a few things things

To be healthier, cheaper, give our kids less of a feeling of entitlement, and to make good habits we are not eating out until summer vacation in July. We have been in the habit far too often to stop and get a hot and ready or hamburger from in-n-out on the way home from activities when we are pressed for time and/or super hungry! instead we will head home for a meal or pack more snacks. This does require more work on my part, but that is okay, it is a good cause.  Dave and I can still eat out for date night if we choose or if someone invites us out I wouldn't make the family skip it, I just want to break the habit of eating out for convenience or because I'm too lazy to cook.

When we have company in town it is very easy to move Clare into our room. It is not so easy to move Clare out of our room.

Meyer is almost 1. He is a good dog minus the time this week he peed on dave at dog beach.

Calvin was riding his bike and hit a little toddler at the park. We were all standing right there but assumed Calivn would go around or slow down but he didn't. The baby is ok but had a bump on his head so  Dave told the mom she should take the baby to the ER at Rady's.  Then, once he got her crying and worried he also told her that he was the attending neurosurgeon on call and would meet her there.  Dave actually beat her there, helped her check in and get taken right back without any wait.  The ER docs got a BIG kick out of this entire event, making fun of Dave for trying to drive up business while on call. Funny not funny.  The family was very understanding and luckily the baby is totally fine. Of course we offered to pay their ER bill so we will see if they send it to us or not.


Dave and Clare have been buddies for two charity races. A couple of weeks ago it was a 5K run called Liams fund. This weekend it was a 15 mile bike ride for epilepsy foundation of SD.   Clare is a trooper! It's fun to see her get older and strong enough to do these things with Dave.

on the back of the shirts for the liams fun run it says "you think this is hard, you should try brain surgery!"  The Liams fund raises money for the neurosurgery department at Rady's to buy equipment so it very directly impacts Dave's work.  It was started by a parent of a child who had had 75 surgeries by age 3. It is humbling to see what amazing parent advocates and care takers there are.  The real heroes of medicine are the patients and their families. There is a great quote* about his in the book "the Emperor of All maladies" which I highly recommend.

*quote from Emperor of All Maladies: "but the story of leukemia - the story of cancer - isn't the story of doctors who survive, moving from one institution to another. It is the story of patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another. Resilience, inventiveness, survivorship - qualities often ascribed to great physicians - are reflected qualities, emanating first from those who struggle with illness and only then mirrored by those who treat them. If the history of medicine is told through the stories of doctors, it is because their contributions stand in place of the more substantive heroism of their patients."