It's been a long time!!!

Charlotte with a nice dog at the Irish Festival in Minneapolis

Daddy-Daughter french fries at the MN State Fair

Kristi's favorite fair food--Tom Thumb mini donuts--we had to search long and hard for these!

Charlotte and a horse at the MN state fair

We apologize for our long hiatus from the blogging world. Life got busy. Here's a brief update on our recent happenings:

We finished up RPAP (Rural Physicians Associate Program) in Buffalo, MN after nine months of working in the clinic and hospital there. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone we had worked with. We were just starting to feel like we had gotten the hang of it and had lots of independence, and then it was time to go. As our lease for our apartment in Buffalo was up a 10 days before we were finished at the clinic, we lived with Matt's parents in Delano for a while. It was a 20 minute commute, but better than paying an extra month of rent for just 10 days. Then we moved to our new house in Minneapolis in mid-August. We were incredibly fortunate to find a wonderful house to rent that is owned by my cousin and his wife. They moved to California this summer, and the house didn't sell (as the housing market is not so great right now) before they moved. They asked us to live in it until it sells and all we have to do is pay utilities and keep the place looking nice for showings. There is always a chance that it could sell at any time, but of course we are hoping that it doesn't! There are showings maybe once every couple of weeks, and I'm no housing expert, but I assume that it will probably slow down even more after summer/fall. We will be living in Minneapolis until the end of April/very early May, so hopefully it will sell right then and we won't have to move during our time in Minneapolis. The house is beautiful and HUGE. We are only living on the main floor and using the upstairs for storage and the basement is empty. We live in a great neighborhood with a fun little shopping/restaurant district just a few blocks from our house. We have met a few of our neighbors, though we are not home all that much. Overall we are liking living in Minneapolis. It is hard to get used to a big city, but we are adapting.

Since mid-August we have been doing our rotations in the twin cities. Kristi is doing a psychiatry rotation at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. She has a 20-30 minute commute in the morning with very little traffic, and a 20-60 minute commute in the evening with frequent stop and go traffic. The rotation has been pretty fun for her so far, and she is learning a lot about mental illness and the unfortunate circumstances that often surround it. Matt is doing an internal medicine rotation at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC). He is just finishing up his 3 weeks on the renal (kidney) service where they see very sick patients with all kinds of different problems who have also had a kidney transplant or are on dialysis. The hours are long (80+ hours/week), he works 6 days a week, and he is on call overnight at the hospital every 4th night. He is learning a lot, but his patients are very sick and complicated. He will be switching off of the renal service starting Tuesday and working on a more general medicine service. Next up for Matt starting September 29 is Pediatrics at HCMC. Kristi will start Outpatient HIV Management at Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

I know most of you don't read this blog to hear about us, but I had to put our update before Charlotte's or you wouldn't read it. Here's what's new with Miss Charlotte:

Charlotte is now 14 months old and lots of fun. She is most definitely a toddler! She is walking like a pro, and runs to get away from you when you say "I'm gonna get you!" She loves to be chased, especially if she has something she knows she shouldn't or is running to do something naughty (like play in the toilet). She has perfected going up and down the stairs. She understands pretty much everything you say to her, although she doesn't always listen. She is VERY independent. She likes to do things by herself, especially when it comes to eating. She does NOT like to be fed with spoon or fork, though she is quite happy to bang them on her high chair tray. She is a good eater and will eat almost anything. Her favorites are fruits and vegetables. Her number one favorite is probably watermelon. We try to sneak in some meat/protein and fat so that she will grow! She is a petite girl for her age. She can do lots of animal sounds--puppy is always the favorite, followed closely by cow, lamb, chicken, and elephant. She LOVES animals with a passion. She is practically beside herself with excitement when she sees a dog. We live in a very walking friendly neighborhood, and everyone has a dog, so she is a very happy girl to watch out the windows! We took her to the state fair and she could have stayed in the animal barns all week! She loves to sit in laps and read books. Her favorite is Llama Llama Red Pajama, which Matt and Kristi can recite by heart now, and if we start reciting it she will go find it on the shelf and bring it to us! She loves any book with animals in it, and she likes to point them out on the pages. She knows some body parts--tummy, mouth, eye, nose, and we're working on ears. She loves to dance and will do her little shaky dance if you ask her to dance. She will also shake her head and yell if you ask her to go crazy (Daddy taught her that!). Charlotte can say a few words now-hi, baby (sounds like either bay-bah or ba-ba), uh-oh, and teeth. She has never really said mama or dada with any consistency, go figure! She babbles constantly, and often sounds like she is carrying on an entire conversation in another language. She adores cell phones, and can spot a real one versus her two fake toy ones. She holds phones up to her ear and babbles like crazy, just like she sees her parents doing. It is hysterically funny, especially when Matt narrates what he thinks she is saying. She LOVES to brush her teeth, and that is why she can say teeth! She now has 4 teeth in the front (2 top and 2 bottom) and one more on its way. She is testing her limits in biting very gently on Kristi's arms, shoulders, and clothes. She loves to make farting noises by blowing on bare skin. She will often sneakily snuggle on Kristi's shoulder and then blow on her neck to make a very loud fart! Just in the past few days she has been pulling up Kristi's shirt to blow on her back, which is very surprising if you didn't know she was sneaking up behind you on the floor! She also likes to make farting noises on her hands, something our college friends would be so proud of!

She is currently going to our neighbor Beth's house for daycare Tuesday-Thursday. Beth lives two doors down from us and does part-time daycare for a few kids in the neighborhood. Our original daycare fell through after our first day in Minneapolis, so we have been SCRAMBLING to make things work until we get something permanent set up. Our parents have been wonderful to fill in for us on Mondays and Fridays so far. We just found out yesterday that Charlotte got accepted for a Monday/Wednesday/Friday spot in the toddler room at a great bilingual Spanish-English daycare called Jardin Magico (pronounced har-deen ma-hee-co), which means 'the magic garden' or 'kindergarden.' Look them up at http://www.jardinmagico.com/. They are a very cool cloth diapering, organic food serving, outdoor playing, spanish speaking daycare that Kristi has had her eye for months and months! Matt didn't think it would work out because they have a long waitlist, but he is now very happy that Kristi persisted with it! Charlotte will hopefully be going there MWF and to Beth's house Tuesdays and Thursdays. It will be so nice to have something reliable, as the last few weeks have been very stressful trying to arrange last-minute daycare! Not to mention the fact that Kristi would rather be at home with Charlotte anyway. Stay tuned for a further discussion of that current hot-topic in the Florek family!

If you made it to the end of this post, you are a faithful blog reader. Let us know that you are still checking in with us by posting a comment (you can post as "anonymous" but put your name in the comment somewhere so we know who you are!). We are afraid we have lost our audience since we haven't posted in so long! I will put more pictures up later today or tomorrow.