Catching up - Part 1

New's year resolution - be a better blogger.
So here's me catching up via pictures for the last few months/half a year that I've been a bad blogger.
This of course is all the fun stuff I've done.  I don't have pictures of my clinic or the hospital.  ;)

At the Scavenger Dash, I entered a raffle and WON!  Tickets to a BBQ cookoff!  Of course I took Sief and it was SUPER YUMMY!

BBQ COOKOFF

Prime Rib and garlic mash!  

Mini double backed potato, caramelized onions and some sort of meat! 

Sief's professional shot - notice how he got the BBQ smoke rising in the background.

Pretty golf course - site where the cook off was at!

Next up was the "All Souls Procession," which is a Tucson spin off of the Day of the Dead.  Tucsonians come together one evening and have a procession through part of downtown Tucson.  Many in costume.  The procession is to celebrate the life and memory of those who have passed the year before.  Penny joined us in the event.  Sorry the pictures are poor, but there were literally thousands of people and it was dark out.  One of my favorite displays was a fake goose covered in oil being escorted by people dressed in jumpsuits as if cleaning up the oil spill.

Sief with appropriate skull attire.

Happy Thanksgiving!  I was lucky enough to have Thanksgiving Day off, but was not prepared!  Which means I made a trip to the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning - always a good plan!  Sarah came over and helped me cook and we had another co-resident of Sief's over to celebrate with us.  

No turkey, but still delicious if you ask me  :)

Sarah making butternut squash risotto.

Cheese and fruit plate.  Brie, herb coated goat cheese, and smoked gouda.

homemade hummus!

Trader Joe's stuffing, anyone?

Risotto all done!

Chicken (not turkey) stuffed with cranberry apple stuffing.

Crescent rolls.  Not Aunt Ed's cornmeal rolls, but still good and a lot less work.

green bean casserole - I insisted on making :(  not next year.  Worst dish by far.

Full and happy!

More to come tomorrow!  Update - Thanksgiving to now!

Soooo long, but that's what happens when you work so much

I've been on my Ob/Gyn rotation for the past 2 weeks.  I have actual call on this rotation.  Call means that I can work up to 30 hrs in a row.  Thankfully, they usually let me go home around hour 26-28.  I'm on call approximately every 4-5 days.  It's killer - at least for me.  I was never a night person.  I was never the person who stayed up the latest at slumber parties, nor did I pull all-nighters in college or medical school.  I only came close one to an all-nighter in college, staying up until 4 am before taking a nap only to wake up and work some more.
So working for that long as a physician - well not so great for me and probably not so great for my patients.    That's what I've been up to lately - sleeping and/or trying to regulate my sleep cycle.

Despite all this work, I've actually been up to quite a lot.  In October, Sief and I went to a BBQ cookoff, we were fortunate enough to get to spend Thanksgiving with each other and our closest friends here, and well the most exciting news of all....Sief, Penny, and I have added another member to our family.

Introducing...... BUSTER!  (named after the SF Giants Rookie of the Year - Buster Posey)  woo woo

We recently adopted Buster as a new friend for both Penny and Sief.  If anyone reading this has met Penny, then you know she's not the friendliest dog and she pretty much hates Sief.  She growls at him everytime he comes to bed at night and completely ignores him the rest of the time, unless he has food in his hand.  She also LOVES to interact with other dogs when we are out and about.  So we decided to see if another small addition would work out.



And Sief has fallen in love with Buster - because he's an excited little dog who wags his tail and jumps all over him when he comes home.  Penny on the other hand, wasn't so sure about Buster at first, but he's grown on her and I think they are becoming fast friends.
Watch the videos below and you tell me!

Goodbye Halloween, Hello Christmas?!

Huh?  Are we talking about WalMart here?  Or any grocery, department, or super store where Thanksgiving doesn't seem to exist?  Welcome to my house.  I just took down my Halloween decorations, which I have plenty of, thanks to my Aunt Ed who used to send me a Halloween decoration every year, in order to celebrate her favorite holiday.

As I was putting away my pumpkins, spooky tree, and scary spiders I realized that I don't have many Thanksgiving decorations, but I do have some Christmas ones.  And....since Thanksgiving will be here and gone before you know it, I decided to skip decorating for it all together this year.  Instead I skipped straight to Christmas.  I went to Target after work to get some DayQuil and Sudafed- those darn coughing, sneezing, sticky kids from outpatient pediatric clinic finally infected me with a virus.  So while at Target, I added a few more items to my Christmas decorations.  A real tree shall arrive after my parents make their appearance in December.

