Summertime and the living is good!

I think that I blinked a little to long because this summer has just flown by.

Nik survived his Step 1 boards (and we survived all of the studying), he did very well and I am so proud of him.  He had four very short weeks off and he has been back in school for a month now.  Third year of medical school is a lot different then the previous two.  There is a few lectures but most of the learning takes place in rotations with different types of doctors.  He is about half way through his surgery rotation, he got to do his first two weeks in Neurosurgery and was the first third year medical student to do 2 weeks in anesthesia.  He is loving anesthesia and is still pretty sure that is what he is going to want to do.  After this week he starts his general surgery rotation for four weeks, which is more time consuming then the first 2 rotations.  Overall this school year has required some adjusting, the hours are different and the work load is different.  But so far, at least from my perspective, it hasn't been that bad. 

Raivis and I went to Colorado in June for my nephew's wedding.  It was a fast trip but i was so thankful to get be there for Jared and Annie's wedding.  We did sneak in a hike up in Rocky National Park, I didn't realize how much I missed the way the western mountains smell!  As always, it was fun to see Raivis get to play with his cousins, makes my heart happy.  Alec and Uncle Marc were troopers and carried Raivis on their back for parts of our hike.

Once Nik was done with his test, we went on a weekend camping trip to Ocracoke Island, North Carolina.  It is a bit of a drive from our house, then you take a two hour ferry ride out to the island.  It was well worth both the time it took us to get there and all of the bug bites we got while we were there.  Ocracoke Island has a super cute fishing village on it but the rest of the island is a National Park.  It was so beautiful, really hot, but still beautiful.  

Hitting the beach as the sun comes up and before breakfast is AWESOME.  All of the dogs and Raivis worked up an appetite running through the waves and sand. 


After we ate and ran to the village for a few things, we were back down at the beach for most of the day.  The dogs, Raivis and I even napped on the beach! After dinner we were back on the beach for a campfire and marshmallow roasting.  My kid won't eat marshmallows but don't worry, I ate enough for all four of us!  We were sitting there enjoying ourselves then all of a sudden, there was a large amount of rain falling on us with huge flashes of lightening.  We put out the fire like good citizens then ran back  up to the car.  Back at the campsite our tent was in about 6 inches of standing water, after a futile attempt to get into a hotel in the village we went back to camp, pulled our tent up close to the road where there was less water and hoped for the best.  We woke up dry and rested, whew!

 We had some time to kill after we were all packed up at camp so we checked out the village.  The Ocracoke Lighthouse is adorable and once of the oldest in this part of our country.  We were all beat on the ferry, but it was to hot to stay in the car, so we chilled on the deck in the shade.  As soon as we were in the car on the way home, Raivis was out,  I think that he really loved camping but as we were packing up he looks at me and says, "I all done camping, and you all done and you all done (pointing to both his Daddy and myself)".  :)








The heat wave hit us about the same time as we got back from camping.  It always makes me feel like such a baby when it get hot like that here.  I mean, I grew up in Southern Idaho, where it tops 100 for at least a week every summer, it isn't like I don't know heat.  But when it is over 90 here and the humidity goes up and the heat index is 110, I just can't take it.  It feels like the air is trying to smother you, like a wet blanket.  We tried to keep as cool as we could, we took Raivis to a local shopping mall that has fountains that kids get in. 

We ate a lot of popsicles, sat around in the dark, went without baked goods, and spent a lot of time in stores with really good air conditioning.  Needless to say we survived.  I am petitioning mother nature to let up a little on the heat for this pregnant mamma for the rest of the summer though. :)


While it was hot, we decided to go to Washington DC and catch the Rockies playing the Nationals.  It was disgustingly hot, but luckily we got tickets in the shade after we baked in the sun last year. 

Raivis got to root for both teams this year, as he has now lived here longer then he lived in Colorado (hard for me to believe that). We got to eat all of our baseball favorites, Cracker Jacks (the toys in Cracker Jacks these days are super lame, when did that happen?), dippen dots, ice cream in a baseball hat, hot dogs... YUM!  Luckily we had gotten one of those fans that will spray water before we left for the game, I think it would have just about been unbearable without that. 

Before Nik went back to school we took a weekend road trip up to Baltimore, Maryland.  It was fun checking out a new city.  We caught our 2nd Major League Baseball game of the season, the Orioles vs, the Tigers.  It was much cooler and we ate a ton of popcorn.  After two games, Raivis is really good at booing with the crowd, it doesn't matter who or why... if there is booing, Raivis is booing too.  While in Baltimore, we hit up the water front and the aquarium. Super fun.  And then summer was over and it is August already. 








The baby is growing and growing and as a result so am I.  We are officially in the third trimester already   We got to have two ultrasounds because the little peanut didn't cooperate and let the tech get all of the measurements she needed.  We know what we are having but not all of the family wants to know, so if you don't know and want too, I will tell you :).  Everything looks good with the baby, except the child's head is currently in the 90th percentile... that head growth better slow down :).  Raivis is now okay with at least talking about having a baby and he will tell you that it is in his mommy's tummy.  We have so much to do to get ready for this baby, we need to figure out where the kid is going to sleep, where we are going to put all of the fun baby stuff, what we want the name to be, I think I am going to need a couple of more months to be ready. :) I am sure I will change my tune by the time November roles around.