TCU Lake Weekend 2015

I have known these girls for 23 years (Anna and Mandy even longer). This has become such a wonderful tradition. My parents bought the lakehouse in 2001 and we began getting together every year with our hubbies before any of us even had kids. We think that this year has been our 13th year! The group now has 10 adults and 13 kids. We all fit in the house easily because the kids and adults all get along so well. We laugh and play together. The kids swim. And swim. And swim some more. We used to have grandparents come take the kids away but now that they are bigger and our parents are older they have stopped coming. So now we don't have a night with just the adult anymore. But the way we have gotten around this is to plan an adults-only trip every other October during Fall Break. Our next adults-only trip will be October 2016! This group loves to plan. :-)

Mollie Jane, Alivia (9), Catherine and Anna Burke

Catherine and Anna

Catherine did a great job wake boarding!

LOVE this selfie of me and my little man, Matthew (3 1/2)

Baker (5) and Brian

Mandy and Stoke - that green life vest has seen a lot of use between a bunch of kiddos

Beautiful shot of the lakehouse. Still cannot believe we get to use it. 

The weather was just perfect.

See the white sign on the side of the dock? Matt surprised Mimi with it - I really like it

Just to prove and remind myself, that YES, I wakeboarded!

Matt did too! Looking good babe!

One, two, three - JUMP!

I wish this was the first pic of the page - this was from the first night. We stayed up so late talking. Love these girls.

Jackson, Alison and Smith Brawner

Sam and Anna

Me and Matt!

Mandy and Elle 

The kids get along so well - Baker, Birdie and Elle

Love this sequence of shots as they jump into the water off the back of the boat

Smith spent most of the day on this slide!

The adults did a lot of this. . . 

And this. . . 

The girls usually can pick up where they left off when they last saw each other

This is such a fun area because it is shallow and there are lots of cool shells and rocks that the kids hunt for

CORN HOLE! Red brought her boards all the way from Shreveport.

The overhand toss by Sam threw some people

Precious girls

The Bernard Family

Going through the tunnels is always a favorite

My girls. We laughed so hard at Red's weird looking arm in this pic

The boys loved fishing off the dock and would start first thing in the morning

Some political humor. Governor Christie should really never wear tight white pants.

Mandy had to leave a little early to get Elle to a dance recital

The shining star - ELLE!

Anna and Sam drove Catherine and Samuel directly to LLYC to drop them off for 2 weeks of camp. This is the text picture she sent when they were driving home. . . Ha Ha!

I can't wait for next year!

The Little's Stats

John's 5 Year Well Child Check
Height 43.25 inches (50%)
Weight 41 pounds (50%)

Matthew's 3 Year Well Child Check
Height 40 inches (90-95%)
Weight 36.8 pounds (75-90%)

John's Preschool Graduation

John "graduated" from the Pre-K class at Covenant United Methodist Preschool. John had a great year with a teacher named Jan Glosser. Miss Jan is not your typical preschool teacher. She is tall and a rather large woman and is not warm and fuzzy. I think she does really well with BOYS. And John seemed to like her a lot. She really liked John and gave me some good counsel when I was struggling with Pre-K vs. Kindy for John for next year. She told me that if John were going to a traditional public kindergarten, she would send him on, but knowing the rigors of ACS, the choice was not so cut and dry.

On graduation day each child's teacher says something specific about each one of them. The ceremony is really sweet (and rather long!). Here is Jan's speech about John:

John is bubbly, happy, independent and helpful. 

I can always count on John to brighten my day with a great 

story from the ranch and a sweet smile to go with it. “Come on guys!” 

is a typical phrase heard from John as his natural leadership qualities 

help wrangle the guys on the playground to build something amazing 

or dig the deepest hole they can imagine. When I asked John the other 

day what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, “A hunter!” And 

I asked, “What would you hunt” “Anything you need!” was his answer. 

John will thrive next year and I’m looking forward to hearing about 

his adventures.

- Jan Glosser

I thought this was a great summary of John.

Selfie of us at the graduation party.

John and Tyler Mangum. He is a sweet friend that lives down the street.

I really should write down the names of the kids in his class. I have no idea who they are.
Sometimes I feel like I do not have the bandwidth to be super involved in two schools.

Graduation ceremony. I am horrified that I did not make him dress nicer. For some reason
I think I was gone that morning and did not realize what was happening.
Good grief. For future reference John LOVES those boots - summer or winter.
It does not matter.

John and his best buddy, Blake Mezger. The love each other very much.
Such a sweet friendship.

John to Pre-K

We have decided to put John into Pre-K next year at ACS. It turned out to be a hard decision for everyone but me but the Lord made it very clear that was the best step for him. I have had some time to get used to it but know the first day of school may be a bit hard (for me!) only because most of my good friends are sending their little boys to Kindergarten this year.

The idea was first brought up after John's Kindergarten readiness testing revealed some low areas. I did not think a thing about it until Dusty had an impromptu meeting with me. I was so relieved to know that Pre-K was even an option and Matt and I began the discussion. We looked at his scores and  met with Dusty and Mrs. Strickland (the seasoned Kindergarten teacher) and it was abundantly clear that putting him to Pre-K was the best thing.

John has the most joyful personality and he has wonderful confidence and an ease about him that draws friends of all sorts to him. He is a good friend to many. I just do not want to see some of these qualities go away from the stresses of trying to keep up with peers. Especially when I think about the rigors of ACS. I thought about working with him over the summer. . . for about a second. . .before letting that idea go. John simply needs another year to grow and mature. When I think about John in comparison to Will when he started Kindergarten, the 4 month age difference is magnified.

