A New Life

At orientation yesterday, one of the 4th year residents told Cameron something like, "Make sure you get some rest tonight, because it's your last night before you start a new life." Yikes!! But it's very exciting, too. Today is Cameron's first day as an official doctor, and doesn't he look good in a long white coat?! ;0)
He woke up early no problem and, while maybe a bit nervous, seemed very ready for his first day in the hospital. Samuel and I are so proud of him, he's done a great job. Good luck on your first day, Dr. Richards!!!

I'll have to get another picture without a date on
it, but notice the nittany lion on one side and
his name and "Anesthesia" on the other.
HOORAY!!!

P.S. Can anyone name the musical with a song titled, "A New Life?"

Highs and Lows

Saturday was a really fun day for me and Samuel. While poor Cameron was in orientation all day, Samuel and I went to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire for the Celtic Fling! Our friends, Jolie, Piper and Tristan were there, too, and Jolie was part of the Irish Feis (which I just learned is pronounced "fesh"). It's a dance competition, and she danced in three of the solo dances. The best part was that she got first in two of them and so advanced to a higher level!! It was really awesome and fun to be a part of. They had medieval games like knife-throwing and fencing, and lots of people wearing kilts. There was a also part with a lot of birds of prey, and the Red-Tailed Falcon's sister is in the Harry Potter movies! All in all, it was an excellent day. :0)

I forgot to get pictures of Jolie dancing, so here's a random picture I took from the Celtic Fling and Feis website to give you and idea of what the dancing was like:
The only downside was that Samuel only got a 25 minute nap. Then yesterday he only got a 20 minute nap (it's tough when church is from 1-4:00). So today he was very tired. He's been so anxious to have new friends, so we went to playgroup this morning for the first time. I'm afraid it wasn't a good idea. Samuel slipped while going down a step and fell on his forehead on the playground. Then a kid pushed him and he fell off the stair - luckily he was holding onto the rail and managed not to fall, but it can't have felt very good nonetheless. Then he proceeded to fall off the swing not once but twice (landing hard on his back the first time). He finally found a ball and was happy, but when one of the kids snatched it out of his hands, I called it a day and we went home.

At home, thinking he was finally safe, I started making him a sandwich. He slipped on water that I didn't know he had spilled, and he banged his head on the kitchen floor. I made him stay awake long enough to be reasonably sure he didn't have a concussion (or three or four), and put him safely in his crib. I'm hoping that he'll sleep long and hard and feel better afterward. It's tough being almost two...

Ever have one of these days?

The Sweetest Place On Earth

We've been in Hershey for a few weeks now and we're really getting settled in. The only box left to be emptied contains our pictures that need to be hung (hopefully we'll do that soon). Phew!! It feels good to get boxes out of the house (well, folded and put away in the house). We met several people at church on Sunday who are in similar positions, so that should be fun, too. Overall, I think we're starting to feel very good in Hershey, PA.

Getting settled in

We did have one interesting thing happen. About a week ago, it was really rainy and cool so we kept the windows open. All day we kept wondering who was cooking such awesome smelling food, and we were ravenously hungry from the great smells wafting into our apartment. By the end of the day, the smell changed and we realized that now we were smelling chocolate!! Earlier we'd been smelling roasting peanuts mixed with chocolate (the Reese's factory is about a block away from us). Seriously, does life get better than that?!! ;0) I think I'm going to love living in Hershey.

Captain Redbeard is also enjoying Hershey

There And Back Again...And Again...And Again

Well, we made it to Hershey!!! We got here on June 1st after a long and grueling driving for four days in the car. My father-in-law, Mark, was a real trooper and helped us out a TON!!! He drove all of our stuff out in a Penske truck - I promise, that's not a fun task. But he did all of the driving, and then on the 2nd was willing to do another full day of driving. He and Cameron went down to Virginia to pick up a bunch of furniture that Mark's mom gave to us. And let me tell you, I never dreamed we would have such awesome furniture at this stage in our lives!!! It's very exciting. :0) Once we have everything out of boxes, I'll put some pictures of the apartment up (hopefully that will be soon). The other real trooper was Samuel. During four full days in the car, he only fussed for a total of maybe 10 minutes (max), and he only grumbled once about getting into the carseat. We were all very impressed and extremely relieved. ;0)

On Thursday, the 4th, Mark headed home to Salt Lake and I headed to my parents' home in Seattle for a good friend's wedding. It was really awesome because our entire family was there for it, and since we've all known Juliana since her birth, it was very special. She introduced us to her new in-laws as "the Bentleys, on my mom's side of the family." :0) It was really awesome that we could all be there for it, and it was a really wonderful day.

