Enjoying weekends off

 Ever since Chuck and I met we haven't known what it's like to have weekends off.  During residency and fellowship he only got at most 1 weekend off a month.  Now that he's an attending we are enjoying having weekends off (he now is off 4 out of 5 weekends off!).  It's been great family time.  Saturday mornings we've been going to the farmers market that's held at the river front.  There's lots of good fresh produce, cheese, art and entertainment.  This last Saturday they had a balloon artist there.  The kids got to pick what they wanted him to make.

 Carter pretending to fish with his fishing pole & fish

 After the farmers market we changed and headed to the club.  We had lunch on the terrace and spent the rest of the day swimming.  Audrey now loves to go in the mushroom.

 The kids also had fun dunking the basketball with daddy's help.

Carter doing a backwards dunk
Sunday morning Chuck was back at the club before the rest of us were awake to get a round of golf in.  It was a great weekend.

34 weeks

This past Saturday I was 34 weeks.  With everything we have going on this pregnancy is flying by.  I finally met my new doctor yesterday and he's on board to induce at 39 weeks.  Now we just need to relay the message to the baby that she needs to wait until then to arrive.  I'm still feeling great and the baby's heartbeat was nice and strong.  Now it's time to start digging through more boxes to get everything we need out.

swinging

 The kids have been enjoying trying out the different parks in the area.  Here are a couple pictures of the kids swinging.  They were seeing who could get pushed higher by daddy.

Dry wall

 After being gone at the lake for a week we were excited to check on the house.  We were happy to see significant progress made in that week.  The roof was just about done and the outside was wrapped.

 We walked around to the back of the house.  Loving all the windows!

 Inside the dry wall was all up!

Here's the nursery.  I love her cathedral ceiling!  Carter and Audrey were excited to see their rooms too.  I think they are as excited as I am to get into this house :)

 The view of our 2 story great room from the upstairs hallway.

Looking into my big kitchen from the great room.  I can't wait to get settled into that kitchen!

They will be priming the walls next week so there will be more updates on the house coming.

soccer mom

 After we got back from the lake my new car was ready for pick up.  With baby #3 on the way it was time to say good bye to our micro van and up size to the mini van.  The kids were asking why we were leaving the car behind and they had to get out and say good bye to it.

 I'm glad I didn't put the camera away because they turned around and gave it a hug. It was so cute! Our little Mazda 5 served us well over the years but we are excited to have our new Odyssey.

 We got the Honda Odyssey touring elite.  I love it!  It may be a mini van but we are certainly riding in luxury.  It has all the bells and whistles you can think of and more!

 Now I'm officially a soccer mom :)

The kids are loving the dual screen dvd player and wireless head sets.  They each get to watch their own movie and don't have to fight over picking one.  Sasha's loving all the extra room in the back.  The kids are also getting a kick out of the automatic sliding doors.  They love pressing buttons.

The cottage

 We spent the week of the 4th at my Uncle John & Aunt Tami's cottage in Wautoma.  The kids always have a blast there.  It was nice having Chuck along this year.  He even got to golf every morning.  This year it was so hot that we took the pontoon boat out every night to cool off in the lake one last time before going to bed.  Here's Audrey jumping off the top of the boat.  We couldn't believe she did it without hesitating.

 She also enjoyed driving the boat

 Of course since Audrey got to drive Carter wanted a turn too.

 They enjoyed riding in the boat while Zach and Angela tubed.

 I can't even count how many times Carter jumped off the pontoon boat.  He was so funny making up different jumps every time.

 This is my favorite picture from the week.  Carter & Zach jumped together doing spiderman hands with the sunset in the background.  Zach is always so good with Carter. 

 Audrey and Ava cooling off in the sprinkler.

 Carter was so proud that he caught 2 frogs.  He put them on the deck and they sat there next to him while he ate his slushy.  One even sat in his lap for a little bit.  He eventually let them go back in the lake.

 We had our first annual Schmidt Family Triathlon.  It was hilarious to watch!  It started with a bean bag toss, then noodle bicycling (pictured above), and finished with the slip n slide.  I was a judge along with the other two preggos since we couldn't slip n slide.

 There are 6 great grand-daughters in a row

Natalie (5), Aaliyah (1), Audrey (3), Abigail (4 mos), Lydia (2) and Ava (4)

 Grandma with all 8 of her great grand children.  In the next couple of months there will be 3 more!

