BIRTHDAY GIRL!!

57 years ago on the windswept plains of Mandan, ND. a baby girl passed from the pre-existence into mortality. Nourished by the love of her family she grew into the wonderful woman we know simply as Nana - but also as Nano, Coleen, Coco, Lou, Mom, Mama and Mama Bear.

Each of these nicknames shows a different part of Nana's personality and her roles. One of her greatest traits is her kind, generous and self-sacrificing nature. Often she allows her concern about meeting others needs to interfere with her own needs. Our neighbor always says this about Nano - 'She's ALWAYS doing something for someone else. I don't know how she does it.' This past year has been very busy for Coleen. She has organized dozens of meetings (film club, book club, NCL, building contractors, etc.), meals, parties, hiking excursions, and fun times of all kinds for everyone she knows. Nano loves hosting, and our home has been a bed and breakfast to many in the past and hopefully many in the future. Her skill in organizing and working through details has led to her two demanding callings in the Mercer Island ward as Activities Chair and Music Chair, and her skills have been appreciated by all. The Christmas programs have been legendary!

In addition, she has operated a small travel agency for the family, scheduling travel and accommodation for all the comings and goings of our far flung group.

Nano's greatest focus and her life's work is her family - a growing cast of characters big and small with varied wants and needs. Her greatest hope is that her family can be united in the home she left 57 years ago.

Nana has been a loving and devoted companion for 34 years. I am so proud of her and love her so much.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

XOXOXO

Gramps

Cousin Camp 2010

The last time the Schneider grandsons got together was three and a half years ago when there were only three of them. This time there were six little boys who showed up to what we hope becomes an annual Schneider cousin camp. It was way too much fun. Every little event - even a trip to the grocery store or making pancakes and swimming in the inflatable pool, became a PARTY, and everyone got along so well. I think its cool that the three eldest grandsons were all blessed on the same day and that the three youngest grandsons all share the same birthdate.

Gramps and I feel very blessed to have such wonderful little boys in our lives.....

House Hunting

I love this picture. It nicely encapsulates my hopes and unrealistic wishes for a dream home. Our own house hunting has been decidedly less optimistic. That said, we've recently take a new approach. In addition to entering into a short term lease for a home in our current ward (with less living space but a huge yard), we have decided to look at every community within a 25 mile radius of my office. We've narrowed things down considerably based on schools, affordability, etc., but its still quite a list. We took a tour of South Bay on Sunday evening and enjoyed ourselves. Something romantic about living in a community with "Beach" in its name (Manhattan, Hermosa and Redondo being candidates). We're pretty skeptical of it all at this point, but part of me just can't let go of the thought that we'll pull over a hill or around a corner on one of these trips and find our perfect piece of the American dream!

Ben'n Jerry's- the Next Generation

It was fun to see all the boys digging into a smorgasboard of Ben and Jerry's at Nana and Grandpa's during our visit last week. I'll try to post more photos later. It was very fun for all! (especially for sweet-toothed Chrishie!!)

iPhone apps and the Count of Monte Cristo

So Rico and I have exchanged phones while he is in Edmonton and I am in Los Angeles and I definitely got the better trade. I now have his iPhone while he has my piece of junk Nokia500 whatever. I have had lots of fun fiddlin with all the apps this thing has normally I am slow with technology but I think I am beginning to understand the iPhone.

One of the apps that I have truly enjoyed is called masterpieces because it has classic works of literature such as works by Twain, London, the Sherlock Holmes books, HG Wells, Verne etc. And it also has the Count of Monte Cristo.

It has been a goal of mine for a long time to read this book and it is quite spectacular. While at the YSA film festival and talking to a friend of Lindsays about it I realized just how much I am loving this book. It has all the elements of what I enjoy swashbucklin escapes, fighting, witty dialogue a la Jane Austen, philosophy (Dumas was french after all and the french do love their philosophy) that examines human nature, well structured character development oh and it's a great plot. I must confess that it is sooooo long and there are many subplots that tie into the main plot but are not entirely necessary.

The problem is that with the iPhone I can now access the book anywhere and it is so convenient because I don't have to lug this huge book around. It has also become acceptable in our society to use the iphone in many different situations, at work, at lunch, at church (controversial), walking, sitting, reading, eating so yeah as you can tell this new masterpieces app I have sorta become one of those tools who is really annoying and uses their phone everywhere but the book is so good and I'm reading what I can at every opportunity. Hopefully after I'm finished the Count of Monte Cristo I can exercise a little self-control and hopefully they don't come out with a masterpieces II which I'm sure they will because I'm already fairly confident that I will be getting an iphone for myself at the earliest opportunity.

Internship/Volunteering at Cedars-Sinai

I decided to come to LA this summer not only to hang out with Linds, Beej, and Puentes, which of course is a good enough reason in itself, but also to get a volunteer position at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center! Cedars is famed as one of the most prominent hospitals in the country, (maybe even the world), and it is also the choice hospital of many celebrities. I haven't seen any yet, but even if I did I wouldn't be allowed to tell anyone. The volunteer coordinators emphasized confidentiality especially strongly during orientation. The departments I was lucky enough to find a place in were the NICU for three days a week and the neurosurgery department for the other two days a week. I don't seem to be doing a ton of volunteer work, mainly I just get to shadow the physicians. In neurosurgery, I help with office work for part of the time, which consists of mailing off patient's medical imaging scans back to them. Then I shadow Dr. Danielpour, the pediatric neurosurgeon, as he visits patients in the clinic. Most of the cases he deals with are hydrocephalus shunts but there a wide range of interesting cases.
In the NICU, I go on rounds with the attending physician and the residents, which is actually really cool because I get to see how things start out once you become a resident. The residents are all really friendly and helpful whenever I have questions about anything. We end up rounding for about 2 hours, visiting all the babies that are assigned to their team. All the cases are really sad, as these babies have a lot of problems, but it's cool to see how the residents solve the problems and seek help from Dr. Puri, who has been their attending physician these last couple weeks. After rounds, there are usually lectures for the residents with different NICU/pediatric themes that I go to as well. Other random things I've been able to do are watch a procedure to deal with a pneumothorax, observe a C-section, and learn what to do in a code blue situation by role-playing. It's been a lot of fun so far! I'm really glad I was able to get these positions. Even though a lot of it is over my head, I've learned a lot and hope to continue learning over these next few weeks.

World Cup Pool Winner

So the world cup is now unfortunately over. Thanks to everyone for submitting their picks - it has been great fun following the tournament and following the teams that we picked to advance. Fun even for those of us that picked a lame duck to win the tournament that ended up only scraping into the round of 16. It was a tournament of surprises and upsets (who ever would have guessed for example that Urugay would make it all the way into the semi-finals and miss out on the finals by a mere goal) and also a tournament where several young players players played surprisingly well and several old seasoned stars played surprisingly poorly.

So the final results of the pool are:

First place: with 395 points and the only player to correctly predict Spain to win the tournament, Beej

Second Place with 315 points is Mom

and congrats to both for strong finishes. Beej will now get a special package of goodies with a Spanish theme to it as first prize and Mom will get ... well I guess we never decided what second place will be did we? I suppose a not-so-grand package with a German theme to it as Mom picked Germany to win and although they didn't end up winning she couldn't have done it without all those points Germany gave her for at least going to the semi-finals.

Hope everyone got at least a little bit of world cup fever over the last month and is looking forward to our next pool which we'll have to arrange when the next world cup takes place in 2014 in Brazil.