I got back to Hershey on Sunday at about midnight, and Samuel was very happy to see me again. He's been having a bit of a hard time with so many changes in the last few months and saying so many goodbyes. We had a few days to keep getting settled and figure out the area, and then on Wednesday Cameron met up with our good friend Christian John in Manhattan. Christian and Cameron picked up all of our belongings that so many friends and family members have been storing for us. It was no small task, and we couldn't have done it without the huge help from Christian and also from Cailin, who saved us when ZipCar screwed up our reservation. We're so lucky to have such wonderful friends!!!

To finish up our travels, we all headed to NYC on Thursday and spent a good, long weekend there. It was so wonderful to be back in the city and to see so many of our great friends there. The only problem was that we wished we'd had more time with all of them. But we got to see friends from Grenada and from the city, plus all of our parents and my sister Tracy! The best part, though, was on Friday morning when Cameron officially graduated from medical school- he's a doctor!!!!

We've been so blessed and are so grateful for everyone's help the last several months as we've been going through so many transitions. We're glad to be in Hershey and are really getting settled in - hooray!! I'll have pictures and some video up soon (I hope), but now we need to take care of more business. ;0) It feels good to be online again!!

BTW - props to anyone who knows what book I'm referring to in my title.

This Is the Moment

So this is a quick update to let you know what's up. We've had a wonderful time with Cameron's parents in Salt Lake and were able to do a lot of fun things. On Memorial Day, they took us to the This Is the Place Monument (pictures will hopefully be coming soon) and took us shopping and lots of other great things. Unfortunately, the time has come for us to move on. Tomorrow morning we're leaving for Hershey! We're excited to get there, but a bit nervous about a four day car trip with a toddler. I'm sure he'll do just fine, but we'll be glad for the drive to be over. ;0) I'm not sure how long it will take for us to get internet, so it might be a while before I am able to update again. Please keep checking in, though - I promise I'll be back! Until then, eat lots of Hershey chocolates. :0)

The Zoo!

So I'm afraid I've fallen way behind on my blog, and I hope to get pictures up soon of what we've been doing. First, though, I'm going to put up some pictures from the Hogle Zoo. We went there this morning and had a great time, so here are some (okay, a lot) of the pictures we took.

Elephants

Rhinos

Penguins
BearsZebras and fun birdsTiger statueCheetahGiraffe (with Cameron making a
giraffe face)CamelOne tired little boy!But he woke up enough to be excited
about "le hibou" (the owl)!!

Samuel was really excited about the animals and kept making elephant and monkey noises, along with a whole lot of roars. And then he came home and took a nice long nap. :0)

A few days before heading out of Seattle, we took Samuel to a Mariners game at Safeco Field!! It was a lot of fun - perfect weather, an incredible pitcher's duel, and the only run was scored by no other than ICHIRO!!! He had a solo shot in the top of the first, and from then on it was just crazy intense. Luckily, Felix hung on and got the win! It was a lot of fun, and I'm so glad Samuel got to see the Home of the Mariners before leaving town. :0) The only sad thing was that Junior didn't actually play that day, but we still got to see him in his M's uniform in the dugout. Gotta Love These Guys!! :0)

Before leaving BI

My favorite part of the park! This is Junior
coming home in 1995 when we beat the Team
of Darkness in the playoffs. Oh the memories!Samuel with the Mariners behind him

Dreaming about playing for the M's someday...

The grounds crew doing a little jig

I'm really excited because they won both games I've been to this year. The game I went to with my dad was INCREDIBLE!! Junior and Ichiro both got home runs, as did Endy Chavez! It was a perfect game because the beginning was super intense, and then in the bottom of the 7th the Mariners blew it open with seven more runs. WAHOO!!! It was a lot of fun - my voice was hoarse for a week after! It was also cool because we used my dad's friend's tickets in one of the nicest parts of the park!! Oh man, it was beautiful. :0)

GO MARINERS!!!!!!!!!!!