December 22, 2007

The greatest gift of all!

This week was our first official Christmas break week. Kyle is completely done with his rotations for the semester. Overall he really enjoyed them. If he had to pick out a specialty from his rotations at this point (Cardio, Gastro, Psych, Pneumo,ER) he would probably prefer ER. He was kind of happy to realize that was his favorite, because before this we were both pretty lost as to what he would enjoy doing. He just happened to be working late at the hospital one night when they had a serious trauma come in and came home with a total adrenaline rush. Not that it was great to see someone hurt, but he realized that he could handle himself well enough in these situations.

Other firsts for Kyle: 1st time stitching a wound close, 1st (and 2nd and 3rd) Pap Smear, to give; not receive ;), 1st time to roll his eyes in disgust at Mexican doctors and the belittling manipulative tactics that they sometimes use on patients. He had some good stories.

The kids Christmas Festival was among the CUTEST things I've ever witnessed in my life. It made me laugh out loud (once inappropriately). They used voice-over narrative to tell the nativity story, and I'm pretty sure they hired some Mexican Soap Opera actors to do it, because it was pretty dramatic-sounding. (Think Breathy, Soprano voice, seductively saying, "Joseph, I just can't wait!") Of course, the meaning wasn't entirely lost to me and I was touched that they can even mention Jesus and his life in a school environment. (1 point for Mexico) The dramatic voices were accompanied by solemn background music and then, with no warning, the latin-themed Christmas music would blare over the speakers and all the kids would break out in these perfectly choreographed moves. Like I said, SUPER cute.

Note to Family: I had my friend make you a copy so you can watch it on Christmas or before or after or whatever. I think you'll see what I was laughing about - you don't have to speak Spanish to find it funny ;)

Anyway, with the kids being sick all last weekend and just being run down - I spent the majority of the week just basking in the ability to be lazy. I even ditched my running buddy on Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday (which led to a chastizing email; my quick apology; and our subsequent forgiving and forgetting.) I was actually feeling pretty gross from too much sleep, food, and downtime. Luckily, Kyle was slightly more motivated that I, and he continued to put in a good 4+ hours of studying everyday. I tease him about it ("I can't believe you love your books more than laying with your shower-less wife in the messy family room watching re-runs of Scrubs.") but really I'm glad he's keeping his groove. On Thursday and Friday, we still didn't do much, but I did at least get my run in those days and avoided being a bad buddy AGAIN. At some point in there, I did a lot of baking and we took a big box of goodies to the mission office so they could deliver it to an elder outside of the city. (Short version: Beth has a ward-member with a son serving here in Guadalajara - so we took advantage of the small world that is the LDS church and delivered him a Christmas package.)

Thankfully today we have some Christmas activities planned. A few friends are coming over for hot dogs and gingerbread houses. We'll get to do them twice this year because the Hawke's also invited us over for Christmas Eve to do a traditional dinner, a nativity reinactment, a gingerbread village, and our traditional Christmas Eve pajama-opening. (What are the chances that they do that too??? I thought it was a sign that we should do it together since we're all away from family for the holiday.)

So, I guess we let the festivities begin!

And the greatest gift?? Of course, the GREATEST greatest gift is Jesus' sacrifice for us all and now the gift of His gospel in our lives. But the other greatest gift is that I am no longer sleep-deprived, I'm getting to spend hours and hours each day with my husband and kids, and Christmas is almost here! Does it get any better??

No comments: