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Brighton in all his cuteness and fashion forward ways. Check out the vans… Ha

Me, Kim and Jilly…

Went to the Jersey shore this weekend to hang out with Denny/Kim and Brighton. Had a blast! Sunday brunch is always amazing at the shore, off season, when nobody is there. Bummed the tourists are coming, but stoked for the warm weather and warm ocean waters…

Chuck and I just went a little nuts yesterday and booked a ton of stuff for the summer…So exciting. We are going to see Seal who is one of my favorites and my friend Shawn from VT is going to be sooo jealous. Wish you could come too buddy!

We are going down to Blatimore for the NCAA Lax finals. We went last year when it was in Philly and it was so much fun. That was the weekend I got my FJ and we tailgated out of the back of it the first day I had it! Bring on the parking lot madness.

We are taking my sister-in-law to Atlantic City for her 40th birthday to see Cirque du Soleil which will be a blast. Since we are missing her actual birthday because we will be out in Portland, we had to do something special.

We are working on getting our tickets finalized for Portland for the 4th of July and Chuck already has started his fireworks list in his head. I Know Vin and Coulter will have theirs ready and this year should be amazing…Faz is always the host with most and we have some good east coast love to bring out with us this trip…ehren..well not much needs to be said about that kid..you’ll always have fun around that guy…looking forward to seeing everyone…The FOSTER’s!! The Reed’s..all uni-bomber style now..Bonfire…Adidas…Stay tuned.

is EARTH DAY!!

Make it a good one and do something nice for this planet of ours.

I had a crazy day at the pediatric ICU yesterday. One thing is for certain; I don’t ever want to work there. Crazy depressing in so many ways. Every single story is worse then the last and every single moment is adrenalin filled. I was so freakin’ tired when I got home. I have been working with adults for so long that I forgot that babies threshold were so much tighter and your panic zone comes on so much quicker. The smallest little change can send them into cardiac arrest in no time. Adults can tolerate so much more. I had only one patient and felt like I could never turn my back on his monitors for a second. Didn’t have breakfast, didn’t have lunch and pretty much never moved from outside the bay for 12 hours straight. He was alive and stable when I left but man it’s heart breaking. Glad I only have one more rotation there.

On a happier note…the lobby is so freakin’ cool there. They have a huge fish tank and some artist came in and made these trees 60-70 feet high. It’s like a little forest inside. Super cool. I want some in my house.

So there is this great company called

www.greendimes.com

They prevent junk mail from coming to your home and plant a sapling every year during your memebership. Just a little something to help cut down on waste for the planet. It’s only $36 bucks a year..Join now PLEEEEEASE! It’s too cheap to not do it and just think..no more stupid junk mail! Easy Style.

Made my apointment today for Friday to donate platelets..Contact your local American Red cross for a location near you.

www.redcross.org

Woke up this morning to ice and snow. Guess ya gotta be careful what you wish for. It’s a mess around here. I am sure my day is going to be crazy in the ER. Ugh. This storm is just pounding us, but it should move off the coast tonight and be gone by morning. Let’s get back to spring already. Geez.

I forgot yesterday…Happy Birthday to my good friend Keith!! Surgeon - Doctor - Dad - Friend extraordinaire…Hope you had a good day buddy!

Here is an updated view from our backyard…yuck!

Here is Keith with his gorgeous baby boy Bennito..(Photo credit Ms. Andrea!)

It is raining so hard right now and has been since about midnight. We are getting pounded by a huge late season nor-easter. Too bad it didn’t come earlier and bring us some snow. Usually I am happy when a big storm rolls through like this one so we can go surf big waves but we have to go into Philadelphia tonight to go to the king Tut exhibit and eat at an awesome Cuban joint called alma de Cuba. Not fun to walk around and rain that is coming down sideways. I’m gonna wear my pink Wellies for sure…

This is a small creek that has taken over the road near our house…

This is a soccer field that normally is all grass…

I have clinical rotation right now in a children’s hospital in North Philly. It was a crazy day yesterday right from the get go. I ran non-stop from 6:30am until 7pm. I felt like I had run a marathon when I got in my car to come home. I really love working with kids. They sometimes beat the odds and prove all of our fancy medical knowledge wrong. It’s unpredictable unlike adult medicine. One 5 year old will react totally different then another. Sometimes it’s frustrating because you’ll save one kid and can’t do a thing for another. I think it’s such a great thing to be able to help them and I am so thankful for being able to do this kind of work. Yeah for a strong stomach and thanks for a strong heart.