In the end, it will make this upcoming year for me MUCH easier. Pre-K is very sweet without many home demands. I look forward to easing John into our homeschool routine. I worried a lot about how John would handle the news about going to Pre-K. He is a little bummed to not be in the same class as Blake but it helped knowing that Blake was at least going to be at the same school.

This was Will's test the summer before Kindergarten - sorry it is sideways!

This is John's test. I will be interested to see how much it improves this next year after Pre-K at ACS.

John Turns FIVE!

Little Johnny-Cakes turned FIVE a few weeks ago but we just had his birthday party today. Some of his cutest and closest friends came to Pump it Up to celebrate with us. It really was a fun time with a manageable crowd. I love when they are young enough that all of their friends are really friends of MY friends. It makes the parties really fun since I can catch up with my friends, too!

Alivia made a special "Birthday Hat" for John - it says "Turtle" on it because he really loves Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right now

On his actual birthday (my board exam day) - we invited Blake, Josh and Sam Underwood, to come have burgers at P. Terry's with us. I thought this pic was especially cute. These boys sure love each other.

The famous "Birthday Hat"

All the kids at the Pump it Up party - very fun!

Me with the big birthday boy!

Internal of Medicine Maintenance of Certification Exam 2015

I took my Internal Medicine MOC Exam today. What a relief to have it over. Although I must say that I still feel anxious and on edge just because of the intensity of these last few months. I do not think it will hit me for a few more days that I do not need to use every free minute to study for the looming exam.

The exam is taken every 10 years and I pray to my Lord that I passed this thing today.

I wanted to write down my thoughts about it all while it was still fresh so I could remind myself how I studied when I have to do it again in 10 years.

I became a member of ACP halfway in the year so I could get the MKSAP study materials at a discounted rate. They were still pricey but thankfully Seton paid for the materials in full. There were 11 books in all. I decided to read the material and then answer the questions. I know Anna just did the questions, but I felt like I needed a bit more background in order to retain the material. 

My collection of MKSAP books - 11 in all

Each book has from about 80-130 pages in it. I could read about 10-12 pages an hour. Each book took about this long:

Neurology 14 hours

Nephrology 16 hours

Rheumatology 14 hours

Cardiology 18 hours

Dermatology 11 hours

Endocrinology 12 hours

Gastroenterology 14 hours

General Internal Medicine 24 hours

Hematology/Oncology 20 hours

Infectious Disease 16 hours

Pulmonology/Critical Care 16 hours

TOTAL HOURS = 175 hours

There was also a cumulative review book that was pretty good, but sometimes was confusing in that it conflicted with the main MKSAP books and was almost too brief. But I probably spent about 15 hours reading that book.

I read the books on paper but used the computer questions which were great. It was helpful to get immediate feedback about my responses and to see how I did compared to others - although sometimes it was so painful to see how many I missed. If I scored more than 50% on the questions I could then apply for CME and MOC credit. Thankfully I did achieve at least 50% on each section. Here is how I fared on each section - although the scores are a little higher because I went back and re-answered questions so that raised my score a bit.

Neurology 80%

Nephrology 76%

Rheumatology 80%

Cardiology 66%

Dermatology 85%

Endocrinology 64%

Gastroenterology 69%

General Internal Medicine 90%

Hematology/Oncology 63%

Infectious Disease 72%

Pulmonary/Critical Care 76%

Example of a question - this means that I answered WRONG - along with 4% others.

This means I answered correctly! Along with only 5% others. You can imagine the roller coaster I was on with studying. . . 

Like I said, these scores are at least 5% higher in some areas because I was able to go back and review and correct wrong answers on about 50 questions. Overall, there were about 1200 questions total, and I missed about 335 questions or so. Overall, I was running about 70% correct which I hope is good enough to pass this thing.

I started studying on November 7th when I travelled with Matt to Houston for a conference. Something that really helped me get my hours in was going with Matt to various conferences and studying in the room while we spoke and presented. It was GREAT. I went to Houston, Las Vegas, Rhode Island and Seattle. 

View from my study perch from the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas - not bad!

View from my room in Providence, Rhode Island. It snowed (in March!) while we were there

I actually really loved the studying. I love learning. And I think I am good at it. I am disciplined to study for hours and hours. The hardest part for me was being away from Matt and the kids. Matt worked overtime these last 6 months taking over Mommy/Daddy duty while I slogged away at my studies. When I was in Austin, I would go to Matt's office on Saturdays to study. I would try to get there around 9:30 and stay until 4 pm or so. On Fridays, I hired Melinda to come from 1:30-5:30 pm and went to our nearby library. This was probably the hardest place for me to study because I was so distracted there.

I had hoped to read the cumulative Board Review book and go over all of the 335 questions that I got wrong but I simply ran out of time. 

Next time I take it I want to take a day off work and complete the exam. It was silly of me to pay a sitter all day and wait until Friday to take it. It was offered Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week and I should have just taken it on Wednesday and gotten it over with.

My dear friends Melissa and Dusty gave me a care package the night before which was so sweet. Dusty wrote me a sweet card and Melissa prayed over me in person the night before. It meant a lot.

I am so glad it is over. Let's pray that I passed and do not have to do it again for another 10 years!