phil’s in the middle of his sicu (surgery intensive care unit) rotation and pretty much hating life right now.  poor guy.  though he did tell me yesterday that he saved a guy’s life.  apparently the patient was coding and phil managed to bring him back with cpr.  crazy!  so anyway, phil got his one-day weekend last week on friday.  we decided to make the most of the day and took the kids to pa’s pumpkin patch in long beach.  it wasn’t a real pumpkin patch in that all the pumpkins were imported in and there was no accompanying apple orchard or pretty fall leaves to look at.  but it was…

hard to believe, but phil and i officially started dating NINE YEARS ago tonight.  i gave him a scrapbook of all our dates a year later for our first anniversary.  i couldn’t resist looking through it and reliving old memories.  and i especially couldn’t resist posting a few pictures here!  phil had called me earlier in the day and asked if i wanted to go have dinner that night.  since we’d had quite a few dinners together during the summer just as friends, i didn’t really think much of it and agreed.  phil informed me later that he was sitting on bruin walk (manning the cia info table) with james (who i think…

phil was post-call today and came home around ten this morning, went straight to bed and slept a few hours.  he woke up in the afternoon just in time to join us for an outing to averill park.  the park is only a mile and a half away from where we live and the kids really enjoy going there to see the ducks.  we stopped at the store where phil bought a loaf of fresh french bread before heading to the park. ok, so i know you’re not supposed to feed the ducks, and we’ll refrain from it in the future, but we decided to let the kids feed some of…

one thing i really love about being back is being able to hang out with family way more often.  my dad comes and visits about once a month.  my brother’s family lives only 45 minutes away.  mikey and allie really love their uncle and auntie and their “baby cousin” (as mikey calls him).  i love seeing my kids being so comfortable around them- crawling into their laps, talking and playing with them.  so on saturday, after the great backpack expedition, johnny, joanna, and jeremiah came over to hang out and have dinner with us.  it was so nice to just kick back and relax while spending time together instead of having…

so i’ve been looking high and low for a backpack for mikey the last few weeks.  he’s been needing one for sunday school and during our weekly moms group meetings to hold his drink, snack, change of clothes (for just in case reasons), and a couple cars.  the reason it’s taken so long to find one is that phil wanted to get him a really really small one.  and those are really really hard to find!  after looking both in stores and online, i finally ordered him a mini backpack from rei.  sadly, even mini backpacks are still huge on mikey.  it’s a bit bigger than phil wanted, but i figured it’s a…