Swim Lessons

 

 The 3 older girls had swim lessons this summer during the month of June.  Ella and Maggie are both able to swim independently in the pool now--such a big accomplishment. . .especially at Maggie's age!  Before swim lessons finished Ella was able to swim the length of the pool on her own and Maggie was able to do the width of the pool.  They had a lot of fun and were sad when swim lessons ended.  This was Hadley's first year of swim lessons and she enjoyed her time in the preschool class. Her teachers were amazed that she was the smallest in the class, but one of the only ones who was not afraid to go under.  Way to go girls!

 

 

Trampoline

 

Brad and I had been talking about how we wanted to get the girls something special when we finished residency to tell them thank you for putting up with Daddy's crummy schedule and long hours, and understanding when he couldn't be to all the events they wanted him to attend.  These years of residency have definitely been trying for our family and we are more than happy to have them behind us, but we feel like the girls were really good sports through it all and deserved a chance to celebrate along with us.  We decided pretty early on that we wanted to make their dreams come true and get them a trampoline, so when a former photography client of mine was moving and offered hers up for free, we felt like we struck gold.

Brad and I stayed up late one night after the girls were asleep and put it together.  We couldn't wait to unveil it in the morning and our girls have been thoroughly enjoying jumping on it ever since.  They also got to have a sleepover on the tramp with Daddy (he is a better sport than I am) and can't wait to do it again.

 

 

Residency Banquet

 I can't believe we finally made it to this point in our lives!  Brad has his residency banquet to celebrate his completion of residency in OB/GYN.  It has definitely been a long awaited day for all of us.  Brad's parents were nice enough to come down for the event and it was nice to take a minute to congratulate Brad on his accomplishments of making it through residency.  It has definitely been a LONG four years for our family.  We are hoping that the next 3 years of fellowship will be a nice relief when compared to the last four.  Way to go Brad!

 

 

 Brad and his fellow residents graduating, along with his program director, Dr. Zsemyle

Brad's mentor, Dr. Hurley, he did a great job "roasting" Brad at the Banquet

 

The Grand Canyon

 

We finally made it over to visit the Grand Canyon with our good friends, the Wrights.  The original plan was to spend the weekend camping there, but once we realized Brad would only be 5 weeks post-op from his shoulder surgery we decided to play it safe and rent a cabin.  We stayed at a cabin  just north of Flagstaff  for 3 nights and enjoyed being able to wash off the dirt each morning.  We spent a full day at the Grand Canyon, spent one visiting Wupatki National Monument, Walnut Canyon, and Sunset Crater, and used our travel days on each end for hanging out.  The Grand Canyon was beautiful and bigger than I could have imagined and all the kids did pretty well on our pretty tough hike that started downhill and finished uphill. . .I much prefer hiking the other way around!  :)

 

We enjoyed yummy meals, smores, and banana boats and just had a great time hanging out as a family and playing with our 2nd family here in New Mexico.