Christmas in Carolina

Shortly after Corey and I arrived in SC on Christmas Eve our newest niece arrived home from the hospital. The girls were very excited to meet their little sister:


After unpacking the car and placing the presents under the tree it was off to bed for a short while. Lacey was too excited to play with the girls and my sister's dog Brownie that she did not let us get much sleep that 1st night. Come Christmas morning the living room was stuffed with presents and we all had lots of fun opening the various gifts. I don't think I've ever seen 2 girls get as many presents as Emily and Lizzy did!


After opening all their presents the girls got to hold their baby sister for the first time.










The rest of the day was a pretty lazy day for us and such has been most of my time down here. We went bowling yesterday with the exception of the new parents and the baby and Corey and I performed horribly, but enjoyed it nonetheless. Today Corey left to go back to VA for a couple days of work but will be back shortly for our trip down to Hilton Head.

Here is Miss Juliette Joy on her 1st Christmas (and 3rd day of life):

Merry Christmas Y'all!

It will indeed be a very Merry Christmas for my family. Later today Corey, Lacey and I will be in the car packed with suitcases and gifts on our way to South Carolina to spend Christmas with my sister, brother-in-law, parents, and my 3 nieces - yep I said 3! My sister gave birth to her 3rd daughter last night around 8pm. Juliette Joy was born 7lb 5oz and 19 inches. Mom and baby are doing well and we are all hoping they are able to leave the hospital today and will be home for Christmas morning. I'm really excited to spend this Christmas with my family because it seems like forever since I've been with them for a holiday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very blessed New Year!

Snowpocalypse 2009

Starting on Wednesday our local weathermen were calling for lots of snow - between 3 and 6 inches of accumulation - between Friday night and Sunday morning. Then Friday morning the forecast changed - now anywhere between 12 and 24 inches of accumulation! Wow - bit of a difference, eh? Needless to say that threw things into a frenzy around here sending people out in droves to do some Christmas shopping, to stock up on groceries and fill their car gas tanks. I waited patiently for the snow to start falling Friday night and started getting pretty worried once 8pm rolled around and it hadn't started yet. Well by the time we went to bed there was snow falling and accumulating on cars and grass. I had a hard time sleeping overnight because some people started shoveling snow right outside our bedroom window at 2am. I went out to the couch close to 3am and watched the snow fall through our sliding glass door for a few hours before falling back asleep. I woke up later in the morning to find what I thought was lots of snow covering the ground.


Throughout the day the snow continued to fall steadily, becoming pretty heavy at times. We enjoyed watching it fall throughout the day. We tried to go out and let Lacey play in it but there was a lot of wind whipping the snow around which was hard on our eyes. Also, some of the drifts were pretty deep and scared Lacey. We spent the rest of the day inside. I decided to bake some cookies and tried a new recipe for mint chocolate chip cookies - yummy! They were pretty much the usual choco chip cookie recipe but with peppermint extract instead of vanilla. While looking for the cookie recipe I happened upon a recipe for chocolate chip pancakes. I was intrigued so I decided to make them for dinner - they were super delicious as well! We even had the leftover pancakes for breakfast this morning.



I think the snow finally stopped around 10pm last night leaving a total of about 22-23 inches of the powdery white stuff behind. We went out this morning to find quite a sight - cars absolutely enveloped in snow (including mine!), piles and piles of snow thanks to snow plows, mountains of snow drifts, and beautiful icicles. There was white as far as the eye could see. After taking Lacey out, we decided to dig Corey's car out because it was relatively spared. We had gotten a bit of cabin fever staying inside all day Saturday so we decided to brave the roads and do a little shopping. Some roads were still covered in snow, some were slushy and others were completely clear.

My poor car is somewhere under that snow:

Some pictures from our drive around town:

There is still a ton of snow piled everywhere and lots of roads were still not completely cleared as of 7pm tonight, but things look much better than last evening. Hopefully I can dig my car out tomorrow because it needs to go to the shop before we head out of town on Thursday!

My favorite picture - this is what we saw in a store parking lot today:

Quality time in the kitchen

Today I had a day off - yesterday was my last day of OB/Gyn and tomorrow is my end of rotation exam. So what did I do today? Instead of studying like I should have, I ran some errands early this morning, addressed and mailed off our Christmas cards, then spent the rest of my morning and early afternoon whipping up some treats to share with my classmates. I had some fresh cranberries I bought initially to use as decorations, but then I decided it might be fun to actually cook with them. I found a cranberry muffin recipe that looked pretty appealing. I also had bought some raspberries and wanted to make some muffins with those. I ended up making 2 batches of the cranberry muffins because they were super easy and pretty tasty and one batch of raspberry-cream cheese muffins. I tried one of each because there was no way I was sharing them with my class if they didn't take any good! I'm happy to report they were both a success! Very yummy - a little sweet, a little buttery, a bit crumbly, and a bit tart. Yum!

Then to top of my day in the kitchen I decided to spend some time on a good, hearty dinner for Corey and I ---so I made the Beef & Barley soup that we've fallen in love with. It takes a little prep time and has to simmer for a while, so its only practical for me to make on a day off. It also turned out well (despite me accidentally using 2x the amount of broth called for in the recipe - oops!)

