One step closer to being Dr. J

Congrats to Jared!  I am late in posting this, but he has successfully completed all Optometry boards! We are extremely proud of him (: Now Jared just needs to complete his last and final rotation.  We will be heading back to California in two weeks from today.  Jared will be working at a VA in Los Angeles.

Elliot and I have been spend a lot of time outside lately because it has been beautiful! We color, play ball, or just explore the backyard.

We are headed to Kansas for the weekend!  Enjoy your week.

All OK here in OK

I realized I haven’t done a post about this new rotation site.  Seeing family & friends: We have been so busy traveling for the holidays and visiting friends, I forgot.  So….. all is well here in Lawton! Although this little big city (little for what I am used too, big because it’s 96k) doesn’t have a lot to offer, we have found a few things to keep us occupied.  Birdwatching (I’m kidding): Make note of the first two pictures.  Birds.  Lots of birds.  The unusual part about the birds is their location around Wal-mart (no Target here folks, just Wal-mart…where I am living?).  In every tree, on every telephone line, street lamp, and sign in front of Wal-mart are BIRDs. Big, nasty, black, scary birds.  And only at Wal-mart. Not one parking lot over. Not across the street. Not even the adjacent sidewalk. The second you reach Wal-mart, birds are everywhere. It is almost as if Lawton holds the key to the 1980s horror flick Attack of the Birds.  Trashy, maybe? That’s the explanation I have come up with.  Gross.  I hate birds. So, needless to say I do not do my shopping at this Wal-mart (I do it at the other one).

Lawton plays host to the smallest library EVER. Seriously. This is only the “branch” library, but it is the closest, so it is where I go.

There are SOME good things here in Lawton.  Wildlife: Our first weekend here we took an outing to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge.  Bison were brought to this refuge 100 years ago, and now  number 500-600. There are also almost 300 wild longhorns roaming the pretty terrain.  As you can see from the pictures below, it’s all open land.  These are not tamed animals, so I was a little nervous with how close we were to these animals…especially when they looked back at us.  Food: Just outside the wildlife refuge is a little town called Meers. Everyone raves about Meers restaurant, so we had to try it.  It is a smelly, dirty, hole-in-the-wall that serves some of the best hamburgers and cobbler I have ever had.  Yes, the meat eater in me gave way to try one of their burgers. I wasn’t disappointed.  The owner of the restaurant raises his own herd of grass-fed, free range longhorns, so the vegetarian in me wasn’t disappointed either :) And the peach cobbler is D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S. Elliot liked it so much he dove right in!

So, there you go.  When we aren’t traveling, we are either eating a Meers burger, at Wal-mart (the bird free one), or hanging out in our ‘too small of a house’ house. Just 3 more weeks and we will be heading back to Cali!

Austin

The fam and I got to use a long weekend to visit a friend in Austin, TX.  She is one of my oldest friends (old as in length of friendship).  She is the type of friend I can go awhile without talking to but reconnect with easily.  Jess and Jerod have a 6 month old little guy named Gibson.  He has big beautiful eyes and luxuriously long eyelashes…such a cutie.  Elliot would have gentle moments where he would give Gibson toys, but there were other times when he became toy possessive (sadly we have entered that stage).  Gibson just sat quietly and observed Elliot…not sure what he thought of my crazy man.  Gibson was so good tempered (I miss that stage).  While there we did a lot of visiting.  Jess got us a babysitter one night and we went to dinner and people watching at a karaoke bar. Oh, so fun :) Jess and Jerrod, thank you so much for the fun time and letting us stay with you.  You have a beautiful family and home! We can’t go that long without seeing each other again! Love you!

Sick Boy

We have been a little under the weather around here lately.  Elliot doesn’t get sick often and when he does it amazes me at how much energy he is still able to expel.  So when cuddle moments like this happen I cherish them! He has been waking up at night which is very uncommon for him and crying screaming like he is in pain.  I would normally ignore the cries but these are awful.  And all he seems to want is to be held.  One night I gave in and he laid his head on my shoulder while I rocked in the chair for an hour. Poor guy :( 

Since being home from Christmas we haven’t done much.  Most days are spent being lazy and getting better by playing in the toy bin. On a day when it was beautiful out and Elliot seemed to be having a “good” sick day we went to the park. 

Elliot’s 18 month stats: 33 1/4 inches tall and 29.6 lbs (down from 31, probably bc of the coughing and not eating).  Elliot is saying so many more words. We are starting to understand each other! Yah! He loves pointing at objects and calling out their names or points and likes me to say the name. Because of his new found communication skills he has started having more of an opinion and telling us what he wants.  He will tell me when it’s time to eat and sure enough he sits in his chair and eats his lunch or dinner….love that. He is also learning some of the titles of his favorite books and will ask for them by name (or partial name). He has also become a wiz at puzzles and asks for more once he completes one.  He climbs on, over, and up everything! Elliot still loves mickey, cars, and his books. Love this little man and can’t wait to see what new things he is doing next week!

Christmas Part 2

The second half of our visit home was spent with my family.  We opened gifts one of the days and spent the rest of it playing with our new goodies.  I can’t forget to mention our mad cookie skills…we tried (semi successfully) to make the cookies my grandma makes every year. 

Elliot and Marissa each got a Kitchen so I made them aprons and a chefs hat. We had a little get together with Amy and Paul and I made them a cake so they could find out the sex of their new little one…they are having another girl! It was beautiful on New Years Eve so we played outside.  Later that evening we partied (very lazily) at Amy and Paul’s.

Elliot’s uncle Paul was another easy name for him to pick up, so like “Josh” we get to hear “Paul” mentioned often around our home :) It was fun getting to watch Elliot and Marissa interact.  Most of the time Marissa wanted to play with and follow Elliot around (while yelling him name :Ell-it), but Elliot wasn’t as receptive.  He figured out that when Marissa was around he had to share all his toys at Grandma and Papa’s house. When we would ask him if he wanted to play with Marissa he would say “no”.  Then when Marissa would actually arrive he would run to the toys screaming “no, no, no”…too funny.  They would eventually play together and for the most part get along! Thank you all for everything! We had fun!

Christmas Part 1

We spent our first part of the Christmas holiday with Jared’s family.  Elliot was old enough, so the train table made its debut! This provided many hours of play time :) Elliot was first to open Christmas gifts and had fun doing it.  He would open one, want to play with the toy for a minute, then ask for more.  We spent Christmas Eve morning watching Elliot play with all his new goodies….Thanks to his grandparents and aunts and uncles, Elliot was one spoiled happy boy! Christmas day we went to Jared’s Aunt and Uncle’s house to celebrate with extended family.  It was really nice seeing everyone.  The few days we were with Jared’s family Elliot picked up on a new fun word….”Josh”.  Josh is Elliot’s uncle and he did well identifying him and saying his name, but now “josh” is used a lot and seems to have several meanings.  It’s cute listening to him say him name….”joshhhhhhh”.