Maple Syrup Weekend

This past weekend was maple syrup weekend. We have never been to a maple farm and since this is our last chance to do it, we decided to take advantage. We enjoyed some 'Sugar on Snow' (fresh maple syrup on ice) and some maple sausage chili. It was sooooo good! Bennett got a taste of the chili and boy, did he love it. The picture tells it all- chili on the mouth, drool, and a big smile!

Bennett really enjoyed himself and the girls loved their Sugar on Snow.

Licking his lips for more.

We had a good time and I'm glad we got to go see how Vermont maple sugar is made. We came home with some maple sausage and some maple canadian bacon. It was delicious. We are trying to figure out if we can have some shipped to us in Indiana!

Not much else has been going on. It has been pretty uneventful at our house. I have been neglecting my household duties because I am glued to the computer looking at houses. It's all my brain wants to think about. I leave next week to go find a house in Indiana while Bryan stays with the kids. I am a little nervous, but really excited to finally be house shopping! Bryan is done with school and has been home a lot. It's so nice. He has been extremely helpful with the kids and around the house. It's great to have some down time before he starts into his busy resident schedule. We will probably never see him when that starts in June!

Match Day 2010

Today was the big day. Match Day. Every third Thursday of March, fourth year med students get the news of where they will be doing their residencies. It is an exciting day. The anticipation builds up for weeks. Bennett is wide-eyed with anticipation. Actually, he didn't even know what was happening!

All of the medical students make the trek down the hallway to their mail boxes to get their letter that will tell them where they matched. It seemed to take Bryan forever. People already had their letters open and the list of where people were going before he made it back. I plugged my ears and said, "Don't tell me, Bryan hasn't come back yet. I don't want to know where we are going before we open the letter!"

Where are we going you ask?

South Bend, Indiana!!!

That's right, land of the fighting Irish. We are thrilled and excited. Bryan will be going into Family Medicine at Memorial Hospital. We will be there for 3 or 4 years, depending on if Bryan does a fellowship or not.


Bryan giving high fives to his fellow colleague, Justin, that matched at the same place!

Bennett giving Dad a congratulating (is that a word?!) pat on the cheek!

Every student gets to put a pin on the map in the location that they are going. The girls each had to take a turn putting the pin in.




Here are the kids waiting patiently for the action to start.

We really are excited to begin a new chapter in our lives. We feel like Indiana is where we are supposed to be next. Now comes the hard part of finding a house and planning a move. What kinds of adventures will we encounter next?

Match Day Dinner

Last night to celebrate the match, UVM put on a big dinner for the graduates. It was a lot of fun, but the anticipation was high for the big day. Here are the graduates. They have all worked hard to get to this point! I am especially proud of my hubby for working hard and finishing medical school. Way to go!

(Pictured from left to right: Rick, Justin, Ammon (also our Bishop), Bryan, Caleb, Jake, Ben, and Danny, Chris is not pictured here) Here are the wives who have also worked very hard to finish medical school! We have all become such good friends. It has been great to have a strong support system while our husbands are gone to school all the time. When we started med school there were nine kids between all of us. Now there are twenty-one kids! Wow.

(Pictured from left to right: Bethany, Heather, Ariane, Me, Stephanie, Vanessa, Erica, Kathryn, Carrie is not pictured)

The handsome couple!

The dinner was great. We sure are going to miss all of the friends we have made here in Vermont. They are like family to us.

Thanks to Vanessa Zinke for taking the pictures. I should have taken my camera even if Bryan thought it was too big to carry around!

Irish Jig Contest

I get my love of St. Patrick's Day from my mom. We have Irish blood and she is proud of it! My mom is a HUGE fan of St. Patrick's Day. She goes all out for this day. This year, she started the Forbes Family Irish Jig contest. This is our contest entry. It's not going to be on here long- it's kind of embarrassing. We had fun dancing and the girls loved doing it.

I hope you get some joy and laughter out of our goofiness.

Check-ups

Bennett and Chloe had their Dr. check-ups on Thursday. Bennett weighed in at a whopping 18 lbs. 10 ozs. He is 28 " long. That puts him at the 50% for both height and weight. He's a big boy!