Penny's decorated and ready for Christmas too!

Sadly, I'll be missing both Thanksgiving and Christmas at home this year.  :(  Instead I'll be delivering babies on Thanksgiving and taking care of sick kids on Christmas.  Have no fear, I'll be home the last 2 weeks in January to celebrate as well.

Penny's ready for the trip - below is a picture of her Southwest traveling bag.  She's making the trip with me and will be my carry on stuck under the seat in front of me.

Halloween Birthday Party - Part 2

2 days late - but here is part 2.  Game Time!  Each family had to bring a game.  Aunt Sara and Rachel did a spin off from beer pong.  Ping pong eyeballs had to be tossed/thrown across the room into a cauldron (1pt), pumpkins (2pts), scary glasses (3pts) or a goblet (5pts)!  

My mom and I were a team.  Let's just say I did not carry my own weight.  I think I scored 1 pt then entire 3 rounds or however many we played.  Just one more piece of evidence that shows I studied more in college than partied :)

If I remember correctly - Grandma & Aunt Ed won this game!

Taylor showing us what Chico State has taught her! (above)

Next game required eating a donut off of a string without using your hands.  This idea came from a picture of me dressed as a lion in kindergarten trying to eat a bat (a donut w/ paper bat wings stuck in it off a string).  Well with the making of meat loaf hands and other things, my mom and I did not get to making bat wings, so we just lined up the family and had them go at it - donuts on a string.

Again, not allowed to use your hands and the first one to finish, full swallow, won!

Here's a video of the game.  

As you watch, notice there are a few different strategies being utilized.

Aunt Ed - not sure what happened here, but her donut flew across the room, she recovered it, but was not able to come out victorious.

Aunt Tina - stuck the entire donut in her mouth and chewed it string and all until the donut was freed.  She was our weiner!

Grandma - tried to pull the donut off the string with her teeth, trying to get the string to cut through the donut - not so successful.  

Next game, seen below, is called Pumpkin Puss!

Rules:  teams of 2, one person ties a trick-or-treat pumpkin around their waist, so it falls in the proper location.  Partner stands across the room & tosses candy corn (eww...) into their pumpkin puss.

Round 2 - switch partners and repeat

Action shot!

All in all we had a great night of family fun.  After game night we headed downstairs and were disappointed to find out that Aunt Ed had already watched Zombie Strippers, so we ended up watching something else.  I'm kidding - seriously, who watches something called Zombie Strippers!

Halloween Birthday Party - Part 1

While home during my vacation we threw my grandma a Boooorthday party!  As I'm sure I've mentioned before, Halloween is my Aunt Edwina's favorite holiday.  She goes all out with the decorations and used to have Bunco parties where she would make disgusting looking food, etc.  Sadly, I missed most of the festivities, because I was not at home.

Well, lucky for me this year.  I was home at just the right time and decided a Halloween Party we shall have!  The above pictures are from her front porch.  Can you guess the Halloween theme this year?  

Spiders you say!  You  guessed correctly.  Each year she picks out a Halloween theme & decorates accordingly!  Details are what make the decorations so great - did you notice the eyeball sitting in the Erlenmeyer flask atop the toilet?  There were even fingers in the soap!

Spooky - going up the stairs to the haunted upstairs - do you like the hanging mummy? or the bloody arm coming from the closet halfway up the stairs?

And really - no joke the upstairs is truly haunted.  Seriously creepy.  You would have to pay me big bucks to sleep upstairs by myself.  Heck, I stayed at my aunt's house in high school- got sick with the flu and while home during the day by myself only traveled from the living room to the bathroom, because I was too big of a scaredy cat to go anywhere else! ahhhh...

Spiders hover over the table, waiting for food to arrive.

Spider eggs!

Ms. Spider checking herself out in the embalming fluid flask prior to the party - making sure she looks her best!

Mona Lisa?

AHHHH.....silent screams fill the house.  This makes me think of the Dementors from Harry Potter.

Spiders, spiders, spiders - everywhere!

Deviled eggs or should I say eyes &  spiders - Yum Yum!

Flesh face anyone?! 

Mummy dogs!

Spider pizza!

Mmm....my favorite meatloaf hands!

Salt & Pepper eyes!

The whole layout!

COSTUME TIME!  

Biker babes, tattoos and all!

The wicked witch herself!  :)

Michelangelo and Robin Hood?!? Oh wait, I mean Peter Pan!  

"I Can Fly, I Can Fly"

The deal for the party was each family was in charge of bringing one fun Halloween game!  Tomorrow I'll post more pics from the party!