard and rolled a big rock as a gravestone. Joshua drew a picture on it of a chicken and him with tears running down his cheeks. When we know where we will be living we will raise a new flock, we miss having them too much.

Thanksgiving

As I am looking through my photos I noticed that I did not take any pictures of Thanksgiving dinner. I took a lot of pictures around Thanksgiving but some how missed that day! Anyway it was really great. We drove up to Santa Barbara and were with my family this year. Everyone was there except Billy and Holly's family in Utah. Joshua and Abigail loved being with the cousins. I love fall pictures so I took these pictures of them right before dinner.

Caleb had to go back to work, and since Joshua was still out of school we stayed at my parents a few more days. We helped Grandma and Grandpa set up all their Christmas decorations. The kids spent hours playing with the train.

Joshua's Thanksgiving Program

Joshua had a little school program for Thanksgiving. It was so cute! It was just the Kindergarten classes  all dressed up like pilgrims and Indians. Joshua was so excited to be an Indian, and to make his own instrument. FOr weeks before he was singing all the songs everywhere we went. For the program they sang some songs and then had a Thanksgiving feast. It was a very fun way to start the break.

Family Photo Shoot

While we were in San Diego we did a quick family photo shoot. It was us and a tripod... so the full family shots did not work out the greatest, but we got a lot of cute pictures.