Catching up...always catching up!

WARNING: Very long. I use this as a means to document experiences, etc.

Ok so I am a horrible blogger. We all know that. Really a big problem is that I can only upload one picture at a time! I used to be able to upload 5 at a time and I can't figure out how to fix it. I have so much to catch up on that I didn't know where to start so I just shut down and didn't do anything! I have had a few people bugging me (mostly Grandmas :) ) to update since we are ALL the way out in northeastern Pennsylvania now. We are here and yes we are alive and well. The move out here was really rough. Reagan did fantastic though. I was so proud and grateful. On our way from Idaho to Iowa, I had a lovely experience that I never thought would happen in a million years! I was driving the Stratus with Sarah in the backseat and Erik was ahead of me with Reagan. We were in central Nebraska when a semi passed me and the driver window literally exploded into a million pieces. It scared me to death! Fortunately neither Sarah and I were hurt. My skin was a little irritated from the glass shards that covered my legs and arms. I drove about 20 miles with no window until we made it to North Platte. We had a hotel reservation in Omaha which was still a good 4 1/2 hours away. We had to make it there since it was nonrefundable. We were able to get someone to cover the window with the plastic. Once we got back on the highway, it didn't last too long. I proceeded to hold the plastic closed as much as I could with my left hand for 4 1/2 miserable hours. I thought I was going to have permanent hearing damage.

While in Omaha Erik had an experience he will never forget. Our hotel was in downtown Omaha and there were basically only parking garages for parking. We had our van with a trailer hitched to it. Erik attempted to park it in a parking garage. He never would have tried to take the trailer into a parking garage, but this is where the hotel staff said to park. Erik was told the trailer would fit, but the people had no idea what they were talking about. There Poor guy had the worst experience trying to get out of a REALLY bad situation. Fortunately his many prayers were answered and a miracle happened- no other vehicle was damaged, our car and the trailer were also undamaged. We were so grateful.

The trip from Iowa to Pennsylvania was painfully long and the girls had had enough. It took us 2 full, long days. Sarah is my worst sleeper. She maybe slept a total of 2 1/2 hours the entire 4 day trip from Idaho to Pennsylvania. Isn't that nuts? Lots of crying and screaming. Thank heavens for portable DVD players though. Poor thing ended up getting pretty sick the last day of our trip. It made for an interesting move-in day and week getting settled.

Erik started his residency program on July 1st and has been a VERY busy man. He started off with a bang as he was on call over the 4th of July weekend. Apparently that is by far the busiest holiday because well, people do stupid things! So I just wanted to document his weekend- not that either one of us but, especially him will forget anytime soon. Since the 4th fell on a Saturday this year, the hospital gave a lot of its employees Friday off but Erik was on call. He worked a 16 hour shift on Friday, was paged several times in the night and headed in early on Saturday the 4th. He worked 10 hours on Saturday and came home. He was home for 5 minutes before he got paged to go back to the hospital for an emergency. He didn't come home the rest of the night. He was there all day Sunday and finally came home around 2:30. Showered then slept for 2 hours before going back to work Monday morning for a 12 hour shift. So it ended up being 56 hours of working with a 2 hour break in between. We counted all of the hours he worked from his first day, July 1st to Tuesday the 7th was 108 hours. Crazy! And it's really sad that they only pay residents for 40 hours of labor. Thats 68 long hours he worked essentially unpaid. Man can we both not wait for residency to be over with but especially this first year! I'm so proud of him and the way he has plugged along. I couldn't do what he does every day. We're both looking forward to next month when he'll only be on call for one weekend. We all have missed him terribly!

As far as the girls and I, we're trying our best to keep entertained. It has rained a lot since we've been here so we have to make the best of the days that are sunny and dry. It is a lot different here out East. I've had a hard time making friends. Thankfully one of Erik's co-residents is a member and I'm excited to get to know his wife and their cute kids. It's always nice to have a friend who knows what you're going through. We're already looking into moving again. The hospital didn't notify us that Erik had to live within 15 minutes of the hospital until he started work...we live 25 minutes away. It has been hard on Erik driving back and forth, especially when he's on call and gets paged to go in right when he gets home! We're hoping to get out of our lease and move into a house really close to the hospital. Time is so precious these days!

Our ward here has been putting us to work. We got callings only our 2nd week here. We both teach the Gospel Doctrine class. I was and still am totally intimidated but I am very grateful for the opportunity to spend a lot more time in the scriptures. Its been a pretty good experience so far.

In other big news, Erik graduated from medical school on May 23rd! He is officially Dr. Rosenlof and I couldn't be more proud! What an amazing accomplishment. Erik's parents were able to be in Des Moines to celebrate with us which was wonderful. I was very emotional during the ceremony. A lot of sacrifices have been made to get where we are. Now to get through residency! But at least we have a little bit of income :)

Our family following graduation. I am so proud!

Erik and his parents following graduation. Both of our parents have been such a wonderful support in our journey. They were definitely a great help with the kids as we had a lot going on with packing up and moving our stuff out of Iowa. We couldn't have done it without them!

Here are a few recent pictures of the girls. During Erik's month off in June we were spoiled having him around all of the time! He is such a great dad. He made a very impressive fort with a secret tunnel entrance. The kids loved it and we even watched a movie inside it on the portable DVD player.

Here's Sarah stopping to pose for a picture on her way inside the fort.

Reagan havign fun inside the fort- I can never get enough of her cheesy grin!

The girls cheesing it up while watching a movie and eating popcorn.


The month prior to graduation we spent in Idaho with my family while Erik finished up his last rotation. For some crazy reason I got the itch to try out canning. Man is that a lot of work! But kind of addicting at the same time. I did and didn't enjoy it if that makes sense. I wanted to shoot myself while I was peeling, slicing, and dicing, and mashing and stirring over an incredibly hot stove. But the sense of accomplishment and pride over my work was worth it. I ended up canning homemade strawberry jam and salsa. Lets just say I learned that it is really dumb to chop a bunch of jalapenos without gloves on. My hands were on fire for hours and hours and it was awful! I tried everything and pretty much nothing worked. Once I can save up enough money, I want to get my own canning supplies and can homemade spaghetti sauce as my next project. I ended up canning 20 pints of jam and 30 pints of salsa. I couldn't resist snapping some pictures of the finished products:

Homemade strawberry jam.

Mostly medium and a few mild jars of salsa. This one was definitely the most labor intensive. It involved boiling, cooling, and peeling lots of tomatoes. Chopping and dicing by hand: bell peppers, jalapenos (ouch!), cilantro, garlic, and onions. Fortunately my mom helped me out with the cilantro before she left for work and I could chop the garlic in my electric chopper. I foolishly thought that I could chop up the other ingredients minus the tomatoes in the food processor. I learned quickly that wouldn't work- it mushed it and chopped it up too finely. We like it chunky! Anyways, it is good stuff!

Coming up soon: Reagan's 3rd birthday!