Medical School Graduation Banquet

So proud of this guy!

Abby West, Jaimee Anderson, and I. Our husbands were med school buddies.

Oh, Amanda Sebreros, she saved me so much during school.

He did it! This handsome man graduated med school.

Ankle Bracelet

There is no one Iva rather play with than Shawn. Unfortunately, Shawn has been super busy studying for boards and finishing up second year. Shawn has had to get creative with keeping Iva from interrupting his studying. The other day he set his timer on his watch and told her he could play when it beeped. Ha! She ran around for a good amount of the day waiting for it to beep. Wish I would have gotten a picture when it started buzzing. She was so excited.

Bridging Ceremony

Bridging Ceremony. Iva, Charlie, Henry, and I headed to the bridging ceremony to "celebrate" Shawn moving from the classroom to rotations/clinicals. We sure are proud of our dada and how much he does. Here is to boards being a thing of the past.

Osmosis Learning

At its finest...

White Coat Ceremony

Wahoo! Shawn officially has his white coat and is a medical student at Midwestern University. On Friday, he participated in the white coat ceremony. Iva, Charlie and I were able to go to the ceremony and support Shawn. A huge thank you to everyone who entertained Charlie and kept him happy and quiet the entire time. I am so glad that I had help and we were all able to go to the ceremony. I know Iva and Charlie will never remember being there, but Shawn and I will remember that they were there. Plus it made me really sad to think about them not being there for such an important moment for Shawn. He has worked so hard to get to where he is and we want to show our love and support every chance we get. We love our medical student dada, the future Dr Catmull. 

 

Our Little Family.

Shawn's Study Buddies.
(L-R: Mark Sabin, Shawn, Doug Gaufin, Steven Peacoack, and Andrew Erickson.)

I am so proud of all Shawn's hard work to get to where he is today- it has not been easy road, but he has never given up and is only more determined than ever. We are so excited for him and are happy we get to tag along on this adventure. (Plus it helps that AZ just feels like a never ending vacation for me and the kiddos. We seriously have so much fun while poor Shawn studies all day every day.) 

New School and New Toys

Shawn is a medical school student. It still seems a little unreal to me- that is until he comes home from lab smelling like formaldehyde and then trust me anyone within a mile radius would believe it. (The second he walks in the door all I can think about is when I dissected fetal pigs in middle school. And then I remember he isn't dissecting fetal pigs.)

He has had a great start to school and is working so hard. He studies every day like he studied for finals at BYU Idaho. We are pretty proud of dada and don't know how he does it.  

We have a pretty good schedule down and it hasn't been "horrible" yet. Shawn leaves for school around 7 am. (We are never awake when he goes to school so I don't really know what time he leaves.) Shawn comes home from school around 6-630. We eat dinner, play, babies take a bath (some days), and then we get everyone all tucked in bed for the night. And around 730-8, Shawn starts studying again until we head to bed around 10 or 11. (The only day he doesn't stick to the schedule is Sunday. I am really thankful for Sundays!) 

Iva, Charlie and I have had no problem keeping busy while Shawn has been at school. We swim almost everyday, go to different play groups, go to the library and next week Iva starts ballet class and I can hardly wait! We have been lucky to already make so many friends. Our ward is made up of A LOT of students- medical, dental, podiatry, physical therapy and more. So everyone has a pretty good understanding of what everyone is going through and can relate. It is nice to have such a great support group. (And have everyone sharing all the free things they have discovered- we are all about free activities these days.)

Shawn's medical supplies arrived and we have all turned into his practice patients. And Iva loves his gloves. We will probably have to buy her her own box since they are her favorite toy these days. 

A typical Thursday playgroup. Babies in one room and Iva and her friends in the other. I never dare interrupt Iva and her friends happily playing to take a picture. 

This last week, we had friends over to swim everyday except Mon. We are really lucky to have such a nice pool at our apt. (A few friends live in houses and don't have a pool so it is nice to be able to have somewhere we can all swim.) 

We really love our apt- we thought we might move to a house after Shawn's first year, but it doesn't seem that way anymore. We have been really lucky with the apt (the maintenance man is great and scolded Shawn and I for not calling the emergency line when the AC went out- we didn't know that was an emergency and just filed a normal maintenance report) and we love all of the amenities and how close we are to EVERYTHING. 

Arizona is treating us very well- heat and all.