Sunday, June 23, 2013

Happy Father's Day!

Today is David's last day as an intern!  He's come a long way since this day.  One year down, two to go!  Now David will be an upper level resident.

David reading a bedtime story to Eliana.

The following rose pictures are actually from two weeks ago.  We went to the Park of Roses in Clintonville and walked around the garden for a morning.  So beautiful!



Checking out the fountain with Daddy.

Eliana loved climbing the stairs to the tower overlooking the garden.  I think we went up and down about 8 times.
Eliana was wearing a pretty flower dress to match the flowers.

She loves her dada!

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Pool time

Taking a minute to warm up to the pool.

Maybe it is okay as long as I touch it with this shovel.

Okay, now I will touch it with my hand.

Actually this water stuff is pretty fun!
 
Now I'll even stand in the water!  I like the pool!


Eliana and I spent the afternoon playing in the pool in our front yard which she really liked!  As I sat with my feet dipped in the cool water, I thought to myself, "What did I used to do with my time before Eliana?"  Surely whatever it was, was not as meaningful as it is now. What a beautiful day!  I got to spend the afternoon relaxing, listening to Eliana's joyful discovery of a pool full of water.  We splashed and chased balls, and she told me which foot I was allowed to put in the pool.  No work; no cares; no stress.  Just innocent joy.  How lucky am I?  I didn't know that one of the benefits of being a mom is that you get to be a child all over again. 

Friday, June 14, 2013

Work Day at the Farm

 On Saturday, Eliana and I went to my mom's family's farm in Batesville, IN for "Work Day at the Farm."  It ended up raining on Saturday morning, so I am not sure how much work actually got done, but we did have some fun!  David had to work, so unfortunately he missed out on this Retzner family get-together.  Eliana was a little shy around so many people, but she did seem to like seeing the cows. 
Mommy and Eliana on the porch swing.  Eliana is still a little mad at me for the long car ride.

It wouldn't be work day without homemade wine!

Eliana sitting on Grandma's lap, next to Aunt Rita.

Eliana loved seeing baby Emily.  She let Emily poke her face and just smiled and smiled!

My cousin Kim suggested we get a picture of all the great-grandkids.  Looks like they really liked that idea.  Especially Eliana, the screaming child right in front.

In the barn checking out the cows.

Eliana with her second cousin Sarah

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Mother's Day Visit


This post is a little delayed, but the pictures are so cute that they make up for the tardiness.  The weekend after mother's day, David's parents and brother Roger came for a visit.  We had a wonderful time hanging out, and David and Roger made a delicious Mexican meal for us.  Eliana had a blast hanging out with her grandparents.  
Reading a book with Grandpa.

Grandmama helping Eliana put on some lipstick.

Now she knows just what to do!
We ended the visit with a walk down the street.  Eliana carried her gardening bucket like a purse.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Happy 3 Year Anniversary

The big beautiful bouquet that David surprised me with when he came home.  It even has hypernicum berries, my favorite greenery!  He's good.

The best thing our marriage has made so far!
Wednesday was David's and my three year anniversary.  We celebrated by getting a sitter for Eliana then going out to dinner.  Since the weather was so nice, we walked to a cute little neighborhood restaurant in Victorian Village called Basi Italia.  It is a restaurant located down an alley in an old remodeled home.  Despite it's inconspicuous location, Basi Italia is a very popular restaurant where you have to have reservations if you want to eat before 9:30pm.  It was really cute, and we had a great time!  After dinner we just walked around for a while enjoying the warm evening.  It was a beautiful way to share some time together with just the two of us.

David has been really busy lately.  He is on his last rotation of his Intern year of residency.  This month he is on the inpatient liver service, so that means a lot of hours and working weekends.  But come July 1st, David will no longer be an intern.  He becomes an Upper Level Resident!  This past weekend David was in Chicage for the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology Conference.  The abstract of the research he did earlier in the year was accepted for a poster presentation, so David attended the conference and also presented his research.  What a great experience for him!  One of the big things that David learned from this conference is to book your hotel room early! haha.  About 40,000 people attended the conference, so there were no hotel rooms left anywhere near the conference center.  David ended up at the hotel by the airport and had an hour and a half commute each way to the conference.  But at the conference he did get to talk to quite a few people and learn some things on the way.  The biggest downside of this past weekend though was that David was out of town for the end of the year banquet for the OSU residency program.  I am so incredibly proud of him.  At the banquet, David would have been presented with the awards he had earned.  First, he received the Excellence in Teaching award as voted by the Internal Medicine medical students.  Only three Interns were honored with this award, and David was one of them.  Then, David also earned the Intern of the Year award.  This is huge!  This award is voted on by the senior residents, and is only given to one intern.  This award is something interns have been talking about and speculating on since the being of the year.  What a great recognition of the hard work David has been putting in all year!

Quickly about me.  I ran the Mini Marathon race in Indianapolis last month.  I set a new PR for myself and finished in 2:05:06.  That's 5 minutes faster than my goal time!  I have to give a big thanks to my cousins Mindy and Kim for running most of the race with me and pushing me to go faster than I would have otherwise.  Now that the race is over and I am done training, I have been relaxing a little more.  Eliana and I have been hanging out with friends and going to the park a lot.  The past few weeks I have been working with Eliana on her colors.  I pick a color a week and focus on it.  This week was "Red Week" so we talk about things that are red.  I point out red objects in books that we read and in her room.  I switched out some of her toys so that red ones were more prominent.  I don't know how much she is picking up from these lessons, but she will say yellow ("loh-loh") and red ("reh") on command now but not necessary in context.  Watching her learn more and more every day is so much fun!  As a very special coworker said, I really am living the dream every day.