Joining the Mid-West Fan Club

We have decided that everyone in the Mid-West LOVES their sports teams. We've also noticed that you can't go anywhere without someone nearby wearing a shirt of their favorite team, mostly Twins or Vikings. So last weekend we decided to go to a Twins game and we had to wear our Twins shirts. I was surprised how well we could still see the game from the nose-bleed section. The stadium where the Twins play is just over a year old and is pretty awesome. We had so much fun between Natalya flirting with the guys sitting behind us, eating yummy supreme nachos, and enjoying the game that we want to go back next year.
Plus, the Twins beat the Yankees. Go Twins!








After a long night at the game, Talya got pretty tired. Her she is cuddling with Colten. (We have to take advantage of these moments, because they are getting fewer and fewer by the day.)

Mayo Family Weekend

Every year Mayo has what they call a Family Weekend when all the students' families are invited to come and they do a big fancy dinner Friday night. Then on Saturday they do a breakfast, programs, tours of the clinic, a nice lunch and then their version of a medical school's "white coat ceremony." It was a nice weekend. We wished our families could have been there but we understand it's not that easy.

Talya is usually pretty good at smiling at the camera but not in these pictures. I love this one. She is trying to tell us something but I just haven't figured it out yet.






Talya has pretty much become a celebrity at the Mayo Medical School. Being the only baby in the class, all of Colten's classmates just maul her whenever they see her, and some of the faculty just adore her.

So they had all the students and any physicians in the audience stand and recite "The Physician's Pledge." It is a version of the Hippocratic Oath (the public oath that most medical schools have their medical students pledge). This particular one has been adapted to fit the Mayo value system. Then each student got to come up and receive a fancy plaque that had the pledge written on it. Here is Colten receiving his.

Way to go Colt! We're proud of you!

Swimming at Chester Woods

About 5 or 10 miles outside of Rochester is a county park called Chester Woods. It has camping, picnicing, hiking, canoeing and swimming. Since Colten had an afternoon off and it was Friday we decided to head over and go swimming. The weather had been mellow and cloudy all morning but once we got there the sun came out and it got kinda hot. We decided to eat our lunch first and as we were finishing up and getting ready to go swim... some huge black clouds came in from the other direction and our swim not as enjoyable as we were hoping for. The water wasn't too bad and as you can see, the beach was awesome. Definately going to have to go back on a hot day!

Rochester Honkers

Colten has a lot of opportunities to go to different meetings called, "interest groups" which are different areas in medicine that teach you more about that field (a.k.a. persuade you into that field) and answer any questions you may have. Well, thanks to the Internal Medicine Interest Group, the other night we got two free tickets and all you could eat and drink at the Rochester Honkers game. This is a summer league that is made up of collegiate baseball players.

There were a lot of people from the interest group at the game. They had reserved a huge deck along the side line of the field and it was packed. We decided we were more interested in actually watching the game instead of being squished with a bunch of people drinking and socializing. So we went and sat in the grand stands and enjoyed the baseball game. It was a fun game and came down to the last inning. Here are a few pictures of us at the game and one with Talya and the mascot Slider.

Minneopa State Park

It is a tradition for the incoming medical students at Mayo to go camping the first summer they get here to school. Last weekend we survived camping with 50 other young single adults (not my favorite camping trip to say the least).
I really enjoyed getting to know so many of the people Colten spends most his day with. However, with the heat, humidity, mosquito's, and noise, Talya only got about 4 or 5 hours of sleep that night and I got a little less than that. It was rough for all of us.
The state park we camp at was beautiful but those dang mosquito's... Colten counted over 55 bites, I didn't count all of mine, and Talya only got 4 that I found. 2 really huge ones on her face. :(
I was indeed grateful to have church the following day so that we had an excuse to leave Saturday night and not have to endure another torturous night.

8 months ago...

...she was this little. So small and cuddly. Sleeping during the day and waking up every couple of hours wanting to eat. Staying up at night so Mom would let her watch Christmas movies on Hallmark. Those were the days!


And now here we are with a healthy 8 month old who is so happy and thinks she is pretty funny stuff. Everytime I go pick her up no matter where she is, she gets the biggest cheesiest grin. Exactly like this picture below.