Now that I've done my errands, spent the day cooking, cleaned the kitchen and done some laundry, perhaps I should crack a book or read some notes :)

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

The tree and other Christmas decorations have been up since the weekend after Thanksgiving, my Christmas shopping is done, the presents are wrapped under the tree and the presents for far away family are in the mail. We had our first snowfall, the weather is cold and blustery, Starbucks has peppermint hot cocoa and the school semester is super close to the end. Yep, I'd say its almost Christmas!! (Now all I need to do is send out our Christmas cards and I'm set!)

This year we'll be spending Christmas with my sister, her family and my parents down in South Carolina. She will be VERY pregnant at the time of Christmas (due date is Jan 4th) so I am hoping she delivers a little early. We are bummed that we cannot be in TX during the holidays, but there's not enough time or money for that this year, plus we were there last year. But I am super excited to spend time with my family in SC. Plus, we can drive down there which means Lacey gets to come with (she is very excited)! Unfortunately we won't be leaving until Corey gets off work on Christmas Eve - which means we'll be getting in pretty late! No Christmas Eve service for us this year :( I guess I'll have to download a good version of Silent Night (in English and German) and listen to it in the car to make me feel like I'm back in my childhood church on Christmas Eve!

So maybe OB/Gyn isn't all that bad...

Yesterday, my first day on day float, I messed up before the shift even started. I was terrified that this week was going to be horrible from that point on. Despite my worst fears, these past two days have been awesome! Yesterday I scrubbed in on a C-section then watched a vaginal delivery. After the baby was delivered I got to deliver the placenta - kinda gross and kinda cool all at the same time! Then today I came in crazy early because I had to round on my two postpartum patients. After sign-out we had a couple patients to see and one to prep for a scheduled c-section. I was lucky enough to scrub into the c-section again and do a bit of suture cutting (nothing too exciting, but watching is lots of fun). Then immediately after we finished closing the c-section patient, we headed to our next laboring patient's room because she was feeling the need to push. I'm not really sure how it came about but it was decided that I was going to get to deliver the baby. So I quickly got my sterile booties, gown and gloves on and sat in the stool between the patient's legs. The chief resident stood over my shoulder and quietly gave me a rundown of what I needed to do and when. Less than 2 minutes after I sat down the baby crowned, the head was delivered then I got to do my part. I grasped the head between my two hands and exerted downward pressure in an attempt to deliver the anterior shoulder. We discovered the baby had what's called a nuchal cord (when the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby's neck). Once that was fixed and we finished delivering the anterior shoulder I pulled up on the baby's head to deliver the posterior shoulder. Once both shoulders were out, all he needed was a quick tug, I grabbed his head and leg and held on for dear life. We clamped and cut the umbilical cord then I got to deliver the placenta (which just entails massaging the uterus, applying suprapubic pressure then tugging gently on the remaining umbilical cord which is still attached to the placenta).

I cannot explain the rush that came along with the delivery! I was jittery for a good 30 minutes after we had finished everything. Does this mean OB is for me? Definitely not! But I had an experience I will never forget!

The weather outside is frightful

Yesterday started off cold, rainy and miserable with the promise of snow later in the day. The forecast called for 1-4" of accumulation, but I was pretty doubtful, after all we had temps in the 50s and up to the 60s for the week prior. I went up to campus (in DC) to help out with interviews for the morning. It was snowing there but nothing was really sticking. But as I was driving home, I quickly realized the landscape looked rather different the farther away I got from the city. By the time I got home there was close to 1-2" of snow on the ground and still tons falling. So I guilted Corey into going out into the snow with Lacey and I to have some fun and take pictures.


We ended up taking lots of pictures, running around in the snow and throwing snowballs which Lacey loved chasing.


We were frozen when we got back inside, but Lacey wanted to head right back out immediately. I ended up taking her out again later - she is definitely a snow bunny! Luckily there was still lots of powdery fluffy snow out this morning that she got to play in again.


Pretty impressive snowfall for the first of the season! We are eagerly awaiting the next!


On a completely different subject, I'm on my OB rotation right now and cannot wait for it to be over. Last week was spent on "clinic" duty which ended up with me having multiple half days, one afternoon watching OB sonograms and one day completely off. I actually only spent two mornings and one afternoon actually seeing patients in the clinic. It's pretty frustrating for me because as much as I like having an easy schedule, I'm also here to learn, and that's obviously not happening if I'm having all this time off. On the other hand, I'm not at all interested in OB so I keep telling myself to enjoy my schedule, after all its better than me having to work 80 hour weeks in something I don't like. I only have 7 working days left in the rotation and 4 of those are >12 hour shifts doing either Labor and Delivery or Gynecology float (seeing ER consults, rounding on post-op patients, etc). I also have one day on call, then 2 days in the clinic. I'm just trying to make it through the rest of this rotation and on to Christmas vacation. Perhaps being busy and seeing some deliveries will help make it go by faster!