A trip to the cottage wouldn't be complete to Carter without making smores :)  I think he ate three that night.  He would've eaten more but we had to cut him off.  It's amazing how patient he can be when roasting marshmallows.  He does a great job of getting them golden brown on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Country Club of Peoria

 Before we left for our visit with Great Grandma we went and toured the Country Club of Peoria.  After our tour we were invited back to try out the facility for the day and have dinner there.  After we got back from Milwaukee we spent the next day at the club.  The pool set up was real nice and we had a great time.

 Audrey loves jumping to Daddy into the pool.  She would do it all day if we let her.

We cleaned up from swimming and enjoyed a delicious dinner there that night.  Both dining rooms are nice and have a beautiful view of the river.  Chuck can't wait to try out the tennis courts and golf course.

Great Grandma Aprahamian visit

 The last week in June we drove back up to WI to visit with Great Grandma Aprahamian.  It was nice to visit with her and the kids had a blast in the pool.

Carter enjoyed harassing Madison

 And getting harassed by Great Uncle Len

 Family pic in the pool

cards & squishy baff

 Carter loves to play cards.  I woke up one morning to find him playing crazy eights with Sasha :)

 Grandma & Grandpa bought the kids squishy baff and they couldn't wait to try it out.  It was so funny to watch them play with it.

Carter was covered in it!  The kids didn't want us to get rid of it.  Thank you Grandma & Grandpa.  The kids had a lot of fun with it.

GRADUATION!!!!

Before I knew it my month of being a single mom in a new city was over.  It was time for me to fly back down to the 'ham for Chuck's graduation dinner!  We stayed at the historic Tutwiler Hotel which allowed us to walk over to the Summit Club for his dinner.  It was a good turn out and dinner was delicious.  The attendings and other fellows did a great job roasting him.  Although, I must admit they were pretty complimentary for it being a roast.  I didn't take many pictures because they had a photographer taking pictures all night.  They are going to get us a copy of the cd so I can do another post when we get it.  The surprise of the night was that the group got Chuck a new Taylor Made 3 wood.  It was the perfect gift now that he'll actually have time to golf.  I am so incredibly proud of my hubby for accomplishing his dream.  It was a long road but we made it!  After 4 years of medical school, 7 years of general surgery & research and 2 years of fellowship we are done!  We are so excited for the future and starting the next phase of our lives.

 Chuck and his junior fellow Dave.  They are going to be life long friends.  I missed getting a picture of Chuck with Vince (the endo fellow) he had to get back to the hospital.  Chuck was fortunate to have 2 great fellows to work with this year and will certainly be friends with these guys for years to come.

 With Kristy one of the OR nurses that was so sweet to throw us a surprise shower before we left.  Chuck really enjoyed working with her over the last couple of years.  Everyone kept telling me how much they are going to miss him.

 Kristy and me.  My big belly is taking over the picture :)

Saturday was Chuck's first official day of getting some R&R.  We went out to Uncle Brent & Aunt Janis' lake house for the day.  It was a nice hot day for it so the water felt great.  We had a great time relaxing out there.  Chuck got some fishing in with Brent.  That night Karen & George treated us to dinner at Hot and Hot Fish Club.  It's one of our favorite restaurants in Birmingham so it was a treat to be able to eat there one more time.  I was going to have our server take a picture of us but I got distracted when the chef stopped and chatted with us.

Sunday, I flew back up to Peoria and Chuck played 2 rounds of golf in Birmingham with the guys.  Grandma Debbie drove down to watch the kids for us and they had a great time together.  They were excited to see me but I think it was because they knew that meant Daddy was coming home the next day :)

Exploring Peoria

 After a quick visit to Sheboygan we came back to Peoria so the kids could finish up another week of swimming lessons.  Once swimming was over it was time to do some exploring.  We are learning our way around and finding things to do.  We tried the Peoria Zoo since we got in free with our Birmingham membership.  Glad we got in free because it's tiny!

 Even though it was tiny and there wasn't much to see it was still something to do.  The kids enjoyed walking around and random things like this camel.

 Another weekend the department of pediatric surgery was invited out to the lake house of one of the big donors for the simulation center that's being built next to Children's Hospital.  The kids had fun in the water and enjoyed the tour around the property.  It was a good time with good company and tons of good food.  Too bad Chuck missed out.

We checked out the mall that's near our house.  There was a Caterpillar play area for the kids.  They had a lot of fun playing in it.