Other milestones for Natalya at 8 months:

- has 2 teeth on the bottom and the top left tooth just popped through a couple days ago.

- covers some serious ground without being able to crawl. Rolling, rolling, rolling is how she gets this done.

- loves to go in the stroller.

- has adjusted really well to her new home.

- her favorite toys are her bear named Cubby and one of dad's yellow highlighters.

Biking in Lanesboro

Last Saturday we went biking with some of our new friends. We drove 45 miles southeast to this beautiful little town called Lanesboro. It looked like one of those common tourist towns that everyone loves. Our friends rented a tandem bike and we took our bikes. You can also rent tubes and go out on the river (which looked SO fun). Oh the things you used to be able to do before children.

Our friends have a daughter that is a couple weeks older than Natalya so Colten pulled the girls in the bike trailer. For the most part, they got along really well. We rode about 4.5 miles to this little town that claims to have the worldest best pies. I wasn't about to let that opportunity slip by without giving it a try, even if it was still early in the morning. I also can't complain about the pies. I thought they were pretty tasty. Yummy! After eating pie for our breakfast dessert, we headed back to Lanesboro where we finished up our little biking excursion with a nice picnic at the park.

Emmi & Talya. Notice who is lots bigger and also younger!!

Talya also loved Daddy's Raspberry Cream Pie. She thought my Banana Cream Pie was pretty good too.

After a long morning, with the heat and humidity coming on these girls had enough. Emmi got a little worried about not knowing where her mom was. She cried a little and then that got Talya crying. One would then stop and another would start. The expressions on people's faces as they passed two screaming babies in a bike trailer was pretty funny. At last, they both gave in and fell asleep. Ahhhhh.

Talya plays the piano and loves TV

Check out these cute videos of Natalya. One is of her playing the piano while sitting on Colten's lap. Watch out Mozart! The other video is of Talya watching TV. I thought it was to funny so I had to video it. She was really into it, just sitting there without moving a muscle, glued to watching. From day one she has always been interested in the TV. *Disclaimer... I don't put her in front of the TV all the time. :)

Let the Journey Begin

It is official... Our long journey of medical school has begun. Colten started school on Monday and has so far survived 3 days of orientation. Only two more to go before the weekend and then I believe they jump right in next week. He is so excited and I know he'll be amazing.

Natalya and I are trying to figure out what to do with ourselves. After the move, Talya's schedule got all screwed up and so we are slowing trying to figure that out again. Her nap time is the worst. For the past 7 months she gets wrapped up like a burrito anytime she is going to bed and this past week she has figured out how to get herself out of that one. So now she doesn't know the difference between bed time or simply play time on the floor. Any suggestions?

Other than that, I have become "extremely orgainized". I have to admit that I created myself a dinner schedule and a chore chart. haha. Now I know what needs to be done that day before I get to watch TV or doing anything else fun. We are surviving but Talya and I miss our families very much.

Talya and Daddy on the first day of school.

"Ha Ha, I have figured out the ecape plan!" She did begin in the middle of the crib.

Now if you haven't noticed already. I went on a little blogging overload the past couple of days. There are 12 new posts since Tuesday so if you are interested and have a few minutes, grab a snack or a drink and get yourself caught up on our lives. Or simply browse over the pictures. There are lots!!

Moving to MN Day 4

By Day 4 we were tired of looking at the same view in front of us, The Big Blue Turtle (U-Haul). We only had 6 hours left of traveling. We were getting so much closer.

We finally made it to Minnesota!

We were greeted by a great neighborhood and 3 families in the area that came to help us unload.


There was no A/C in the house for a couple of days which made things pretty miserable. Good thing we didn't stay there too long during the days. Sunday after church we went to a beautiful park surrounding the Plummer House. (A Historical Mayo Thing:).

Our way of trying to get Natalya to smile.

Look it works!

The next day we took the family and toured the Mayo Clinic.

This is a cool picture of the Medical School up close with the Mayo Clinic in the background.

Following the tour at the Clinic we drove a scenic drive down to Harmony, MN and went to Niagra Cave. This cave is HUGE. It was 48 degrees and approximately a mile round trip. On our way home we stopped and bought some honey and jam from an Amish Family.

And being only 1/2 mile from the Iowa border, we had to drive there.