Today was amazing. I had to go to a women’s symposium at a big hotel on the waterfront here in Philadelphia. I was speaking to, at first, what I thought would be a couple hundred people and wound up being around 5000. Yikes. I haven’t ever done something like this before, so it was a little nerve racking. I got there and met with the woman that was putting on the conference and she was super nice. She runs the Betty Ford Clinic out in California. She gave me all the info and showed me into the little side room where all the speakers were hanging out. The first two women I sat down with were Charisse Strawberry (darryl Strawberry’s x-wife) and Susan Ford (Pres. Ford’s daughter). Holly crap. I had no idea it would be like this at all. They were both there to share their stories of alcoholism and drugs in their families. I was there just to speak on behalf of the Univ. of Penn and our strides with treatment and new research in the field. I was way out of my league and it was nerve racking and awesome at the same time. They were both super nice and I really only got to say a few things to them, but I did have lunch with both of them later in the day which was also pretty cool. I could go on and on and on about the day, but I’ll just leave it at it was an amazing experience and I’m so glad that I got to share in it. I got through my short 10 minutes of fame and didn’t screw up at all which was a relief for both my medical director and me. Oh yeah, and I didn’t trip getting onto the stage which was a huge plus. I only wear sneakers to work and I had on crazy high heels to look fancy or something like that. I took them off the minute I got back in my FJ and drove to paintball practice. Ha. From hob knobbing with famous people to getting shot by paintball pellets is a pretty fun day for me. It was a good end to my week.

I think one of my teachers may have completely lost it in class on Thursday night. She is a little borderline anyway but she fell over the edge on Thursday. She used the F-Word like 8 times during the lecture. She also used the words dickhead, blowjob and dick sucker on more then one occasion as well. It was like something out of a movie. I am so glad people were tape-recording it because hearing it again made it even funnier. She is a doctor of psychiatry and has completely lost her mind. At first I thought she was drunk and then I realized she was just losing her mind. You would never think you would go to an Ivy League school and have teachers like her, but this world is such and amazing and unpredictable place. Love it. Can’t wait to see what she has planned next week or if she will even show up…

Both chuck and I have been fending off colds for the last couple of weeks. I have a pretty amazing immune system since I work in the world of sickness and germs. On occasion, if I don’t get enough sleep (which happens every single night) or I am stressed out, I will get the makings of a cold.

I am 100% backing this stuff. I am so skeptical of cold remedies and concoctions, but I have to say, this stuff is great! When you first start to feel something coming on, you can drink like 3-5 of these during the day in a bottle of water and the next mooring you should feel better. Now, if you are already sick, then this stuff isn’t going to help at all. It’s that pre-game period where it makes a difference. It’s cheap too, unlike some of that homeopathic stuff that can run like 15 bucks. You can get this at your local drug store or Target for like 5 bucks! Buy some…use it.

On occasion, I have to sit through these “distinguished” lecture series’ at school. It’s a total bunch of crap. They pay some person a ton of money to come and speak about something no one really cares about and then they tell us that we have to go to get credit for class. The only reason we have to go is so that they don’t look stupid when no one shows up because the lecture is meaningless. They want the speaker to have the false knowledge that people at Penn actually care about their topics. Ugh. Drives me crazy. So I sat in the lecture for 3 straight hours. Thank god for my fancy phone and solitaire and text messages and the ability to surf the Internet on it. I have a renewed love for it this morning because it kept me somewhat sane during my lecture. I would have had a hard time staying awake for anything after the long day of work I had.

Philadelphia is not know for its Mexican food. We do, however, have a great little chain of places called Mesa near our house. Not to be confused with the huge chain of Mesa Fresh. Not the same thing at all. They have fresh corn tortillas and great homemade salsa.

Carter came over tonight to work on some computer stuff with Chuck and we showed him the ways of Mesa. Thumbs up from the man from New Jersey. It’s always fun to hang out with carter…No April this time, but hopefully next run he’ll bring her along!

Happy Easter!

We had a family filled day. Aunt and Uncle in from New Hampshire, mom and oma made an appearance and the White family was here as well. Another Easter Bunny Birthday in the books.

I haven’t been this hung over in awhile and it came at such a perfect time. It was a really long day. Thanks Bird and Shawn for hooking me up with my hang over! You guys are just the best! Super fun night out before hand in my hometown. Always a good time…

I have the patience of a 2 year old when it comes to hair. Don’t like the same thing for more then a few months. Good thing my hairdresser is my good friend or I would be broke and Chuck would kill me. Got rid of most of the blond hair tonight. Needed a change. So far so good. Check it.

So our team had our very first tournament this weekend. The first half of the day we had nothing but gun trouble. The second half things turned around and we at least played a lot better. There were some really good teams and some we should have beat. The league is a little stacked but we should do ok as long as we practice more. Not a bad showing for our first ever and at least we were not in last place!