Updating

A 5 month break from blogging? Inexcusable I suppose. I'll blame it on spending all of ButterBean's nap-times reading the Game of Thrones series and summer time. Here are a few highlights of the last couple of months!
Summer is flying by! We are lucky enough to live within walking distance of 3 parks, so we've spent a lot of time there. The most time consuming part of playing at the park is continually emptying ButterBean's shoes/sandals since he can't abide having any sand in them and will sit on the ground yelling "Shoes off!" until his little piggies are free of sand!

Going down the "side"

Whoahhh! 

As every summer should, ours has had a good dose of WATER! Water in all forms: sprinklers, pools, lakes, and rivers!

The slide doesn't work so well, but he loves it

We indulged his Lighting McQueen obsession with a Cars kiddie pool 

Rocked to sleep on the boat

Romance on the St. Croix River?

Roomies on the St. Croix

A highlight of the summer was my best bud and college roommate came to MN with her family. ButterBean enjoyed a day in Stillwater playing with her three beautiful daughters. Obviously, a marriage contract is being drafted for her middle daughter and BB :)

More on the water topic - my parents bought a lake cabin, so we've had extra water fun including boating and our newest hobby, paddle boarding. 

What a helper!

And last but not least, there is an addition to the family! Tubby!! My sister Lil T, has a sweet, calm, adorable new dog. He's a perfect fit!

The Tubster!

Small Town vs. Big City

Visiting me at Serpent Lake 

I'm in a "rural" Minnesotan town. I'm from Minneapolis. 
The differences between people in a city hospital and a rural hospital has struck me as quite funny! 

Example 1: Conversations
Rural Hospital: Nurse 1 -"Hey, what is the best cure for poison ivy?" Nurse 2 - "Brew your own sumac tea and drink it for 10 days before you think you'll be in contact with any poison ivy"
vs
City Hospital: Nurse 1 - "Hey, that smells good, what are you drinking?" Nurse 2 - "Soy pumpkin chai tea latte." 

Example 2: Breakfast
Rural Hospital: eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, muffins, 
vs
City Hospital: everyone brings Greek yogurt with or without fruit and granola...everyone (I secretly eat my peanut butter and honey toast before I get to the hospital so as not to be ridiculed ;) jk)

Example 3: Conversations again
Rural Hospital: Nurse 1 - "My brother and father-in-law are both buying Ice Castles! (enormous fish houses for ice fishing. they apparently have everything you could possible need. I know nothing about ice fishing) I can't wait for winter!" Nurse 2 - "Oh, jealous!"
vs
City Hospital: Nurse 1 - "We just booked our trip to Cancun for this December." Nurse 2 - "That's so great! You have to go to a warmer climate at some point during the winter, or you just go crazy!"

Example 4: Opinions on Commuting
Rural Hospital: 5-10 minute commute...15 tops
vs
City Hospital: 20-30 minute commute...1.5 hours tops

Example 5: Conversations once again
Rural Hospital: "I got my paintball gun calibrated this weekend" (I think he said calibrated...like ice fishing, I know nothing about paintball guns)
vs.
City Hospital: "The show at Guthrie Theatre this weekend was amazing!"

All true examples! 
These three weeks of rural Minnesota have proved I'm more of a city girl, though I don't think it needed to proved. 
Besides missing my adorable bundle of giggling boy, I also miss my grocery store, full of organic goodness...slim pickin's at the grocery store up here!

Turns out sand doesn't taste good...ButterBean now knows this

Away from home

Part of being in anesthesia school in a metro area means that I don't get very much regional experience (spinals, epidurals, nerve blocks) and so I have to go out to rural hospitals to get that! I've been 2.5 hours from home for two weeks and still have one more week to go. I've gone home on the weekends, but otherwise have been living in a call room in the hospital! It's like being back in the dorms - walking down the hall to the bathroom, needing a key to get everywhere, no kitchen. Yep. I've tried to study a bit, sit out by the lake that is only a couple of blocks away...but really I've use this time to watch lots and lots of Olympics! USA!
Three weeks is a long time to be gone from little ButterBean, so this week my mom brought him up Wednesday through Friday so that I could see him in the evenings. 
He has a had a great time with the lakes near by!

All of his running around has resulted in something he has never done before: fall asleep on the hotel floor! 

We had a lovely dinner on a golf course, where ButterBean had a great time running free! His new word is "car", which comes out like a question, "caw?". Most conversations now sounds like "mumble mumble mumble, BALL (baahhh)!! mumble mumble Caw? mumble mumble mumble naNAAHH?" I must talk to him with a lot of questioning inflection because his conversations always sound like a continuous string of questions. 

ButterBean's favorite food: Ketchup!

A baaaahhhh!!

I'm so glad he was able to come visit me!!!

Minnesota Summer

Despite the fact that I have only camped outside of an RV once, live in the city, sun burn in a matter of minutes, and freak out when lake weeds touch my feet, I have a strange delusion in my head that I am "out-doorsy". Part of this is my inner wish that I was a rough out doors-woman and part of it is that I live in Minnesota, where most everyone relishes every moment they can spend outside and try to wring every last drop of out door fun from the short 3-4 months of summer that we have. This spring/summer started amazingly early and has been one of the best I can remember!
In order to be a true Minnesotan you must looooove the lakes that surround us! ButterBean had his first trip to Minneapolis' Lake Calhoun not that long ago. I thought he might be wary of the water, but he had a great time even though it was an extremely windy day and there were whitecaps on the lake. Whhewww! He IS a Minnesotan!

My Calhoun Surfer Boy

 Yesterday he went on his first cruise of Lake Minnetonka and played in the Murphy Bay beach area. I've got to get ButterBean in the lakes as much as possible this summer to make him think he's out-doorsy too! We are actually going on a REAL camping trip in a couple of weeks, so I'll put my "roughing it" skills to the test. Expect an interesting blog posting!
Our other "outdoor" adventure recently has been a trip to the Como Zoo. The only animals ButterBean actually paid attention to were the monkeys. The rest of his time was spent finding any door he could sneak through, crawling up any stairs he could find, and pushing the stroller. Oh, and pounding the glass of the polar bear exhibit and screaming for no reason - the bear was nowhere to be seen. 

We didn't get to the Sparky show, but we did pose with the Sparky statue

Me: trying to get a picture with my son. Butter Bean: trying to get into the sea lion exhibit

As I sit in my air conditioned home, looking out at the 93 degree muggy day, I'm still convinced I was meant for the outdoors. Maybe it's because I'm wearing no makeup and KEENs?