Chloe is our skinny mini. She weighed in at 29 lbs. and 39" tall. She is in the 75th% on her height and 50% for weight. I'm pretty sure that all of my kids will be taller than me someday. I'm grateful that I have healthy kids. I am so lucky!

Eulogy

Steve Harold Mason joined our family on January 15th, 2010. Sadly, he joined his friends in fish heaven on March 6, 2010 due to a tragic hot water accident while cleaning his fish bowl. Steve was a good fish. He loved to swim and play hide and go seek in his toy that Niah picked out for him.

He was survived by Niah, Chloe and his new fish brother, Livvy. He lived a good, surprisingly long life.

Funeral services were held at the Mason home shortly after Steve's death. Steve was buried in the rocks by our house.
Our house is not the same without you, Steve.

You were a good fish and we will miss you Steve Harold Mason.

Full of Song

My girls love the movie 'The Little Rascals'. They have been practicing their song from the movie. Watch Chloe's face in this video, it cracks me up! I love that both of my girls love to sing.

Thoughts and Funnies

There have been a few things happening around here and lots of thoughts running through my head...
This picture was sent to me by my grandpa. I was showing it to Niah and I was telling her who is in the picture. My Great- Grandpa Edison (on the right) was married to Beulah and she died of cancer when I was about a year old. He got remarried to Grandma Erika, who Niah knows and remembers. She died about a year and a half ago due to cancer. I could see Niah's little wheels turning in her head as I told her this. She asked me, "Will they both come alive in the resurrection?" I replied "Yep, they will." She said, "Well, who's going to be married to Grandpa Edison? They will fight!" She is so smart and funny. I laughed at that one!

Pictured from left to right:

My great-grandma Hazel, grandpa Doug, grandma Saundra, great-grandma Beulah, great-grandpa EdisonI am so grateful that we have had a mild winter this year. The sun has been shining a lot and it has not been that cold. It's amazing what a little sunshine does for your mental health!
These two girls have been really into playing babies lately. They pretend that one of them is the mom and one is the baby. I usually get the role of their neighbor. The other night after playing babies all day, Chloe asked me, "How do mammas get babies out of their tummies?" Uhhhh... how to explain that to a three year old?! I think my answer went something like this: "Well, they have to work really hard to push it out." It was the best I could do. I better practice my answers for future inquiries.

We went to the pet store the other day. The girls like to go there and look at the fish and hamsters. We ended up leaving the store with a fish for Chloe! She named him Livvy. She wants it to be a girl, hence the girl name!

I caught Bennett on camera tonight playing with his ball. It was so funny to watch him try to eat the ball and trying to catch it. He is such a happy, pleasant kid. He has been sleeping much better. Last night he slept from 8:30 to 5:00. Yay for me!!

There was not a rotation available for Bryan to do the first two weeks of March so he ended up taking his two weeks of vacation now. It has been great to have him home. He has been cooking, cleaning, and watching the kids for me while I exercise (trying to get that in with three kids is almost impossible!). We have been watching movies and our new favorite show, American Pickers. If you haven't watched it and love old fashioned things like I do, you should watch it! He has a rotation the last two weeks of March and then he has a family medicine reading month in April, which basically means he has to read a couple of articles and that's it! Graduation is in May. It's getting so close. We are patiently waiting for Match Day to come. March 18th is the big day when we find out where we are going for residency- the next 3-4 years of our lives. I can't wait to find out where we are going.

Image found at google images

It will be so great to have a steady income and a house! At the same time, buying a house is overwhelming. How are we going to buy everything we need for a house and a move?! I know it will work out. Bryan is thinking about getting a job in April and May so that we will have some extra money. That would be great and I think he will go crazy being home with us all day long. It's weird that Bryan will be an official Dr. in just a couple of months. It seemed like it would be forever when we started med school, but the time has flown by and I am sad to be leaving Vermont. I love it here.

On The Move

Bennett is on the move these days. He is so busy. He puts everything in his mouth and he follows me around our house. He is getting pretty quick too. I'm sure he'll figure out his 'real crawl' soon.

I realize the music gets a little annoying after a while, but I couldn't resist putting that song on here for this post! Just hit the pause button if it gets on your nerves too.